I recently saw a cover on US News and World Report with a picture of a prominent bureaucrat and the headline: Can This Man keep America Safe? I am going to answer this question for you in no uncertain terms. No! There is no man, no combination of Secretary, Vice-President, or President (and much less congress), that can keep America safe.

You don’t have to be religious to realize that to place that kind of responsibility on any man or any combination of men is to imply God-like qualities—qualities that no one possesses. But the idea of being safe or safer has embedded itself so deeply in our national consciousness, that it dominates even media thinking.

What is wrong with it is that it is unrealistic, and anyone who is paying attention knows that. Yet, safety is a powerful biblical idea—but not the safety that any human can provide. And I have two important things to say about it.