Thank You, Dear Reader

Good morning!

Fewer and fewer people are reading. Those who do so are reading simpler stuff. We are becoming a postliterate society, a chilling article by Rose Horowitch in yesterday’s Atlantic convincingly argues.

[BRIEF]

So thank you, dear reader, for reading the Trumpet. We are in a desperate battle together—a battle for attention, for deep thought—a battle to hold fast our God-given, God-like capacity for reason and analysis, wisdom and choice—a battle to fix our minds on what God reveals is truly important.

• Our frail, fickle human nature would rather surrender to YouTube Shorts and TikTok. We must battle valiantly, or we lose.

Reading itself is a fight against a culture built to prevent it. Everywhere are limitless, autoplay feeds engineered to addict us.

• Even when people do read, it’s often on a phone amid the endless scroll, hyperlinks and notifications that invite surface-level skimming, and studies show comprehension drops on screens versus paper.

The capacity to think deeply is a muscle, and it atrophies without use.

Horowitch: “If we fill our time with short-form videos instead of books, our reading skills atrophy … the complex cognitive skills that reading fosters start to degrade.”

Video is passive. Brain-imaging studies show, for example, that children use less imagination and less of the brain’s learning regions when watching a story versus hearing it read aloud. The brain is doing less work.

The exodus from reading is eroding our capacity for reasoning. Horowitch points to studies showing how literacy creates “the conditions for inner concentration, extended focus and logical deduction.” Horowitch writes, “[T]he decline of reading seems to be ushering in a less rational, analytical and sophisticated mode of thinking.”

• The costs are measurable: Adults’ ability to answer logic questions, reason effectively and analyze patterns is dropping. IQ scores have tapered off about three points in each of the last two decades—roughly since the iPhone launched.

The Trumpet staff has been wrestling with how to make the mind-stretching, life-changing truth of God pop, how to blast it beyond the shrinking audience of readers. And is there any possible way to turn the TikTok generation into studiers and thinkers?

• That’s a tall task and genuinely an open question.

The cold truth is, for God to be able to truly impact a life, that person must be thinking. For Him to work with you, you must be questioning, searching, studying, analyzing, examining. Which means you must be reading. Not skimming—reading.

• You cannot be led to repentance if you have lost the capacity to weigh, reason and judge.

God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together ….” God, the deepest thinker in the universe, wants to reason together with you—impact your thoughts, communicate with you, commingle your thoughts and His.

• That demands working to elevate your thinking—because as God says in Isaiah 55:8-9, “[M]y thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways …. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

He wants to help each one of us to come to think on His level—to come to have, in Spirit, the sublime mind of Jesus Christ in us (Philippians 2:5).

So again—thank you for fighting with us. Keep resisting the distraction, the culture of skim and swipe. Get your nose in a book—especially The Book. Keep exercising and maintaining your attention, your ability to study, your capacity to think. It’s essential for God to be able to impact your mind, to lead you to repentance and conversion.

Trump Reaggravates Europe Over Greenland

“We are ready to defend every inch of nato, including our own territory,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stated on Wednesday. Who is Denmark ready to defend against? The United States.

• President Trump reopened a dispute with Denmark and Europe at the nato summit in Turkey on Tuesday by stating that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not Denmark.”

Bible prophecy warns that the existing U.S.-Europe alliance will continue to dissolve. Tensions over Greenland highlight its unraveling.

• Trump made similar comments in January, exposing the sickly state of trans-Atlantic relations and even prompting European nations to briefly send small numbers of troops to Greenland to deter or hamper a possible U.S. invasion.

Trump also threatened on Tuesday to cut American defense spending in Europe and remove all American troops if the U.S. isn’t given Greenland.

• He justified the possible troop removal by noting Europe is “a very different place than it was 20 years ago.”
• He is right: Europe has grown stronger and more hostile toward the United States.

These tensions are a harbinger of what the future holds for the Europe-America relationship. In fact, Bible prophecy reveals that war is coming. Learn more in “Atlantic Rift,” Chapter 11 of He Was Right.

Jewish Americans Like Mamdani More Than

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a radical Muslim socialist, is more popular among American Jews than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a new survey.

• The Associated Press-norc Center for Public Affairs Research released its poll of 1,022 American Jews on Tuesday. It found that 44 percent of Jewish adults view the Muslim mayor favorably, compared with only 32 percent who view the Israeli prime minister favorably.
• The poll found 43 percent of Jewish respondents believed the U.S. is not doing enough for the Palestinians, 38 percent believed the U.S. is too supportive of Israel, and 30 percent believed the Israeli government is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

About 70 percent of American Jews identify as or lean Democratic, Pew Research Center data shows. Yet most of these liberal Jews are secular or non-observant.

• By contrast, 75 percent of Orthodox Jews identify as or lean Republican, and 60 percent are conservative.

Such statistics highlight that rising anti-Israel sentiment in the U.S. is not driven by ethnic hatred of biological Jews as much as it is driven by hatred of conservative values. Secular Jews support Muslims like Mamdani, while religious Jews support conservatives like Netanyahu.

The State of Israel is the only functioning Western republic in the Middle East, while Hamas is a radical Islamic theocracy. Yet millions of leftists condemn Israel and support Hamas precisely because they hate Western civilization and the biblical precepts it was founded upon.

“For well over a generation, Islamist leaders have referred to America as the ‘Great Satan’ and to Israel as the ‘Little Satan,’” the Trumpet reported in February 2024. “Now, many atheists, socialist, feminist American students, professors and other elites agree.”

Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress endorsed by Mamdani, has outright called on her supporters to “eradicate” Western civilization. Sadly, even though Western civilization originated in the Hebrew Bible, about 4 out of every 10 Jewish Americans support a radical, anti-Western, socialist movement that seeks to destroy Israel.

Men’s Testosterone Has Plummeted 50 Percent in 50 Years

Total testosterone levels in men fell 54 percent between 1972 and 2019, according to a study presented Tuesday at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference.

• Researchers combined data from six studies involving more than 118,000 men across Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Israel and the United States. They found that testosterone levels are falling at an unprecedented rate.

“I think that we have a major crisis in male reproductive health, and it’s currently not given enough attention,” said Prof. Hagai Levine at the Hebrew University–Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine. “We saw an over 50 percent decline in total testosterone over this time period. It reflects a more than 1 percent decline each year, so this is not a fluke; this is not a statistical error.”

The decline has accelerated since 2000.

• Researchers say rising obesity and diabetes are significant contributors, as excess body fat causes the body to convert testosterone to estrogen. Global obesity has more than doubled since the 1970s. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in everyday products may also play a role.

Plummeting testosterone levels are a sign of poor overall health. And since testosterone regulates sperm production, libido, muscle mass, bone density, mood and metabolism, many health experts are urging lifestyle improvements.

Evidence-based ways to naturally boost testosterone production include:

• Adequate sleep: Most testosterone is produced during deep/rem sleep.
• Weight training: Compound lifts boost both acute and baseline testosterone levels.
• Physical fitness: Reducing excess fat preserves testosterone.
• Quality nutrition: Whole foods rich in vegetables, nuts, olive oil and protein.
• Stress management: Chronic high cortisol suppresses testosterone.
• Limit alcohol: Alcohol consumption converts testosterone into estrogen.
• Beware plastics: Plastics contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

The late Herbert W. Armstrong’s booklet The Seven Laws of Success dedicates significant space to physical health as a part of human well-being. Actively improving your physical health can help you mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia lost 35 tankers, dry cargo vessels and support ships over the past 96 hours, as Ukraine expanded its assault on Russian energy assets to include the infamous Shadow Fleet. Since the fleet plays a crucial role in evading sanctions to bankroll the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin will feel these losses keenly. But we should not expect this biblically prophesied warlord to halt his aggression.

Germany gets new frigates to fast-track military readiness for 2029: The Bundestag’s budget committee approved the Navy’s purchase of four Meko A-200 deu frigates yesterday, deliveries of which are scheduled for 2029.

The U.S. has agreed to sell long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said today, adding, “We are thus closing an important strategic gap in our defense.”

Syria will be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday. Syria has been on the list since 1979, longer than any other nation. This opens the door to diplomacy, foreign aid, trade and investment. Watch for Europe to build it into its alliance system.

Muhammad is the most popular name for baby boys in Britain for the third year running. Alternate spellings of the same name are the 20th and 55th most popular. It’s a sign of how many Muslims have moved to the UK and how many kids they are adding to the population.