Has This Church Hit Rock Bottom?

Good morning!

Jesus asked, what good are God’s people, “the salt of the earth,” if they lose their flavor? (Matthew 5:13). The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is providing a vivid answer.

[BRIEF]

The church is set to vote at its General Assembly in Milwaukee later this month on a proposed rule requiring ordained clergy to be in monogamous sexual relationships. This is the barest minimum of moral requirements for their clergy.

• Forget a minister being “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2). This proposal just says clergy must be “in monogamous sexual relationships.” Cohabiting priests are fine, and homosexual priests are fine; they just have to stick to one partner at a time.

But what is making headlines is not the proposal—it’s the backlash. Many members are up in arms over such a restrictive rule. Three official church advisory committees have come out against it, and the proposal is expected to fail.

• The Women and Gender Justice committee says the rule seeks to “regulate the private lives and relational structures of individuals in ways that risk harm rather than healing” and could “reinforce systems of shame, silence and spiritual coercion.”
• The denomination’s lgbtqia+ Equity committee says the rule reflects “white privilege” as it “privileges a dominant cultural framework over the lived realities of communities of color and global Christians.”
• A progressive advocacy group called More Light Presbyterians has been hosting training sessions on the “good fruit” of polyamorous relationships.

Behold what happens when a church discards the Bible and compromises with lawlessness.

• John Knox, who founded Presbyterianism in 16th-century Scotland, believed in the Bible’s authority. The Westminster Confession of Faith—the doctrinal backbone of Presbyterianism for nearly 400 years—explicitly says marriage is the union of one man and one woman, lifelong and exclusive.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) abandoned this standard incrementally. It began ordaining openly homosexual clergy in 2011. It redefined marriage as “two people” in 2014.

• Once you decide that scriptural truth can be revised by committee, there is no logical stopping point.

It would be easy to treat this as an outlier—one badly compromised denomination in its death spiral. This church has hemorrhaged members for decades; its membership has fallen from more than 3 million in the 1980s to around 1 million today.

• But the spirit driving this story is not confined to one denomination. American religion faces relentless pressure to accommodate and affirm, to prioritize self-expression and inclusion over biblical standards.

America is supposedly in a religious revival. Church attendance is ticking up. Jesus’s name is back in public. The president is hosting days of prayer.

• But revival, biblically, has a specific meaning—and it is not a warm feeling. It is repentance.
• It is what King Josiah did when God’s law was found; he tore his robes in grief at how far Israel had strayed (2 Kings 22). It is what the people of Nineveh did when Jonah arrived. It is the prophet’s cry: “rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel 2:13).

America will not be healed by a religion that makes peace with its sins. It will be healed only when it confronts them. To understand what true repentance looks like and why it is the only path forward, read Repentance Toward God.

Even in Israel, What POTUS Wants, POTUS Gets

Israel is halting attacks on Iran, while threatening further attacks if Iran reciprocates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday. He claims Israel had reached its objectives, but the real cause may not be events in Tehran but in Washington.

“At the moment, we are holding our fire because after we struck the terror regime in Tehran, it ceased attacking us. In the event that the terror regime in Iran makes the mistake of resuming attacks on us—we will respond with overwhelming force.”
—Benjamin Netanyahu

This comes after media reports suggested United States President Donald Trump disapproved of the Iran attacks and Israel conducting them, or a portion of them, anyway.

Deeper motives: The U.S. and Iran are holding peace talks that Israel remains highly suspicious of. Some speculate that Israel was trying to hurt Iran as much as possible before President Trump gets his peace deal. That Israel called off a larger campaign suggests what limits the U.S. is placing on it.

• Last night, Israel’s Channel 12 quoted Trump as saying, “I told Bibi, you’d better be careful what you do, because you could be left alone against Iran very soon.”

During the war, Israel and the U.S. claimed they were on the same page throughout. That isn’t the case today.

Nuclear progress? President Trump claims to have received a major concession from the Iranians in peace negotiations. He told the New York Post on Monday: “They’ve already agreed they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.” He said that was “a very big thing” for moving negotiations forward.

• Iran has always claimed it never intends to have a nuclear weapon. This has never stopped it from constructing all the most important components of a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s position concerns Israel. Media reports suggest the Pentagon is unnerved by “an intensified Israeli effort to learn about U.S. positions in talks with Iran,” per the New York Times.

• This apparently includes spying on U.S. officials, such as Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and War Department official Elbridge Colby. Both Israel and the White House deny the reports.

Israel sees the Iran war as a matter of national survival. The U.S. sees it as a quagmire. These two positions are mutually exclusive. If the two countries keep their current positions, they can’t stay allies for long—as Bible prophecy forecasts.

Are Smartphones Curbing Birthrates?

U.S. birthrates began falling in 2007 and have fallen ever since. The iPhone was released that same year. Coincidence? Researchers suspect not—and they have tried to prove it.

AT&T’s rollout could be the key. Until February 2011, the iPhone was available only on that carrier. In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers and Ezekiel Hooper compared the fertility rate of counties with high AT&T coverage pre-2011 with counties that had little to no coverage.

• They concluded that iPhones weren’t the only cause—but they were a major factor, especially among those ages 15 to 24.

Why? Myers put forward several ideas:

• Young people met in person less and so had sex and became pregnant less.
• iPhones meant easier access to information about contraception and abortion.
• iPhones made pornography easier to access, which became a substitute for sex.

Spiritual sickness lies at the root of declining birthrates. It’s a reflection on the decline of families, masculinity, femininity, morale and confidence in the future, and a host of other causes.

Smartphone use has helped transform society in line with these trends.

• Many young men fear being shamed or seen as creepy if they ask a woman out in person. Dating apps are considered the only safe way to go. Yet those dating apps bring their own problems, with men and women trying to customize the perfect partner, insisting they meet a set of empirical, visible, measurable and, therefore, shallow characteristics.
• This shift likely would not have happened without smartphones.

A much deeper spiritual attack on family comes from the one the Bible calls “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4), Satan the devil, who hates children and family. The July 2025 issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet states:

The devil is in control right now, and he is angry. The Bible makes clear that he was never given the power to reproduce himself as humans can. And he was never offered the future mankind has been offered. Because of this, he hates people of every age, sex, race and nation. And he has done all he can to pervert and destroy humanity, and he has deceived the whole world (Revelation 12:9).

This simple fact explains so much about the modern world. Satan’s leadership explains why mankind can’t avoid war. It explains why our leaders are corrupt and our nations are divided against each other. It explains why child abuse, spouse abuse, substance abuse, depression, hopelessness and suicide are ubiquitous. And it helps explain why so many today choose not to have children.

That same evil being influences social trends and technological developments. His influence has led man to turn modern technology to evil, destructive uses.

Yet the decline in birthrates will be reversed. To learn more, read “Heading Into a Baby-Free World.”

IN OTHER NEWS

The Dragon visits the Hermit Kingdom: Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping concluded a two-day visit to North Korea today, marking his first trip to the rogue nation in seven years. Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to strengthen strategic ties between their nations and resolutely safeguard their ‌security, sovereignty and development interests. China’s Xinhua News Agency said Xi called for deepening cooperation in agriculture, health care, science, technology and trade, and for increasing people-to-people exchanges. “In the face of the profound changes unseen in a century that are accelerating across the world, the two sides should take a broad and long-term view, build on past achievements and open up a new future,” Xi said. The strengthening China-North Korea partnership is an important part of a pan-Asian alliance foretold in biblical prophecy and now taking shape.

Philippines earthquake kills dozens: At least 37 people died and 134 were injured after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines yesterday. The shock destroyed several buildings and triggered landslides, displacing more than 10,000 families. More than 125 aftershocks were recorded with magnitudes up to 6.7. To understand the Bible’s answer about why such tragedies happen, read Why ‘Natural’ Disasters?

Europe is taking over talks with Russia: The leaders of Europe are “taking up and continuing the negotiation process” with Russia “that the U.S. has largely led,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s spokesman, Stefan Kornelius, stated Sunday, adding that negotiators will stay in “close coordination with the U.S.” and that the transition to more open dialogue with Russia is part of a “phase of reorientation.” Although he said European negotiators will “stay in close coordination with the U.S.,” this is an opportunity for European diplomats to strengthen European policy and interests and directly diminish American policy and interests on the Continent.

Next-generation European fighter project is dead: Germany’s Handelsblatt reported yesterday that Germany is backing out of the joint French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System project, which was launched in 2017 to build a sixth-generation fighter jet for Europe, due to disagreements between German-influenced Airbus Defense and Space and France’s Dassault Aviation. Expect Europe to develop advanced military capabilities through “joint” projects dominated by Germany.

Far-right politician takes second place in local German election: Stefan Hartung, member of the far-right Free Sachsen party, took second place, with 47 percent of the vote, in the Aue-Bad Schlema mayoral election on Sunday. Members of Free Sachsen previously belonged to the National Democratic Party of Germany, which was described in 2017 by the nation’s highest court as “similar in nature to National Socialism.” Aue-Bad Schlema has fewer than 20,000 residents, but this election result is a clue that the far right is alive in Germany.

Houthis blockade Israel: Yemen’s Houthi terror group, an Iranian proxy, announced yesterday that it had fired missiles at Israel and that it will target Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Immediately following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Houthis launched missiles and drones at Israel, and during the active fighting of the Israel-Hamas war, the Houthis sided with Hamas, attacking dozens of vessels in international waters and essentially blocking international shipping from using the Red Sea. Israel and the United States have since conducted numerous strikes on the Houthis. It is unknown whether they retain the power to terrorize and blockade shipping, but the risk alone would probably dissuade many shippers and insurers from using the Red Sea. This could set the stage for the fulfillment of a prophecy in the book of Daniel.

Mexico refuses to extradite Sinaloa governor: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is pushing back against U.S. pressure by refusing to extradite Rubén Rocha, the governor of Sinaloa State and a key ally in her ruling Morena Party. On May 31, at a major public rally at the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City, she declared, “Mexico is nobody’s piñata,” and suggested that U.S. demands to extradite Rocha could be aimed at interfering in Mexico’s 2027 elections rather than purely fighting cartels. Rocha was indicted by U.S. prosecutors in late April, along with nine other current and former officials, on charges of conspiring with the Sinaloa Cartel. Prosecutors allege he allowed cartel leaders to smuggle massive quantities of drugs into the U.S. in exchange for bribes and political support. The fact that Sheinbaum is willing to risk alienating the U.S. to avoid antagonizing the Sinaloa Cartel shows just how far American power and influence have fallen.

Federal judge strikes down Trump’s $100,000 worker visa fee: On Monday, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin in Boston struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, which was designed to reduce the number of foreign workers taking lower-paying American jobs. He ruled that the executive branch violated the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing what amounts to a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation of authority from Congress. The Trump administration is preparing to appeal the decision.