It is now conventional wisdom to argue that America is more polarized as a society in 2024 than it has been in its history, save the decade of the 1850s right before the Civil War. Why? There is no simple answer to this important question, but it is quite important as Christians that we seek to understand the nature of this polarization. The columnist and recent convert to Christianity, David Brooks, offers a most helpful analysis and overview of our polarized society.

Why have children? Why choose to become a parent? For much of human history, these two questions would probably have received significant pushback. Children were an obvious concomitant of marriage and, in many cases, of survival. But, today “only 26% of Americans say that having children is important for living a fulfilling life, whereas 71% consider ‘having a job or career they enjoy’ to be essential, and 61% say the same for ‘having close friends.’”

British historian, Fay Bound Alberti, co-founder of the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London, writes that, “By the 21st century, loneliness has become ubiquitous. Commentators call it ‘an epidemic’, a condition akin to ‘leprosy’, and a ‘silent plague’ of civilization. In 2018, the United Kingdom went so far as to appoint a Minister for Loneliness. Yet loneliness is not a universal condition; nor is it a purely visceral, internal experience. It is less a single emotion and more a complex cluster of feelings, composed of anger, grief, fear, anxiety, sadness and shame. It also has social and political dimensions, shifting through time according to ideas about the self, God and the natural world.”

If you believe that there is no God to which you are accountable or that there is no God who has provided redemption for you, you will live your life quite differently than one who affirms such propositions. Consider the famous British philosopher of the 20th century—Bertrand Russell, one of the founders of analytic philosophy. One of his most famous books was Why I Am Not a Christian. For Russell, there was no God.

As I have studied the Gospels over the years, I have been struck by how many times the text speaks of Jesus being “moved with compassion.” Jesus manifested compassion when He saw the crowds, responding with acts of healing (Matt. 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41), provision of food (Matt. 15:32), and teaching the word of God (Mark 6:34). Jesus not only modeled compassion; He also taught on the virtue of compassion, including the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23–35), the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), and the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32).

In February 2024, John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, declared that Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, “was not a Christian at all.” Furthermore, he added, King was “a nonbeliever who misrepresented everything about Christ and the gospel.” MacArthur’s comments were made during a question-and-answer session at Grace Community Church.

Christian author, Ericka Andersen, has recently written of her struggles with infertility and her resolution of this struggle through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Her piece offers an important perspective on IVF and how to think about this controversial procedure as a Christian: “At 33, after experiencing infertility for several years, I reluctantly turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF). A fertility specialist advised my husband and me to pursue the usual course of IVF, which involves using drugs to stimulate the growth of multiple egg follicles.

It was nearly 25 years ago that my son Jonathan and I watched the movie The Matrix. (I actually needed to watch it several times to grasp the complexities and underlying messages of the movie.) Meir Soloveichik, Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, zeroes in on the key scene of the movie: “A man named Morpheus sits across from another man named Neo and informs him that his entire notion of reality is a lie. If Neo wishes to know the truth of human existence, Morpheus says, all he has to do is choose one of two pills. ‘You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill . . . and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes’ . . . Of course, Neo chooses the red pill and learns the terrible truth that the advent of artificial intelligence allowed machines to take over the Earth. He believes it is 1999, but in fact it is 2199, and all human beings are perpetually asleep in vats, exploited by their AI masters as a source of energy. The world they think they experience is actually a virtual reality known as The Matrix.”

When it comes to ethical decision-making in America right now, our leaders give every evidence of having their feet firmly anchored in mid-air! The result is confusion, dysfunction and an abandonment of the clear, ethical guidelines provided for us in Scripture. Permit me a few examples of this ethical confusion.

In late June, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal debt will equal 122% of the United States’ annual economic output by 2034, far surpassing the high set in the aftermath of World War II. The deficit will swell to $1.9 trillion this fiscal year and keep growing until the overall national debt hits $50.7 trillion a decade from now. The CBO revised its forecast from four months ago, when it projected that the debt would reach $48.3 trillion in 2034, and 116 percent of economic output. The new figures add to the urgency facing policymakers in 2025. Next year, vast portions of the tax code are set to expire, potentially forcing a steep tax hike on individuals and families. Congress suspended the debt limit in 2023, but that, too, will expire next year, setting up a showdown between the two parties over federal spending.