Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a major speech last week, outlining a new approach to dealing with China. For many years, American policymakers have assumed that as China became more prosperous, it would become freer, more open and a responsible member of the international community.

We now know these assumptions were wrong.

So what do we do about it?

The Trump Administration is proposing a more clear-eyed view of China. We must recognize that the Chinese Communist Party is espousing a morally bankrupt ideology. Communism and socialism have never worked, and never will. We must, in Pompeo’s words, “engage and empower the Chinese people.”

And we must also join with the free nations of the world to push back on the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. Pompeo suggested a new alliance of democracies.

That’s exactly the kind of bold action we need—to meet this great challenge of our time.

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We witnessed a major setback in the defense of life this summer as the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana abortion law.

The 5-4 decision in the case known as June Medical Services v. Russo overturned legislation that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital. 

That just makes sense.

For conservatives and for the pro-life movement, the greatest disappointment is the math: 5 to 4. 

Chief Justice John Roberts was the fifth vote— the deciding vote. Based on his opinion in a 2016 case, we were hopeful he would vote to uphold the Louisiana law.

There is every reason for conservatives to be bitterly disappointed in the decision, but we dare not let bitter disappointment turn into a disengagement from the political process. 

What is at stake here is the infinite value of every single human life—human beings made in God’s image. And from that battle, we dare not run.
 

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A giant has fallen. J. I. Packer—the great theologian—has died at 93. Packer was spiritually listless as a boy. When he went to Oxford for university, everything changed.

His conversion happened at an evening service at St. Aldate’s Anglican Church in 1944. Initially, he was bored. Then Packer awoke spiritually. He knew “He needed to come in” to Christ, and did. On an unremarkable evening, the modern church gained one of her greatest voices.

Packer was linked with D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Christianity Today, Regent College, and the ESV Bible. He became a one-man publishing house for a brand of twentieth-century theology that was Reformational, biblical, cross-centered, and surprisingly experiential. His book “Knowing God” is a classic.

But Packer was no retiring flower. He wrote at full sail, with all hands to arms. He walked with God, taught us to know God, and then he was caught up to heaven. We honor him.

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I like to use Google Trends to see what people are looking up on the internet as a way of getting a sense of what average people are thinking about. I found that searches for the phrase “economic depression” peaked in late March. Then, in the ensuing weeks, we saw peaks in “better than expected” in the category of business and industry. Then we saw in early May a strong uptick in searches for “economic recovery,” and then a surge in business-related searches using the phrase “largest improvement.”

This basically tracks with the headlines. We saw scary headlines about the destruction of the economy, but then headlines showing that the U.S. economy is more resilient than given credit for. And then recovery headlines—with stats that showed some of the best improvements in decades.

Bottom line: We’re not doomed.

We can handle this.

We are handling it.

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A recent article in the New York Times demands our attention. The headline: “Sex Does Not Mean Gender. Equating Them Erases Trans Lives.”

The author argues that sex should not be equated with gender—because gender is a socially-constructed reality that does not have anything to do with biological sex.

But basic reality is indeed tied integrally and inseparably from biology. In sex—as male and female—we are looking at basic reality, part of the created order.

The author goes on to state: “In fact, stop using sex-based words to refer to people at all. They’re words for bodies, not for people with hearts and souls and minds.”

But, keep this in mind—we are created as individuals who are a unity— body and soul.

We are who we are, including our bodies, because God made us this way and He made us in His image.

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The horrifying video showing the last anguished moments of George Floyd featured a detail only now drawing outraged attention: the cop car parked near the incident was a Police Interceptor, manufactured by Ford.

In a petition signed by more than 100 employees, the automotive giant faces demands that they stop making such vehicles. The petition charges: "Throughout our history, the vehicles that Ford employees design and build have been used as accessories to police brutality and oppression." This offensive statement suggests that all police forces brutalize and oppress, rather than protect and serve. The petitioners smear police as an invading army, condemning their own company for trading with the enemy.

The poisonous notion that police are the implacable foe of all people of color, worthy of scorn and resistance, and unworthy of decent equipment, could cost innocent lives among officers of the law as well as civilians.

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Some prominent liberals are starting to push back against cancel culture. Leading the way is J.K. Rowling, author of the fabulously successful Harry Potter novels. On Twitter, Rowling had expressed her support for a woman who was fired for nothing more than claiming that men and women are fundamentally different.

The Twitter mob was shocked. I wasn't. The accomplished author has a more nuanced political philosophy than many of her readers. 

The uber-villain Voldemort was clearly a stand-in for fascism. But we also had arch-villain, Grindelwald, an obvious stand-in for Marx and his minions.

Rowling has always known that there is a threat to human dignity from both the authoritarian right and the authoritarian left.

She has an almost miraculous ability to read a cultural moment. I think she's reading what the rest of us are: the writing is on the wall for cancel culture. 

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The entertainment industry regularly ignores a common sense lesson: you can’t connect with a mass audience by insulting a figure they revere. Multiple reports indicate the upcoming film HABIT features Paris Jackson, glamorous daughter of the late King of Pop, as a lesbian Jesus and object of fixation for a drug-addicted party girl.

A petition by Christian believers to block the dubious film’s release has drawn nearly half-million signatures, and its box office potential looks distinctly limited. Adding to the irony: Paris Jackson, the film’s star, was raised from age 11 by her grandmother, a devout Jehovah’s Witness and mother of ten.

Meanwhile, another film – Disney’s filmed version of the musical masterpiece HAMILTON- has set streaming records and drawn near-universal praise with its sympathetic portrayal of rapping, dancing founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and George Washington.

An obvious conclusion: you can attract more filmgoers by respecting their values than by assaulting them.

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The second quarter just ended—and the markets did very well.

As you know, the first quarter was a time of financial panic—the markets crashed hard. Many people in that moment of panic took money out of the markets.

Well, they missed one of the greatest recoveries in decades. The Dow Jones roared back, returning almost 18 percent, the best performance since 1987. The S&P returned almost 20 percent in one quarter, the best since 1998. And the tech-heavy NASDAQ beat a 30 percent return, the best since 1999. Smaller companies tended to do even better than the big ones in these large-company-heavy celebrity indices.

The bottom line: panic is not your friend. The other bottom line is that betting against the US economy is usually a bad move. I’m not telling you how to invest. I am telling you how not to invest. No-no number one is not to be controlled by your emotions.

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The Little Sisters of the Poor just won a big case at the Supreme Court, but the win goes far beyond the famous order of Catholic nuns. This decision is a big win for religious liberty and for moral conscience.

In a 7-2 decision, the nation’s highest court ruled that employers who have sincere religious or conscience beliefs against birth control cannot be forced to pay for contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

The majority decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, came nine years after groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor protested that the Obama Administration was forcing a violation of religious conscience through its rules on the Affordable Care Act. The Court upheld a policy correction made by the Trump Administration that restored religious liberty and included the right of conscience for employers.

It took both the Trump Administration and the Supreme Court to set this straight.

Keep that in mind as you vote in November.

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