Discerning What Is Best with Dr Rex M Rogers is a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, doing Christian critical thinking, or spiritual discernment, about current issues, culture, and everyday life (Phil. 1:9-11). Rogers is former longtime president of Cornerstone University and now President of mission ministry SAT-7 USA. He is the author of "Gambling: Don't Bet On It," "Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture" and its ebook "Living for God in Changing Times," and co-author of "Today, You Do Greatness: A Parable of Success and Significance."Learn more at rexmrogers.com.
Easter is the defining celebration of Christianity, focusing upon Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross, death and burial, then resurrection for the salvation of those who put their faith in him. There is no other religious holiday like it. He is risen. He is risen indeed. For more Christian commentary, see my website at rexmrogers.com.
Civil liberties are the "unalienable rights" of the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and in Thomas Jefferson's words, pursuit of happiness. Civil liberties are human or natural rights, our human birthright from God as designated in nature. Civil liberties list what government cannot take away. Civil rights are additional, expanded protections or rights granted by government to preserve and enhance our experience with our civil liberties. Right to vote, for example, is a civil right. T...
Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it,” is a principle that until recently I thought applied solely to the development of good Christian attitudes and behavior. Then it occurred to me that this principle works whether one is teaching a child worthy or unworthy values and ways of moving through their lives. In a sense, it is a promise and a warning. Look what American culture is experiencing now, with students demonstrating in the...
It seems that each time a moral standard is displaced, the social process refocuses upon another traditional moral standard that the Left argues is somehow a great restriction and oppression upon personal liberty. Gambling, a longtime social evil, fell in the 90s and early 2010s, same-sex marriage was legally embraced in 2015, then transgenderism took its turn. Trans ideology has now conquered American academia, entertainment, athletics, and Big Media, if not also much of religion. So what's nex...
SAT-7 is a Christian satellite and online broadcaster based in Cyprus and broadcasting 24/7 in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) - now also reaching into Afghanistan, Tajikistan. The technology of satellites is virtually un-censorable, and the internet is far-reaching. Truly SAT-7 is able to use technology, to communicate theology, in a timely fashion. SAT-7 bases its doctrinal understanding upon the Bible, and as summarized in the Nicene Creed and the...
Population decline is now a serious consideration in Western Europe, the US and North America, Japan, China, and several more countries. In fact, the only countries where the population replacement rate is functioning at a needed, typical level, are several Sub-Saharan countries in Africa, Egypt, and a few countries in the Far East. Why is this happening? Why are people rejecting the idea of more children and families? And why does it matter that population decreases in countries over time, i.e....
Christian Nationalism has become a kind of grab bag label for several religious or specifically Christian approaches to engagement in US national politics. Some of these approaches are, frankly, unbiblical. While some may not call themselves by this term, yet they believe the USA was founded upon Judeo-Christian values, and that this public moral consensus, now fracturing, is still sorely needed today to reinforce social cohesion and preserve e Pluribus Unum. Others use this label as a slanderou...
Climate Change is no longer simply about concern for the environment. Now among climate change alarmists, particularly globalist elites, climate change is a means to an end, a scare tactic to institute government controls, insure the power of leftist socialists, increase the size of government, promote population decline via abortion and other means, and otherwise put in place a laundry list of restrictions on personal liberty, economic activity, and freedom of mobility and choice. For more Chri...
If any word could describe the current condition of American culture it might be confused, so much so that the words of Scripture comes to mind as Jesus looked upon Jerusalem he thought of them as harassed and helpless as sheep without a shepherd. That's what we have today, harassed and helpless people, living in confusion that is a produce to their own choices. With all that, because God is long-suffering, human beings are not hopeless. God is still there, he still loves those he created, he st...
Digital Identification is now a commonplace of postmodern life. In many ways, the capacity to store and share information online, including personally identifying information, is helpful, making commerce and communication run more smoothly. But it also makes our most private information, and what we own--our values, interests, activities, bank accounts, etc.--available to a growing complex of interconnected, government, including foreign, or corporate system of data access, coordination...and po...
Digital Identification, or Digital ID, is an assemblage of online personally identifying information extracted from our digital footprint - all our activity and actions online - or specifically inputted to create our unique ID. It sounds good, and in many applications it is good, reducing paperwork, speeding health records or purchases, etc. But our Digital ID is also subject to governments, corporations, and bad actors who want access for purposes of control, manipulation, or crime. And our Dig...
Age comes to us all, great and small, rich and poor, no matter our demographics. In fact, the only alternative is death. So aging doesn't seem so bad by comparison to most of us. Question is, can one or how does one age biblically? What can we learn from Scripture about what God says about aging. Seems logical to ask because God is the one who made us and the one who determines the number of our days. Aging, then, which often brings certain decline or struggles or even suffering with it, can nev...
Back in 1995, Pope John Paul II attracted worldwide attention for calling growing support for abortion and euthanasia a “culture of death .” Now we’re told by the President of the United States that climate change “is the challenge of our collective lifetimes. The existential threat to human existence as we know it.” America’s “climate czar” John Kerry recently tipped his hand, saying, “The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." Kerry is giving us a peak at the anti-family, anti-human culture of...
The self-induced, unrecognized - at least by the current Administration - immigration crisis on the US southern border continues to worsen. It's difficult to comprehend, why the Biden Administration is neglecting its constitutional responsibilities, and why opponents don't do more the stop it. This piece is not about preaching bigotry or prejudice. It is not against immigration or immigrants per se. It is only pointing to the many deleterious effects of this unvetted invasion, including substant...
The downfall of the Harvard University President Claudine Gay for more than 50 alleged incidents of plagiarism in her scholarly work, including her dissertation, was something that was too long coming, but in a sense, should never have happened at all. Surely the Presidential Search Committee at Harvard is better than to have allowed this candidate to rise to the top among some 600+ candidates? But the experience pulled back the curtain re how politics, in particular leftist "woke" DEI politics,...
A huge mood swing takes place between Christmas and New Year's, one that involves worldviews and values. Society moves from "Silent Night, Holy Night" and peace on earth to raucous, riotous living, drinking, sensuality, and party-hardy. No one knows what the new year will bring, but we can rely on the providence, presence, promises, and peace of God. For more Christian commentary, check rexmrogers.com.
Isaiah 9:6 announced, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace .” This is the real reason for the Christmas season. But peace does not seem to exist in the world Christmas 2023, in part because God knows people will be drawn to him at such times and in part because he allows people to choose right versus wrong. Jesus Christ is the only source of ultimat...
Current events always surprise us because we are not omniscient, nor can we see into the future. Then again, there are certain things happening in the US that I thought I'd never see in my lifetime. Some are silly, many are irrational, some are threatening and dangerous to the body politic. Some of these events or developments are unpredictable in the sense that, as noted, we are not Nostradamus, not prognosticators. But many of these developments are predictable outcomes of a shift in moral und...
Are we living today what philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observed, “If there is no God, then everything is permitted”? It certainly seems that way. Since at least the 1960s, what’s been happening, first gradually, now rapidly, is an intentional rejection of Judeo-Christian values of morality and society, followed by a replacement of these traditional values, first by secularism, then by radical so-called “progressive,” Marxist values based on irreligion if not atheism, along with an idolatry of rac...
In the past two months, since the Oct 7 Hamas attack and butchery of innocent and unsuspecting Israelis, and since the Israel Defense Force launched its military mission to eradicate Hamas, rather amazingly, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in the United States and in many other Western countries. While there have been some attacks on Arabs or Palestinians in these countries, and there have been some march demonstrations supporting Jews, overwhelmingly the attacks, harassment, or verbal sl...
Our culture tends to be "binary," except regarding sexuality where indeed God made male and female. But today, American culture seems to think if you are "for" this, you must automatically be "against" that. There is no nuance. The most dominant current ideology, cultural Marxism, which finds its way into "Woke" philosophies, sees the world in terms of Oppressor and Oppressed, Have's and Have Nots. This is an unrealistic, destructive, and even racist worldview, for it forces its adherents to opp...
American culture has been on a downhill slide for some time. You know that if you are an adult past middle age. What used to be considered wrong or immoral is now often celebrated--like promiscuity, or at least ignored--like Smash and Grab retail crime. Question is, how long can a civilization maintain if its shared values are shattered, if no standards of right and wrong or appropriate behavior are recognized, if no judgements of good, bad, and ugly can be made? In 1993, Sen Daniel Patrick Moyn...
Revivals start in churches and in some sense can be planned, but Awakenings, a word at times used interchangeably with revival, is a matter of culture not the church and are providential, not in people's ability to plan. America has experienced awakenings in the past and certainly we believe needs one now - a movement of the Spirit of God calling us back to God, truth, the Gospel in Christ, morality. Pray God for an awakening. For more Christian commentary, check my website at rexmrogers.com....
The Times are changing, and sorry to say, not for the better. Traditional American values, which is to say values based upon a historic Judeo-Christian consensus, have been and are being rapidly jettisoned. Younger Americans are embracing a new culturally Marxist ideology of the Left, fueled by false ideas about God--actually, godlessness--the human heart, government, liberty, progress, race, and sex, all in the name of an idolatry of diversity, equity, and inclusion. What we've gotten for this ...
With war continuing in the Holy Land protesters have gone into the streets and on university campuses in the U.S. and many other countries of the world. Antisemitism sentiments and incidents have increased since Oct 7 when Hamas invaded Israel, brutally massacring 1400 plus, injuring thousands, and taking hostage 249 people, likely including Americans. Oct. 7. Now Israel's military has responded, entering the Gaza Strip with the announced intention of ending Hamas. But thousands of civilian Pale...
Since the Oct 7 Hamas terrorist attack on unsuspecting Israeli citizens, killing 1400 and taking over 200 hostage, Israel has mounted its military response, first with bombardments, and then on ground incursion, saying it will eradicate Hamas. It would seem right response or moral clarity would be bold and easy to determine, but maybe not because of the complexities of the circumstances, millions of lives involved, considerations for humanitarian or civilian noncombatant needs, varying views of ...
It's been said that truth is the first casualty of war, and that an almost inevitable fog of war obscures reality further. Certainly happens. But extreme duress like war can also yield new clarity as people respond under the crucible of fear or in a greedy grab for power. Since the horrendous act of terror perpetrated by Hamas Oct 6 upon unsuspecting communities in Israel, massacring hundreds and kidnapping an estimated 200 more as hostages, we've seen and heard from people all over the world, i...
Oct 7, 2023, the terrorist group Hamas conducted an unprecedented incursion into Israel, killing hundreds of all ages in the most gruesome of ways. In response, the Israeli Defense Force has responded with rockets at Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, warned the Palestinian population to go south from Gaza City, and is amassing what is assumed will be a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip in order to eradicate Hamas. Historically, Christians have often turned to "Just War" theory for princi...
Oct 7, some one thousand Hamas terrorist conducted an unprovoked and surprise incursion into Israel, killing, kidnapping, and in some cases raping, everyone in their path for several hours of carnage. Israel then declared war and is mounting its military response. Questions arise about calls for the immediate cessation of violence, violence begetting violence, immediate, calls for peace, and more. What is the right and moral response? How did we get to this point? What are prospects for a just p...
American culture is in a period of rapid decline. Hopefully, it is not too late to arrest this decline, to re-establish values that helped make this culture and country strong and flourishing in the first place. But what does the world need now? Is it "love, sweet love"? Is it "Imagine all the people, livin' for today"? Is it a new religion? New technology? Just better, which is to say "our" political leaders? Or is it something the world has always needed, no matter if a culture is in ascendanc...
