Ask us anything: Navigating cultural chaos with biblical truth

Mark Turman: [00:00:01] You're listening to Faith and Clarity. I'm Mark Turman. We want to equip you today to find clarity in today's cultural chaos and apply some biblical truth to today's issues, whatever you may be facing. This week, we are having uh one of our more uh relaxed conversations if you will, uh as we host uh what we call our ask us anything episode. And uh if you'd like to submit a question, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at info at denisonforum.org. That's info I N F O at denisonforum.org and we'll try to include your question in an upcoming episode. So, today we're going to jump into things like vibe shift and Sharia law, uh what's going on in Cuba and maybe an update on how we need to think about biblical sexuality. Uh and if we have time, we'll get around to an a uh since you asked kind of moment at the end. Joining me today are the Dr. Dennison, familiar to most of you, uh Dr. Jim Dennison, our founder and cultural apologist, and Dr. Ryan Dennison, who is our senior editor for theology. Jim, good morning. We're glad to have you with us again.

Jim Denison: [01:13] Glad to be back with both of you today. Thanks for the privilege.

Mark Turman: [01:16] You bet. Ryan, how are you today?

Ryan Denison: [01:17] Doing well. Doing well. Happy to be here.

Mark Turman: [01:21] Well, we're going to jump right in and uh chase some of these rabbits and just see where they go. And uh so I'm going to invite our audience to grab their favorite beverage, coffee or otherwise, and uh spend a little bit of time with us as we try to work through some of the things that are moving around in our culture these days. Uh Jim, I want to take you back to, I know a topic that's very familiar and a favorite of yours, which is uh what is a meta narrative and then tagging on on on along that, uh some conversations I've been in recently and other questions I've heard from people are, well, what is a meta narrative and then kind of its cousin, what is a meta crisis and is that a helpful way, even a biblical way for us to think about the context that we're living in? How is it helpful? How might it not be helpful? Can you uh guide us in that?

Jim Denison: [02:13] Yeah. Well, I'd be glad to try. Uh George Friedman is one of my favorite cultural analysts. Uh he has for years run various organizations that are kind of seen as shadow CIAs of sorts and a lot of his intelligence has been used by our intelligence agencies over the years. Well, he made popular this idea of a meta narrative. The concept that every country has what you could call a cultural DNA. It has a basic thing it's trying to do. It has a north on the compass. And if you can understand that, you can better interpret its past and predict its future. As regards current events, for instance, Iran's meta narrative to use Friedman's language would be to rebuild the Persian Empire, to create a Shiite crescent from Iran through Iraq and Syria and Lebanon all the way to the Mediterranean as a way of preparing for the coming of the Mahdi, their version of a Messiah. And so everything they're doing today with us, with the straight of Hormuz, whatever, is all a means to that end of building this larger empire that can advance Islam around the their version of Islam around the world. They see the other Muslim nations that are Sunni and not Shia as apostate relative to that vision. And that's why they can bomb their fellow Muslim neighbors as a means to this end. They see deception. It's called Takaya and Kitman. Those are doctrines in Islam whereby they can deceive to advance Islam. And that's why negotiations are so difficult. So if we understand their meta narrative, we're better able to predict their future and understand their current behavior. So that's Friedman's idea. I think it really is helpful. It relates to a meta crisis in the sense of multiple crises at the same time. The idea that we're dealing with a war on several fronts, or the idea that at the same time we're worried about AI, we're also thinking about another pandemic and we're also worried about the stock market and we're also worried about Iran and we're thinking about China and Taiwan and what could be happening in the Pacific. And so if you've got a number of crises all at the same time, then you're dealing with what could be considered a meta crisis, but most of those are provoked by meta narratives. So that's how all of that goes together as it were.

Mark Turman: [04:14] Okay. So, uh let me just take you down this trail for a moment. If you were to describe America's meta narrative, what would it be?

Jim Denison: [04:24] Yeah, there's it's shifted over the years. The first meta narrative was founding a country. Well, first of all, it was colonizing the Eastern seaboard. And at that point in time, expanding the what we call the UK, expanding England's empire over to the new world and creating a foothold there along the Eastern seaboard. And then over time, the narrative shifts from colonizing to uniting in the sense that we need to be united against this British Empire so as to have the rights that they're denying us. And so then independence becomes a meta narrative. Then settling the West becomes a meta narrative and this idea of manifest destiny and creating an American empire as it were from the west to the east. And then with World War II and the results of that, it becomes a global empire, a kind of a superpower and controlling the our navy controlling all the ports so as to advance global commerce and and developing geopolitical relationships that enhance the kind of economy we need so as to be able to trade and advance our own economy. So today, I would say it would be preserving our superpower status for the sake of our own global commerce and the advancement of our own agendas here at home as well.

Mark Turman: [05:31] Okay. So it a meta narrative can be somewhat fluid in nature and can evolve, change uh over time.

Jim Denison: [05:38] Especially in the US because we're such a young country compared to the Persians, you know, that you take all the all the way back to Cyrus and the Persian Empire defeating the Assyrian Empire, six centuries before Christ and you think of the Chinese having their own meta narrative because of course, there's been China as long as there's been history and Russia having a meta narrative to rebuild Mother Russia that goes all the way back, you know, to when the Urals were first being settled and Russia was first becoming a nation. So their meta narratives are more historically grounded and therefore more consistent. We're one of the newest nations in the world and one of the nations that has expanded in the most unusual ways. And so ours has been shifting in a way that maybe some other countries have not.

Mark Turman: [06:21] Yeah, okay. That's helpful. Let me uh chase this out a little bit further before we jump to Ryan's question uh to deal with, which is, um when I hear people talk about not just so much meta narratives, but meta crisis, um it tends to evoke uh a thought process of anxiousness. Um now I've heard you write on a number of occasions, including recently, uh about uh learning information, gathering uh information through news and other sources, um about things which we have very little control over. Um so how helpful is it to think along the lines of meta crisis and is there a uh a meta biblical response uh that can uh give us a greater sense of hope and confidence?

Jim Denison: [07:13] Yeah, we're all at that place, aren't we? We're all catching, not pitching in so many ways. I know very little about AI beyond what I've researched and written recently. So when I see things happening with AI breakouts and such, I certainly have no agency by which to do anything about that except become its victim perhaps. You think of geopolitical conflicts and unless we're soldiers or we're in the intelligence community or we're on some level fighting these wars, they're really wars that affect our economy in ways that we have no agency or control over. So you can feel pretty victimized these days. And the more 24/7 our news becomes, the more these stories become uh frontline news for us. And so the first thing we can do is pray. Uh news opportunities abound to pray for things that we can't otherwise control ourselves. Knowing that's not just what you do when you can't do anything else, that's the best thing to do anyway. Even if this is an issue over which we have some agency, the first thing we should do is pray. So that God will lead us as we act or so that we don't react, so that we can be redemptive in the situations where we do have some level of control or some place where we have influence. So first, we can pray about everything, including the things we can't control. And then second, we can look for ways to be engaged redemptively. Perhaps we can be that peaceful person on the ship in the midst of the storm that other people look to. John Wesley said, it was when they were caught in such a storm and the Moravian brethren were worshiping while he was terrified, that their worship in the storm is what helped draw him to faith in Christ. And think about all the implications of John Wesley's conversion as a result of just the peace in the storm that those believers manifested in his in his uh in his place of influence. So we can be influencers by how we respond to the meta crises around us as well, as well as praying for those that have a direct agency where we don't.

Mark Turman: [09:00] Yeah, so it reminds me of uh a preacher once said uh that I heard that we we can and we should be thinking and praying globally, but we're always acting locally. Um and and then I like the phrase that you sometimes use, you can never measure the eternal significance of daily faithfulness. Um we never know and we will only know in eternity how uh our obedience and our faithfulness to what God puts in front of us right out our front door, inside our front door on any given day might make a difference beyond what we could ever imagine. And

Jim Denison: [09:33] Absolutely believe that. C. S. Lewis made the point that if you think of time as a line on a page, God's the page. And then he related that even to our prayers. With this kind of mind-blowing idea that my prayers today can change the future tomorrow because God knows tomorrow what I'm praying today. He even took it backwards. He would suggest that our prayers today could change the past because God knew 30 years ago that we would be praying today for whatever it is and acted in light of our prayers at that point in time. Now, I can't get that in my little brain, but this concept of our prayers being able to be influential, not just in the current moment, but in all the moments because our God is the great I am is also an inducement and an encouragement to pray without ceasing.

Mark Turman: [10:15] Yeah, yeah, that's a good word. That's a good word. Ryan, let me uh ask you about vibe shifts today. One of uh the questions that we want to deal with. Uh we recently uh I got to have a conversation, a podcast with uh a philosopher by the name of Paul Antlighter. You've referenced him in your focus newsletter and in some of your other writing. He is uh Minnesota based and we had a wonderful conversation. But in some of his recent work, he says that he is seeing some early signs of a cultural vibe shift uh to a greater openness, to a greater receptivity uh to things that are spiritual, to things that are uh core even to Christianity. Uh I kind of couple that with a comment by another author I was reading recently who said, you know what, I'm not seeing anything that looks like revival or awakening uh in our culture as yet. Maybe it's coming, but I don't see it. Um just wondering what your take on that is. How would you describe uh this cultural moment? Uh Antlighter says we can even see it in our entertainment that uh recent movies like Top Gun Maverick and Hail Mary uh have a very positive kind of uh vibe to them. And he makes the point that these movies would not have even uh had hardly any box office impact if they had been offered up, you know, in 2019, 2020, but because we're in this new moment, uh there's a greater sense of hopefulness. Would you agree, disagree? How would you describe the moment we're in?

Ryan Denison: [11:51] Yeah, I think he's picking up on a really important shift in our culture right now. And I am currently still struggling to know how much of it is reactionary versus a sign of what things are going to be like going forward because I do think a lot of it is motivated by just a sense of exhaustion with all the drama, all the negativity, all the chaos of the previous of the last few years. Ever since 2020. I think COVID really brought a lot of that out by forcing people to just kind of stop and have to live with a lot of the choices that have been going on for decades. And I think a lot of what we're seeing now is a response to that where people are just there's no longer this expectation that to almost to be a good person, you have to be angry at a bunch of stuff or to be a good person, you have to you have to be rejecting the things that the culture says we reject. I think what we're seeing and what he's really, I think has a good finger on his the pulse of this is this this change where people are just they want to be happy again and they want to have hope again. And I think the movies like Top Gun Maverick, Hail Mary, I think even the new Spider-Man movie to an extent. Like you compare the new Spider-Man movie with a lot of Marvel's recent offerings and a lot of the other stuff we see. And I mean, Spider-Man is just a character that elicits hope. He's the neighborhood, he's the neighborhood hero. And a lot of, I think even that that movie was one of the fastest movies to make a billion dollars in recent history, the first one since 2019 of Marvel's to clear that cap. Um and I I think it just speaks to this idea that what people want and what I think what the vibe shift is is just it's a return to this this thought that maybe it's okay to find joy in life. Maybe it's okay to just accept the things that make us happy and to spend our time thinking about that. And I think that's an incredibly promising time uh for Christianity at the um because what we offer is the greatest sense of hope. And people are far more receptive, I think to hope when they feel like they're not supposed to feel hopeless. And I think when people are looking for that hope in new ways, then it's a remarkable opportunity for us to give it to show them how to find that in Jesus. So while I agree that I I don't necessarily know that we're on the cusp of revival necessarily. I I do think we're seeing aspects of that with younger generations. I think we're seeing aspects of that with um where people are just more open to the possibility of receiving hope from somewhere. And if as Christians, we can point them to that in the gospel, then that's awesome. But it's also, I don't think we're meant to see it as this fate of company that the US is going to return to our Christian roots or return to the gospel in any way, shape or form. I mean, I think there's an openness to that, but it's by no means guaranteed, which is why it's also really important for Christians to take advantage of this opportunity to be the ones to share that hope and to share that faith with Christ with others.

Mark Turman: [14:44] Yeah, it can be really hard to live in perpetual uh anger and frustration, right? Um let me let me um poke on your uh your skill as a historian here for a moment. Um as you were talking, I was just thinking that, you know, if we were trying to write a chapter about the first 25 years of this new millennium, uh I go back to the chaos of the 2000 election, which was uh Bush versus Gore and the hanging Chads. Not long after that came 9/11, right in that same period is the collapse of the dot com world. Um and from there to here, um you know, I'm wondering if this will even make it as a chapter in a history book that some high schooler might be reading. But how would you how would you frame the last 25 years um beyond what you said a moment ago is just a a season of kind of anger and restlessness?

Ryan Denison: [15:43] That's a good question and it's hard because so much of history is understood in retrospect that I'm not sure if we if we were living in the 1940s or the 19, like during the time of World War I and 1914, all that kind of stuff that we would necessarily be able to understand the historical impact of our moment in the moment. And so I think maybe we're starting to get far enough removed from 9/11, which is having its 25th anniversary next month. And um we're starting to get removed far enough removed from some of those events where we can begin to see their historical impact. Uh I think so to that extent, I think where this era might fit within the larger history is perhaps just an era of transition where so many of the things that we took for granted for centuries, I think in a lot of ways, um we questioned with a new sense of openness. Uh there was no longer this belief that just because your previous generations taught it, you should believe it. And I I think maybe to what maybe to an extent that's never really been the case where every generation seeks to make their own their own way and kind of question those who came before them. But I do think maybe with social media as well, it's gotten easier to do this where it's easy to find people that think like you. And I think that's created a level of disparity with regards to a a cultural expectation of what it is right to believe that hasn't really existed in the past. I mean, it's if you if you have disparate views, you can find a community that shares them. And I think maybe that's going to be one of the most enduring points of transition in the history of the world as we're experiencing it now and the history of our culture as well is just this pivot to where everyone can find someone to agree with them and everyone can find something to disagree with. And it gives us an amazing opportunity to find community that may not have always been available before, but that community is also not always going to be founded in the right things. Sometimes if we're finding our community and other people that believe the same lies that we do, that's not healthy. And I think it's gotten easier than ever to do that. And so to it's a long way of saying, I honestly don't know how history is going to remember this era. Um I and I don't and I think part of the reason why is that we're not done writing this era's chapter yet. I think we're nearing a very important pivot point and where we go from that because so much of the last few decades has been about deconstruction that maybe we're finally getting to the point of reconstructing and building back into something new. But I don't think there's necessarily a set in stone path for what that's going to be. And that's an exciting time to be alive. It's also a scary time to be alive in a lot of ways. And so I'm I'm very much looking forward to revisiting this question in 50 years. Uh Lord willing, I'm still around uh to see kind of how history remembers it then. But I I don't know that we can have a good answer right now.

Jim Denison: [18:38] I'm not sure who I'm not sure who he's going to revisit it with in 50 years. It probably won't be you or me. But uh you know, we we might have a very different perspective in 50 years if we're able to share it. But uh nonetheless. Maybe 20 then.

Mark Turman: [18:52] Well, we'll go with 20. There you go. Well, maybe uh maybe the historians, you know, 50 years out will stumble upon our podcast and realize that we were we were struggling to figure out how to describe our own time, right? As as both, you know, the best of times, the worst of times, it could always be applied to any era, I would suppose. Um Jim, one of the other things that's swirling around our culture in various places, including uh my hometown right here in North Texas is this topic of uh Islam, radical Islam and uh a new phrase, a new reality that's attached to it that we're trying to understand called Sharia law. Uh it's been very significant in the state of Texas and in other states as well. Can you give us a framework for what people are so concerned about? There was a very, very contentious uh city council meeting in my hometown recently about the building of a mosque. Uh and I'm just trying to think through, was watching some of this uh uh this gathering in my town about uh well, how does this intersect with our convictions about religious freedom uh and freedom for all? What what should we be thinking about? How should we be praying? Uh what should be our concerns as believers when it comes to these kinds of issues?

Jim Denison: [20:22] Well, it's a massive issue. Yeah, you're exactly right, Mark. I mean, what you're facing there, we're facing all across the country. I get asked about this a lot. I was up in DC not long ago with some congressmen and they were wanting to talk about this as well. What is Sharia law? What should we think about it? What should we worry about as regards it? So the word Sharia just means path. And it's an actually a category more than it's a specific thing. To speak of Sharia law is simply to speak of Muslim customs, of Muslim uh laws as such as it were. But there's no one set of Sharia law. It comes from four different sources actually, not just the Quran, but the Hadith and then two other sources as well. It's not as though you can point to a Muslim US Constitution and say all of their laws are there. They come from custom, they come from tradition, they come from scholarly uh kind of commentaries on earlier commentaries. It's a little like Jewish law, I suppose you could say. Some say the Jews had 613 laws, but in one way that's true and another, there were oral laws, there were oral traditions as well. And it depended on the Jew you were speaking to at the time in which you were speaking as regards what the law might say about that. You had the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai and you had all sorts of different ways. Uh Catholic canon law over the years has been something like this as well as opposed to a single set of laws as we tend to think of it. So it can be everything as innocent as the way Muslims wish to govern their families. Uh they wish to, for instance, not charge interest. Interest is is forbidden in Sharia law. So if they're going to get a loan, then they're going to want to go to a bank that will allow them to put something down in place of a loan, in place of interest, or they'll get a non-Muslim to negotiate the loan and then they'll make an arrangement with them that doesn't involve interest per se. Uh dietary laws are Sharia laws in Islam, just as kosher laws are in Judaism. And they're very similar by the way in terms of what they can and can't eat and how they can manage all of that. Uh they would wish to handle marital disputes within the mosque, within the synagogue, just as the Amish would wish to do that and observant Jews would wish to do that. And so in one sense, Sharia law is in no sense incompatible with democracy. The largest uh uh Muslim nation on earth is a democracy in Indonesia. Uh it's not at all true that Islam and democracy can't be compatible, even though in the Middle East they tend not to be. Turkey has been a democracy, although it's been a Muslim nation, not as democratic now as it used to be, but that's not because of Sharia law. So it's this kind of smorgasbord, it's this kind of uh spectrum of issues. Now, what people are worried about is getting to the place where Muslims might use free elections, which are not incompatible with Sharia law, then to abolish elections. That's what Hamas did. They got themselves elected and then they abolished elections. But that's not Sharia per se. That's a group of radicalized Muslims doing something that isn't specific just to Islam. We've seen that over the years. After Hitler became the Reich Chancellor, he abolished elections and that certainly had nothing to do with Islam and with Sharia law. So there's a concern that Sharia law could be made encroach to being encroached on American society. And if that is true, that would be because Muslims chose to do that the same way that theocratic laws in the Middle Ages were an expression of Catholicism that wasn't necessarily biblical. It's not Sharia law per se, it's not even Islam per se. It's how some Muslims might choose to advance their version of radicalized Islam through the democratic process. And that we of course should be concerned about. But that would be specific to Sharia or specific to Islam itself.

Mark Turman: [24:00] Okay. So, yeah, so that that brings both uh clarity and more more fog for me in some ways. Um but it really helps to to frame it. Um Jim, what would you say would be helpful? Um when I when I hear this conversation, um I was I was actually watching uh part of this on television a few days ago and uh somebody was sitting with me and said, can you just explain Sharia law? Now I'm now I'm going to just point them to this podcast and let them understand that it's it's not a document that's sitting somewhere out in space that they keep going back to. It's not that. Um uh but it just it it seems to remind me that one of the biblical responses that Christians could make would be, first of all, you can be active in your democracy. And if you're concerned about uh a one ideology or a group of people uh stepping into the instruments of democracy, getting themselves elected, that type of thing. Every American has the ability to do that. And if you're concerned, you know, Christians can step up and make themselves available for service and for office as well. Is that the most practical response?

Jim Denison: [25:19] That certainly can be. One of the things you'd want to know obviously as you're thinking about a Muslim running for office is you'd want to get some sense of their own background, of their own ideological history and story. I doubt that we're going to find people running for office here that have clear ties to Hamas or to Hezbollah or to radicalized Islamic extremist groups necessarily. That's always a fear and a concern that people have. I'm not concerned about that myself on the same level that some are. Gallup did a survey some years ago and found that 7% of the Muslim world could be considered radicalized in the sense that they believe the West has been attacking Islam since the Crusades. So attacking the West is a defense of Islam required by the Quran. That would make you a radicalized Muslim. 7% globally, but that doesn't mean 7% in America. It's less than 1% in America. It might be 40% in Yemen. It might be 50% in Saudi Arabia. And so that's just a global number of 7% and some think even that number's too high. So the idea of radicalized Islam as opposed to traditional Islam is itself something that we need to kind of keep in mind here, I think. The first thing we can do when someone's running for office is pray for them, as we're called to pray for all of our leaders and those involved in in the public square. Second, get involved ourselves. Get to know what they believe, run for office ourselves or support candidates who advance agendas with which we agree. And then third, be grateful that we do live in a republic that allows for freedom of all religion, freedom of and from religion. The day that we begin deciding that Muslims can't run for office because I'm concerned about some extreme positions that some Muslims might take can be used against us as Christians as well. Over the years, as you know, there have been white supremacists who claim that they're advancing Christian beliefs, the KKK, the claim to be a Christian organization. And so if we're going to disband anyone in a religion because there are extremist elements of that religion, be careful how far that goes. Because at the end of the day, any religious group or any atheistic group, any agnostic group that's being characterized and and caricatured by its extremist elements is being unfairly treated, I would say. So, it's a challenge. We want to be praying for Muslims to come to Christ. We want to be involved in the public square ourselves. We want to use democracy to advance the common good and also to advance God's kingdom. And doing all of that together is the challenge.

Mark Turman: [27:41] And that that also kind of brings up the thought process for me that if you live in a community where uh a group of of Muslims have come together and they want to build a mosque, if you oppose that, uh then you're actually setting the table where that could turn around and they could say, well, we're not going to build your church either. That's right. Uh or we're not going to build your synagogue or uh we're not going to build XYZ because we don't agree with the beliefs and ideology that are driving that group of people. We can we can find the very knife that we use to be used against us in some ways, I guess is one way of saying it, right?

Jim Denison: [28:22] And it is being used in places around the country. There are places where evangelical churches are having a hard time getting zoning permits to build. And certainly places where evangelical schools are having difficulty getting zoning permission in order to be able to build. And there are examples in New York City of Christian schools that are being expelled from public places. And there's been a lot of pushback as regards whether that was ideologically driven or not. That's been going on for years. That's not just with the Mondami administration. So that certainly can happen in a variety of places. People would like to have state sponsored prayer, for example. Well, in Utah, that's going to be a Mormon prayer. In Hawaii, that's going to be a Buddhist prayer. In New York City, it's probably going to be a Catholic prayer. In Texas, it may be a Baptist prayer. And so just be aware of the fact that this sword cuts a lot of different ways. And the founder's idea of freedom of religion for the sake of all religion is still an idea I think we need to continue to maintain.

Mark Turman: [29:15] Yeah, really helpful. Well, guys, we're going to take a break and catch our breath. Let our audience do the same and we'll be right back in just a moment.

Speaker 1: [29:24] Have you ever wondered if you've become more faithful to your own schedule and priorities than to the Lord? Janet Dennison asked herself that same question. In fact, she realized she was doing all the right Christian things, but she was pursuing her own priorities instead of God's. That life-changing lesson became the foundation for her new Bible study, restoring vintage faith. Through this study, Janet will help you rediscover the timeless truth of scripture and build a faith that's rooted in what never changes. Your gift today will help more people receive biblical truth through Dennison Forum's ministry, and we'll send you a copy of restoring vintage faith as our thanks. Visit supportdf.org to receive your copy with your gift today.

Mark Turman: [30:23] All right, we're back with uh ask us anything questions, talking about things going on in our culture with uh Dr. Jim Dennison, Dr. Ryan Dennison. Ryan, let me come back to you. Um recently you wrote about some things going on uh just south of us in the Caribbean. uh and I'm speaking here about the island of Cuba. Uh so I know this is important to all of the Dennison family. So, uh want to get us into this, Ryan. You wrote an article about uh some of the things going on in Cuba right now relative to uh the CIA and to some other movements that may be happening. Can you kind of summarize what we can see, what we know is going on uh on the island of Cuba just uh about 90 miles off of the Florida coast?

Ryan Denison: [31:09] Yeah, it's the situation there really changed a lot after the um Maduro was taken out in Venezuela or was arrested in Venezuela and all of that sort of regime change began to happen because Cuba was reliant on Venezuela for about a third of their oil. And after the US essentially took over in Venezuela in a lot of ways, they cut that off. And then they continued on by imposing further restrictions, uh threatening tariffs on any nation that would send oil to or provide help to Cuba in that capacity. And the goal was to create a situation in which the communist regime in Cuba could no longer stand up to the circumstances they were being forced to live in. That the situation would grow so dire that the people would rise up and sort of take control or that it would push the Cuban government to the point of having conversations with the with the Trump administration on changes they can make to be more open to the kind of governance that the Trump administration would like to see. And so as a result, the only oil they've really gotten since about January was a Russian tanker that the US allowed to come in in March. And since then, they don't have gasoline, they don't have uh a lot of the resources that gasoline was oil was used to power a lot of the nation. And so they've had rolling blackouts, they've had energy crises, they've had all sorts of deteriorating conditions there to the point where um one of the articles I I linked to in in my daily article on this talked about how there was they found one guy who watched YouTube videos on how to create gasoline out of plastic and set up like a mini refinery in his backyard to try to start doing that. Um they've had others that have started relying more on natural gas and it's really been an amazing testament to the ingenuity of the Cuban people, but it's also a dire situation that where people have been forced into that because they really don't have other choices. And it's even further exacerbated a lot of the class different the class discrepancies within Cuba because one of them essentially it's gotten to the point that the people, the only people really doing well are those who have family outside of Cuba that can send money back to buy Chinese solar panels or to buy natural gas generators and things of that nature. Um those people are doing okay and they're by and large helping their neighbors to survive as well. But the conditions are still getting worse. And it was back in the news recently because the um I think it was the New York Times or Politico, I forget which broke the story first, but was talking about how the CIA recently has started to step up their operations in Cuba for looking for dissidents, for trying to get a better grasp on what's going on in the island nation. And it's essentially the same playbook they used in Venezuela prior to taking out Maduro. And so it's led to some speculation, even with uh bringing Raul Castro up on charges from something 30 years ago when he was the Secretary of Defense, uh to provide some sort of legal framework for going in to get him if that was the case. And so it seems like the Trump administration is just sending being very overt with the signals that Cuba is back on their radar. And for a while, there was thought that Iran would have to get wrapped up first and now there's open questions on that. Um no one really has a great feel for the timing, but it seems like in the next few months, the US expects something to happen. And uh so what we're left with is a situation in Cuba where the people are continuing to suffer, the government is continuing to hang on and no one's really 100% sure what's going to happen next, but it seems like something big is on the horizon. And uh there's still just open questions as to what that will be and whether it'll work. The Trump administration keeps trying to repeat the Venezuela playbook and it doesn't seem to work quite as well anywhere else. And so it's going to be interesting to see what happens there because they're not finding a willing successor quite as easily as they have other places.

Mark Turman: [35:12] Yeah, it's kind of interesting with um Secretary of State Marco Rubio having such deep connections and ties uh to that country and and, you know, but it's, you know, having had the privilege of traveling there once, it just strikes me as both uh impressive and incredibly sad that the best thing we can say about the Cuban people at large is that they're incredibly innovative and that they have to be incredibly innovative just to survive. That's that's kind of a amazing and sad commentary all at the same time. Jim, I know that this is dear. Go ahead. Go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Denison: [35:47] I was just going to say one of the people in in one of the, I think it was a New York Times story on it, talked about how they basically their history has just taught them to be good at dealing with tragedy and good at dealing with difficult circumstances. They've uh I think he essentially said they're built for this. Um and they've been they've been trained on how to on how to survive because that's been their lot in life for the last for decades. And again, yeah, you're right. It is it is sad.

Mark Turman: [36:15] Yeah, and it just makes me wonder, you know, what the mind of God is on this when, you know, especially not just Cuba, but several, um maybe most of the Caribbean islands live in the shadow of the most prosperous country that's ever been and yet they struggle in such incredible and mighty ways. Uh Jim, I know that you think and pray a lot about Cuba. Um uh and we have partnerships uh that are focused in Cuba. Um what would you say to believers about how they should pray? What would you say to churches about how they might want or should engage when it comes to uh helping Cuba? You know, sometimes I find myself conflicted about, well, as churches and as Christians, should we be doing things that maybe not align with, you know, US political policy relative to Cuba, um in terms of trying to bring benevolent resources, that kind of thing into Cuba. Um how should Christians and churches frame this issue and engage with it?

Jim Denison: [37:21] Well, it's on I think on two levels. Uh and thank you for the chance to speak into this as well. I made my first trip to Cuba 25 years ago. I've been down about 10 times over the years. I had there's a pastor there I pray for every day by name and love as as my own brother in some ways. He's my pastor as I as I say to Pastor Carlos when I see him. Hoping to see him here in a few weeks and just uh pray for them and for him and for their ministry every day. On one level, there are those that have an agency there, people that know people that that for whom they can pray specifically, ways that they can go to Cuba and you can still go to Cuba and you can still bring aid there. It's much more restricted than it used to be even back when we started going there, but there are some ways in which humanitarian aid through the State Department can be approved on some limited level. And so there are some practical things that still can be done by some individuals. For the vast majority, however, that won't be the case. They won't be able to have a license to do that, won't know how to do that, won't be able to navigate that. So what the Cuban uh Christians would most want us to be doing is praying for them. Praying for this great awakening happening in Cuba to continue. Praying for them to have the kind of courage and the kind of compassion that Ryan was describing, to use this critical moment so as to be able to reach others with the good news of God's grace. If you own property prior to the Castro revolution in 1959, you've been allowed to keep it. And so for instance, one of the churches we work with has a finca, a farm outside town that they've been able to continue to operate. And they do that and they supply goods to the entire community that's around them. There was a church some years ago that we helped rebuild their sanctuary, their temple as they say. When they tore down the old one, they kept every plank of wood and every nail. And they then distributed that to members of their village as all had need. They're living out the Acts 2 model of caring for one another and using that as a chance to preach the gospel. And in so doing, they're seeing a moment, an opportunity for the gospel that is truly revolutionary in Cuba. Some years ago, Christianity today had a cover story on the Cuban revival. It had been estimated as many as a million had come to Christ in recent years in Cuba. It's been an incredible thing how God has redeemed the persecution and the difficulty on the island by using it to help believers have a chance to share the good news of God's grace. So let's please pray for them because it is desperate. But let's also be grateful for the Cubans and the incredible innovation, the incredible ingenuity that as y'all have been saying is how they have to live their lives. I have a friend in Cuba who when I was down there last had a Dodge car with a Ford engine and a Chevy transmission. I don't know how he did that. Couldn't get that done in the states, but he had that done and it was carrying him around and he was doing stuff with it. They just are an amazing people, working three jobs, so many of them typically, doing things that we in America couldn't imagine doing and using all of this for the good news of God's grace. When I've gone to Cuba, I felt like I was walking around in the book of Acts. I would say to them, maybe we can help you with resources, but you please pray for us with spiritual resources. They're so far ahead of us spiritually. Their love for the Lord, their love for each other, their compassion, the vibrancy of their faith, the vibrancy of their worship. Um is is unlike anything I've seen in the states. And so let's please pray for our sisters and brothers and for God to use an awakening there. They're praying for an awakening in Cuba that will spread all across the Caribbean. And that's what we can pray for as well.

Mark Turman: [40:38] And and Jim, help me if I'm not framing this right, but I just was struck when I visited Cuba a few years ago, just how joyful the people are in the midst of of real deprivation. Um and would would you say that it's realistic that most of the Cuban citizens uh wake up every morning not really knowing if they're going to have enough to eat. Um and if they get sick, they don't have the kind of fundamental confidence, well, there's a place I can go, there's somebody that would help me, there's medicine I could access. For the average Cuban, that kind of life does not exist right now. Would that be accurate?

Jim Denison: [41:19] Oh, I think that is accurate, unfortunately. Uh there has been times in the past when the government would give you, uh give your family a a sack of beans and a chicken per month. As their support, as their that has been the case in the past. There have been many times when there was no aspirin available, when there was uh not even the basic health essentials available. When you'd walk into a Cuban store and there was literally nothing on the shelves. Or there might be something for two or three days and then it's gone for another three weeks or another six weeks. Anybody that wants to see how socialism works should go to Cuba. That's another subject for another day. But if you want to see a government run health care system, a government run economy top down, kind of socialistic economy, then you need to go to Cuba. And you'll see an experiment that has been in uh that has been in the making for decades now and this is the result of it. And so yeah, they three three jobs are not at all untypical. There's a black market people have to do just to survive, to be able to get groceries, to be able to feed themselves, to be able to feed their neighbors. Uh the costs are exorbitant. Last time I was there, I saw a bottle of water for $10 when the actual when the typical Cuban makes $40 a month. Uh I I had a cab driver who was a doctor, was a physician, a licensed physician, but could make more money driving a cab off tips from tourists than he could practicing medicine in the Cuban system. 98% literacy rate in Cuba and nothing to read. Incredible health care training historically and no means by which to practice. It's an incredibly frustrating experiment in how to how to mislead and how to misgovern what should be an incredibly prosperous nation that has marvelous resources, most of all their people. Just unbelievable people. One last story, we were visiting one time out in the villages and we were talking to one young woman who was in this hut. It was grass thatched at the top. It had a dirt floor. It had a little spicket out of the ground that was her water and it was immaculate. The way she kept it, the way she swept that dirt floor, the pride of ownership she had with that little hut and her willingness to share what she had with us just broke my heart. And it just grieves me when I think about all that they're experiencing and the incredible faith by which they're continuing to trust Jesus and share the gospel. It's inspiring.

Mark Turman: [43:36] It's just yeah, it is inspiring. And let me just insert here. This is uh something that maybe some of our listeners in this audience don't know, but because of your donations to Dennison Forum, we're able to send resources to Cuba that get translated into their language and distributed in very creative ways uh across the island to help disciple and strengthen believers. And so, uh that's just one instance of what we're doing and what your donation dollars help us to do to share the gospel and strengthen believers uh even in places that are really struggling like Cuba. Um Ryan, let me ask you a a related but uh somewhat different question that kind of grows out of a biblical framework. Um and this is in reference to uh the nation of Israel and their experience with exile, um because of God's discipline on them. Um and I'm I'm referencing here the story of Daniel, but also the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah. And uh working through some of that material, the question has come up, uh how interesting it is, um that at times the cultural forces around us, be it government or uh other types of forces in our culture, uh at times those forces can be very, very strongly opposed uh to the people of God, uh as we see in the story of Israel in the Old Testament. And then uh I was also struck in this conversation about how uh how simply and how radically sometimes God can change hearts uh among people who are in places of great influence and power. And all of the sudden, there's great favor that uh that comes to the people of God, what we would say the church in our time. Uh I just was wondering if you could give us some thoughts on when we read those stories, particularly the stories of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, uh the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, the reinstitution of worship in Jerusalem, um the the elevation of Daniel and other people like Joseph in some of these stories. How does that maybe frame and inform our expectations of the the forces around us as the church within the culture? How should we think about uh how we fit into that dynamic? Maybe that's a good way of saying it.

Ryan Denison: [46:08] Yeah, it's an interesting question. Um I think the temptation is to look for like one-to-one comparisons when our culture is very different from theirs, but I do think there are still some very important similarities we can pull from that. Uh I think chief of them on that chief on that list is just the reminder that God is still in control and he is still sovereign. And that doesn't mean that he's always going to violate free will or that he ever will violate free will to make sure that things are okay or anything like that. But I do think it it's it's important to remember that the world is never out of his control. That no matter how bad events seem, no matter how much we look and just struggle to find maybe how the current events could possibly be going in a direction that could please him or going in a going in a direction that he could use, that he is always capable of redeeming it. And that he does. I think the reason those stories are in the Bible is to give us that reminder that at a time when Israel was broken in a lot of ways that God hadn't abandoned his people. And at a time when it felt like Israel was under was at a time when Israel was under judgment, that even in the midst of receiving that judgment, that discipline from the Lord, he still had a plan for them and he was still working to make sure they were protected, to make sure that they were provided for and in ways that they could look back on and see his hand at work in the in the future. And I think that's as much as anything what we need to be taking from with regards to our culture today is just when we look around and there are things in the culture that make us feel like it's spinning out of control or there are are things that change in ways that we can't possibly see how God could possibly how God could redeem this that all we have to do is look to scripture to find examples of where he does. And that should give us hope, that should give us a sense of peace that he's still at work, but at the same time, what one of the things I love about Ezra and Nehemiah is that in that in those books, you see God at work through his people. And so it it wasn't and even with Daniel, it was never really just wait around and eventually God will show up and do something. It was when you're working and doing the things that God has called you to do, God will work through you to do other things. And at times that means stepping in and truly supernatural ways uh to close the mouths of lions, whether proverbial or real. Um and I I think that's helpful for us to remember as well that God can step in in ways that go so far beyond our capacity that we can't even imagine it. But it seems to be in scripture that a lot of the times he does that, it's because his people are actively involved doing the things he's called them to do. And they're actively interceding, they're actively doing their part in government and and trying to, I mean, they were petition and Ezra and Nehemiah, they were petitioning the king of Persia for help when they received it. And Daniel, he was actively involved in the government. He had lived in such a way that he had made himself useful to those in power in ways that allowed eventually even like with Nebuchadnezzar, even led him to have a profound respect for the Lord, even if it never fully transitioned to the point of faith. And I think that's kind of our role as Christians in the culture is to live so faithfully that even the lost around us look and find us useful and find us faithful and we give God opportunities to work through us and we can't ever be 100% in control of what those opportunities will do or what he'll what he'll accomplish through those, but it seems to be the testimony of scripture that God likes to work through his people when they're already when they're working according to his will.

Mark Turman: [49:46] As as a wise guy we know sometimes says, when we work, God works. I've I've heard that somewhere before. We need better sources. We need better sources. We do for sure. All right, I think we have time for one or two more questions. Jim, I just uh wanted to ask uh for a moment here. Uh you've written recently some updates about where our culture is uh in the battle for the sanctity of life. Uh where things are moving relative to the Dobbs decision and uh we live in a very complex, kind of convoluted experience with some states that uh have total bans on abortion, others don't. We have now this very strange thing called abortion tourism. Um it's just a very complex and difficult issue and one that grieves us a lot uh that anybody would um take the life of an unborn child. Can you kind of give us a a a glimpse into what you've written about and to where we are in this conversation and what might be bringing us some hope at this time as well?

Jim Denison: [50:50] Yeah, well, as you know, when Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade and struck down a constitutional right to abortion that was enforced by mandate, federal mandate, they returned the issue to the states, which is really where it should have been all along. It always should have been a state's issue and it was prior to Roe v. Wade. Well, about 20 to 25% of pregnancies ended in abortion prior to Roe. It's not as though after 1973, all at once abortion was legal where before it wasn't. It was always a state-by-state issue and so it is today. Because the way our government is set up, you've got federal rights and you've got state rights. Once this is a state right, one state has no ability to tell another state how to handle this. And so Texas can have a near total ban on abortion and New York City can have a near total acceptance of abortion. Even for nine months, a state can choose to do that and some are pretty close to that. Well, the difficulty then becomes, how do you regulate behavior across these state lines? What do you do when someone in Texas travels to a state where they can get an abortion they couldn't get in Texas? What do you do when they order a medication abortions? And the majority of abortions are by medication now from providers outside the state to be brought into the state where the person resides. That's a very murky issue. It's a very difficult issue. Once we start deciding that a state can regulate what another state does about a state right, then where does that stop? How does that end? And so it's been very difficult. It's been very convoluted. Abortions have been rising slowly since Dobbs, unfortunately, tragically, primarily because of these medication abortions and secondarily because of tourism abortion as it's sometimes called. The best way we can respond is the way we always needed to respond, and that is first to pray, second to be involved. If you know somebody with a problem pregnancy, get involved. Help your your local pro-life uh clinic to be able to help individuals and churches that are ministering to people with that risk pregnancies, remove the financial incentive to abortion and the societal incentive to abortion. Do everything we can to adopt babies and to encourage adoption and to do all that we can do personally and collectively to advocate for life at the same time that we're hoping for legal remedies that could advance the cause of life as well. Those will be problematic, but you and I can be involved on a very personal level today if we're only willing to do so.

Mark Turman: [53:05] Yeah, and a good word because it a good reminder for us uh in what you're saying is that even though we have the Dobbs decision, we have a lot of work to do. Um and this this challenge and this this plague still stays with us in unbelievable and and horrific kind of ways. And the church must step forward in this issue in this in this way uh with love, with compassion, with truth, with service, but we must step into it. I just don't see how it could be anything more important to us. As I remember um one quote about Abraham Lincoln in the days before slavery was abolished, if if this isn't wrong, then nothing's wrong. That's right. Um and and that's just how strongly I think we need to view this. Just for scope and scale, Mark, more babies are lost to abortion every year than die of all other diseases combined. Wow. Abortion is the leading killer in America. Wow. If that were true of anything else, if that were true of any other behavior or any other disease, would we not marshal every effort possible to be able to counteract that as best we possibly could? I know this breaks the heart of God. It should break the hearts of God's people. We should be praying, we should be acting. It is the moral crisis of our day.

Mark Turman: [54:19] Absolutely. And yeah, absolutely. Uh Ryan, let me give you the the last heavy question of our day. Um uh if you're not the biggest sports fan on the Dennison Forum staff, I don't know who is, okay? I don't either. And not only the biggest sports fan, but the most knowledgeable by a significant stretch, I would I would say. I've never taken an argument with Ryan over sports. Let me just say for the record. That's not conjecture on my part. I'm just here to say, okay? Yeah, just so the world will know that if we didn't get Ryan to work for us on other topics, he would be working on sports topics. And he does that in the side of his brain all the time, no matter what's going on. So I think it's fair to say, Ryan, that we are watching uh the rapid emergence of women's basketball in the WNBA really come into its own. We've seen some incredible players uh that have emerged in the last couple of years. Uh we're seeing the growth of the popularity, more fans coming to the games, more games on television. Um but we're we're watching also the phenomenon that is not exclusive to the WNBA. It's it's a part of all women's sports now, which is the issue of transgender athletes. We now have uh in a recent article on ESPN, uh the the story of two males who are going to petition the WNBA for admittance as athletes. Um can you give us a a helpful perspective, a biblical perspective on are we getting to clarity around the issue of transgender men trying to play women's sports? How will uh how will this story around the WNBA maybe influence that?

Ryan Denison: [56:12] I think it's a really good example of how absurd the conversation is to begin with. Because these are two, it's not just two men, these are two ex-NBA players that have looked at that that they both of them washed out of the league pretty quickly uh without making much of a mark. And they're both of them want to say they want to declare for the WNBA draft to I think one of them talked about how he's in his feminine era or something like that to talk about how he wants to finish out his career that way. Um then from what I can tell, both athletes are doing this pretty tongue and cheek about it. I don't think they either one legitimately believes that they're transgender, but I think they're just it came in response, I think largely to Sophie Cunningham and all what she said about protecting women, protecting girls in sports by not letting biological males compete against them. And I think uh one of the I loved what my dad said in a recent daily article about that where he talked about how part of the reason for hope is that there does seem to be a genuine a larger portion of the of the general public that sees how stupid this is in a lot of ways. And I think uh that's not to belittle transgenderism in terms of just some of the really more important sides of this um that need to come into this conversation because there's a mental health conversation here that we absolutely need to have that can get lost in the midst of kind of the the the less serious elements of it. But I I do think stories like this are a great reminder of just how absurd it is on the on the merits. And the fact that the WNBA, which the W stands for women's, uh doesn't have a definition of what a woman of what a woman is and is going like they're I think their commissioner said they're going to have to call a meeting of the owners to essentially figure out what they're going to do to put policies in place to make sure this can't happen without at the same time closing the door on or seeming bigoted against transgenderism. And I'm very curious to see how they try and walk that line because I don't think they can. And the second they let an NBA player into the WNBA, it's going to wreck everything that they've been building. But and which is sad because it is in a good place in a lot of ways. There's some really great athletes that are in the WNBA right now. And I I it's not personally a league I watch a ton of, but I follow it enough to know that it's it's in the best place it's been for a long time. And there's rivalries, there's players to get around, all the fundamentals and components you need for a league to really take off are there. And if they let all of that get derailed by this discussion and this debate, then it's just they're not going to have anybody to blame but themselves. And I I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this turns out.

Mark Turman: [59:07] Yeah, it's just it's just mind-blowing in so many ways that uh we need the the owners to get together and come up with a definition of what it means to be a woman. That it's just uh you have to wonder what kind of a strange world uh will we actually have recorded in the history books when we get down to it. So The fact that so many of the culture recognize that it's strange gives me a lot of hope though because I think that's always I don't think more people view it differently necessarily than they always have, but more people are willing to speak out and say this is just dumb uh to be having this debate. And I think that's what gives me hope is that the silent majority is not staying as silent. And that's a good thing.

Mark Turman: [59:51] Yeah, so maybe we can settle some of these things and move on to to better issues at some point. Well, men, before we go, I want to ask you a uh since you asked question uh to give our audience a little bit of insight into you. Um so Jim, I want to ask you the question. Ryan, you'll have the same question is, uh we're just about to the end of summer 2026. Uh what is it that you're going to miss and what is it that you're not going to miss about summer? Jim, uh what about you?

Jim Denison: [01:00:22] Oh, I guess I'll miss seeing the grandkids as much. They apparently have other things to do when school starts. At least they say they do, you know. You get you get deprioritized, is that what happens? Big time. Big time. Yeah. You know, I just have less to offer, you know, at that point in time, less to do to be entertaining and helpful and all of that. And so uh yeah, so we'll definitely miss that. That's fun of the summertime.

Mark Turman: [01:00:41] What are you what are you not going to miss about summer?

Jim Denison: [01:00:43] Probably the same thing anybody in Texas would tell you and that's the heat, you know, just the the uh it hasn't been as bad this summer as it has in some places, but it is oppressive. We my wife and I love to walk in the morning and we try to get out as early as we can and get in as early as we can and uh you know, that just I I told someone the other day if I were God, we would have July 4th and then we would have Labor Day, you know? And uh August would just no longer be would just no longer exist. And so uh I and I've been in Texas almost except for four years, I've been in Texas my whole life and I'm I would be very happy for August to go away.

Mark Turman: [01:01:18] Yeah. Yeah, I think I think we can all agree on that one. Ryan, what will you miss about the summer? What will you not miss about the summer?

Ryan Denison: [01:01:24] He'll miss seeing me as much. He'll miss being over at our house. I can answer that for him. He'll he'll miss the grandparents being being as available.

Mark Turman: [01:01:31] Hey, you've had your moment, okay? Your moment is over.

Ryan Denison: [01:01:37] Now that he stole my answer, I guess I got to come up with something else. So um honestly for me it's it's kind of the same answer for both and it's like I work from home and so having the kids home for the summer is a level of stress and distraction that is difficult to manage at times. But at the same time, getting to see them all day, hearing them playing with their friends and their cousins live two doors down and so like our house for a lot of the summer has kind of been where everyone came to play. Uh which that's been really fun to watch as well. And so in oddly, I think I'm going to say my kids being home for both. Like what I'm going to miss and what I'm not going to miss because there are different aspects of of both of that. But um it's it's good for a time. They're excited for school to be starting up and it's I'm excited for school to be starting up. So it'll be good.

Mark Turman: [01:02:26] Well, there's yeah, there's there's good and bad for all seasons. For me, I won't miss at all once the temperature gets above 97. 97 seems to be my cutoff point. I do like it when it's warmer. Uh I think maybe a function of age is that you just like warmer weather. Um seems to be. Uh my wife and I were having a discussion recently. We're not sure we ever need to go back to the mountains in the winter time. Um maybe maybe never for the rest of our lives. So I like the warmer temperatures, but I won't miss 97 degree plus temperatures. I will miss longer days because I like being able to, you know, get a full day's work in and then have two or three hours of sunlight to go and do some other things. I do miss that. So, but uh as we come to the next season, uh we'll be looking for all the great things that happen in the fall as well. Uh guys, thank you again for this episode. I want to remind our audience if you've got a question about a topic you'd like us to try to take on, you can reach us by emailing us at info at denisonforum.org. You'll also find at denisonforum.org, the daily article, the focus, culture brief and a growing list of of articles from uh an expanding team of writers. Uh and so we would encourage you to check out denisonforum.org and you'll find a lot of great biblical resources on a lot of different topics. I want to remind you that Dennison Forum is a donor-based ministry because of your donations, we're able to provide biblical, digital and free resources to people not only uh in the United States, but around the world in all kinds of amazing places where God is giving us an opportunity. I want to thank you for tuning in today and ask you to continue to pray for us uh and support us as God leads us or leads you. And uh I want to thank our production crew as well here at Dennison Forum as well as our friends at Sound of a Rose Productions. We'll see you next time on Faith and Clarity.