If I were to ask you which professions have high suicide rates, you would probably mention military veterans suffering from PTSD. In their latest report, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have found that the suicide rate for young male military veterans is higher than previously thought. But they found that it is lower in some states than the suicide rate for farmers.

The high suicide rate for famers is only just now beginning to get media attention. Some mental health experts are saying that we probably need some sort of federally funded prevention resources similar to what is provided to veterans.

Mike Rosman is a psychologist who has been studying this issue for decades and has an appreciation for the stresses on farmers since he is also an Iowa farmer. Writing in the journal Behavioral Healthcare he reminds us that, “Farming has always been a stressful occupation because many of the factors that affect agricultural production are largely beyond the control of the producers.”

This is borne out with the latest statistics from the CDC. If you focus on all the people working in agriculture (farmers, farm laborers, ranchers, fishers, and lumber harvesters), they take their lives at a rate higher than any other occupation. The suicide rate for agriculture workers in 17 states is nearly five times higher compared with that in the general population.

The reasons for this are many. Farmers are often reluctant to seek help. Often their farms are far from health care centers. Pesticide exposure can lead to depression. They are isolated. The cost of feed and equipment continues to rise while the prices they receive for food and fiber remain stagnant.

This is a health care crisis that deserves attention. Perhaps this is the first time you have heard about the suicide rate of farmers. Making citizens and politicians aware of this crisis is the first step.

A few months from now we will know how the Supreme Court will rule in the Colorado cake case involving Jack Phillips. In previous commentaries, I have talked about how this case will certainly have some influence on other cases involving bakers, florists, and photographers. Wesley J. Smith in a recent column says it might also affect people in the medical field.

He believes it could have an impact on medical conscience rights. He says: “The law generally protects medical conscience in the areas of abortion and assisted suicide, although not pharmacists dispensing contraception. But those protections are under intellectual assault in bioethics in preparation for eventual attempts to change the law.”

People who want to reduce or eliminate medical conscience rights want to replace them with a “patient’s rights” approach to healthcare. In other words, if a medical procedure is legal, then the doctor or nurse MUST provide the procedure. It wouldn’t matter if the doctor or nurse had a moral or religious objection.

According to those who want this new approach to healthcare, nurses and doctors who cannot comply need to leave the profession. Ezekiel Emanuel was instrumental in crafting the Affordable Care Act, now known as Obamacare. He said as much in the New England Journal of Medicine. He argued that doctors who do not wish to perform elective procedures accepted by the medical establishment have two choices. They can find an area of medial practice (such a radiology) where their moral views will not be challenged. Otherwise, they need to get out of medicine altogether.

In the oral arguments in the Colorado baker case, one of the justices suggested the same thing. If you can’t bake a cake for a same-sex ceremony, you need to get out of the baking business. These two statements remind us that we may be moving into an era where government officials won’t even try to accommodate a person’s religious convictions.

The Big Four Tech Masters are Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google. They dominate the digital world and therefore have a responsibility they have been able to shirk until now.

In a recent column, Jim Geraghty says they “were not built to differentiate accurate information from inaccurate information, to dispel and counteract hateful voices, or to sniff out and stop disinformation campaigns by foreign intelligence.” Instead, they were built to make money. They never foresaw how evil people could use put up livesteam videos of murder and other evil acts. They never foresaw how terrorists could use their networks. They never realized how complete strangers could use their platforms to send hateful messages and harass and cyberbully others.

For many years now, the Big Four “could shrug and emphasize that they were platforms, not content creators.” They could pretend they were like technicians running a printing press or like a college student playing music on the campus radio station. If you didn’t like what was printed or didn’t like the lyrics of a song, take it up with the creator not the person printing the words or playing the music.

Frankly, that argument doesn’t work any longer because these digital platforms have become news and information sites. Jim Garaghty says the Big Four have only two choices. First, they can pretend they aren’t in the news business and don’t deserve to be a trusted source of information. Americans stopped believing emails from Nigerian princes promising millions of dollars. Americans can likewise stop believing what they read on social media.

Second, the Big Four can face reality and recognize they are in the news business and start behaving accordingly. That will require some soul-searching and a level of professionalism not found in abundance inside the Big Four Tech Masters. It may be the only way they will continue to have public trust.

Sadly, it has become trendy in some circles to say that the world would be a better place without religion in general and Christianity in particular. I really do wonder if professors, commentators, and people on social media really believe this or are just saying it without any serious reflection. As I like to sometimes say to my atheist acquaintances, I see lots of Catholic hospitals, Presbyterian hospitals, and Baptist hospitals. I have never seen a humanist hospital.

Previous books by D. James Kennedy ask questions like: What if Jesus Had Never Been Born? and What if the Bible Had Never Been Written? Rodney Stark documents the positive impact of Christianity in many books, including The Triumph of Christianity.

In his new book, Unimaginable: What Our World Would be Like Without Christianity, Jeremiah Johnston explains what the world was like before Christianity and what the world would be like without Christianity. He then concludes by talking about the benefits in a world with Christianity. He was in my radio studio talking about the impact of atheism in our world, and then we concluded by talking about the positive influence from Christianity in our world today.

For example, there are an estimated 350,000 religious congregations in the United States, and the vast majority of them “serve in some capacity as a community safety net for those in need.” We also see churches and faith-based organizations helping out in disasters.

So what is the economic impact of faith in America? According to one study cited in the book, religion’s $1.2 trillion impact is more than the global annual earnings of Apple and Microsoft combined. Or you can look at it another way. How much do we save in social services because these are performed by faith organizations? Rodney Stark of Baylor University concludes that the total current savings to US society is $2.67 trillion.

The book’s facts and figures are a vivid reminder that the positive impact of Christianity in society is indeed unimaginable.

On this Christmas day, I think it would be good to reflect for just a moment on the Incarnation. God became man and took on human flesh. This is a great theological wonder and mystery.

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote this to describe the importance of the birth of Christ: “Thanks to the great mercy and marvel of the Incarnation, the cosmic scene is resolved into a human drama. A human drama in which God reached down to relate Himself to man and man reaches up to relate himself to God. Time looks into eternity and eternity into time, making now always and always now. Everything is transformed by this sublime drama of the Incarnation, God’s special parable for man in a fallen world”

God reached down to us by sending the second person of the Trinity to earth to become part of the human drama and human dilemma. God stepped out of eternity into time to become part of the human community. What an incredible act of love and mercy.

God did not just come to dwell among us and comfort us. He came that He might raise us up through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Although we celebrate the birth of Christ today, we also look to the death and resurrection of Christ that we celebrate at Easter. Romans 5:8 proclaims, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 1 Peter 2:24 says that Christ “bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.”

On this Christmas day, we should pause to reflect on why Christ came to earth and what He did for us on the cross.

On this Christmas week, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the coming of the Messiah. The Old Testament contains hundreds of prophecies that give specific detail about the “anointed one” who is the Messiah. The prophets proclaimed that He would come to save the people.

The Bible is unique in many ways, especially when it comes to fulfilled prophecy.
At the time when it was written, 27 percent (1800 verses) of the Bible was prophetic. Large portions of those prophecies have been fulfilled, and that is a powerful argument for the inspiration of the Bible.

What is the probability that these Messianic prophecies could be fulfilled in the life of one person by chance? Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, calculated the probability of just eight Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by chance. These included the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Another was Malachi 3:1 that predicted that a messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah. Four of the prophecies were from Zechariah. They predicted that the Messiah would be betrayed: by a friend, for 30 pieces of silver, and it would be used to buy a potter’s field. Another prophecy said that the Messiah would die by being pierced (crucified).

Multiplying all of these probabilities together, Peter Stoner came up with a number of 10 to the 17th power. In other words, the chance that just eight prophecies could be fulfilled by chance is one in one hundred quadrillion. In order to illustrate this, he says imagine we could fill the state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Put a red mark on one and then ask a blindfolded person to travel anywhere in the state. The chance that he would pick up the marked silver dollar on the first try would be one in one hundred quadrillion.

The conclusion is simple. Jesus is indeed the Messiah predicted by the prophets.

During this Christmas week, I have taken the time to discuss the theology of some of the Christmas hymns and carols that we sing. Today I would like to talk about The First Noel. It is an English song dating back to the sixteenth century. Some people believe that the First Noel was French because of the French spelling of Noel, but it actually an English song. The French word Noël does mean “Christmas” and it relevant to the lyrics of the song. The First Noel was first published in 1833 when it appeared in the work, Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern.

The first line of the song suggests that a December date for the birth of Christ: “The first Noel, the angels did say; Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.” Although many doubt that Jesus was born in December, there are some theologians (such as the author of the Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ) who believes that a December date is possible.

Whatever the case may be about the date of the birth of Jesus, the song continues: “Born is the King of Israel!” It reminds us that a king was born that night. Yet few understood the significance of a birth in Bethlehem.

Even the wise men from the East did not completely understand the significance of His birth, but they were guided to Him by a star. “For all to see there was a star;
Shining in the east, beyond them far; And to the earth it gave great light, And so it continued both day and night.”

The song goes on to say that “three wise men came from country far.” The Bible does not tell us how many wise men there were. We know there were three kinds of gifts
(gold, frankincense, and myrrh).

What the Bible clearly teaches, however, is that Jesus was born and that He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

It is estimated that Charles Wesley wrote over 6500 hymns. Perhaps his best-known hymn is “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” Over the years it has been edited slightly, but the meaning and theology remains as he wrote it more than two centuries ago.

It begins with a proclamation of the birth of Jesus: “Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

The hymn reminds us why Christ came to earth. Jesus came into the world to bring peace, but many who sing this song fail to realize that it was to bring peace between us and God. Wesley’s hymn reminds us that His birth was so that God and sinners would be reconciled. We are the sinners in this hymn, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All we like sheep have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). We have broken God’s commandments and need to be reconciled with God. This was done when Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3).

This hymn by Charles Wesley goes on to describe who Jesus Christ is. “Christ by highest heaven adored; Christ, the everlasting Lord! Late in time behold Him come, offspring of the Virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.”

This is the wonder of the Incarnation. Jesus became the “offspring of the Virgin’s womb.” God became man and was “veiled in flesh” even though He was the “incarnate Deity.”

This Christmas week, let us once again reflect upon the Incarnation. How wonderful yet mysterious that God would become man and dwell among us. And that He would be willing to die on a cross for our sins.