Penna Dexter
President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are speaking by phone lately. A major topic of the calls is the clearing out of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, a military necessity in order to dismantle Hamas. President Biden is making demands about hostages and civilian protections.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly criticized “recent talk about forcing a Palestinian state on Israel.” He says this “would be a huge prize for terror, the likes of which we have never seen.”
Hamas must be removed. The Heritage Foundation’s David Harsanyi points out that “no Israeli Prime Minister would act any differently in Gaza. Israeli voters rightly demand it.”
Our dealings with Israel should always occur in light of the existential threat Hamas represents. These threats were fulfilled in the carnage that began October 7th, an event which should not have surprised us.
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been meticulously cataloguing Hamas’s threats of ‘total war’ for years. The organization publicized Hamas’s articles and videos advertising its drills preparing for an invasion of Israel.
The threats are incessant. But we must pay attention. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, MEMRI’s president and co-founder Yigal Carmon said “If they publish it many times, it suggests they mean it and you cannot ignore it. You must take it seriously.”
MEMRI documents the terrorists’ competing messages. Hamas politbureau chief Ismail Haniyeh tells the West he wants to end the war and signals that Israel and Hamas can live side by side, But, in a January 9th speech aired on Al Jazeera, he said: “We should hold onto the victory that took place on Oct. 7 and build upon it.” He says “the time has come for the jihad of the swords.”
MEMRI’s Executive Director, Steve Stalinski told the Journal, “We’ve monitored it since the beginning of the jihadis going online, and there have never been so many open threats to the U.S.—explicit threats.”
We must pay attention.

Kerby Anderson
Reporter Leonardo Blair says that the youngest generations are “mired in debt” and that a “majority of young adults are financially dependent on parents.” He based these conclusions on a recent study by Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.
The study was a collection of two surveys taken in October and November. The researchers found that less than half (45%) of these young adults (18-34) reported being completely financially independent from their parents. As you might have expected, the older adults (in their early 30s) were much more likely to be completely financially independent from their parents.
On the other side, nearly half (44%) of young adults said they received financial help from their parents in the past year. The survey identified two major areas where they needed financial help from their parents. One was to pay for household expenses. The other was to pay for their cellphone bill or subscriptions to streaming services.
The survey also found that the debt load of young adults has skyrocketed. This includes not only student loan debt but mortgage debt. The article and the research study compared mortgage debt in previous decades as well as the price of a home. Both have increased due to inflation and due to rising interest rates on those mortgages.
This also has an impact on marriage and families. A much lower percentage of young adults (18-24) are likely to be married today compared to previous decades. And young adults are much less likely to have a child living in their household than in previous decades.
As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, many politicians have been trying to tell Americans that the economy is doing well. Many of these young people just don’t feel that way.

Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I talked about the book, Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture, by Aaron Renn. He explains that we live in a negative world. He also answers a question I frequently get from my audience: How did this change to a negative world happen?
He quotes from philosopher Charles Taylor and his book, A Secular Age. Here are a few reasons for the accelerating decline of the status of Christianity.
The sixties’ social revolution was a major upheaval with young adults rejecting the authority of their parents and other traditional authority figures. In its place was a counterculture that embraced drugs, protested the Vietnam War, and formed new communities.
The sexual revolution that took place at the same time called into question many beliefs and practices regarding sex and family that came from the Christian tradition. It also normalized many practices that would have been forbidden, including premarital sex, pornography, homosexual practices, and divorce.
Another factor was the end of the cold war. In my radio interview with Renn, he talked about how the fight against “godless communism” connected America with Christianity. The link was important until the fall of the Soviet Union.
One other factor is digitalization. As he pointed out, only two companies control the entire market for smartphone operating system software (Apple, Google). These businesses retain discretion over those with whom they will and will not do business. This gives them vast cultural power.
As I mentioned yesterday, this negative world poses new challenges for Christians as we try to navigate through an anti-Christian culture.