Dr. Tim Keller was on my radio program recently to talk about his new book, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical. In many ways, it was a prequel to his earlier apologetics book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

His earlier book (The Reason for God) deals with two large issues: doubt and the reasons for faith. For the skeptic, he attempts to answer the major questions that keep skeptics from biblical faith. These are such questions about whether there can even be one true religion. And if God exists, then how can a good God allow suffering in the world? He also tackles whether science has disproved Christianity. From there he presents the biblical reasons for faith by focusing on sin, the gospel, the cross, and the resurrection.

His new book (An Invitation to the Skeptical) starts at the beginning since he has found that many might not even want to consider God, religion, and Christianity because it doesn’t seem relevant enough to their lives. In a number of chapters, he begins to answer some important preliminary questions.

For example, many skeptics feel there is no need to believe in a God to have a full life of hope and meaning. They also believe they can live their lives free from any religious constraints, at least as long as they don’t harm others. Moreover, they believe that they don’t need God to have a basis for moral values and human rights.

Tim Keller takes the time to point out the errors in those beliefs, often by showing that the secularist also exercises faith. It isn’t just the religious person who exercises faith. Everyone exercises faith. After showing the failure of secularism and postmodernism, he concludes by showing that it is reasonable to believe in God.

Both of these books address important theological and apologetic questions. I recommend both of them because they are great resources to put in the hands of your secular friends.

If you think about it, your life is the culmination of lots and lots of decisions. Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, argues that people make 10,000 to 20,000 small decisions every day. If you multiply this by the US population you end up with one quadrillion decisions. This is one of the points Jeff Myers makes in his book, Understanding the Culture.

The legacy you leave is the sum of all of these decisions. Many are inconsequential. Others determine the future direction of your life. Some don’t seem important at the time, but they turn out to be some of the most significant decisions you ever made.

How should we make decisions? First, we should consult the Bible. We can know God’s will in our lives through the Bible since it is full of specific commands and principles. Second, we should pray. We can discern God’s will through prayer. Philippians 4:6 says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Third, consult your conscience. If your conscience troubles you (Romans 14), then that is reason enough to stop and not proceed. Acts 24:16 says, “Christians should strive to have a good conscience before God and man.” By the way, a clear conscience isn’t always a justification for proceeding. The Bible teaches that “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). We can easily deceive ourselves into sin.

Finally, seek counsel. Proverbs 15:22 says, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Wisdom comes from many counselors. Share your decision with other godly men and women. Their collective response will often provide God’s direction in a matter.

As Christians, we should strive to make wise and Godly decisions about our lives. How we make decisions will affect the rest of our lives and leave a legacy of faith for others to follow.

No doubt you have heard the phrase, “politics is downstream from culture.” It is a way of explaining that what is at stake in our world often begins upstream in the culture.

Popular culture is all around us and delivered to us through broadcast media and social media. We perceive the world through news reports, through movies, through entertainment programs, and through music. Every form of communication has a message. Sometimes it is blatant and intentional. Often it is subtle and not even perceived by the artist, actor, musician, or broadcaster. He or she may simply be telling a story but that story comes from a worldview perspective.

A wise and discerning Christian should frequently ask, what message is being delivered? Is the viewpoint true or false? How does it line up with biblical principles? But let’s face it, many of us merely accept what we read, see, and hear uncritically.

And that brings us to politics. We are bombarded by messages every day. Most Americans watch lots of television, listen to a fair amount of music, and visit various websites. Unless they are approaching all of this entertainment with lots of discernment, they will begin to accept the worldview perspective of the writer, the actor, the director, the musician who control the story and the perspective.

Most of these stories come from a liberal, secular viewpoint that becomes easier to embrace. If someone stood before you and lectured you about abortion, homosexuality, or gender identity, your guard would be up. But if these stories portray liberals, feminists, and gays in a positive light, they get into our head and emotions. And if they portray conservatives and Christians in a negative light, the same thing happens.

All of this to say, we need to pay attention to popular culture, because politics is downstream from culture.

I often say on my radio program that we spend millions of dollars each year in research studies to validate what most mothers already know. That is certainly the case with the studies attempting to explain why certain people procrastinate.

Andrew Santella writes about this in his book, Soon: An Overdue History of Procrastination, From Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me. He explains “The Real Reason You Procrastinate” in a recent article in Time magazine.

People who procrastinate often postpone projects in order to have a self-serving excuse. If they wait until the last minute, and do a poor job, they can always say they could have done better if they didn’t run out of time.

Psychologists have a term for this practice. They call it “self-handicapping.” It is a strategy where people are actually sabotaging their own efforts. It is protection against the ego-crushing consequences of failure. It is worth mentioning that self-handicapping can take many other forms like substance abuse or lousy sleep habits. But it shows up most prominently when people postpone work on a project.

Psychologists have found that self-handicapping shows up in other ways. For example, students are more likely to postpone studying for a test when they are told that it was a meaningful evaluation of their abilities. They did not exhibit the same behavior if they were told the test was meaningless and was being taken only for fun. Consider this contrast. When the test counted, students procrastinated. When it didn’t count, they diligently prepared.

Procrastination appeals to some because it provides a way of controlling life that seems too chaotic and unmanageable. But it is helpful to note, that often procrastination adds to the chaos. It is better to buckle down and get started on the project.

The Constitution mandates a survey of Americans every decade. And the Commerce Secretary has discretion over the questions that census takers must ask. In most administrations, that would be the end of it. But Donald Trump is the president, and so just about everything that is proposed in his administration is controversial.

The Justice Department asked census officials to include a question about citizenship, so they can better enforce the Voting Rights Act. Including such a question was so controversial that a number of states have filed suit against the Trump Administration. Some commentators have suggested that the liberal overreaction to the question is a good reason why we should push for it.

The attorneys general argue that asking this question might undercount people in blue states and affect congressional representation. Actually, there are lots of places in red states with illegal immigrants. Here are just a few towns where the percentage of undocumented immigrants exceeds ten percent: McAllen (TX), Yuma (AZ), and Gainesville (GA).

Critics also fear that illegal immigrants will not fill out the U.S. Census forms. That hasn’t been the response with the long-form census that already asks the question about citizenship. On the other hand, it has been a problem getting illegal immigrants to fill out the short-form even with massive outreach programs.

Several other countries (from Australia to the United Kingdom) do include a citizenship question in their surveys. The United States used to ask the question on the short-form until the 1960s and has continued to ask about citizenship on the long-form.

The Justice Department said it needs more data on the location of voters for a fair enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. I think that is reason enough to include the question.

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stirred up a discussion about the Second Amendment when he published an op-ed in The New York Times that called for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Most of the reaction centered on the fact that it would be nearly impossible. The amendment process set forth in the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a convention of states called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures. It then must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. That is not going to happen.

What was missing from much of the reaction was a critique of the former justice’s legal and historical analysis. Amy Swearer provides a needed response. For example, the former justice argued that the Second Amendment was written solely because the framers feared a standing army. According to him, the amendment was about the militia and did not protect an individual right. James Madison, however, in Federalist Paper No. 46 distinguished armed individuals from a militia. Samuel Adams declared, “The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

The former justice also argued that the idea of the individual right is a new idea, essentially invented by the NRA. That would be news to the Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, who wrote in 1833 that “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has been justly considered as a palladium of the liberties of the republic.”

John Paul Stevens also wrote that the Second Amendment did not put limits on government to enact gun control legislation. However, William Rawle wrote in his View of the Constitution of the United States that “No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give Congress a power to disarm the people.”

If we are going to have a debate about the Second Amendment, it is critical that we get the legal history correct.

Do we see a pattern in these school shootings? Emilie Kao recently wrote about “The Crisis of Fatherless Shooters.” She says there is a sobering theme found in the biographies of school shooters: fatherlessness.

“Of the 25 most-cited school shooters since Columbine, 75 percent were reared in broken homes. Psychologist Dr. Peter Langman, a pre-eminent expert on school shooters, found that most came from incredibly broken homes of not just divorce and separation, but also infidelity, substance abuse, criminal behavior, domestic violence, and child abuse.”

She also cites two criminologists that found that the absence of fathers was one of the “most powerful predictors of crimes.” Fathers are role models for their sons. They help maintain authority and discipline and help sons develop self-control and empathy toward others. Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis, says a boy’s identity is comprised of half his dad and half his mom. If his dad abandons him, he fears he is not worthy.

Of course, there are also other factors. J. Warner Wallace describes some of the changes in our culture in the last few decades that are having an impact. For example, there has been an increase in social media use. In a recent survey, teenagers reported that they often feel bad about themselves when viewing social media. Many report being bullied online. He also points to an increased dependency on prescription medicine. While there is certainly a benefit to medicine to treat many mental issues, he also points to the fact that “many of the school shooters were using (or had recently stopped using) prescription drugs.”

He also points to the decrease in traditional Christian values. This shift in our moral foundation is no doubt another important factor. That is why we should pay attention to the cultural shift taking place around us that is influencing the next generation.

You may have noticed that sometimes people who talk about the need to practice civility need to take their own advice. In the past, this has often been a problem for progressives. They talk about civility, but often engage in name-calling and vilifying others. Their dialogue is anything but civil. Even the previous president was sometimes guilty of saying one thing and doing another.

But lately, it has been conservatives who have been guilty of violating their proposed rules about civil dialogue. What brought this on has been the strident statements by some of the students who survived the school shooting in Parkland. Let’s just look at the bashing and sliming of David Hogg. He has been called a high-school bully. Some erroneously speculated that he may not have been at the school the day of the shooting. One commentator made fun of him because he was rejected by certain colleges.

By the way, these examples are from what you might call mainstream conservative commentators. Of course, there are always people and groups on the fringe who engage in what has been called “conspiracy mongering.” Those groups spread false rumors about David Hogg giving the Nazi salute. And there was the false story about one of the Parkland students tearing up a Constitution. Those stories are so extreme they hardly deserve a response. But the other examples I gave came from people who are respected in the conservative world and who speak at conferences and conventions.

The real test of civility is how you respond to someone who does not treat you in a civil manner. I think we all realize that high school students are going to say some things that are not well-informed. Students who have been through a traumatic event like a school shooting are going to say things with anger and emotion. The test of civility is not to respond in kind. Romans 12:21 reminds us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That is an important principle to follow in the midst of these contentious debates.