I am grateful for solid Christian thinkers and communicators who stand in the public square to bring solid comment to our current cultural messes.

Their reach is far more significant than me posting on a blog that I hope finds some space into someone’s mind 50 years from now so people in the future can know, “Oh, there were a few that TRIED to say something.”

David French is one such voice writing in public spaces and speaking with authority on constitutional law.

In an essay published on Nov. 1, 1787, he wrote a powerful plea for a Bill of Rights, but finished with a prescient warning about the power of the presidency:

The office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous. To be the fountain of all honors in the United States, commander in chief of the army, navy and militia, with the power of making treaties and of granting pardons, and to be vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, and put their names down upon calling the yeas and nays for that purpose, is in reality to be a KING as much a King as the King of Great Britain, and a King too of the worst kind — an elective King.

An Old Whig overstates his case. Even the president’s considerable powers didn’t place him in the same place as Britain’s monarch, much less the even more powerful king of France, but he was exactly right on his core point: The powers granted to the president in the Constitution are great enough that an unscrupulous man or woman in the Oval Office can place an extraordinary strain on the country.

By now, this observation almost seems quaint. The steady expansion of presidential powers has already placed a strain on American democracy. But where previous presidents walked, Trump now runs — the era of incremental presidential power grabs is over.

More HERE from French.

Russell Moore writes and speaks in the public square as well. Again, he draws attention to the crisis we face in this country with the Constitution and adds his weariness over the few who want to control the country using “God” as a tool.

There are, of course, massive constitutional, social, economic, and foreign policy implications to this time, implications that will no doubt reverberate through the decades and perhaps even the centuries. But what if there are theological causes and effects too?

In the past few weeks, my colleague Kara Bettis Carvalho examined tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson’s claims in the Netflix documentary Don’t Diethat he could engineer his body to escape mortality. Once again, few seem to hear the reverberations of Genesis 3: “You shall not surely die” (v. 4, ESV throughout).

Several years ago, Elon Musk told Axios journalists Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei that human beings “must merge with machines to overcome the ‘existential threat’ of artificial intelligence.” When pressed about what this means for our sense of reality, Musk said that we should question whether reality is itself real. “We are most likely in a simulation,” he said, elsewhere noting that the likelihood that we’re not living in a simulated world is only one in billions. The implication is clear—maybe on the other side of the veil of the universe around us is a cosmic Elon Musk.

“God” is no problem in this view of reality. After all, the word God can be made abstract and even algebraic.

Jesus, on the other hand, is not easily dismissed. Once he is heard—not as a theoretical avatar giving authority to some ideology, but for the actual words he spoke, the actual gospel he delivered—the ambitions of every would-be “master of the universe” stand exposed.

More HERE from Russell Moore.

We’ve allowed all of this. The Constitution begins with “We the People…” and we the people have allowed the few and now the fewer to call all the shots in our society and now, proverbially, the dog has caught the car.

The appeal is to step back. Turn around. This is repentance. And we need a lot of it as believers.

It is hard work. And we need hard work. It’s not just a constitutional government at stake. It is our humanity. It is about the marginalized getting shoved further and further to the margins and this is where the Church needs to step up and step in.

Moore finishes his article with this:

In his inaugural sermon at Nazareth, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah the prophet, recounting the “good news to the poor” that comes with “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isa. 61:1–2; Luke 4:18–19). That same prophetic book taught us to pray, “O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance” (Isa. 26:13).

After all the promises of the tech-bros are gone, Jesus abides.

Where do we go:

Radical commitment to the Sermon on the Mount. Live it out. This is not a new legalism to set up and make people follow. It is freedom and Jubilee in our world.

Pray the Psalms. A lot. And in this season, the imprecatory Psalms are completely appropriate. If you want to know what an imprecatory Psalm is, read Psalm 10 for starters.

The Remnant is always the mode of salvation for God. It’s never the big numbers. We’re consumed with big numbers and we need to turn away (repent) from that. When God is going to turn something toward the Kingdom, he doesn’t look to the crowds. He looks to places like the 12. He whittles the crowd down to a group that will finally listen and realize who he is (John 6).

So, find the Remnant. Be the Remnant. Create the Remnant.

Also… and this one is the hard part… be ready for the cost.

Let’s be real. I’m studying Bonhoeffer right now and it doesn’t end well. He is executed at age 39 and while Germany does surrender, the Confessing Church he had started 10 years prior had collapsed. The resistance to Hitler fell apart inside Germany.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated at age 39. Many of the Civil Rights victories are being attacked and dismantled in our day.

Be ready for the cost.

Not everyone goes with you.

Liberate the poor. Heal the sick. Raise up the lame. Preach freedom.

No matter what.

This is what is needed.