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The attempted assassination of a President

The roles of divine providence and the human condition

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Saturday marked the end of the longest span between domestic assassination attempts of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since President Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. President Garfield was killed in 1881; Mckinley in 1901. Attempts were made at Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Truman in 1950. President JFK was killed in 1963 and candidate RFK in 1968. Candidate George Wallace was shot and survived in 1972, and two attempts were made at President Ford in 1975. The most recent domestic assassination attempt prior to Saturday was over forty years ago, when Ronald Reagan was shot and survived, and afterward quipped to his wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

While the frequency of this violent history may be surprising, it does not diminish the horrific and evil nature of Saturday’s shooting nor the tremendous loss experienced by the family of Corey Comperatore. According to the New York Times, Comperatore died when he “threw himself over his family members to shield them.”

A former fire chief, Comperatore was also, according to his daughter,

“[T]he best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer. … [H]e could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day (at the rally) and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family.”

Questions abound about this attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, from the motivations of the shooter to the seemingly unfathomable reality that the 20-year-old was able to reach an elevated position with direct line-of-sight only 130 yards or so from the President. There’s also the many “what might have been” questions, about the President personally and about the nation, questions that have only shudder-inducing speculative answers. And there are the worldview questions that arise in historic moments like this, about the reality of God and the role of divine providence in national and international affairs; and about the human condition, especially the frailty of life and the moral significance of our actions.

As Dr. Al Mohler helpfully articulated in The Briefing, “[L]ife and death can come down to the matter of seconds and to a matter of a millimeter.” The former President seems to also recognize that his survival was due to that level of precision, acknowledging to the New York Post, “I’m not supposed to be here. … By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.”

That it is by God and not luck, Christians know for sure (and it seems, so does the President). At the same time, this clear teaching of Scripture, that God oversees the affairs of men particularly in raising up and casting down those in power, is not easy to understand. Why would God spare the President’s life but not Mr. Comperatore? By all indications, Mr. Trump turned his head to a chart on a screen and was somehow saved. Mr. Comperatore made the decision to throw himself between his family and an assassin, and it cost him his life. How does that make any sense?

“Here,” Mohler continued, “Christians understand we have nowhere to go but the Doctrine of Providence. … It is essential to our Christian understanding of the world.” God’s providence extends to every moment of human history, not just the seemingly exceptional ones. The world is never outside of His control, even when the outcome is not as we hoped. Put differently, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was providential for both England and Spain. The fog that enabled the Dunkirk rescue was providential for the British, the Germans, and the entire world.

And yet, just as essential to the Christian understanding of the world is the moral capacity of human beings and the meaningfulness of human actions. A Hindu leader once noted to theologian and missionary Lesslie Newbigin,

“I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.”

There is no conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility. In fact, the alternatives would be far worse. If no sovereign God exists, then life and all that happens is random and meaningless, except for some preferred interpretation we choose to impose on it. If all is predetermined, either by “nature” or by some heartless deity, we have no cause to expect better behavior of ourselves or others. The meaningfulness of our actions and the constant presence and oversight of our loving Creator may be difficult to reconcile, but it is a far better scenario.

Thus we can say, both truthfully and meaningfully, that God graciously spared the former President, that the shooter’s actions were evil and heinous, and that Mr. Comperatore was heroic to protect his family. We can also, truthfully and meaningfully, judge the words and the actions of ourselves, our leaders, and our press in response to this tragedy. We can act so that, by God’s grace, this kind of thing will not become normal. We can pray that, having lived through this attempt on his life, President Trump is brought to a place of gratitude to God and a sense of responsibility, rather than to a sense of entitlement. At the same time, we should pray that God’s grace and mercy covers the Comperatore family and that He will use His church to do so.

We should know also that our moral actions matter as well, as citizens and voters who follow Christ. How God’s people respond to this telling and troubling political moment will either point this world to Christ or not. So, here’s a prayer for us all:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. This is reprinted with permission from the Colson Center. Photo credit: rblfmr/Shutterstock.com

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We aren’t alone! 1,000+ converge in Texas for courageous faith

In  1 Kings 19 we find Elijah lamenting to God that the Israelites had rejected God’s covenant and that he alone was left, and Queen Jezebel was out to kill him too. God informed Elijah that he had it wrong, and that God had reserved a throng of 7,000 others who had not bowed to Baal. I recently assembled with a couple dozen Canadians and over a thousand others in Arlington, Texas for the 2024 Colson Center national conference. Listening to the stories and seeing this throng of believers, it was very evident that God continues to preserve His people through each age, and that He also calls us to stand firm in the face of the Jezebels of our day. As I’ve shared before, the Colson Center equips Christians to apply their faith to the cultural moment where God has placed us. This particular conference was focused on equipping attendees for “courageous faith.” As the organizers explained: “Faithfulness to Christ is not possible when we capitulate to profane cultural narratives, no matter how often or loud they are repeated…. The clash between the sacred and the profane is no longer ‘out there’ and the pressure to compromise is not merely hypothetical.” Courage past and present In the opening session on “courageous citizenship,” the Colson Center’s John Stonestreet interviewed Rod Dreher, the author of the well-known book Live Not by Lies, and also Kamila Bendová, who was featured in Dreher’s book. Dr. Bendová and her family live in the Czech Republic. Along with her late husband Václav Benda, they raised six children while holding underground seminars in opposition to their communist government, all while having their home bugged. Dr. Bendová shared how she didn’t protect her children from their resistance efforts but rather involved them. Now, many decades later, she reflects that all of her children and grandchildren have remained faithful. We can learn from the past, but need to live in the present. Doctor Kristin Collier spoke about the courage to change your mind, recounting how her journey from unbelief to faith in Christ resulted in 180 degree changes to her convictions about contentious issues like abortion. God then forced her to make a choice to follow Him in her public work as well, which came at a cost. She pointed us to Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” noting that at the core of courage is listening to and obeying the Word of God. Reverend Calvin Robinson, a broadcaster and commentator from England who himself was cancelled for his faith, challenged participants “we are called to be cancelled for our faith. We should embrace it rather than be afraid of it.” He proceeded to outline how our spiritual enemy is trying to divide and conquer by having Christians look to each other as moral compasses rather than looking to the teachings of Christ. Other speakers bravely and compassionately shared their stories and lessons about critical theory, cultivating a healthy identity, artificial reproduction, transgenderism, palliative care, and encountering suffering, all through the lens of living faithfully for our Lord. Conference connections It is one thing to read articles, listen to podcasts, or watch videos about these matters and another to be physically present with hundreds of other followers of Christ, growing in our walk together. We don’t all get the privilege of doing that at a conference like this, but we do have the ability to gather with our brothers and sisters in church weekly, in addition to Bible studies and fellowship in our homes. Let’s not miss these opportunities to spur each other on to godliness in this present age! If it interests you, the next Colson Center national conference is scheduled for May 30 to June 1, 2025 in Louisville, Kentucky, and we heard that Reformed authors Carl Trueman and Rosaria Butterfield are both scheduled to speak there. Pro-life apologist Scott Klusendorf will also be there. You can find out more at ColsonConference.org. Although Canada isn’t blessed with a conference like this, Reformed Perspective hopes to help change this with something similar (though much smaller and simpler) in the years to come. As valuable as a magazine, podcast, newsletter, website, and apps are, there is no substitute to gathering with others to worship God together and spur each other on in our walk. Mark and Jaclyn Penninga were just a couple of the Canadians at the Colson Conference. Other Reformed Christians included Rev. and Mrs. Slomp, and RP contributor Mark Slomp and his wife Jennifer....