As 2015 slinks toward the finish line, it is readily apparent that everywhere one looks people are desperately searching for someone or something to save us from our deepest dreads. 

For about twenty years, because of important publications with similar titles from the pen of Samuel Huntington, it has been common to interpret international and cross cultural events in light of “The Clash of Civilizations” theory.

In early January Islamic terrorists struck Paris.  First there was the revenge execution of twelve cartoonists and editors at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices.   Two terrorists, part of an Islamic Terrorist cell in the French capital, barged into the office building and called out specific men they then executed.  I do not countenance what the magazine published.  It was vulgar and highly offensive.  But the Islamic attack was an assault on free speech.

 Step back and look at the big picture.  The view is disturbing.

Last Friday morning in an interview on Good Morning America, President Obama crowed about the killing of Jihadi John in a U.S. air strike and announced, “ISIL is contained.” 

The November 2015 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine, contains an article about Bulgaria that features a powerful photograph of the ruins of the Budludzha Monument.  The monument was once a tribute to the birth of Bulgaria’s socialist movement. 

Before the bodies had cooled or the blood congealed, President Obama stalked to the nation’s television cameras and with phony rage damned the guns that law abiding Americans own, and blamed them for the latest mass shooting. 

As I sat at my computer on Sunday night, September 27, I was amazed. For five days every newscast and commentator had responded the visit of Pope Francis to America with such joy and positive energy. From every perspective, including the most non-religious journalists and broadcasters, people had talked about the pope but in doing so they had talked a great deal about Jesus, the Bible and the joy of the gospel.

As an African and an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana teaching at a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (USA), I have keenly followed the fractious debate on the subject of same-sex relations within the Presbyterian family of churches.

The 1978 movie, Coma, was a chilling exercise in horror.  It starred Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas.  Bujold played a resident doctor at the fictional Boston Memorial Hospital, who discovers that a number of fit and healthy young adults have unexpectedly died, been declared brain dead, during routine, minor surgeries.  As she investigates, Bujold discovers that the bodies are being maintained in a coma state at the mysterious Jefferson Institute. 

To the World from America: Last Friday night, June 26, 2015 the White House glowed with the giddy colors of the rainbow as the President celebrated same sex marriage.  The light display was an in-your-face symbol that, in the wake of the Supreme Court decisions on Obamacare and same sex marriage, everything has changed.  It was the flaunted demonstration that the wicked now reign in America.

 Western culture was built upon Biblical foundations.  The latest reviews of social attitudes reveal that the foundation has been deeply undermined under the onslaught of the sexual rebellion by the Baby-Boomer generation, its start symbolized by Woodstock in August 1969.

 An Outstanding Article by Tim Keller on Same-Sex Marriage

The issue of homosexuality and, in particular, same-sex marriage is affecting the church all across the globe.  Many pastors, church congregations, and individual believers are being called to provide sufficient answers to challenges to our faith and to respond wisely to the intolerance of many who are promoting  same-sex marriage.