The presidential primary season has begun, but, unlike recent elections, we have two extreme candidates?Bernie Sanders on the leftwing of the Democratic Party and Donald Trump, who fits no label. Since he began his run for the Republican nomination, Trump?s positions on key issues have changed radically. It continues to baffle me personally why people find him appealing. As for evangelical Christians, I find it troublesome that he is taken seriously, for his lifestyle, his values, his demeanor and his language bear no resemblance whatsoever to biblical values, virtues, morals or ethical standards. But that is not the point of this edition of Issues, which probes the role politics plays in solving the problems of the human condition. Consider these thoughts:

Important researcher and evangelical Christian, George Barna, has written: ?The Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy. How else can you describe matters when most churchgoing adults reject the accuracy of the Bible, reject the existence of Satan, claim that Jesus sinned, see no need to evangelize, believe that good works are one of the keys to persuading God to forgive their sins, and describe their commitment to Christianity as moderate or even less firm?? Consider additional evidence Barna has surfaced of widespread biblical illiteracy in America:

After the devastation of World War I and the abject horror of World War II, Europe turned a significant corner in world history: Instead of embracing the nation-state with its competing passions for territory and power, Europe made a commitment to integrate itself economically and financially, but not politically. The nation states with their clearly defined borders would remain, but the economies and currencies of those nation states would integrate together into what eventually becoming the European Union (EU). The EU was to be the New Order for Europe. . . Today, that dream of a unified and integrated Europe is under tremendous stress. Indeed, a new European order may be emerging.

Larycia Hawkins, tenured associate professor of political science at Wheaton College in Illinois, has taught at Wheaton since 2007, but, through her recent comments about Islam, has created a firestorm at this evangelical college. . . In December, Wheaton suspended her and placed her on administrative leave because her ?theological statements seemed inconsistent with Wheaton College?s doctrinal convictions.? The College explained that ?While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths, including what they teach about God?s revelation to humanity, the nature of God, the path to salvation, and the life of prayer.?

Predicting what events will occur in the year 2016 is dangerous and rarely helpful. However, one thing seems certain about 2016: The Middle East will be on center stage. No matter what occurs in Asia or Europe, the world continues to be drawn to the Middle Eastern cauldron. It seems reasonable to conclude that this region will remain unstable, volatile and terribly dangerous. Events of the last few days validate this assumption. Consider these developments:

On 1 December 2015, at the opening of a three-day meeting in Washington to discuss the ethics and use of gene editing, David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology perceptively declared, ?Over the years the unthinkable has become conceivable and today we are close to being able to alter human heredity.? This meeting, called the International Summit on Human Gene Editing, was convened by the national academies of three nations?the United States, Great Britain and China. The primary focus of this meeting was to discuss whether gene editing should be used to make heritable changes to the human gene line.

The year 2016 is a presidential election year and, although it seems as if the campaign began in early 2015, as we move into the New Year, voters will begin to get serious about a candidate. I am not interested in speculating on who will or who should win the election in November. I want to devote this edition of Issues to some thoughts for the future president and, by extension, for the voters who will elect that president.

Much of American culture still accepts the manger at Christmas. We still see manger scenes in church, on front lawns and on Christmas cards. But in our increasingly secular, commercial, and sexually liberated society, we keep the horizontal message of the manger but often eliminate the vertical message entirely. We like the shepherds and their lambs, but are uncomfortable with God, miracles and the incarnation. In short, the biblical worldview about Christmas is rapidly losing market share to a more secular, materialistic one that is horizontally comfortable but vertically challenged.

The Scientific Revolution of the 16th-century changed humanity?s perspective and understanding of the physical universe. At the end of the Scientific Revolution (the 17th century), Sir Isaac Newton synthesized the work of others (e.g., Galileo, Kepler, Brahe, etc.) with his own original thinking, and produced a compressive understanding of the laws of the physical world (e.g., inertia, gravity, etc.). . . But on 25 November 1915, Albert Einstein published a theory that challenged this understanding of the physical world.

In the United States, capital punishment remains legal in 31 states and in the federal civilian and military legal systems (for specific crimes). The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been understood as the key section of the Constitution governing capital punishment, and it has been interpreted to apply to murders committed by mentally competent adults.