Former CIA Director John Brennan faces up to five years in prison for allegedly lying about the Russia hoax, following an internal CIA review. Current CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s declassification of critical agency documents has [...] The post John Brennan Faces Five Years in Prison for Lying About Russia Hoax appeared first on The People's Voice.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has officially banned thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, from flu vaccines, citing its ‘deadly side effects,’ in a major victory for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. The [...] The post Vaccine Advisory Board Officially Bans Mercury from Jabs Due to ‘Deadly Side Effects’ appeared first on The People's Voice.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, lauding his “commitment to Israel” with a letter presented at a dinner on Monday, July 7, 2025. Netanyahu praised Trump, stating, [...] The post Netanyahu Nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize: “You’ve Done a Great Job” appeared first on The People's Voice.

Polish officials say they plan to send up to 5,000 soldiers to help the country’s Border Guard police at the borders with Germany and Lithuania just days after announcing the return of border checks. In [...] The post Poland Sending Troops To German Border To Block Illegal Migrants appeared first on The People's Voice.

As we grow older, many people fall into a pattern of singing their woes. They begin to focus on the ailments common to the elderly. There is a better way, and Aislinn Cushing’s grandma lays it all out. At 87 years old, she expresses a joy in aging and says we can all live longer and be happier. Aislinn is brutally honest, sporting the tagline, “You’re just here for my grandma…” It’s evident where her brutal honesty comes from. Perhaps we are just here for her grandma. We’re celebrating her wisdom and are here to learn about the joy of aging. One thing is certain: this old lady tells it like it is and offers advice on how to age gracefully. @aiscush Everyone needs to hear this. My grandma shares how to find magic and joy in ageing. #wisdom #aging #learnontiktok #grandmasoftiktok ♬ Almost forgot that this was the whole point – Take my Hand Instrumental – AntonioVivald She begins by stating that she doesn’t feel or think 87 and that old age is changing. She says she feels and thinks like she is 60, and sometimes 50, and sometimes 22. Her grandma says that the important things as we age are to stay involved, use our brains, and interact with other people. Interactions with others, according to Aislinn’s grandma, are one of the most important things. She continues, stating that she does suffer from physical ailments associated with aging, but that they don’t matter. Everyone has “stuff wrong.” Image from TikTok. Aislinn’s grandma says she is lucky because she gets up every morning, knows who and where she is, and she has a purpose. That purpose includes being involved with the world, being aware, and being able to converse with younger people. She refuses to get stuck in the “I’m old” mindset. A Final Message On The Joy Of Aging She urges people to get up and move your body and take care of yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally. She tells us that joy in aging comes from being a part of the world. The video is one minute of wisdom, broken down in a language we can all understand. She cuts to the chase. If you act old, you will feel old. We’re betting that her family never tells this spunky woman to act her age! Please share the magic. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post “Everyone Needs To Hear This. My Grandma Shares How To Find Magic And Joy In Aging” appeared first on InspireMore.

AI is everywhere, and it’s advancing at unpredictable rates. Between apocalyptic doomsday predictions and “utopian” visions of a laborless world, faithful pastors of varying ages, gifts, and denominations are wondering what this means for pastoral life and ministry. Many advocate for ministers incorporating AI into church work. Some have already started. According to research from Barna in 2024, U.S. pastors have varying levels of comfort with using AI based on the task: graphic design (88 percent), marketing (78 percent), communication (58 percent), sermon research (43 percent), creating study materials (39 percent), and sermon writing (12 percent), among other tasks. Countless Christian companies already offer these services. For example, Logos Sermon Assistant promises to revolutionize sermon preparation, while Subsplash’s Pulpit AI will “take your impact beyond Sunday” by clipping your sermons for social media platforms. These types of services—for busy and burned-out pastors—promise to alleviate unnecessary burdens and save time for you to spend elsewhere. We’re only beginning to see the pressure pastors will face to incorporate AI into every domain of church life. In certain respects, AI can and will be marvelous: scientific breakthroughs, medical miracles, and translating ancient scrolls. But how should we think about using AI in a pastor’s everyday work? Plagiarizing sermons isn’t the only ethical consideration. What about church leaders using AI to break down a sermon series or build a VBS curriculum? Or using AI to create discussion questions for small groups? Creating the agenda for an elders’ meeting and recording the minutes of what transpired? Designing a new church logo? Summarizing articles or books rather than spending significant time reading them? If you’re a pastor or church leader pondering potential uses of AI in ministry, here are four questions to ask. 1. What are the God-given responsibilities of the pastoral office? Before you outsource pastoral responsibilities to ChatGPT, consider the nature of your duties as a shepherd of Christ’s church. Don Carson and John Woodbridge articulate how many pastors feel about their job description: “The modern pastor in America is expected to be a preacher, counselor, administrator, PR guru, fundraiser and hand-holder . . . [and] an accountant, janitor, evangelist, small groups expert, an excellent chair of committees, a team player, and a transparent leader.” Though we perceive all of these qualifications as necessary, most of these aren’t scriptural or realistic. For even the most talented pastor, it’s too much. The desperate desire for help is understandable. But whether a chatbot can assist in pastoral tasks isn’t the same question as whether they should. The pastoral office is personal—delegated to you, an undershepherd, by the Chief Shepherd. The pastoral office is personal—delegated to you, an undershepherd, by the Chief Shepherd. In Acts 6, the apostles called on deacons (diakonos, “servant”) to meet the early church’s mounting needs, but it remained the apostles’ calling to devote themselves “to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (v. 4). They couldn’t delegate this task. The diaconate—an ecclesial office with specific functions—has as many moral and spiritual qualifications as the pastorate, and the health of the ancient church depended on both. The same is true today. Are you using AI to outsource or replace the functions of either ecclesial office? 2. What kind of pastoral formation is taking place? An often neglected dimension of the spiritual formation movement is pastoral formation. Pastors are examples to the whole flock of God, for good or ill. God doesn’t care only about ends (i.e., a great sermon) but also about means. Your struggle with the text of Scripture as you scour commentaries and pray about how to apply it to your people isn’t a problem to be overcome. It’s central to pastoral formation. The temptation of AI comes from its unspecified utility. A tool (e.g., a screwdriver) has a defined and limited use, but artificial general intelligence (AGI)—what many of the tech companies are working toward—promises to do anything and everything with human-level intelligence. We’re not there yet. But we see glimpses of the AGI posture now as chatbots respond to limitless prompts and promise effortless power. How are you being formed by digital technology? Is it helping or hindering your dependence on Christ for ministry? 3. Does using AI undermine pastoral authority and the church’s credibility? Christians today can be tempted to gain biblical instruction not from a local church but from Christian “influencers” and celebrity pastors’ livestreams. It’s hard enough for the average congregant to value mediocre preaching in person when he or she could hear a better preacher on double speed from the convenience of home. Are people going to be more or less motivated to come to church once they know their pastor is using Grok to “collab” on the sermon of the week? The temptation of AI plagiarism, even if not the original intent, could also create a scandal that harms the church’s reputation. It’s challenging to distinguish between collaboration and plagiarism. Once AI is an excellent researcher (it’s currently not), it’ll still be ethically tenuous on this point alone. Pastors, “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching” (1 Tim. 4:16). You don’t need to be technophobic, but you must be “above reproach” (3:2). 4. What precedent is being set for the next generation of pastors? At this rate, today’s AI will seem archaic in 15, 10, or even 5 years. If pastors adopt “artificial ministry” now, while generative AI is still so limited, that sets a precedent for the next generation to follow—when AI will promise to alleviate even more “burdens” from pastoral ministry. Wendell Berry once observed, “Always the assumption is that we can first set demons at large and then, somehow, become smart enough to control them.” Far too often, this means the following generation is tasked with trying to put the demons back into Pandora’s box. Pastors should consider what it means to “finish well,” not only in the age of AI, but also in a time of pastoral shortage and moral crisis in the church. When you lay hands on a freshly appointed shepherd, what unnecessary weights are you laying upon his shoulders? Pastors being “able to teach” (v. 2) has far less to do with rhetorical prowess than with the wisdom and courage to proclaim and defend sound doctrine. A wise and seasoned pastor may retain the ability to teach while outsourcing some of the grunt work of sermon preparation to ChatGPT. But what about the generation that goes through seminary assuming this is OK for pastors to do? Will they bother doing the work of memorizing Scripture, gaining proficiency in biblical languages, and studying orthodox doctrine and practice? Go read Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 2 or Gregory the Great’s Book of Pastoral Rule. Better yet, meditate on the qualifications for elders in Titus 1 and 1 Timothy 3 and then search for open pastoral positions in your area and look at the job qualifications. While Scripture and church tradition emphasize spiritual and moral maturity for pastors, we’ve relaxed pastoral qualifications in these areas beyond recognition; where Scripture is silent on entrepreneurial “self-starter” abilities or energetic and extroverted personalities, we’ve carved out qualifications to suit our pragmatic purposes. While Scripture and church tradition emphasize spiritual and moral maturity for pastors, we’ve relaxed pastoral qualifications in these areas beyond recognition. Recently, a seminary professor told me that half of a class unapologetically admitted to using chatbots for brainstorming, research, or writing. Will they have the capacity to engage in deep theological and moral reasoning informed by Scripture and tradition? Chatbots certainly will, but will we have qualified humans who possess the ability to teach sound doctrine without an artificial research assistant? Digital technology already has a death grip on this generation. But pastors can lead the way in resisting forms of technology that isolate and dehumanize us and nudge us toward vice rather than virtue. This cultural moment demands pastoral wisdom—not a spirit of optimism or pessimism but good old-fashioned prudence. Where the shepherd leads, the sheep will follow. Which path will you lead them down?

Much of American political discourse is really about ethics. Based on the latest news cycle, debates flare up about topics like the use of excessive force by police, systemic causes of racial disparities, gender identity, and sexual abuse in the church. Tragically, contemporary political polarization often makes it hard for Christians to see ethical problems through a consistently biblical lens. That’s what makes the publication of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Social Ethics: Perspectives on Society, Culture, State, Church, and the Kingdom of God so valuable. Though technology and circumstances have changed since Bavinck wrote, he was wrestling with many of the same basic questions that drive today’s political discourse. This volume complements the three volumes of Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics. It’s been compiled and edited by a team of translators led by John Bolt, professor emeritus of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary. The content fills out notes that Bavinck left behind. It’s drawn from Bavinck’s writings and frequently embeds Bolt’s insight into Bavinck’s thinking about social ethics, which have been gleaned from decades of careful study. Central to Bavinck’s social ethic was the idea that Christians have a twofold vocation within God’s created order: a calling to eternal salvation and an earthly duty to imitate Christ both spiritually and morally. The gospel is a call to salvation that has implications for the way we live in society. Bavinck applied this distinction well to the relationship of church and state, but at times he was too complacent about legitimate social wrongs. We witness in Bavinck the power of biblical fidelity and the limitations encouraged by his social context. Bavinck’s Social Context Bavinck’s social ethics developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the shadow of European industrialization and urbanization. Amid displacement and disorientation, social reform movements like socialism and the social gospel applied political and economic ideas, including some concepts drawn from the Bible, to wage a class struggle. Bavinck witnessed the rise of social reform organizations such as the Social-Democratic Alliance and the Protestant Workers Alliance. Those organizations attempted to use the state to enforce their moral vision for society, which was often framed in opposition to Christianity. Bavinck’s social ethics developed in response to the social critiques of revolutionary organizations, Christian socialists, and social gospelers like Walter Rauschenbusch, whom he deemed radical egalitarians. Eventually, Bavinck himself joined the Anti-Revolutionary Party and became a member of the Dutch parliament as his party resisted secularization and violent revolution. He, like Abraham Kuyper, was deeply influenced by Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer’s antimaterialistic argument in Unbelief and Revolution, which rejected attempts to engage in politics apart from religious reasoning. From that basis, Bavinck worked out the application of a Christian ethic to the public sphere in response to specific contextual questions. Yet while wielding political power in parliament, Bavinck recognized that the state can abuse its power. The Dutch lived with the memory of Catholic persecutions against Protestants. Though Bavinck didn’t dwell on this abuse or outline an appropriate Christian response to the abuse of power, he prompted readers to consider how sin distorts the use of power and the creation of governmental systems. Thus, Bavinck argued for the indirect influence of the church on the state through the gospel’s transformative power. Distinguishing Church and State There’s no question that, for Bavinck, the purpose of the gospel is salvation. Yet he was also clear that the gospel has moral implications: Christianity demands right living. That right living includes pursuing the good of society as defined by Christian principles. To demonstrate the gospel’s focus on salvation over social action, Bavinck pointed to Jesus’s acceptance of social conditions as they existed. “Jesus is not a man of science or art, nor is he a politician or economist,” wrote Bavinck. “He is no social reformer or demagogue, nor a party man or a class struggler. He accepts social conditions as he finds them and never tries to bring about a change or improvement in them” (6). Bavinck argues for the indirect influence of the church on the state through the gospel’s transformative power. Quoted in isolation, it might seem that Bavinck was suggesting Jesus was apathetic to social conditions. However, Bavinck identified that the gospel encourages a “new moral relation that would eventually, in the course of time, change and reshape them, not in a revolutionary but in a reformational way” (51). The gospel is meant to work its way through society via the lives of believers transformed by its power. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Bavinck saw a distinction between the roles of the church and state for social transformation. He warned against using the state’s coercive power to “protect the church with the material sword against heretics, because Christ gave his spiritual sword to do that” (137). Simultaneously, he highlighted the spiritual focus of the church to encourage moral reformation through conversion. Moral virtue comes from a change in the heart, not external force from the state. Tolerating Inequality At times, however, Bavinck seems too tolerant of some of the social conditions of his day. He was aware of and laments the heinous immorality of racism and classism. Moreover, he acknowledged the deplorable economic exploitation of workers. However, to Bavinck, earthly inequalities weren’t the problem. They were a part of the created order and God’s will. Thus, salvation through the gospel “does not set aside all the differences and inequalities that exist among people in this earthly life” (19). He cited scriptural examples of inequality after Christ’s resurrection, even among Christians. “Redemption does change matters, however,” he wrote. “From the principle of reconciliation with God, all other human relationships are given a new ordering and led back to their original state” (19). That original state was just, though it included inequalities. Yet Bavinck didn’t sufficiently distinguish between God-given natural and sin-tainted social differences. He argued, “The differences between rich and poor, slave and free, parents and children, civil authorities and subjects are assumed and honored fully by Jesus and his apostles in their words and deeds” (19). This conflates natural distinctions that are God-ordained (like parent-child) with social distinctions that are the result of sin (like slave-master). Bavinck’s application was nuanced, but his antirevolutionary instinct sometimes clouded his moral vision. A Christian social ethic must consider sin’s role in causing inequalities while refraining from assuming a distorted view of equity that downplays true natural differences and abilities. Bavinck’s social ethics reminds us that in avoiding the excesses of one extreme, we must take special care to resist the flaws of the other extreme. Bavinck’s social ethics reminds us that in avoiding the excesses of one extreme, we must take special care to resist the flaws of the other extreme. The theological and biblical foundations of Bavinck’s social ethics are helpful, even if he imperfectly applied them. Beyond its historical significance, this book’s chief value is in demonstrating the consistent substance of Christian moral reasoning across the ages. Bavinck wrote a robust social ethic amid a vastly changing society and culture in response to an array of thinkers aiming to solve the social problems of the day. Thus, Reformed Social Ethics will assist Christians as they consider a social ethic that shapes how we think about inequality, difference, power, politics, and the many issues of our vastly changing society and culture.