Alongside the opioid overdose crisis, another hidden epidemic is quietly raging. Every year in the United States, more people die of alcohol-related causes than from opioids and other drugs. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of excessive alcohol use were high and getting higher. The stress and isolation of the pandemic appear to have worsened harmful drinking, at least for some groups. Alcohol-related deaths increased more than 25 percent from 2019 to 2020. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that among adults under 65, more people died from alcohol-related causes in 2020 than from COVID-19.
On top of those many deaths, countless other people are impacted by alcohol’s ripple effects: car crashes, increases in violence and assault, riskier sexual behaviors, jobs lost, families fractured, and children’s lives made unstable by a parent’s dependence on a drug that is not just legal but celebrated.
“Alcohol is a very cheap, widely available, and socially acceptable drug,” said Katie Witkiewitz, PhD, director of the Center on Alcohol, Substance Use, and Addictions (CASAA) at the University of New Mexico.
“Alcohol can be a cause of harm, but it’s also a barometer for other issues. Mental health in this country is in meltdown mode,” said Aaron White, PhD, a biological psychologist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). “It’s common for people to drink excessively in an effort to cope. Alcohol use might be on the death certificate, but what’s often killing people is loss of hope.”
This is true no matter what coping mechanisms people lean on. More needs to be done to tell people about the best hope ever. It’s found in the Bible, and it’s so needed in these desperate end times.
“Alcohol-Related Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” JAMA, vol. 327, no. 17, 2022.
“Psychologists are tackling the hidden epidemic of excessive alcohol use,” American Psychological Association, apa.org, June 1, 2023.
As recently as two decades ago, American political affiliation was largely divided by income—the “haves” and the “have nots.” Americans with lower incomes tended to identify as Democrats while wealthier Americans tended to identify with the Republican Party.
Today, however, the American electorate is largely divided by education, not income. The higher your education, the less likely it is that you identify with the Republican Party and vice versa. This has caused a political dilemma among the 29 percent of evangelicals with four-year college degrees or above. With the November 2024 election looming, educated evangelicals aren’t sure how to vote or even how to discuss their political views. While they can’t support the Democratic Party’s stance on abortion or its ever-progressive sexual agenda, neither are they comfortable with the Republican Party’s stance towards undocumented immigrants and climate change.
In a recent article discussing this tension, Daniel Williams, an evangelical with a PhD, asks, “What if we’re convinced neither side sufficiently represents the values of Christ’s kingdom?” He then encourages Christians, and especially evangelicals, to strive for unity in the body of Christ and to not allow their different perspectives on politics or their educational achievements to divide the church.
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His disciples ranged from a fiery Zealot (far-right extremist) to a government-colluding tax collector. All were to lay their political views aside for the larger goal of taking the gospel to the world. As the sign of heaven’s favor, they were to exhibit a supernatural bond of Christian unity in Bible truth, not in political ideology.
The closer we come to this ideal, the better our witness to a watching world will be.
“The Evangelical Diploma Divide,” Christianity Today, christianitytoday.com, Aug. 7, 2024.
How many people today are engaging with the Bible in any meaningful way? Apparently, fewer than you might think.
In April 2024, the American Bible Society (ABS) published their annual “State of the Bible” report, a study that examines the Bible-reading habits of Americans. Their previous studies have revealed a shocking decline in Bible reading starting during the pandemic, and according to this latest study, things are not getting better.
From 2011 to 2021, “Bible Users”—which they define as those who “interact with Scripture at least three or four times a year (apart from services at church)”—always hovered between 50 percent to 60 percent of the US population. The study considers an “interaction” as any engagement with the Bible, including print, audio, video, or online media. But in 2024, the number of Bible Users is a mere 38 percent of the population.
Zooming in on that statistic, the ABS identifies 47 million people—or 18 percent of the population—as “Scripture Engaged.” These are people who intentionally look to the Bible “as a guidebook for life.” This is about the same number as last year, but looking to the larger trends, this category has slowly dwindled since 2020 when 71 million, or 28 percent, of the population regularly engaged with Scripture.
These are concerning statistics. To avoid spiritual deception at the end of time, we’ll need to engage with the Bible more, not less. It’s important not to let personal Bible study slip. “Using” the Bible only three or four times a year will not have much impact on a person’s daily life. We need to encourage others to study God’s Word. It’s our only reliable anchor and source of truth.
“Fewer Americans Are Reading The Bible: Why It Matters,” Religion Unplugged, religionunplugged.com, May 2, 2024.
The rise of generative AI has spawned dire techno-doom warnings that range from bots spewing misinformation and replacing human professionals to bots that escape human control altogether. But now a new set of concerns about AI has surfaced: becoming addicted to relationships with AI-generated companions.
Humans are turning to artificial companions as friends, lovers, mentors, therapists, and teachers. Generative AI is now capable of reflecting to us the precise characteristics and behavior we desire from it. Open AI has warned that this makes generative AI extremely addictive.
Researchers ask with concern: “Why engage in the give and take of being with another person when we can simply take? Repeated interactions with sycophantic AI companions may ultimately atrophy the part of us capable of engaging fully with other humans who have real desires and dreams of their own, leading to what we might call ‘digital attachment disorder.’”
They point out, “More and more frequently, we witness situations where technology designed to ‘make the world a better place’ wreaks havoc on society…. It is no accident that internet platforms are addictive—deliberate design choices, known as ‘dark patterns,’ are made to maximize user engagement.”
If AI relationships are as addictive as feared, we may be designing the ultimate method of dehumanizing the beings God made to be like Himself—other-centered and giving. It would be a huge downward step for humanity.
“We need to prepare for ‘addictive intelligence,’” MIT Technology Review, technologyreview.com, Aug. 5, 2024,
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