During one of my trips to Europe in 2005, I visited the St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, Germany. I wanted to visit this church because in 1982 the pastor of that church, Christian Fuhrer, began Monday prayer meetings to pray for peace amid global violence and the oppressive East German regime. At first, the number attending these prayer meetings was small but attendance began to swell and spilled over to mass meetings outside the church gates.

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.

As many have observed over the last decade, competing world orders are emerging that center on Russia, China and Iran challenging the world order organized by the US. It is also a challenge that focuses on democracy versus authoritarian dictatorship. Putin, Xi and Khamenei argue that democracy does not work. People, they argue, are willing to surrender their rights in exchange of order and stability. The US is the only nation that can serve as a buffer against the forces of evil represented by Russia, China and Iran. Recently, it is in the Middle East where these competing world orders are being challenged.

It is now an axiom in 2025 American culture that America’s citizens do not trust their government; they have lost confidence in government and are skeptical of almost anything coming out of Washington or even state capitals. For a democracy to truly function well there must be a bond of trust between government and its citizens; a confidence that the state has its citizens’ best interests at heart. If there is an absence of trust, citizens will turn to someone or some form of government they can trust.

Gerard Baker of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote a most convicting piece on “trashing America’s global good name.” He wrote: “When I worked in Tokyo in the 1990s, a Japanese colleague told me a story about her father’s defining experience with Americans. In the days after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, he was a young boy living in a small town.”

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.”

It has been a long time in coming and there have been warning signs for years, but the American debt crisis is real and can no longer be ignored: Moody’s downgraded U.S. debt to a notch below its top rating, citing chronic budget deficits and rising debt-service costs. The rating agency lagged behind S&P Global Ratings and Fitch, which downgraded the U.S. in 2011 and 2023, respectively.

Transhumanism is a not a new concept. Known as the father of transhumanism, Julian Huxley, brother of the famed writer Aldous Huxley, described this concept in a 1957 essay saying “the human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirely, as humanity.” Similarly, Elon Musk has long sought to upgrade humanity claiming that “to avoid becoming like monkeys, humans must merge with machines.” This argument is based on a materialistic and in some cases an evolutionary worldview that concludes we must improve upon evolution’s current iteration of humanity or be left behind by the rise of sophisticated machines.

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.