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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 04 November 2024

Ever wonder why we have nation states in the world, and are they legitimate?

Why do nations even bother to maintain borders?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #177 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

In terms of the history of the world, what we know as nation-states have not really been around that long.  

The U.S.A. was born in 1776, not 250 years old just yet, peanuts compared to the Ancient Egyptian empire’s more than 2,500 years.

But perhaps this is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

• Empires justified their rule through conquest and dynasty, while nation-states claim legitimacy largely from the shared identity of their people.
• Empires ruled over multiple ethnic and cultural groups, whereas nation-states tend to represent one primary national identity.
• Empires focus on expansive control and diverse populations, whereas nation-states focus on political unity and shared cultural identity within defined borders.

“Some scholars consider the establishment of the English Commonwealth in 1649 as the earliest instance of nation-state creation. Since the late 18th century, the nation-state has gradually become the dominant vehicle of rule over geographic territories.” This is where the U.S.A. is Exhibit A.

The English recognized popular sovereignty, the right of people to own their own territory and wherein the government is subject to the consent of the governed; national sovereignty, the right of people to govern themselves; and state sovereignty, right of states to govern their territories without external interference.

The impetus to create nation states involved several demographic and political components:

• Family, clan, tribe
• Common language
• Dominant religion or religious worldview
• Prevailing customs, mores, and other cultural expressions
• Shared traditions and history
• Need for protection in the face of nearby enemies
• Ethnic or racial or cultural similarity
• Borders
• Geography: natural geographic boundaries, like oceans or mountain ranges, or environmental quality of life inducements, like fresh water, tillable soil, ample growing seasons

Before the recognition of self-determinism, or consent of the governed, that emerged after the Middle Ages, governments existed as monarchies, theocratic states, and both colonial and ancient empires.

Scripture repeatedly references nations. The English word is translated from Hebrew or Greek, meaning people groups who might speak the same language, follow the same religion, or live in the same area, a somewhat broader definition than we typically think today. 

For example, along with Israel, the Bible mentions Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites as nations.

“Most manuscripts count 70 nations in Gen. 10. The Greek translation lists 72 nations.”

• 22:18: God promises to bless all nations through Abraham's seed. 
• 2 Chron. 20:6: States that the Lord rules over all the kingdoms of the nations.
• 22:27-28:States that all the nations will bow down before the Lord. 
• 82:8:Says all the nations are the Lord's inheritance. 
• 40:17:Says the Lord is over all nations and over all people.
• 28:19:God said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” 
• Acts 17:26:Tells us God “marked out our appointed times in history and the boundaries of our lands.”
• 13:1-7:Declares how God created governments, generally referencing a given territory or nation, for maintaining law and order, promoting the good.
• 3:16:Identifies Jesus Christ as the one through whom the nations are blessed. 

While Scripture says God will work through nations to accomplish his purposes and to bless humanity, he is not limited to nations or governments and is subject to none. That said, the Lord never condemns the idea of nation states, and is not opposed to them as such.

Nationhood involves citizenship, a type of community and sense of belonging. This does not mean, especially in the contemporary context, that everyone is the same ethnicity or race or original nationality, but for a nation to remain strong, the people must be united around common ideals, what historically in the United States we’ve called the American Dream or Americana or even e Pluribus Unum.

For the U.S.A., this means freedom of religion, freedom of speech, equality before the law, freedom of opportunity. It is these common ideals and aspirations which are most under attack these days by members of the political left, some who promote globalism, some who simply live to hate and tear down.

Nations or the people groups that comprise them can, of course, act in highly threatening, negative, even violent ways, including government sponsored racism. Nazi Germany is probably the best of the worst examples. But the point here is that leaders and perhaps their people can make immoral choices that lead to their nation acting in violent racist ways. They are acting out their worldview. It is not the nation-state as such that is ipso facto racist; it’s their worldview.

For a nation-state to exist is must recognize and maintain territorial boundaries that are recognized by other nation-states. No borders, no nation-state. No nation-state, no common purpose or accomplishments, and likely no security. 

So, the oft-stated idea being marketed today by so-called globalists, the idea that nations – especially it seems the U.S.A. – should be borderless, or if it does have borders, then the nation is somehow racist, is a false, ahistorical idea. No, the nation is simply acting in an historically demonstrable common-sense self-preservation in the interest of its self-determination. 

This is one of the ironies of the illogic of the globalist left. They argue for identity politics, for every ethnic or whatever demographic group to be able to exercise their self-determination as to where and how they want to live, but when a nation-state does this, even their own country – for example the U.S.A. securing its southern border, not allowing waves of individuals to enter illegally – the globalists call this racist.

They are anti-capitalism, pro-climate alarmism, anti-borders, pro-abortion and population decline, anti-freedom of speech and pro-government control of communications.

The socialist, globalist, left, Marxist people like John Kerry, Bill Gates, Al Gore, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the so-called “Squad” in the U.S. Congress, George Soros, the U.N/’s Kofi Anan, and others who’ve drunk the Kool-Aid like King Charles, Oprah Winfrey, and certainly so-called “progressives” are all-in on big, worldwide government, i.e., few or no nation-states.

Now you’d be forgiven if you thought, hey, this sounds like what the Bible calls the End Times, and it may be. Only God knows. Either way, these anti-nation-state trends run along the same track as anti-freedom.

There are numerous Christian intellectuals, scholars, and writers thinking aloud about these trends. Some, like columnist Cal Thomas are writing about what elections mean in this environment. Some, like brilliant Christian apologist Os Guinness are writing books about what these tectonic shifts in our culture mean.

His latest book, Our Civilizational Moment: The Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, focuses directly on the questions: “Is the civilization in living touch with the ideas, ideals, and inspiration that created it in the first place and that it needs to continue to flourish? Or, with its roots severed, is it destined to decline and die?” Guinness broadens his discussion beyond America to think about the West, but the U.S.A. is right in the middle of this.

The U.S.A. is not listed in the Bible. We do not know if this means the U.S.A. will not exist when the End Times come, whether it will play a role God chose not to reveal, or whether it will be weaker or in some different circumstance wherein it will not play a role.

But this is not for us to determine, or even to worry about. Our calling and task remain the same: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with (our) God” (Micah 6:8), to “not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).

At some future glorious day, the Scripture describes “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9-10).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check //www.youtube.com/@DrRexRogers" style="color: #96607d; text-decoration: underline;">my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://x.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 28 October 2024

Are we happy when our enemies get what we consider their “just desserts”? How do we square this with the biblical command to love our enemies?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #176 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

When I was a kid, I remember times when I came home from school and started telling my mother about some other kid who had annoyed, bothered, upset me, or otherwise got under my skin. Mom would listen to this for a while, then invariably would say, “Well, have you prayed for him?” Prayed for him? No, Mom.  I was thinking more about punching him.

This is a simple illustration of the human inclination and experience to react against other humans, to dislike them, maybe to hold them in contempt. Adults may not talk to their mothers that often, but they still react to others like I did back when. It’s in our nature, our sin nature.

On a much larger, sensitive, and dangerous level, individuals, people groups, and countries get at odds, then think, speak, and act badly, often-times violently toward others. Such is happening today in the Middle East where rockets are flying, pagers are blowing up, military units are advancing on ground, and each of several antagonists is trying to kill their enemy.

It is in this context of real-life war and danger that my SAT-7 Lebanese colleagues at our studios in Beirut recently held their weekly devotions focused on the question, “Are we happy when our enemies die?”

The fact that they did this got my attention. They are living real-life, not a parlor game. They are concerned about their safety and even more the physical safety and emotional well-being of their children. They are Christian believers now living, literally, in the midst of a war zone that is none of their doing or choosing.

Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel almost daily since October 2023, and Israel is now responding, surgically targeting and killing Hezbollah leaders.

Rockets hit specific buildings within the city of Beirut, not very far from our studios or where our staff live, and these rockets have killed the Hezbollah leaders at which they were aimed, but also, they’ve killed nearby civilians, innocent noncombatants. These unintended victims, so-called “collateral damage,” could be anyone. 

Our SAT-7 Christian staff wanted to apply their Christian faith to their fears, concerns, and attitudes, wanting to respond as Jesus told us to respond: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” Matt. 5:43-44.

We are to love and pray for our enemies. This is not easy to do.

I have never been in combat, but I’ve spoken with several who have survived combat, including my late father-in-law, James B. Stone, who was a U.S. Marines in the second wave of troops to beach on Guadalcanal, engaged in some of the most difficult fighting. He suffered shrapnel wounds and damaged hearing that eventually caused him to go deaf, and he came home with a Silver Star. He was a war hero who later became a Christian.

Once or twice, he talked about how he and his fellows were taught to think of the Japanese during WWII, including insulting nicknames and ethnic slurs, forms of hate. Remember, the Japanese at that time were the quite capable and threatening enemy. Then he talked about how years later it was difficult to give over those deeply embedded feelings to the Lord, to not hate or not even think poorly of Japanese people, rather, to pray for them.

If we are to pray for our enemies, we first need to define what or who is an enemy. Then there are other considerations, like self-defense, war, what is a Just War, and the meaning of the Imprecatory prayers in the book of Psalms. 

Our natural response to enemies is often to fight back, get even, put them in their place, work to assure they get their “just desserts,” or to demand justice. But when we obey Jesus and respond to our enemieswith love, prayer, forgiveness and blessing, we take ourselves out of Satan’s line of fire and make room for God to handle justice as only He can. We don’t have to worry about our enemies. 

This includes those among the enemy people group who are loveable, like children, but also those who are by their attitudes and actions decidedly “unlovely,” like radicals, extremists, and terrorists. And certainly, this includes enemies who persecute others, like al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, Hamas, Houthi, Hezbollah, and the Iran red guard.

In “Ezekiel 33:11, God said, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ God is not even happy even when an evil person dies. As Christians, we should reflect the mourning and love of our Lord, who grieves the loss of lives on both sides of the conflict.” 

Ultimately, our “enemies” are just people, just wayward individuals trapped in an “ism.” Can we then model the Lord and pray for our enemies, whatever the nature of their evil ideologies? 

This does not mean we surrender our responsibility to make judgments about right and wrong, or that we wink at wrong in some warped definition of love. No, with St. Augustine, we still “hate the sin and love the sinner.”

For me, it’s amazing to think: God cares about the “worst kind of sinner.” He can even draw people to himself who are involved in wicked aggression, for even this malevolence is not the unpardonable sin. 

The most compelling example of praying for one’s enemy was the prayer of Jesus on the cross. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” Luke 23:34. This prayer draws together three acts of the heart involved in loving our enemies: prayer, forgiveness, and mercy.

What about the other considerations? It is true that the Bible leaves room for self-defense, condemns murder but does not say, never kill, never use weapons, never go to war. There is a place in this fallen world for legitimate use of coercive force as noted in Rom 13:1-7. God says of legitimate government authority, “For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” This teaching is not in conflict with love your enemy.

Then there is Just War theory – the right to go to war, the right conduct within a war. For Christians, Just War theory dates to St. Augustine. Thinking about when a war is just and justifiable and when it is not is one way we can love our enemies.

In the Old Testament we find what’s called imprecatory prayers. To imprecate means “to invoke evil upon or curse” one’s enemies. King David, the psalmist most associated with imprecatory verses, often used phrases like, “may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them” (Psalm 35:6) and “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!” (Psalm 58:6).

But the Psalms that include imprecations are not filled with only imprecatory prayers. In fact, there is not a single Psalm that ONLY has imprecatory prayers. 

Rather each Psalm is filled with multiple subjects that usually combine these imprecatory prayers with the hope that the psalmist has in the Lord. They do not conflict with the command to love our enemies.

How then should we pray for our enemies?

• Our own ability to forgive.
• That they come to revere and submit to God via the Gospel.
• That their sins are forgiven and that they become forgiving people.
• That they will seek to do God's will.
• That God protects them from temptation and the devil.
• That right, justice, and peace will be recognized and established.

Loving and praying for our enemies, whether personal and social or international and political is a very “un-human” thing to do, meaning our human inclination is to not love but to promote ourselves against others. But this is the point: we cannot simply decide to love our enemies and thus make it so. Rather, we need God’s love in us. “We love because he first loved us” 1 Jn. 4:19.

Finally, “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” 1 Thess. 3:12.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024     

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at LinkedIn or X accounts.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 21 October 2024

Have you ever tried to discuss a controversial issue with someone and, given their horrified reaction, simply given up?

Are there certain issues or points of view that you know to avoid – don’t go there – whenever you are with certain family or friends?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #175 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

During the U.S. Presidential campaign, back in February 2016, I stopped posting political content on social media. I just quit cold turkey. 

Before then I’d tried to post about issues. I didn’t mention just one but always several candidates, attempted to be non-partisan, and in no way attacked Democrat or Republican candidates or otherwise use my social media to campaign. In retrospect, I guess I was naïve. I actually tried to conduct a discussion about important issues. Usually, it didn’t happen.

I found that people didn’t read the nuances of what I said, and they didn’t discuss the issue. Mostly, they reacted emotionally, defending their partisan view and/or candidate—who I had often not mentioned—and frequently did so with rancor not found in my posts. People used my nonpartisan social media post as a platform to rant or to proclaim the virtues of their candidate, even when this had nothing directly to do with the issue content of my post.

I also noticed that my comments about political issues, in part because they got hi-jacked for candidate campaigning or negative campaigning, divided my family, friends, and colleagues. People just couldn’t hang together for an issue discussion without quickly voting each other off the island.

At that point I decided political posting wasn’t worth dividing or losing friends. So, I stopped.

But recently, a friend said to me in a private exchange that while he had reached the same conclusion regarding no-more-political-posts, he felt badly because he struggled with knowing that silence in the face of evil (he was referring to an especially egregious issue) can make one an accessory.

My friend didn’t make the reference, but I will, a la the famous quote attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Perhaps not all political debates are good vs evil and not all issues, thankfully, involve evil as such, but some do, so where does that leave us?

A while back I broke my pattern. I didn’t use social media but privately texted several friends about the children at the border issue. I did not attack then President Trump but later commented in the text chain that I thought the President could alter what was currently taking place at the border. My friends split down the middle, not about whether children were at risk but in regard to the Administration’s responsibility for this issue. That’s OK. Disagreement is part of discussion. But as the text exchange continued, friends started requesting they be dropped from the group text.

I was reminded that even my friends, like the rest of the country are politically divided to the point of polarization. I understand my friends’ desire to opt out.

As I said, in some sense, I have done the same on social media. It wasn’t that they didn’t have opinions or that they didn’t care, though perhaps some may be less politically interested than others, but that they did not want to get into a back-and-forth of hardened positions on opposite ends of the teeter-totter.

Think so-called “panels” on major television news channels. Pretty much they’ve devolved into shout fests about who can talk overtop the other, not who can provide reasoned discourse. Think, for example, the “guns” vs. “gun control” issue. Pretty much this debate is a non-starter because people on all sides are loudly talking past each other, usually citing the extremes of whatever they consider the other position.

This same kind of phenomenon showed up when my wife and I attended an after-church home-gathering comprised of people from the same church—middle class Midwesterners, most of whom who’d grown up locally and graduated from the same high school and who otherwise had much in common.

It was a very nice evening. Then someone mentioned Trump, or maybe it was just a given political issue. Just like that the group divided, incredibly, to the point of yielding a couple of prickly comments and a few negative facial expressions that stayed that way until someone changed the subject. Amazing. Good friends suddenly turn edgy when politics came up. So, the old maxim stands: “Never talk about politics or religion in polite company.”

Years ago, I wrote a book called “Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture” (Baker, 2003). I talked about God’s moral absolutes—not a long list by the way— for all times, countries, and cultures, which we ignore at our own peril. Things like don’t lie, murder, steal, worship idols.

In that book I talked about the enormous room for discretion, or better, discernment with which God charged us as a way of making good decisions about cultural matters (Phil. 1:9-11). As long as our attitudes, viewpoints, and actions do not violate the moral will of God—as revealed in the Bible—he gave us the liberty to decide and to be different.

But I said then and I still believe it today, Christian liberty is the least understood and least practiced doctrine of the Bible. I cannot prove this, but I experience it regularly.

I started this podcast referencing year 2016. It’s now several years later, and if anything, the polarization of American culture to the point of threatening e Pluribus Unum has gotten decidedly worse. We have woke activists pressing their divisive, anti-reality, anti-science race, class, and gender ideas upon us, including our school children. These are the ones who form the core of the “cancel culture” movement, meaning if you don’t agree with them, you have no right to speak, or maybe even to keep your job. How can we discuss if expressing our values and views leads to social ostracizing, or professional punishments of varying kinds?

The abortion debate has gone from one side saying pro-life and the other side saying, “Safe, legal, and rare” (remember Bill Clinton?) to the other side now saying abortion on demand all the way to birth and, for some, even after a birth.

For the pro-abortion view, abortion is now typically equated with women’s rights. Many consider abortion a human right. A human right, to kill your children? Where in this divide is there room for discussion?

We experienced the pandemic, which was a real disease and a real threat, but in the midst of it we had elected government officials dictating what was “misinformation” or “disinformation” and working with Big Social Media to silence any disagreement with the prevailing acceptable narrative. How can we discuss if we’re not allowed to discuss?

Growing numbers of people in our country and culture do not want people to speak if their views diverge from what the dominant group considers correct.

The answer to opposing views is not a free and open debate on the merits of the argument but to silence, somehow to keep the other view from being heard.

If it is heard, then the solution is to react with emotional diatribe, victim-claiming, accusations of political incorrectness, or attacks on the character of others who hold the “wrong view.” The First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech is itself, dishearteningly, no longer considered a sacred political ideal for whom men and women have given the last full measure of devotion to protect.

We’ve come to a point in a so-called post-truth or fake news culture in which polarization is so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without becoming defensively partisan, ideological, or upset.

Don’t get me wrong. Social media is loaded with political commentary, but it’s usually one-sided, a way to get one’s view out there. OK, but is there room for consideration? Discussion, at least public discourse, is still dead-on-arrival.

One positive way to try to address this problem is to ask questions. Ask others what they believe and why? Do not make your own assertions, which invites pushback. Just ask questions, which signals respect. Then wait. Be quiet, which is hard for me to do, and see what comes back. This may open the door to a genuine discussion.

This said, I think the death of discussion is a real and a sad phenomenon, a capitulation to a disappearing understanding among the public of what Freedom of Speech means in a constitutional republic. The trend, whether from Left or Right, is not good for the future of this country.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm. 

©  Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2024.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or YouTube @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or x.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 13 October 2024

When you’ve marveled at the Ancient Egyptians, the Pyramids, the incredible architecture, still here thousands of years later—have you thought, if their civilization can disappear, what will become of my civilization?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #174 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Civilizations come and go. It’s a historically demonstrable fact.

“Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear. Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Maya civilization, and the Easter Island civilization. However, some of them later revived and transformed, such as China, Greece, and Egypt.”

It’s interesting that none of this list of dire reasons civilizations can collapse mentions religion or worldview or values, but this is the problem we now face.

“For many years now, prominent voices have claimed that Western civilization is foundering.” By Western Civilization, they mean Western Europe and North America where “commonly held beliefs such as individualism, democracy, and rationalism,” were embraced as the foundation stones of culture. While Western Civilization borrows from Ancient Greece and Rome, it also drew on the Renaissance, (14^th-17^th Century), and Enlightenment (17^th-19^th Century), which opened the doors to critical thinking. Much of its growth and vibrancy must also be attributed to the Reformation (16^th-17^th Century) and Christianity, which liberated the natural world from control of the church and empowered human reason, science, enterprise, and what became known as the Protestant Work Ethic.

For all it historical and current problems, Western Civilization built the most bountiful, free, economically successful, and future-oriented cultures in history. With all that going for it, why would it be declining?

Short answer, religion. Long answer, a gradual rejection of the Christian worldview that has undergirded Western culture, including belief in God to whom we are accountable, and belief in absolute truth and then also a parallel embrace of moral relativism, rejection of the biblical teaching that mankind is created in the image of God yet a sinner in need of grace, and a consequent loss of aspiration or belief in progress.

In his masterful, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, the late Francis A. Schaeffer said, “The flow of history is determined by the world-view people hold.”

Schaeffer noted that “in the south, the Reformation was giving an opposite answer in the north: man could not begin with himself, he must start with the Bible. There, man could find ‘true things about God’ and ‘many true things about nature.’ It is Schaeffer’s thesis that this base led to a broad Christian consensus which produced the finest fruits of western civilization: the art of Rembrandt and Bach, the political freedoms consequent to the English and American Revolutions, and the rise of modern science.”

“The breakdown of this Christian consensus has brought western culture to its present crisis.”

Beginning in the late 20^th Century, “all the signs, (Schaeffer) warns, are pointing in the direction of totalitarian rule, either by one man or an elite of savants.”

What in the 20^th Century scholars thought to be an inexorable march toward secularization in modernity became a period of worldwide resurgence of ideological religion, particularly Islam, mixed with postmodernity’s religious apathy in the West. This new mix has yielded polarization, hate, extremism, nihilism.

This nihilism, this belief that life is meaningless has produced cynicism, pessimism, distrust, alienation, social disintegration, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and most recently, violence.

It has also produced what might be called a “culture of death.”

We see this in the celebration of abortion—killing one’s children and thus one’s future—as “reproductive health,” when ironically it is neither reproductive nor healthy.

We see this culture of death in sexual libertinism qua deviancy, the pursuit of personal significance in perverted sexuality, which yields disaffection, disease, destruction, and in more cases than may be realized, death.

We see a culture of death in the sexualization of children. Why by all that’s common sense, do Kindergarten children need to be given sex toys, read to by drag queens, encouraged to question their sex, and pushed toward made-up hybrid genders?

Why by all that’s common sense can’t our culture provide a definition of woman?

We see this culture of death in population decline. Some have observed, “population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization.” “The U.S.’ fertility rate for 2022 sits well below the level needed for the current generation to replace itself. Birth rates have consistently fallen beneath that threshold, termed the replacement rate, since 2007, the CDC said, and have generally been below it since 1971…2.1. That’s the replacement rate, meaning each woman would, on average, need to have 2.1 children for a generation to exactly replace itself. In 2022, the U.S.’ fertility rate (the average number of children a woman would have during her lifetime) was around 1.7 children per woman.”

“Europe is the continent with the oldest population. This is creating problems for healthcare and pensions.”

Not having children is not simply a biological phenomenon. People are choosing not to have children. In other words, they are making value choices.

Why?

• they consider children a cost, not a benefit,
• they have decided to focus on their own lives without the perceived “burden” of children,
• and many decide not to have children because of their fear of climate change.

We also see civilizational decline in massive global debt, rejection of democracy and capitalism, and promotion of unsubstantiated climate alarmism by globalist, socialist, totalitarians like those at the annual World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. This includes Americans like Bill Gates, John Kerry, Al Gore, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many more.

These same people promote de-population of the earth in the name of climate alarmism. I am serious. Climate alarmists or global elitists like gorilla-lady Jane Goodall say the earth can best support maybe 1 billion people. According to them, this is the goal we should attain.

But wait, aren’t there 8 billion people in the world today? Yes? Then they are suggesting about 7 billion people need to be eradicated? Yes. Why? Well, to save the earth. For whom? People. So, we save the earth for people by killing off people?

And who and how are we going to accomplish this? Which of the climate change radicals will volunteer to be the first to get eliminated?

It’s an irrational culture of death, exactly what one would predict, Satan, the father of lies, to develop. People are willingly deluded. They celebrate lies – just like people in the streets and on university campuses who chant support for Hamas.

Even LGBTQ people do this? Really, do they not realize that Islam rejects homosexuality and related sexual perversion? Do they not realize that if they identified as queer in an Islamic society they would be killed? Are these people willingly deluded? Yes. They celebrate a culture of death.

We see civilizational decline in the irrational, hysterical promotion of “race absolutism,” identity politics, and mass immigration. Seeing the world through racial or gender or class lens is Marxism, and there is plenty of this on the Left today. They promote victimhood, chaos, and division because these conditions seem to beg for more government, which the Left worships.

Western Civilization still stands, but there are serious cracks in its foundation, particularly with respect to dismissing the Judeo-Christian moral consensus upon which it was founded and flourished. 

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check You Tube @DrRexRogers for more video and prodcasts.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M Rogers, All Rights Reserved, 2024.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at rexmrogers.com or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at linkedin.com/rexmrogers or x.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 07 October 2024

With the Middle East on fire, how should we be praying and acting?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #173 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

It’s been one year since the surprise 10/7 Hamas massacre of innocent Israeli citizens just across the border with the Gaza Strip, and the Middle East now stands on the brink of regional war.

You will recall 1,139 people were killed. “About 250 Israeli civilians and soldiers were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip, alive or dead, and including 30 children, with the stated goal to force Israel to exchange them for imprisoned Palestinians, including women and children.”

In the history of man’s inhumanity to man, the massacre was notable for its soulless brutality, sexual assault as an act of war, and premeditated terror, like filming atrocities with GoPro cameras.

Since this time, “during a ceasefire at the end of November, Hamas released 105 hostages. In return, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners.” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he believes about 50 of the remaining roughly 100 hostages held are still alive.

War in Gaza has now killed tens of thousands of Palestinians with some Hamas still active. In the West Bank some terror attacks have occurred and sporadic fighting results. Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Houthi rebels in Yemen are launching missile and drone attacks on Israel, and Israel has responded against the Houthis. From Lebanon, Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets at Israel, forcing 60,000 Israelis near the border to leave their homes.

Israel pulled off high-precision targeted assassinations using weaponized pagers and walkie-talkies, killing the Hezbollah men using them, with, as inevitable, some civilians nearby dying as collateral damage. Israel then surgically destroyed Hezbollah’s central headquarters in downtown Beirut, killing several top leaders. Iran then fired about 180 ballistic missiles into Israel, most of which were destroyed by Israel’s air defenses.

Israel has now moved militarily into southern Lebanon seeking to destroy Hezbollah’s capability to launch an invasion like Hamas did 10/7. Meanwhile, some one million Lebanese citizens in southern Lebanon have been displaced from their homes.

How are Christians processing 10/7 and the year since?

Have we demonstrated moral clarity on this issue, or are we reacting based upon emotion and maybe limited information? Or are we aligning with “our side,” people we think we should back, e.g., Israel, and then expressing indifference in the face of legitimate moral concerns for suffering people on what we call the “other side,” e.g., Gazans or Palestinians?

Here are a few different Christian perspectives:

• Some have drawn a direct line from Middle East conflict to end of the world scenarios to the Second Coming of Christ. I am not a theologian, but I do know the Bible warns us against choosing times we think the Lord is coming. It is unwise to jump from media pronouncements to prophecy conclusions. That said, are we in the End Times? Perhaps. Only God knows. But our responsibility is still to live as unto the Lord.

• Some Christians have rushed to equate biblical teaching that Jews are God’s chosen people with the reality of Israel as a modern nation-state. A fraction of these believers embrace Christian Zionism, but most have probably never heard the term. This can get one in trouble several ways. Certainly, the Bible indicates God works through the Jewish people. And we are commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Ps 122:6). But we should remember Israel is a secular government working with realpolitik, national interest approaches to decision-making, all of which may or should be critiqued from a moral point of view. It is not ipso facto antisemitic to question or criticize Israel’s actions as warranted any more than it is anti-American or anti-patriotism to critique our own modern nation-state and its leaders. In fact, it is our Christian stewardship to critique political ideas and actions.

• Some Christians have said they are “concerned by the large number of people who lean toward peace-forward options for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That 88 percent believe that lasting peace requires a mutually agreed-upon solution is commendable but out of touch with reality when Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.” That’s Israel’s conundrum. If it lays down its arms in response to incessant calls for an immediate ceasefire, what happens next do you think? Will its enemies take their weapons and go home? If surrounded by armed aggressors, is laying down arms an act of peacemaking or suicide?

• Some argue, horrible though 10/7 was, Israel is ultimately responsible because it has “occupied” the Gaza Strip since the Six-Day War in June 1967. They brush by the fact that in 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza, effectively ending its direct occupation of the territory. And in 2006, Gazans elected Hamas to leadership. It is true though, while Israel no longer has a physical presence in Gaza, it maintains control over its borders, airspace, and maritime access, leading to ongoing tensions and conflict in the region. This is considered minimal for Israel security, and 10/7 seems to suggest this is correct. Meanwhile, many Westerners still accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. But this is a mischaracterization. “In Israel there are non-Jewish judges, teachers, professors, even members of Knesset, as well as others holding high positions in all professions and occupations.  In apartheid South Africa, non-whites were systematically banned from all such opportunities. They were deprived of the right to vote and choose their own leaders. Israeli citizens, both Jews and Palestinians, have these civil rights in full.” But Palestinians, or Gazans if you will, are still caught in the middle. Jordan remains one of the few Middle East nations to grant Palestinians citizenship. Other nations have greatly restricted their access. But for us as believers, trying to think beyond politics, it is worth considering that if Palestine is not a legitimate state, and though Hamas terrorists have dominated them, are Palestinians not legitimate people with real hurts and fears? God loves them too. So how do we help the hurting and helpless and harassed among them?

• This comes into play when we consider how we balance Israel’s right to self-defense with Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Many Western politicians and religious leaders regularly speak of a “Two-State Solution,” meaning Israelis get to live here and Palestinians get to live there, happily ever after. This idea dates to about 1938, but the problem is, it is a Western idea. Middle Easterners for the most part have never supported it, especially Palestinian leadership and certainly terrorist groups like Hamas. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” is a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers.” So how do you arrive at a peaceful co-existence when one side—Hamas—does not believe the other side—Israel—has the right to even exist?

• Some among us pray for Christians in Lebanon, as in Gaza earlier, who are caught in the crossfire. We know Scripture commands us to weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), to lament over pain and suffering, and many innocent, Christian noncombatants have been in danger in Gaza and are now in danger in Lebanon, as well as Israel.

• Loving and praying for our enemies (Matt 5:43-44) is another biblical command. Recently, my international colleagues with SAT-7 in Lebanon reflected in their devotional time on the question, “are we happy when our enemies die?” This is a thought-provoking question and goes to the core of our faith. “Ezekiel 33:11 states, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ God is not even happy even when an evil person dies. As Christians, we should reflect the mourning and love of our Lord, who grieves the loss of lives on both sides of the conflict.” 

“The Israel-Hamas conflict is a deeply complex and tragic issue with no easy solutions, but our call as Christians is to have a response rooted in love, empathy and prayer. Even in the darkest of times, hope and compassion can prevail.”

We can ask our Sovereign God to work through this violence to open doors for both just and lasting peace, and open doors for the development of free, democratic nations that protect human life and religious liberty.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://x.com/RexMRogers.