Latest / The Daily Article / US plays Belgium after Balogun’s suspension is overturned

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US plays Belgium after Balogun’s suspension is overturned · The Daily Article

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Article Podcast from Denison Forum.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Tuesday, July 7th, 2026.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is an automated reading of today's Daily Article authored by Dr. Jim Denison.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today's article is titled, U.S.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Plays Belgium after Belogan's suspension is overturned.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The U.S. men's national soccer team played Belgium in the World Cup last night, losing four to one.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: The run-up to the match was overshadowed, however, by the controversy regarding Folarine Belogan, a player for the U.S. who received a red card in his previous game and was thus ineligible to play last night.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: President Donald Trump intervened on behalf of Belogan, and the suspension was then lifted.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Belgian Federation challenged the decision, but their appeal was then dismissed.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, every side has reason to protest what happened.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Belogan, who believes the suspension was unwarranted, many observers agree.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: The US, who protested the decision, and Belgium, who protested the revision unsuccessfully.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is something intrinsic in human nature that wants the world to be fair when we think we lose unfairly.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't feel the same in Ignatian, however, when we win.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're in lies my point today, a factor that relates not only to athletics, but to every
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Historian Walter Isaacson calls the central affirmation of the declaration of independence, the greatest sentence ever crafted by human hand.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Within that sentence, we find five words that forever changed history.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: All men are created equal.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why would the founders believe this?
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is no biological sense in which we are equivalent to each other.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: No two of us possess the same DNA, fingerprints, or neural pathways.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: None of us is exactly equivalent to anyone else in education, experience or contributions to society.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only are we not all equal, I'm not sure we want to be.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our economic system is based on competition that rewards those who provide goods and services others want to buy.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are promoted in our careers based on our performance.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even more fundamentally, all fallen humans are possessed of the will to power that strives to be our own God, to advance ourselves ahead of others in our quest for success and significance.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, the equality of all people is the essential foundation of social flourishing.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without it, our politics and geopolitics devolve into partisan zero-sum divisions that threaten our collective good.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our ethics devolve into crimes against others,
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Hamas believed that all men are created equal, they would not have invaded Israel and the belief that Jews are apes and pigs, Quran 560.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Hitler believed in the equality of all people, he would not have perpetuated the Holocaust.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Putin believed it, he would not have attacked Ukraine and on it goes, there's more.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we reject the equality of all people and use them as means to our ends, we strive for success that does not succeed.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We forfeit community for competition and people for possessions.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: We may be more prosperous, but we are also more lonely, anxious, and depressed.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most of all, when we use people as means to our ends, we forfeit God's best for us.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our Father shows no partiality because He is love.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He therefore calls us to love each other as He loves us, to seek the good of our neighbor and to refuse partiality.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our problem, of course, is that we do what we wish to others rather than what we wish they would do to us than we blame them for doing the same.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: St. Augustine observed, men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more interested they become in the sins of others.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They seek to criticize, not to correct.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when Jesus becomes our Lord, we are born again with a new heart for God and everyone else.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Justin Martyr, C.A.D.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: 100, 165 testified, we used to hate and destroy one another and refuse to associate with people of another race or country.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are two practical ways in which today's conversation is vital to our lives and our nation.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: One centers on the maximum that our character is measured by the way we treat people we don't have to treat well.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: If we mistreat others whenever doing so advantages us, we will never form a more perfect union, establish justice, or ensure domestic tranquility as our constitution intends.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Only by embracing the equality of all people can we heal the racial, social, economic,
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other centers in our personal lives, we were made in the image of a relational God and thus for community with Him and each other.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we love others as God loves us, we fill the God-shaped emptiness in our hearts and heal the ancient ache in our souls.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a day when ways to destroy humanity through technology and warfare are more available than ever before, valuing humans is more urgent than ever before.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: and in a secularized society where the temporal and material trumps the eternal and spiritual, loving our neighbor as ourselves causes us to love ourselves as we love our neighbor.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: God therefore instructs us, let all that you do be done in love.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine how obeying this command would change your life and your world, doing so seems impossible, but as Charles Spurgeon noted, God never gives a command without supplying the power to fulfill it.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you ask him for such power today?
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the daily article podcast.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: For links, scripture references, or to find out more about Denison Form.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Visit us at DenisonForm.org or click the link in today's show notes.