Today’s New York Timesannounces: “No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes on the Flying Car.” Uber is beginning the Elevate Summit today in Dallas, a three-day conference focusing on “the future of on-demand, urban air transportation.” Speakers include senators, governors, NASA scientists, and industry pioneers.
The Aeromobil was unveiled in Monaco on April 20. The flying car will cost more than a million dollars and is due out in three years. Other options are expected to be much less expensive.
Innovation proceeds at a breakneck pace, but human nature remains the same.
Sirens sounded across Israel yesterday as the nation paused for Holocaust Remembrance Day. I have been in Israel on this solemn day. Cars stop; business ceases; the entire nation remembers the “Shoah” (Hebrew for “catastrophe”) in which a third of the world’s Jews were annihilated.
Most of the world’s leaders routinely condemn anti-Semitism, yet violence against Jews continues to rise. In the US, assaults against Jews rose 50 percent over the last two years. Anti-Semitic incidents at colleges and universities nearly doubled last year. Anti-Semitism is rampant in Europe as well, where Jews were murdered in Paris and Copenhagen and synagogues were attacked by mobs and firebombed.
While science increasingly confirms that life begins at conception, abortion advocates continue to press their position. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez declared recently that “every Democrat” should be pro-choice. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state,” he claimed.
Even Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders disagreed, contending that Democrats could have varying opinions on this issue. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse tweeted a picture of a baby in the womb and the note, “@Tom Perez Your profile says you fight for the little guy. Please check out this little fella—special, isn’t he? (He’s 12 weeks old.)”
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month. Why do we need such an emphasis? More than seven million American children are abused every year. Five children die every day from abuse. Over the last ten years, the number of children killed in their own homes by family members is nearly four times the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If we can invent flying cars, it seems our society should be advanced enough to resolve such crises as anti-Semitism, abortion, and child abuse. But we live in a culture that has decided to tolerate whatever doesn’t harm us personally. That’s why it’s so imperative that Christians stand boldly and graciously for life.
Every day, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to empower our witness and use our influence for Christ (Ephesians 5:18). And every day, we need to join hands and hearts with those who are taking the love of Christ to those who need him most. That’s why our ministry partners with the Council for Life and with Human Coalition as they stand for mothers and the unborn, and with Buckner International in its ministry to children in need.
John Wesley observed that “the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.” If any soul matters to God, every soul matters to God. Thomas a Kempis: “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.”
Jim Denison, Ph.D., speaks and writes on cultural and contemporary issues. He produces a daily column which is distributed to more than 113,000 subscribers in 203 countries. He also writes for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Post, Common Call, and other publications.
