In his quest for meaning and purpose in life, King Solomon used his God-given wisdom and extensive experience to find purpose. In Ecclesiastes 2:12-23, he pursued wealth and material abundance as the keys to meaning and purpose. Solomon tested the two extremes of the human condition—wisdom on the one end and foolishness on the other. It was obvious that wisdom was better than folly. The wise man sees the dangers and avoids them, whereas the fool does not. But this begs the question, why be wise, because both die? What sense does that make? Perhaps it really was better to eat drink and be merry, because tomorrow we die, he reasoned. Was it not in fact “wiser” to be a fool? For both the wise and the fool, everyone will forget them. “I hated life,” he declared. There seemed to be no reason to work hard, to be wise—it was ultimately, in light of death, meaningless!

To be consistently an advocate for the value and worth of human life is a significant challenge in 2025. Those who name the name of Jesus Christ must test their value system and strive for consistency and authenticity as advocates for life. Indeed, columnist and evangelical Christian, David French, argues that “A decent society should do all it reasonably can to reduce human suffering. It should not, however, do so by extinguishing the lives of those who suffer or the lives of those who we believe might suffer in the future.”

One of my favorite thought leaders today is columnist and Christian, David Brooks. He recently published an essay on the absence of hope and purpose in so much of America. As I read his essay, I kept thinking of the book of Ecclesiastes. I want to quote from his essay and then turn to the solution in the 3,000 year old book written by King Solomon.

On 6 and 9 August 1945 (80 years ago), the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, ultimately ending World War II. These bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people. This has been the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. This event, George Will observes, “transported humanity from one geopolitical era to another.”

On 16 July 2025, Andy Byron (50), CEO of the medium-sized software company Astronomer, attended a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts. [Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1997 and are considered one of the most influential bands of the 21st century.] The jumbotron camera turned to Byron, who was holding Kristin Cabot (52), the company’s HR director, around the waist. When they noticed themselves on the stadium’s “kiss cam” (camera), they immediately disengaged, with Cabot turning her back and Byron awkwardly ducking out of view. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” said Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin, to the stadium audience of 66,000. Cabot and Byron were indeed married, but not to each other. The clip quickly went viral on TikTok, then everywhere else.

To fully understand the development of American civilization, one must come to terms with the strategic role revivals have played. Colonial America was shaped and transformed by the First Great Awakening of the 1740s and the Methodist revival that followed. America of the early national period (1815-1850) was profoundly impacted by the Second Great Awakening. You cannot understand the energy for the abolition of slavery, the passion for women’s rights, the temperance movement and other social reform movements without coming to terms with this revival.

Mark 12:30-31 declares that we are to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. The challenge for the believer is what theologians call the noetic effect of sin: 2 Corinthians 4:4 affirms the depths of sin’s effect on our minds. For that reason, one of the weighty commands of the New Testament is to “renew our minds” (e.g., Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 4:23). Colossians 3:2 commands: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul speaks of taking “every thought captive to obey Christ.”

I had addressed the subject of assisted dying in an edition of Issues on 25 January 2025. But what is occurring in Quebec, Canada is alarming. Hence, I want to return to the topic of assisted dying in this edition of Issues in Perspective.

Traditional religion in the United States has suffered huge losses in recent decades. The number of Americans identifying as “not religious” has increased remarkably. Religious affiliation, service attendance, and belief in God have declined. More and more people claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” Religious organizations have been reeling from revelations of sexual and financial scandals and cover-ups. Public trust in “organized religion” has declined significantly. Crucially, these religious losses are concentrated among younger generations. This means that, barring unlikely religious revivals among youth, the losses will continue and accelerate in time, as less-religious younger Americans replace older more-religious ones and increasingly fewer American children are raised by religious parents.

Anna Louie Sussman of the New York Times writes, “Scientists are doing human embryo research that could, for instance, help prevent miscarriages. Companies are pushing the boundaries of what kind of testing can be done on embryos in the name of optimizing future lives. Embryos are at the center of divorce cases that are part property dispute, part custody battle.