In early October 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier (director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin) and Jennifer A. Doudna (professor at the University of California, Berkeley) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their 2012 work on Crispir-Cas9, a method to edit DNA. It was the first time the award went to two women. Their 2012 paper was a pioneering work on Crispr gene-editing.

The year 2020 has been an extraordinary year. For me as a Christian leader, two themes have dominated the complicated developments of 2020: Religious liberty issues inherent in a number of Supreme Court decisions and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

O. Alan Noble of Oklahoma Baptist University perceptively and solemnly observes, “Whether you describe it as a decadent society or a decaying culture or a democracy dying in darkness, 2020 has given us a taste for what Cormac McCarthy once described as ‘the frailty of everything revealed at last.’ We have been frail for a very long time, but what we could deny before has been made glaringly manifest through a pandemic, racial injustice, social unrest, mass unemployment, and a highly contentious presidential election that earnest folks on both sides have described in existential terms.

A major premise of Scripture is that leaders are always called to a higher standard. Indeed, spiritual leaders in the church and in ministry are called to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2). Leaders in ministry are to be servant leaders, modeling the biblical truths they espouse (see Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:21-30 and John 13:1-17). Leaders are to avoid even the “appearance of evil” in their lifestyles and in their words (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Fundamental to the Christian worldview is that we live in a fallen, broken world. Sin and rebellion against God are the defining characteristics of this dark world over which Satan rules (2 Corinthians 4:4). The modern nation-state, in terms of world history, is a relatively new development on the world scene.

A new book by Religious News Service reporter Jack Jenkins (American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country) argues that not only is the Religious Left alive and well in contemporary America—it is the “beating heart of modern progressivism.” Modern politics in the Trump era often stereotype people into rather rigid categories. This is not very helpful and is in fact often intellectually dishonest. As I have argued on Issues over the last few months, genuine, biblical Christian leaders are all over the map in their political leanings.

This summer, the Supreme Court has ruled, for the second time in the last two months, against a church which sought exemptions from statewide restrictions on houses of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic (Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak). Calvary Chapel involved a Nevada public health order governing which businesses and institutions are able to remain open during the pandemic, and under what terms these institutions may do so.

1 Corinthians 8-10 detail the central biblical teaching on Christian liberty. The premise is that brothers and sisters in Christ should be willing to set aside their rights for the sake of others. The COVID-19 pandemic has been disruptive and has necessitated the surrender of some of our freedoms for the sake of the larger public health. To satisfactorily balance individual rights with public health issues is excruciatingly difficult. In this Perspective, I seek to explore in-depth the matter of religious liberty and its application to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several weeks ago in the weekly edition of Issues, I wrote a critique of the Bostock Supreme Court decision, which extended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and transgender status as worthy of federal protection against discrimination. I still regard this important decision as a potential threat to religious liberty in America. However, in early July, in two 7-2 decisions, the Supreme Court upheld “conscience protections for nuns and parochial schools,” producing a level of encouragement that the Court, as now structured, seeks to protect religious liberty.

Arguably, Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president in American History.  He led the nation through its greatest test—the Civil War (1861-1865).  As early as 1838, Lincoln argued that the Republic would not collapse from an outside invasion; rather, it would collapse from within.  He also believed that popular governments, which rest their sovereignty in the
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