Jim Denison is the founder and CEO of the Denison Forum, a nonprofit Christian media organization that comments on current issues through a biblical lens. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.

Iowa held its first-in-the-nation caucuses last night. President Trump won on the Republican side, as expected. However, we still don’t know the winner on the Democratic Party side.

The Iowa Democratic Party said the results were delayed due to “inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.” They stressed that there was not a “hack or intrusion,” but announced around 2 a.m. that the results would be provided “later today.” Officials are now hand counting the results.

There are two very different ways to see this unusual delay.

One is that Democrats in Iowa are working to provide results in as trustworthy a manner as possible. After the razor-close 2016 race in Iowa between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Mr. Sanders’ allies pushed the Democratic National Committee to require caucus states to track and report the raw numbers of support for each candidate. In Iowa, the new reporting standards slowed the gathering of data to a crawl. Technical issues contributed to the delays.

The other is to view the Democratic Party’s delayed reporting as indicative of its suitability to lead. GOP Congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina tweeted: “Folks—this is the party that wants to run your healthcare, control your employment, decide what kind of car you can drive, and more.”

These conflicting perspectives reflect the larger conflicts in our culture.

For example, Bernie Sanders was favored by oddsmakers to win the Iowa caucuses. His campaign is fueled principally by his appeal to millennials. His focus on wealth inequality, universal health care, student loan debt, and climate change resonate with many of them. The fact that he is “quite substantially not religious,” in the words of his brother, is not a detriment to a generation noted for its lack of religious commitment.

Consider that college graduates are less likely than non-graduates to agree that “religion is very important.” They are also less likely to say they “believe in God with absolute certainty” or that they “pray daily.” In fact, 11 percent identify as atheist or agnostic, compared with 4 percent of those with high school education or less.

(Lest these facts suggest that religion is irrational, note that Christians who graduated from college are more likely to attend weekly worship services than those with less education.)

To many of Mr. Sanders’ millennial supporters, his lack of religious commitment mirrors their own. They view his irreligiosity as a positive rather than a negative.

Consider another fact: Democratic professors outnumber Republicans nine to one at America’s highest-ranking colleges and universities.

The ratio varies by discipline: while economics professors who are Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one, professors of anthropology who are Democrats outnumber Republicans forty-two to one.

This pattern is less surprising when we look behind it to note that the college administrators who hire the professors identify as liberal rather than conservative by a ratio of twelve to one.

Source: Christian Headlines

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To the attendees of the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (Feb. 6),

Today, you gather in prayer for our nation and for our world — for the health of our democracy, for the good of our neighbors, for the extension of Christ’s kingdom of justice and peace to the ends of the earth.

This is right and good.

Many of you in attendance today are gathered in our name. You are pastors, leaders of denominations, and elders in the faith. Your generation has taught us to take the authority of Scripture seriously, to proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all things, and to passionately pursue the Church’s mission in the world. For this heritage of faith, we are truly grateful.

It is in this spirit of gratitude that we write you today, as young Christians, to implore you to engage the climate crisis with the full and faithful urgency that it requires.

It is no secret that public dialogue around climate change has been bitterly polarized and divisive, and that Christians have been as guilty as anyone of perpetuating this reality. Yet the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to do better than to parrot partisan half-truths and retreat to tribal foxholes.

It calls us to pursue truth and to announce it with hope.

It calls us to proclaim its good news to all, especially to the poor and the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19).

It calls us to love God with everything we’ve got and to love our neighbors as if their current circumstances and future prospects are our own (Matt. 22:34-40).

Taking bold and faithful climate action is an opportunity to get better at each of these commands, to get better at announcing the good news of Jesus Christ in a warming world.

President Donald Trump speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Accepting the findings of the rigorous study of creation and believing the firsthand accounts of climate impacts from our Christian brothers and sisters around the world is not controversial or partisan, it is Christian. For us, it is about defending human life and health, pursuing justice and compassion, and caring for all God’s creation.

As people of love, courage, transformation, and hope, climate action is not something to avoid or fear. Rather, it is a powerful and prophetic opportunity for us to be the salt and light that Jesus calls us to be.

As young people raised by many of you to be just these kinds of people, here is what we ask: As you pray today, pray for God’s groaning creation and for our vulnerable neighbors who are being harmed. As you go back tomorrow to the communities that you lead, live out these prayers with courage and conviction.

Introduce your followers to the richness of Scripture’s teaching about God’s love for God’s world and our call to care for it.

Defend life by supporting policies that will transition our economy away from dirty, toxic fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.

Love your God by acting to protect the good works of his hands.

Love your neighbors by fighting for a world where they have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and a stable climate for generations to come.

As you pray and act, we stand alongside you in the power and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that together we might become the answer to our prayers.

In the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap
National Organizer and Spokesperson
Young Evangelicals for Climate Action

Katelyn Beaty
Author and Speaker

Christina Edmondson
Dean of Intercultural Student Development
Calvin University

Mika Edmondson
Pastor
New City Fellowship

Andre Henry
Program Manager
Evangelicals for Social Action

Rachel Lamb
Flagship Fellow and PhD Candidate
University of Maryland, College Park

Ben Lowe
Author, Activist

Jonathan Merritt
Author

Jessica Moerman
AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow
Co-Founder, Grace Capital City Church

Melissa Moore
Living Proof Ministries

Adam Taylor
Executive Director
Sojourners

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Director
School for Conversion

(Titles and organizations are listed for identification purposes only)

Source: Religion News Service

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The Rev. Tim Schenck serves as rector of the Episcopal Parish of St. John the Evangelist in Hingham, Massachusetts. His latest book is “Holy Grounds: The Surprising Connection Between Coffee and Faith.” Follow him on Twitter @FatherTim. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1.

“The ancient Greeks had four words for love,” the narrator intoned.

I froze, with a guacamole-laden tortilla chip perched inches from my watering mouth, wondering if one of my kids had inadvertently changed the channel away from the Super Bowl. What could ancient Greek, and words I learned my first semester of seminary, possibly be doing amid the most expensive ad buy of the year?

As the 60-second spot for New York Life unfolded before my eyes, I was amazed to hear an explanation of these four aspects of love.

The insurance company’s ad continued: “The first is philia — philia is affection that grows from friendship. Next, there’s storge – the kind you have for a grandparent or a brother. The third is eros, the uncontrollable urge to say ‘I love you.’ The fourth kind of love is different. It’s the most admirable. It’s called agape – love as an action. It takes courage. Sacrifice. Strength.”

If those sound familiar, chances are it’s because of C.S. Lewis, the 20th-century Anglican academic, Christian and author of the beloved “Chronicles of Narnia,” who wrote about them in a book titled “The Four Loves.” In it, he highlighted the same four types of love delineated by New York Life: storge (affection), philia (friendship), eros (romantic) and agape (charity).

Now, at one level, I should be grateful that an insurance company with deep enough pockets to afford a Super Bowl ad has added a nuanced definition of love to the public conversation. In between brain-rattling tackles and blatant consumerism was planted a seed of beauty and joy, inspiration and hope.

Yet it was New York Life’s definition of agape that caused my initial excitement to morph into “Stay in your lane, you behemoth, soulless insurance company!”

Because for Lewis and for Christians more broadly, agape, that greatest of all loves, is the unconditional, all-encompassing, selfless, divine love embodied in Jesus Christ. Christ’s love is freely given with no expectation of return. And while Jesus makes a claim upon his followers, it has nothing to do with filing an insurance claim, and everything to do with baptismal identity.

If love is “an action” as the ad claims, “strength” is not a part of the equation — at least not for a faith where “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). As Lewis writes in “Mere Christianity”: “If you want to get warm then you have to stand near the fire; if you want to get wet, then you have to get into the water.”

Source: Religion News Service

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — A nondenominational Christian university in Nashville says it will consider hiring non-Christian faculty from an art college it recently merged with.

Thomas Burns,  the provost from Belmont University, had previously told students from Watkins College of Art that the university only hires Christians to teach. Non-Christian faculty at Watkins, a small, struggling art school, would not be hired at Belmont after the merger.

His comments, which were recorded and posted on YouTube, caused controversy on campus and made national headlines.

A spokesperson for Belmont said Tuesday (Feb. 4) that no decisions have been made about faculty hirings post-merger. The school won’t decide how many staff or faculty it will hire until it knows more details, including how many students will transfer.

If there are openings, Watkins staff will be able to apply.

“Because we recognize current Watkins employees could not control nor anticipate merging with a faith-based institution, it has been determined that special consideration will be given to current Watkins employees regardless of their position of faith,” the school said in a statement. “This exception to our hiring policy is only being made due to the nature of merging institutions and out of Belmont’s commitment to care for the Watkins community.”

Belmont’s nondiscrimination policy forbids discrimination based on “race, sex, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, military service, or sexual orientation” but does say the school “seeks employees of Christian faith who are committed to the mission of the University.”

Source: Religion News Service

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President Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address peppered with religious references and ideas on Tuesday evening (Feb. 4), laying out a sweeping vision for the United States that evoked old (and contested) religious ideas and catered directly to conservative Christians who make up his base of support.

The president made several appeals to faith throughout his annual speech to the nation and the U.S. Congress, some of which appear to be targeted at specific demographics. Here are a few.

Roughly halfway through his speech, Trump outlined his opposition to abortion through a mixture of story and theology. He pointed out the presence of Ellie Schneider and her mother, Robin, in the crowd, explaining that the 2-year-old Ellie was born premature at just 21 weeks in 2017 — but was saved “through the skill of her doctors and the prayers of her parents.”

Her story was framed in two ways: as an argument for granting additional government funding for neonatal research, and against abortion.

“Ellie reminds us that every child is a miracle of life,” Trump said, adding that he is asking Congress to pass legislation “finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.”

He then invoked the Almighty as a potentially unifying force for lawmakers: “Whether we are Republican, Democrat or independent, surely we must all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God.”

The lines echo his rhetoric in other recent speeches when he referenced abortion, particularly when addressing conservative Christians. In January, he spoke at an evangelical church in Miami to kick off his “Evangelicals for Trump” campaign initiative, repeating his opposition to abortion and declaring to the group of Christian conservatives that he believes “we have God on our side.”

President Donald Trump speaks at the March for Life rally Jan. 24, 2020, on the National Mall in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A few weeks later, Trump delivered a speech at the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion gathering in Washington, where he told the crowd of thousands, “When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.”

The president also lifted up what he described as his administration’s dedication to religious freedom, including the right to pray in schools.

“My administration is also defending religious liberty, and that includes the constitutional right to pray in public schools,” he said. “In America, we don’t punish prayer. We don’t tear down crosses. We don’t ban symbols of faith. We don’t muzzle preachers and pastors. In America, we celebrate faith, we cherish religion, we lift our voices in prayer, and we raise our sights to the glory of God.”

Advocating for prayer in public schools has long been a hallmark of the religious right, which has spent decades insisting that teachers and administrators should be allowed to lead students in prayer. Despite a series of Supreme Court decisions generally outlawing the practice — including a 2000 decision that banned school districts from sponsoring student-led prayers at football games — a 2019 Pew Research survey found that while orisons in public schools are rare, they still occur: 8% of teenage public school students said they have ever had a teacher lead their class in prayer, a number that rises to 12% in the South.

The issue of religious liberty has become a rallying cry among Christian conservatives in recent years as well, particularly surrounding issues of same-sex marriage, abortion and contraception, which many religious conservatives oppose. The concept has also been invoked by conservative activists who argue that barring faith leaders and groups from formally endorsing candidates — a move that would violate their tax-exempt status — impinges on their religious freedom (or as Trump put it, “muzzles” them). Hence Trump’s 2017 executive order “promoting free speech and religious liberty” that curtailed the enforcement of such laws.

Source: Religion News Service

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The Vatican sought Wednesday (Feb. 5) to explain the absence of a key member of Pope Francis’ protocol team following the scandal over a book on priestly celibacy co-written by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

The Vatican press office denied that Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, who works for both the reigning and the retired pope, had been officially suspended as head of Francis’ papal household over his role in the scandal.

It said his absence from Francis’ private and public audiences for the past several weeks was “due to an ordinary redistribution of the various commitments and duties of the prefect of the Papal Household.”

The press office noted that Gaenswein also was Benedict’s personal secretary.

The statement suggested the Holy See was trying to find an elegant way to justify Gaenswein’s unofficial removal from Francis’ team by saying he was dedicating himself more full time to Benedict’s needs.

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