Monday, October 13, 2025

Part I

An Historic Day in Israel: We Hope and Pray for Peace in Israel and Gaza – But the Main Challenge Continues to be Hamas

President Donald Trump departed Washington yesterday headed for Israel, where today he is expected, along with others, to meet with released hostages. Now understand immediately that the presence of the president of the United States expecting these hostages to be released, it significantly ups the ante, so to speak. It puts the pressure on Hamas to all new unprecedented levels. And as you know, near the end of last week, Israel having already signed on to this new peace agreement, or at least an interim peace agreement, a ceasefire agreement, Hamas signed onto it at the end of the week. But we now know a great deal more about why Israel signed the agreement, came to terms with the Trump administration, and why Hamas did the very same, and they are both interesting stories.

First of all, Israel. Why did Israel agree to this? Well, on the one hand, you had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who political observers said, would weaken his own political position if indeed there was a ceasefire and there was a return of the hostages. Some of that just makes sense by the way, given the fact that he is already the longest serving prime minister in Israel’s history. And there are huge questions being asked about why Israel was not as prepared as it should have been on October the 7th of 2023 when the Hamas attack took place. On the other hand, Benjamin Netanyahu’s military strategy, particularly in basically wiping out the leadership of Hezbollah, also significantly weakening the leadership of Hamas. In both cases, the groups have basically had their leadership core largely eliminated.

You also have very significant Israeli activity having an impact on the ground in Syria. And of course, Israel’s attack upon Iran including wiping out many of Iran’s senior leadership and intelligence officials. And so Israel has been, since the October 7 attacks, basically in the position of amazing the world in terms of its ability to strike and to strike with incredibly deadful effectiveness throughout much of the Middle East. It has also become clear in ways that people did not know, and it previously not been confirmed, that a lot of this was done to a greater degree even than we had expected with the cooperation of many of the Arab states, in particular the Gulf States and Egypt. And so even though a lot of this has to be rather quiet and some of it has to be at least deniable in terms of modern diplomacy, the reality is that Israel is in a very strong position in the entire region. It’s also true that Israel is only there because of its strength and because of the strength of its military, the IDF, the Israel Defense forces.

On the other hand, you’re also looking at a political reality. And how that unwinds for Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition, that’s not immediately clear. What is clear is that Israel basically put itself in a position where it was very vulnerable, let’s just say, to political pressure from the president of the United States after a very ill-advised strike on Qatar, a key American ally. And Israel was clearly on the defensive after undertaking that action and embarrassing the United States. And you had the active involvement of President Donald Trump, and almost assuredly in defining reality for Israel and the Israeli leadership, defining reality as in, there is going to be an end to this. And so the president of the United States had his hand strengthened in that regard.

What about Hamas? Well, the Wall Street Journal and others in the international media are giving some pretty interesting detail as to why Hamas, which wasn’t expected to sign this agreement, did eventually sign the agreement. And it is because of the overwhelming pressure, yes, from the United States and from Israel. Yes, undeniably, but it is also because key partners and supporters throughout the Arab world, had had enough and made very clear that Hamas was going to sign the ceasefire agreement, was going to agree to release the captives. And of course, we’re waiting with great expectancy to see that happen.

It underlines the evil of Hamas not only in terms of its murderousness and its raid on Israel and October the 7th, and frankly its deadly attacks on the civilians and others, its commitment to the extinction of Israel. All that was already clear. But this hostage taking has been revealed before the world as the basic evil that it is. And Hamas had run out of support.

Now, there is, at this point, no agreed upon structure for where exactly to go from here, but the reality is that it is a massive diplomatic achievement. It is unprecedented in terms of recent history there in the Middle East. It reflects the fact that not only did Donald Trump, the President of the United States, take a very key leadership role in this, but so did others in the region. And President Trump mentioned this in his comments on Friday.

And so diplomacy is an ongoing project. It is never a perfect project. It is a balancing of interests in order to come towards common goals and common agreements, sometimes when there is no even common understanding of exactly how you got there and maybe even some questions about where you go from here. There are huge challenges and everyone knows it and where the parties go from here. Israel must defend itself. Israel must protect itself. Israel is absolutely committed to the elimination of Hamas as an active threat. But that’s easier said than done. And what we’re looking at again is an asymmetrical reality.

Israel is a state, it is a government. Israel is governed by a political coalition. It is a constitutional democracy. And Israel’s accountable in the world of nations in a way that Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, in ways that it is not. As a matter of fact, this Islamist terrorist organization, Hamas is actually, in so many ways, the exact opposite of a state in terms of responsible moral action. And so Israel is put to the disadvantage of having to play by rules of civilization that Hamas and other terrorist organizations exist to try to disrupt, deny, and destroy.

On the other hand, Israel is a nation. It’s a very proud nation. It is an incredibly self-sufficient nation, but it is a nation that cannot exist without the political support of the United States of America. And this means that the president of the United States has enormous influence in the state of Israel. It means that the Israeli attack upon Qatar, disrupted that relationship, and it put Israel in the position where it basically needed to find common ground with the Americans, and that meant with the American president. And it was also at the same time that Hamas was running out of options.

And so when you talk about diplomatic achievements, this is likely to be remembered as one of the most significant diplomatic achievements of modern times. And if indeed it holds, it could be one of the most significant diplomatic achievements in all of recent history and maybe even longer than that. But at the very least, it has created a new opportunity. And President Trump and others, but President Trump and the United States of America entered into this bringing a lot of moral authority, a lot of political power, a lot of clout with Israel as Israel’s key ally.

And I think with a lot of mutual respect, Israel eventually, like every other nation, has to do what it sees as in its own best interest. But remember where you have an electoral democracy as Israel is, the government is accountable to the people. And the people there in Israel, clearly it said it’s their greatest priority, the release of the prisoners. Period. And the cessation of military activity as soon as possible. We’ll be watching to see what happens. Undoubtedly, today and the days that follow are going to be history-making days. We need to hope and pray those hostages are released. And we have to hope and pray there can be an opportunity for the people of Gaza to know a real and substantial and lasting peace. But the big actor morally responsible in that regard is going to continue to be Hamas.

One final thought on this, by the way, it shows how politics works. It shows how politics is present just about everywhere. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization. But you know what? It was under political pressure by especially Muslim-dominated and Arab states to agree to this ceasefire agreement. And so even where a group may claim to be non-political, not driven by politics per se, not accountable to politics per se, even a terrorist organization that frankly operates outside all the boundaries of civilization, at the end of the day, it has to bend to legitimate state actors without who support it cannot survive. Politics, it turns out, is everywhere. It’s a phenomenon of human existence, whether it is named as that or not.

Part II

Family and the Political Binary: Republicans are Increasingly the Party of Those Who Have Children While Democrats Are Not

All right, let’s come back to the United States. A couple of developments that I think are of particular interest to Christians. Christians are going to be interested in these issues. And Christians are going to understand these issues at a far deeper level than others. Our commitments are far deeper than others coming to the same situation. So let’s just start with a report.

In the Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll is the author of this report. The headline is “The Married with Children Party versus the Single and Childless Party.” Now, let me just say that Conn Carroll in this case, and the Washington Examiner, they’re talking about a major report released by the Institute for Family Studies with Scott Yenor and Lyman Stone as the primary researchers behind this report. It was released on September the 18th of this year.

Following up on that, Conn Carroll offers a very insightful summary, and I love the headline, “The Married With Children Party,” that means political party, that means the Republicans, “Versus the Single and Childless party,” and of course that means the Democrats. This is how Carroll begins his article, “More than any other issue, family formation is fast becoming the defining factor between Democrats and Republicans. As an Institute for Family Studies report recently showed, the higher the support for President Donald Trump in any one county, the higher the fertility rate was likely to be in that county.”

Now, we talked about this before. As a matter of fact, we talked about it in terms of a gubernatorial election in Virginia that took place less than a decade ago. And I was astounded by the research that came out after the election, demonstrating that the Democratic candidate won the women’s vote so long as the woman was single and had no children. And the Republican carried virtually all the vote of women who were married with children in the home. And so that just shows you how the difference in moral perspective leads to a difference in the setting in terms of marriage, family, children. But that setting also is a leading indicator of how a woman is going to vote.

Now, there are some similar patterns among men, but it is really interesting because it is the women’s vote that has shifted more than the men’s vote in some of these respects. Certainly when it comes to some of the family issues, the women’s vote has increasingly shown up, election by election, state by state, situation by situation, with increased reference to the distinction between unmarried women and married women and the distinction between women who have children in the home and those who do not.

It turns out, for reasons I think Christians can understand, the voting pattern is very different. The voting priorities are very different. The political understanding is very different. I’ll say for one thing, the horizon is very different. And I say that as a father and as a grandfather. My concern with policies isn’t just for my lifetime. It’s not even my priorities. My understanding of policies is not just about my lifetime, it’s about the lifetime of my children and now the lifetime of my children’s children, of my grandchildren. I care deeply about the world they are going to know, the policies and laws that will be in place when they are having children of their own. And I think that’s a very clear biblical pattern by the way. We are to be the people who are concerned for our children and our children’s children. That has an inherently conserving effect. It’s a conservative effect.

All right. This Institute for Family Studies report makes that very clear. As the Washington Examiner reported, the new study is looking at lifestyle preferences and choices of conservative and liberal women. “And the results show that conservative women are far more likely to be married, to want more children, and to have more children. Democratic women are far more likely to be single and childless.”

Okay. A couple of very interesting things. You’re looking at a lot of women who were surveyed in this study. It found “that at every age, conservative women were more likely to be married than liberal women. So while conservative women ages 25 to 29 were less likely to be married than liberal women, age 35 to 39, they were far more likely to be married than liberal women of their same age.”

So in other words, looking at different generations, there’s been a decline in how many women in each generation are married by, say, age 25 or age 30. But in every one of those cohorts, there’s a very clear distinction between liberal and conservative women.

When it comes to children, not only are the conservative women more likely to be married, they are more likely to have multiple children. And so at one point we’re reminded that the replacement rate is 2.1. Many conservative women report, at least 2.4, and say they want more children. The fact is that a lot of the liberal women actually expressed the desire for children, but that separated from being married and frankly making children a life priority. In other words, actually having children or being in the context to have children.

The end of the article in the Washington Examiner is a little snarky, but I think you’ll want to hear it. The last line is this, “In other words, while Republicans are making babies, Democrats are just making brunch plans.” Okay. I said it’s a little snarky. That’s a generalization, and in some cases it’s going to be unfair. But you know what? I have looked in-depth at the actual report from the Institute for Family Studies, and it’s not wrong. It is just not wrong. The partisan distinction is astounding.

But there’s something behind this that I find even more interesting at one level, and that is the fact that you’ve got to put age issues in this kind of study. In other words, when you talk about a woman’s reproductive life, you’re talking about something that is physiologically timed. And so to put it bluntly, a woman who is in her 40s is likely to find it more difficult to get pregnant and to have children than when she was in her 20s. So the interesting thing you have to overlay in this is the age in which the women who do get married, get married, and then how quickly do they set about trying to have children? And the fact is that for all kinds of reasons, a lot of women are marrying later if they’re marrying. And then they’re waiting even longer to have children, and that’s leading to a very different situation than is found among women who identify as being more conservative, who tend to marry, greater rates, tend to marry younger, and tend to get about having children faster, and thus they have more of them.

I think it tells us a lot, by the way, of something that, it just reveals God’s plan, what God has put in the heart of women. I think also in the heart of men in a way that many men don’t want to admit. But particularly in the heart of women, the desire to have children. It’s a very sweet reminder of creation order. And it just makes it all the more heartbreaking for those women who express the fact that they want to have children, but they’re not married and they don’t have any.

Part III

The Growing Fear of Dying Alone: The Number of Americans Dying Alone–Truly Alone–is Increasing

But one thing that is simply underlined here is the fact that decisions come with consequences. And some of these decisions may feel, I think to the individual, like they’re more of a default, but they end up being, over time, no doubt, decisions to one degree or another. And the decision not to marry or to marry later comes with all kinds of consequences, particularly for a woman because of the biological clock, if nothing else.

And so we can look at this with a tremendous degree of sympathy, and I think we certainly should look at this kind of development with a lot of sympathy for all involved. But the fact is that some things are very difficult to undo and to overcome. And I think it’s very sad that a lot of people, and in particular men too, yes, but a lot of women find at a certain point in life, and they realize they don’t have a husband and they don’t have children, that they’re not going to have grandchildren. And it’s a very different picture. And I think there’s more heartbreak there. And I want to say not only among women. I think there’s heartbreak, even if it’s not articulated, among a lot of men who realize they live a very quiet life that can actually, in many cases, be quite lonely.

Of course, this raises an opportunity for the Christian Church, and I want to put on the table of our concerns, an article that appeared over the weekend at the Washington Post, because this one is truly heartbreaking. And I think it just underlines God’s plan and creation order for the family, but it also affirms a great opportunity for Christians in ministry and in friendship.

The Washington Post headline is: “An Age-old Fear Grows More Common: I’m going to Die Alone.” The subhead in the Washington Post, this was released Saturday says, “As families fracture, people are living longer and more are likely to find themselves without close relatives or friends at the end of their lives.”

Okay. So I want to tell you, when I saw this, it’s by Judith Graham and in cooperation with KFF Health News, when I saw this, I thought perhaps dying alone was a metaphor. It’s not. It is actually the bare fact of the story, telling us that an increasing percentage of Americans are alone, they’re lonely, and they’re afraid of dying alone.

Listen to this, “Older adults have become isolated because of sickness, frailty, or disability, some of them.” But regardless of the reason, “Between 20 and 25% of older adults who do not live in nursing homes aren’t in regular contact with other people.” Okay. Now sentence structure matters. So in other words, the period comes right after other people. Period. It’s not qualified. This tells us that one out of five or one out of four of senior adults in America are living alone without contact with other people. Period. Doesn’t say just with family members or friends. It just says they’re out of contact with other people, not in nursing homes. They’re living alone. Very alone. Period.

Now, all right, this is heartbreaking. And I think this is the kind of development that ought to have our attention as Christians. Number one, it just reminds us that it was God who said in his very active creation, it is not good for man to be alone. We are not meant to be solitary creatures.

One statistic I love to talk about, and as a husband, I understand this fully, men who are married live longer than men who are not. That’s just a fact of life. Men go to the doctor because their wives tell them they got to go to the doctor, and the wife probably makes the appointment as well. She’s the one who’s making certain that you’re doing what you’re supposed to do and you’re taking the medicines. Men left alone, I’m not saying this is universally true, I’m just saying that men left alone, well, they live shorter lives than men who are married. Period.

Now, there are men who are in that situation just like women who are in that situation. That’s not where they expect it to be, but that’s where they are. But the sad thing in this article is that a lot of these people who are described in this article, they’re not surprised to find themselves alone. They didn’t marry. They are isolated from their families, and they basically are just now alone. But they also don’t have a friend structure. And I think that’s what’s shocking to many of us.

Okay, so let’s just say there’s a theological alarm going off here. Creation order matters, we know that. But let’s just go in a broken world, to the compassionate understanding that there are people who are just incredibly crushingly alone in this world. And there are people who are very afraid. As a matter of fact, this article cites an astounding number of Americans, 55 or older, who are afraid of dying alone. The Post tells us, “More than 15 million people, 55 or older don’t have a spouse or biological children. Nearly 2 million have no family members at all.” At all, again, period.

Now, I think this is an urgent issue for the church’s attention. If no one else in the world takes this seriously, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ should take this seriously. It is an enormously sad development, but it is also something that local congregations, evangelical congregations, need to keep in mind.

First of all, let’s just make certain that there’s no one in our congregation who is alone without friends and is afraid of dying alone. That’s at least a part of what it should mean to be a part of the Body of Christ in a gospel congregation. Once again, by the way, even if you don’t know anything about theology, you do know that people who are actively involved in church live longer than those who don’t. And it’s also because of the fellowship, the friend structure, the love, the fellowship of the local church. And I think the greatest thing that we should fear here, is that there are people perhaps even all around us, maybe even living on the same street, who are crushingly lonely. They have no one in this world.

We’re told that one out of five to one out of four adults, aged 55 and older, just have no basic relationship structure at all. Some of that is due to their life choices. There’s no doubt about it. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care, and it doesn’t mean the church doesn’t face a real opportunity here. And so I just want to say I don’t have a program to propose. I do have a moral cause to put before you, and it does remind us of the preciousness of family. It makes me all the more thankful to be a part of a family, all the more thankful to be married, all the more thankful to be a father and a grandfather and an uncle. And all the more thankful to have friends and a support structure, extended kin, and just the privilege of being around people who I deeply care about and who care about me, whom I love and who love me in so many different contexts. I am brokenhearted to think of people who are so alone, they are practically afraid of dying alone.

The Washington Post report tells of some of these senior adults, older adults, they’re not all defined as elderly. Again, 55 and older, some of them are just coming up with funeral plans to just take care of whatever might happen after they die. And the big question is, who would even come to their funeral? We can’t solve this problem sociologically. We can’t solve this problem just by some kind of concerted program. But the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ should be concerned about this, especially when we understand that the numbers are so large, undoubtedly includes people we pass or whose homes we pass just about every day.

I’m going to end today in a very strange place. I’m going to talk about Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson. The old story of Dennis the Menace, the cartoon strip, and then the black and white TV program, and then the movie came up in a conversation the other day, and I realized that they really don’t know anything about Dennis the Menace. About 10, 11, 12-year-old boy who’s up to a lot of mischief. He has his buddy Tommy. They get in mischief together. And his nemesis is an older man, an older couple that lives nearby. The man is Mr. Wilson, married of course to Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson’s kind of a kindly figure. Mr. Wilson is an old curmudgeon. He was so in the cartoon strip. He was so in the black and white TV series in the ’50s. He was so in the movies.

But here’s the deal. He is disappointed any day that he doesn’t see Dennis the Menace. His day is frustrated if he doesn’t have to deal with Dennis the Menace he may appear to be grouchy and irritable, but the fact is, Dennis, the Menace and Mr. Wilson need each other. And seen rightly there in that little neighborhood, depicted in a very different America and a stable suburban neighborhood, still, the fact that Mr. Wilson has Dennis the Menace makes a big difference, not only to Mr. Wilson, but I assure you, to Dennis the Menace, who no doubt was a little less a menace, precisely because of Mr. Wilson.

All right, we have to come to an end. And if you have no idea who Dennis the Menace is, your assignment is to find out.