Looking back at 2022 and trying to piece together my thoughts on the biggest stories of the year was difficult. What constitutes a "big" story, after all? Just the sheer newsworthiness? As in, whatever gets the most people talking? By that standard, the death of Queen Elizabeth would rank very highly. But what if you recognize that the idea of human royalty is nonsense? It suddenly becomes a very meaningful event for Elizabeth's family, but hardly momentous.
Similarly, if you love social media, then the Musk Twitter purchase was a big moment in 2022. But only a fraction of Americans actually use the platform regularly, so is it really a massive story?
Disney switched CEOs, but that was more cosmetic than anything meaningful.
Ditto that for the political stuff like Ketanji Brown Jackson being appointed to the Supreme Court or the red wave that wasn't in the 2022 midterm elections. Wait another couple years and all that will be wiped out by the next "Most Important Election of our Lifetime!"
So like I said, it wasn't an easy task. But here are the four stories that I personally view as the most significant of 2022 (and why). And yes, I have a terrible, nagging dread that I have somehow managed to forget something enormous. So, disclaimer: This list is subject to later revision.
#4 February 24, 2022: Russia invades Ukraine and the U.S. looks weak
Pardon my Amero-centric view of the world for a moment, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine would likely have never happened if it wasn't for this startling reality: The United States has become fundamentally unserious on the world stage. At the same time Russia was expanding its territorial claims into Europe and China was preparing to explode into Taiwan, the U.S. has been "focused on expanding its national debt and exploding the gender binary."
Under Obama, we abandoned the two-war doctrine to reduce the military and focus on combatting climate change. No matter what happened in the Trump years (which, standing up to Russia and its growing threat was not on the list), we were on a crash course for world instability of this nature. And it doesn't show signs of stopping.
What's not hard to predict is that if the American people across the political spectrum don't immediately start eschewing our preference for identity politics, news-as-entertainment, celebrities-as-leaders, athletes-as-activists, Twitter-trends-as-thoughtful-policy, the United States will be little more than a helpless spectator of world events. Oh, and one that hurls vast amounts of its citizens' money in order to "solve" a problem it couldn't deter in the first place.
#3 May 24, 2022: Robb Elementary Massacre in Uvalde, TX
I don't think this is here because I'm overly sensitive or because I'm a dad of young kids. It's because what happened at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was so egregiously violative of the Moral Law written upon all our hearts that I'm still not over it. I don't think anyone, when they honestly consider what happened there, will ever be over it. Every time I think of it, I grow sorrowful and angry at this evil world. As I wrote last May,
I can't make sense out of this, and neither can you. I can't offer words that will heal the heartbroken or sustain the suffering, and neither can you. I can't promise that anything we do will guarantee this doesn't happen again, and neither can you.
But I can hug my children tighter, sleep a little closer to my wife, and intentionally refuse to overlook each of those ordinary miracles – the giggle, the 'I love you,' the fascination with cartoon chipmunks – all those" little things we just take for granted so often.
It's a decent reminder heading into a New Year to still be doing those things.
#2 July 12, 2022: James T. Webb telescope begins revealing the handiwork of God
It might seem weird to you that of all the newsworthy things that occurred this year, images from a telescope would rank as my number two. But it's so much more than just the amazing pictures.
And it's actually more than just the sheer depth and breadth of the cosmos that made this so momentous in my eyes. Sure, in one sense, it opened up my eyes all over again to the magnificence of the heavens, the size and scope of space. But that, in turn, opens my eyes – as well as the eyes of every human being that isn't willfully blind – to the glory of the Creator.
The fine-tuned detail, the remarkable patterns and inexpressibly complex mathematics at work in the functioning of these heavenly bodies screams out as unshakeable evidence for the existence of a Being so grand and marvelous, He is unimaginable. My mind cannot conceive of His greatness, so instead He reveals portions of it in the work of His hands.
Only a fool sees this and says in his heart there is no God:
#1 June 24, 2022: U.S. Supreme Court finally corrects its own mistake and overturns Roe v Wade
We move from the glory of God shown on the largest scale to His own majestic image unveiled in the tiniest form. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs case was by far the most significant story of the year, not just because a vile, discriminatory, racially-tinged, judicially-imposed mandate was finally reversed…not just because the unconstitutional dictate of the federal government over an issue of human rights that the Constitution did not assign to it was ended… not just because hundreds of thousands of Americans have been fighting relentlessly, tirelessly, against seemingly insurmountable odds to see this justice finally done for nearly half a century… and not just because the power to legislate was taken out of the hands of unelected oligarchs and put back in the hands of the people.
No, all those things are important, but the fact that millions of image-bearers of the Creator will now have the opportunity to glorify God on earth is cause for celebration and elation.
The entire Being of God, His character, His person, is teeming and pulsating with life. His rule has always been one that blesses and encourages life, and the fact that our wayward society moved back in that direction, even if in muted, less aggressive ways, is massively significant.
