Monday, October 15, 2012

What’s Bothering You? (Part 4)

This post is a continuation of a discussion on an informal survey that was taken by a Christian magazine.

6. Culture Wars

The sixth area of concern for Christians is, and I quote: “Loss of a defined dominant culture, with attendant culture wars.” Every society has some sort of moral and behavioral code, and often these are derived from the dominant religion of that society. The concern is that we no longer have the dominant moral and ethical code like the one we used to have based on the Judeo-Christian ethic. As a result, we have what some are calling the “culture wars.” The “culture wars” represent the tension between competing values: biblical values on the one hand, and other world views that often conflict with the Bible on the other.

Atheists and secularists are aggressively pushing their agendas. These competing worldviews confuse people, especially those who aren’t familiar with the Bible. To make matters worse, those who don’t have a biblical perspective often ridicule those who do. They portray people of faith as foolish, repressive, old-fashioned, and puritanical in an attempt to marginalize the Judeo-Christian ethic. Think of The Simpsons, South Park, and other TV programs – an anti-Christian theme is obvious in many of them.

I’m not saying society was perfect when the Judeo-Christian ethic was the dominant moral code, because we still had many problems. What I am saying is that we must educate ourselves so we can discern unbiblical viewpoints within the many competing philosophies of the world. If we can do that, there less of a chance of us buying into false teachings (from a biblical viewpoint) and being led down wrong (meaning unbiblical to the person of faith) paths. We should also educate our children to protect them as well.

7. Loss of Freedoms

The seventh area of concern for Christians is, and I quote: “Loss of specific freedoms.” This most likely refers to the misapplication of the First Amendment to eliminate God from everything. Court cases have limited public displays of religious symbols, religious activities in public buildings, and public prayer at school events. Schools can’t even teach Intelligent Design or point out the flaws in Darwinism because somebody might think of God. There are reports of students who expressed a biblical worldview in their college term papers and were given a failing grade.

While profanity, violence, and gratuitous sex in the media are protected “free speech”, public prayer and religious symbols are illegal. We must fight for ours and other’s rights whenever we feel they are being threatened. There are ministries that go to court to protect our rights against the onslaughts of the ACLU. You know what “ACLU” stands for, don’t you? The Anti-Christian Litigation Unit.

8. Civil Public Discourse

The eighth area of concern is, and I quote: “Loss of honest and civil public discourse.” This is an obvious problem in politics, as we are already seeing it in the presidential campaign. Instead of “honest and civil public discourse,” we see one side demonizing the other and failing to even attempt to reach common ground. Congress can’t work together, but sadly, we see similar bad behavior in the church, which to me is unacceptable. This is especially true at the conference and general church levels, and such behavior is totally inappropriate in the church, whether local or national.

More about this survey in future posts. Note: Survey is from World Magazine, “What Ails Us” by Joel Belz, (July 28, 2012, Vol 27, No 15, page 3)

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