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Out of the Driveway and Into the Game

Protecting and Developing a Comprehensive Biblical Worldview in Christian Youth

Michael Burns August, 2006 All Rights Reserved

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Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 3

From Goo-to-Zoo-to-You? ...... 12

180 Days at the Temple ...... 31

Planting Your Feet in Mid-Air ...... 58

Putting on the Right Glasses ...... 76

Sloppy Agape ...... 103

Every High Hill and Spreading Tree ...... 122

Rare Jewel ...... 134

Loving Thing Air ...... 155

Mind Control ...... 169

Coming With the Clouds ...... 182

Conclusion ...... 204

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Introduction – Out of the Driveway, Into the Game

Crash and burn; you’ll rarely see that phrase used in a positive manner in our society. No decent person likes to watch someone else crash and burn, especially a kid. Yet, I found myself in a position for eight years where I had to do just that. I knew it was coming every year and it was never pleasant. Nor did I ever really get used to it or hardened by it. So, what was the position? It was that of a high school basketball coach at an inner city high school. Every year in the early fall, we began the process of forming that season’s basketball team. This was always a time of big dreams, high expectations, and big talk. Usually the biggest talk came from the new young players or the new kids who had transferred to our school. As the process began, we would spend two weeks trying to get the kids to quit. We would run them more than most of them had ever run in their life. It was always fun to watch the returning players as they observed the code of silence on the first day of conditioning. They refused to tell the new players what we were about to do, but you could see the twinkle in their eyes. They knew what these new young bucks were in for. We took them to a very high and steep hill and had them run up and down the hill twenty-five times, and that was just on the first day. It got worse as the conditioning period went along. Some quit, most didn’t. Most of these new players were buoyed by the belief that they would be the next big star of the team. Once the actual tryout and practice period began, shooting, dribbling and defensive drills were the order of the day. For a solid week we would run certain drills looking for good form and the hard workers. This is where an interesting phenomenon developed almost every single year. There were always several new players who would begin to shine during this time, but quite often, one of those players would look especially good. I am drawn to think of one year in particular and a player that we will call Nazir. Nazir was a kid who spent his early years living in a very rough environment in the inner- city, passed from family member to family member. He had also spent time in foster care. The one person he had spent very little time with was his mother, and he didn’t even know his father. Then, at the age of ten, he moved to much nicer and quiet neighborhood with his grandmother. He began to struggle academically in his suburban schools and he missed the inner-city. He had lost any street credibility and wanted to get it back. So, he convinced his grandmother to send him to our school. Once here, he was going to be the next great player at our school. As the drills began, Nazir looked incredible. His form was flawless, his concentration was impeccable. He was determined too. During conditioning, one of his shoes broke but rather than 4 quitting, he took both shoes off and actually ran the hill another ten or twelve times in his socks. As the week wore on we were extremely impressed by this kid. When we began to participate in light scrimmage-like drills he looked even more impressive. He learned the offense quickly and could shoot like a budding star that he was sure he was. Even the older players were impressed and began to accept him as one of their own, which was very unusual that early in the process of forming a team. At the end of practice on the second day of the week I told the team that the next day we would be having our first full-speed scrimmage. After practice, Nazir was extremely excited. This would be his chance to finally show off his entire game. It would be his time. We had a brief conversation, however, that began to deflate the balloon of high hopes that I was inflating about him. I asked him where he had played ball before this. He informed me that he had never really played in a league before this. There are no middle school sports in our town so that is not that unusual. What was unusual, though, was when I asked him what park he played at. He told me that his grandmother had not wanted him to go to any parks, especially not back in the inner- city. “Well, where did you play,” I asked him. This is when the vase fell off the shelf. He informed me that he had learned to play by shooting in his driveway. He spent hours every day shooting and dribbling next to his house, in the driveway, by himself. At those words, I wished him luck the next day, but in my heart I knew what was coming: crash and burn. The scrimmage began and it went exactly as I had feared it would for Nazir. One of our senior guards, who wasn’t quite ready to step aside for this new, young, hotshot, arranged it so he could guard Nazir in the scrimmage. Everyone on Nazir’s team was confident, knowing how good he was. They knew all they had to do was get him the ball and he would carry them to victory. On the first play on his end, Nazir ran the offensive play beautifully, caught the ball and sent up a shot. This shot was different from his many other shots during the first week-and-a-half of practice. Rather than the perfect, eye-catching masterpieces he had been launching, this shot looked more like an injured Canadian goose trying desperately to keep up with the other birds. The shot didn’t even hit the rim; it unceremoniously banged off the bottom corner of the backboard. The senior defender smiled because he now knew what I had feared. Nazir was a driveway player. The remainder of the practice season went for Nazir as it does for most of the players of this sort. He continued to fail in scrimmages and his confidence plummeted, despite our best efforts to encourage him. We put him on the team, hoping that his great potential might be realized at some point, but he never recovered. He limped through the season without ever making a contribution to the team and quit the team over the summer. 5

Nazir discovered what so many other hopeful young men had. Shooting in a driveway or a gym all by themselves is of some value, but it is of almost no value if they never learn how to play in real situations. Hitting a shot is one thing. Hitting it when you’re tired, sweaty, and have a determined defender hanging all over you is quite another thing. Nazir was completely ineffective when the real heat came. He looked great in the driveway, but he simply could not handle what a seasoned, gritty defender was going to do to him. It interrupted his flow, broke his concentration, and stifled everything he wanted to do. He simply didn’t know how to respond. Players that looked far inferior to Nazir passed him by in his scrimmages because they were calm and collected under the fire of a real game. Anyone can make basket after basket when they are by themselves in a driveway (My sincerest apologies to those who have tried and cannot yet master the fine art of putting the ball in the hoop), not everyone can do it when the pressure is on and the opponent is attacking. So, what is the point of all of this? Simply this: this same phenomenon happens to teenagers every day on a spiritual level. There is a disturbing phenomenon that is far too common in the Christian world. Teenagers who were raised in a Christian home and seemingly begin to walk with Christ as His disciple, crash and burn right before the very eyes of their parents, youth workers, and spiritual family. How could this happen? Why does this happen so often? Kids who seem so spiritually mature and sound crash and burn during the test of the high school years and by college have completely walked away from their faith in Christ. Is this just a normal phase of growing up or is this a problem that can be fixed? I am convinced that this all-too-common phenomenon is not just part of being a teen. It is a result of a well-thought-out plan of attack by Satan. Satan is a formidable adversary, yet he has already been defeated Christ. Anything Satan can throw at us, no matter how fierce it may be, can be overcome by following biblical principles. What happened to Nazir is very similar to what far too many parents have done unwittingly to their children in the spiritual realm. We have not prepared them fully for what they will face in the world, yet we send them out there anyway. We have given them a false sense of security, mostly because we have a false sense of their security. “Wait”, you might say. “That is not so. Most Christian parents in the churches of Christ do train their children according to wonderful biblical principles.” Whether that is entirely true or not is not to be considered in this book. Many parents are doing their very best to raise Christian children; children who love and obey God. Their kids can pray, they can rattle off memory scriptures, they sing with all their might, they hug fellow Christians, they volunteer their time, and they are the complete “disciple in training.” The problem is that they are shooting in the 6 driveway. They are learning the art of Christianity in the safety of our churches and homes without the duress of the real world. Parents are not aware that everyday their children walk out of our homes they are under attack. They are under siege on the way to school, at school, on the way home, while watching TV, while listening to the radio, while talking to their friends, just about everywhere. The world has declared war on our children. More accurately, Satan has declared war on our children and has enlisted the world as his minions. What surprises most parents is not where the attack comes but from whom it comes. It would not shock many parents if I told them that one of the most dangerous spiritual environments for their children is at school. Most parents know all too well the dangers of peer pressure and bad influences. This is not, however the most dangerous aspect of a public education. The most dangerous spiritual aspect of a public education is the education itself. Our kids are under a very intentional and specific attack that is aimed at their minds. Right under our noses, our Christian children are being sent to school and taught to think differently and view the world through anything but biblical lenses. They are being taught that the idea of a creator God is an unnecessary and unscientific view that is little different from believing that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle. It is the same type of people, they are told, that believe in a Creator that once believed in things like the flat earth. Instead they are told that we are all here quite by accident. The blind forces of evolution are the real cause of life on earth. What one believes about the origins of the universe has an inestimable impact on the way one views the world. With the belief that life is a mere accident, comes the moral relativity that is so common to the worldviews of secular humanism and post-modernism. I know of no Christian parents who would pack their kids a lunch and send them off to a Muslim or Mormon school everyday. If they were somehow in a situation where there was no other choice, they would be sure to do a great deal of work to discover what they were being taught. They would prepare them for it and do a great deal of teaching to counteract the worldview and beliefs that their children were being fed at school. What these same evangelical Christian parents don’t realize, however, is that they are, in fact, sending their children to schools that hold a religious view other than their own. Most public schools in America are firmly rooted in the religious worldview of secular humanism, post-modern secular humanism to be more exact. Just as there are different aspects of Christianity such as Catholic, liberal mainline, evangelical, protestant, etc., so there are different aspects of secular humanism. The public schools in the United States of America have become temples of post-modern secular humanism. 7

The problem, however, is not so much the worldview taught in the schools. It is the fact that parents are largely unaware of this worldview training that their kids receive and so they leave them unprepared. The kids are taught a version of Christianity that will fail them in the face of the enemy that they are facing. Just as a basketball team must prepare specifically for the opponent that they are facing, Christian parents must prepare their kids for the test that lies before them. Rather than preparing them for a world in which the real war is one of worldviews and the battlefield is in the mind, they are being spiritually trained in a way that will not properly prepare them for the real menace. We, as a Christian community, are simply not preparing our kids for the pressure that the world will put on them. The world will tell them that everything they have grown up to believe is wrong. Sometimes this message will be obvious. All too often it is much more subtle and sinister. We are teaching them to be Christians, yes. But we are not doing so well when it comes to teaching them to be defenders of the faith. The symptoms of this deficiency are clear. I see them in pre-teen, teen, and even campus ministries everywhere. The parents jump through all the hoops to ensure that their child will grow up to love God and be a disciple of Jesus. They pray without ceasing that their kids will not have to go through what they went through as non-Christian adults. And in fact it appears to work. Their kids sail through their childhood years. They are wonderful, respectful, God-fearing children. Then they hit the pre-teen years and cracks begin to appear. The parents see signs of disrespect, of poor attitudes, and even indifference. The parents shake it off telling themselves that these are just the normal struggles of a pre-teen. The young teen years get a little tougher. Our kids are beginning to really exercise their autonomy. They have not yet chosen to be Christians, but that is okay we tell ourselves, because we don’t want to rush them. They will make that choice when they’re ready. (Or there are the ones that do become Christians at this age and slowly begin to exhibit these same symptoms. Usually this group shows the same symptoms a little further down the road.) The parents now begin to see signs of what we hope are merely growing up; their sense of clothing and style changes. They want to listen to different music. They begin to develop more friendships outside of church. That’s okay, the parents whisper to themselves, because at least they bring their friends to church. By their teen years, the wheels have fallen off. The child is suddenly about to graduate from high school and they seemingly have no intentions of living a life for Christ. It’s not that they are bad kids, quite the contrary. They might be rebellious and the like but often they get along with 8 their parents as well as any teen that is still committed to a life in Christ ever did. With each passing day, though, they become more worldly. You can see it in their clothes, music, friends, and attitude. The parents are in a complete quandary. How could this have happened? The parents taught their kids to fear God, to obey his commandments. How could they disrespect God like this? I have also seen kids who sail through the pre-teen and teen years. They are incredible kids who love God with all of their heart. They show themselves to be leaders in their youth group and are great all-around role models. For many in this group the problems don’t begin to appear until they are in college. They go off to the university with God in their heart, but things quickly change while they are there. They face challenges in college from friends and professors for which they were not ready. Often these are intellectual challenges to their belief system that they are not prepared to handle. While parents are diligently training their most precious gifts from God to be His servants, the world is working without ceasing. They are evangelizing our children into their own religion. Their evangelists work around the clock. They are relentless. They use an unbelievable potpourri of methods and techniques and they are everywhere. What has happened? Our kids have been literally brainwashed to view the world and everything in it in a different way than the view prescribed by the Bible. They have been taught to think differently and so, everything we think we are teaching them at home is actually being processed in a much different way than we might hope. It has happened on our watch and we never really saw it coming. The fact is way too many of our kids are walking away from the faith of their parents. Something is broken and we need to have courage to admit that and look for the solution. If you are reading this right now as a parent and say to yourself, “this doesn’t sound like my child at all.” I would respond and say, “Great, I hope it never does describe your kid.” I would, however, remind you of a couple of things. Just because your child is not currently going through difficulties like these does not mean that they won’t in the future. I would also challenge you to look around. Maybe your child will never go through a time of walking away from the faith, but many kids are, and we are all in this together. We have to work together as a Christian community to help all of us and all of our children get to heaven. I don’t know if you have ever noticed this but there are 27 books in the New Testament. You have your gospels of course: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then you have the history of the development of the church recorded in the book of Acts. Those are pretty good books. In those first five books you have most of the information about the life of Jesus and the formation 9 of His church. The last two verses of the book of Matthew, (28:19-20) are a command from Jesus to make disciples of the remaining population of the world. In other words, to help them get saved. Those words pretty much sum it up. My question is this. If we have the account of Jesus and the early church and it includes all the information necessary to know what our mission is after we have been saved, then why do we need the rest of the New Testament? There are another whole 22 books. Some of them are encouraging like Philippians and Galatians, some of them are pretty heavy reading like Romans and Hebrews. Then we finish off with the mildly frightening book of Jude and the enigmatic Revelation. All 22 are definitely in the Bible, though. I have looked in several different editions and versions. But why are they there? If our goal on this earth is to get saved, become a disciple of Jesus and make more disciples, then are those 22 books really necessary? Well, of course they are necessary, I have yet to meet a person who would argue that they are not. I do have to admit, however, that I have never met Martin Luther or Thomas Jefferson, both of whom seemed to think that a few of those books were unnecessary. Most people, though, see them as every bit as important as the first five books. This is the conclusion to which I have come. Those books are there to teach us how to live our lives the way a true disciple should. They are preparing us to spend eternity with a holy God. In short, those books are teaching us to think like Jesus thought; to see the world through God’s eyes. Paul spends a large portion of his writings in entreating his readers to transform their minds and think about the world differently from everyone else around them. In a word this is called worldview. Worldview is that strange little world that most of don’t even consider as we walk through the remainder of our lives. A few of us bandy it about from time to time but take very little time to ponder. Virtually none of us take the time to meditate on it and truly develop a well thought out, comprehensive worldview that is consistent with the Bible. Of the few that have taken the time and effort to do that, even fewer have a comprehensive plan of instilling a practical, effective, and thoroughly biblical worldview in our children. Developing a truly Biblical worldview is a tricky concept. It is not something you study out for a few days or maybe a week, make a list, and then begin to master the concept of seeing the world as God sees it. No one this side of Jesus has ever maintained a thoroughly Biblical worldview. (And he did it without the New Testament; that’s impressive.) It is my opinion that the concept of developing and living out an authentic, pervasive, Biblical worldview has been something that is very lacking in our current church culture. The 10 life of a disciple goes well beyond the point of justification. In fact, everything that we do following our baptism should be centered on building a biblical worldview. If we, as adults, have not focused enough on having a biblical worldview, then it only stands to reason that our children do not have a very solid one either. The thing that we must realize is that everyone has a worldview that determines how they act. What you believe determines how you act. If we are not intentionally training our children how to think biblically and instilling a thoroughly biblical worldview in them, they will still develop a worldview. From where they get this worldview and on what precepts it is built is a whole other issue. I believe that addressing this situation with our children could be a very important key in assisting our young people to come to become baptized disciples in the churches of Christ, and just as importantly, to stay faithful. Too many of our children are floundering right now. They have never come to Christ or they have and have walked away from their faith. This is a sad situation, one that simply cannot be ignored. Nor is it a situation that we can afford to address incorrectly any longer. I have talked to so many parents who are absolutely clueless as to what has gone wrong. They have tried everything within their power and still their children are not living the life of a committed disciple. For many kids, I believe that the answer is training them in a Biblical worldview from their earliest years. This is the topic of this book. Keep in my mind as you read this book, I am not saying that the information presented is the only way to do it or the only thing that Christian parents need to do. This is intended to be a supplement to the wonderful things that most Christian parents are already doing. A hole in a screen, however, can let in a whole lot of bugs. You do not need a whole new screen most of the time, though; you just need to patch the hole. View this book as just that – a patch. I believe that most parents in our fellowship are doing a very good job raising their children. If that is forgotten as you read, the tone of this book might seem condemning and condescending, which it is not intended at all to be. You may have a wonderful front door, but if there is a hole in the screen, it needs fixing. To talk about how wonderful the door is will not fix the hole in the screen. Neither is being truthful about the tear and the need to fix in any way condemning the worth of the door. So pointing out the need for a patch in the screen of our collective parenting is not a broad condemnation of us as a fellowship. Let me also warn you that this book is not an exhaustive resource on developing a Christian worldview. Nor will it serve as a curriculum for training children to have a Christian worldview. I would not even call this book a handbook to helping kids develop a Biblical worldview. Think of this book as a primer. It is really an introduction to the concept of worldview for the parents 11 and youth workers of our particular tradition in the churches of Christ. It is to get us thinking and maybe start a few discussions. I also realize that the ideas presented here will not apply to all kids in every situation. I firmly believe, though, that if discussed, developed, and applied, the ideas in this book will help many families, youth groups, and churches.

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Chapter 1 – From Goo-to-Zoo-to You?

At the tiny Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee on July 25th, 1925, the United States of America changed drastically. What took place in that courtroom did not seem like such a major event at the time but the happenings during the summer of ’25 have left a lasting legacy on American education, culture, and society. The event that had such a profound impact on American culture and society was nothing other than the trial of John Scopes for the crime of teaching evolution in the classroom. This case is more commonly come to be known as the Scopes monkey trial. In March 1925, the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act which made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution in public schools. According to the law it was “unlawful for any teacher in any of the … public schools of the state … to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Almost immediately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) jumped into action. Their goal was to find a test case that they could argue in court in order to challenge this law. In fact, they began to advertise in papers around the country, looking for teachers who would be willing to take part in a challenge of this law. George Rappleyea, a resident of Dayton, Tennessee, saw one of their ads and quickly hatched a plan. His idea was to find a teacher in Dayton to take up the case in order to draw publicity to the tiny and struggling town. He believed that the trial would attract media attention which would eventually translate into new businesses and industries coming to Dayton. A meeting of town leaders was held in a local café, and it was quickly determined that Rappleyea was on to something. After a bit of searching, the town leaders came upon a young physical education teacher and coach named John Scopes. Scopes, in fact, was not a biology teacher. He had substitute taught in a biology class for the last few weeks of the school year, and had apparently never taught any evolution at all. It was determined, however, that while preparing for class he may have used a textbook which did contain evolutionary ideas in it. With that as the basis for the case, the town leaders, with the blessing and cooperation of Scopes, filed charges against him for the crime of teaching evolution, and the Scopes trial began. Assisting the prosecution would be former presidential candidate and professing Christian, William Jennings Bryan. Leading the defense was the famous defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow. The town turned the events around the trial into more of a carnival-type atmosphere than an actual trial in a court of law. 13

The case should have been a simple matter of whether or not Scopes had taught evolution. Darrow, however, had different plans. He brought in a litany of scientists and theologians to argue the case for evolution. Darrow had no actual interest in defending Scopes; it was already accepted that he would be found guilty. Darrow and his ACLU backers would, instead, put the very idea of a Creator God on trial. Their argument was that evolution was true and the law itself should be struck down. They knew ultimately, that the real battle was being fought in the hearts and minds of Americans listening to the trial on the radio and following it in the newspapers. The outcome of the case in this particular courtroom was incidental. Darrow’s so-called expert witnesses hammered away at the concept of a creator, as they argued for the veracity of the theory of evolution. Darrow then, in a brilliant move, called Bryan to the stand as an expert witness on the Bible. Bryan, who was no fundamentalist, was hammered with questions of apparent contradictions and scientific inaccuracies in the Bible. Thousands of Americans listened as Darrow ripped holes in Bryan’s biblical credibility. He asked questions that Bryan couldn’t answer, such as “where did Cain get his wife”. While Bryan stumbled on questions that any modern apologist could answer in their sleep, the minds of Americans were turning. Bryan’s plan was to turn the tables on Darrow and call him to the stand so that he could be grilled on the problems of the evolutionary theory. Before he could do that, and before any experts could be called to refute the testimony of the evolutionary experts, Darrow had Scopes plead guilty, which ended the trial. Scopes was fined $100. This was later overturned on the technicality that the judge had passed down the fine amount rather than being set by the jury. On the 75th anniversary of the Scopes trial, Doug Linder, a professor of law the University of Missouri, stated in an interview on CNN, “The trial probably had its greatest effect in the success of Darrow in turning the trial into a national biology lesson through the prepared statements of scientific experts, which were distributed to the press, and he succeeded in reversing momentum toward bans on teaching evolution.” It should be noted that nearly every argument used in Darrow’s biology lesson to the nation has been discredited as inaccurate or untrue and has since been thrown out by evolutionists themselves. The message from the many theologians called by Darrow was that the Bible was merely a human work of religious beliefs. It was the scientists, they said, that would provide the facts about the past. Many of the theologians of the day refused to accept the Word of God as their ultimate authority, and instead accepted the word of the scientists of their day as their ultimate authority. 14

The damage had been done on two fronts. In the mind of many Americans, evolution was now accepted as fact. The focus of science education quickly changed from a discovery of God’s creation to a search for proof of evolution. Over the course of the next generation, evolution became the teaching norm in schools and creation was pushed out. The second outfall from the trial was in the damage that was done to the mind of evangelical Christians. Embarrassed by the happenings at the trial and shaken in their ability to answer the questions of the world and the criticisms of the Bible, the conservative Christian community as a whole slipped quietly into the background. Without a fight the arenas of science and education were turned over to the secular evolutionists. Christians quietly exited stage left in the marketplace of ideas and retreated into the safe confines of the church building. It would not be until the late 1960’s that Christians would once again begin to stir and take up the issue of science and the Bible. Even then it would be another twenty years after that before the issue of evolution would be seriously challenged by the Bible-believing community. Does it really matter whether creation or evolution is taught in schools? Apparently it does matter. Following the Scopes trial, it took a generation or so for evolution to make its way into the textbooks and schools. By the 1960’s evolutionists had taken root in nearly every university and high school science room. Since that time, American has descended into a downward spiral of moral values. We have experienced moral decay and decline like no other time in American history. If children are taught for long enough that they are merely animals, here by chance, it won’t be too long before they begin acting that way. Sex is natural, violence is caused by genetic predisposition, and all standards are relative according to the worldview of the evolutionist. Ideas matter. What we believe determines how we will act. The issue of creation and evolution is so vital that it cannot be overlooked. We can no longer afford to follow the example of the Christian movement of the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s and be content to teach our children Bible stories while ignoring the issue of creation except for the occasional reference to the fact that God created everything. These Christians who abandoned science and left it to the world, somehow, assumed that you could separate the Bible from other areas of knowledge and learning. Secular Humanists were quick to capitalize on this. They realized that if you train entire generations into believing evolution and discounting creation, then those generations would eventually reject the Bible as relevant to the real world. If the science of the Bible is not accurate, then why bother reading, let alone believing, the rest of it? Let’s be very clear on that. If the book of Genesis is wrong, and God did not create the universe as the book claims, then there is little point in bothering with the rest of the book. Many 15 kids have already figured that out, while far too many adults are walking around diminishing the importance of the belief in the Genesis creation story. It is not enough to occasionally reference God as the creator. Charles Potter, a leader in the Humanist movement and devout evolutionist said, “What can theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”1 We will not be able to compete with the constant influx of evolution and evolution influenced ideologies unless we properly arm our children. The belief in evolution allows people to discard God and develop their own theology. Evolution is not good science; it is a Gnostic myth. Yet, Humanists have managed to slowly change our cultural beliefs because they have eroded public belief in our Godly origins, all the while passing evolution off as good science. Unless we rebuild this foundation, we will have a hard time convincing anyone, including our own children, to listen to the Bible. I have met many teens that simply did not want to listen to anything to do with the Bible because it was not relevant in their eyes. As one put it, “I believe in evolution, so I don’t have to believe in God. And I don’t need anyone telling me to live my life in a certain way because that’s the way God said to do it.” It may be necessary to first answer questions for people about this subject of creation and evolution before a serious presentation of God’s law and the gospel can take place. Most parents and youth workers don’t see this as an important issue at all. In an informal survey of area youth ministers, not one had ever addressed the issue of creation with their group. What is frightening is that in an unscientific survey given to fifty area Christian teens, 80% of them answered that they weren’t sure if God had created the universe or not. Of that 80%, nearly 90% stated that this affected how they viewed God and responded to the message of the Bible. Unfortunately, parents and youth workers are often out of touch with this reality. One youth minister recently told me, “All that matters is Christ, crucified. It’s a matter of the heart and how people respond to the gospel. It makes no difference in what they believe about creation. It all has to do with their heart to obey the Word of God.” This opinion, however, is completely out of touch with reality. If people don’t believe in the existence of a creator, they will have no time for His supposed Word. If Genesis is myth, so is the rest of the Bible. You cannot take the first eleven chapters out of the Bible and still have a book worth reading, believing, or following. If a teenager believes in creation, he believes in God, moral truth, etc. He will be open to the message of God’s law and the gospel. The message of the cross will be a mere stumbling 16 block. (I Corinthians 1:23) A teenager who believes in evolution will reject God, moral absolutes, etc. He will not be open to the message of God’s law and the gospel. The message of the cross will be complete foolishness. (I Corinthians 1:23) Do we want our children to believe that we came from God or from a goo-to-zoo-to-you evolutionary process? Most of the ideas presented later in this book in helping teens to come to a biblical worldview will not be effective if they do not have a good grip on this subject. It is very dangerous, however, to assume that because your child is 14 and believes in creation that he will always stay that way. The hardcore attacks are yet to come. When my older son was just five years old I began teaching him about creation and evolution. I have prepared him for what he will be taught. I want him to be able to reject poor information and recognize it when it is being presented to him. This is a process that will continue until he becomes an adult. Evolution did not rise out of good science. It came about as an excuse to explain away God. The evidence for evolution is virtually non-existent, yet the theory persists. It is outside of the scope of this book to completely examine this topic. I will, however, attempt to give parents a few building blocks on which to start. Below, you will find three devastating objections to evolution, which they have failed to answer in any convincing manner. After reading this it is easy to see that rather than being fact, evolution is a theory in trouble. The very mechanisms that are necessary for evolution to take place simply do not and cannot exist.

Irreducible Complexity Irreducible complexity is a big term. It has been developed by Lehigh University professor of biochemistry, Michael Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box. To put it as simply as possible, irreducible complexity means that something cannot get any simpler than it is and still work. Behe’s classic example is that of a mousetrap. A mousetrap, he argues, cannot be put together a piece at a time and still work. You either have the whole thing working together as one unit or you have a bunch of spare parts that do nothing. You cannot take a piece of wood and catch a few mice, add a spring and get a few more, add a metal bar and get even more, continuing to add on with each addition making the device more effective. To even get one mouse, you must have the entire contraption. It does not work until all of its parts are present and working together. Every year the high school at which I taught competed in the national Rube Goldberg competition. It is a science contest in which teams must build a contraption that contains at least twenty steps. Each year the teams are given a task to complete and then they begin to build their machines. A few years ago the task was to build a machine that would select and peel an apple. 17

Our school built a pretty cool machine that had over twenty steps and sure enough at the end, it selected and peeled an apple. It was actually pretty amazing to watch. I went to the competition that year and watched all of the machines compete against one another. They were all very creative and extremely different from one another. There was one thing, though, that they all had in common. If you took out any one of the steps from any of those machines, the whole thing became worthless. They were beautiful, working examples of irreducible complexity. Darwin’s theory of evolution runs counter to this idea. Natural selection works slowly as new features and organs slowly develop over millions of years. These changes eventually add up and a new type of organism is manufactured. When applied to the real world, however, this slow change theory just does not add up. Francis Schaeffer developed an example of this that is pretty easy to understand. Imagine that a fish were to evolve lungs. That would be an amazing feat all by itself, but then what? Is this an advantage for the fish? Absolutely not, the fish would drown immediately. There is no evidence that living things can be thrown together piece by piece. They are incredibly complex systems with parts that are interrelated. The only way a fish could develop into a land animal is to do it all at once. Slow development would simply not work. If a fish did develop lungs, (admittedly this is a simplistic example, but it still makes the point quite well) natural selection would immediately ferret out that characteristic as inferior. Darwin, himself, addressed this problem, saying, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight, modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”2 Well, I hate to tell you this Uncle Charlie, but . . . Charles Colson in How Now Shall We Live gives another example of this in the form of a bat.

Evolutionists propose that the bat evolved from a small, mouse like creature whose forelimbs (the ‘front toes’) developed into wings by gradual steps. But picture the steps: As the “front toes” grow longer and the skin begins to grow between them, the animal can no longer run without stumbling over them; and yet the forelimbs are not long enough to function as wings. And so, during most of its hypothetical transitional stages, the poor creature would have limbs too long for running and too short for flying. It would flop along helplessly and soon become extinct. There is no conceivable pathway for bat wings to be formed in gradual stages. And the fossil record confirms this conclusion, where we find no transitional fossils leading up to bats. The first time bats appear in the fossil record, they are already fully formed and virtually identical to modern bats.3

18

Another example of irreducible complexity is the eye. An eye is useless unless the entire structure is fully formed. Even the slightest of changes to the structure of the eye destroys it as a functional device. Even Darwin admitted that he could not explain the formation of the eye. Behe explains, “Evolution can’t produce an irreducibly complex biological machine suddenly, all at once, because it’s much too complicated. The odds against it would be prohibitive. And you can’t produce it directly by numerous, successive, slight, modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor system would be missing a part and consequently couldn’t function. There would be no reason for it to exist. And natural selection chooses systems that are already working.”4 Behe goes on to say that, “The only force known to be able to make irreducibly complex machines is intelligent design. [God] So scientists are in the curious position of ignoring something they know to be capable of explaining what they see in biology, in favor of phantom or totally unproven explanations. Why ignore intelligent design when it’s a good match to the data?”5 There are many more examples of irreducible complexity. In fact, they are seemingly endless. For example, blood clotting, cilium, bacterial flagellum, knee joints, the intra-cellular transport system; the list goes on and on. Michael Denton confirms this saying:

And as far as the individual defining characteristics are concerned, one could continue citing almost ad infinitum complex defining characteristics of particular classes or organisms which are without analogy or precedent in any other part of the living kingdom and are not led up to in any way through a series of transitional structures. Such a list would include structures as diverse as the vertebral column of vertebrates, the jumping apparatus of the click beetle, . . . the wing of a bat, . . . the neck of the giraffe, the male reproductive organs of the dragonfly, and so on until one had practically named every significant characteristic of every living thing on earth. 6

Scientist Allan Sandage sums up the point when he says:

The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together. Each part of a living thing depends on all its other parts to function. How does each part know? How is each part specified at conception? The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes . . . 7

Information Theory 19

One of the more amazing and mysterious things in our universe is when a message gets sent. Imagine a scene in which Jim and Nicole are sitting next to each other at a baseball game. Jim has decided that he wants to ask Nicole to marry him. He whispers a message to his friend Pete sitting on his other side. The message has begun as spoken words which is really just a series of air compressions. Pete then writes it down in paper with ink so that he does not forget it. Pete goes to a more discreet location and sends a text message over his phone to his friend Bill who works at the stadium. Bill then faxes it to Sandra who runs the scoreboard. The phone and the fax machine have transferred the message through a pattern of electrical impulses. Sandra types the message into the scoreboard. Nicole looks up and reads the message on the scoreboard which reads, “Nicole, will you marry me, love Jim?” This is the exact message that was intended for her. Fans around the country also see the message while watching the game on TV. Nothing physical (not one atom or molecule of substance) has been transmitted or has traveled from the stadium to fans around the country, yet it is clear that something traveled all that way. So, what is it that traveled all that way? The answer is information. Information is not a material thing; no matter was transferred. Yet it seems to need matter to carry it on its journey. The matter on which information travels can change without the information changing one bit. Evolutionists argue that life is nothing more than matter obeying the laws of physics and chemistry. Information, however, is the thing that differentiates life from dead matter. Quite frankly, evolutionists have no answer for the problem of explaining information. Life is more than just physics and chemistry; all living things carry unbelievable amounts of information. Evolutionists cannot explain where all of this information comes from. Dead matter does not write information, only minds do. Imagine a pen and paper writing a message without a mind directing it. My younger son’s alphabet blocks do not constitute information until they are put into a specific sequence. That’s an important concept to understand. A string of letters next to each other is not information. Only when the letters are arranged in such a way that they are organized and actually mean something to the person or thing decoding it is it actually information. A mind is an essential component to deriving information. The information for life is carried on a molecule called DNA. DNA is the matter that information rides on. It directs information from one generation to the next and ensures that you will have human children rather than a wombat. DNA is similar to a couple of long ropes or strings of beads tightly wound inside the center of every cell in your body. It carries the programs of life. It houses the information which is transmitted from one generation to the next. 20

DNA is a dead molecule, it is not living. It can’t copy itself – it takes a living cell to copy the DNA molecule. DNA is not the information; it is the “paper” on which the information is written. Just as my son’s alphabet blocks are not information until a mind from the outside orders them into a message; unless DNA is aligned in the proper sequence, no useable message will be available, even though it is still DNA. My older son used to attend a French Immersion school. For the life of me, I could not read his homework. It made no sense to me at all. The work made perfect sense to him and to my wife who could read French, but it was not information to me because I could not decipher it. To read a message, you must have a pre-existing language code or convention, as well as the ability to translate it. This language and the ability to translate it, exists in the cell. Cells do not arise by themselves from raw material anymore than a pile of spare parts would arrange themselves into a functioning automobile. If you throw raw ingredients for life together, nothing will happen without organized information. Information has never been observed to come about by unaided, raw matter with a healthy dose of time and chance thrown in. It simply does not happen. When living things reproduce, they transfer information to the next generation. This information which is hitching a ride on the DNA is the information which tells the machinery of the cell how to construct the new living organism from the raw materials. The storage capacity of DNA is about a million, million times more efficient than a videotape. The DNA code stores enough information to fill up 100 complete 30 volume encyclopedia sets. And this is probably a conservative estimate. Even more amazing is the fact that all the information required to specify the exact make-up of every unique human being on Earth could be stored in a volume of DNA no bigger than a couple of aspirin tablets. If unraveled and stretched out, the DNA from one single cell in your body would be over two yards in length. Take into account that there are 75 to 100 trillion cells in the body. If the DNA of one human was stretched out end to end it would span the distance of around 94 billion miles or enough to go around the equator of the earth, three-and-a-half million times. To make a long story short, information is an amazing thing that comes straight from the mind of God. Try as they might, evolutionist have no credible theory to answer the mystery of information.

Anthropic Principle The word Anthropic comes from the Greek word for man. The Anthropic Principle simply states that the various systems of the universe are so precise that it is ridiculous to assume 21 that they got that way by chance. The universe is simply too complex and too perfectly designed for life. It becomes little more than nonsense to claim that it does not have a designer. Author Robin Collins, PHD, gives an example of the Anthropic Principle: I like to use the analogy of astronauts landing on Mars and finding an enclosed biosphere, sort of like the domed structure that was built in Arizona a few years ago. At the control panel they find that all the dials for its environment are set just right for life. The oxygen ratio is perfect; the temperature is seventy degrees; the humidity is fifty percent; there’s a system for replenishing the air; there are systems for producing food, generating energy, and disposing of wastes. Each dial has a huge range of possible settings, and you can see if you were to adjust one or more of them just a little bit, the environment would go out of whack and life would be impossible. What conclusion would you draw from that?8

The obvious conclusion is that someone of great intelligence carefully designed it and built it. Collins goes on to say that “Over the past thirty years or so, scientists have discovered that just about everything about the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge for life to exist . . . The dials are set too precisely to have been a random incident.”9 Another example of the Anthropic Principle is the structure of the atom. Everything in the universe is made up of atoms. Inside of the atom, the neutron is just slightly larger than the proton, which means that free neutrons decay and turn into protons. If the proton was larger and had a tendency to decay, the entire structure of the universe would be impossible. A free proton is simply a hydrogen atom. If free protons were likely to decay, then everything made of hydrogen would decay. The sun, which is composed of hydrogen, would melt away. Water could not exist. In fact the universe itself, which is over 70 percent hydrogen, could not exist. There is no known reason for the neutron to be larger than the proton. It simply is that way. According to Colson, “It turns out that the slightest tinkering with the values of the fundamental forces of physics – gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces – would have resulted in a universe where life was utterly impossible. The Anthropic Principle states that in our universe, all these seemingly arbitrary and unrelated values in physics have one strange thing in common: They are precisely the values needed to get a universe capable of supporting life.”10 Collins gives another example of the Anthropic Principle that has to do with gravity: Imagine a ruler, or one of those old-fashioned linear radio dials, that goes all the way across the universe. It would be broken down into one-inch increments, which means there would be billions upon billions upon billions of inches. The entire dial represents the range of force strengths in nature, with gravity being the weakest force and the strong nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons together in the nuclei being the strongest, a whopping ten thousand billion billion billion billion times stronger than gravity. The range of possible settings for the 22

force of gravity can plausibly be taken to be at least as large as the total range of force strengths. Now, let’s imagine that you want to move the dial from where it’s currently set. Even if you were to move it by only one inch, the impact on life in the universe would be catastrophic. That small adjustment of the dial would increase gravity by a billion-fold . . . human beings would be crushed.11

The examples could go on and on, but we will stop there. Think about it like this though. I cannot imagine a scientist who would drive to Mt. Rushmore and argue that the figures carved in stone got there by accident. No scientist would conclude that natural forces of wind, rain, erosion, and chance combined to form the faces of the four presidents. Yet, these same scientists would conclude that the men that are depicted on this mountain did get here by random chance. They seem unfazed by the fact that the men are infinitely more complex than the carvings in the side of the mountain. The universe is so obviously fine tuned for life that it is incalculable. Vera Kistiakowski, professor of physics emerita at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed in summarizing the evidence: “The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.”12 Patrick Glynn, a former atheist, after examining the evidence for the Anthropic Principle, concluded that it “ . . . does offer as strong an indication as reason and science alone could be expected to provide that God exists . . . Ironically, the picture of the universe bequeathed to us by the most advanced twentieth-century science is closer in spirit to the vision presented in the Book of Genesis than anything offered by science since Copernicus.”13 The more the complexity and wonder of the universe is examined and discovered the more the words of Paul in the first chapter of Romans ring true. We truly do not have an excuse to deny that God exists based on what He has made.

Lies, Myths, and Half-Truths: The Symbols of Evolution Why do so many people believe in evolution if it is such a shaky theory? Students are constantly bombarded with statements that all scientists believe in evolution, that evolution is no longer a theory but a fact, or that evolution is based on empirical science. Textbooks are full of so-called evidence that has convinced countless millions of the veracity of evolution and has corroded their faith in God. Nearly every example, however, that is given to bolster or prove evolution turns out to be faked, a fraud, an exaggeration, or just a flat out lie. This is nothing new for the disciples of evolution. It seems that each generation of evolutionary indoctrination has had its symbols that convinced the students of the time that evolution was a plausible theory. One by one, though, virtually every piece of information that 23 has been put forth as evidence for evolution has been proven false or misleading. A generation ago it was Piltdown Man, Peking Man, and Java Man. Jonathan Wells, in his book, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?, systematically destroys the ten most currently cherished symbols of evolution. In each case, the icon that he presents is taught in fact in most high school and college textbooks. In the high school in which I taught, we had three different biology textbooks that were used at one time or another as the biology textbooks of choice in the school system of the city in which I taught. That means that every one of the tens of thousands of high school students in this city used these textbooks at least once before they finish school. Each of the ten icons described by Wells, were in at least one of the three textbooks. Below I will give a brief synopsis of four of the ten. All four of these examples were extensively discussed in all three of the textbooks that were used in my former school.

Haeckel’s Embryos One of the oldest arguments given to support evolution is that of embryonic capitulation. That simply means that every embryo goes through the various evolutionary stages while still in the womb. This includes things like having gills like a fish and a tail like a monkey. Modern science has shown this to be completely invalid. It just does not happen. There is much more nefarious goings on, I am afraid, than this just being a case of bad or mistaken science that has since been corrected. Ernst Haeckel first published the original drawings of this theory in 1868. Within months of their release, other science professors showed that Haeckel’s drawings were fraudulent. Haeckel had fraudulently changed drawings of embryos to give them an appearance of similarity. In some cases he made rather dramatic changes. In some cases he used the same woodcuts and claimed that they were different species. Yet, somehow, the belief in these drawings and this theory still exist. I have seen them in textbooks that were printed as late as 2001. Do not miss the point here. They were proven to be faked over 130 years ago and are still being used today to convince kids of the truth of evolution. It is particularly amazing to me to think that this is still being printed as truth in textbooks. The 1998 textbook, Evolutionary Biology included Haeckel’s drawings and a section on embryonic capitulation. The author, Professor Douglas Futuyma, responded to criticism from creationists by admitting that he had not been aware of Haeckel’s dishonesty. Think of how many students over the last 130 years have been swayed by these drawings. 24

Dr. Michael Richardson has also been an outspoken critic of the Haeckel drawings. The Times (London) quotes him as saying, “This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud. It’s shocking to find that somebody everyone thought was a great scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes me angry. What he [Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development. They don’t. These are fakes.”14 This lie of evolution would be bad enough by itself, but the list goes on.

Peppered Moths One of the most famous of examples used to prove evolution for the past several decades has been the peppered moths of England. As the story goes, most peppered moths were white in the early 1800’s. The birds could easily pick off the dark colored moths on the white tree trunks. This kept the black moth population to a minimum. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution came pollution. As a result of the pollution discoloring the tree trunks, the population of the moths shifted. Now it was the dark colored moths that were predominant. Bernard Kettlewell published this example of evolution in the 1950’s. There are several problems with this being used as an example to prove natural selection and subsequently evolution. The experiments do not explain where the alternate colors come from. An intelligent designer seems as likely an explanation as chance mutation and natural selection. Nor does it in any way explain how a moth evolved from a non-moth. This example just does not hold water yet it is still used as one of the primary examples of evolution in action. What has recently been revealed, though, is far more disturbing than just bad conclusions. It has been found that the photographs that Kettlewell used were faked including the practice of gluing dead moths onto the trees. Further study of these peppered moths showed that left to their own devices they almost never land on tree trunks they stay in the tree canopy. In one recent instance I gave an article to a biology teacher at my former high school that showed how the evidence for the peppered moth story had been faked. She had just finished doing the day before a lesson on the peppered moth. I gave her the article thinking she would be thrilled to know that the textbook was inaccurate. If I had been put in similar circumstances with a history book, I would be excited to share with my students the truths I had learned. I would use it as an example of critical thinking and searching for the truth. Her response was somewhat disappointing. She said that it did not bother her to continue using this example because it illustrated the greater truth of evolution even if the specific example was not accurate. 25

This is a perfect example of how these lies of evolution keep getting passed from generation to generation. Evolutionists are so committed to their faith that they will not let it go even if presented with evidence to the contrary.

Homology in vertebrate limbs Homology in vertebrate limbs simply means that different species have limbs that are similar in structure and function. This, the evolutionists claim, is due to their common ancestry. Textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry. Then they turn around and claim that homology is evidence for common ancestry. In other words they use circular reasoning to convince kids that the only reason that limbs are similar is due to common ancestry. The truth is it would be just as legitimate to claim a common designer as the reason for homology. Had these commonalities arisen from common ancestry, the biological information responsible for these phenomena should show a discernible pattern. This turns out to not be the case as Gavin DeBeer, quoted by Dr. Wells, points out:

The fact is that correspondence between homologous structures cannot be pressed back to similarity of position of the cells in the embryo, or of the parts of the egg out of which the structures are ultimately composed, or of developmental mechanisms by which they are formed . . . In salamanders, development of the digits proceeds in the opposite direction, from head to tail. The difference is so striking that some biologists have argued that the evolutionary history of salamanders must have been different from all other vertebrates, including frogs . . . Because homology implies community of descent from . . . a common ancestor it might be thought that genetics would provide the key to the problem of homology. This is where the worst shock of all is encountered . . . [because] characters controlled by identical genes are not necessarily homologous . . . [and] homologous structures need not be controlled by identical genes.15

From Ape to Human

For over four decades evolutionists, to prove the long, slow descent from ape-like creatures down to modern human beings, used the Piltdown Man. As it turned out, it was a fraud. The skull belonged to a human and the jaw was from an orangutan. The teeth had been filed down and the jaw treated chemically so that they would be more convincing. It is difficult to believe that it took that long to discover this fraud, but when people really want to believe in something they can be slow in coming to the truth. 26

Evolutionists constantly trot out so-called transitional forms between apes and humans and claim that they are proof for evolution. This could not be farther from the truth. Most of these transitional forms are pure fantasy. The vast majority of these finds include only a couple of bone fragments. The rest of the creature is built based solely on the imagination of the scientists. They then put these pictures in magazines and in museums and claim them to be fact. This point is illustrated by a case in which four different artists were asked by National Geographic to give a rendering of a female homo habilis figure from casts of seven fossil bones. The four different pictures were all significantly different. They ran the whole gamut of the ape- to-human sequence. The pictures of “early man” are purely imagination and fiction based on very little fact. This is true for other allegedly transitional forms. How these “ape-men” are interpreted is highly subjective and prone to the great bias of most pro-evolution scientists. Beyond being a religious belief, though, evolution means big money. This is another motivating factor in it being defended so aggressively. In his book, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Wells describes the fact that billions of American’s tax dollars are spent every year to finance evolutionary origins research. Organizations like NASA, the National Institute of Health, and the National Science Foundation continually fund research projects that are committed to developing and proving the evolutionary worldview. The resulting work that comes from these projects helps professors to gain notoriety and tenures at their universities. Students buy evolution-oriented textbooks and attend schools and universities where evolution is taught exclusively and presented as fact. Bluntly stated, evolution means big money for the scientists involved. The reality of the ape-to-human descent process is that there is no proof of it at all. Ironically, there are less accepted possible transitional models today than there were in Darwin’s time. Evolutionists have no answer to this lack of evidence. They have at best merely a handful of highly disputed fossils that they can even claim are transitional. Most of them have been shown to be either fully ape or monkey, or fully human.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg The above problems for evolution are, indeed, devastating but they are just the tip of the iceberg. An honest look at evolution will show that neither the necessary mechanisms for macroevolution or the evidence of it happening actually exist. They are many more problems with the theory of evolution, which will be briefly discussed below. 27

In his work on the many icons in the evolution community, Wells goes on to destroy the rest of the prize horses in the evolutionary stable such as: The Miller-Urey experiment, Darwin’s tree of life, Darwin’s finches, four-winged fruit flies, etc. Once these so-called evidences of evolution are rightly removed, the textbooks are left with scarcely anything to support their cherished myth. I have met with hundreds of teens either individually or in large groups and simply gone through their biology textbooks with them showing them the myths, errors, and lies throughout the pages of the evolution section. The response has been tremendous. Kids are incredibly relieved to know that there are answers to the onslaught of evolution. Just knowing that there are answers available greatly increases the faith of young people in the Creator God described in the pages of Genesis. The troubles for evolutionists go far beyond just the issues of Irreducible Complexity, Information Theory, the Anthropic Principle, and the Icons of Evolution. One of the things that evolutionists won’t discuss very often is that there are six different types of evolution. The first is cosmological, which has to do with the beginning of time, space, and matter. This is usually explained through the theory of the Big Bang. The second type is stellar evolution. This involves the development of individual stars, planets, etc. The third type is that of chemical evolution. Before life can happen, all of the chemicals and elements present in the universe must have evolved into separate entities. The fourth type of evolution is that of organic evolution. This is the development of life, which is usually explained by evolutionists by some sort of pre-biotic soup in which life developed from non-life. The fifth type is that of microevolution. Microevolution can also be called variation. It involves the minor changes that organisms undergo as a result of genetic variation. The final type is that of macroevolution. This is the supposed process through which one type of species undergoes so many microevolution changes that it becomes a new species. It is important to understand that of the above mentioned six types of evolution, only the fifth entry, microevolution, should be considered actual operational science. None of the other five types can be observed or reproduced, and thus, should not by definition be considered scientific disciplines. Evolutionists spend a great deal of time trying to argue biological evolution, but, for instance, say virtually nothing about chemical evolution. The reason is simple; not only is there virtually no evidence for chemical evolution, there are not really any plausible theories. The average biology textbook will have dozens, if not hundreds, of pages covering the theory of evolution, yet most chemistry textbooks will not have anything to say. This is a curious omission considering the truth that it is not even worth considering biological evolution if there is not chemical evolution first. 28

In order to believe evolution, astronomical odds must be overcome millions of times in each of the six areas. To be an evolutionist one must take thousands of leaps of faith in order to cling to their faith. For the Christian there is only one: That there is a God. Once one has taken that leap of faith and believes that there is a God, everything falls into place. It simply takes much more blind faith to be an evolutionist and a Humanist. I believe that one day evolution will be looked upon as one of the most laughable frauds of all time. In today’s society, though, it cannot be underestimated. Our children must be trained to defend their way of thinking against it. It is also vital that they be taught to detect evolutionary thinking in any areas in which it might pop up. If we can protect our children from this line of Humanist attack, we will go a long way towards protecting them from some major worldview problems in the future.

Evolution: The Gateway Drug Much has been said in the last 40 years concerning the belief that marijuana is so dangerous because it serves as a gateway to more intense and more dangerous drugs. Marijuana definitely has dangers inherent to itself, but the larger danger is that is lowers the defenses of the user. The argument goes that those who use marijuana are more likely to begin to use drugs that have a far more devastating effect physically and mentally. In many ways, evolution is a gateway drug for worldviews. It doesn’t appear to be such a dangerous belief system in and of itself. After all, it’s just an alternative belief about how we all got here, isn’t it? The problem is that whatever you believe about your origins affects how you view everything else in the world. What a teenager is taught about the origins of life makes a huge difference in every other area of their life. What a teen accepts as the cause of the universe sets in motion a cavalcade of beliefs throughout every area of their life. If there is a Creator God that made the universe and everything in it, then we are left with the conclusion that life is intentional and sacred. If the God of the Bible is the creator of the universe then we know that there is a moral lawgiver and a moral law that must be followed. Knowledge of the creator gives us a sense of purpose and a responsibility to our fellow man. The existence of a creator means that there is such a thing as absolute truth on which we can rely. On the other hand, if evolution is true, all bets are off. There would be no need for God. There would be no moral law because there is no lawgiver. This means that relativism rules the day. You can do whatever you please because there is no responsibility to God or anyone else. Satanist Aleister Crowley’s famous saying, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” becomes the guiding principle for our worldview. Whatever suits one’s fancy is just fine, 29 because we are all here by pure dumb luck, we have no innate purpose, and we come to nothing when we die. Holding to this belief of evolution, then, opens the door to much more dangerous views. It opens people up to other worldview like Secular Humanism (which will be discussed in detail in the next chapter). It can also be argued that a rejection of God is the cause of most, if not all, of the ills of our society. Since evolution is, at its core, a rejection of God, it opens the mind of the young person who believes it for a dangerous litany of beliefs. Psalm 11:3 asks the question, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Allow me to answer that question. If the foundations are destroyed the righteous will crash and burn. In many respects your belief in origins is the foundation for everything else you believe in your life. It is ground zero. Parents and youth ministers can simply not afford to give this topic anything less than a great deal of attention. Every Christian parent holds to the belief that God created the universe and nearly all of them communicate that to their children in some way. The problem is this has to go far beyond reading the creation story in the Bible and reminding our kids that God made everything in the world. Those are great things to do, especially when children are younger, but when kids get older, it is not enough. They will be attacked in middle- and high-school on a very sophisticated level. Evolution will be taught as fact. The ability of parents and youth ministers simply has to be able to match the level of sophistication of the evolutionary teaching. The most effective way to prepare our children for this topic is to arm them with answers before they are given the questions by their biology teachers. Suffice it to say that a child who is prepared for what evolution teaches and the values that are subsequent to those beliefs will help to inoculate them. There is an extremely important principle at work here that I will reference throughout this book: When you understand something, it loses its power over you. A teenager who is well aware of what the world believes, what it will teach, how it will teach it, and how it will attack their belief system, is a teenager who is far safer than their uniformed peers. Taking up the challenge of thoroughly equipping our children with scientific reasons why creation rather than evolution is the much more plausible approach to science can seem daunting to most parents. It is not the easiest of topics for many people to comprehend and then feel confident in explaining to children. The problem, however is that is too important of a topic to be ignored. If parents do not feel capable of tackling this topic, then I offer two solutions. The first is to educate yourself on the topic. Read as much as you can. It will build your faith and do an incredible amount of good for the faith of child. If that seems like too daunting a task, then I would recommend that at the very least parents of the local church pool together and find 30 someone who is knowledgeable about the issue and who is capable of explaining it to teenagers. This person should be allowed to teach regularly to the teens on the topic and be accessible for questions from kids as they go through various science classes. Just knowing that someone has answers provides a great deal of security and comfort to teen who is wrestling with these ideas. 31

Chapter 2 – 180 Days at the Temple

One of the most shocking and uncharacteristic incidents in American history took place during the Korean War. The American military man has had a long, proud history of holding up remarkably well while being prisoners of war. They have been courageous, orderly, still maintained discipline and respected the authority of captured commanding officers. Despite the conditions and temptation to feel hopeless, the prisoners remained loyal to one another, resisted the authority of their captors and repeatedly made attempts to escape. The Korean War, however, was a marked departure from that tradition. In Korea a relatively small number of Chinese Communist soldiers kept thousands of American soldiers under control without fences, barbed wire, physical torture, or any of the other usual methods. Major William Mayer, a U.S. Army psychiatrist who participated in extensive debriefings following the war, reported that only 5 percent of POWs resisted the enemy, 15 percent became hard-core defenders and collaborators with the enemy, and the other 80 percent were rendered passive by the tactics of the enemy.1 Of the thousands of American POWs during the Korean War, not one made any attempt to escape during the entire period of imprisonment.2 In his work, None Dare Call it Treason, John Stormer reported that “. . . some American POWs had broadcast anti-American propaganda, informed on other prisoners, wrote articles, letters, and stories praising life under communism, confessed to ‘germ warfare’ and other atrocities, and generally cooperated with their captors in every way.3 What could possibly keep thousands of Americans from resisting their captors? It was simple really. They did it not through torture or intimidation, but with a teacher and a classroom. The Chinese had mastered the technique of classroom manipulation. They took groups of tired, scared, and confused soldiers into classrooms and encouraged them to relax and “confess” their feelings to the rest of the group. For weeks they would discuss things such as Christianity, Marxism, the American way, and communism. They were constantly told that there were no absolute moral truths, only differences in opinion. They were constantly told to lay aside their own selfish opinions and work towards creating a group consensus; this was they were convinced, beneficial for the welfare of the group. What they were not told is that they were being constantly shepherded towards predetermined conclusions. It was the facilitator’s job to constantly push his students towards this enlightenment. The Chinese were so effective with these techniques in changing the worldview of the prisoners that an inquiry was called for at the end of the war so as to be able to study the techniques of the communists. 32

Edward Hunter, a foreign correspondent, author, editor, and specialist in propaganda warfare testified before a congressional committee on March 13, 1958: I have been watching developments under communism in other parts of the world, and now I see exactly the same developments here in America. . . War has changed its form. The communists have discovered that a man killed by a bullet is useless. The objective of communist warfare is to capture intact the middle of the people and their possessions, so they can be put to use. . . A more exact term in the military lexicon would be “mind attack”. . . This is the modern conception of slavery that puts all others in the kindergarten age.4

In describing this process, Hunter introduced the word “brainwashing” into the American lexicon. He explained that people were first put into a fog before they could be effectively brainwashed. They need to be shaken loose of their precepts and convictions until they lose belief in them. Hunter noted: The one thing the prisoners least expected was to come into a classroom atmosphere. . . Americans respect learning and have been taught to. . . see all sides of every question. . . The facilitators lured them into believing the pseudoscientific Marxian philosophy, which teaches constant change, even in such basic conceptions as truth and falsity, good and bad. . . Where convictions were already worn thin by their upbringing, the line became blurred until these noble traits were twisted out of shape by becoming tolerance for evil.5

Textbooks were given to the prisoners that were written in English, covering the topics of American history, government, and economics. The information, however, covered these topics from a much different, but reasonable sounding perspective. It was done in such a way that unless these Americans had a solid foundation of these topics previously, they would not be able to detect the differences and misrepresentations. The facilitators constantly stressed that their captives examine the good points of every side so that they could get along with everyone and not be isolated in their beliefs. The Chinese had learned a very practical and effective technique to control their prisoners. It was not through fear and intimidation, but was rather through indoctrination. Those who are controlled by fear are always a step away from revolt. Those who have been indoctrinated will go along willingly because their desire to resist has been removed.

The Temples of Secular Humanism

Being brainwashed is obviously an incredibly dangerous situation. Resistance can be lowered and the way someone views the world can be drastically altered. It is a battle for the 33 mind. The only things worse than being in a battle, is being in a battle, and not really being aware of whom your enemy is, or the fact that you are under siege. Yet, Christian parents send their children to public schools everyday not knowing that, in effect, we are sending our children to church five days a week. I was listening to a message from a nationally televised evangelist not too long ago, and made a point to stop and listen as he began talking about raising Godly children. His words proved the extent and degree to which so many people have been fooled in this area. He was talking about training our children to be Godly. It was mostly the usual things including teaching them to obey, knowing where they are at, controlling their friends, being aware of what they watch on TV, etc. Then he made a statement that shocked me. He said something to the effect that he was glad we didn’t have prayer in the schools anymore. He would not, he said, want most teachers teaching his children to pray because they probably do not know how to pray themselves. Stay with me for just a second because I have not yet gotten to the shocking part. He went on to say that schools have no business teaching religion. That is the job of the home. Schools, he stated, were a neutral place where simple facts and knowledge are taught. They teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, etc. Is this true? Are public schools today simply neutral places that teach nothing more than simple facts to our children so that they will be educated and ready to face the world? As we will see in the remainder of this chapter, that belief couldn’t be further from the truth. This erroneous belief is exactly the problem with our children that are attending public schools (and many private schools for that matter). Public schools are not neutral, objective institutions of learning and neither are most colleges and universities. Public schools have become well organized places of instruction and worship for the church of Humanism. Secular Humanists and the newer denomination of post-modern Humanists dominate public schools. They are also quite prevalent in colleges and universities, although, at that level you see a much larger Communist and Socialist Humanist influence (the influence of Communist and Socialist Humanism in colleges and universities is outside of the scope of this current work). What this evangelist had all wrong is the belief that we send our children to school to be merely educated in a non-partisan dissemination of objective facts. We believe that our children are being taught how to learn and how to acquire knowledge for themselves. This is not at all true. Public schools have become hostile ground for Christian ideas because they are dominated by a different religion, rather than no religion at all. The influence and beliefs of this religion of Secular Humanism will be the topic of the remainder of this chapter. 34

So, what is Humanism? What does humanism mean? The prophet Isaiah gives perhaps the best answer, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight (Isaiah 5:21). Humanism is belief in humanity without the need or benefit of God. It banishes the concept of God because it believes that human beings are sufficient in and of themselves. That is the very essence of humanism. Man is the center of the universe, and there is nothing bigger, and nothing greater. I will be willing to bet that if I could ask 1,000 Americans what they think should be the main goal of public education; I would get many different answers. Most of them, I assume would have to do with the actual education of students. Yet, for a large percentage of schools these days, if not all, this is not the case. Behind closed doors, many educators talk about different goals than the types of goals on which most Americans are hoping our schools are focusing. The goals that I most heard about as a teacher were things like building self-esteem, teaching the students social skills, providing them a safe emotional place to go, and giving them new experiences. A few years ago I sat in on an in-service meeting where the presenter asked us as a staff about our purpose in giving grades and ultimately our primary goal in educating our students. Nearly every teacher agreed in one form or another that building the self-esteem of the students was the key for them. They also argued that students should be graded on their effort rather than their actual achievement. I found only one or two other members on the staff that was willing to voice an opinion that included that high standards and truly teaching our students factual information was their primary goal. This is indicative, however, of an education system that abandoned long ago the primary goal of imparting absolute facts to students. Clearly the educational focus has changed radically from the days of the New England Primer which taught kids the alphabet through the use of the Bible stories, or the Old Deluder Act, which was passed by the people of Massachusetts to defeat illiteracy, which they believed was one of the primary weapons of Satan, the old deluder. Christianity is no longer allowed in schools, and the focus and techniques of education are quite different. So what are the results of this change in the education system? How effective are the new techniques? In September 1993, the U.S. Education Department revealed the results of its study of adult literacy in America. Among the findings of the report were the facts that: · 90 million American adults could barely read or write; · 40 million adults had only the most rudimentary reading and writing skills; · an additional 50 million adults fared a little better but were still considered to have inadequate reading and writing skills; · only about 20 percent – 34- to 40 – million scored high, handling challenging tasks that involved complex documents and background information6 35

The decline of the education system in America is undeniable. It’s results are sad and predictable. Student violence is on the rise nation-wide. Gang violence is a constant problem. Disrespect for teachers and other adults has become so common it is now expected and accepted to a degree. Teen pregnancies are rampant. The generation of the 1960’s and 1970’s created a culture that had no morals. Those generations have now produced a generation which in large part has no conscience. Worsening the situation is the postmodern concepts of things such as “values clarification” that is often taught in today’s schools. This is a method of moral training that teaches that there are no right or wrong answers. Rather than teaching absolutes, the teacher should direct students in techniques that will assist them in coming to their own conclusions. There is an account of the teacher who learned these techniques at a workshop and was dutifully applying them in her sixth grade classroom. Before long, her class decided that they valued cheating and would be exercising their newfound value on the next test. The teacher was perplexed with this dilemma. Don’t worry, though, she came up with a typical postmodern solution. She told the class that due to the fact that she was personally opposed to cheating, they could not do it her class. She then informed them, “In my class you must be honest. In other areas of your life you may be free to cheat.” Without an absolute moral standard, we are free to choose whatever course of action seems right for us at the time. This is exactly what has happened in our schools. Students are taught that this is a good thing. They need to find truth for themselves. This is why there is such an emphasis these days on hands-on and explorative learning. The students need to be trained to discover their own version of the truth for themselves. Notice that I did not say, the truth, I said their truth. This, they are taught, is the ultimate goal of their education. How did all of this come about? Was it an accident? Was this the result of a slow, unknowing drift of a country away from God? The answer is a resounding “NO.” The real question, then, is who are the real perpetrators and in what kind of battle are we engaged?

The Foundations Are Laid

Over twenty years ago, a former schoolteacher, Jo Ann McCauley went on the national radio show, Point of View with Marlin Maddoux and shocked her listeners. Her fifth grade son had come home with a history project on which he needed help. As Jo Ann began to look through her son’s textbooks she was concerned about the emphasis on people like Marilyn Monroe, and the 36 fact that there was but one small paragraph on George Washington. She began a campaign to investigate not only the textbooks in her son’s school but she also looked into the American public school system as a whole. She came to the conclusion that the schools were being used to systematically change and undermine the moral values of American children. She concluded that what she uncovered “was the worst of all crimes: willfully manipulating the religious and moral beliefs of children, without their parents’ knowledge or consent.7 To understand all of this we need first to go back to the early 1800’s. Harvard and Yale, and most other early American universities began as schools for the training of ministers and Christian scholars. By the early 1800’s, however, Harvard became dominated by Unitarians and liberal Christians who were virtually Christians in name only. Harvard began to send their most gifted scholars to Germany to learn under the tutelage of the German philosophers and scholars that they greatly admired. Before long, these students were bringing back to America the ideas and philosophies of the Germans. The most influential of these German scholars were Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-1883). Kant taught that man was completely incapable of acquiring or comprehending any knowledge of reality. All was perception and opinion, according to Kant. According to Kant, there was no objective existence of a Creator or absolute truth. Hegel’s major contribution was collectivism. He argued that the group, which he called the collective, had a primacy over the individual. The individual, said Hegel, had no reality apart from the group. Marx boldly declared that God did not exist, that the world was composed of only matter. There was no Creator and man had no soul, according to Marx’s teachings. Marx’s belief in matter only led to his formation of the theory of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism teaches that there is nothing beyond matter, there are no absolutes, and that the way of the world is to constantly synthesize one’s old beliefs (thesis) with new ideas (antithesis). One would then abandon the old beliefs in favor of a new set of beliefs (synthesis) that was based primarily on the new and better beliefs that one had encountered. We need not look any further than the modern educational system in the United States of America to see these ideas in living color, practiced on a daily basis. These ideas did not, however, find their way into the educational system by accident. No, it was quite intentional, and much of the work was done by John Dewey. The most influential individual in American education in the last one hundred years is without question John Dewey. This is the same Dewey of Dewey Decimal System fame. His 37 theories are still held in awe in schools of education at most universities. Any licensed teacher in the United States has, without a doubt, been well indoctrinated into the teachings, beliefs, and theories of John Dewey. Since disciples of Dewey are by far the dominant force in American education we would do well to take a closer look at a man with so much influence. Far from being a neutral force in education, Dewey has contributed more to the Humanist takeover of American education than anyone else. Dewey was a leader and pioneer in the liberal, progressive education movement in the first half of the 20th century. He was an avowed atheist, an ardent evolutionist, and an unapologetic socialist. Dewey was also a board member of the American Humanist Association and a signer of the 1933, Humanist Manifesto, which serves as sacred scripture for the Secular Humanist movement. He was, in fact, one of the leading pioneers of both Secular Humanism and the socialist movement in America. He was always full of praise for Vladimir Lenin in Russia and felt that socialism was the future of America. Dewey believed that the ultimate goal of public education was to bring about a “state consciousness.” Dewey knew, however, that in order to get Americans to turn their backs on their belief in freedom and embrace socialism was to revolutionize the entire education system. The only practical way to do this, though, was to devalue in the eyes of Americans traditional education techniques and replace them with a system that concentrated on the beliefs and values of children. In his essay entitled “My Pedagogic Creed,” Dewey wrote:

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration, or correlation, in all his training and growth. . . I believe, therefore, that the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, not literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s social activities.8

Dewey believed that evolutionary theories should be at the very core of the educational and pedagogical (teaching) paradigms. He held that truth is relative and that absolutes are confining, not admissible, and even harmful. He railed constantly against the need for God or moral absolutes, declaring that “There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural laws or moral absolutes”9 He felt that any fixed constitution, rules, or standards would stand in the way of man’s social evolution. This of course was based on man’s biological evolution, his belief in the dialectic, and his reverence for the collective. In Dewey’s vision of the new America, the State would be god, public schools would serve as the church, and teachers would be the preachers and prophets of this new religion. Serving as 38 a pope of sorts in this burgeoning religion, Dewey commissioned public school teachers to spread the message of this new belief system with zeal. He gave them the vision that they were the founding fathers of a new era and a new advanced civilization. While envisioning this new faith, Dewey wrote:

Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of a proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. . . In this way, the teacher is always a prophet of the true God and the usherer of the true kingdom of God.10

Up until that point, traditional education was based firmly on the foundation of the Scriptures. Students were trained with the idea that there were moral absolutes and absolute truth. Education, then, was a matter of drill, memorization of, training in, and discovery of the truths that God had already laid down as part of the universe. Dewey talked further about his own religious beliefs in his book, A Common Faith. “He claimed that religion is basically an attempt to adjust to the difficulties of life and should therefore be freed from the outmoded ideas of ancient faiths, such as Christianity. Since the world changes through time, so must religion. And science must be the guide for any modern faith, for it alone is the gateway to reliable knowledge.”11 By applying his religion of Humanism, steeped in evolution and socialism, Dewey began the process of sterilizing the American education system from any Christian influence or philosophies. A quick perusal of Dewey’s writings shows that he was motivated to replicate a Soviet-style education system in the United States. He said that Russia’s revolution was “a release of human powers on such an unprecedented scale that it is of incalculable significance not only for that country, but for the world. . . There is an enormous constructive effort taking place in the creation of a new collective mentality; a new morality I should call it.”12 He went on to say “That which distinguishes the Soviet schools. . . from the progressive schools of other countries. . . is precisely the conscious control of every education procedure by reference to a single and comprehensive social purpose.”13 Dewey criticized and attacked the traditional model of education. In response to fixed standards, rules of conduct, moral training, and a sense of conforming to those standards, Dewey proposed his own non-traditional view of education:

♦ Expression and cultivation of individuality (as opposed to imposition from above); ♦ Free activity (As opposed to external discipline); ♦ Learning through experience (as opposed to texts and teachers); 39

♦ Acquiring skills as a means of attaining ends that have direct vital appeal (as opposed to drill); ♦ Making the most of the opportunities of this present life (as opposed to preparation for a more or less remote future); ♦ Acquaintance with a changing world (as apposed to static aims and materials).14

As you read the list, most of it will probably seem rather familiar. It sounds like a mission statement from most public schools today: Dewey recognized how valuable the classroom could be in initiating social changes. According to Dewey, “The first great step as far as subject-matter and method are concerned is to make sure of an educational system that informs students about the present state of society in a way that enables them to understand the conditions and forces at work. If only this result can be accomplished, students will be ready to take their own active part in aggressive participation in bringing about a new social order.”15

Dewey’s philosophies took over American schools of education at colleges and universities like a wildfire. They are now so standard in schools of education that many educators do not even realize that many of these ideas were from John Dewey. Humanists have now accepted and encouraged the idea of using teachers as adjusters of the social agenda as the standard course of things. In her book The Change Agents, Barbara Morris says that we no longer have schoolteachers; we now have social “change agents.”16 The goal of schools is to redirect and “fix” the morals and values of the schoolchildren. The term that I often heard when I was teacher was “re-parenting.” The excuse often given is that parents have done such a poor job of parenting that schools must re-train the children. It never occurs to these people that it is not the business of the school to teach morals and values. The schools have completed washed any trace of Jesus and Moses from the minds of the schoolchildren and replace them with John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow, Wilhelm Wundt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, and many others. This concept of social brainwashing violates the very heart and soul of the 2nd Commandment of Exodus 20:4, which states that we shall not make any graven images. In other words, we should not be so presumptuous as to create our own idea of God and therefore our own rules and morals. In his book Ten words that will change a nation, Rob Schenk sums up this view of the 2nd commandment, saying, “This commandment, prohibiting the making of idols or ‘graven images,’ is aimed directly at this human predisposition for taking matters of right and wrong or ultimate moral authority, into our own hands. This is idolatry in its purest form. When 40 a person chooses a lifestyle that violates the moral will of God . . . they erect an image that reflects their own nature rather than the nature of the One True God.”17

The Means to Get There

Another man whose philosophies have had an incredible impact on American education is Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci is certainly not as well known in American education circles as is Dewey, yet his teachings and philosophies have had nearly as much impact as Dewey’s. Gramsci was best known during his life for his ongoing argument with Russian communists. He was convinced their tactics were all wrong. He told them flat out that they were pursuing the communist revolution incorrectly. Rather than conquering the West through military or economic conquest, moral subversion would be the tactic that brought ultimate victory. They must deconstruct the culture of the west including a nation’s heritage, its morality, and its spiritual life. While in prison in Italy, Gramsci laid out his plan for conquering America and converting the world voluntarily to Marxism in his nine-volume Prison Notebooks. “The heart of his strategy was the simple dictum that, in order to achieve a socialist victory, America’s faith in its existing moral and philosophical foundations and cultural institutions would have to be infiltrated and undermined. They would transform society’s collective mind from Christianity to Marxism gradually over a few generations. The war would be won by consensus, not force, and fought in the hearts and minds – not on the battlefield.”18 Larry Abraham, author of None Dare Call it Conspiracy, commented on Gramsci’s strategy, noting: He knew the West could be socialized through a combined overt/ covert undermining of religious beliefs and cultural values. This could be done with a ‘long march through the institutions’ by infiltrating the schools, the churches, the universities, the law, the arts, theater, literature, music, the news media, the courts, television, and the motion picture industry.”19 Gramsci also embraced a technique that was formulated at the Frankfurt School, a German Communist Party school. This technique was called the “critical theory.” This is the practice of criticizing America and the West for every conceivable thing they do and blaming them for every problem in the world. It would charge the West with genocidal crimes against every civilization it had ever encountered. The vital component of this theory was to connect in the minds of the world this litany of crimes with our Christian beliefs. Where Gramsci laid the foundational theory for overcoming the United States of America, the actual technique came from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel developed what has 41 come to be known as the Hegelian dialectic. This was the specific technique used by the Chinese communists on the American POWs in Korea. Hegel had been influenced heavily by the occult which led him to believe that distinctions of any kind were nothing more than illusion. This meant that universal truth does not exist. New truths are constantly being formed as an assumed truth (thesis) runs up against a new truth (antithesis). As the two “truths” collide, they merge into a new truth (synthesis). The synthesis then becomes the new thesis, and the cycle continues. This Hegelian dialectic is played out everyday in American classrooms. It has become standard teaching technique and most well-meaning teachers have no idea of the roots or true purpose behind this mentally coercive technique. Teachers are trained to lead the class through a number of steps that will “clarify” the values of the children. American education heavyweight, Benjamin Bloom confirmed this admitting that the purpose of education and schools was to “change the thoughts, feelings, and actions of students.”20 According to Bloom a good teacher is one who possesses the ability to “attain affective objectives through challenging the students’ fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues.”21 The goal of the Hegelian technique is to reach a consensus. This new consensus is almost always at odds with the things that Christian students have been taught at home. Questions are asked in such a way that the emphasis is placed on the way the students feel about a topic. The concept of teaching facts takes a back seat to seeing things from everyone’s point of view and accepting all views and opinions as equally valid. The first rule of consensus is that no individual, group, or nation has access to absolute truth, and consequently, that no one has the right to impose his or her view on others. Suddenly, what kids have been taught at home or church doesn’t seem reasonable anymore. It all conflicts with what the teacher and the other students in the class are saying. Met with new ideas and unable to challenge them effectively, the student begins to question and doubt what they have previously accepted as truth. The process continues with open-ended questions and the students are told that there are “no wrong answers.” Suddenly it is not a matter of believing something because it is true, it is a matter of things beings true because the student believes it. The exercises are designed to convince the student that there are no absolutes and that everything is relative. Once absolute truth is eliminated as a possibility, truth becomes whatever the group agrees that it is. Even more insidious is that once absolute truth has been removed, the student is defenseless against any foreign idea or philosophy introduced into the classroom. They no longer have any basis on which to object. The difficult part for parents and youth ministers is that most kids don’t actually realize that they have rejected moral absolutes. If asked, most will 42 say that there is such a thing as objective truth. The reality is, however, they have been trained to think differently. Once they have rejected the concept of there being absolute truth, the student will question any absolute, prior established fact, or authority. They will be incapable of seeing the world and reasoning form a Christian viewpoint. Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell described the similarities between these teaching techniques and the practices of totalitarian governments in an article that appeared in Forbes magazine titled “Indoctrinating the Children.” He wrote:

The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross- examination of the individual’s underlying moral values, and inducing acceptance of alternative values by psychological rather than rational means.22

Author and researcher Berit Kjos traced the development of these mind control techniques:

Through the decades, the strategies used to manipulate minds in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were developed, first at the Tavistock Clinic near London and later at Germany’s Frankfurt School (originally called Frankfurt Institute for Social Research). Their mind-bending methods soon spread to a rising number of psychosocial research centers in America. They were fine-tuned at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and other American universities, at our regional educational laboratories and at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.23

These techniques, as effective as they may be would not have been accepted when they were first implemented if they would have been called “The Frankfurt Brainwashing Education System,” so the concepts and principles were taken and have been repackaged into very positive- sounding programs and teaching philosophies. Radio talk show host Marlin Maddoux says:

To hide the true nature of the psychological attacks, the educationists have wrapped very old philosophies and mind-manipulation techniques inside innocent-sounding names. So, whether it’s called Outcome-Based Education, Values Clarification, Behavior Modification, Higher Order Thinking Skills, Cooperative Learning, the Delphi Technique, Dialoguing to Consensus, or any number of other deceptive names, it is designed to alter the beliefs and values of children.24

Many of these may sound familiar to you. Chances are pretty good that the school your child attends uses one or more of these programs or one that is very similar and based on the same philosophies. All of these educational programs, however, draw their principles and 43 precepts from the effective, destructive, and preeminently dangerous Hegelian dialectic. Maddoux warns that the Hegelian dialectic is not just an innocent pedagogy but “is an assault of such proportions that it can bend the human mind just as effectively as a tyrant can brutalize the human body.” The real purpose of the Hegelian dialectic says Maddoux, “is to bring about a global mental breakdown! They call it a paradigm shift.”25 These educational practices are not just being passed around as theory in educational training schools; they are being used in the classrooms now, and have been used for the past forty years. Bev Eakman, an educator in North Carolina, was given at an in-service workshop a seven-point list of the values teachers should try to instill in their pupils. The seven points were:

· There is no right or wrong, only conditioned responses · The collective good is more important than the individual · Consensus is more important than principle · Flexibility is more important than accomplishment · Nothing is permanent except change · All ethics are situational; there are no moral absolutes · There are no perpetrators, only victims26

Eakman describes this process as a type of cognitive dissonance. It is an attempt, she says to encourage students to internalize everything. Everything they learn, then, is aimed at an ethical outcome rather than objective facts. She says, “So cognitive dissonance is. . . like setting somebody up for a psychological fall. It plays with the mind by pitting various perceived ‘authorities’ against one another and exacerbating tensions. After a while, intellectual deliberations shut down, and emotions take over. Only the strongest-willed individuals can hold out--the ‘troublemakers.’”27 As stated earlier, a majority of teachers have no idea that this is what they are doing. They are taught these techniques as being the most current in effective pedagogical practice. In many cases, they don’t even have to think about it at all; all they have to do is follow the lessons plans that come with most textbooks. National educational programs like Goals 2000, Outcome Based Education, and No Child Left Behind all feed into the nationalizing of American education, which make it easier to control. In order to receive federal aid, local schools have to abide by the standards and curriculum dictated by these federally approved policies. These policies often reflect Humanist thinking but the communities must teach them regardless of their own standards. At times the 44 roots of educational philosophies may be even more nefarious than just basic Humanistic thought. Much of the educational philosophy behind Goals 2000, for example, comes from the writings of Alice Bailey. Alice Bailey is a New Age Humanist who is open about the fact that she received much of her ideas not from research or original thought, but from her spirit guide, named Djwhal Khul. I can’t help here but think of 1 Timothy 4:1, which says that one of the activities of demons is to teach new doctrines. This Humanist takeover of the school system began to really take hold in 1957 with the onset of large amounts of federal aid to education. Since then the control of schools has passed from local school boards and communities to the federal government. The mother load hit for the Humanist takeover in 1979 with the establishment of the Department of Education. In many respects this completed the takeover by Humanists of America’s educational system. This is ironic, because the Supreme Court has consistently ruled since 1963 that religion is prohibited from being taught in schools. Yet, Humanism is a legal religion according to the Supreme Court (Torcaso v. Watkins, 1961). This means that in effect, America has established a State religion; that of Humanism, complete with a spot in the president’s cabinet. The constant mantra of needing more money for education that is trotted out at every local, state, and national election has been pushed for by the National Education Association. (The NEA is completely controlled by the Humanist agenda and is one of the most pro-abortion, pro- homosexual agencies in the country.) This money has nothing to do with educating the youth of the country. It is all about building up the infrastructure of a nationally controlled educational paradigm. It is intended to train the next generation of Humanists. The cute little “Catch-22” that the Humanists have created is that if a politician even whispers the idea of cutting federal spending of education or eliminating the Department of Education, they are labeled anti- education child haters and they will not get elected. John J. Dunphy, in an article titled “A Religion for a New Age,” that appeared in the The Humanist, drives home this idea of Humanists setting up our schools as churches of Humanism. He maintains that classroom teachers will be ministers of another type. They will use the classroom he says, to indoctrinate humanist values in whatever subject they teach.

The battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith; a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey 45

humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an area of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of ‘Love they Neighbor’ will finally be achieved.28

This religious, covert takeover of the classroom is especially dangerous when coupled with the false doctrine of separation of church and state. The Humanists will cry louder than anyone if this so-called doctrine is violated yet all the while they are setting up the foundations for their own state religion. They continue to attack Christianity but see no problem with instituting their own religion into schools. Paul Blanshard demonstrates the belief that Christian worldview is a poison for which Humanist education is the antidote. He ominously points out:

I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high-school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history.29

In other words, give the Secular Humanists twelve good years, 180 days a school year, in their temples, and children will be too educated and too intellectual to believe in the mythology presented in the Bible. The schools, according to Blanshard and other Humanists, are the only institutions capable of determining the amount of religion children should be taught, and according to their determination that amount is equal to the number of World Series wins by the Chicago Cubs in the last fifty years (which is zero, by the way). Charles Francis Potter, author of Humanism: A New Religion, and signer of the Humanist Manifesto really clarifies the situation for any Christian parent that cannot understand how a child that they have so diligently trained to be Godly can come out with such a worldly view of life. He admits, “Education is the most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching.”30 It is so pivotal to understand that last quotation, I recommend you go ahead and read it again (Even though you already read it in the last chapter as well. It is that important). Let it sink in. Folks, we are not sending our children to unbiased, objective institutions of learning. We are 46 sending them to church five days a week. It is a church that views the world and everything in it quite differently than we do. I don’t know of any Christian parent that would willingly send their children to a Muslim, Buddhist or Mormon school 180 days every year. We would have grave concerns over the information they were taught and the worldview they were absorbing. Yet, our public schools are no less religious. The primary difference is that Secular Humanism is a Godless religion and the religion taught is much more subtle and camouflage than is the overtly religious schools. The point, though, is that parents wouldn’t send their kids to these religious schools willingly, and if they had to for some reason, they would be very conscientious in knowing exactly what their children were learning. These parents would take great care in preparing their kids for the false things that they would be taught, and would ready their children for how to handle the onslaught of incorrect beliefs. These same parents that would shudder at the thought of sending their child to a Muslim school pack up Johnny or Susie and send them to the Secular Humanist temple each and every day of the school year without giving it a second thought. In my opinion, schools must be treated like a fireplace inside of a home. It can be useful for some things, but needs to be constantly watched and have a protective barrier around it so that it is not allowed to freely come into the home.

The Pillars of Secular Humanism

Let’s turn now to the precepts and ideas being taught at the temples of Secular Humanism, so that we can recognize them when they show up in our children’s textbooks, homework, or even their own way of thinking. H umanists have a remarkably well developed worldview based on their religious beliefs but they have a game plan that is just as well developed. In their book, Mind Siege, David Noebel and Tim LaHaye describe five basic pillars of the Secular Humanist faith.

Atheism

The foundation of all Humanistic thinking and belief is atheism. All doctrines and dogmas of the Humanist faith come from the belief that there is no God. They hold that anyone who does believe in God is hopefully caught in a trap of medieval mythology. Christians stand in the way of any hope of a Humanist state that has achieved the full potential of human growth, development, and evolution. The Bible says that the fool says that there is no God, yet the 47

Humanists have turned this nugget of wisdom on its ear and claim that it is the fool who says there is a God. This deification of man has been around since Satan first lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Since then man has continually embraced the hope that we could be like God and, logically did not need him. More recently this way of thinking burst forth again with philosophers like Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel, and Friederich Nietzsche. Nietzsche finally reached the conclusion, “God is dead.” God, of course, knew of man’s proclivity to reject our creator and even predicted the continuance of this sad practice in Romans 1:18-25. Even though the existence of God is patently obvious, man has rejected God and decided for themselves who or what they should worship. Corliss Lamont describes the atheistic under girding of Humanism:

First, Humanism believes in a naturalistic metaphysics or attitude toward the universe that considers all forms of the supernatural as myth; and the regards Nature as the totality of being and as a constantly changing system of matter and energy which exists independently of any mind or consciousness.

For Humanism the central concern is always the happiness of man in this existence, not in some fanciful never-never land beyond the grave; a happiness worthwhile as an end in itself and not subordinate to or dependent on a Supreme Deity, and invisible King ruling over the earth and the infinite cosmos.

Humanism believes that Nature itself constitutes the sum total or reality, that matter-energy and not mind is the foundation stuff of the universe, and that supernatural entities simply do no exist. This non-reality of the supernatural means, on the human level, that men do not possess supernatural and immortal souls; and on the level of the universe as a whole, that our cosmos does not possess a supernatural and external God.31

The extent to which atheistic beliefs have come into vogue in the last several centuries is unprecedented in the history of the world but they are not really new. Man has always been able to look around at the wonder of the world and the universe and surmise that there must be some type of designer. Those who rejected the God of the Bible and wanted to make their own rules chose pagan beliefs. With the onset of so-called science, which has eliminated the need for the supernatural, men can now feel free to choose atheism. Atheism, then, is based on the same mindset as ancient pagans; it has just taken a slightly different form. An acceptance of atheism changes everything about one’s worldview. With no God in the picture, man is here simply by chance. There are no moral absolutes. Man is free to choose for himself what is truth. This means that God did not hand down undeniable rights that were 48 outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Laws, morals, and standards are all decided upon and granted by the state. A belief in atheism leads to lawlessness, immorality, and violence. These ideas are constantly preached in our schools today. God has been removed from the schools, it has been deemed unconstitutional to talk about God in schools today. We cannot pray; we cannot even hang the Ten Commandments on the wall. God has been systematically removed from the education system. Atheistic philosophy has seeped into every area of our schools. In history, we have taken out all references to our founding fathers as men of deeply religious faith. This conception that the founding fathers were not primarily rooted in a Biblical worldview is a flat out lie. It is revisionist history at its worst. Science is no longer taught honestly in schools. Evolution is now taught. In most states you cannot even present evidence that questions evolutionary theories. Psychology, sociology, and indeed the whole philosophy of education itself are based on evolutionary presuppositions. The theories that now dominate education are based on the assumption that we are nothing more than evolved animals. This does not have to be overtly stated very often, although it is, because it runs through the thinking of every area in education.

Evolution

Humanism is completely built on the theory of evolution. Evolutionary type theories are not new; they go all the way back to ancient Greece and even ancient Babylon.32 They were always intertwined with pagan religious beliefs. Erasmus Darwin came up with nearly every theory that his grandson would later purport to be his own. Charles Darwin did not discover evolution; it was simply repackaged and marketed by him. It leapt onto the world stage with his 1852 release, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection of The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Men around the world who were actively looking for ways to live without the constraints of God seized upon Darwin’s book as a scientific justification for how they wanted to live. Their desire to reject God came before their acceptance of evolution, not the other way around. It is vital to understand that. Despite the fact that not one single theory of Darwin has been proven to be correct over 150 years after they were first presented, evolution is taught as fact in our schools. Darwinism is, in my opinion, the most pervasive and powerful influence in education today. It is everywhere. It is presented to our students as fact. 49

The truly dangerous thing about evolution, in my estimation, is this seeping influence that it has had on all other aspects of education. Most Christian youth will tell you immediately that they do not believe in evolution. We have taught them that much quite well. What they do not realize, and most Christian parents do not realize it either, is that although they have rejected the face value theory of evolution, they have unwittingly accepted many of the underlying philosophies and beliefs that have come from evolution based Humanism.

Amorality

The obvious result of evolution and atheism is eventual amorality. With the systematic destruction of the Biblical foundations of this country, has come the disappearance of morality. Evolution teaches that man is nothing more than an animal that is slightly higher evolved. Anything that smacks of Biblical morality has been under siege in this country. Not only are Biblical values no longer needed, they hold man back from his predestined course of evolutionary enlightenment. The Humanist magazine proudly announced that, “Darwin’s discovery of the principle of evolution sounded the death knell of the religious and moral values.”33 Freedom must exist for man to realize his full potential. Self-expression is one of the most highly touted and protected rights in the Humanist mind. Humanists call for total freedom in lifestyle, sexual expression, verbal expression, artistic expression, etc. No matter that this has resulted in rampant STD’s, out of wedlock pregnancies, and a society that is completely falling apart at the seams. Human expression is so important that it is of no consequence that it has resulted in the death of over 40 million unborn children in America. I am personally dumbfounded by the apathy that exists in large parts of the Christian community over this issue. Christians by the tens of thousands claim that Jesus is the Lord of their life and that they desire God’s ways to be their ways, and yet they flock in droves to support politicians that support issues like gay rights and abortion. A former student of mine once made a very telling statement in response to a question of why they had no interest in pursuing a relationship with God. He replied, “I want to live how I want to live. I don’t want any God telling me what I can and cannot do.” He went on to say that even if evolution was proven to be wrong and that there was undeniable proof of the existence of God, he would still not want to be a Christian. He wants the freedom to express himself as he sees fit. This philosophy of amorality has unleashed an unholy Pandora’s Box on our society. As Noebel and LaHaye point out, “This philosophy has opened the door to situation ethics, 50 permissiveness, free love, sexually active youth, and a flock of code words for adultery, fornication, perversion, and abomination – all of which are simply sin. Students from junior high to college – the target of amoral teachings for the past five decades – have been encouraged toward gross immorality.”34 I think they are exactly right in this statement except that I would add the fact that students in elementary schools have also been targets of this Humanistic philosophy. There is no room in this new Humanist society for the absolutes of the Bible. The Ten Commandments, in their view, are not just outdated; they are the vilest of attacks on human autonomy. Paul Kurtz agrees with this when he says, “Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire.”35 This attack on sexual attitudes is one of the fiercest for the Humanists. Mary Calderone, former president of the Sexuality, Information, and Education Council of the United States, (SIECUS) demonstrates the Humanist attitude towards sexuality, saying:

The adolescent years are, among other things, for learning how to integrate sex usefully and creatively in daily living. Therefore, we must accept that adolescent sexual experimentation is not just inevitable but actually necessary for normal development.

I advocate discussion of it, [premarital sex] so that young people know they have choices beginning with masturbation, of course, and petting to climax and mutual orgasm before moving on to intercourse.

An extramarital affair that’s really solid might have very good results.36

Students are routinely taught that the homosexual lifestyle is legitimate. The homosexual movement (which is different from the homosexual lifestyle) was generated by the Humanists as an attack on Christian morality. The Homosexual rights movement is a carefully crafted game plan intended to change the moral standards of our society. Humanists have used it so vociferously because it has struck a sympathetic cord with many Americans. It is now the horse they have chosen to ride in their race to bring down Christian morals. Once they can get societal acceptance for homosexuality, it is a matter of time, in the mind of the Humanist, before the rest of the Biblical moral standards in America crumble. Corliss Lamont drives home this attack on Christian morals, arguing that the moral person will be obliged to “discard the outmoded ethics of the past . . . The merely good is the enemy of the better. The Humanist refuses to accept any Ten Commandments or other ethical 51 precepts as immutable and universal laws never to be challenged or questioned. He bows down to no alleged Supreme moral authority either past or present.”37 This Humanist onslaught against traditional morality will not slow down now that they have made great inroads in much of our society. Their ultimate goal is for universal recognition. They must control the next generation and to do that they must control the minds of the young. Adolph Hitler understood this when he once remarked, that if he had control of the textbooks he would control the state.

Autonomous Man

One of the more curious beliefs of Humanists is that man is autonomous. That is, he is self-directed; he is his own god; and he is absolutely good by nature. The only thing that is keeping man from realizing the potential of his own god-like goodness is the harness put on him by society. It is society, the state that keeps man from becoming all he can be. This is why it is so evil in the mind of the Humanist to limit the free expression of another human being. You are in essence, committing blasphemy when you tell a Humanist that he cannot or should not do something that he desires to do. Humanists believe that man is innately good. Where this goodness comes from, they never really explain. They also lack any evidence to demonstrate that man is good by nature. This does not deter them in this belief one bit. Jean-Jacques Rosseau, one of the champions of modern collegiate Humanists, maintained that if man were good by nature, then he would remain that way if he were free from any outside influences. These influences, in fact, are from the society not the individual. Today’s schools are full of self-isms: Self-actualization, self-image, self-love, self- sufficiency, self-esteem, self-satisfaction, self-importance, and self-realization. They have eaten away at the demands of the soul made by the Bible and turned man’s focus entirely on himself. The Humanists have turned the center of meaning from soul to self. The height of their desires is to feel good about themselves. They have no concept of sin and the need for repentance and salvation. Lamont demonstrates this every-man-for-himself mentality that stresses feelings over responsibilities:

The watchword of Humanism is happiness for all humanity in this existence as contrasted with salvation for the individual soul in a future existence and the glorification of a supernatural Supreme Being. Humanism urges men to accept freely and joyously the great boon of life and to realize that life in its own right 52

and for its own sake can be as beautiful and splendid as any dream of immortality.38

One technique used quite often by Humanists to lessen controversy over the materials being presented in schools is to switch the definitions of words. They will use words or terms that mean one thing to parents but something entirely new and different to the students. The Humanist usage of the word “democracy” is a good example of that. Watching the network news generally drives me nuts for many reasons but my pet peeve is the way they continually push that we are a democratic nation. Humanists have gotten everyone to believe that, all the while gently switching the definition. Most adults think of representative government and rule by the majority when they think of democracy. Never mind the fact that the founding fathers were very distrustful of democracy. They went to great lengths to ensure that we did not have a democracy. They built us a Republic, one that definitely has some democratic ideals but was decidedly not a democracy. Yet that is all we hear these days: Democracy, democracy, democracy. The new definition of democracy being taught in schools is that of autonomy. They equate autonomy with freedom. Democracy means total personal liberty. By teaching this to the next generation of voters, Humanists have dramatically switched the direction of our country. The philosophy of Humanism also stresses permissiveness in child rearing. This comes from the belief that humans are intrinsically good and will realize their full potential if left to their own inner desires. These children, however, grow up to be selfish children with no manners, no values, and no morals. Noebel and LaHaye remark that children raised under this philosophy will “seek to get, rather than give; lust, rather than love; demand, rather than contribute. When those around him do the same, the outcome is predictable; dissension, hostility, and eventually open combat.”39 These ideologies are everywhere you turn in modern education. Students are taught that having a positive self-image and high self-esteem is of the utmost importance, rather than the Biblical principles that we are all sinners and should humble ourselves before God. Students are taught to look out for themselves first, to be selfish. Take a large group of young children, put them together in one school building, teach them that there are no absolute standards, that we all determine what is right for us, and then teach them that their happiness is the most important thing in their life. When you do all of that you get exactly the situation is schools are in today. They are centers of disrespect and violence rather than institutions of serious learning.

Globalism 53

The ultimate dream for the Humanist is to achieve utopia here on earth. This only makes sense because there is no heaven or promise of the afterlife for the Humanist. Their goal, then, is to create a virtual heaven on earth. Humanists agree that the only way to do this is through one world government. Humanists assume that their type of government, socialism, is good and that the bigger government is, the better. Their definition of democracy is fulfilled in individual autonomy that is available only in a socialist, Humanist controlled, government. Julian Huxley, former director of UNESCO, says, “The general philosophy of UNESCO should, it seems, be a scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background. . . Thus the struggle for existence that underlies natural selection is increasingly replaced by conscious selection, a struggle between ideas and values in consciousness.”40 Lamont adds that, “A truly Humanist civilization must be a world civilization.”41 Achieving this one world government necessitates total government control of the economy. Most Humanists agree that the quickest means to that end would be communism. According to Noebel and LaHaye, Lamont “demonstrates that a very important connection exists between Secular Humanism and communism, which few care to discuss. Humanism and communism are related: Humanism is the mother, communism the daughter; humanism is the root, communism the branch. Many of the ideas and beliefs that make up the communist worldview are similar to or identical with the humanist worldview.”42 The Humanists, long ago, identified the United Nations as the organization that could fulfill their dreams of a New World Order. They have infiltrated the UN to the highest positions and have virtually taken control of it. Three leading members of the American Humanism Association have been directors-general of three important UN organizations: Julian Huxley, UNESCO; Brock Chisholm, World Health Organization; and Lord Boyd Orr, UN Food and Agriculture Organization. According to Claire Chambers:

Some of their leaders combined forces with leading advocates of population control and nationalized abortion, World Federalists, and others, in the formation of the American Movement for World Government. This group’s full-page advertisement in the New York Times of July 27, 1971, called for a “world federal government to be open at all times to all nations without right of secession,” with the power to curb overpopulation.43

The signers of this ad went on to call for the following amongst other things: an executive branch with the power to enforce world laws upon all individuals, the control of all weapons of 54 mass destruction by the world government, and disarmament by all nations that would be controlled and enforced by a world police force. They declared that, “a federal world government must be established at the earliest possible moment by basic transformation of the UN or other reasonable means.”44 Most Humanists consider their loyalty to a one-world government to supersede their loyalty as American citizens. Lamont refers to Humanism as the moral equivalent to world patriotism. In the Humanist Manifesto 2000, Paul Kurtz lays the cards on the table in calling for an immediate one world government: “We recommend an international system of taxation. . . This would not be a voluntary contribution but an actual tax.”45 This tax, of course, would be used to fund the various UN organizations. Noebel and LaHaye cite a pledge that is already being taught to some of America’s third grade children:

I pledge allegiance to world To care for earth, sea and air To honor every living thing With peace and justice everywhere.46

This pledge shows their allegiance to the idea of globalism. Note that they evidently “honor every living thing,” except for the unborn. None other than Walter Cronkite sums up the allegiance to globalism over Americanism in his call for a one world government when he says, “Of course, we Americans will have to give up some of our sovereignty.”47

Conclusion

There are so many different ways and angles that Humanist thinking has seeped into our education system that it takes a truly alert parent to catch even some of the brainwashing propaganda. Be especially alert to the buzz words and phrases of Humanist education-speak such as: social justice, hate crime, sensitivity training, globalism, world citizenship, celebrate diversity, socialized medicine, universal healthcare, political correctness, homophobia, gay rights, feminism, no-fault divorce, tolerance, animal rights, progressive education, environmentalism, multi-culturalism, outcome based education, specieism, redistribution of wealth, alternative lifestyles, punished by rewards, effort grades, experiential learning, situational ethics, etc. The list could go on for a while. 55

The key for parents is to constantly be on guard against things that may seem harmless at first but are being used by Humanists to push their agenda. Allow me to give you a classic example. A big trend in education right now is ecology training. Students are trained to care about the environment, put Mother Nature first, and to participate in things like Earth Day. Could this possibly be bad, you ask? Have I gone off the deep end, spiraling into conspiracy theories that should be put next to the one about us never landing on the moon? Follow me for just a minute and I’ll explain. Most of this ecological training, which seems quite innocent is, in fact, the perfect arena to teach children many of the Humanist tenets. Through this area of education kids will be taught evolutionary theories of man, animal, and the environment. They are taught that man is just an animal and that it is our duty to care for animals as equals to man. Animals are elevated to a status that they were never intended be while man is devalued. They should have the same access to rights according to the Humanists. This is automatically under-girded by atheism. They can then be easily taught concepts of how important it is to stop those who harm the environment. This segues right into anti-business, anti-American government, pro-world government thinking. Furthermore, the kids are softly fed ideas about Mother Nature, the earth goddess Gaia, pantheism, and so on. Before they know it, they have accepted many precepts about how to view the world and the things in the world that are completely contrary to the Word of God. So what should a parent do about all of this? How does all of this information matter practically? First, parents must be prepared to change the way they view the education of their children. Far too many parents in our fellowships have done their very best in raising their children without the desired effect. They have gone to all the parenting workshops that were available. They had quiet times with their children and devotionals with the family every week. They prayed with and for their children regularly, and consistently and humbly sought advice from other parents. They held onto their belief that Proverbs 22:6 promised that if they trained their child in the way they should go that they wouldn’t stray from it. Things did not, however, go according to plan. If we are honest with ourselves, too many teens in our fellowships have rejected discipleship of Jesus Christ all along, or after embracing it for a short time, have walked away, embracing the world instead. I simply don’t believe that most of these cases are caused by a bad heart. It is a result of not transforming the minds of our children according to the principle of Romans 12:1-2. If we are trying to teach children to be disciples of Jesus Christ, then the transformation of the mind is an absolute must. It is no mystery to me at all when children are allowed to learn how to think and view the world from their 56

Secular Humanist schools with no deprogramming, and then they reject Christianity. The child who thinks as a Secular Humanist will find it virtually impossible to live consistently as a Christian for any length of time. What happens with many of our kids is that we raise them in a Christian home, but we don’t properly prepare them. It is the same phenomenon as the kid that only shoots baskets in the driveway by himself. The first mistake many parents make is not training their children from the time they can understand language that there are people that want them to think and act differently from what God wants. As they grow older, they can be trained in the art of recognizing the worldviews and beliefs of those non-Christian influences (we will discuss this concept in detail in a later chapter.) If all a parent ever teaches their child is to love and obey God, they are playing with fire. Those are wonderful and necessary elements, but it must go beyond that. I know too many parents who did that and then watched the painful sight of their beloved child walk away from the faith that was so dear to them. The foundation of Christianity certainly includes our love for God, but the Christian life is much broader than that. The Christian student must be taught a comprehensive Christian worldview that is applicable and relevant to every area of their life. If they are not, then disaster is right around the corner. When a teen is not taught a relevant and comprehensive Christian worldview they will eventually encounter things through experience that they were not prepared to handle. New ways of thinking and viewing the world will be introduced that seem completely harmless to the unaware child. As we have already seen, these new worldviews are well thought out, they are intricate, and the methods of passing them onto children are devious and intentional. Eventually the experiences of the child will not match up with a one-dimensional worldview that is not prepared to meet the world that they actually face. We will discuss this topic in greater detail in the next two chapters, but suffice it to say that, in time the student will abandon the worldview that does not answer their new experiences. They are being taught, after all, to accept whatever works for them at the time. The Secular Humanist worldview, although bankrupt and false, seems to be much more comprehensive and relevant than the shallow Christian worldview that most teens have. When I grew up in a church environment, I saw a very different phenomenon from teens who chose to rebel against Christianity. There were two variables that accounted for the differences. One was that most of the kids in our church went to a private school. The second variable was that the worldview attack by the Humanists was not nearly as advanced as it is today. When kids in our church rejected Christianity, they did it violently. It was a rebellion that 57 was usually born out of bitterness or hate for God or their parents. The rejection of Christ that I see from kids today seems much milder but is actually much more insidious and potentially permanent. The reason is the Humanist concept of relativism. Kids are taught to do whatever works for them at the time. When they are younger teens, they are asked to study the Bible. They do, and the worldview of their parents and teen workers seems to work for them at the time. Usually the goal of the parents and youth workers is conversion not transformation. The soul is converted but the mind is never transformed. When kids come under attack from the world, the media, the friends, and most importantly, their school, their Christianity that has been built with hay and straw does not stand up to the test. So, they merely switch worldviews. This is generally not a conscious decision. They are usually not even aware of the switch, so subtle has been the indoctrination of the Humanist worldview. All the kids have really done, in their mind, is find what works for them at the time. It disappoints their parents, but the kids assume it is simply because they are choosing a different path that their parents don’t understand. After all, they have learned at school that one must find what is true for them at the time. At this particular time, they reason, Christianity no longer works, so it is simply discarded. There is no violent rebellion or animosity. For the teens it is an amicable parting of the ways. They often hold little if any ill will towards the church or their parents. They will even continue to go to church occasionally, especially when their parents ask. This is because they have been taught not to judge someone else’s truth. If Christianity works for their parents, that’s great. It just isn’t the child’s truth at that time. So what are some practical things that parents can do? The first suggestion would be to take your child out of public school if at all possible. Homeschool is a wonderful option, but not all families can do that. Finding a good private school is a great second option. If neither of those choices is doable then the parent must ramp up their efforts to train their child to defend their mind against opposing worldviews, while teaching them a comprehensive and relevant Biblical worldview. In the next chapter we will take an in-depth look at the relativity of the Secular Humanist worldview and how to effectively combat it. Following that, we will look at the concept of worldviews in more detail. The second half of the book will be a detailed consideration of a how a parent might go about giving their child an effective and consistent Biblical worldview.

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Chapter 3 – Planting Your Feet in Mid-Air

Epimenides of Crete was a 6th century BC Greek seer, prophet, and philosopher-poet. Not many specifics are known about the life of Epimenides, but several myths about his life have survived. According to one of these myths, he fell asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus and then awoke with the gift of prophecy. Plutarch reported in Life of Solon that Epimenides was a great help to Solon in purifying and reforming the Athenian state after the pollutions brought by Alemeonidae. Particularly helpful in this process was Epimenides’ expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices. Pausanias reported that when Epimenides died, his skin under his clothing was found to be covered with tattoos. This would have been odd, because generally only slaves in Greece were tattooed. This was quite probably evidence for the fact that Epimenides had become initiated as a Central Asian shaman. Many of the works of Epimenides have been lost to history. One of those exceptions is his poem Cretica. The New Testament quotes twice from this poem, although specific citation to Epimenides is never given. In the poem, Minos addresses Zeus:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever, For in thee we live and move and have our being

The fourth line of the poem is quoted without attribution to the author in Acts 17:28. The second line is quoted in Titus 1:12, although Epimenides is not credited by name. He is only identified by the veiled, “one of their own prophets.” Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote that the prophet referred to by Paul was, in fact, Epimenides. Clement mentions that “some say” Epimenides should be considered among the seven wisest philosophers.1 Near the beginning of Paul’s letter to Titus, he counsels his young “son in the faith” who is serving God in Crete. Titus, evidently, is facing a fair amount of hostility from the people of Crete. Paul’s response is basically, “Well, what did you expect? Look at who you’re dealing with.” Paul then quotes Epimenides, a Cretan, to show what kind of people Titus is dealing with. Epimenides claims that all Cretans are liars, brutes, and gluttons. Most Bible readers will catch the irony in Epimenides’ logic. If all Cretans are liars, and Epimenides is a Creatan, then how can we trust his statement that all Cretans are liars? He may be lying. 59

This conundrum with Epimenides is similar to the flaw from which post-modernity suffers. One of the tenets of post-modernity, and probably the most well-known, is that there is not such a thing as absolute truth that can be objectively known. Just as Epimenides’ statement that all Cretans are liars is a self-refuting one, so is the claim that there is no absolute truth. This is an absolute statement that says there are absolutely no absolutes. Self-refuting statements simply cannot be taken as true (We will look at this concept in detail later in the chapter.) Post-modernity is a rising philosophy that is quickly replacing modernity in our culture. It is a cataclysmic shift in thinking that happens only every 500 years or so. The shift from modernity to post-modernity is no small change. It has and will continue to necessitate changes in the way Christians view the world, communicate with the world, and train our children. Post-modernity is an important concept for Christian parents and youth workers to understand for two reasons. The first is that most parents of teens were probably still brought up in the modern-thinking world, and we tend to think and view the world as moderns. Our children, on the other hand, are growing up in a world that is increasingly post-modern in its views and philosophies. They will see the world in a much more post-modern way than will their parents and grandparents. Many adults who grew up with modern philosophies don’t understand post- modernity and see it as dangerous, yet, it is all their children will know. The second reason that parents and youth workers need to understand post-modernity is due to the large impact that it is having and will continue to have on children and the world-at-large. This is no short-term trend. Post-modernity will likely change the way the world and everything in it is understood and viewed, including the Bible and Christianity. If Christians don’t understand these changes and are unable to convey the gospel to a post-modern generation in a relevant way, the church runs the risk of becoming irrelevant and being discarded by a majority of the new American culture. The belief systems of Secular Humanism and post-modernity are not identical. Not every Secular Humanist is a post-modern, nor is every post-modern a Secular Humanist. In fact, Secular Humanism’s roots are decidedly modern. Just as the church has gone through major philosophical changes and has splintered into various denominations over the years, Secular Humanism is undergoing its own set of changes. Much of what students will find at schools these days is a hybrid of Secular Humanism and post-modernity, as opposed to classic Secular Humanism rooted in modernity. In many ways, it would be correct to say that the most popular and burgeoning faction of Secular Humanism is the denomination of post-modern Secular Humanism. 60

Before we can look at the tenets and beliefs of post-modernity, the major philosophers of post-modernity, and how to answer post-modernity, we must first look at modernity. It is impossible actually to understand post-modernity without having a grasp of modernity, so we will briefly define and look at the history of first modernity, and then a slightly more in-depth look at post-modernity.

Modernity

The foundations for the modern view of truth and knowledge were laid by Francis Bacon in the late 16th century. Bacon said that humans could master the world by discovering its secrets. He believed that science and knowledge would be the vehicles that would drive humanity to the place of being able to conquer the universe and everything in it. In the early 17th century, philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes affirmed modernity’s belief in objective truth and human reasoning by affirming the 5th century theologian Augustine’s concept of “I think therefore I am.” Then came Isaac Newton in the late 17th century. Newton had a scientific view of nature that said that everything in the world was a machine governed by laws. Modern thought believed that knowledge was certain and discoverable through human reasoning. These enlightenment thinkers believed that the autonomous self had the ability all by itself to discover the absolute truths of God’s creation. Eventually, however, God was pushed to the side and the only things that became important were the all-knowing self and the discovery through science of a universe that was now believed to consist of only the material. The modernists, primarily after Darwin, began to argue that nothing supernatural beyond the material world existed. Another aspect of modernity’s exaltation of knowledge was the belief that the discovery of knowledge was not only objective but that it was always a good thing. Knowledge, they said, was always pushing man towards progress and eventual utopia.

Autonomous self accesses truth/knowledge through reason

To the modern thinker, all of the actions, thoughts, emotions, and perception emanating from an individual human were all components of a coherent autonomous self. This autonomous self served as the ultimate arbiter of reality. Truth, which is finite and singular, was able to be discovered and perceived by this autonomous self. The concept of this autonomous self led to rise of concepts such as nation-states, self-discipline, and even urbanization. The autonomous 61 self became sovereign rather than any external authority. With the advent of the autonomous self and the belief in evolution, God was no longer necessary for most modern philosophers.

Human reason provides objective view/knowledge of reality

In modernity, human reason is the ultimate arbiter of knowledge, truth, and reality. The universe, they believed, was structured and discoverable. There was one true answer to every question and humans had the ability to discover that answer. The answers would come, they argued, through the scientific method developed by Bacon, which relied on experimentation and observation. Man was an objective, outside observer who was able to discover the truths of the universe through reason and deduction.

Objective truth/knowledge can be know with certitude and is inherently good

To the modern thinker, objective knowledge was inherently good. They embraced John Locke’s view that each human being was a clean slate. Humans did not, said Locke, have an inherently evil or sinful nature. To the modern thinker, the universe was inherently reasonable, knowable, and orderly and was manifested in an over-arching harmony. Harmony, then, was not only a characteristic of the universe but was an ethical ideal that should and could be reached by all humans.

Knowledge leads to technological advancement

Building of the foundation of Descartesian thinking, modern thinkers believed that the universe was able to be known by humans because it was orderly and reasonable. By using the proper methods, humans could discover the truths inherent in the natural universe. Since the universe was made up of laws and order, the discovery of these laws would always be a positive because it would allow humankind to work in harmony with the universe. All discovery of knowledge was necessarily advancement because it brought mankind closer to the ultimate truth of the natural universe.

Knowledge and technological advancement allows benevolent control of the universe

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Because the universe was considered reasonable and orderly, knowledge of that universe was also considered reasonable and orderly. Any knowledge and technology was simply a progressive advancement towards the final and ultimately knowable truths of the universe. With each discovery, mankind would be able to make life more reasonable and orderly, and consequently better. Man could bring the universe into submission as they garnered more knowledge which would afford them the ability to solve the ills that had plagued society. Knowledge was, in their mind, the key to solving man’s problems. In essence, knowledge was the salvation of mankind.

Post-Modernity

Post-Modernity is an interesting worldview and philosophy in that it exists more as a criticism of the excesses and arrogance of modernity, than as a stand-alone, consistent worldview. It is a radical rejection of the Enlightenment mind-set that gave rise to modernity. Post-modernity has rejected the belief in inevitable progress and has ushered in a growing pessimism about the future and mankind’s ability to fix it. (For instance, it is unlikely that the global warming movement would have gained any momentum in the modern age, because it would have been believed that science and technology could find a solution, whereas with post-modernism, a “sky is falling” mentality has set in.) Post-modernity has rejected the modern belief that rationality and reason are the arbiters of truth. The philosophers of post-modernity look at any claim of absolute truth with skepticism. Rather than reason, non-rational ways of knowing such as emotions and intuition are given priority. “Postmodern holism entails a rejection of the Enlightenment ideal of the dispassionate, autonomous, rational individual. Post-moderns do not seek to be wholly self-directed individuals but rather whole persons”2 In other words, truth can only be known to an individual if they use every part of their being (emotion, experience, spirit, body, etc.), and then the truth is only true to them. One person’s truth may not be another’s. The post-modern’s understanding of truth leads them to be less concerned than moderns to think systematically or logically. This also means that post-moderns are generally unconcerned with being right or wrong. What is right for them may be wrong for someone else. The one exception to this is those with an absolute worldview, but we will consider that in detail later in this chapter. One major aspect of the post-modern philosophy is deconstruction. The task of deconstruction is to take apart the concepts that have served as the axioms or rules for a period of thought. The post-moderns, then, seek to deconstruct the modern worldview. It is, as stated 63 earlier, more of a criticism of modernity, than a stand-alone philosophy. It seeks to deconstruct modernity and then see what comes of the world. This is seen in an old story going around that describes two umpires talking after a game. The modern umpires says, “There are balls and strikes, and I call them as I see them.” The post-modern umpire says, “There are balls and strikes, and they’re nothing until I call them.”

The Architects of Post-Modernity

Three major philosophers of the post-modern movement are Friederich Nietzsche, Michael Foucault, and Jacques Derrida. Each has contributed a different aspect to the post-modern thought system. Friederich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German, was born in 1844 and died in 1900 after an eleven year battle with insanity. Nietzsche’s father, a Lutheran pastor, died when he was four so he was raised by women, primarily his mother, grandmother, and sisters. Nietzsch struggled with mental illness throughout his life, and was completely incapacitated during the last eleven years of his life, following a complete mental breakdown. Although he is known as a philosopher and critic, Nietzsche preferred to be called a psychologist. He sought for the re-evaluation of all values based on their actual value for life. Nietzsche argued that all knowledge is a matter of perspective, knowledge is really interpretation, and all interpretations are lies. According to Nietzsche, Truth is not really accessible due to the restraints of language. Reality, he said, was a construct of language. If language cannot convey truth, and reality is constructed by language, then there is no knowable truth. Nietzsche is often considered the father of post-modern thought and is, perhaps, most famous for his declaration that “God is dead,” in which he argued that western civilization was no longer influenced by religion. Paul Michel Foucault was born in France in 1926 and died in 1984 from AIDS. He later dropped the “Paul” from his name due to his hatred for his surgeon father. Foucault suffered from acute depression throughout his life resulting in at least one suicide attempt. Foucault was well known for his critiques of social institutions such as psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system. He was also famous for his views on human sexuality which included his own extremely deviant homosexual life-style. Foucault is known as a philosopher for identifying knowledge with power and was opposed to all social constructs that implied an identity. According to Foucault, Western society erred in believing that there was an objective body of knowledge that we could possess and that would benefit. It is not possible, though, he argued to obtain an objective body of knowledge. Each society, then, created its own body of knowledge and its own 64 controlling narrative (which is the controlling story through which each society interprets the world), which was equally valid to any other society’s narrative. Jacques Derrida was born El-Biar, Algeria in 1930 to an Algerian Jewish family. He moved to France at the age of 22 to begin his studies in Paris. It was Derrida who contributed the concept of deconstruction. He believed that language was such an imprecise and multi-layered construct, that it was impossible to read any text and know what the author meant by it.

The Tenets of Post-Modernity

Just as we looked at the major motifs of modernity, it will be helpful to look at the motifs and beliefs of post-modernity before we look at the impacts of the post-modern belief system.

An objective unbiased truth or view of reality does not exist.

Whereas modern thinkers purported that objective truth existed, the post-modern thinker argues that there is no objective, knowable truth. They contend that there is no fixed point from which humans can gain objective truth. Rather than discovering absolute truth, each community creates its own reality through the construct of language. By doing this, each group creates its own reality which is just as viable as any other reality. Because we cannot step outside of our own constructed reality we do not find absolute truth but only constructive and useful truths. Post-modernity rejects the modern notion of the objective self that can discover absolute truth and argues instead that each community constructs one of an infinite possibility of answers to each question. Truth/knowledge are not inherently good.

The modernist would argue that there is a meta-narrative that embodies truth that is applicable and knowable by all humans at all times. The closer we get to that truth, the more advanced our society becomes and the better off we are. Knowledge is, therefore, inherently good. The post-modern rejects the truth of the meta-narrative and says, instead, that each community constructs its own narrative through its use of language. Each community creates these local narratives which are equally valid but since their can be no objective human observer, there can be no pronouncement of absolute truth to any individual narrative. Knowledge cannot, subsequently, ever judged to be inherently good because what may be good in one community is not good in another. No inevitable progress

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Once the modern concept of knowable truth is gone, so is the idea that further acquisition of that knowledge, which is inherently good, will inevitably lead to progress for mankind. Without absolute truth, says the post-modernist, any thoughts of inevitable progress evaporate. The reason for this is that there is no objective way to conclude as to what is progress or what is digression. Since each community constructs its own reality and truth, there is no objective means for humans to decide what progression is.

Truth/knowledge are not limited to rational

According to the post-modern philosopher, truth and knowledge are not limited to the rational. They are not absolutes waiting to be discovered by human reasoning and intellect. Advancements in science fields such as physics and quantum mechanics seem to indicate a sub- atomic world that is erratic at times and does not follow set laws. This eats away at the modernist foundation of rational laws that govern the universe. The post-modernist believes that within and beneath the real world is a second world, which is unseeable, yet somehow more real.

Truth becomes communal – assigned value by the group

Post-modernity teaches that rather than discovering the objective universe, we construct it through the use of language. This “real world” is constructed by societies through the use of language. Because languages are always changing, these constructed realities are constantly changing. Due to the fact that reality is constructed by the language of a society, that language and its subsequent truth are only valid and understandable within the confines of that society. The truth created in one society does not necessarily apply to another group.

The Impact of Post-Modernity

Post-modernity is far more than just a trendy new philosophy that is being taught at colleges and universities among the academically elite. It is a torrent of new ways of thinking and viewing the world that is changing civilization as we know it. This new way of thinking has been embraced by many Secular Humanists and is now part of the everyday language in schools. It is the language in which most curriculums are written and it is how the students are being taught to view the world. In what follows, we will discuss three aspects of post-modernity that has had, and will continue to have, the biggest influence and impact on society, the three biggest influences and impacts on the way the Bible is to be understood, and three practical impacts on the average teen. 66

Societal Impacts

The first area of post-modern thought that is deeply impacting society is the deconstruction of knowledge and truth. Because the post-modern would argue that truth is unknowable, this means that no one can ever be sure that they are right about anything. This, conversely, means that no one can ever be sure that someone is wrong about anything. Public schools are now, routinely, turning out students that are no longer able to identify evil. “The virus of moral relativism has created a mental and moral psychosis that has rendered a younger generation of citizens incapable of recognizing the existence of evil. Their ethical imperative is to be tolerant, nonjudgmental, and affirming of people no matter what.”3 Professor Robert Simon, professor of philosophy at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, says that at least 20 percent of his students who acknowledge the Jewish Holocaust as fact, can’t bring themselves to admit that killing millions of people is wrong. They report deploring the actions of the Nazis but only as a matter of personal taste or preference, not a moral judgment.4 Christina Sommers, who teaches philosophy at Clark University in Massachussetts says that a majority of her students now will say that treating humans as superior to animals is immoral. She said that students coming to college “dogmatically committed to a moral relativism that offers them no grounds to think about cheating, stealing and moral issues.” She says that young people today are suffering from “cognitive moral confusion” and says that they not only have trouble distinguishing right from wrong, they won’t acknowledge that such standards even exist. Sommers says that she often meets students who are incapable of making one single confident moral judgment.5 The new absolute is that there are no absolutes. This leaves only moral relativism. Subsequently, if all morals are relative to the individual, then absolute evil is impossible in the eyes of the post-modernist. The second major area of societal impact of post-modernity is the deconstruction of the autonomous self. The all-powerful “I” was king during the age modernity. Each individual was in control of his or her fate and was capable of discovering truth for themselves through knowledge. Individuals were constantly capable of improving themselves. Society was built around the autonomous self; summed up in the famous, “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.” This is rapidly changing with the onset of post-modernity. The “I” is just a floating mass of symbols that means nothing apart from his or her community. The irony of post-modernity is that 67 while they have deconstructed universal truth, they have affirmed that each individual creates their own truth. None of that is too terribly important, though, because each person’s personal truth changes constantly as they change. There is no permanent self, just a mass of shifting beliefs and truths. The third major area of societal impact of post-modernity is the death of the meta-narrative. Modernity had an implicit narrative that told the story about the way the world was. History had been steadily improving through technology, marching towards utopia. Societies that were advanced technologically were more superior, period. This meta-narrative has been rejected by post-modernity as oppressive, imperialist, and self-serving. Post-modernity has said that any narrative that claims to be absolutely true and to explain the world must be rejected. All meta- narratives are suspect; they are all power games. This means that even Christianity, in the eyes of the post-modern, is no truer than the Nazi super-Aryan religion, and that each are equally power games. It is nearly impossible for post-modern American students to declare that any country can be considered to be good in conflict with an evil combatant, even if that combatant is a terrorist organization. Since there are no true narratives that are universal for everyone, neither side can be declared absolutely good or evil. What one society would call a group of evil terrorists another would call valiant freedom fighters. The post-modern would say that they are both right, because that is their truth.

Biblical Impacts

Just as post-modernity holds many implications for society as a whole, it promises to change the way people understand and read the Bible. If we are to understand the true impact that this culture shift will have on Christianity, we must understand how it will affect the world’s understanding of God’s Word. The deconstruction of the meta-narrative has a large impact on the way that the post-modern generation views the Bible. The Bible is the story of God’s covenant relationship with His people, first the Jews, then Christians. For the post-modern, though, all narratives are suspect. Rather than viewing the story of the Exodus as a glorious account of God protecting His people through whom He would bring salvation to the world from their enemies, post-modernity would ask “what about the Egyptians on one end and the Canaanites on the other end?” There can never be one point of view. What about, for instance, the fact that the Jewish way of telling the story of the Middle East is now deeply damaging to the Palestinian communities who comprise most of the native Christians in that part of the world. 68

The second major area of impact in the way that the Bible is viewed in post-modernity is the biblical view of reality. It comes under attack in the world of the post-modern. Paul saw things his way, but what about those that he branded heretics who also thought of themselves as Christian. Paul’s viewpoint has survived, they would say, because his side was the conqueror, not because Paul had the truth or God on his side. Many post-modern authors now claim that rather than Paul arguing passionately from the cross to a particular way of truth, he is actually manipulating his readers and hearers with impressive-sounding rhetoric that is really just another power trip. This is a classic example of postmodern deconstruction of a passage of the Bible.

Biblical historian N.T. Wrights describes this deconstruction of the Bible, noting:

The Biblical view of the whole of reality, in which Jewish-style creational monotheism is by and large taken for granted, is also under attack; some have argued that this rather one-dimensional and puritanical Deuteronomic viewpoint was imposed heavy-handedly upon various other viewpoints, scrunching the little stories of the cheerful and interesting semi-polytheists in Israel under the jackboot of a uniform, and subsequently canonized, monotheism. (The imagery is not chosen at random; memories, and imaginations, of the tyrannies of the first half of the twentieth century provide fertile soil for the protests of the second half. Postmodernism looks back to Hitler and Stalin and says, 'Modernism; that's what it always does.')6

Practical Impacts

Post modernity is not evil in and of itself. It holds some valid criticisms of modernity. Modernity did put too much value on the material world, knowledge and self. It had replaced God with its own master narrative of a technologically-driven world marching towards utopianism. What started out with good observations, though, has ended with bad conclusions. Creationist Kent Hovind often tells a story of scientists studying a frog that can jump 100 inches. They cut off one leg of the frog and it then jumps 80 inches. They cut off a second leg and it jumps 60 inches. After cutting off the third leg, it jumps 40 inches. The scientists then hypothesize that after they cut off the fourth leg, the frog will jump 20 inches. They watch as the frog refuses to jump and finally conclude that frogs with all of their legs cut off lose their hearing; good observations, bad conclusion. In the same vein, post-modernity correctly identified the problems with modernity and its adulation of the individual’s ability to discover perfect truth. They came to a bad conclusion, however, in determining that this must mean that there is no absolute truth. 69

Students today will march off from the house of their modernist parent’s right into temples of Secular Humanism where they will come out full-fledged post-modern Secular Humanists. Although, there are good aspects of post-modernity, there are three specific aspects of danger in this philosophy for the children of Christian parents that we will consider here. The first is that the absolute way of Christianity is destroyed in the post-modern worldview. They will be taught to believe that it is impossible for one viewpoint to corner the market on truth. Christianity may work for some people, but it cannot work for everyone. When Christians say that it does, they are committing acts of rhetorical violence towards people whose worldview is just as valid as that of the Christian. The only thing wrong, then, with Christianity is when it claims to be the only way. The problem with this is obvious. If Christianity is not the only way, then Jesus was a liar and Christianity is completely false. Kids are being taught to think differently right under their parent’s noses. These children come away from school incapable of seeing the world in a truly biblical manner. They have been taught to believe that there is no such thing as one truth for every human. What this means is that as soon as Christianity doesn’t appear to be working for them, they will quickly shed it for a new worldview that does work at the time. The second problem for children of Christian parents is the way they arrive at truth. Of course there is no universal truth, but there is temporary personal truth. They are trained, however, to view the world so that whatever they believe at the moment becomes truth. Rather than believing something because it is true, they declare something to be true because they believe it. This means that rather than viewing the Bible as a collection of the very words of God that will bring all men to truth and salvation, it is simply a record of the fleeting truths of a certain community of people at a particular time. The truly post-modern thinker will not accept the Bible as a timeless, universal truth. If it works for them for a while, they will believe it and that makes it true, but that is as far as it goes. This is one of the primary reasons that so many post-modern’s grasp on to Christianity so fervently, only to reject a few months or years later. The third major problem is the disconnection between modern parents and post-modern children. This is more than just a generation gap. This is a deep divide between two worldviews. This problem will fade away in a generation as modernity completely dies out, but for now it is a major problem. Parents think and live in the language of modernity. Students think and live in the language of post-modernity. Where the modern thinker values the rational, the post-modern thinker values the experiential. The modern thinker values the scientific; the post-modern thinker values the 70 spiritual. The modern thinker values unanimity; the post-modern thinker values pluralism. The modern thinker values exclusivity; the post-modern thinker values relativity. The modern thinker values egocentrism, individualism, functionality, and the industrial world. The post-modern thinker values altruism, communalism, creativity, and environmental. The modern thinker values the local, the dichotomized, the relevant and relational; the post-modern thinker values the global, holistic, and authentic. Parents and kids are speaking a different language and the parents don’t realize it. Schools and the secular culture have learned to speak the language of post-modernity. When society speaks the language of our children and the church and home are not, what do you think the result will be? How effective would we be if we spoke only English while our student spoke only French? If they went to a French-speaking school, the school would have far more influence than we, as parents, would. Yet when it comes to connecting to our children on a worldview level, we are not speaking the language of our children. Most parents don’t understand their kid’s worldview language, and even worse, don’t even realize that this is the case.

Answering Post-Modernity

Many in the religious community have become so freaked out by the relativism of post- modernity that they have completely demonized the entire movement as from Satan. As with anything, however, there are positive and negative aspects of post-modernity. Post-modernity does offer some wonderful opportunities for the Christian community. The first area is in their emphasis on community. Rather than putting all emphasis of importance and truth seeking on the self, the post-modern looks for community to bring them identity. The post-modern also rejects the belief that there is nothing beyond the natural; they have once again opened up the world to accept the idea of the supernatural. The final positive aspect of post-modernity that we will discuss here is that they have preached the Fall of man to an entire generation. Modernity believed that mankind was inherently good and constantly marching towards utopia. Post- modernity has deconstructed the individual man, the concept of absolute good, and the belief in a certain utopia. This means that the Christian community no longer has to try to convince men that something is wrong; they now know that something in the world has gone terribly wrong. We simply need to show the world that the problem is that they are in exile from God, separated from Him. This is the cause of the problems of the world. Post-modernity, as we have already seen, does, however, have some serious problems. I believe that none is more dangerous for the Christian parent and youth worker than the rejection 71 of absolutes. This leads to this concept of relativism that puts all beliefs, opinions, religions, societies, etc. on equal footing. Of all the aspects of post-modernity and Secular Humanism that have been discussed above, this relativity of post-modernity is the most difficult to combat once a young person has completely integrated it into their way of viewing the world. Once someone has embraced that there is no absolute truth, it is difficult to convince them otherwise. The problem is that one simply cannot be a true Christian if they completely reject the concept of absolute truth. Unless one believes that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, their Christianity will be no different from a sweater they put on when they are chilled. As soon as the temperature changes, the sweater will come off. The fact is this rejection of absolute truth has hit Christian truth as surely as it has effected non-Christian youth. According to the Barna research group, 81 percent of teens who identify themselves as evangelical Christians claim, “. . .all truth is relative to the individual and his/her circumstances.7 Humanist thinking has infiltrated the minds of our children. This idea that truth is relative, that there are no absolute truths, is perhaps the most pervasive and dangerous of the Humanist beliefs. It is the most difficult to combat. There is no other area of post-modernity that is pushed more than this new definition of tolerance. No longer does tolerance mean to respect and protect the legitimate rights of others; listening and learning from other perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds; and living peaceably alongside others despite differences. The post-modern definition of tolerance includes the idea that there is no objective truth so “The definition of new. . . tolerance is that every individual’s beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal. . . There is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal, and all truth is relative.”8 Christian parents must learn to embrace the positive aspects of post-modernity while training their children to identify and reject the negative aspects such as the belief in moral relativism. Make no mistake, many teachers and curriculums intentionally seek to plant the “truth” of moral relativism in the minds of children. On common technique is to give students seemingly impossible moral situations to prove to them that morality is not as black-and-white as they thought. The most common technique to accomplish this is to present a situation for students and then ask them to solve it morally. The problem is so artificially difficult as to be virtually unsolvable. One example is that of a poor man whose child is about to die. There is a medicine that will cure the child but they cannot afford it and no one will give it to them. The only thing that will save the child is for the loving parent to break into a pharmacy and steal the medicine. The question then presented for the unsuspecting student is, “what is the right thing to do here?” 72

Most of these situations are so artificial that they would never happen, but that is not the point. For example, another scenario given to students is that there are five people trying to survive on a life raft that is designed to hold only four people. If one person isn’t thrown out, everyone will die. What should they do?” They use this difficult question to confuse students and argue for moral relativism. In other words they say that if killing a person in this situation is right, then that proves that there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong; that it depends on the situation. On the surface, both of these situations seem to make a good case for moral relativism, but in fact, they both prove that there is a moral law. If stealing or killing weren’t morally wrong, there would be no dilemma. Who cares? Let the kid die, steal the medicine, throw all five people in the water. If there is not morality then none of these are problems. These are only difficult scenarios because of the moral law that God has written on the hearts of each man and woman. Just because morality is sometimes difficult to determine in complicated situations does not mean that there is no morality. It would be foolish to throw out the truth of the moral order because of a few complicated situations. The fact is, we may get it wrong in some difficult situations, but we get it right when it comes to the basics. Serial killers like Jeffery Dahmer, or mass murderers like Hitler are wrong. We know murder is wrong. The basic principles are clear even if some difficult scenarios are not. This does not prove that the principle does not exist. Asking the question, “Can murder ever be justified?” shows that at least one moral law has been accepted (that murder is wrong). If we accept even one moral obligation like don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t rape, or don’t torture babies, then the moral law exists. If the moral law exists then the moral Law Giver exists. This goes to show that moral relativity can be combated in our own minds and the minds of our children if we are aware of the tactics used send us down that road of thinking. There is a very simple principle that will insulate the well-trained child against the theories of moral relativism. The fact is that all the morally relativistic mantras of post-modernity and Secular Humanism are self-refuting. Children can easily be shown how the beliefs of this worldview don’t hold up to their own standards. Norman Geisler, in his book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, calls this the road-runner technique, named for the coyote who would run through his own trap and off a cliff, only to look down and realize that he was standing in mid-air. Let’s see this in action with eight common mantras of post-modern Secular Humanism.

“There are no absolutes” 73

This statement, like the other seven we will look at, is self-refuting. It says there are no absolutes, yet it is an absolute statement. The person saying there are no absolutes is saying that there are absolutely no absolutes. Either there are absolutes or there are not. It is not logical to say there are no absolutes except the one in which I believe. The Christian, for instance, would say there is only one true way, but there are many absolutes in life. This is a consistent worldview. The post-modern view of no absolutes is not consistent.

“Truth is unknowable” If this statement were true, then how would I know that it was true? If truth cannot be known, what is the point in saying that truth cannot be known? What is the point of saying anything? To say that truth is unknowable is an automatically self-refuting statement, because the person saying it is assuming that you accept that this particular statement is true and knowable. It is, evidently, only in all other statements that truth is unknowable.

“It’s true for me, but not for you” This statement, like all the others is self-refuting. Is this statement true for you, but not for me? If so, then I reject the notion entirely. I contend that some truths are absolute. Is it possible that this belief could be true for me but not for you? Can truth be absolute for some people, while for others there are no absolutes? This is not logical or possible.

“There are no meta-narratives” This statement presupposes that there are no prevailing stories or worldviews that can explain the world that are true and universal. Yet, the belief that there are no meta-narratives is, in itself, a meta-narrative. It is a meta-narrative that there are no meta-narratives. Again, it is not logical or tenable in the real world.

“You can’t push your morality on me” The easiest way to answer this question is with another question: “why not?” This is also a self-refuting argument because they are, in fact, pushing their morality on you while telling you that you cannot push your morality. It is like saying “The first rule is that there are no rules.”

“Christians are judgmental” This can also be refuted easily with a question: “What’s wrong with that?” Relativists will often say that Christians are judgmental. That is their judgment on Christians. Why are they 74 being so judgmental? The mantra that people shouldn’t be judgmental is, in fact, a judgmental statement, so it is self-refuting. In addition, if there are no absolutes, or no concept of right and wrong, then who is to say that being judgmental is a bad thing?

“We need to be tolerant” For post-modern Secular Humanists tolerance is a virtue of the highest order. This is also inconsistent. If they really value tolerance then they have to be objectivists. You can’t argue for tolerance and tell people that they have to be tolerant unless you accept that there are moral absolutes. In order to demand tolerance as a virtue, the one doing the demanding must believe in absolutes. You simply cannot be a relativist and still call for everyone to be anything, including tolerant.

“You think that way because you accept the either/or philosophy rather than the both/and” If backed into a corner, some post-modern thinkers will try to assert that the law of self- refutation only seems to dismantle their beliefs because we are working from a Western “either/or” philosophy. This, they say, is not necessary. We should abandon the “either/or” philosophy and embrace the Eastern “both/and” philosophy. While the “either/or” philosophy says something either is true or is not, the “both/and” philosophy says that something can be both true and not true at the same time. While it is true that many Eastern cultures embrace this philosophy, it still has a fatal flaw. Its proponents will say that we should reject the “either/or” in favor of the “both/and.” In other words, we have to choose either the “either/or” or the “both/and.” In their very attempted refutation of “either/or,” they are using “either/or” logic. The “both/and” philosophy doesn’t hold up in the real world because in order to get there one must use “either/or” philosophy. The other weakness with all of these type statements, which are all just different expressions of relativism, is that if carried out to their full measure they become ridiculous. For instance if there are no moral standards and right and wrong are up to each individual to decide, then who makes the rules? You have no authority on which to declare anything to be wrong. I could steal your car or even kill you. It works for me, so who are you to say it’s wrong? Unless there is a Creator God that sets the moral standard, then all bets are off and anything goes. The true moral relativist has no grounds on which to ever call any action wrong.

Conclusion

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The important thing for parents to understand is that post-modernity is probably not going away any time soon. It is the way of viewing the world that our children will face. Just as modernity had its strengths and weaknesses, and was neither inherently positive nor negative, so it is with post-modernity. The dangers come when post-modernity is taken to extremes and combined with Secular Humanism. As shown above, however, the child who is armed with critical thinking skills and an understanding of basic logic will be better-prepared for their encounters with relativism and the negative aspects of post-modernity.

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Chapter 4 – Putting on the Right Glasses

As a high school boy’s basketball coach, one of the biggest struggles that I had each new basketball season was in getting my players to think about the game of basketball and the concept of “team” in the proper way. My players often saw basketball as one of the few options they had to get out of the situation of their life. They also saw basketball as a means to get recognition, respect, girls, and the like. For them, then, the game was all about how much they could do. They had to get their points and look good doing it. They valued the aspects of the game that entailed long sequences of fancy dribbling, ankle breaking moves, and all-around flashy play. They hailed the players who talked the most trash and could execute high-flying dunks. This is all well and good for the playground but it poses some serious impediments to building a team. The very skills that are most lauded on the playground are not at all conducive to team basketball. While they were dribbling all over and juking back and forth, looking for an opening so that they can drive in and get their own shot, their teammates just stood around watching, often getting upset with the player doing the showboating. Of course, the ironic part is that given their chance, they would do the exact same thing. I spent several years attempting to solve this problem. We would run every kind of passing drill you could think of. I would have the players religiously run drills that emphasized the fundamentals of the game. I endlessly hollered at them about playing disciplined, team basketball rather than always being out for themselves, and we even disciplined and benched players that would not get the message of playing as a team. Like clockwork, though, they would get into a game and all of the drills; all of the plays we had worked on would go right down the drain. Presumably to the same mysterious place to where many of our team socks seemed to disappear. To my repeated horror, the game would degenerate into five separate games of one on one. So, we would go right back to our practice gym for more drills, more plays, and more talks about teamwork. To be honest, I had resigned myself to the fact that this problem could never be solved. It was very frustrating. A few years back, though, the solution finally occurred to me. I was approaching the problem from the wrong perspective. My players were not intentionally choosing to play in a manner detrimental to the team; they were seeing the game through the wrong glasses. They did not really understand the concept of team. I decided to try to fix the root of the problem and stop worrying about the symptoms for the time being. We began conditioning a couple of weeks before we ever went to the gym and touched a basketball. My stated goal was to get the players in better shape, but my true intentions were to change the way they viewed the game, their 77 teammates, and their own roles on the team. The conditioning drills that the team did were all centered on the concept of team. They had to do everything in groups or as a whole team. They ran sprints together and had to finish together. This forced a special awareness of where their teammates were. It did not matter how talented they were, they could only go as fast as everyone else on the team. We ran hills together. No one could be left behind. This encouraged them to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their teammates and to help those that were struggling. They even ran line drills (often called killers or suicides) while holding hands as a team. All the while I preached to them about being a team, being a unit, and being of one mind. As the days went on they drew closer to one another and began to truly care about and encourage each other. They knew that they couldn’t achieve the goals necessary to complete each drill until they reached them together. Once it was time for the actual practices to start, I simply could not believe the difference. They were playing together. They no longer seemed to care about how many minutes of playing time they would get or who would start, or even who would take the shots and score the points. What was even more amazing was that when one of them started behaving selfishly, the rest of the team quickly took matters into their own hands and corrected the player on their own without the coaching staff having to get involved. This even culminated in the team captains requesting that one player be removed from the team for repeated selfish behavior. That team came together like no team I had ever coached before. Their fundamental perspective of the game and the concept of team had changed. They overcame all kinds of adversity that season and accomplished more than any team in our school’s history. They won the Conference Championship and made it all the way to the State Championship game before finally succumbing. I could not have been more proud of that team of State runners-up than any State Championship could have brought. The difference in that team was not talent or ability. It was that they had learned how to think properly about the task that was before them. I did not have to worry about treating each individual incident that came up. As each new challenge arose, I simply reminded them of how they needed to think about things. They had learned to see the game of basketball from a team perspective and not from an individual perspective. Once they had adopted a team view of the game, they were ready for almost any obstacle that they would face. The way we see the world can change everything. What we believe effects how we act. The way we look at the world, the glasses through which we see the entire world and everything in it, is our worldview. Everyone bases their thoughts, actions, and decisions on their worldview. They may not know that they have a worldview or be able to clearly identify it; it may even be 78 very inconsistent, but everyone has one. The decisions that we make every day, even the seemingly small ones, are determined by our worldview. Noted author and president of Summit Ministries, David Noebel defines worldview as “ . . . any ideology, philosophy, theology, movement, or religion that provides an overarching approach to understanding God, the world, and man’s relations to God and the World.”1 Your worldview is the way you interpret all of reality. It is how you make sense of the world around you. You then make decisions based on how you interpret the reality of the world. Once my basketball players began to interpret every facet of the game of basketball in the framework of a team concept, they began to make decisions about everything they did from a team point of view. It is impossible, however, to develop an effective and consistent worldview if one is not really aware of the concept at all. This is a huge area of deficiency in most Christian parenting in our fellowships. Worldview goes far beyond justification or believing in God, it is the application of the Christian way of viewing the world to every aspect of life. At a fundamental level, every worldview must address these four areas:

1. From where did we come and who are we? 2. What has gone wrong with the world? 3. What can we do to fix the world? 4. What happens when we die?

Two things become readily apparent when looking at this list. The first is that every ideological system that attempts to answer these questions can not only be classified as a worldview but also as a religion. The second thing is that these questions are only the foundation for a worldview; they by no means constitute a comprehensive worldview. Once these foundational questions have been answered, the remainder of the worldview can begin to form. The problem is that if you simply lay a foundation without constructing a building on top of it, someone will come along and put a building there. Mark 9:50 says to “have salt in yourselves . . .” This implies that we are to be filled up with salt. It is our job then to fill that saltshaker up for our children. The Bible mandates us to train our children in the proper way. If we don’t fill them up with a Biblical worldview, someone will fill them up with a worldview of their own. A majority of Christians that I know do not really see worldview as a major issue of the Christian life. According to George Barna, only 9% of adult Christians possess an authentic 79

Christian worldview.2 The danger in this is that there is a very real, very aggressive segment of the world that is very aware of their worldview, and is extremely adamant about proselytizing. Christians must learn to take the message of the Bible and apply it to every aspect of reality. In his work God, Revelation and Authority, Carl F.H. Henry speaks to the ultimate importance of teaching Christians a Bible-based view of the world:

“The task of Christian leadership is to confront modern man with the Christian world life view as the revealed conceptuality for understanding reality and experience, and to recall reason once again from the vagabondage of irrationalism and the arrogance of autonomy to the service of true faith.”3

As the leaders of their household, it is up to the parents, then, to teach the concept of a Biblical worldview to their children. We must not only train them in the Biblical worldview but it is vital that we teach them about opposing worldviews. The most prevalent worldview that we face in America today is, of course, Secular Humanism. Parents must not minimize the importance of this worldview education nor be afraid of it. The big advantage that Christian parents have is that Christianity is the only worldview that provides a consistent explanation to all of the facts of reality. None other than our first president, George Washington, said “Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains taken to bring it to light.” If we train our children to think Biblically they will see the holes in the other worldviews and reject them. If we ignore this aspect of their training they will end up with a worldview that is a hodgepodge of Christianity and the various forms of Humanism. We cannot expect our children to survive very long in a battle in which they do not know they are engaged. Francis Schaefer warns of this failure to apply a Christian worldview:

The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so, in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals. They have failed to see that all of this [immorality, pornography, problems in public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, etc.] has come about due to a shift in the world view – that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole. This shift has been away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different – toward a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance.4

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Schaeffer’s point is that we are losing ground in the morals of America and ultimately in the lives of our children because we are not holding fast to a biblical worldview. Henry adds to this truth noting, “With some few gratifying exceptions, neither home nor church has shaped a comprehensive and consistent faith that stands noon-bright amid the dim shadows of spiritual rebellion and moral profligacy.”5 Kids are attacked every day with opposing worldviews. They must be made aware of how, when, where, and why these attacks are coming from and who is responsible for them. They will receive differing values from their friends, TV, radio, media, teachers and even textbooks. They must realize that authentic Christianity can and must be applied not only to theology, but also to philosophy, ethics, biology, psychology, sociology, law, politics, economics, history, and many other areas How can our children protect themselves when they don’t know they are in a fight? David Noebel refers to this fight as the “Second Great Civil War.”6 James Dobson and Gary Bauer classify it as a struggle “in the minds of people. It is a war over ideas.”7 The class worldview of the Secular Humanist and the burgeoning post-modern faction of Secular Humanism don’t agree on every point but they do agree on their radical opposition to the Christian worldview. This constant attack on the Christian worldview results in value erosion. There are four aspects that become obvious in the life of Christian young people from this erosion:

1. Christian young people are not intellectually well grounded in their faith and therefore do not recognize the truth and power inherent in their worldview.

2. Parents have a premonition something is wrong, but cannot put their finger on it. Rarely do they realize their child is being seduced out of one worldview (Christianity) into another (Humanism).

3. Hostile or lukewarm educators stack the deck against Christians. The traditional family values and the Christian point of view seldom are justly represented. A 900- page biology textbook, for example, may contain 200 pages about evolution and only a line or two admitting that some “fundamentalist” Christians believe God created the heavens and the earth.

4. Christian parents are paying the salaries of Secular Humanist professors (through taxes and tuition) for the seduction of their own children! Taxpayers’ school children are taught almost exclusively the Secular Humanist religious worldview.8

We must, as parents, rethink the techniques that we have been using to train and educate our children. Hosea’s words, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” (Hosea 4:6) can truly be applied to our children and their worldview. We must heed the words of Paul to the people of 81

Colosse. “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:8) This is not to argue that educating children in worldview training, or comparative theology, should be the only religious aspect in which they are trained. In fact, it need not be the most important aspect of their theological training. It should, however, be a present theme in all of the other theological aspects in which we train our children. These would include Biblical theology, systematic theology, philosophical theology, historical theology, covenantal theology, practical theology, and eschatological theology. This comparative theology is focused on the day-to-day living out of the Bible through every word, thought, and deed. What is poured into a person’s mind, matters. Let me explain it like this. When my oldest son was about three we had a flight of stairs in our house that was about eight stairs high. He loved to take a running start, jump off of the top of the stairs and dive into my waiting arms where I was standing at the bottom. Of course, my wife hated that game, but we did it anyways. He could have played that game all day if I would have agreed to it. Why did he jump without hesitation every time? He jumped because he knew that I would catch him. What would have happened though, if while in midair during one of his leaps, I had been distracted, turned away and let him smash face first into the carpet? He may have gotten up and walked to the top of the steps, but I guarantee you that he would not jump. Why would he not jump? He would not jump because he was not a fool. His mind would have told him that this was a bad idea. In his heart he would love his daddy, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. But his mind would tell him to do something different, despite what was in his heart. What you pour into a person’s mind determines how they act, despite what is in their heart. This is the key to understanding the importance of teaching our children the proper worldview. Sending our children into the world without proper preparation in worldview is setting them up to fail. We must develop their own comprehensive worldview, all the while teaching them the competing worldviews that they will face in the marketplace of ideas. Only training them in Bible stories and Christian beliefs is the equivalent of a young person shooting by him or her self in the driveway all the time. When the attack comes, they won’t be ready. The same will be true for our children if we don’t properly prepare them. Misconception, assumptions, and presuppositions can be powerful things. They can give us a false sense of security. They can lead us to believe that we are safer or stronger than we really are. They can also leave us totally unprepared for the situation that is truly before us. They can leave us blind to the real world around us. 82

I believe one of the most powerful misunderstandings in the world today has to do with this clash of worldviews. Sadly, most Christians don’t understand the magnitude of the battle or the ferocity of the opponent. They have a vague idea that the ‘world’ can be a bad influence on us and our children, but most Christians I talk to have very little idea what the ‘world’ is or what they are up to. Our culture today has bought into a very serious lie with some devastating repercussions. Our society has convinced the majority of Americans that religion can and should be separated from the rest of reality. We talk about keeping religion as a personal and private thing. We believe in separation of church and state. We turn our kids over to schools to educate them in the areas not covered by the Bible. In short, we have put our religion into a box. Oh, most Christians do not want to admit that, but the fact remains that for a large portion of us it is true. The earlier statement that only 9 percent of adult Christians hold a Biblical worldview provides evidence for this. That is, less than 10 percent of Americans who claim to be evangelical Christians attempt to apply the precepts of the Bible to every area of their life. In broad terms there are two major competing worldviews in the United States right now: Biblical Christianity and Secular Humanism. Succinctly stated, Biblical Christianity is a religion and it is a worldview. Secular Humanism is every bit the religion and worldview that Christianity is. Each of the two worldviews has supposed answers to the four central questions stated earlier that must be answered in order to have a complete worldview. They are the questions of how we got here, what went wrong, how do we fix it, and what happens when we die. The Biblical worldview of course answers the question of how we got here with the special creation by God described in Genesis. The opening verse of the Bible tells us “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) God reminds Job that it was indeed the almighty God who created the universe. He asked Job straight out, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4) Scientists still struggle today to explain the origins of the universe and yet according to the Christian worldview this question is already answered. Paul reveals to us in Romans 1:20-21, “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Paul explained that the creation reflects and reveals the power and glory of God. Men are without excuse in ignoring the Creator because he has gone to great lengths to reveal his nature to us through his creation. One of the founders of modern science, Francis Bacon, said, “I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud 83 and the Koran, than wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince.” He further added, “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”9 The Biblical worldview’s understanding of the Creator carries with it certain obligations. If there is a Creator then it is prudent for us to find out who He is and what He expects from us. Because there is a Creator, we know that there is a moral law giver. His law is sovereign over the universe and trumps any of man’s opinions or desires. The Bible answers the question of what has gone wrong in the world in Genesis 3. Satan came to Eve in the form of a servant and attempted to convince her that God was lying to her and Adam and that they could become like gods if they ate from the forbidden tree. Eve was deceived and she also convinced Adam to eat from the tree. Before this the earth was perfect. God’s creation was very good. (Genesis 1:31) Before the fall of Adam and Eve there was no sin and no death. (Romans 5:12) Since the fall of Adam and Eve the entirety of creation has been twisted from its original perfection. (Romans 8:22) The Biblical worldview acknowledges that man is sinful by nature and that all have sinned and broken God’s law. (Romans 3:23, I John 3:4) The heart of man is wicked and deceitful beyond what we could ever fathom. (Jeremiah 17:9) This view of the nature of man greatly affects the Biblical worldview of almost every aspect including politics, law, ethics, etc. It was due to this very acceptance of the natural wickedness of man’s heart that led the founding fathers of America to institute the system of checks and balances. They wished to protect the people from the potential evil of individuals. This aspect of the Biblical worldview helps us to understand the true nature of man. If left to his or her own devices, mankind will tend towards evil. This means that although humans should be given free choice, these choices must be tempered by morality. If man is left to his own devices to invent and interpret morality as he sees fit, chaos will ensue. There is no hope for utopia for man apart from God’s redeeming grace. The next question resolved by Biblical Christianity is that of how we fix what has gone wrong. The obvious answer for the Christian is that we do not fix anything. It is the resurrection and redemption of Christ that will fix our individual problem. The problem of course is that due to the fact that we have all sinned, we deserve the punishment of death. By dying on the cross and becoming our Passover lamb, Jesus has given us the opportunity to have our sins forgiven and join him in heaven one day. The fact of the resurrection is really the fundamental tenet in the Christian worldview. Creation and the fall are both foundational and important but it is the resurrection that is truly the key that makes Biblical Christianity different from any other worldview. Paul informs us in his first letter to the Corinthians, fifteenth chapter, that if Christ is 84 not raised from the dead then preaching is useless, faith is futile, he and the apostles are liars, death still has dominion over us and the earth, we have no hope of rescue from sin, and this life on earth is all there is. A world with no resurrection leaves an extremely bleak and depressing picture. It is only through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ that humans can fix what has gone wrong with the world. The root of all problems in the world is sin; only Jesus’ blood can fix it. Jesus has been given all authority in the world , however, and has commissioned His followers with that authority and dominion to not only save the world in eternity but also to transform it in the present time (Matthew 28:18-20; Matthew 5:13). The final answer to the four worldview questions that lay the foundation of the Biblical worldview is what happens when we die. The Bible gives a clear answer on this topic as well as it does the previous three. The Bible says that a “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Every man will die but once. The Bible clearly denies any belief in reincarnation. This verse also shoots a hole in the belief that when man dies, that is it, we are extinguished. This Bible is clear that the duty of man is to keep God’s commandments and then be judged according to them (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). Those who are clothed with Christ will receive the eternal reward of eternal life with Jesus, while those who remain dead in their sins will experience the second death (Romans 6:23). The second death will consist of being sent to Hades (Luke 16) until such time as Christ returns and they are cast into Gehenna (Matthew 25:41). The Christian understanding of what happens when we die has large implications for the way we live while on earth. The righteous will receive eternal rewards while the unrighteous will be punished for their sins and their rejection of God. What we do here in temporal time while here on earth has eternal repercussions. Proving that it is also a complete religious worldview philosophy, Humanism posits answers to all of these questions. The solution they propose for how we got here is naturalistic evolution. Naturalistic evolution presupposes six different types of evolution: Cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution, organic evolution, microevolution, and macroevolution. Microevolution, or small changes in species (variation) is the only type of evolution that has been specifically observed by science. There is debate in the evolutionary community between two camps in the field of macroevolution. There are Darwinian evolutionists that argue that macroevolution happened extremely slowly over millions of years. More recently there has been another group that has developed primarily due to the weakness of the fossil record to support the Darwinian 85 evolutionists. This idea is called punctuated equilibrium. It proposes that changes in species happened so quickly and freakishly that it left virtually no record in the fossil record. The belief in evolution is vital to Humanism. Without evolution, the Humanist religion basically crumbles. This is why the issue of creation and evolution, largely ignored by a majority of Christians, is so vital in the battle of worldviews. The Secular Humanist’s rejection of a Creator God has major implications. If there is no God then there are no rules. Every human is left to their own devices and their own morality. Life is meaningless and we are here by pure cosmic chance if evolution is true. According to the Humanist view based on evolutionary theories, man is just a human animal. We have many vestiges of animal instinct and should have no more rights than do any animals. In answering the problem of what has gone wrong with the world, the branches of Humanism differ slightly. They mostly agree that ultimately it is society that has caused the problems of the world. Humanism views the individual man as inherently good and he, therefore, cannot be blamed for society’s ills. Humanist Carl Rogers describes it this way: “I am not in the least blind to the brutality, cruelty, deceit, defensiveness, abnormality, and stupidity of much of human behavior. Yet there is nothing in my experience that would cause me to regard these as the most basic elements in human nature. Indeed I find that when the individual is given even an imperfect opportunity to grow, to develop, to become his potential, it is precisely these characteristics which he tends to leave behind.”10 Fellow Humanist Erich Fromm agrees: “The position taken by humanistic ethics that man is able to know what is good and to act accordingly on the strength of his natural potentialities and of his reason would be untenable if the dogma of man’s innate natural evilness were true.”11 Paul Kurtz, author of the Humanist Manifesto II, finds man to be “a perfectible human being.”12 Psychologist and Humanist, Abraham Maslow, sums up the view that persons are good in nature and society is to blame for the state of our world when he says, “Sick people are made by a sick culture; healthy people are possible by a healthy culture.”13 Due to this belief, Humanism calls for the abolition of all traditional societal institutions including the state, the traditional family, and the church. The Humanist solution to fixing what has gone wrong in the world is implied in the very nature of the problem. If man is inherently good and it is society that has corrupted him, then we must simply wipe out our existing evil societies and create a new utopia. Different branches of Humanism diverge at how this utopia will be reached and what it looks like but they all agree that it is possible; that man can and will evolve to a god-like state in a perfect society. For the Communist Humanist it is the state of true Communism and the continuing dialectic. For the Secular Humanist it is the New World Order. For the New Age Humanist it is a utopia created by 86 the self-actualization of each human who has evolved into a god-like state. In each instance it is the traditional family, the traditional church, and the state that is hindering this realization of utopia. For the Humanist, it is man himself who will realize salvation; there is no need for God. The Secular Humanist answer to what happens when we die is simple, nothing. We are here by chance, this life is all there is, and then we cease to exist. There is no judgment after life. What we do here carries with it no implications for eternity because there is no eternity in the Secular Humanist worldview. Very few Americans realize or believe that Humanism is in fact a religion. Biblical Christianity is so easy to identify as a religion. They have churches, and a Bible, and doctrine, and, of course, a set of clear and visible clergy that lead and direct the religion. What most people do not realize is that Secular Humanists have all of these things. They do have somewhat traditional style churches, which are becoming more prevalent. Many “Christian” denominations have also become so liberal that they are much closer to Humanism in belief and practice than actual Biblical Christianity. The Humanists also have one other type of place of worship and indoctrination that we have already discussed at length: The public school system of the United States. The Humanists have sacred books of sorts, which contains their beliefs and doctrines. They are the Humanist Manifesto I, Humanist Manifesto II, and Humanist Manifesto 2000. The clergy of the Humanist movement is not probably who you would expect. For the most part, however, the men and women who lead the education, direction, and belief system of the Humanist movement are none other than scientists. Please be very clear here. I am not bashing science, nor am I trying to stereotype all scientists. Science is a wonderful way to reveal the creation and order of God. I do not have an ax to grind with science, I am not afraid of science. I am not anti-science. The fact remains, however, that evolution is the undeniable foundation for Secular Humanism. Most scientists perpetuate evolution. Without evolution, there is no major Humanist movement. It is in reality the scientists, then, that lead the ever-growing faith of Humanism. The evangelists of Secular Humanism are the teachers of the public schools. It would be good here to give a definition of religion. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, religion is “A cause or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.” According to this definition, Humanism would definitely fall into the category of a religion. The extremely unfortunate part of all of this is that most people do not recognize Humanism as a religion. Most people perceive scientists, a majority of whom are ardent Humanists, as unbiased, objective, nearly infallible arbiters of truth and fact. Most people are deceived into believing that evolution is science. In fact, it is not science at all. The American Heritage Dictionary defines science as “The observation, identification, description, experimental 87 investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Knowledge gained through experience.” Evolution fails to meet either of those criteria. Leading creationist, Ken Ham, points out about evolution that “It is a belief about the past. We do not have access to the past. We only have the present. All the fossils, all the living animals and plants, our planet, the universe – Everything exists in the present. We cannot directly test the past using the scientific method (which involves repeating things and watching them happen) since all evidence that we have is in the present.”14 Special creation by God cannot be observed or repeated but neither can evolution. Both, therefore, fall in the category of faith not science. Evolutionists have, by and large, run a classic bait and switch. They convince people of the wonderful qualities of operational science and then trick them into believing that evolution falls under the same category. Operational science is the wonderful everyday type of science that produces medicines, makes discoveries, and even allows space travel. In fact, evolution is a part of a different kind of “science” called origins science. This is, by definition, not science at all. It cannot be tested, observed, or repeated. Humanist evolutionists have bamboozled the public into thinking of the knowledgeable, fact-based scientist in the white coat versus the Bible thumping, black robed, religious fanatics. They have turned the debate so that anyone who disagrees with evolution is considered to be anti- science, ignorant, and someone who prefers mythology to fact. We must shed this misunderstanding. Evolution is religious in nature. Humanism is a religion. Creation is religious in nature. Biblical Christianity is a religion. Science and religion are not enemies. In fact, modern science was founded by men with a Christian worldview; men who believed that the universe was an orderly place because God had created it. We could, therefore, discover God’s truths throughout the universe. For far too long the Church has focused only on religious education and left the sciences and any other subjects in school to the world assuming that our children are receiving a neutral, fact- based education. Due to this compartmentalization of Christianity we have turned education over to the Secular Humanists. They have had nearly 75 years of controlling the American education system and have now convinced most of the country that their beliefs are based on science while ours are based on religion and myth. “Under the guise of science, Humanism has been granted a reputable position in American society.”15 The Biblical Christian worldview has been completely marginalized in education based on this belief that the two faiths are not equals. We must first realize for ourselves, as a Christian community, that each faith is equal parts science and belief and then we can begin to understand and teach a comprehensive biblical worldview. 88

If you are not yet convinced that Humanism as a worldview is a religion with a complete set of dogmas and beliefs then you need look no further than the comments of Humanists themselves. Humanists consider themselves to be the next great religion that will eventually overshadow all of the religions that are based on mythology. They have the advantage, they believe, because theirs is the only religion based on scientific knowledge. In 1933, Roy Wood Sellars authored the book known as the Humanist Manifesto, but as early as 1918, in his book The Next Step, he said, “The coming phase of religion will reflect man’s power over nature and his moral courage in the face of the facts and possibilities of life. It will be a religion of action and passion, a social religion, a religion of goals and prospects. It will be a free man’s religion, a religion for an adult and aspiring democracy.”168 Sellars went on to clear up any doubts about his views of Humanism as religion: “Now I am convinced that the humanistic religion into which Christianity will gradually be transformed will correct the mistake.”17 Charles Francis Potter who founded the first Humanist church in New York City and gave his endorsement by attaching his to name to the original Humanist Manifesto wrote, “So Humanism is not simply another denomination of Protestant Christianity; it is not a creed; nor is it a cult. It is a new type of religion altogether.”18 In 1934, John Dewey called for a new religion in his book, A Common Faith. “Here are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class, or race. Such a faith has always been implicitly the common faith of mankind. It remains to make it explicit and militant.”19 Tolbert H. McCarrol, executive director of The Humanist magazine wrote an article titled “Religions of the Future,” in which he predicted that Humanism would join the other major faiths as a recognized religion. He foresaw a time when Humanism would be the “largest religious body of the future.”20 Julian Huxley, former president of the British Humanist Association wrote in his book Religion Without Revelation, “Twentieth-century man needs a new organ for dealing with destiny, a new system of beliefs . . . in other words, a new religion.”21 He, of course, was referring to the new religion of Humanism. A religion based on man as the ultimate arbiter of truth rather than God. To make matters more convincing many universities list Humanist groups on campus along with the other religious associations. This parade includes Harvard, Auburn University, and the University of Minnesota. In fact, federal tax exemption rulings have been given to many Humanist groups. 89

The clincher, though, came in 1961. None other than the Supreme Court of the United States officially recognized Humanism as a religion. In Torasco v. Watkins, Justice Hugo Black observed: “Among religions in this country which do not teach what is generally to be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism, and others.” In their insightful work on the topic of Humanism and worldviews, Mind Siege, Noebel and LaHaye make this startling statement:

The religious worldview of humanism is so well-defined that if it were expelled from our public schools and its disciples were retired from government service through the ballot box, they would immediately declare themselves a religion and enjoy their tax-exempt religious status. They cannot do so now because they receive billions of dollars annually to operate their vast network of churches, schools, colleges, and universities. Why should they collect donations to support the propagation of their religion when, through our taxes, we pay for everything?22

Those in the field of evolution prove that they see evolution, the foundation of Humanism, as being religious in nature. Carl Sagan says that, “It makes good sense to revere the Sun and the stars because we are their children.”23 Sagan also states, “It is said that men may not be the dreams of the gods, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.”24 This of course bolsters Humanism because it has no need for the one, true God. Leading evolutionist, Theodosius Dobzhansky quotes Pierre Teihard de Chardin: “Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow.”2518 Instead of Jesus being the light of the world (John 8:12), the Secular Humanists have set up evolution itself to take that place. Humanists, Whitehead and Conlan sum up the Humanist position perfectly:

While Secular Humanism is non-theistic, it is religious because it directs itself toward religious beliefs and practices that are in active opposition to traditional theism. Humanism is a doctrine centered solely on human interests or values. Therefore, humanism deifies man collectively and individually, whereas theism worships God. Moreover, while humanism draws its values and absolutes from the finite reasoning of relativistic Man, theism has received its values and absolutes through the revelation of the infinite Deity or Creator. Both theism and humanism worship their own “god.” The difference is the object of worship, not the act. Therefore, Secular Humanism is a religion whose doctrine worships Man as the source of knowledge and truth, whereas theism worships God as the source of all knowledge and truth.”26

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The Biblical Worldview in Every Part of Life One of the most important aspects in teaching a biblical worldview is the fact that belief in the Bible should have implications in every aspect of life. The Christian worldview is not just limited to salvation, our knowledge of the Bible, and morality. It extends into every aspect of life and academia. Far too many Christian young people do not realize this. They might accept the basic tenets of Christianity all the while buying into the Humanistic worldview in areas like history, psychology, sociology, or philosophy. In the remainder of this chapter, we will look at eleven areas in which students should be taught the biblical worldview in order to properly meet the challenges that will be presented by the Secular Humanist worldview.

Theology The very basis of the biblical worldview is the belief in the existence of an all-powerful, personal, loving, just, and holy God. Christians affirm that God is one in essence and nature but exists in the three persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is the Creator of everything in existence and is the foundation for all meaning. This same intelligent and all- powerful God came to the earth 2,000 years ago in the human form and person of Jesus Christ and died for the sins of all humans everywhere. God is both mind and heart. He created the world but also loves it so much that He sent His own Son, Jesus, to die for it. Christian theology believes in the Trinity of God, but is not tri-theistic. It denies the existence of three separate gods, and believes that God is the only, one, true God. There are no lesser gods of some sort in the Christian theistic view. The Christian worldview affirms that God has been revealed through His holy Word in the Bible, and that through this Word, we can know Him personally. The Bible, then, is the foundation for everything the Christian does, thinks, and is. The Secular Humanism of modernity asserted that there was no God. Science and knowledge made God obsolete. They believed that only matter exists, and is all that has ever existed. Man is only matter and has no soul or spirit. They would deny any supernatural explanation for the existence of matter. Many of the post-modern Humanists have deconstructed science and knowledge to the point that they have re-opened the possibility of existence beyond matter, which opens the door to spirituality. Many of these so-called New Age adherents believe that all things are divine, or a part of God: people, rocks, trees, stars, etc. All we have to do to get in touch with god is to attain total unity with the cosmos. Much of this thinking is, in reality, based on ancient occultic beliefs and practices.

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Biology The belief of the person holding the biblical worldview is that God created all life. Creationists look at the design, order, complexity, and vast amounts of information in the universe and conclude that there must be a designer and information giver. The biblical worldview says that the universe and the life in it are not a result of blind chance but are the result of intentional and special creation. Christians believe that God created a basic number of “kinds” of animals as recounted in Genesis 1, and that each animal brought forth after their own “kind.” Each “kind” has a great deal of genetic variance programmed into their information which accounts for the many different types of humans and animals within their own kind. Thus, it is very likely that all dogs could be traced back to one original dog “kind” on the sixth day of creation. Naturalistic evolution is the Secular Humanist’s explanation for life. A large explosion of unidentifiable materials exploded billions of years ago; the result was the matter of the universe. On this planet which was nothing but molten rock, it rained for hundreds of millions of years creating a primordial soup. From this soup came the first traces of life which eventually evolved into the world that we see today. Without naturalistic evolution, there can be no Secular Humanist worldview. If evolution did not happen, then a Creator would be necessary. Humanists believe that through the evolutionary concept of natural selection, death brings life. The Christian would argue that death is an enemy not the very process through which life if propagated. Although it is still usually labeled a “theory,” Secular Humanists believe that evolution has been proven to the extent that it is now settled fact. According to their worldview, man is at the apex of evolutionary development and now has the responsibility of directing and aiding the evolutionary process.

History The Christian worldview is rooted deeply in history. The truth of the Bible is linked, inextricably, to history. If the historical roots and claims of the Bible are proven to be false, then there would be no Christian worldview. The history of the Bible has been shown repeatedly, through historical study and archaeology to be extremely accurate and factual. The historical Bible and the fact of the human life of Jesus Christ form the foundation of the Christian worldview. If the Bible isn’t an historical document or Jesus was not raised from the dead, as the Bible claims, then Christianity falls flat and is not worth following (1 Corinthians 15:12-19). Classic Secular Humanism believed that the history of the world has been one of constant progress through the vehicle of evolution. It would deny any supernatural influence in history; all 92 history is a result of random natural processes. The post-modern Humanist would assert that this belief in the constant progress of humanity is little more than perspective and the result of the Western meta-narrative. There is no evidence, they would argue, that would support the constant progress hypothesis, and it would be impossible to tell because everything is perspective. Some may appear to be progressing at time, while others are not, but it is all perspective.

Law The Christian worldview believes that divine law has been passed down from God. This law originates from the character of the holy and loving God. Because God is the Creator, humans are under obligation to obey God’s law. He has written this law on the heart and conscience of every man (Romans 2:15). Each human has a moral law imbedded into their conscience because the Creator placed it there. God ordains and establishes human governments and the rule of law to keep in check man’s fallen nature (Romans 13:1-4). Since the Fall, human history is an ongoing attempt by men to replace God’s law. The biblical worldview maintains that when God’s laws are obeyed, men and societies flourish. The very basis for human rights, morality, and right and wrong only make sense if they come for the moral Law-Giver. These rights are given to each man by God and so are inalienable. God’s Word and these natural laws are adequate for mankind to establish societies that allow man’s free will and creativity to flourish, but still keep in check man’s fallen nature. In the Secular Humanist worldview, the state is the sovereign authority and the source of all law. There is no higher power than the state; it is the only source for legal truth. Morality, justice, and legal truth are what the state says it is, period. If an act is legal, the Secular Humanist would maintain that it is right. There is no concept of morality that transcends the law. Humanism asserts that crime is a symptom of societal shortcomings rather than an inherent flaw in the nature of the individual.

Philosophy The philosophy of the Christian is to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Any philosophy or school of thought that is not based on the Bible is based on the “traditions of men, after the basic principles of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Secular Humanists claim that the philosophy of the Christian is unscientific. Christians would counter that argument, claiming that all Christian doctrines are consistent with true science, 93 history, and personal experience to a degree and manner that the vain philosophies of the world could never be. The philosophy of the Secular Humanist rests totally on their belief in materialism. Materialism is the belief that only matter exists and it is eternal. Things that cannot be perceived with the senses, do not exist. The scientific method is the only way to discover truth. Things of the spiritual realm cannot be observed, tested, or experimented on, and so do not exist. Many post-modern Humanists would reject the old-school materialism, and instead embrace the belief that God is everything, and that everything is a part of God. Everything, therefore, is spiritual and is a manifestation of the spiritual. All matter will one day be gone once universal consciousness is achieved. Matter can be controlled by an enlightened mind. Health, prosperity, and happiness can all be achieved as a result of “mind over matter.”

Psychology Christianity is the only worldview that emphasizes the spiritual aspect of mankind and our fallen nature. Because of this, the biblical worldview is the only one that can comprehensively address all that ails the human condition. The focus of Christian psychology is not to point fingers external from the individual but to help people recognize their own sinfulness and their need for a Savior. Rather than stressing the need to build up one’s self-esteem, the Christian psychologist realizes that all people are sinners estranged from and in rebellion against God. The purpose of Christian psychology is not to artificially boost the self-esteem, but to help people realize that we are under God’s wrath and in need of reconciliation and His grace in our lives. The problem with humanity cannot be solved by liking yourself more, but by dying to your self in order to live for Christ. According to the Christian view of psychology, one should not ignore or repress the conscience but should recognize their guilt before God and repent. Christianity does not blame the society, environment, or background, but rather, emphasizes personal responsibility. Secular Humanism believes that every individual can achieve good mental health through physical or material needs. This is called self-actualization. All of man’s actions are the result of mechanical (material) impulses, which is known as behaviorism. This seems contradictory to the belief that man is the master of his fate, because it means that man is really at the mercy of biological forces out of their control. According to the Secular Humanist, however, it is societal institutions that are at the root cause of all that ails the individual. 94

For the post-modern, societal institutions are all to blame for man’s problems. These institutions stifle the true knowledge and godhood that each person possesses. The true aim of psychology is to cause each individual to realize their full potential.

Sociology The biblical worldview stresses that God loves each individual and has established a certain social order for the betterment of mankind. God established three primary institutions of social order in order to accomplish this goal: family, church, and state. These institutions are to teach each individual the value of love, respect, discipline, and hard work. Societies will function best when they cooperate with God’s will and His law, which are administered through the family, church, and state. Sociology is difficult for Secular Humanists because they must explain the gap between the evil that exists in society and their belief that man is capable of perfection through their own means. Evil in individuals is caused, they assert, by the evil that is inherent in societal institutions. Evil is society’s fault, not the individual. Society corrupts man’s inherent goodness. Public education is the means through which the social institutions will be fixed. At a basic level, most Secular Humanists would like to dismantle any traditional notions of family, church, and ultimately state.

Ethics The Christian view of ethics is simple. God hates evil, loves good, and defines the two concepts in the Bible. Both evil and ethical relativism lead to destruction (Matthew 7:13). Christian ethics cannot be distinguished from the character of God because it is derived from His very nature. The Christian’s system of ethics is based on the immutable Word of God rather than the changing winds of society. In the Secular Humanist worldview there is no God, so there is no standard on which to base ethics. Standards and values become a wild-west environment where every man makes his own rules. Ethics is based totally on the situation, so the standards will change based on the situation and the individuals involved. “We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing not theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest.”27

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The Christian worldview stresses that knowledge begins with the fear of God (Proverbs 2:5). Christian parents are mandated to teach children about the Bible and God (Deuteronomy 6:6-9) or the results will be disastrous for the people of God (Judges 2:10-11). The correct biblical worldview will give equal priority to life (relationships and praxis) and doctrine (education and knowledge) (1 Timothy 4:16). The Bible stresses the importance of Godly knowledge but is otherwise rather negative about the knowledge of the world as it has a distinct tendency to puff up pride and lead people away from God (1 Corinthians 1:19-21). The traditional Secular Humanist worldview values knowledge and education as a means to transform society. Even the post-modern Humanist that rejects objective knowledge still tends to value public education as a way to transform society and indoctrinate the virtues that they value. Tolerance and relativism are stressed as two of the most important values to be transmitted to the next generation.

Politics The biblical worldview recognizes that the state as a God-ordained institution (Romans 13:1- 7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). Government is necessary due to the depravity of man in his fallen state. Although God is sovereign, he allows the state a certain amount of dominion to rule over the immediate affairs of men. The Bible endorses limited government as Jesus Christ is the ultimate King. Christians are mandated to be salt and light in their societies. To do this fully, they cannot withdraw from any aspect of society, including politics. The Christian must always remember, however, that their primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of God and not the state of which they are a part. The ultimate goal of Secular Humanism is utopia. They believe that world peace can best be achieved through world government. The allegiance of the Secular Humanist is towards the goal of a New World Order rather than their country of origin. The seeming contradiction of the Humanist view is that they feel society is to blame for all of man’s problems, yet hold to the belief that they can fix all of man’s ills through a one-world society.

Economics The Christian view of economics believes that man is sinful and that God values justice. Systems like socialism and communism are based on the assumption that man is inherently good. Believing that man is fallen leads the Christian to promote a system which protects the rights of individuals from infringement by others. The best economic system, then, is one that contains checks and balances to protect basic human rights. 96

Based on this criterion, it would appear that the free enterprise system is more compatible with the Christian worldview than any other. Secular Humanism believes that the Humanist-controlled state will eventually fix society’s problems. Because of this, most Humanists favor some form of socialism. Because there is no God, man must save himself through the state by controlling all aspects of society. In their vision, the world’s economy would be controlled and managed through the central planning of the one world government. They are, consequently, in favor of anything that puts more economic control in the hands of the government.

Detecting the Worldview One of the simplest and most effective things that a Christian parent can ever do is to teach their children to constantly ask themselves one question: what are they trying to teach me? This question is one of the best things with which we can arm our children. It is not enough to simply teach our children a comprehensive Christian worldview, although that is invaluable. We must provide them the ability to detect and decipher the worldview in everything. We began doing this with our eleven-year-old when he was about five. We have already begun with our three-year- old. What my wife and I have done is to teach our children to realize that every action taken by a human is influenced by their underlying worldview. That means that every movie, newspaper article, book, magazine, TV show, commercial, song, advertisement, etc., has an underlying worldview. We have taught our children the simple concept of asking what everything they encounter is trying to teach them. What is the worldview behind that TV show, movie, or commercial? Everywhere we look we see the secular world’s ideas of sex, materialism, tolerance, religion, etc. A child who is trained to ask the important questions about the worldview of those who created these things will be able to identify and discard that worldview. When we understand something, it loses its power over us. A worldview that has been identified and quarantined in our child’s mind is far less likely to influence them. I love nothing more than to watch my older son discard a commercial or TV show, while correctly identifying that there was a clear message of materialism, or a message that sex is okay before marriage, or a pro-evolutionary way of thinking. Once taught this subject, kids can often be better at discerning these underlying worldviews than we are.

The Psychology of Worldview and Worldview Changes 97

The concept of young people developing and changing their worldviews is not just a concept that we have invented. There is actually a fair amount of psychological research and theory behind the development and transition of worldviews and belief systems. We can gain some valuable insight into our own children on an individual basis by looking at the more universal theories and psychology of worldviews Cosmology is the study of the origins of the universe, or in other words, how did everything get here. This is, obviously, one of the four major questions that a worldview must address. In a research study on the development of cosmology, it was discovered that there are four basic cosmology levels. At Level 1 (approximately 5 to 8 years old), God makes everything, including human artifacts. At Level 2 (7 to 9 years old), God still makes most of nature but no longer artifacts. At level 3 (10 to 13 years old), nature functions primarily on its own and human beings are largely autonomous, but believe that God somehow acts behind the scenes. At level 4 (15 years and up), scientific and theological concepts are reflected and coordinated.28 This particular study also showed that no cases of regression in the cosmological worldview of the young people. The point here is that as children grow older, their concepts of God and the world become more complex. This process begins to happen as early as 7 years old and is in full swing by the age of 10. Studies have shown that all children have changed their beliefs at least once.29 As children grow older they will add new information to change their worldview. That it will develop and change is a fact. If they are not provided ongoing information that will challenge them at the level they are currently at, chances become increasingly slim that parents and youth workers will be able to have an ongoing influence in their worldviews. Worldviews develop only when the information the person is given continues to answer the challenges of the world that they are experiencing. This is why Jesus said, “Have salt in yourselves” (Mark 9:50). In other words, if we are to be salt in the world, then we must first be filled with salt. Our children have to have salt poured into them or else the world will fill them up with something else. When it comes to studies of how children acquire knowledge, studies have shown that pre- school children rely almost exclusively on their own experience, supplemented by reason. Grade schoolers tend to appeal to authority on issues of fact and subjectivity on issues of taste or opinion. As early as 7-years old and nearly all 10-year olds “believed that diversity of opinion was legitimate but gradually discovered consensus as a way out of some cloudy issues, Thus, a collapse of absolute conviction occurs as early as childhood.”30 In contrast to young children, pre-teens and teens are prone to have doubts about the validity of their worldview. Unless they are specifically taught otherwise, the natural tendency of children will be to gravitate towards the 98 consensus worldview of their peers. It could also be said that when kids understand the process of forming their worldview, they form a more advanced and solid worldview. By the time children become middle and older adolescents, they have come to the point, though, that they need to filter information and strengthen or change their worldview based on their own logical thought. In piecing together the aggregate statements of all adolescents studied, Reich, Oser, and Valentin created the following summary quote from the perspective of the adolescent.

It is up to me to know what is the case. Although others can give some indications, and although it may be useful to check what they have to say, basically, in most cases, I can find out by myself all that is needed, if I use the right methods. They include logical thought, analysis of my experiences, testing my ideas in various natural and human environments, and improving my knowledge in an iterative bootstrap manner, enlarging my horizons, reviewing my knowledge possessions from time to time, and replacing the obsolete ones.31

What this means is that it is vital for parents to not only give a firm foundation of biblical knowledge for young people, they also need to be taught the proper methods of critical thinking so that they can examine information and continue to craft their own worldviews. By the time of their adolescence, young people need to be presented information and let them accept it or reject it into their worldview using their own logic and critical reasoning. If they haven’t been taught these skills, their levels of discernment are likely to be low. Another aspect that will be helpful is to consider the area of identity development and the crisis. In this context, crisis refers to situational opportunities that arise and challenge the individual to examine and possibly adjust their belief system or worldview. James Marcia, in building on Eric Erikson’s theory of identity formation in young people, identified four identity statuses. The first is the identity diffusion stage. In this stage of adolescence, the young person has not experienced any significant crisis and is yet to make a personal commitment to any belief system. Stage two is called foreclosure. In this stage the subject has not yet experienced a crisis but has made definite commitments to a worldview system. This is the stage in which we find many young people. Their identity of beliefs comes primarily from their parents. They believe what their parents believe without really examining it for themselves. This stage can give adults a false sense of security. The young person in this stage seems quite set in their beliefs but it can really be nothing more than smoke because the subject has not really been tested in their beliefs nor have they engaged in serious self-examination. 99

The third stage is called moratorium. The young person is in a very real crisis of identity and is actively searching for values to eventually claim as their own. They are actively searching to define their own personal identity. They have not, however, made a commitment to their worldview in this stage. Many parents get extremely “freaked out” when their children go through this stage and it is often perceived as abject rebellion. This is a time, however, when a prepared and patient parent can find themselves of great use to the searching young person. Rather than fighting the adolescent’s search, the parent can provide a gentle and guiding hand to help them on their journey. As with anything else, when we understand something it loses its power over us. When parents explain to young people that they need to search and form their own worldviews and the process through which they must go, kids are far more likely to make wise choices. It must be stressed again, though, the advantage of having already taught children proper methods of examining other worldviews such as the previously mentioned road runner technique. The fourth stage in adolescent development is identity-achieved. This is where the young person has gone through the process of exploration and crisis and has resolved their identity issues on their own terms. By this stage the student has developed a worldview that has been parent taught, self-examined and able to stand the test of time and other crises.32 Another helpful way to look at the young person’s process of changing worldview comes from William G. McLoughlin’s analysis of religious awakenings, Revivals Awakenings, and Reform. McLoughlin attempts to describe what great awakenings are, what causes them, and what effects they have on the culture. He identifies five separate great awakenings in the history of America. He asserts that great awakenings are the result of cultural disjunctions between our norms and our experience. In other words, the institutions of our society no longer match what we experience everyday in our culture. Once faith is lost in our institutions, leaders, and religions, revitalization is needed to restructure our institutions, leaders, and religions so that they meet the demands of the changing culture. The first stage of a great awakening is the realization of this gap between norm and experience and the call for a revitalization movement. Second, is when people conclude that the problems are a result of institutional malfunction which seemingly cannot be fixed by any current element or institution within the society. Third, according to McLoughlin, is when “accumulated pressures for change produce such acute . . . stress that the whole culture must break the crust of custom . . . and find new socially structured avenues.” 33 During this time a prophet that epitomizes the crisis of the culture arises to lead people in a new direction. Fourth, the prophet of the “new-light” vision begins to attract younger and more flexible members of the society. They are willing to try new formulations to meet the crisis. 100

Finally, the prophet succeeds in garnering a large group of adherents to their new guidelines and practices. As this group becomes dominant, considerable changes are made to the institutional structure of the society. These same stages can often be observed in the lives of individuals who have not been taught a comprehensive Christian worldview as well as societies as a whole. A gap happens in the life of the teen when what they have been taught about life and the Bible and what they are really experiencing in their own life. When a one-dimensional Christianity is taught that does not comprehensively touch every area of life, gaps are sure to occur. The second stage happens when the teen concludes that the reason for this gap lies in the deficiency of the Christian worldview itself, rather than their shallow understanding of it. While the teen is beginning to question the validity of the incomplete Christian worldview, someone else comes along and offers a new solution to the very real experiences they are having. This may be a new group or friends, but can also be a new teaching or idea. In the fourth stage, the child begins to believe that this new worldview meets their current experiences. It may not be comprehensive or even logical but it becomes very appealing if it offers answers to the current experiences. Finally, they leave their old worldview and join the new worldview camp wholeheartedly. Let’s see these five stages working in a real-to-life example. Let’s imagine a scenario in which a young person has grown up in the church but has never been taught specifics about the importance of believing in absolute truth or how to defend the concept. They get into middle school and meet friends who think decidedly differently than they do. These friends challenge the Christian-based beliefs on which they have been raised. At the same time, they are being flooded with concepts at school like evolution which challenges the truth that God created the universe. They are also given moral dilemmas which they cannot answer, so they begin to question the absolutes of moral right or the sanctity of life. In Social Studies class, they are told that we must never judge the worldviews, beliefs, or morals of anyone else. Suddenly, the version of Christianity they have been taught is incomplete. It doesn’t seem to offer answers to these new mental challenges. They begin to look at the fun that their friends who aren’t bound by any Christian principles are having. The worldview of their friends seems to be summed up by the famous “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” This seems to make a lot more sense in a world where there are no absolutes. To tell them that they shouldn’t do what everyone else is doing simply because God supposedly said so, doesn’t seem to be enough any longer. The way that their friends are living seems to fit better with this new view of the world that has been offered in class. This new worldview better meets what they have been experiencing, so it is embraced and the old worldview is rejected. 101

Much of this can be avoided if the parents and their children understand this process, prepare for it and present a version of Christianity that is comprehensive and complete. This is a complete worldview that will be far more likely to meet the many experiences and crises they will have. A worldview that meets the experiences of the individual will most likely not be cast off for a new worldview.

Conclusion One thing is very clear; the Christian community faces a pluralistic society like no other time in the history of the United States. Although this certainly presents its own challenges, it also offers some wonderful opportunities. As we live in and raise children in a pluralistic society, there are four guidelines that we should remember. First, we must learn to distinguish between conviction and opinion. Convictions are things that cannot be compromised by the Christian. Convictions differ from opinion in source and the degree to which we defend them. Convictions come as specific directives from the Word of God. Opinions are the ways we try to best define the way we should fill in the gaps between biblical directives. Convictions define us, we define opinion. Convictions need to be rooted in love or they become repulsive. Convictions without love become blind dogma that will attract no one to the life of Christ. Second, we should understand that pluralism can be a good thing. When man is bent on self- satisfaction and aggrandizement, unity can be catastrophic. One needs to look no further than the incident at the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Pluralism presents many challenges for the Christian but it does temper society in many ways. It also forces Christians to really think through our doctrines and be able to defend them. Third, it really is a great opportunity to live in a society where we can learn different perspectives from different people. It stretches us and induces us to discover new ways to apply our faith to people of different backgrounds and cultures. Sharing the gospel is a tremendous privilege. It is exciting to have the opportunity to share our faith with many different people in many different cultural settings without ever having to leave our own cities. Finally, we must be careful to not politicize the gospel. Societies and cultures are not truly changed by the imposition of law but by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the lives of individuals as they share the gospel. As we seek to apply a comprehensive worldview and truly live a life where Jesus is King of every aspect of our lives, we need to be careful to not take areas of opinion and turn them into convictions. The gospel changes lives, societal institutions do not, no matter how biblically-based they are.34 102

Although it is important to teach children that the Word of God is living and active and relevant to every area of our lives, it is more important that they have a truly biblical worldview as it applies to their own spirituality. Unfortunately, we tend to present a version of Christianity which does not prepare young people to have their own souls transformed by God. One must first be transformed by the Spirit of God, before they can face the challenges of the world and attempt to apply their biblical worldview to every area of life. For the remainder of the book, we will turn our attention to presenting the gospel to our own children in a way that is relevant for the young people of today.

Chapter 5 – Sloppy Agape

Since I graduated from college over ten years ago, I have made a concerted effort to keep myself in good shape. For many years I have followed a regimen that includes me doing several hundred push-ups every day and running 7 miles a day. My reasons for doing this were simple. I wanted to stay as “young” as I could and be able to enjoy my wife and sons well into my elderly years. Exercising is a good thing but it can have its negative side. For me, it came in the form of developing a superman mentality. I was in pretty good shape so I convinced myself that I could eat whatever I wanted. My wife MyCresha, a registered nurse, warned me repeatedly that I should not just think that I could eat whatever I wanted. I would argue that I was thin, in good shape, and so I was healthy. She tried for years to convince me that I could not, in fact, eat whatever I wanted and be fine. I continued to exercise routinely but I also would buy a large stick of summer sausage, a bag of pepperoni, and a pound or two of pepper jack cheese every week. These all provided a rather heavenly bedtime snack. In addition to that, I ate a great deal of meat at every meal. I was burning so many calories through exercise, that I was sure that I was a well-oiled machine. To further bolster that image, I had in my head that my cholesterol level was only 121. The problem is that I was self-deceived. That cholesterol test was taken when I was in college. I was in shape, muscularly, but that was not the whole story. I had come to the point, however, that I was not really listening to my wife. Even though she was a professional health care provider, I figured I knew my body, and I was quite healthy. Then came my physical. I had avoided the doctor for quite a few years, figuring that I was so healthy that I didn’t need to see a doctor. Why waste my time with such trivial things? My wife made an appointment for me, however, and convinced me to go. I was shocked to learn that my cholesterol was now topping out at 206. I was stunned as I sat there listening to my doctor tell me that it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good either. I was going to have to change certain things. He told me I should stop drinking soda and coffee and begin exercising. I proudly told him that I never drank either beverage and reminded him of how much I was already exercising. This perplexed him a bit, but then he told me that some people are just prone to high cholesterol based on genetics. This is when I quietly confessed that I like to eat meat and cheese. When he asked me how much meat and cheese we were talking about, I told him. His mouth fell open, then he finally collected himself and responded, “You just can’t do that, I mean, you just can’t do that.” He proceeded to recommend a new diet for me that was largely going to turn me into a vegan. Since 104 that moment, I have been eager to take vitamins that promote lower cholesterol and change my diet (even though I have hated every meatless bit of it). So what changed for me? Why didn’t I listen to my wife but I did listen to the doctor? It comes down to evidence. I was self-deluded, and saw myself as completely healthy. When my wife told me I needed to change, I disregarded her words because it did not match up with the image of myself that I had created in my own mind. Why do something as drastic as cutting out foods that I love when there is nothing wrong with me? That trip to the doctor’s office changed everything. The doctor showed me, in no uncertain terms, the symptoms of problems within my body. He held up the facts and convinced me that my self-image was wrong. I was not nearly as healthy as I wished I was. I was on my way to impending doom. Now that I was convinced something was wrong, I was more than ready to hear what I needed to do to fix it. Even though I didn’t necessarily like the things I had to do, they were inconsequential to me once I realized my true condition. We have this same phenomenon going on in our culture today, and it has, I’m afraid, seeped into the worldview of far too many of our children. The American culture has created a false image of God, His love, His law, His grace, and the interaction between God and people. Teens are walking around our churches completely separated from God and are objects of His wrath. Rather than realizing that and quaking with the fear of God, however, most unbaptized teens walk around believing themselves to be fine. This is a clear result of three things. The first is the humanizing of God; the second is trivializing sin; the third is an incorrect understanding of God’s law and grace.

The Shrinking of God Our culture today has become very good at shrinking God. With each passing day He gets smaller. We have defined God down in our culture to the point where He is barely holy anymore, if at all. Instead, we have created a politically correct God that loves everyone and because of that, He will apply near-universal forgiveness to everyone. There are really two causes for this. The first is the post-modern re-definition of the word love. The biblical concept of our word love implies more of a loyalty to someone else than pure emotions. The love of God is perfect and pure, but inherent in God’s love are the ideas of justice and holiness. God cannot be in the presence of sin. Paul says that those who sin are objects of God’s wrath bringing down judgment on themselves (Romans 2:5). Our society, however, has nicely redefined the concept of love. In the post-modern worldview, tolerance is the greatest virtue of love. To love someone now means to accept and affirm someone fully for “who they 105 are.” Love no longer involves telling someone the truth out of a loyalty to them and the laws of God. It now means accepting them fully in whatever lifestyle choices they make. Anything less is considered oppressive hate. Armed with a new definition of love, our post-modern culture has now set their sights on God. The Bible tells us that God is love, so if we redefine what we mean by love, we are redefining God. Rather than a righteous and holy God that will not tolerate sin, we have a God that will accept nearly everything. We have fashioned a kinder, gentler, more tolerant God; one that accepts everything because of His unquestioned love for humanity. “He is all grace, so no grace is necessary. He is love without discrimination, mercy without law, power without intimidation, knowledge without conviction, truth without an attitude. He might even be a ‘she.’”1 The second cause of the shrinking of God is that we have made Him more of a buddy than a holy and omnipotent God. No longer is God a being of immense power to be feared and awed. He is our pal. Most Christians today talk of God in a way that if He showed up in their presence, they would be totally at peace; like hanging out with an old friend. This is quite different than the biblical descriptions of those who came into the presence of God. Cowering in fear is a more apt description of men who had a glimpse of the glory of God. Isaiah fell apart at the sight of God, crying out “Woe to me! I am ruined” (Isaiah 6:5). Ezekiel sat stunned and “overwhelmed” after seeing a vision from God (Ezekiel 3:15). Daniel was terrified and fell prostrate before a heavenly encounter and was exhausted and ill following (Daniel 8:17; 27). Belshazzar “face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way” (Daniel 5:6). After hearing from God, Job repented in “dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). The Roman guards at Jesus’ tomb “shook and became like dead men” (Matthew 28:4). The apostle John saw Jesus after His ascension and “fell at his feet though dead” (Revelation 1:17). It is no small thing to come into the presence of God. No man can see God face to face and live. His glory is far more intense than any man can stand. We can apprehend but not comprehend an all-mighty and all-powerful God. Rather than being given this picture of God, most teens think of God as much smaller than that. Our society no longer fears God. The Bible is clear that “God cannot be mocked” (Galatians 6:7), yet you wouldn’t know that by the attitude of most kids concerning God. The fear of God has not been discarded by our children, it has in most cases, not even been taught to them. Countless books on the shelves of Christian bookstores describe having a close and 106 personal relationship with God, our best friend. The holiness of God is seldom discussed in our society anymore. When God is more like us and less of who He really is, standards begin to diminish as well. Rather than a perfect and absolute standard of holiness to be chased after, God has been reduced to being like us. If there is no perfect standard then we cannot move closer to or farther from the truth. There can be no law or standards unless there is someone fit to make them. Without a right concept of God, sins become alternate choices and lifestyles and there is little to no incentive to change or aim higher. For those who do become Christians, a shrinking of God causes a lower level of commitment. Both the Christian and non-Christian began to judge themselves by those around them rather than by the standard of a perfect and holy God.

The Trivialization of Sin The idea of sin has all but disappeared in our culture today. Sin is no longer talked about it, no longer feared; it is as if it barely existed anymore. Author Steve DeNeff says that it’s “Not because we have bettered ourselves, nor even because we have denied it, but because we have given it another name besides ‘sin,’ another meaning besides ‘rebellion,’ another perpetrator besides ‘self,’ another enemy besides God, and another cure besides ‘atonement.’”2 Rather than blaming criminals for their acts, we blame society. A young man guns down someone in cold blood and it is blamed on the lack of basketball leagues. Riots are blamed on racial tension rather than immoral behavior. A mother coolly drowns her five children and is found not guilty. Our society no longer likes the idea of sin. It means that God is better than we thought and we are worse than we would care to admit. When we realize that we are living below the standards of God’s holiness, we are left with two choices. We can either live up to that standard or we can lower the expectations. DeNeff in his book, Whatever Became of Holiness, says that there are four methods through which our culture has defined down the concept of sin. The first is that we have diminished the holiness of God. The less we think of God, the higher opinion we have of ourselves. If God’s holiness is diminished, then our depravity is decreased exponentially. If God is not holy, though, we don’t really have to worry about things like sin, repentance, forgiveness, deliverance, or the need to change. The second method is that of the vanishing conscience. People today no longer feel guilty because personal responsibility has been taken away. All of our problems can be blamed on genetics, psychology, or our parents. People no longer feel the shame of sin because it is always 107 someone or something else’s fault. This leaves them dead in their sins because they never feel a reason to change. The third method is the defining down of deviancy. Rather than sin being sin, we have neatly divided sin into the categories of sins, errors, and normal. As sins become more popular and accepted in our society, we move them down a category so that sins become errors and errors become normal behavior. DeNeff gives examples of this categorizing of sin:

Bad people swindle others out of money. Normal people don’t report all of their income, or they sue for more than damages. Bad people get divorced. Normal people presume upon their marriages. Bad unwed teenagers abort their babies. Normal ones proudly carry them to full term. Good ones put them up for adoption.3

The final cause lies in the lap of the church. Most churches have shifted their focus from repentance to recruitment. Churches that focus on recruitment will make every effort to meet the felt needs of the community rather than dealing with sin and whether those needs are even righteous and should be met. They will talk about how to be happy and enjoy life rather than pleasing God and being holy. The Christian life will become confined to a couple of hours on Sunday morning.

Grace The most often used term in the Bible in describing God’s love for us is agape. It signifies a deep, non-sexual affection. I have heard sermons on agape love since I was a small child. It is probably the first Greek word that I ever learned. I, in no way, intend to lessen or cheapen God’s love for us as his creation. I do, however, feel the need to address what I see as a major error made in most Christian circles that has negatively impacted our children. The gist of the 2nd Commandment of God is to not create our own image of God. We should not invent our own God or our own, comfortable version of the God of the Bible. Despite that serious warning from God, we see different “versions” of God everywhere we look. I cannot tell you how many young people I have talked to that admit that they have not lived their life to please God, yet they think they will go to heaven because God is so loving and forgiving. This is very serious delusion to fall into. As far as the eye can see our society is full of people under this delusion as well as people who were seemingly converted only to walk away from God. I believe that a large majority of these people got where they are because of a mistaken impression of God’s character. The Bible never says that God will let us into heaven because He loves us so much. The Bible never says all we have to do is ask God for forgiveness 108 and He will do so. Why do so many people believe this then? One of the main reasons for this is the so-called church itself. For the last one hundred years or better, most Christian churches have stopped preaching and talking about the fear of God and true repentance. They have gone to an approach of preaching love, love, love. The love of Christ is all you need and it covers all your problems. What is wrong with that you ask? In our Humanist dominated culture, love means something different than what it means in the passages in the Bible. In the Bible a big part of love is truth, justice, and commitment. Without truth, love becomes enablement. Without justice, love becomes disrespect. Without commitment, love becomes abuse. The recent survey conducted with Christian youth indicated that 85% percent gave a “4” or “5” answer indicating strong agreement to the statement that “God will show His grace to the unsaved when they are judged.” The average score of all respondents was 4.2. This is a totally unbiblical and extremely dangerous belief that they have, one that comes straight out of our culture rather than the Word of God. In a similar vein, the average respondent score was 4.0, agreeing to the statement “It would be fair to say that the unsaved will be more affected by God’s love on judgment day than His wrath.” This belief too, goes clearly against Scripture. Focusing on God’s love and grace with the non-Christian teen, however, is not only unbiblical, it is damaging. We tell kids that there is a God-shaped hole in their heart that only Christ can fix. They will never be happy without God. The problem is that approaching young people with all the wonderful things that being a Christian will do for them and how much God loves them is a big mistake in our culture of relativism, and utopianism. Believe me, the last thing we want is for kids to enter into a relationship with God because they think it will give them a better life. Allow me to share an example that I used to use with my young basketball players when I was coaching. Imagine if one of them was getting ready to play some pick-up basketball at one of the parks near their house. As they prepared for the game, I convinced them to put on a bulletproof jacket to wear during their games. I tell them that it will improve their game and make for a much more enjoyable experience. So they put the jacket on hoping that it will be of benefit to them. They do not really understand the true purpose of the jacket but they put it on hoping that it is all I have cracked it up to be. Hey, maybe it will improve their game. As they begin to play they notice that it is heavy and somewhat uncomfortable. They are not used to wearing it. The jacket slows them down and makes it quite difficult to 109 shoot the way they used to. They also notice that everyone else is laughing at them. They are making fun of the fact that they are wearing this bizarre jacket and look different from everyone else. They try to persevere because I have promised them that this jacket would solve all of their problems. They figure that maybe they just put it on wrong. So they readjust it a little bit and continue playing. Now, on top of everything else they notice that wearing it makes them extremely hot. Finally, in disgust they rip it off and throw it to the ground. The other players give them a high five because they have finally come to their senses. They will walk away from that experience bitter towards the jacket and me. It will be a long time before they decide to ever put on that thing again. Now imagine the same scenario with a few minor changes. Rather than telling the player all of the great things this bulletproof jacket will bring to them, I simply explain to them that about ten minutes into their game there will be a drive-by shooting. If they are not wearing this jacket, they will likely die. Out of fear and the wish to avoid this disaster they will put the jacket on. Once they fully understand the danger they are in, their perspective changes. With this knowledge their attitude towards the jacket will also change dramatically. They will not care if it is uncomfortable or hot. That’s not why they put it on. They will not even think about whether or not it improves their game. They are overwhelmingly grateful that this jacket has saved them from the coming tragedy. Other people mocking them or the fact that they look different will not even faze them. They have been saved. Their fear motivated them, which led them to a deep sense of gratitude, which in turn leads to a profound appreciation of the bullet proof jacket. Many teens look to a relationship with God for what they can get out of it. Some are looking to fill the “god-shaped hole” in their life. Others are looking for God to be their best friend or the father they never had. Some are looking for peace and comfort. Some are hoping to replace the need for friends or to gain the admiration of the church in which they grew up. Still others are looking for the approval of their parents. They are, in short, looking for the fabled utopia. We, as Christians, have fallen into this mistake. We draw people into our church and sincerely tell them how great the church is. We share with them what a family we are and how much we help one another. We even attract some to the hard work of discipleship because it fills the emptiness of their boring and empty life. We share with them the wonderful things God has done in our lives. He has saved our marriages, made us better parents, and blessed us in our careers. We show people how much God has blessed us and many of them want in. We inadvertently pass on this same attitude to the young people in our church. They want to know how they can get the same blessings, the same peace, the same joy, and the same stuff. These 110 things are not bad but they can be a problem if these are the motivating factors in people coming to Christ. The trouble comes when the inevitable struggles of life come. I see no promises in the Bible that our life here on earth as disciples will be peachy keen. All one would need to do is to ask the first century Christians, who were tortured and killed, if the disciple’s life was so perfect. Listen to Paul’s description of his life as a disciple from II Corinthians 11:23-27:

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move, I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

Jesus warned his followers that following him meant persecution and picking up our cross daily. We were called to sacrifice our own desires not look to fulfill them through a life in Christ. The roadside of the past is littered with people who went into discipleship looking to see what they could get out of it. Once they realize that the Christian life does not guarantee blue skies, rainbows and perfect friendships. It doesn’t guarantee that they will do well on every test when they pray for God’s help, or never again be tempted to sin. The only thing that is guaranteed is that if this is their motivation they will get disillusioned. Like the example with the bulletproof jacket, they rip off their new Christian lifestyle in disgust because it did not live up to the vision of blissful utopia that they had imagined. Many of us have been unwittingly influenced by the Humanist view of utopia on earth and so we come into the church looking to find it and unwittingly pass this hope on to our children. Once people come to terms with the fact that life in Christ does not offer utopia here on earth, they become disillusioned. In the second scenario of the bulletproof jacket, the young man who first came to terms with his impending doom had a different motivation and a different perspective. It is vital that in order to fully appreciate these “benefits” that come from being a part of the Kingdom of God that our motivation is correct. If we go looking for happiness, we will not find it on this earth. If we go looking for truth, we will eventually find truth and happiness. When you truly understand the wrath of God and the fact that he is angry about sin and will punish those who sin, then you have a real appreciation for the reality of this life. When you understand what God has saved you 111 from, you will not care about the things this world has to offer. Anything you get here on earth is gravy. As stated earlier, the problem with using love as the great motivator to God is that people have a distorted image of what love is. For the majority of our society, love means helping someone in any way possible and not letting any harm come to them. They then throw this perception on to God and in effect create their own version of God. Our society has created a god who is so “loving” that he will not send anyone to hell. He wants only the best for us and will provide all the best things for his children. He will accept us just as we are because he is loving and forgiving. This way we do not really have to change; God’s love is all we need. They have turned God into a big sappy god, and transformed his wonderful love into a sloppy agape. People count on the fact that God is good and loving to get them out of going to hell; even though they have chosen hell by the way they have lived their lives. Imagine a referee in a basketball game who intentionally let people commit fouls and did not penalize them because who knew that they were good people at heart and didn’t mean it. Or imagine a judge who did not punish someone convicted of murder because they said they were sorry. These men would be fired and no one would think they were very professional or good at what they did. God is a perfect judge and he must punish sin. People are banking on God’s goodness to save them, yet sadly it is that very goodness that will convict them. If God does not punish sin he ceases to be good. A recent conversation I had with a young person demonstrates the dangers of a misconception of God. This young lady that we will call Catrina seemed to understand that she had broken God’s law and that God would find her guilty of this. For some reason, though, there seemed to be something hindering her. I was confused because I could not understand how someone could admit that they would be found guilty by God and be in very real danger of going to hell, and yet not want to do everything in their power to change their situation. As we began to talk further, the problem finally came out. It seems that earlier in her life Catrina had made a serious attempt to get close to God. Her grandmother, who had basically raised her, was quite ill while she was still a teenager. She occasionally attended her grandmother’s church and went there seeking comfort from God. She was given the impression that it was God’s will for everyone to be totally happy on earth and that He would give us whatever we asked for if we asked with an unselfish heart. He told her that all she had to do was pray and God would answer her. This sent her soul soaring. She now had hope. She began to pray that God would heal her grandmother and make everything better. Her motivation to come to God was what he would do for the family. I know a lot of Christians who would see no 112 problem with that. It does not matter how you get there, as long as you get there, right? After a short time, Catrina’s grandmother died. She was devastated and she was angry with God. She had been promised that this God of love would make everything better and he had not. This left Catrina with two options, in her mind. Either God was cruel and did not truly care about us or He did not exist. How sad. I believe that Catrina would have felt very differently had she been presented with a clearer picture of God. Catrina needs to come to God because she needs to be saved from the coming judgment not because God will do stuff for us. If she truly understood that God was angry with her and that she needed to repent, her perspective would change. Then she would, I believe, begin to see that God owes us nothing beyond salvation. That is all we really need, we do not need other blessings. Unfortunately, it was a pastor who gave her the wrong impression of God. It will be very difficult for these people who have bought into the sloppy agape version of God or who have been given the wrong motivation to find God to view Him with the proper perspective because we have given them the impression that the life of a disciple is without the problems that normal people face. The things of the world can be fun, let’s just admit it. They are only temporary, true, but they sure can be enticing. Not everyone who is not a disciple is walking around miserable and lonely. They have been so deceived by Satan that they think everything is fine. These are the people who have the comfortable life, the decent marriage, and they feel happy. Or they are the teens that have popularity and seemingly everything else going for them. Ignorance can be bliss. They have no need, in their view of the world, for the things of God. When we attempt to draw people to the Kingdom of God with promises of love and happiness, then we are creating an additional twofold problem for ourselves. We set up a situation in which we are trying to compete with the world on their level and we are limiting the people that will be attracted to God’s Kingdom. Competing with the world on their level cannot be done. It is fruitless. We cannot do this on the adult level and it is even more fruitless on the teen level. We should stop trying to make church fun all the time. I am not saying that having fun is bad or wrong but it cannot be what we use to draw people to God. The youth group or church simply cannot compete with the world on a “fun” level. We fool ourselves if we try. There is nothing more ineffective than to attempt to attract non-believer to the church with methods that appeal to the flesh and then bait-and-switch them over to spiritual things. Attracting people to God through physical and earthly happiness is to do just that, though. 113

The same is true for kids who have grown up in the church. We spend 15 years trying to convince our kids that God’s Kingdom is better and even more enjoyable than the world. While that is true, I believe it takes a while to get to that level. The ability to truly enjoy many of the fruits of the Kingdom of God requires the proper motives in entering it. This is related to the last issue talked about above. What happens, though, is that when the kids hit those teenage years they start to see that their friends can go to parties, and have boyfriends and girlfriends, and live a lifestyle that they cannot. If they have not yet grasped how to think Biblically, the ways of the world will look much better than being a disciple. The rough parts of being a disciple are always on display for them, while often the best parts are internal and hard for kids to understand. Then they begin to think that something is wrong with. They begin to think that they are just not wired to have an intimate relationship with God the way everyone else is. If our kids have the proper motivation, however, they will have a whole different perspective on the competing lifestyle that the world is offering. If they see themselves as nothing but pure sinners who have angered God and are heading for a very real judgment, they will have a lasting motivation to cling to God and avoid the things of the world. When happiness, fulfillment, and love are the main draws to God we limit our message to those who are depressed, unhappy, or those who just happen to be looking for something. This message is not very effective for those who are comfortable with their life. If God is only about what he can do for you, then why do they need that? They are just fine. What do we do with these people? Do we just focus on building long-term relationships and hope that God will humble them? Not everyone is searching to fill a hole in their life. If these people can see that they are building up the wrath of God towards themselves, then they will begin see their need for God. Let’s apply this specifically to teens. How do you draw to God the teen that is happy, popular, and has a full and busy life? It is difficult to convince them that they really need God’s love in their life. This is true even for kids who grew up in the church. They need to understand the fear of God in order to be properly motivated to seek His face. The kids who have grown up in the church have also fallen for this sloppy agape version of God. What happens for them is the same as for an unchurched individual. They believe that in the end God will accept them because he loves him. They believe they have plenty of time. They do not understand that God will allow them to spit in his face for only so long. His patience is great but it will expire. In surveying teens whose parents are disciples but who had not yet chosen that path, every single one of them responded that the reason that they are not yet disciples is because they are just not ready yet. The person who gives that answer is a person who does not 114 fear God. They think they have all the time in the world. If they understood the truth of their situation they would not think that way. This is a person who has bought into the big pushover, sloppy agape version of God. Many parents in the church will explain this away saying something like; “Well it’s okay if they’re not ready yet. No one said they have to be baptized by the time they are thirteen. We just have to wait for God’s timing.” To be honest, this is something we tell ourselves to make us feel better. If a child is well into his teen years and is rejecting God then something is wrong with the way they are thinking about God. (I am not in any way implying that this is the fault of the parent or that they should somehow be held accountable. Nor am I suggesting that these teens should be treated poorly or ostracized.) Martin Luther said that all sin comes from thinking wrong about God, and he was correct in that assessment. Waiting for the teen boy or girl to see how much God loves them is a huge gamble. Chances are pretty good that the Humanist and worldly brainwashing have begun to have an effect. It’s similar to Alzheimer’s. It starts slowly but once it gets going the effects can be devastating. If your child is in this situation my advice would be to not wait another minute. Talk to them. Get a feel for how they truly think about things. What is their worldview? Then you can begin the long slow process of deprogramming and retraining. For starters, though, confront these kids in a gentle but truthful way with the accurate picture of themselves as sinners and of a God who hates sin and will punish it. Let’s not forget that a huge aspect of love is truth. So how do we confront the young people in our churches with an accurate view of themselves? The clear biblical answer is that the grace of God is not the way to do it. It is, rather, the law of God that will lead them unto righteousness. Why not grace, you might ask? Isn’t the Bible full of God’s grace? Yes and no. Many people confuse grace with mercy and this leads to problems. Mercy is the compassionate treatment of others, especially those under one’s power. Grace is a favor or kindness given by one who doesn’t need to do so. God continually shows mercy to the unrepentant and non- believers throughout the pages of the Bible. Grace, however, is only for the repentant. Grace is for believers. There is no biblical example of grace being shown to a non-believer. Unsaved people in our world today, including young people, should not think that they have access to God’s grace, yet that is exactly what most people believe. Grace is for Christians. The unsaved will be met with God’s wrath, not His grace. Not only is the message or concept of God’s grace never offered to unbelievers, the Bible actually warns quite strongly against the concept. Let’s look at an example. 115

In the Gospel of John, chapter 13, we find an important detail of the Last Supper which is not mentioned in the accounts of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). According to John’s account Jesus finished the meal, wrapped a towel around His waist, and began washing the feet of the disciples in a basin. After He washed their feet, he dried them with the towel. Peter resisted this act of Christ humbling Himself, but withdrew his objection when Jesus told him plainly, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Upon finishing, Jesus asked if they understood what He had done for them. He explained that He wanted them to follow His example. “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:12-17). The more recent understanding of this act of Jesus is that it had to do with Jesus demonstrating humility and the heart to serve for His disciples. Is it possible, though, that this act of service of Jesus was much more than a lesson in humility? It is important to remember that Jesus performed this ceremony during the Last Supper from which we get our communion ceremony. John seems to have been aware of the accounts from the Synoptic Gospels and wanted to add information that was not included, rather than repeating the truths they had already laid out. In washing the feet of His disciples, Jesus was also linking the act of the Lord’s Supper with the concept of the spiritual cleansing that Christ offers to those who accept His atoning sacrifice for their sins by taking part in communion. We see this meaning implied in Jesus’ response to Peter, who asks to be washed all over rather than having no part with Christ. Jesus responded, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean. . .” (John 13:10). A person who is bathed is clean, but walking on dusty roads caused open-sandaled feet soon to become dusty and in need of washing again. Similarly, the disciples were clean (John 13:10) because their sins had been washed away. As they went about through the walk of everyday life, however, they walked on the dusty ground of sin. They needed Christ’s grace to cleanse their hearts again from sins like selfishness and pride, just as we do. So, is communion simply a time to remember what Christ did for us, a time for self- examination, and a look ahead to the promise of Christ’s return? These are definitely aspects of communion. But is there more to it than that? The early church believed so. They took 116 communion very seriously. They took communion every time they met together and did not allow non-believers to even be present during the Lord’s Supper. By the third century, it was nearly two years before a new convert was allowed to partake in the Lord’s Supper. They also believed that communion was a sacred time when the continued regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit was administered by the church for the church. This is where the foot washing symbolism of Jesus comes in. Christ was not only giving an example of humility and service, but more importantly He was teaching His disciples that once we are saved we do not need a bath, we simply need a foot washing. In other words, we don’t need to be re-baptized every time we sin but we do need to partake of God’s ongoing and cleansing grace. Communion, then, is far more than a mere ceremony of remembrance, but is a time when the cleansing grace of Christ flows upon us through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is why it is a time to examine ourselves and confess our sins before God. Communion is a vital sacrament in the ongoing grace of the Triune God. With this understanding, let’s look at Paul’s words regarding communion in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29. He says, “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.” Paul takes a very dim view of people attempting to access God’s grace, who are not in covenant with Him. He calls it “sinning” and says that they bring “judgment” on themselves. Grace is given by God on His terms, period. People who have not been offered God’s grace yet attempt to seize it, bring God’s wrath and judgment on themselves. The unsaved teen who believes that God will offer them grace if they die in their sins is sadly mistaken. The teen that thinks that they can wait and turn to God whenever they so choose are playing a dangerous game because they do not fear God and they have perverted His mercy and grace.

Law There is a lot of confusion among your average Christian about God’s law. What is it for? Does it apply to us? Before we begin let me explain briefly the types of law. Most Biblical experts agree that there are three types of law found in the Old Testament: moral law, civil law, and ceremonial law. Equally agreed upon by most experts is the fact that the moral law does still apply to us today. Jesus, himself, said that he did not come to change the law but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17-19) The moral law is transcendent. The other two types are no longer binding. 117

For the purposes of this section, when I refer to law, I will be referring to the moral law and more specifically to the Ten Commandments. First let’s quickly examine what the law is not. The law does not justify or save us. (Romans 3:20, Galatians 2:16, Galatians 3:1-14). Following and observing the Ten Commandments will not make us righteous nor will it get anyone to heaven. The law, then, is not for those seeking to be saved, as they are justified by God’s grace not the law. (Romans 6:14) Those who are already saved are not under the law either; rather we are to be ruled by love. (Romans 13:10) This is what Jesus meant when he said that he came to fulfill the law. His grace and love rendered the law moot for those seeking to be justified or for those already justified. The question arises, then, for what do we need the law today? Paul gives us the answer to that. Paul reminds us that the law is holy (Romans 7:12), it is spiritual (Romans 7:14), and it embodies knowledge and truth (Romans 2:20). He also says that the law is good if it is used in a lawful manner. What is that lawful manner? Psalm 19:7 tells us that the law is perfect in converting the soul. The law is for sinners (I Timothy 1:9). Paul tells us that without the law we would not know what sin is (Romans 7:7-8). The law defines for us what sin is. John further explained, telling us that breaking the law is, in fact, sin (I John 3:14). Romans 3:20 states that we don’t become righteous by following the law, rather the law makes us aware of our sin. The law acts as our mirror, showing us where we truly stand in the sight of God. The law shows us why we need God. We have broken His law and fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). The law acts as our schoolmaster, instructing us as to our true nature (Galatians 3:24). Just as I was ready to correct the way I was eating when I understood the true status of my health, people are far more likely to correct their situation with God when they understand that they are under His wrath and not His grace (Romans 2:5). The law shows us clearly the disease that we have. Most Christians I know that have been disciples for a while relay that what really woke them up to their need for God was good old fashioned fear of the wrath of God. This was the initiator that brought them into the love of God. The fear must come first in order to have a proper perspective. The Bible tells us that the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9;10). I have yet to find a verse that says that the love of God is the beginning of wisdom. Fear can be a good thing. I am disturbed by how many churches these days seem to want to cover up the whole concept of the fear of God. They want to stress God’s grace and love. Grace and love without the preceding proper amount of fear produces a dangerous harvest. 118

We must help our kids to see that if they sin, it is not okay. Too many of our kids think that if they have good intentions and mean well then, everything is fine. They must be made aware, in no uncertain terms, that God is angered by sin. When we break one part of the law, we break all of the law (James 2:10-11). The law brings the wrath of God (Romans 4:15), because we have all broken it. God will unleash his wrath on those who have chosen to reject the truth and break the law (Romans 2:5-9). The scary part is that we have a bunch of kids in our churches who are standing on the tracks and do not want to believe that the train is coming. There is one other dangerous mindset when it comes to sin that must be discussed here. I have recently spent a fair amount of time looking around MySpace at the sites of different teen and college students who are part of or have grown up in the church. In doing this, I have discovered a disturbing mindset among the young people who have not chosen to live the life of a disciple. They seem to be under the impression that their sin is actually a good thing. Any troubles or trials they go through are seen not as a negative result of sin, but as a positive experience that God wants them to go through. After talking to several young people about this mindset, it became clearer to me. They justify but arguing that most of the adults in the church went through hard times and lived very sinful lifestyles and that God used that to teach them lessons and make them who they are today. They argue that they will never be who God wants them to be one day, if they do not experience a certain amount of sin and “fun”. While it is true that God will work in our lives and through our circumstances, it is a fatal flaw in thinking to believe that this is somehow God’s will for everyone. What these young people need to have explained to them is that this line of thinking is incredibly dangerous. The fact is that I did live a sinful lifestyle before I became a Christian. What is also true, however, is that these sins did not help make me who I am, rather they kept me from being who God intended me to be. My life of sin had terrible consequences. I hurt people. I damaged people’s lives. There are things that I did and experienced, that continue to have repercussions in my life and my marriage to this day. This is true for everyone. Sins don’t make us who we are, they make us God’s enemies and build up His wrath towards us (Romans 2:5-6).

Using the Ten Commandments Young people need to be aware of precisely how their lives match up with the standard of God as given in the Ten Commandments. When asked if they considered themselves to be “a good person,” every single non-Christian teen surveyed said that they did consider themselves to be a good person. This is what happens when we judge ourselves according to the standards of other people rather than God’s law. When compared to God’s glory, we all fall far short 119

(Romans 3:23). The Bible tells us that it is our duty to follow God’s commandments because we will be judged by them (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). The only thing that will keep us from being judged by God’s law is to clothe ourselves with Christ and be judged by grace (Romans 6:14). Here is a helpful paraphrase of the Ten Commandments (in the Hebrew, the word is actually words or utterances rather than commandments) that I use to help young people understand God’s standard for them. 1. Don’t have other gods in my face The question here is simple: Has God always been first in your life? Has every decision you ever made been filtered through your biblical glasses? Have you always done things God’s way. When we put anything ahead of God in importance we have violated this word from God. What is the primary other god in our life? It is none other than us. Since the Garden of Eden the human race has been attempting to set ourselves up as our own gods and do things our way rather than God’s.

2. Don’t make a representative image of anything that will take the place in your life that should be reserved for God

Here we see a similar concept to the first commandment, so we know that it must be important to God. We are not to take or make things and worship them. Only God is to be worshiped. To worship something means we give it our love and devotion. This would include money, sports, other people, etc. A real danger here is to create our own version of God. We see people in our culture do this all the time. They say things like, “My God would never send people to hell for a few mistakes,” or “the God I worship values only love and if two people really love each other, that’s all that matters.” What people do when they make these statements and statements like them is to create their own version of God separate from the one true God that has revealed Himself through His Word. This is a violation of the second word.

3. Do not carry the name of Yahweh your God in an empty or worthless manner This word is usually reduced to not using God’s name as a curse word, yet it means so much more than that. The word nasa is translated “take” in the KJV and “misuse” in the NIV. It really means to carry or bear in an exalted manner. In other words, we are to be bearers of God’s name. We are to be His ambassadors and representatives. When we fail to do that we drag God’s name 120

through the mud rather than exalt it. When we think in an ungodly manner or act in an ungodly way, we fail to carry the name of God well. This is a violation of the reason and purpose for which we were made.

4. Remember to keep the Sabbath set apart What about keeping the Sabbath day set apart? Are we still obligated to uphold this part of the law? The view of the early church was that Christians are not obligated to observe the Sabbath as the Jews did. They believed that Christians were to set apart every single day for honoring God with their work and actions. This means that the person who does not honor Jesus Christ with every part of their life, everyday of the week, violates this word from God.

5. Show respect for your mother and father God has set up the institution of the family and given authority to parents to fulfill His purposes for mankind. Our parents are called to follow God’s laws. Children, then, are called to obey parents as the direct representatives of God’s authority in their lives. A quick note to parents here; when we fail to set up a godly household and set a biblical example we are, in essence, violating our part of this word. Children are called, however, to respect the authority of their parents. The only exception to this is if the parent is asking them to do something that clearly goes against God’s word.

6. Don’t kill When asked if they have violated this word, most people smile thinking they are safe. They have finally gotten down to one of these that they haven’t broken. What they don’t realize, however, is that Jesus said that when we hate another person we have already violated this word (Matthew 5:21-22). Why is that? It is because, the heart and mental actions behind hatred are the identical heart and mental actions behind murder. Jesus’ standard is that what goes on in the mind is just as important as what goes on in the physical world.

7. Don’t commit adultery This is another one that causes people to think they are safe at first. Jesus, however, applied the level of the heart to this word as well. He said that one who 121

even looked with lust violated this word (Matthew 5:27-28). Looking at another person with lust in your heart comes from the same mental and heart actions from which adultery comes.

8. Don’t steal This word is pretty straightforward, and yet nearly everyone has broken it. It doesn’t matter how tiny or insignificant is the item that was taken. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. If I steal $1,000 out of your wallet, am I a thief? If I steal $1 out of your wallet, am I thief? It doesn’t matter how small the item, theft is theft.

9. Don’t lie I have asked hundreds of people how they stack up against the Ten Commandments. I usually only need to ask them about three or four and they get quickly get the picture. I always start with this one. I have yet to meet a human being who even tries to claim that they have not broken this word. Everybody has lied and they know. The key here is to help people see that if they have told even one lie they are a liar. It takes only one murder to be a murderer. It takes only one lie to be a liar.

10. Don’t desire other people’s stuff God wants us to stay away from coveting and desiring what other people have. Why? It is because it leads to many other sins and causes us so much unhappiness.

The reason to confront young people with these ten words from God is that it is biblical. Jesus never talked to any unbeliever about how much God loves them or what a wonderful plan He has for their lives. He confronted them with God’s standards of living and their own sin (John 4:17; Matthew 19:18-21). Paul said that the law was a schoolmaster that was designed to be a mirror to lead us to Christ by showing us how far from God’s glory we really are (Galatians 3:24). Once a young person truly understands their failure to meet God’s standards, and has a proper fear of God, they will be ready to see things as they really are. It is not until these things are seen as God sees them, and one understands that they are an object of God’s wrath that they can truly turn to God in repentance. 122

Chapter 6 – Every High Hill and Spreading Tree

The United States first officially declared it’s independence on July 2, 1776. Two days later it was announced publicly. It would take seven long years of war before the Treaty of Paris would be signed giving the United States it’s recognized independence from Great Britain. During that time, however, the United States began to run as though it were an independent nation. They formed a national government, and began to make laws and do business as a national government would do. It wasn’t long, though, before the leaders of the new country realized that the set of laws called the Articles of Confederation were not going to work. Nothing made this clearer than the summer and fall of 1786. Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, faced debtor’s prison when he returned from the War because of the heavy debt he carried. He believed strongly that the large part of the blame for his situation went to the new government due to the heavy taxation to which he had been under. Shays and many other farmers demanded that the courts be closed so they would not lose their farm to creditors. The government refused so in September, 1786, Shay led a small army of 1,200 farmers to close the courts themselves. State officials hurriedly called out the militia. In the skirmish that followed, four of Shays rebels were killed and the rest were scattered. This made it clear, however, that something was wrong. It was time for a stronger national government. In their attempt to prevent abuse, severe limitations had been placed on the national government. It was obvious to most by now, though, that the government was too weak. In May, 1787 delegates from all of the thirteen states except Rhode Island gathered in Philadelphia to discuss possible changes to the Articles of Confederation. Even though it was technically illegal, they quickly decided to completely scrap the Articles and form a new government. The Articles were cobbled together quickly during a war, now they would take their time, compromise, and come up with a strong yet limited government that would last. Once this new Constitution was completed, the framers set up a ratification process that called for each state to hold a special convention. Delegates to the convention would be chosen by voters. It was those delegates who would accept or reject the Constitution. Two sides were quickly formed concerning the Constitution. Those who supported it were called the Federalists. Those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution were called the anti-Federalists. These two sides quickly set out on public relations campaigns to convince voters of their beliefs. The Federalists were led by men such as George Washington, James Madison, 123 and Alexander Hamilton. While the leading anti-federalists were well-known national heroes such as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Richard Henry Lee. Between October, 1787 and August, 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote a series of essays that appeared in various New York newspapers under the pseudonym “Publius.” These eighty-five essays have come to be known as the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers argued the urgent need for an adequate central government and how well a republican form of government could be expanded to govern such a large nation. These essays have been recognized as the most powerful defense of the new Constitution, and have been deemed a classic in constitutional theory. One of the most effective aspects of the Federalist Papers is that they boldly proclaimed the positive aspects of the Constitution and demonstrated why it would be of such great benefit to the citizens of the United States. The Anti-Federalists produced many works criticizing the Constitution. The most widely read of these critiques was Letters from the Federal Farmer, by Richard Henry Lee. Lee’s primary concern was the freedoms that were not directly protected in the Constitution. The Constitution was, of course, ratified by the people and became the law of the land. The primary reason was simple. The Federalists had been more convincing in their public relations campaign than were the Anti-Federalists. In many ways our job with our children comes down to a public relations campaign. It is our job to train our children in the ways of God and to teach them His Word. At the same time, we must convince our children that the ways of Satan and the world are empty when compared to following and obeying God. The facts are, however, that far too many children of Christians have embraced the world and rejected God’s Word. We have, in effect, lost the public relations campaign in their heart. In order to realize why this is true, we must understand four basic components. The first is to understand why idolatry and turning to things other than God appealed to people in the Bible times and why these things continue to attract. The second is to understand the public relations campaign that the world undertakes constantly. The third is to comprehend the nature of God’s law and His love, and the fourth is to move Christianity beyond being a “stop, no, and don’t” religion.

The Appeal of Idolatry Throughout the history of Israel, God warned them about the dangers of idolatry and worshiping other Gods. God knows how He created us and He knows what we need. He knows that He made us to need a relationship with Him. If we settle for anything less, we are running at 124 less than optimum and will eventually break. The number one way that tools are broken is if they are used for something other than their intended purpose. God made us to have a walk with Him and to be His representative on earth. When we don’t do that, we cease to be used for our intended purpose. God does not want that for us so He has always warned mankind about the danger of following things other than Him. Despite His clear expectations, the people of Israel never seemed to be able to overcome the appeal of idolatry. God clearly warns against it in the Ten Commandments, yet even Israel’s kings would not heed God’s loving words. In 2 Samuel 2:8, for instance, we learn that one of King Saul’s sons is named Ish-boseth. That means “son of shame” and was not his son’s real name. The writer of Samuel was so ashamed of Saul’s son’s real name that he could not even bring himself to write it. The boy’s real name was Ish-Ba’al, which means “son of Ba’al,” the pagan god of the Canaanites. The King of God’s people had named his son after a pagan God! King David was, of course, a man after God’s own heart. He remained a staunch monotheist devoted to God. His own son and successor, Solomon, though, turned back to idolatry as he got older (1 Kings 11:4). Israel’s continued unfaithfulness led God to eventually ask them “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” The question arises, why would the Israelites continually turn away from God to worthless idols? It’s easy to sit back and criticize the Israelites from our perspective and point out how silly they were. A closer examination, however, will show us just how similar we really are to them. Looking at the reasons they were attracted to idolatry will also help give us some insight into why the world appeals to our children. There are nine specific areas in which idolatry appealed to people. First, idolatry was guaranteed. The Hebrew world Tselem is usually translated as either ‘idol’ or ‘image.’ When Genesis 1:26 says that man was made in God’s image, it is the same word translated as idol in the Ten Commandments. An idol was the image or representative of God. Idolatry was appealing because you could go and be guaranteed that you were in the presence of your god whenever you wanted. They didn’t believe that the idol was their god, only that it was a representative of him or her. It is much the same concept as the telephone. The voice of the other person is not literally in the phone. So, the idol was not the god, but it did guarantee that you could be in the presence of their direct representative. Even though the idol could not really fix any problems, it gave an immediate comfort and made the person feel better, even if only temporarily. 125

Second, the idolatry of the pagan religions appealed to the selfish nature. In the ancient world it was believed that gods could do everything for themselves except one vital function. They could not feed themselves. There is even an amusing scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh in which the gods are eagerly awaiting the humans to get off the boat to feed them because they are starving. The beauty of this system for the individual was that you fed the gods and appeased them, but then you got to take the food back. Plus, you were guaranteed that whatever you gave to the gods, would be returned to you in fertility and wealth. This was an automatic guarantee according to pagan beliefs. The Israelites, on the other hand, were to tithe out of love and obedience to God. Third, it was easy. Pagan idolatry was a system of religion without ethics. You could basically live however you wanted as long as the gods were appeased. If you took care of your duties of giving to the gods, you could live however you wanted. The gods puts little, if any, ethical restrictions on your life. In essence, the real god of your life was you. This stands in stark contrast to the Israelites who were under the sovereign commands of Yahweh. They were obligated, as the people of God, to follow His commands and obey God. Following Yahweh took a great deal of faith and self-denial, and could be rather difficult and rigorous. Fourth, idolatry was convenient. The Bible describes that there were pagan places of worship on every high hill and under every spreading tree (Deuteronomy 12:2, 1 Kings 14:23, etc.). Your pagan god could be worshiped anytime, any day, anywhere. For the Israelites, however, God could only be specifically worshiped three times a year and it required traveling to Jerusalem. Although we can now worship God anytime, anywhere, there are still many elements of being a Christian that are far more inconvenient that doing things our own way. Fifth, idolatry was normal. Everyone in the pagan world was a polytheist except for Israel. It was considered odd to think that there was only one God. For them it was just the way of life. Worshiping one God meant to be an outcast from the rest of the world. When the Israelites settled in Canaan they were surrounded by Canaanites. It was normal that they would pick up certain normal practices from the normal people around them. For instance, if one were planting a field, it was normal to perform rituals to please the earth god as you were planting the seed. This is just how it was done. If it worked and it was normal, what could be the harm? Plus, worshiping an invisible God seemed highly strange. He had no idol or representative and His presence was not guaranteed. Idolatry was also the way of the economic superpowers of the day. Following Yahweh seemed risky and not nearly as guaranteed as the pagan ways of their neighbors. 126

Sixth, the pagan system of idolatry was imminently logical. Having more than one god just made good sense. It was illogical to assume that one God could do everything that was necessary in order to keep the world running. The Assyrians, for instance, had 611 gods. They had a god for everything including a god of fresh water, a god of salt water, a god of stony ground, a god of clay ground, etc. The Egyptians worshiped just about everything that moved including the dung beetle. It is also important to understand the pagan concepts of gods. Each person might worship at least three gods on a regular basis while still giving a certain amount of homage to all other necessary gods. First, there was the national god. This was the god of war and protection that would keep the nation safe and prosperous. This god would be called upon only for major events and crises. Second, there was the family or clan god. This was the god that would pay special attention to one’s particular family or clan, and who would protect and prosper them. Finally, there was the personal god. When someone got ill, for example, they would have family members sacrifice to a local god. If they did not get better, they would have them try another god the next day. This was done until they got better. Once they recovered after sacrificing to a particular god it was assumed that this was the god that cared about you, so he or she became your personal god. The Israelites, then, never completely abandoned Yahweh, they just did the normal and logical thing. They relegated him to the status of national God, but began to worship other family and personal gods. Thus, when things got really bad they might call on Him but they failed to obey His call to worship Him alone. Seventh, idolatry was pleasing to the senses. It was comforting because one could go the idol and touch it, handle it, and kiss it. It provided an immediate comfort that couldn’t be matched in the same way through faith in an invisible God. Worshiping pagan gods was exciting, titillating, and immediate. In addition, one could make a great deal of money by making and selling idols. It was good for the economy. Eighth, idolatry appealed to the indulgent nature of man. One could only eat meat that had been sacrificed to a god. We see Paul discussing this issue with the Corinthians when they wanted to eat out somewhere. All of this food had been sacrificed to idols. The pagan meals were all about indulgence. They didn’t eat meat all the time so when they did they stuffed themselves. Pagan meals were about gorging on meat and alcohol. This is why Paul had to remind the new Christians at Corinth that the Lord’s Supper was not this kind of meal. It was not about stuffing themselves. Finally, pagan idolatry appealed to the erotic nature of humans. Sex was a regular part of the process of idolatry. Sexual preferences of all types were accommodated. Nearly all pagan blessing had to do with fertility. They believed that all creation was procreation. Sex stimulated 127 nature so it became part of worship. Sex with gods stimulated them to produce fertility of all kinds. This is why the Old Testament is so adamant about encouraging the Israelites to stay away from mixing seeds and types of cloths. These were all part of the pagan belief system to encourage fertility. They literally believed that this type of mixing actually resulted in their mating, which stimulated the gods, which led to greater fertility.

Spin City The parallels between the attractions of idolatry in the Old Testament time and the attraction of sin and the world today are striking. The facts are, sin seems attractive because of the PR job that Satan does in selling it to us. Going back to the Garden of Eden, Satan sold Eve on the alleged benefits of disobeying God. He convinced her that she could be like God. What was never mentioned was the terrible downsides of her sin. Satan knew very well what would happen as a result of Eve’s sin. That was his whole purpose. Jesus said that Satan’s purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10). We need not look very far to see Satan still using this technique in our world today. Sin is all about good public relations. If people were intensely aware of the truth and the harm of sin, we would be far more likely to leave it alone. It is only appealing because it is presented only as appealing. Let’s choose just three areas in which Satan has done this extremely well in our culture: sex and materialism, and pleasure. Our world is inundated with sex and pornography. It’s like a new verse to the Old MacDonald song: here some porn, there some porn, everywhere some porn, porn. Let’s start with a few facts about pornography in the United States:

• Pornography generates approximately $1 billion annually with growth projections to $5-7 billion over the next 5 years, barring unforeseen change (NRC Report 2002)

• 345% increase in child pornography sites between 2/2001-7/2001 (N2H2, 8/01)

• 25 million Americans visit cybersex sites between 1-10 hours per week (MSNBC Survey 2000)

• The U.S. Customs Service estimates that there are more than 100,000 websites offering child pornography - which is illegal, worldwide (Red Herring Magazine, 1/18/02)

• 9 in 10 kids 8-16 yrs. have viewed porn online, mostly accidentally while doing homework (UK News Telegraph, NOP Research Group, 1/07/02)

• According to the Justice Department, in 1998 there were 28,000 X-rated websites, generating $925 million in revenue. By 2001, there were 280,000 X- rated websites, 128

generating over $10-20 billion in revenue (The Wall Street Journal 26 Nov. 2001). [It is now estimated that the number of X-rated websites numbers over 5,000,000.]

• 62% of parents of teenagers are unaware that their children have accessed objectionable websites (Yankelovich Partners study, Sept. 30, 1999).

• 60% of all web-site visits are sexual in nature (MSNBC /Stanford/Duquesne study, Washington Times Jan. 26, 2000).

• 51% of pastors admit that looking at internet pornography is their biggest temptation. (Christianity Today, December 2002)

• According to a U.S. News and World Report article, the porn industry recently took in more than $8 billion in one year. More than all revenues generated by rock and country music, more than America spent on Broadway productions, theater, ballet, jazz and classical music combined.

• Americans spend an estimated $8-10 billion annually on pornography. This exceeds the combined gross of ABC, CBS, and NBC, which is $6.2 billion.

• The average age at which men first see Playboy or a similar magazine is 11.

• Early sexual intercourse among American adolescents represents a major public health problem. According to the most recent data, 61% of all high school seniors have had sexual intercourse, about half are currently sexually active, and 21% have had 4 or more partners. (American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) statement, January 2001)

• In one content analysis, 75% of concept videos (videos that tell a story) involved sexual imagery, and more than half involved violence, usually against women. (AAP statement, January 2001) 4

Sex is big business in America. It is everywhere on the internet, as the previous statistics show. Everywhere we turn in our society we see sex. It is on TV in every imaginable form. It is in the movies. It is in the front display windows of stores in our malls. It is on the radio. Recently I was on my way to speak to a group of about 130 teenagers. I knew that one of the things I was going to be talking about was this very topic. My drive was about 45-minutes, so I decided to listen to the local popular radio station on the way just to see what they were playing. It was a Saturday morning so they were playing the top 40 songs of the week. Through the course of my drive I listened from number 17 down through number 3 or 4. Every single song made an overt reference to sex or sexual behavior. When I got to the conference I asked the kids at this Christian teen conference how many of them had seen pornography on the internet. Every single hand went up. 129

What is almost never mentioned in our society is the downside of sex. Our kids never hear about statistics like these below:

• Approximately one fourth of sexually active adolescents become infected with an STD each year, accounting for 3 million cases, and people under the age of 25 account for two thirds of all STDs in the United States. (AAP statement, January 2001)

• Adolescents have ranked the media second only to school sex education programs as a leading source of information about sex. (AAP statement, January 2001)

• The average American adolescent will view nearly 14 000 sexual references per year, yet only 165 of these references deal with birth control, self-control, abstinence, or the risk of pregnancy or STDs. (AAP statement, January 2001)5

Our kids are never told that 40,000,000 children have been aborted in the United States in the last 30 years, due in large part, to teen-agers having sex. They aren’t told of the millions of broken hearts and suicides as a result of pre-marital sex. They aren’t told that study after study shows that married Christian women report (by far) the highest levels of satisfaction with their sex life. The point is that all kids see in our society is sex. They don’t, however, see both sides of the issue. They see the positive, “fun”, “normal” side of sex. They are never told that Satan’s version of sex is a lie. It steals their innocence, destroys the real purpose of sex, and kills their soul. The same could be said of materialism. Advertisers spend billions of dollars every year targeting children. They are trained from the time they are two or three years old to be little consumers. They are told that they always need more, bigger, and better. This is all a good thing. They are only shown the positives of materialism. They see how fun it is to have the new toy, the better video game system, or the latest version of the same game they have already purchased five times before. Being materialistic is only a good thing. Kids are never told the downside. They are never told about satiation; that once they get hooked on materialism they will never be happy. Our society is a debt culture. The person in debt can never be truly free. Kids are taught materialism as a normal part of life and by the time they are adults, many are so far in debt that they must continue to dance to the world’s tune. It is the same story for pleasure. Most of the time, any aspect of pleasure in our society is presented as a good thing. “If it feels good, do it.” But again, only the illusions of pleasure are presented. The world is never honest about the downsides of so-called pleasure. They are never shown pictures of the ruined lives of people who spent all their time seeking the world’s definition of pleasure. 130

The problem with all of this is that rather than presenting the destructive aspects of these perversions, we spend most of our time simply telling kids “stop, no, and don’t.” What happens as a result is that we, unwittingly, create an image in the minds of our young people, in which the world and sin are where all the fun is at and the Kingdom of God is what we should do when we have decided we have had enough fun. They begin to see holiness as the absence of fun. The truth is that evil only exists as a perversion of good. As we have already discussed, God is perfectly good and His creation was good. Every creature and object that God created was good in their original created state. Evil is not an independent force but rather arises from the free will ability to go against God’s will. When that free will is abused, the nature of the being is corrupted by its disobedience. This means that evil does not exist independently but only as a corruption of the good. Every evil act by an intelligible human being is not a new thing, but rather a corruption of some aspect of God’s originally good creation. Evil does not harm or disrupt God’s rule of His universe but it does corrupt His finite and corruptible created beings. Think of it like this. Evil is similar to the rust on a car. If you have a rusty car you still have a car but it would be better without the rust. If you take the rust away you still have a car. If, however, you take the car away, you cannot have just rust. Rust cannot exist without the car and evil cannot exist without good. Three questions from the previously mentioned survey given to teens demonstrate this belief that the world is fun and God’s way is the absence of fun. In the survey, kids were asked to respond to a set of statements. A response of “1” indicated that they strongly disagreed with the statement. A response of “5” indicated that the strongly agreed with the statement. When responding to the statement that “The non-Christian life seems more fun than the Christian life,” the average score of responses was 3.9. Another statement that the students were asked to respond to said that most of the laws of God are given “to test our obedience and don’t really have a purpose beyond that.” The average response score 4.6. What this means is that these kids are buying into this view that sin is fun and the Christian life is the absence of fun. They believe that God gives us laws for no better reason than to tell us not to do things. This results in a very negative view of Christianity and a positive view of the life of sin. It goes a long way in explaining why so many want to wait many years before they become Christians. Every single respondent to this survey indicated that if they were not currently a Christian they would consider it down the road but not now because they had “more things that they would like to experience first.” This speaks to the fact that Christian parents have failed in communicating the positive aspects of God’s law and the Bible and we have passed on a “stop, no, and don’t” religion. This 131 is a result of an incorrect view of God’s law and a failure to reveal that the plan of God touches every area of our lives, it is authentic, and it is far better for us than Satan’s counterfeits.

The Christian Presentation Allow me to ask a question that may already be bothering you. Aren’t I contradicting what I said last chapter by saying that a more positive version of Christianity needs to be presented? Didn’t I just get done saying that kids need to know of God’s law before they can understand His grace? I did, and I still maintain that. The problem is that we often view God’s law incorrectly so Christianity is seen in a negative light. The law is intended to show man where we have fallen short of God’s glory. It does show us our sin, but that is not a bad thing. Being aware of sin is a good thing if it moves us toward humility before God. There is no biblical justification to argue that grace moves the sinner towards God; that is the work of the law. The law is not grace specifically but it does demonstrate God’s love. God knows that He made us to need Him. Any separation between God and us is detrimental to us both in time and in eternity. God’s law is a concession given to imperfect humans that are prone to sin. It is a wake-up call alerting us to our sin so that we won’t die in our sins. In that respect, the law is like pain in our body. It alerts us to the fact that something is wrong. This is why Hosea 6:6 says, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Sacrifice, offerings, and the law are only necessary because we fail in love and our knowledge and understanding of God. If we loved God perfectly, the law wouldn’t be necessary, but we don’t, so it is. We must present the law to kids, but make them aware that the law is still a sign of God’s love. A few years back I was listening to a teaching pastor who explained that the Ten Commandments were very similar to an ancient Jewish marriage custom called the Toshuba. The Toshuba was a list given by the father of the bride to both the bride and groom before they were married. It was not merely a list of rules, although it may have appeared that way to the casual observer. The Toshuba was actually a description of how the couple would live if they wanted complete joy. It was up to them whether they viewed it as an oppressive set of rules or a loving description that would usher them towards their happiest life possible. The Toshuba was a statement of elements necessary for a happy marriage. The law of God is a statement of properties of the universe that can be no more questioned than the law of gravity or the law of electricity. We don’t jump off a ten-story building and not expect to be flattened when we land. Yet for some reason, we break God’s moral law and seem shocked when bad things happen. When we break God’s law, we are like someone who has jumped off that ten-story building and 132 then looked around somewhere around the fourth floor and figured they were fine because nothing bad has happened yet. God’s law is not a divine set of rules for which we will be punished if we break. It is a set of instructions from a loving God of how we were created to live. It is no more oppressive than the law of gravity or an instructional booklet that teaches us how to use our new TV set. God created us to have a loving relationship with Him. Breaking the law is an attempt to fill our hearts with something other than on what we were designed to run. God understands this and doesn’t want us to “mess up” the engines of our souls, so he warns us. Obeying God’s Law, in fact, prepares us for the ‘age to come’ when things will be put right between God and His creation. It is a glimpse forward in time to what the world will look like after the Resurrection, when all things have been restored to their original glory. Imagine a world where none of the Ten Commandments were ever broken. That is not an oppressive place to think about, but a wonderful place where the entire creation is set to rights. Teens won’t see this, though, if they understand God’s laws as a set of oppressive rules to keep us from the fun that Satan is trying to offer to us. Satan is not a great humanist that wants us to enjoy ourselves. He hates God, and his work is to steal, kill, and destroy us. It is imperative that we move Christianity beyond a “stop, no, and don’t” proposition for our kids. This is to do injustice to God, to the life He envisions for us, and to our children. So how does this work? It means that we don’t just tell kids that they shouldn’t have sex, or fall prey to materialism, or seek empty forms of pleasure, or drink, or do drugs, or go to parties. Rather, we should take a two-method approach. The first part is to teach kids in detail the truth about the sins that the world holds so dear. They must understand that these sins that seem so attractive, normal, and fun are little more than Satan’s flypaper used to attract us in order that he can steal, kill, and destroy us. These things are not fun; they are perversions of the good things that God planned for us. That leads us into the second aspect which is stressing the positives of God’s plan for His created beings. God created the concept of sex. He wants us to enjoy it, but just like anything else it is bound by laws. Sex was designed for marriage between a man and a woman; end of story. Any expression other than that is not fun. It is poison directly from the cabinet of Satan designed to look like fun. So it is with anything that looks like fun. Don’t try to hide the fact from kids that the things of the world look like fun. Tell them in detail how it will be presented by the world and how it will seem like fun. The reality of the world’s counterfeit endeavors needs to be presented as well. Every sin we can possibly imagine is nothing more than a 133 perversion of the love of God that He wished to share with us. Choosing to act outside of God’s law is to settle for far less than the best from one who wants only to steal, kill, and destroy.

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Chapter 7 – The Rare Jewel

Can a lack of knowledge really lead to the downfall of a people? We all probably know people who did not receive much of an education and yet have prospered in life. Some of the richest men in the world didn’t do very well in school. So, is education really all that important? While I would argue that receiving a secular education is important, it is not a matter of life and death. Can the same be said for a biblical education? I don’t think so. The teaching of the Bible is unequaled in its importance. The lessons from history are clear; when people reject the serious study of God’s Word, God will eventually reject them. In the final days before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians, the prophet Hosea railed against Israel, blaming them for their impending destruction. One of the main problems, argued Hosea, was ignorance:

Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying. But let no man bring a charge, let no man accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest. You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. So I will destroy your mother- my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children (Hosea 4:1-6).

From the days of Moses, the Israelites had been commissioned by God to put a premium on the passing down the knowledge of the Word of God. In the law of Deuteronomy they were commanded to “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:7-9). The Israelites had, however, neglected this clear plan and were now about to suffer for it. Hosea informs his hearers that most of the problems in their land could be traced back to a lack of knowledge of God’s law. They rejected knowledge and now God would reject them. They ignored the law, now God would ignore them. In a similar manner, Isaiah warned the southern kingdom of Judah that exile and captivity was in their future if they continued in their “lack of knowledge” (Isaiah 5:13). Judah did not listen to Isaiah’s words any more than the northern kingdom had listened to Hosea’s warnings. 135

As a result the northern kingdom fell in 722 B.C. and the southern kingdom suffered through the Babylonian Captivity from 606-536 B.C. “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Have we, however, really learned the lessons of our Old Testament counterparts? It doesn’t take much search of the Scriptures to realize that a sustained ignorance of the Word of God can bring nothing good to the church and the children in it. “Christianity is a religion of instruction. Where there is no solid biblical instruction, the Christian system can neither commence nor continue. One of the basic differences between the Mosaic regime (into which one was born physically) and the church of Jesus Christ, is the fact that knowledge is a prerequisite to identifying with the faith of the gospel (Jer. 31:31-34). Jesus declared that favor with God must involve instruction, reception, comprehension, and commitment (Jn. 6:45).”6 Various surveys recently conducted in America show some disturbing levels of biblical illiteracy among those claiming to be born-again Christians:

- Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels

- Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples

- 60 percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments

- 82 percent of Americans believe "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse

- 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife

- A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife

- A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham7

In the recent survey done with Christian youth, the average score on the scale of 1 to 5 was 2.4 when asked if they agreed with the statement, “Your parents spend a specific amount of time each day to teach you the Bible.” Forty-three percent of the respondents indicated that their parents did not engage in any Bible training at all. A few years ago I gave one of my pre-teen classes a very basic twenty-question pre-quiz on the Gospel of John. All of the questions were 136 basic enough that anyone growing up in the church should know. The average score, however, was 34%. After studying the book for 12 weeks, the test was given again with an average score of 95%. Biblical knowledge is needed and can be had. Biblical knowledge among people in the church is at an all-time low in America. Our children don’t have a deep understanding of biblical knowledge and we, as parents, are largely to blame. We have bought into a culture that puts a far larger premium on secular education and sports leagues than the knowledge of the Bible. Youth groups in the church have not done much better in large part. Youth ministries are expected to fix problems, provide entertainment, and keep kids busy. The real question, though, is how many local-church youth programs actually produce substantial and significant Bible knowledge in young people? Paul encouraged Timothy that watching his life and doctrine closely would save not only himself but his hearers (1 Timothy 4:16). The ability to live an effective Christian life and hold to sound doctrine both come from knowing the Scriptures. We cannot afford any longer to ask our children to live out and apply a book that they don’t really know. The Psalmist asks the haunting question, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3). Can there be a more serious foundational breech than a lack of knowledge of the Bible? A hastily prepared family devotional for Monday night and perhaps a few ten-minute quiet times with our children will not cut it. The biblical call for knowledge is clear:

 Psalm 119:66-67 Teach me knowledge and good judgment, for I believe in your commands. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.

 Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline

 Proverbs 1:22 How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?

 Proverbs 1:28-32 Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. 137

Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them;

 Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

 Proverbs 10:4 Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.

 Proverbs 19:2 It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.

 Proverbs 20 Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.

 Isaiah 11:8-10 The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.

 Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

Aspects of Bible Knowledge When considering what it takes to develop a thorough biblical worldview we are talking going beyond just having children read the Bible, although that is incredibly important. And believe me, they need more of that. That is really only the first of five separate areas that will be considered here. The first is basic biblical knowledge that can only come from reading and studying the Bible every day; second, is training children in good methods of biblical 138 interpretation and exegesis; third, is knowledge of biblical apologetics; fourth, is the knowledge of theology; and finally a good understanding of the history of Christianity. We will briefly consider each of these five areas below. The most attention will be given to apologetics because it has such an important role in our post-modern world.

Biblical Knowledge When we talk about kids needing to have a better knowledge of the Bible, what are we talking about? We are simply talking about knowledge of the Bible itself. This does not include nifty and flashy curriculums that teach about the Bible. Most teens have heard more lessons about peer pressure than they could stand, and this is what many of these pre-made curriculums tend to focus on. Any curriculum for pre-teens or teens that does not have the Bible itself as the primary focus is not a good curriculum, period. (Plus, many of the curriculums available for purchase use many of the same ineffective, and use the same dangerous teaching methods that were discussed earlier in this book.) Lessons built around a couple of verses are just not going to do it. Those types of lessons or sermons should be reserved for people who already have a good basic knowledge of the Scriptures and are now learning aspects of the Bible at a much deeper level. Teens and pre-teens need to learn the Bible before they can apply it or learn it at a deeper level. I am a firm believer that the best way to accomplish this is to start at the pre-teen level, and have the kids read a book at a time. The pre-teens in my church spend about three months studying out one book of the Bible before moving on to the next. They read the book and learn it at home, then are taught deeper aspects and life-applications at church. This prepares them to continue studying book-by-book at the teen level but then to add to it the next four areas of biblical knowledge that will be discussed.

Biblical Exegesis Simply reading the Bible is not enough. The serious Christian must begin to understand basic rules of biblical interpretation and exegesis in order to responsibly read the Word of God. Children of the secondary school age are more than ready to understand these concepts if taught to them. I have heard many adults argue that these rules are too complicated and will discourage teens from reading the Bible. This is a bogus argument, in my opinion. Kids learn academic rules all the time. They learn rules for diagramming sentences, rules for reading poetry or short stories, mathematic principles, etc. They are quite comfortable learning rules and guidelines. If 139 our expectations for their knowledge of the Bible are as high as they are for their secular learning, it will not be too difficult at all for them. Basic exegesis can begin by understanding the need to ask three simple sets of questions that focus on the context, the meaning, and the application of the text. Once these basic questions are considered, more specific questions about the text can be considered (these will be discussed below). First to be considered are questions of context. The reader must ask the historical context question, of where do we find our text in history? Generally speaking, what is the life setting of the document in which we find our text? More specifically, is there a definable historical context for the text? We must also ask ourselves a question concerning the literary context of the text. Where is the text located in the larger document of which it is a part? This will determine how it is to be interpreted and understood. Second, we have questions of meaning. How does the author communicate his message? How should the text be translated? What is the structure and form of the text? How should we hear and interpret the language of the text? The big question here, though, is simply, what is the author trying to communicate? It is far more important to determine the intent of the author rather than interpret it through our own cultural glasses. Third, there are also several questions that we need to ask regarding application. What does the text tell us about God? This is, perhaps, the most important question that we can ask about any section of the Bible. Related to that first question is, what does the text tell us about our relationship with God? Finally we need to ask, how does the text apply to contemporary life? What do we hear from this text; what should we do as a result of it; what should we proclaim from this text?8 The above serves well as an outline for basic exegesis. Let’s look now at some practical questions that can be taught to children that will help them to better understand the Bible. After all, believing the Bible to be the Word of God and reading it is only half the battle. We must also be able to apply rules of proper interpretation before we can really use the Bible effectively in our lives.

Does the interpretation consider the context?

If the context is not taken into consideration, then the Bible interpretation is probably a poor one. For instance, I recently saw a television prosperity gospel preacher who said that in John 4:37-38, Jesus was establishing an economic principle for those that followed Him. The preacher completely ignored the fact 140

that this statement was in the context of evangelism. He completely missed the point of Jesus’ words. The fact is that most of what Jesus said was in a specific time and place and spoken specifically to the Jews whom He was addressing. We must understand what He was saying to His original audience and then determine what this means for us. Another example of this would be Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:22-30 in which Jesus tells His hears that the way to the Kingdom of God is “narrow” and “only a few find it.” A careful look at the context (which is a bit clearer in Luke) will show that Jesus was speaking to Jews warning them that they were about to be cut off as God’s covenant people. Not many of them would find the road into the Kingdom. This was in no way spoken to the church of future ages. We are in fact called kings and priests (Revelation 1:6, 5:10) who are to overcome (1 John 2:13-14; 5:4-5; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7). As we read Scripture, we cannot read Jesus’ words as though He spoke them directly to us. To do so is to take them out of context and leads to great misunderstanding. This may seem like a difficult thing to do, but it really is not. We just need to stop for a minute when reading the passage and think about the point of view of the speaker, the audience, the time frame in which the words are spoken and the place where the conversation is taking place. This rarely requires any special knowledge or information.

Does the Interpretation take biblical symbols and figures of speech into account?

Not understanding when a biblical writer is using a biblical term or a figure of speech can lead to great misunderstandings in interpretation. Consider Matthew 21:21-22, in which Jesus says that “if you have faith . . . you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.” Despite what some preachers have taught, this is not some cosmic guarantee that whatever Christians ask for we will get. We must consider the symbols as well as the context to understand this passage. This phrase is part of a series of parables and talks about the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 20-25). After cursing a fig tree as a symbol of judgment on Jerusalem, the disciples asked how this happened so quickly. Jesus responded, “if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive 141

whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matt. 21:21-22). Jesus was not literally telling his followers that they could pray mountains into the sea, nor was He curiously changing the subject, He was instructing them to pray for the destruction of the apostate mountain of God. The Old Testament makes it quite clear that the mountain was symbolic language for Jerusalem (Psalm 43:3; 48:1; 87:1; 99:9; Isaiah. 11:9; 56:7, Exodus 15:17). Being thrown into the sea is biblical symbolic language for being destroyed (Rev. 8:8). Admittedly, this one takes a little more work. To be able to do this well does require that we know our Bibles, particularly the Old Testament, quite well. It will usually take a little digging and research. When you come across a figure of speech in the Bible, and they are usually pretty obvious, don’t assume that you know what it means. Do a little digging.

Is the interpretation consistent with the rest of Scripture?

A passage may seem to make sense on the surface but if the interpretation is not consistent with all of Scripture then it must be rejected. James 2:19 says that the demons believe in God. Can we couple that with John 3:16 and surmise that demons will be going to heaven? Obviously, we cannot. When this verse is considered in the context of all the Scriptures, we see that this interpretation is not possible. Applying this principle will also insulate from many of the prosperity gospel teachings that are so popular today. When taken in consistent context with the entire message of the Old and New Testaments, we can see that the life of luxury and comfort is not the life to which a Christian is called.

Does the interpretation remain consistent with God’s nature?

Not only does a passage need to be consistent with all of Scripture but it must also be consistent with God’s nature. It is necessary that one begins to have a basic understanding of theology in order to do this. In Revelation 6:2 we read, “I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” The passage goes on to describe that along with the rider on the white horse come three judgments symbolized by three other horse and riders. The subsequent riders remove the conditions that are providing peace on the earth, economic hardship, and death. This is all in the context of John’s prophecy of the soon coming 142

destruction of Jerusalem. God’s covenant has been broken and He is about to pour out his judgment on apostate Israel. Many biblical commentators, in discussing the rider on the white horse, have said that although this rider appears to be Jesus (there are many reasons including the fact that Jesus is seen later in Revelation 19 riding on his white horse; God is the one in Scripture that holds the bow in judgment - Habakkuk 3:9, and the one that is given the crown of dominion – Revelation 14:14; 19:11-13), it cannot be. The simple reason they offer is that God does not bring this kind of judgment, death, and destruction. With this idea of God they then create fanciful interpretations that include the so- called anti-Christ. The fact is, however, that God is love, but God is also righteous and holy. God does inflict judgment on the rebellious, apostate, and disobedient. Deuteronomy 28:15-68 clearly lays out the types of curses that will beset Israel if they break the Covenant. Christ, pictured in Revelation 6 on the white horse, will come soon, says John (indeed He did come in 70 AD) to fulfill these curses on apostate Israel. The actions of this rider on the white horse are completely consistent with God’s nature as a righteous judge. The discerning biblical reader will realize that, and will not incorrectly interpret Scripture based on an erroneous conception of who they want God to be rather than who He is.

Does the interpretation consider the differences between the Old Testament (physical) and the New Testament (Spiritual)?

Most of the laws, battles, enemies, blessings, curses, sacrifices, etc. of the Old Testament are of the physical variety. Even the people of God are the physical nation of Israel. In the New Testament, however, these things are of a spiritual nature. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy (Ephesians 6:12). Our battles are spiritual. For us the way we are to interpret the law of God is spiritual (Matthew 5:21-30). The blessings and curses of the New Covenant are of the spiritual variety. Good Bible interpretation must take that fact into account, especially when applying Old Testament interpretations to the modern reader. This is where many in our day and age get confused. They look at the things promised to Abraham and the people of Israel in the Old Testament, combine that with Galatians 3:29 that we are the heirs of Abraham, and conclude that these physical blessings are a promise for us today. The Christian, however, is to focus on spiritual blessings and store up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20). 143

Does the interpretation differentiate the principle given by the author from the cultural expressions of that principle?

In 1 Timothy 2:9, Paul gives a principle of dressing modestly for women to follow. He then lists some examples from his own culture of how to follow that principle. These include avoiding braided hair and gold or pearls. Dressing modestly is the principle to be taken from this passage not the belief that a woman in our culture cannot braid her hair. Good interpretations will consider the principle, and appreciate the cultural expressions of that principle, without feeling bound by those expressions. Paul often gives a binding biblical principle and then gives at least one cultural expression of that principle. We are bound by the principle but not necessarily the cultural expression of the principle.

Does the interpretation consider the genre of literature of the passage?

Good interpretations will take into consideration the type of passage being interpreted. Whether or not a passage is poetic, wisdom literature, narrative, apocalyptic, etc. makes a huge difference in interpreting a passage. The interpreter of Revelation 20:2-4, for instance can have problems with understanding 1,000 years to be literal if he does not comprehend the Old Testament tendency to use numbers as representing a period of time, rather than literal lengths of time (This applies to Revelation as it is written with a very “Old Testament” wording). Just as we would not read a poem in the same way that we would read a newspaper, we must be sure to read the different types of Scripture in the way that they were intended to be read. Narrative passages need to be read as narratives. Symbolic prophecy like much of Ezekiel and Revelation must be read in the symbolic language of prophecy and the Old Testament. The wisdom literature of books like Proverbs cannot be read as direct promises from God. They are observations of God’s universe that generally prove to be true. They cannot be read and held up as ironclad promises because they were not intended to be so. The list could go on, but the point is to read the work in the style that the author intended.

Does the interpretation consider who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and the circumstances of the conversation?

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In Mark 10:18, Jesus says that “No one is good – except God alone.” If one were to misunderstand the circumstances of the conversation and who Jesus was speaking to, they might come to some very wrong conclusions about this passage. Jesus was responding to someone who called him merely a teacher, but also said that He was good. Jesus, rather than trying to teach all theological truth at once, met the man where he was at in his understanding and took him one step farther. Jesus explained to the man that if He was nothing more than a teacher then He could not be good, because only God is good.

Is the interpretation consistent with the author’s intent? Does it consider whether a passage is descriptive or prescriptive?

There are many passages in the Bible that are merely descriptive of a situation without calling for us to go and do likewise. Sometimes confusing prescriptive and descriptive can bind us to a principle that may be a good idea but not a binding principle. For instance, Acts describes the early church as meeting in one another’s homes primarily (Acts 2:46). This may be a nice thing to emulate if it works within our culture or for our church, but it is not a binding prescriptive practice. It would not be taking into account the fact that the early Christians had little choice other than to meet in the homes of the believers. Confusing the concepts of prescriptive and descriptive can, however, be very dangerous when taken to extremes. 2 Kings 4:34, describes a scene in which Elisha laid on a young boy to bring him to life. A few years ago, a preacher in Milwaukee saw this as a prescriptive passage, and lied on a seven year old boy to cure him of the “demons of his autism.” The result was that the boy was asphyxiated by the weight of this preacher as he was held down by other members of the church.

Apologetics Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Biblical apologetics then, is the systematic defense of the Bible. The word apologetics finds its roots in the Greek word “apologia.” It means to create a defense or apology for a position based on truth by providing evidence for your position. A thorough consideration of apologetics is not given in very many pre-teen and youth group classes these days. This is unfortunate because, as 145 seen earlier in this book, public schools are, in large part, a 180 day apologetics course in Secular Humanism. Christian apologetics go all the way back to the Bible where we see Peter urging his readers to “Always be ready to make a defense” (1 Peter 3:15). Paul engaged in apologetics at Mars Hill (Acts 17) by making the case for a creator and redeemer to the men of Athens. Arguing the position of Christianity continued into the second century with men like Justin Martyr and has carried on in different forms in different times all the way to the present. In the last few decades, the Western world has seen a drastic change in our culture as the predominant worldview has slowly transitioned from modernity to postmodernity. This change has opened a debate in the Christian community concerning the role of Christian apologetics in the future. Is there still a need for classic modern apologetics? Should there be a new kind of apologetics for a new kind of culture? Do we need apologetics at all in a postmodern world? These are the questions being asked right now in the world of Christian apologetics. Ultimately, I believe, we will find that the answer to all three of these questions is a resounding “yes.” A brief review of the modern and postmodern mindset will help us in creating perspective for the current topic. Modernity is the mindset that rose out of the Enlightenment Project. The modernist puts a great amount in the human ability to reason. According to the modernist, truth is objective, rational, and knowable. The autonomous individual, relying on their own rational ability to reason can discover that truth. Modernists hold that the search for knowledge is a good thing and that knowledge will virtually always lead to advancement. For the modernist, rational reasonable arguments presented with prevailing evidence are highly prized. This is the world from which modern apologetics rose. Modern apologetics seeks to lay out the facts of the Christian faith complete with the best evidence for Christianity, and make an airtight case based on reason. Once the evidence is all considered, says the modern apologist, a verdict is demanded. One must look rationally upon the evidence for Christianity and make a truth decision based on the reasonability of its arguments. Postmodernity is primarily about deconstruction of modernity. Postmoderns question the ability to ever know truth and look dimly on the entire concept of an absolute knowable truth. For the postmodern, the only absolute is that there are no absolutes (and they are not bothered by the seeming contradiction of that statement). Key to the postmodern view is the belief that truth can only be gained from a text within the context of community. Each community will interpret the text based on their own experiences, culture, and biases. There are, says the postmodern, as many interpretations as interpreters. Postmoderns take an extremely skeptical view of modern science, modern religion, and any absolute truth claims. They embrace mystery, accept contradiction, and 146 believe that truth is relative to the community which holds it. What is true within the context of one community may not be true within the context of another community. Modern apologetics which are based on empirical proofs and rational arguments seem to have fallen on hard times in an increasingly post modern world. “So what if you can prove the historical reliability of the New Testament,” says the postmodern, “texts are only as reliable as the community interpreting them.” Rational arguments and truth claims can seem to fall flat in the postmodern world. The postmodern is looking for authentic experiences that will seem true for them as they live their life. This creates a unique problem for the Christian apologist. Are modern apologetics still viable in the postmodern world? Do we need apologetics at all in a culture that values mystery and experience much more than reason and truth? In the 21st century there is a new group of post-modern evangelicals known as the younger evangelicals (or the emergent church). According to Robert Webber, in The Younger Evangelicals, many of the younger evangelicals fall into a line of thinking known as Radical Orthodoxy, which argues that Christianity is the truth and so everything in the world should be interpreted and understood through the Christian faith. They feel that reason has become the modern apologist’s interpreter of the Christian faith and that Christianity, therefore, has had to rely on reason and the principles of the social sciences used to prove Christianity. The younger evangelical, says Webber, “wants us to return to the unknown, invisible reality that stands behind all things, through which all things are understood”9 In other words, they are calling for an end to the era in which reason is the starting point that leads us to accept the truth of Christianity, and want us instead to start with Christianity as an assumed truth that does not need to be proven by the crutch of reason and science. This group of younger evangelicals who hold to this Radical Orthodoxy, believe that Christianity cannot offer an effective criticism of the culture if it is propped up on certain assumptions of the culture, like reason and the social sciences are the starting point of discovering truth. Webber argues that for modern apologists, “reason has become the determiner of truth, not revelation. Faith is determined by reason, not by the witness of the Holy Spirit.”10 Younger evangelicals believe that the focus of apologetics should be shifted from reason and logical arguments to an embodiment of the faith. This leaves most, younger evangelicals leaning towards the fideist position, which says the best defense of the Gospel is preaching. Once the Gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit inspires faith that leads to conversion. They tend to believe that there is a mystery to faith that cannot be bridged by reason. The younger evangelicals argue that moderns were more concerned with the existence of God than with experiencing the real impact that God has on lives. This may be somewhat of a caricature of the modern position, but it 147 is the assumption from which many younger evangelicals criticize modern apologetics. Modern apologetics, says the younger evangelical, leads to conquered minds but not surrendered hearts. The younger evangelical desire to present an apologetic that is an embodied experience. Much of what postmodernity consists of is a rejection of modernity. Postmodernity exists primarily at this point to deconstruct and criticize modernity without really offering a solid framework on its own. It cannot really stand as a viable worldview apart from its rejection of modernity. It stands, therefore, on the very system that it wishes to deconstruct. Postmodernity has some very valid criticisms of modernity. Modernity did place too much emphasis on the autonomous individual and the ability to use reason to discover all truth. The idea that knowledge is always pushing us towards the positive is also an idea that postmoderns justly criticize. The problem is that they have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. There are things about modernity that are worth keeping. The concept of absolute truth is one of them. Just because certain truths can be interpreted in different ways in some situations does not necessarily mean that we should throw the entire concept of truth out the window. As we have seen above, the postmodern logic that there are no absolute truths cannot be a valid claim because it is a self- refuting one. I have to reject the younger evangelical trend away from modern apologetics to Radical Orthodoxy on the similar grounds that they are tossing out the baby with the bathwater. They certainly have some legitimate criticisms of apologetics. The main one is the tendency to view God as something to be proven and then accepted rationally. Modern apologetics did not leave enough room for mystery and spirituality. It would be rash at best and dangerous at worst, though, to completely abandon modern apologetics. The main reason to keep some aspects of modern apologetics is because there is such a thing as absolute truth. We live in a world that increasingly rejects that idea. They accept all religious expressions as equally valid. There was a time when you either believed in Jesus Christ or you did not. That belief was the dividing line between Christians and non-Christians. This is no longer the case in our world today. Nearly every religion thinks highly of Jesus and claims to follow His teachings even if they don’t accept Him as God. This is the problem with retreating completely from truth-based apologetics and going completely over to the Radical Orthodoxy of fideism; if we only preach Jesus and the Gospel, which Jesus will people think we are preaching? In the modern world, evolution was the greatest threat to Christianity. It made sense to argue against the so-called facts of evolution and for creation. In some ways the fideist position of preaching the Gospel and allowing it to burn inside made some sense because it would have differentiated Christianity from the competing worldview. If we relegate Christianity to inner 148 feelings and pragmatism today, however, we lose what sets it apart from competing worldviews in the postmodern age. It is a big mistake to use the only style of apologetic argument that the world is using. That means that using only rational arguments in a rational age was a mistake but it also means that using embodied apologetics in an age of community and relative truth is also a mistake. What sets Christianity apart in that scenario? There are many religions and worldviews that produce a burning, passion inside just as Christianity will do for the believer. There are many worldviews that can, at least temporarily, create warm, loving, communities. If this is our only source of appeal how do we differentiate Christianity in the marketplace of ideas? It is vital to not abandon the very thing that will distinguish Christianity in these postmodern times. Christianity is based on truth. It is based on logic. Its precepts are not self-defeating and contradictory. The younger evangelical actually gives credibility to other religious expressions because fideism and postmodernism are cut from the same cloth. They are both pragmatic, personal, focused on community, and are based on experience. We should take the younger evangelical’s valid ideas of an authentic community apologetic seriously, but what a tragedy to throw out the one thing that will distinguish Christianity in an age of pluralism. It is important to remember that apologetics will not save our young people. By engaging in apologetics we in no way diminish the work and role of the Holy Spirit. We all want to lead our children into the garden of salvation. Apologetics is not the garden itself. All that apologetics do is to clear the paths of debris so that people may find the garden if they so choose. We have already seen that apologetics should not be abandoned but what should they look like in a postmodern world? Apologetics in a postmodern world should take the good aspects from the modern concept of apologetics and the younger evangelical’s embodiment apologetics and create a hybrid. This would create a community that values the truth, strives for the truth, and can clearly communicate the truth to world. It would create a community that can demonstrate that Christianity is truth in and of itself, but that empirical methods can be used to further validate it. At the same time, though, this should not be merely a mental exercise. Apologetics of the 21st century should also stress the importance of living these truths not just knowing. Information is good, but transformation is better. What a powerful apologetic to the world to see a community that not only claims to possess inner truth and empirically verifiable truth but also lives it out in the real world. What does this mean? It means not only presenting evidence for the Resurrection and discussing the ultimate importance of believing in the fact of the Resurrection and accepting Christ as Lord of our life, but it also means living incarnationally as a community. It means we 149 should be able to present a living, breathing community that can articulate that the reason we are an authentic community is due to not only experience but also truth. Another example would be creation apologetics, the crown jewel of modern apologetics. Arguing for creation is fine and can be helpful but it does not do any good if we are not a community demonstrating a life of good stewardship of the earth. Earth stewardship is very important in the postmodern view. It would be an incredible testimony if the Christian community were to be held up as fantastic stewards of the earth and nature and then be able to demonstrate that we lived in such a way because of the logical truth claims of creationism. We could show that we act because stewardship rings true in the experience of our community but also because we value the logical evidences in favor of a creator that calls us to be good stewards. I would also recommend a four-pronged approach in 21st century apologetics. The first aspect would be to sound a constant clarion call against self-refuting or self-contradicting logic that has been discussed at length above. The second prong is to gently help the non-believer see where their belief system will take them. Following non-Christian belief systems to their logical conclusions will show how bankrupt and empty they are. For example, if you want to argue the relativist position, then let’s take it to its logical conclusion. I can come up and shoot you because it seemed right to me. If there is no absolute truth then by what standard could you condemn me? This aspect requires some work on the part of the Christian because we have to be familiar with competing beliefs and their arguments. The third prong would be to describe the completeness, beauty, and coherency of the Christian faith. This involves demonstrating that Christianity is a logical and comprehensive worldview more than it argues for specific evidences. This would mean that issues like theodicy (the justice of God) and eschatology would have as much importance in 21st century apologetics as the old mainstays like the Resurrection and creation. The final area in which apologetics in the 21st century could change is in format. The days of one guru speaker getting up and mesmerizing an audience with facts for 2 hours are quickly waning. This format does not work with college students nearly as much today as it did even ten years ago. Recently at UW-Milwaukee, a world famous creation speaker came for a presentation. The room of nearly a thousand quickly filled up but I couldn’t help but notice that at least 80% of the crowd was over 30, non-college students. And this was at an event that was not advertised off campus at all. On a campus of 26,000 students, the college kids just did not show up. Mike Metzger argues that open forums are the most effective way to reach postmodern students. He offers five components to this new style of open forum: 150

1. Offer not just answers, but also present faith as a context for exploring mystery. 2. Focus on essentials; don’t get bogged down in minutiae. 3. Don’t push credibility alone, stress plausibility. Credibility is about coherence, plausibility is about beauty and satisfaction. 4. Don’t condemn competitors. Treat them with gentleness and respect as colleagues. 5. Don’t rush people. Emphasize the process of conversion.11

The younger evangelicals have legitimate criticisms of modern apologetics, just as postmodernity has some legitimate criticisms of modernity. In both cases, however, it is dangerous to throw out the entire system because of some mistakes. Rather than abandoning modern apologetics, they should be infused with the ideas of the younger evangelicals. This leaves us with a hybrid apologetics that will be effective for the most people in the 21st century. Stressing the law of non-contradiction, the poverty of competing worldview beliefs, and the richness of Christianity, and doing so in a welcoming, open-format style will help us to achieve, in the 21st century, the ultimate goal of apologetics, which is to clear the road so that as many young people as possible can find their way to a relationship with Christ

Theology According to theologian Thomas Oden, “the study of God is an attempt at orderly, consistent, and reasoned discussion of the Source and End of all things.”12 Theology is a term that literally means a discussion or discourse about God. Theology seeks to offer a coherent depiction of God as understood by the universal community of Christ. It is, in short, the study of God by the people of God In studying God we seek to gain as accurate a picture as possible. It is important for us to remember that God is not only the subject of theology but He is also the revealer and enabler of all theological undertakings. Only God can reveal God to humanity. As the Apostle Paul says, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught to us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:11-13). God reveals Himself through the work of the Spirit to those who have the Spirit but even before that, His 151 revealing power is at work for all mankind: “since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them” (Romans 1:19). The practice of theology within the Christian community assumes a basic knowledge of Scripture on the part of the student. Oden says that theology “seeks to provide a fit ordering of scriptural teachings and of central themes of the history of Scriptural interpretation.”13 Systematic theology has two primary purposes. The first is to give a coherent and comprehensive account of the Christian faith. Christian theology is not just a jumbled mess of ancient writings and beliefs that have been cobbled together over the period of centuries. Rather, it is the systematic study and ordering of the complete and clear Word of God in order to gain an understanding of God. The second purpose is to apply the Christian faith to contemporary life. Theology is of no value if it cannot be used. If it does not strengthen our faith and deepen our relationship with God through the process of getting to know Him better, it is virtually useless for the average believer. Unfortunately, many Christians today see theology as just that, useless. Many tend to view it as an unnecessary exercise undertaken by academics in seminaries and colleges that has very little to do with the authentic Christian life. It has not always, however, been that way. For the first thousand or so years of Christianity, theology was practiced almost exclusively by the pastor of the local church. It was the pastor theologian who was responsible for defending the orthodox (accepted) doctrine of the church. This changed slowly during the medieval times as theology shifted from the pastor of the local church to the colleges and seminaries. As this happened, theology became gradually disconnected from the life of the local church. This is an unfortunate and dangerous phenomenon, though, because as Paul directed Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely.” The church community that does not engage in theology will find it difficult to defend their doctrine carefully, which will eventually affect the Christian life of the community as well. The basic recommended theological method has four components. The first and primary aspect is that of the Holy Scriptures. The Word of God is the trump card in all theological discussions. It is our first source and the most important. The second aspect to which we will give consideration is that of Tradition. The Tradition of the church is based on the interpretations of the church throughout history with special consideration given to the early church fathers of the first several centuries of the history of the Christian church (known as the Ante-Nicene period). Although not all of the early church fathers agreed on every issue, it is possible in most cases to clearly see the consensus of the early church and come to an understanding of the Tradition of the early church. The Tradition of the early church must never trump Scripture but 152 rather serves as a tool to either verify our understanding of a theological issue or serve as a red flag if we should wander from the Tradition. Next we must use our own reason and God-given mental ability to consider the meaning of the Scriptures and our theological stance on important issues. The final aspect is that of experience. Our own experience can be an important component of our interpreting Scripture but it cannot, ever be allowed to over-ride the Tradition of the church or the clear meaning of the Scriptures.

History of Christianity The old saying goes that if we don’t know our history we are doomed to repeat it. Most Christians are woefully ignorant when it comes to knowledge of the history of they Christian community. How many Christian young people (or adults for that matter) have ever heard of early Christian leaders like Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus, or Athanasius? Some would argue that it is not necessary for Christian children to be familiar with these men. Yet, these same kids probably know who Tutankhamen, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Plato, Socrates, and Virgil are. Why should they know these key figures of history and not the fathers of the early church? The young person who has a basic understanding of the history of the Christian church can better find and appreciate their own place in that history.

The Emotional Stability of Biblical Knowledge Beyond the previously stated reasons for passing on biblical knowledge, there is another one that is a key reason for giving our children a firm foundation in the Bible, biblical interpretation, apologetics, theology, and church history. The reason is that it provides an emotional stabilizer for young people and adults. The Christian life can be difficult at times and full of emotion. It is full of ups and downs, and if we’re honest, there are times when we have felt like quitting. There are going to be times when the evangelist angers us, someone hurts us, or the church community lets us down. Far too many young people and adults have left the church or even walked away from their faith because of an emotional setback. One of the things that my parents did really well, and something for which I am eternally grateful, is that they offered me many opportunities to learn about biblical creationism. What this did was give me a firm foundation that the Bible was true. I also learned a great deal about the evidence for the resurrection and the veracity of the Bible in its accounts of the resurrection. During my teen years when I was struggling with the concept of wanting to live a Christian life, I really didn’t want to believe in God. If I believed in God I knew I had to obey Him. What 153

I could not escape, however, was the knowledge that God existed and had created the world and that Jesus had risen from the dead. This knowledge continued to anchor me during my adult Christian life. Even when the difficulties and emotions from the Christian life came, I was anchored in because of my firm belief in God. To where else would I go? I may get frustrated with others from time to time but leaving God or the church is out of the question. There is a God and I do have to answer to Him. This far outweighs any emotions I might be going through from time to time. When children are taught a version of Christianity that will stand the test of the secular onslaught, they are given a foundation that will last through the emotional storms of adolescence and disappointments from other Christians.

Are There Dangers in Stressing Biblical Knowledge? One of the most prevalent criticisms that I hear about stressing the importance of learning and knowledge when it comes to the Bible is the danger of becoming all head and no heart. Is this a valid criticism? It certainly is a danger to be avoided, but head knowledge and the heart are not mutually exclusive parts of the Christian life. The abuses of those who have over-stressed head knowledge of the Bible have been well documented. What is not as well known, though, are the dangers of all heart without enough head knowledge. God is not fond of either mistake. In criticizing the Pharisees, Jesus quoted Isaiah, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8). Yet, the Proverbs tell us that, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge,” (Proverbs 19:2), and in Romans Paul chastised the Jews, “they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge” (Romans 10:2). What children really need is a healthy balance between the head and heart, or as Paul put it to Timothy “watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). A Christian community that is all head-based leads to dead cathedrals. A Christian community that is all heart-based leads to abuse and cult-like tactics. Yet, there still seems to be a perception that the road of biblical knowledge and training is fraught with danger, while the road of emotion and heart is the way to go. Raising children with an emotion-based version of Christianity that focuses almost exclusively on relationships and the Christian life leaves them with a brand of Christianity that is an emotional roller coaster waiting to happen. This is why the Bible calls for a balance. If the scales should tip slightly one way or the other, we should err on the side of knowledge. It is unwise to abandon a biblical principle because of potential abuses. 154

Let’s not forget that for many people, including young people, intellectual study of the Bible is the very thing that moves their heart. This is true for me. Emotionally-laden books that focus on convicting or encouraging the reader do very little for me. A far majority of these Christian bookstore type books do next to nothing for me. They are of some value, but not much. Books that examine biblical archaeology or prophecy or bring out an in-depth exegesis of the Bible cause my heart to soar and my faith to be deepened. The same is true for many people. The road to the heart of many people is through the intellect not the emotions. The truth is, though, that for the majority of people, the emotions are the road to the heart. These people tend to be arrogant about intellectual issues and believe that all intellectual endeavors are merely efforts to feed the head that will do nothing for the heart. That is simply not true but because of this, we have neglected teaching young people the Bible for far too long.

Chapter 8 – Loving Thin Air

One of the fine arts of teaching is discovering the line between teaching your students new and difficult topics that will challenge them, and trying to teach them something that is beyond their grasp that they just don’t understand. When I was still teaching I saw this line crossed on more than one occasion and probably crossed it a few times myself. I recall one incident in particular, however, that will serve as an excellent analogy for the remainder of this chapter. Math was not the strong suit of a vast majority of the students at the inner-city high school at which I taught. Well over ninety percent of the students tested far below grade level in math scores. The head of the math department was a very gifted mathematician who badly wanted to pass on her lover for math to her students. It was her firm belief that every student at our school was as talented as the most gifted students at any school in the country. She believed that they had just never been given the chance to show their ability. Her motivation was admirable if not the results. She became thoroughly convinced that every student that graduated from our small high school should know calculus. If the students from the more acclaimed schools were learning calculus, then so would ours. She began a calculus class for all of the seniors in our school. The problem is we are talking about students who were intelligent in many ways, but woefully inadequate in math. They simply did not have many of the math skills necessary to be successful at calculus. Most of them did not even have a good grasp on their times tables without a calculator. It’s difficult for a student to master calculus when they can’t quickly tell you the product of “8 x 14.” One teacher, in particular argued vociferously that calculus was beyond the current ability of these students, but she was quickly dismissed amidst the euphoric thought of being able to brag in academic publications that a group of inner-city students were mastering calculus. Yet, I admit I was surprised when she began to crow excitedly at each staff meeting how well these students were doing in calculus. They were reportedly enjoying it and many were doing well and earning good grades. They progressed through the various lessons and were apparently beginning to master calculus. I was quite surprised and impressed. I had, evidently, under-estimated both the teacher and the students. They were not only learning calculus, they were using very complicated graphing calculators and other high-tech equipment for math labs. They had, we were confidently told, mastering calculus. One thing that was unique about our school was that every student was required to keep and present a portfolio of their work before they could graduate. They would present work that 156 included a research paper, a science lab, and a math lab for a panel of five that consisted of teachers and administrators from other schools, community leaders, and parents. For those who had taken calculus, their math lab had to be a presentation of a calculus problem or lab. The point of the portfolio defense was that the students really had to know what they were doing in order to present their work to these people. They also had to be able to field questions regarding their presentation to the panel. This is when serious problems began to appear. The calculus students prepared their math labs and presentations but word quickly got around that they were having big problems. The students were giving the math portion of their presentations well enough but the wheels fell off when the panel began to ask questions. It became painfully clear that the students did not know what they were talking about. They couldn’t answer simple questions of why they did what they did to solve the problem or how they might apply this skill in real life. They could demonstrate no ability to answer any questions that posed some change in one of the variables in the problem. Most of them did rather miserably during the math portion and failed that part of their presentation. The calculus problems were abandoned as the students had to go back, prepare math problems of a different type and re-present their math portion to a new panel a few days or weeks later. The calculus experiment had failed miserably. What became obvious over the next few weeks was that the students had never really learned calculus. They had been shown how to do certain steps and plug numbers into a formula but they never really understood the concepts behind what they were doing. They were shown roughly how to do it, but never why they did it. This resulted in students who followed along with the teacher who falsely assumed that they were learning calculus. When asked to take that knowledge and actually apply it, however, they could not. It would be like a student who had learned to copy city names from atlas onto a blank map and color the page, but who had never mastered the concepts of directions or latitude and longitude. The student could copy and make a map look nice but they wouldn’t have learned really how to make a map. In the same way, these students had learned to copy the problems that the teacher put on the board but they were never challenged to really understand why they were doing the steps and procedures and so, ultimately, they didn’t understand what they were doing. This meant that they had no ability to apply calculus to new situations. I say all of that because I have seen an alarming similarity in many of the young people in our fellowship over the years. We often train kids in the facts of the Christian faith and the practices of the Christian community, but that does little for a personal relationship. Faith and practice are an integral part of the Christian walk, but it really boils down to having and 157 maintaining a relationship with God. It can be challenging enough to have and build relationships with other human beings, let alone a spirit like God. God is spirit and that means that having a relationship with Him is different than having one with a human being. Humans can be touched, heard, and felt. We can’t physically touch God. We can’t generally audibly hear God. We can’t physically feel God. It is difficult enough for adults who have been a Christian for years to really nurture a consistent relationship with God. It often takes years for us to figure this out. As we grow more mature in the faith, however, we tend to forget that fact. Just as the students at my school were told to learn calculus, they didn’t really have the foundational skills and knowledge necessary to practice calculus, so it is when we encourage kids to have a relationship with God but don’t teach them the basics of how to do that. They learn to mimic our relationship with God, but they often struggle with what it means for them to have their own personal and active relationship with Him. In surveying the youths of the local church this concept could be clearly seen. When asked if they understood what it took to be a Christian, the response score on the 1 to 5 scale of agreement was a solid 4.6, indicating that they certainly have the head knowledge required to be a question. The response was quite different, though, when asked if they knew “how to have a personal relationship with a spirit being like God.” The average score for that question was 1.8. What this means is that too many kids are learning to be Pharisees. Jesus’ main point of contention against the Pharisees is that they had a great deal of knowledge but their hearts were distant from God. They knew the facts but did not have a personal relationship. It is necessary, as we have already discussed to arm our children with knowledge of both the secular and Christian view of the world, but without a personal relationship with God, mere knowledge about God is not enough. We must teach them to have knowledge of God rather than just knowledge about Him. Let’s be clear here. I spent much of the last chapter stressing the need for knowledge of God and the Bible and I stand by that. It is just that it must move beyond that. The point of knowing about God is to learn to know Him and have a relationship with Him. It is vital to teach children both knowledge of the Bible and how to use that knowledge to develop a deep, lasting, and healthy relationship with Him, so that they may worship God in both spirit and truth (John 4:24). The primary problem with having a relationship with God is that it is unusual. We simply don’t grow up having relationships with spirits anymore than we are born with knowledge of calculus. Understanding a spirit being is a foreign concept that must be learned over time. It reminds me of the classic book, Flatland, by Edwin Abbot, a book first published in 1884. 158

The book Flatland describes “. . . a two dimensional world (Flatland). The narrator, a humble square (named A. Square), guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. A. Square dreams of a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland), and attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension. The narrator is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees the third dimension for himself.”1

The concept of the book can really be adapted to help make the point of how difficult if can be to comprehend God and have a relationship with Him. The two-dimensional A. Square cannot, at first, comprehend a three-dimensional sphere. In the same way, it is impossible for us to fully comprehend God. Paul wrote the church in Ephesus that he wished that they could begin to grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18). Could it be that Paul is intimating that God somehow consists of four dimensions? This would make Him no more comprehendible for us than the three-dimensional sphere was for A. Square. A being simply cannot really understand a being of greater dimension through mere explanation. The being could be apprehended but not comprehended fully. Imagine that you were a two-dimensional being like a circle. You would only be able to come in contact with the perimeter of other two-dimensional beings. You could never fully experience their inner-area because there are only two dimensions. A three-dimensional being, however, could be around, above, and through your two-dimensional self with little awareness of it on your part. That three- dimensional being could get closer to you than you could ever get to any other two-dimensional being. Yet, it would be a very different experience for you. If the three-dimensional person were to put two fingers through your two-dimensional being, you would only experience this three- dimensional person as two holes as he passed through you. You could apprehend aspects of that being but never fully comprehend Him. So it is for us and God. We can experience aspects of God and apprehend Him to a certain degree but we cannot fully comprehend Him. Having a relationship with God is of a different nature than anything a young person is used to or has done before. We can give kids a great advantage by doing two primary things. The first is to let them know that learning to have a relationship with God is a doable but not a simple task. I have talked to countless kids over the years who have been incredibly relieved to discover that they are not stupid or unspiritual because at fifteen, they don’t really know what it means to walk with God. I was saved at twenty-seven, and it took me two or three years before I really began to understand the process. Many kids began to feel doubt that they are even capable of walking with God and are often embarrassed. 159

They think, like I did, that everyone else has it all figured out and they are just incapable of connecting with God. I had nearly resigned myself to the fact that I would never learn to love God and have a close walk with Him. It took a good friend of mine to teach me how to begin to develop my own walk with God. That leads into the second thing we can do to help kids in this area. The second thing is to teach them specific aspects of walking closely with God. I believe there are things that adults can do to explain how to have a relationship with God that will enable students to develop the skills to learn to love God and walk with Him. There have certainly been a glut of excellent books over the years covering how to deepen a relationship with God, but it seems that somehow, much of this has not seeped down into our youth. I will certainly not attempt to describe all the areas we could talk about in teaching a young person to walk with God, nor will I attempt to do this in any sort of detail. What I do offer here, however, is a brief consideration of three of the most important aspects of developing a personal walk with God.

Recognizing the Presence of God There is an old story about a group of young and energetic squirrels that were on a quest to find a forest. Every day they woke up and spent the entire day searching for this fabled forest of which they have heard so much. From the moment the brilliant sun rose each day and struck their face, gently waking them with its soft heat, they tirelessly searched for their goal. This involved an incredible amount of walking. They even employed several high-tech devices but to no avail. After several weeks, they decided a new tactic and began to ask other creatures in their area. Where was the forest? The problem was no one else seemed to have any better idea than they did. Finally, they heard that there was a wise old owl that knew almost everything. It was nearly a half day’s walk to the owl, but they went there with great anticipation. As soon as they got there, they couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Breathlessly they blurted out, “do you know where the great forest is?” The reply of the owl greatly surprised them. “Boys,” he said, “you have been in the great forest all along.” As it turns out, they had been living and searching everyday in the great forest, they just never realized that it was all around them. The same can be said for the presence of God. We are always in God’s presence; we just don’t always realize it. Often when I am at church I hear people talk about anticipating God’s presence during the service. It is true that, in a sense, God is present in a special way during a worship service of believers, but the fact is, we are always in God’s presence. 160

As I sit here typing this, a golf tournament is on the television as kind of a background noise. Normally I would rather watch the grass grow, but I am one of those people that will watch a major tournament if Tiger Woods has a chance to win. Right now he is running away with the PGA Championship. It’s amazing, though, how when I concentrate on typing I don’t even hear the noise from the TV any longer. In fact, if I think about it, there are a ton of noises of which I have completely blocked out. When I think about it, I can hear the gentle noise of the central air conditioner being pushed through the vents. I can hear the sounds of my older son and his friend playing a game in his room. I can faintly hear our neighbor kids playing out in their yard. If I really concentrate, I can even hear a few birds outside and the occasional car driving by. The noises were always there, but I don’t even notice those things unless I take care to notice them. Hosea 6:6 tells us that God desires that we know Him. His primary concern is not about the things we do, although those are important. He wants us to have a relationship with Him. Just as I have a tendency to not notice the many noises around me, so we tend to become oblivious to the fact that we are always in the presence of God. He is never far from us (Acts 17:27). Perhaps no group of people in the church is more unaware of God’s presence than our young people. They, of course, have been told that God is always there, and He sees and knows everything we do, but they don’t really live that way. They live more like the squirrels running around looking for the forest even though they are already there. They are in God’s presence but haven’t been taught how to practically be aware of it or practice it. Kids need to be taught that God is constantly present. This is not some sort of cosmic threat meant to scare them into proper behavior. It is a reality. We don’t have the kind of relationships with God that He desires because we too often relegate Him to the status of background noise. Often, all we really need to do is to be aware of His presence. God will do the rest. If we make the effort to notice Him and think about Him and live a life worthy of His presence, He will not hide Himself from us. There are two great stories in the Bible of people learning about the omnipresence of God. In 2 Kings 5 we find the account of Naaman, an important military figure in Aram, who had contracted leprosy. On the advice of a servant girl, he went to Elisha to be healed. Elisha humbles Naaman by refusing to see him personally. Instead he sends his servant who tells Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River. After initial hesitance, Naaman does it and is healed of his leprosy. Naaman comes back and is now allowed to see Elisha. He tells Elisha that “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel” (v. 15). This is a huge admission because everyone else in the world at that time was a polytheist. He is starting to get it, but not all the way. He asks Elisha for as much dirt as two donkeys can carry. This is rooted 161 in the ancient belief that gods could only be worshipped in their own local territory. Naaman wants to pay respect to the God of Israel but thinks he must take dirt from that area with him in order to worship properly. He is also worried about some of the religious customs that he might have to take be a part of when he returns home. Elisha tells Naaman to “Go in peace” (v. 19). In nearly the same area, over 800 years later, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well in a scene recorded in John 4. She wants to argue with Jesus about the proper place to worship God. This is because the Jews and Samaritans could not agree on where God should be worshipped. Jesus tells her, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. . . . Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21, 23-24). The point of both Elisha and Jesus is that God can be worshipped anywhere. God is never limited to one place. We often make the same mistake that Naaman and this Samaritan woman made. We tend to limit our worship to God to an hour on Sunday morning at church and maybe an hour in the morning in some quiet place in our house. We fail to see everywhere we go as sacred and everything we do as an opportunity to worship God in thought, word, and deed. There is never anywhere that God is not present. It is a matter of our awareness of His presence. There are a couple of simple little ideas that we can give young people to help them be aware of God’s presence. One easy concept is to teach kids to choose an object that they will see several times throughout the day. A clock is a really good example. Tell them that every time they see a clock to think about God. This will probably take several weeks of reminding them to do that until it becomes second nature, but it will happen, and it’s worth it. Every time they see a clock, (or another object or event that they have chosen like every time they take a drink of water) tell them to take a minute to ponder God’s existence and pray for a few seconds. This can be done as they walk down the hall or sit down in class or whatever they are doing without being a major disruption in their life. It will teach them to be aware of God’s presence, though. It is amazing how doing that several times throughout the day will focus us on God and His presence. Suddenly, God becomes more real in the life of the young person. A young man or woman who is constantly aware of the realness of God’s presence is a young person that will be far more equipped to handle life’s challenges. Perhaps this seems like a silly idea, but it is not with scriptural precedence of a sort. There were many things that God commanded the Israelites to do in order to be reminded of God throughout the day. Look at these words from Numbers:

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“The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be consecrated to your God. Numbers 15:37-40

They were to have tassels on the corners of their garments so as not to forget about God and His way of life. Part of human nature is that we need constant reminding of the things that are important to us. We need to remind ourselves constantly of God’s presence. The second simple idea to help kids focus on God’s presence is to help them learn to practice God’s presence when they pray. Often times, when we pray, we get so caught up in what we want to say that we forget to be aware that we are in God’s presence. We actually enter into the holy of holies when we pray. Just this knowledge can help a young person be far more aware of what they are doing when they are praying. They are not sending up a cosmic telegraph that will be read later by God when He gets some time. They are actually in the very presence of God. A good way for young people to do this is to actually set a chair in front of them when they pray. Tell them to imagine that God is actually in the chair as they talk with Him. This is not meant to reduce the majesty of God in any way. It simply helps them to remember that they are speaking to God as surely as they are talking to you when you explain this concept to them. There are, obviously, many other ways to become more consistently aware of God’s presence. Discover them together. Talk about it; make it a family project as you go on a quest to be aware of God’s presence without ceasing.

Talking to God Talking to God, or prayer as we call it, is one of the most important things that a Christian will ever learn to do. Volumes can and have been written about the art, practice, and discipline of prayer. For our purposes, however, I will mention only one small area of prayer that is lacking in the lives of many of the youth that I have worked with and talked to over the years. It boils down to being real with God. Many teens get as nervous about praying as they do delivering a speech in front of their social studies class at school. They somehow get the impression that they have to pray in a certain way and cover certain topics. I have often heard cute little acronyms like A.C.T.S. used in teaching young people how to pray (Adoration; Confession; Thanksgiving; Supplication). There is a time and place for formulas like that, I suppose, but it tends to give burgeoning young 163

Christians the impression that prayer must be done in a specific way or they have failed. Kids definitely need to learn reverence and respect while praying, but they also need to learn to be real with God. This is what is so memorable about David’s prayers recorded in the Psalms. He constantly kept it real with God. He never minced words about praising God or questioning God. He bared his soul to His God. This is the very thing that I see lacking in the lives of many of the young people that I have talked to and worked with over the years. I have had, a lot of kids over the years, for instance, mention that the idea of loving God is something they have a very hard time grasping. I ask the question and get the same response virtually every time: Have you been honest with God, told Him that, and asked Him to help you love Him? The response usually begins with a stare of shock, followed by a question along the lines of: It is okay to do that? I always respond by asking them, “You don’t think He knows that already?” Many teens don’t seem to realize that they can be honest with God when they don’t love Him, or don’t understand Him, or disagree with, or are angry with Him. If they can’t learn to be honest with God about their own relationship with Him, how will they learn to rely on God for anything else? Their relationship will always be a shallow one. This attitude of being real with God can change a lot of things in the lives of young people if they can only learn to do it. If they’re not feeling like praying one morning, pray and tell God how they’re feeling and ask for His help. If they are more attracted to a certain aspect of the world than the things of God, be real and tell Him about it. When we are real with God and bare our souls, he will give us what we need.

Listening to God When I was coaching basketball in high school, I almost always asked new players one question: “what do you want to know from me and what should I know about you?” There were generally two types of responses. Some of the kids would spend the rest of our conversation talking about themselves, and telling me all the things they thought I should know. Others were far more interested in asking me questions about the team, the other players, and things that they needed to know and could work on before the season started. I was always far more impressed with the players who wanted to hear from me more than those who wanted to spend all the time talking about themselves. I learned a great deal more about the players who asked a lot of questions and listened than I did about those who talked the entire time. Similarly, one of the biggest mistakes that I believe the current Christian community in our fellowship is that we don’t, as individuals, spend enough time listening to God. What then 164 happens is we pass this same oversight on to our children in most cases. There are certainly many ways that we can hear from God. The primary way is through the Word of God. We can also hear from God through fellowship and advice form the people of God. Those are good things, but what we are talking about specifically here is time spent quietly and literally listening for God to speak to our heart. When asked in our survey to respond to the statement that they “spend specific time during prayer listening for God’s voice,” every single response was a “1,” indicating the lowest possible level of agreement. This is quite a shame, in my humble opinion. One of the best things that I have learned in my Christian life is to hear the voice of God speaking to me. It was a process for me of learning to hear and distinguish God’s voice, but it has been immensely worth it. The two primary aspects that I have learned and have taught to many young people over the last few years has been, where I am most likely to hear from God and how I can distinguish God’s voice from the others that compete for my attention. Discovering where we are most likely to hear from God is an exciting journey. It turns the monologue of prayer for which so many of us have settled, into an exciting dialogue where we can actually hear from the Holy Spirit of the living God. I have learned over the years that it is different for each person. We cannot do any more than guide our children on their own journey to discover how and where they can best here from God. I have discovered for myself that I best hear from God while I am praying on nice long run. I love to get up each morning around 5:00 AM and go for a nice, quiet run. It is during these times that I hear God speaking directly to me more than at any other time. I have gained so much invaluable insight and guidance from God during these times. I have given many lessons and sermons over the past few years and make no bones about the fact that I feel that a large majority of them were given to me directly during these times with God. When I leave for a morning run with no idea of what to teach for my next lesson and come back an hour later with a complete lesson that came into my mind in the matter of a few minutes, I am not foolish enough to think that I came up with that by myself. I am not that smart. I have learned that God speaks to me about many things not just to give me lessons. Sometimes He shows me areas I need to surrender to Him, or something I need to do to serve someone else; there are many different topics that we talk about. It has so enriched my life, however, to learn how to listen for God’s voice rather than just talking and asking Him things. I have learned to just shut up sometimes when I am with God and listen to Him. How foolish would it be to meet with the biggest expert in the field in which you work and then talk the whole 165 time you are with them? It would not even begin to be as foolish as it is to only carry on a monologue with God and never give Him a chance to talk back to our heart. The big question that young people ask me, when I talk about this topic leads into our second point. “How can I know that God is speaking to me and how can I distinguish His voice from others that compete for my attention?” In John 10, Jesus spoke some very enlightening words for those who are pondering the topic of hearing from God:

‘I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.’ Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:1-10

Jesus assumes here that we will make a practice of listening to His voice to a degree that we will be immediately able to separate it from other voices. There are so many other noises and voices competing for the attention of our young people. These other voices are numerous: Satanic voices, their own voice, the voice of their friends, your voice. Their heads can become swirling masses of ‘do this’ or ‘don’t do that’ that come from all kinds of sources. Obviously one of the jobs of the Christian parent is to help them discern which voices to listen to and which ones to ignore. The best way to do this is to teach them to learn to distinguish God’s voice so that when the shepherd calls, they will, like sheep, be able to immediately recognize His call and answer. The fact is that of all the other voices that will compete for our children’s attention, God’s is the only one with an agenda that is aimed at what is best for them at all times. Why would anyone not want to hear from that voice? Let’s put it this way. If your best friend were to come in the room, would you recognize them immediately? Of course you would. If someone else walked into the room claiming to be your best friend, would you be deceived? Not likely. Yet, imagine someone who did not know your best friend. Would they be able to determine the genuine article as immediately and with the same ease with which you did? They would not? The reason is that you know your friend. 166

They do not. When we don’t know God’s voice, we are susceptible to hearing from any number of voices posing as our own thoughts. As John 10:10 warns us, many of these voices are dangerous as they are intended to steal, kill, and destroy us. The very first standard in recognizing God’s voice is knowledge of the Word of God. The best way to learn to recognize God’s voice is to know His Word. If anything comes to our child that does not match up with the Word of God they need to know to reject it immediately, no matter how logical or reasonable it may sound. “But even if we or an angel from heaven,” says Paul in Galatians 1:8, “should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” We must know the Scriptures to know when a voice is leading us away from God and the truth of His Word. God’s voice will only clarify or enlighten Scripture; it will not give us new knowledge or violate any biblical principles. For our purposes here it is not necessary to attempt to distinguish our own thoughts from those of Satan or peer pressure or any other voice. I have found, however, that all of these “voices” in our head sound just like our own thoughts. So, how can we teach our children to discern the voice of the shepherd and to know it? Author Gary Moon, in Falling for God, suggests that there are four different aspects of hearing a voice in our thoughts through which we can recognize and distinguish God’s voice. The first area is the nature of the approach of the voice we are tuning into. God’s voice is leading and inviting. It is never a driving or pushing voice. If a voice is loud and pushy and demanding that we listen to it, it’s probably not God’s voice. God never forces Himself on people. His voice is quiet and invites us to listen. If we choose not to focus on it, He will not demand that we listen. God’s voice will come only when it is invited and wanted. I believe that we must ask God to speak to us and listen carefully for when He does. Other voices tend to enter our thoughts illegally. We didn’t invite them in and can’t seem to get rid of them once they are there. That is not God’s voice, it comes from another source. The second area of importance in listening to God is that of content. As stated earlier, God’s voice will be in line with spiritual principles. God will not give us new revelation that differs from, significantly adds to, or violates what we already have in Scripture. God’s voice simply clarifies on a personal level how we can understand and apply what is in the Bible in our lives. Voices that are not God’s may make of pretext of using Scripture, but it will usually be a proof text or a twisting of Scripture. Remember, Satan used proof texts in trying to tempt Jesus in the desert. Jesus responded with solid interpretations that were in line with spiritual principles. Satan’s proof texts were, indeed, Scripture, but they were not in line with spiritual principles. The content of the voice of God will also almost always lead us to an inner solution, while other 167 voices will often point to an outer solution. God’s voice won’t point towards other people or external situations. He will point us inward to see what we need to change or surrender in our own lives. It is also true that God’s voice is merciful though just. Other voices tend to broadly condemn, show no mercy, and question our worth or ability. God’s voice, however, rather than broadly condemning, will show us specific behavior. He will help us very specifically or will convict us of specific sin. God will never generically speak to us and tell us that we’re not measuring up, or can’t do it, or aren’t good enough. His voice will speak to actual behavior and will lead us to direct action. This is not to imply that God will solve every problem or speak to us on every issue in our lives, but when He does speak, it will be clear, concise, and direct. The third area of importance is in the relevance of the content. God generally speaks to the now. He may give us dreams for the future but it is almost always tied into something that we can begin or work on now. The relevance of God’s content is generally practical and straightforward. He asks us to do little things, or gives us little ideas of how we can change or encourage someone. It is simple and definite, though. God is not about flash but about results. Being a Christian is not really about big flashy events or choices, it consists of thousands of small, mundane decisions that add up to form our character. In the same way, God usually leads us toward simple and direct things that we can do. It is not the voice of God that points toward the future with nothing to do in the present. God will not push us towards impractical, sensational, complicated, and confusing directions. These are the kind of things that often attract our attention, but we need to be very wary of whether or not this voice is from God or from another sources and simply appeals to our flesh a great deal. The final area is the effect of the content. While other voices tend to leave us angry, worried, discouraged, or falsely and temporarily euphoric, God’s voice doesn’t work that way. If the result of a voice leaves us feeling hopeless or with our faith deflated then it is not from God. God’s voice will never leave us despising or feeling critical of other people or situations in our life. His voice, even when challenging or convicting, will leave us feeling love, peace, joy and hope. He will leave us with our faith increased and our energy renewed. It will leave us with a deeper understanding of others and of situations in which we find ourselves. Several times in the past I have had the opportunity to speak on this subject to groups of young people. There is nothing more invigorating than to have one of them come up a few days or weeks later, excitedly telling me, “I heard God speak to me today.” That is a student who has moved out of the realm of theory in a relationship with God and into experience. In summation, the main aspects of hearing from God are five-fold. First, we need to shut up sometimes and listen when God speaks. Second, we need to learn the discipline of staying close 168 to God so that we will be ready when He does speak. Third, we need to know His Word so that we may recognize His voice. Fourth, we need to discard competing voices and “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts” (Colossians 3:15). Fifth, and finally, we should remember that if we are not hearing God’s voice, then it may well not be that He hasn’t been trying to talk to us, but that we haven’t been listening. There is a story about an old married couple that illustrates this last point quite well.

There was once an old man who had become concerned about his wife’s hearing. He was convinced that she was not too many days removed being stone deaf. But he could not get her to admit she had a problem and see a doctor. One day he had had enough and decided to prove his point. He entered their living room where his wife was seated, facing the fireplace. From behind her, he said in a clear voice, “Honey, I love you. Did you hear that?” No response. He walked halfway across the room and repeated, “Honey, I said I love you. Do you hear me?” Nothing. Finally he walked over, stood in front of her, and shouted, “I love you. Can you hear me now? She looked up from her knitting and replied, “yes, dear, and for the third time, I love you too.”2

Conclusion I certainly don’t mean to imply in this chapter, or any other chapter, that all parents are failing in this. This is not meant as a condemnation, but rather, an encouragement to round out the many wonderful things that most Christian parents are doing. Some parents are doing well in this area, while others have not done so well. This is an area, however that almost every kid will struggle with at some point in their adolescence as they learn how to love and have a relationship with God. It is important to realize that there is no one correct way to teach anyone how to have a relationship with God. It is a journey not an assignment. The best way to know and help them is to ask a lot of questions. Don’t assume that they know what it means to love God, to have a relationship with Him, or to talk and listen to Him. The worst thing to do is to constantly encourage them to have a relationship with God and assume that they know how to do it. The more questions we ask, the more we can draw out their true feelings and discover where they are really at, and help them where they really need assistance.

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Chapter 9 – Mind Control

Shortly after the standard greetings in his letter to the Romans, Paul proceeds to enlighten his readers as to what is the cause of the human condition. For the last half of the first chapter and the first half of the second chapter, Paul details the root cause to an obvious truth. Something has clearly gone wrong with humankind. This is not how it was supposed to be. The mere fact that all worldviews try to explain what has gone wrong with the world demonstrates that something has indeed gone wrong. All of mankind feels it and knows it. Paul also knows that something has separated man from God and caused all kinds of evil. In his opening words of discussing this topic, Paul says:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. 170

Romans 1:18-32

What is perhaps surprising from this passage is that the diseased condition in which man finds himself was not caused by man’s evil behavior. The evil behavior will come later but it is not the cause of the condition according to Paul. The cause of the human condition was and continues to be the result of futile or distorted thinking. The fact that most psychologists and philosophers in our world have missed is that there are healthy and unhealthy ways of thinking. Wrong thinking will lead to wrong actions. There is an old saying that says, “Sow a thought; reap an action. Sow an action; reap a habit. Sow a habit; reap a character. Sow a character; reap a destiny. But it all begins with a thought.” The next thing that comes after distorted thinking is a darkened heart. The word Paul uses here for heart is kardia, which is Paul’s normal word for heart. In the ancient world the heart was seen as the center of emotions and motivation. Once thinking is distorted, says Paul, the motivations are corrupted and the deal is already done. What should be the source of light, the human heart, has instead been twisted into darkness. It is not as though the real problem is the actions that are to follow. Actions are merely a symptom of the real disease of distorted thinking. The next step, according to Paul is that humans fall into a state of self-deception. Once the thinking has become distorted and the heart darkened, humans don’t even realize it. What they believe to be wise thinking is actually foolish. Humans are completely unaware of this folly in their logic and worldview because their hearts have become darkened. What began as a choice, distorted thinking, has now snowballed into self-deception that is beyond the control or awareness of man. Paul demonstrates this same concept in his second letter to Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Paul tells Timothy that men will first willingly turn their ears away from the truth which leads to distorted thinking and a darkened heart. They will then be deceived by myths because of the condition of their distorted thinking. Once we willingly turn to twisted thinking we will fall for anything. Or as G.K. Chesterton once said, “When men cease to believe in God, rather than believing in nothing, they believe in anything.” The first action that results from the distortion and darkening of the mental realm is the failure to properly worship God. Paul says that men gave up worshipping the Creator and exchanged it for the lie of worshipping the created. Throughout the history recorded in the Bible, mankind has gotten itself into serious trouble by favoring the creation over the Creator. Eve believed the serpent. The children of Israel built a golden calf. Pagan cultures worshipped all 171 forms of creation. Even in the final book of the Bible, the Revelation, the enemy of Christ is referred to as the beast. Humans were made to worship God and have dominion over His creation as His representatives. We were not made to worship the creation. Distorted thinking is undoubtedly dangerous. One of the great tragedies of the universe, perhaps the greatest, is that the only creature that God made in His image to represent and be like Him, has used his God- given intellectual powers to deny his very creator. What follows the actions that result from distorted thinking is truly frightening. Paul says three times in the remaining word of this first chapter that God “gave man over.” First God gave man over to sinful desires, then to shameful lusts, and finally a depraved mind. Once we engage in improper thinking, our hearts are darkened and we turn to worshipping anything other than the true God. Next, comes the truly disturbing part when we think of the consequences for the human race. God will turn us over to the things towards which we have turned. He will remove his presence, protection, and grace from our lives. God has given man the responsibility to rule over His creation and to be a proper representative of God. When we blow that responsibility, God gives us over to what we have asked for with our decision to think improperly and act on those thoughts. Once God turns us over to our sinful and fleshly desires, those desires take root and turn into full blown lust. Once we have been turned over to our lusts and act out on them, the result is a confirmed case of a depraved mind. Paul ends this section by showing the true depths to which mankind can sink. Not only will humans be turned over to a depraved mind to commit all types of evil, immoral, and unnatural acts. They will actually approve of others who commit those acts. This is the sure sign of the loss of conscience. What started as distorted thinking has progressed into a total loss of conscience. There is no longer remorse, repentance, or recognition of wrongdoing but it is actually celebrated. The prophet Isaiah proclaimed God’s anger at approving of sin: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). This is the lowest to which mankind can sink. Pure evil is the end result when the mind becomes twisted out of shape. The real battle is in the mind, the actions of the body merely go along for the ride. James describes a similar but slightly less detailed process: “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-16). James affirms that temptation is the starting point. It all begins in the mind with a mental temptation. James agrees with Paul that once we give Satan permission into our mind, we are “dragged away and enticed.” What starts as a choice quickly moves past our ability to control. James describes this 172 out of control desire as sin, plain and simple. This is the point which Paul describes as God giving us over to our desire. Once that happens, we are sadly on our way to what James says is death. What began as a mere thought has ended in spiritual death. This is a spiritual topic that is extremely important to helping teens develop a proper biblical worldview and have the tools to live it out. There is a very real spiritual battle going on in the world today and we do our young people a disservice if we don’t make them aware of the realities of the battle at hand. As we saw above, the cause for the evil humanity can be traced to distorted thinking, but now is the time to ask, “What is the cause for that distorted thinking?” Is there some defect that God put into the human mind that causes us to think unreliably, or does the answer lie somewhere else? In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds his readers that they are in a spiritual battle. In chapter 6, verses 13-18, Paul implores them to take up the whole armor of God. In using military metaphors to describe the spiritual defenses and weapon, Paul informs the Ephesians, and us, that we are engaged in a serious spiritual battle. This is no day in the park; it is not a game. The lives of all of us and our children’s lives are at stake. In this passage concerning the spiritual warfare of which we are all a part, Paul makes two things abundantly clear. One is that Satan will attack us with his “flaming arrows.” The other is that the only offensive weapon that Christians have is the Word of God (which was demonstrated by Jesus when He was attacked by Satan in the wilderness). Satan will certainly attack us in this world, but the important question here is, “What are those flaming arrows?” How will Satan attack us? The truth is that Satan’s weapons against us are precisely at the point at which Paul describes in Romans 1 as the point where humankind has gone astray; it is in the mental realm. Satan attacks us in the mind. His flaming arrows are thoughts, ideas, concepts, and suggestions. We can sum this up with the acronym, T.I.C.S. Satan begins his assault on us with his T.I.C.S. Young people must know that the terrain on which they are fighting the spiritual battle is in the battlefield of the mind. The battle is not in the physical world. Every action that you and I have ever taken is a result of a preceding mental action and decision. Far too many people, including young people, think that the real spiritual battle is at the point of action rather than in the mental realm. The fact is, that the battle has already been won or lost before it gets to the point of action. If Satan is going to attack us through the mind then it makes sense that the weapon God has given us is a mental weapon. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. A lack of knowledge 173 leads to destruction (Hosea 4:6). Knowledge wins battles. To be accurate, however, that last sentence is not entirely true. Knowledge by itself does not win battles. Knowledge used properly is what wins battles. There are many people that have knowledge of the Word of God but have never figured out how to use it. Only a proper understanding of the Bible’s teaching on how to be successful in the battle for the mind will allow us to overcome Satan’s T.I.C.S. Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time knows that Satan will attack us. Peter compares our adversary to a lion looking for someone whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). This seems silly though in light of Jesus’ words recorded by John: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand (John 10:27-29).” Why would Satan bother prowling around if Jesus’ sheep cannot be snatched from His hand? Perhaps Satan only devours the unsaved. Yet, that would be curious, then, for Peter to write this serious warning to Christians if it did not apply to them. The fact is, these two passages do not contradict each other at all. Satan is prowling looking for victims, including Christian victims, to devour. He cannot snatch us, but we must give him permission to attack us. But, you may ask, who would ever give Satan permission to attack them. Paul already answered that in Romans 1. All people are attacked by Satan’s T.I.C.S. but those who let them burrow into their thought life actually give Satan permission to attack them. This is the beginning of the distorted thinking. It is, then, Satan who starts man down the road of distorted thinking which ends in certain destruction. From where, however, did Satan get this idea of attacking man through our thought life? Does the Bible give us any clue as to how Satan would know that this avenue would be so effective? It, in fact, does. We find these words from the prophet Isaiah in the fourteenth chapter:

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 174

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High."

Isaiah 14:12-14

In this passage Isaiah, in speaking against the King of Babylon, compares the King to Satan. In so doing, we learn some valuable information about Satan’s motives. Satan once had an exalted position in heaven but he was cast down to the earth. Why? He did not control his thought life. While in heaven, Satan began to let his thoughts become distorted. He makes five “I will” statements that each display the distorted thinking that he was allowing to take control of his mind. He thinks that he will: ascend to heaven; raise his throne above God; rule as greater than God; be higher than the clouds (Scripture often depicts God ruling from the clouds); and in his own mind, he will be like God. Satan did not control his thought life. His thinking was distorted and he allowed himself to entertain those thoughts. His heart was darkened. The next step was the self-deception of thinking that he could be like God. As a result of the self- deception, Satan began to worship himself, a created being, rather than the living God. Finally, God gave him over to his self-deception which led to Satan thinking that he could somehow overthrow God. This attempted rebellion led to Satan being punished, cast out of heaven, and thrown to earth. It does not take too much speculation to assume that it wasn’t too long after being cast down to earth that Satan began to ponder what had led to this result. It was those “I will” statements. Satan did not control his thought life. Now God had become his enemy, but he had already discovered that he could not really attack God. So, he went after the thing that was most like God and closest to His heart; mankind. In the Garden of Eden, Satan planted T.I.C.S. in the mind of Eve that led her to a distorted way of thinking. When David saw Bathsheba bathing, it was Satan’s T.I.C.S. that burrowed into his mind and led to the kind of wrong thinking that eventually resulted in the visible action of adultery and murder. Satan is a quick learner. It did not take him long to learn that T.I.C.S. would be his most valuable weapon against man. Once he distorts the thinking of our young people, the rest is relatively easy. Just as Satan’s schemes led Eve’s thinking astray, so it will do to our children if we let it. Paul wrote, “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” Satan’s T.I.C.S. will lead us astray from our proper devotion for and worship of Christ. The reality is that every foolish thing we have done in our life goes back to T.I.C.S. on which we have acted. Every sin that has ever been committed goes back to an individual that did not control their thoughts. The real battle is not in the physical realm at the point of action, it is in the mind. Martin Luther once 175 wrote “It is impossible to sin without first thinking wrongly about God.” Luther’s point is that every sin begins with distorted thinking. It we don’t control our thought life, we will be devoured. This is especially true for young people. It is so easy for young people to get themselves into situations they never thought they would be; situations of rebellion; crime; pregnancy; drugs, etc. All of these situations find their root in the uncontrolled thought life of the young person. As they are attacked and unprepared for the assault on their mind, their minds become blinded. Paul describes this process, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Distorted thinking becomes a viscous circle because once people give themselves over to Satan’s T.I.C.S., their hearts become darkened or as Paul put it in this passage, their minds become blinded. The person in the condition of having a blinded mind doesn’t know they’re blind. They don’t realize that their thinking has become so convoluted that they can no longer think properly. Because their thinking has become distorted they are prey to further blinding of the mind. If we are going to fight off Satan’s T.I.C.S., we have a responsibility to control our thought life. To be Christ-like involves the process of learning to control our thought life. The earlier we can teach our children to do this, the better off they will be. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22). The last thing we want to do is to neglect the mental activities of our children and allow them to become enemies of God in their mind. Paul that this is the very real condition of those who are not in Christ: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds as shown by your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21). We literally become the enemies of God when we don’t control our thought life. Because of the resulting danger that comes with distorted thinking, God is as concerned with our mental sin as our physical sin. This was the point Jesus was making in His Sermon on the Mount recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. In verses 13-16 of chapter 5, Jesus reminds Israel that their God-given purpose was to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. He then assures them in vv. 17-20 that He has not come to abolish the Law rather He has come to fulfill and further explain it. If anything, Jesus takes the Law to a more difficult level as He explains that the real intent of the law is to apply to the mental level, not just the physical action level. No longer should they limit the meaning of “do not murder” to the physical. Jesus expands it and says that they should not even 176 hate their brother, because murder and hate stem from the same attitude of the heart. In the same vein, “do not commit adultery” is expanded to include the mental activity of lust. The assumption of Jesus’ original hearers would have been that this new mental interpretation of the Commandments applied to the other eight as well. The reality that most young people are confused about this truth is demonstrated clearly in the survey of local Christian youth to which we have referred throughout this book. An average score of 4.9 out of 5.0 agreed that “Satan is most likely to tempt me in my mind rather than through the physical world.” Kids understand that Satan will attack their mind but don’t see the real danger of that as evidenced by their 4.1 average score agreement that thinking about sin is better in God’s eyes than doing sin. What they fail to see is that thinking about sin is doing sin according to Jesus. When helping young people to follow Christ we must make sure that at least as much time is spent converting the mind as converting the soul. This is difficult for many parents because it is easy to fall into the trap of pragmatic parenting. The temptation is to do what works for the moment, and that usually is limited to their actions. If we can get them to stop doing whatever we don’t want them to and “act right,” then we tend to be satisfied. Too often, the dark closet of their mind is left unexplored and unconquered. This can be extremely dangerous for their spiritual development because everyone, including perhaps themselves, will be convinced that they have been converted by the message of the Gospel. If the mind has not been truly transformed, though, the victory will be illusory and temporary. They will think that they have been converted and been swept clean but their minds have not been converted. A conversion that does not involve a transformation of the mind is a conversion that has not gone far enough. The danger is that the T.I.C.S. that had distorted their mind before their supposed conversion “will return to the house. . . [and find] the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45). The conversion of the mind is every bit as important as a converted soul, it only takes more time. As Augustine said, “It only takes a minute to convert the soul, but a lifetime to convert the mind.” The fact is that anyone who would suppose to follow Christ and be His disciple must be prepared for spiritual battle; “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled” (1 Peter 1:13). The battle must be fought in the right place; this is a huge aspect of proper preparation. The real spiritual battle is fought in the thought life not at the level of actions. The average football team begins a drive for a touchdown on its own 20-yard line, a full 80- yards away from a score. Most defenses, even the bad ones, will keep a team out of the endzone 177 from this distance. Imagine, though, how a team would do if they allowed the opposing offense to begin each drive on the 1-yard line, just one yard away from a score. Even the best of defenses fail more often than they succeed in these goal-line-stands. The defense may be able to make a valiant goal-line-stand occasionally and keep the team out of the endzone, but more often than not the offense will score a touchdown. So it is with the mental spiritual battle. We must make sure that we are not passing the message on to our children that sin depends on whether we act out or not. To attempt to fight the spiritual battle at the level of action is to give Satan the ball on the 1-yard line and hope for a good goal-line-stand. The battle must be fought where it begins, in the thought life. Any physical sin signifies a spiritual battle that was already fought and lost in the mind. Satan loves us to physically act out on our sinful thoughts, but he still wins if we simply entertain and enjoy his T.I.C.S. and don’t control our thought life. This is why Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take every thought captive.” God doesn’t program our minds with instinct like He does animals. He gives us the free will to think and to choose. We can either control our thought life or leave it open to Satan’s T.I.C.S. To truly take every thought captive we have to carefully examine each thought and measure it according to the Word of God. The fact is that Satan’s T.I.C.S. will come. We can’t keep thoughts from coming; having an evil thought pass through the mind does not make us evil or mean we have sinned. As the old proverb says, though, “you can’t keep the birds from flying overhead but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.” We can’t control the attacks on the thought life but we do make the decision to examine and disregard those thoughts or let them stay around in our head and consider them valid. We have to examine every thought as it measures up to the Word of God because Satan’s T.I.C.S. sound just like our own voice. It sounds rational and reasonable. If it didn’t sound rational, or didn’t sound like us we would know to disregard it right away. Satan’s T.I.C.S. are subtle. We don’t intend to think in an evil manner intentionally, but if we do not examine every thought against the propriety of God’s Word, we will quickly get into trouble. The fact is that right intentions will lead to wrong outcomes without proper instructions. The most well- intentioned line of thinking will go astray if not kept in line with God’s Word. Satan’s T.I.C.S. come one small step at a time as well. Very few teens would be tempted with an idea to commit fornication or get high as a first thought. They come one small thought at a time. When each successive thought is not immediately examined and kept or discarded based on its agreement with scriptural principles, distorted thoughts are allowed to rattle around in our head. Soon they come to be viewed as valid thoughts and the mind is now ready for the next step. 178

Suddenly a teen find themselves in a mess that they never thought they would be in. It happened one small thought at a time. Most parents go to incredible lengths to protect their children from harm. We ensure that our houses are safe places for everyone. We really live in a society that has gone nuts with this. We protect ourselves from any conceivable type of toxin or virus. We have antibacterial wipes and soaps, and even anti-bacterial hand lotion in case we can’t get somewhere to wash our hands. We lock our doors at night to ensure that no one will break in and harm us or our children. Yet, we are not nearly as discerning when it comes to what goes into the minds of our children. I am constantly shocked by the things that Christian parents allow to influence the minds of their children. This includes TV, movies, books, peer influences, etc. It is as though some parents assume that it doesn’t matter what their kid’s minds are exposed to. They won’t let them eat without washing their hands but won’t think twice about allowing their child to watch Saw II or listen to the local pop-music radio station. The standard of the early ante-Nicene church was quite different. They held, for instance, that is was unequivocally wrong for a Christian to attend or even approve of gladiator games because they involved murder. Their stance was that if a Christian went to an event like that, then they were condoning murder, and if they were condoning it, then they were participating in it. They felt that there was no difference in guilt between those that arranged and promoted the gladiator murders and the Christian who watched them. How much different would our thinking be if we held to that same standard when it comes to what we let into the minds of our children and, indeed, our own minds? We must watch what is going into our minds and be careful to examine every thought, to take them captive. This may seem like a lot of work but let me ask you one question. What is more difficult and time-consuming, to take every thought captive and examine it for its worth, or to clean up the mess of an uncontrolled thought life? Put another way, is it easier to teach kids at a young age to examine their thought life or to attempt to help them clean up their lives after years of an uncontrolled mental realm? In his letter to the Romans Paul writes, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). In other words, the person who would be Christ-like must fight with different weapons than does those who follow the way of the world (2 Corinthians 10:4). The person who has learned to transform and control their mind will be able to test what God’s will is. The person whose thinking has been 179 corrupted by Satan’s T.I.C.S. will not be capable of discerning or following God’s will. An uncontrolled thought life will lead to an uncontrolled eternity. In all of his writing about the importance of the mental aspect of the spiritual battle, Paul does not leave us without guidelines to be successful in this battle. The most complete of these is found in Philippians 4:8. Paul says: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Right here Paul has given us the standard about which thoughts to reject and which to hold to. He lists eight separate criterion for examining thoughts. Is the thought, (1) true; (2); noble; (3) right; (4) pure; (5) lovely; (6) admirable; (7) excellent; (8) praiseworthy? Every thought that goes through our minds should be examined according to the biblical definitions of these concepts. If a thought violates any of these eight standards then it must be rejected. That is an important detail to comprehend. It is not good enough if a thought meets only one or even two of the criterion that Paul gives us here. It is very easy for a thought to sink into our mind that is true. For instance, it may be true that someone in your teen’s youth group is annoying and not the coolest kid in the world. Even though this thought is true, it should be rejected because it does not meet the other eight criterions. This is a strict standard but one that will serve young people well if they live by it.

Conclusion I am convinced that this concept of mind control is true through every aspect of our lives. This morning the television in my room was on and at the top of the hour a program came on about people dealing with anxiety and depression. One of the expert doctors on there said something that exhilarated me. He said that anxiety is caused by internal thoughts, not external events. It is our interpretation of events, he said, that cause anxiety. He went on to say that if people could learn to control their thoughts and re-train their thinking, they could eliminate most anxiety from their lives. Did you get that? My point is not specifically about anxiety or depression. The thing is that even in the secular realm, people recognize that the real battle is in the mind. Keeping our own mind focused on Godly things is a full-time and difficult job. The thought of teaching someone else to do it can be nearly overwhelming. I believe that it can be done, though. God will give us the strength and will complete the work He has begun. As we saw above, Paul gave us eight standards by which we can judge our thoughts and stay focused. Much of the mental battle comes down to our knowledge of the Word of God. We have already spent 180 considerable time talking about the importance of the knowledge of God, so it is not necessary to go into any great detail here. I will, however, suggest seven ways that we can keep our thoughts focused on the standard of God’s Word. First, we have to read it and understand it. Our minds will never be more holy than our knowledge of the Scripture will allow. We cannot know and apply what we do not read. We have the perfect ruler with which to measure all of life. Why not use it? Second, memorize it. This means different things for different people but the more we know the Word without having to open the book the better off we will be. Reading the Bible is invaluable, but it is not always available to us when Satan’s T.I.C.S. attack. When tempted by Satan in the desert, Jesus did not apparently have a scroll with Him that he needed to open. He knew the Word of God. Third, we must use it. Jesus didn’t just know God’s Word and leave it at that. He used it. He used it to defend His own mind and protect Himself from Satan’s T.I.C.S. Often we know God’s Word but decide the world’s way seems more attractive at the time. The Bible does us no good if we do not utilize its life-giving words. Fourth, we need to watch and pray. Prayer is an indispensable portion of protecting our mind. It helps to enlighten the Scripture and steel our mind against Satan’s schemes. Prayer is far more effective, though, when used to ask God to protect our thoughts before any attacks come rather than asking Him to clean them up after our minds have already been infiltrated. Prayer needs to be an inoculation more an antibiotic. Fifth, substitute one thought for another. We don’t get rid of evil or inappropriate thoughts by focusing on getting rid of them. We must substitute evil with good (Romans 12:21). We simply cannot stop thinking about something if that is all we focus on. For example, don’t think about red fire trucks. Seriously, stop it. Don’t think about red fire trucks. So, how did you do? Have you stopped thinking about red fire trucks? Chances are, you did not. I have found that asking God to keep my thoughts pure and focusing on holy thinking has been vastly more effective than constantly praying to keep me from thinking about the very thing I don’t want to think about. Sixth, be honest. We need to be honest with ourselves when it comes to what we’re thinking about and the reality of obtaining it. Often times, Satan’s T.I.C.S. are more rooted in our ridiculous desires or hang-ups than they are in the actual truth. An honest assessment of the facts and truth of the situation will quite regularly help clear things up. Seventh, teach young people to confess their thoughts to one another rather than just actions. Many Christians know that they should confess their sins to one another, but limit it to their 181 actions. This is not effective because, as we have already seen, the actions are just the symptoms. The thoughts are the cause. We need to make a practice of honestly examining and confessing our distorted thinking to one another. Remember, every sinful action signifies a spiritual battle in the mind that was fought and lost.

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Chapter 10 – Coming With the Clouds

From the very beginning, the early church was dealing with false teachers, false teachings, inventive, and creative methods of interpreting the Scriptures. This could not have been much of a surprise to the members of the early church community, as the writers of the New Testament had repeatedly warned them about the very real danger of false teachers. Peter went so far as to say that false teachers would be among them that would teach destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1). By the mid-second century, a false teacher named Montanus began what he called the New Prophecy movement. Montanus, a native of Phrygia, declared that he was the sole spokesperson for the Holy Spirit. He convinced his followers that Christ had promised a spokesperson for the Holy Spirit and he was it. This was the beginning of a new era. Montanus claimed that he was the lyre (WHAT IS A LYRE) of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, said Montanus, would play his new tunes for humanity through his instrument in Montanus. Montanus convinced his followers that the end of the world was at hand. He told them that a universal war that would destroy the earth was inevitable; Christ’s thousand year reign was near and would soon begin. To this point this was probably a rather novel interpretation of Scripture, particularly the book of the Revelation. The charismatic leader told his followers to abstain from marriage and separate from their spouses if they were already married. The community instituted strange practices of certain fasts, feasts and consuming unique combinations of food. Many other strict rules were undertaken as a way of preparing for the Millennium. Convinced they were living in the so-called last days, Montanus’ followers often left their jobs, some sold their homes, and they prepared for Christ’s final return. As time passed, the group readjusted the signs and kept pushing off the return of Christ by a few years. Following his death, two women, Maxmilla and Prisca took over the movement. The movement sputtered on in Phrygia for another century or so before finally fading away. The original group had been so focused on their false teaching of the imminent and dateable return of Christ that they never really planned for the future for themselves or for the world. In the end, they died out and had little to no impact on the world around them.1 Since that time, various groups have popped up claiming that the signs of Christ’s return were immanent. At nearly every turn of the century since the Montanist movement, religious groups have whipped up hysteria about the coming of Christ. In 1941, the Watchtower, the official magazine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses began predicting that Armageddon would take place within a matter of months. By 1944, the Armageddon hysteria had reached a fever pitch for the 183

Witnesses. According to Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, former member, “So firmly did Jehovah's Witnesses believe this to be true that there were those who, in 1944, refused to get their teeth filled, postponing all care of their bodies until God saw to their regeneration in His New World. (One zealous Witness I knew carried a supply of cloves to alleviate the pain of an aching molar which she did not wish to have treated by her dentist, since the time was so short till Jehovah would provide a new and perfect one. To this day, I associate the fragrance of cloves with the imminence of disaster.)”2 A similar but even more pronounced situation occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s when the Watchtower began to again predict the end of the world. This time, they said, the end would come in 1975. Witnesses began to sell their homes and give away their possessions en masse. They gave away canned goods to neighbors because they wouldn’t need them anymore. Many witnesses quit their jobs so that in the closing months they could spend all of their time witnessing and preaching about the coming of Christ. No thought or attention was given to the future because there was no earthly future according to their interpretation of the Scriptures. Some witnesses were so devastated by the failed prophecy that many left the movement and still others turned to suicide.3 There is a reason why a majority of people in the United States identify themselves as Christian and yet, have little cultural influence. A large part of this is, believe it or not, related to the way that Christians interpret the book of Revelation. Let me preface this by stating that I am not implying that a differing interpretation of the Revelation or the end-times constitutes a heresy or a cult. There are, however, certain similarities between the heretical beliefs of the Montanists and Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning their interpretation of the end times and the end times expectations of large portions of Christendom today. There have been many different ways of interpreting Revelation throughout the ages and there continue to be many today. We will not take the time here to consider all of the different interpretive camps of the end times and Revelation. For the purposes of this chapter we will look at two primary groups. The first interpretive group is the futurists. Futurists are the most popular and influential group in American evangelicalism today. This view has been championed of late by the Left Behind series that is heavy on excitement but light on good biblical exegesis. The futurists teach that the book of Revelation describes a time yet to come and predicts the end of the world. They believe that the Revelation and other passages in the Bible predict a coming tribulation for mankind and a rapture of the church. After that time, Christ will rule in His Kingdom on earth for a literal period of one thousand years. The futurists break down into those 184 that teach pre-tribulation rapture of the church; mid-tribulation of the church; and post-tribulation of the church. The second interpretation that we will consider is the partial-preterist view. Preterism teaches that the book of Revelation was a prophecy of the first century destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Old Covenant times when it was written. Partial-preterism is similar to classic preterism except that it interprets the final portions of the book of Revelation yet to be fulfilled while claiming that most of the book has to do with the first century. This view proclaims that the Kingdom of God was fully instituted at the day of Pentecost and that the thousand years is a symbolic number, indicating that God’s Kingdom rule would be complete. So what does all of this have to do with the worldview of Christian young people? Believe it or not, it has a lot to do with it. As stated before in this work, what we believe effects how we act. Because our culture has been so dominated by futurist thinking in the last one hundred years, the futurist worldview has seeped into many parts of the modern Christian mindset. How one views the end times has a major impact as to how they behave and plan now. The prevailing belief that biblical signs are unmistakably pointing towards an at-any- moment-now return have had huge negative effects on the biblical worldview of much of Christendom and our young people. Because this is such a prevalent view in America, those who have not given the subjects of the end times and Revelation much thought probably tend to fall into the futurist worldview of the end times. The futurist worldview has had a negative impact because it leads to Christians that for the most part have no solid plan for the future. It also saps any personal incentive to prepare for the future or change the culture. It offers an extremely pessimistic view of the future. According to the futurists, the culture will be lost to Satan and the church will only overcome when Christ returns. This view of the future is so pessimistic that it offers no reason to commit resources to long-term plans and programs of cultural capture and transformation. God did not form the church to sit in the back of the Secular Humanist or Islamic bus, careening out of control until we are bailed out by the return of Jesus. A careful reading of the Bible, especially Revelation, will show that God has promised victory to His people. Our job is not only to save the world but to transform and exercise dominion over it as well. Futurists have never had much of a stomach to change culture. The best they muster is a desire to escape from our culture’s more negative aspects. Rather than being on the offensive, futurists don’t expect to achieve anything culturally. Why rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? Rather than fixing the ship, the mindset becomes to get as many people off before it sinks. There has to be a balance between transforming culture and saving souls. For an example of that truth, look at countries 185 like Iran that have not been transformed by the biblical worldview. The ability to even get into that country and save souls is extremely limited. Fear of some great tribulation still off in the future is illegitimate and unfounded scripturally. It has served as a major disincentive for Christians to sacrifice time and resources to build up a comprehensive kingdom of God here and now. Most of the passages cited to support a rapture doctrine actually have to do with the final judgment with no hint of a rapture or still-future tribulation period. For starters, a promised rapture of the church and a great tribulation has some major theological problems when considered in the light of Matthew 13 in which Jesus says that the wheat and the tares will not be separated until the final judgment. The futurist views deny that the kingdom of God includes the civilization of God. They deny that we can or are called to change the culture. They teach that all civilizations will necessarily be God-haters during the church era. This is not, however, the message of Revelation as we will see shortly. When the defeats in the church life come, and they will, the futurist view encourages the adherent to accept it as part of the inevitable. When people expect to be defeated they will be. Expecting to lose saps your strength and your will to fight. The futurist view leads to the logical conclusion that the work of Christ on the Cross is virtually irrelevant to history and culture, as is His ascension to the right hand of God. Also relegated to virtual irrelevance in history and culture is the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Did Jesus not promise that the gates of Hades would never overcome His kingdom? (Matthew 16:18). Why should Christians assume that Satan’s kingdom is more powerful than Christ’s? Why should we believe that Satan’s kingdom will continually overcome Christ’s kingdom throughout history until such time as He returns in the future? Rather than seeing the church as overcomers, we often take on the view that the church is on the defensive and will be besieged by Satan until Christ returns. This is a backwards view of the biblical message to the church. The theology of dominion of the church has always led to great strides in history and culture while the pre-millennial view has led to the church virtually dropping out of society while waiting in the corner for Jesus to come rescue us. There are two keys that we will discuss to a proper understanding of the biblical worldview of the present and future of the church. The first is a proper interpretation of Revelation. The second is an understanding of the role of dominion for Christians.

Interpreting Revelation One of most important aspects of correctly interpreting Revelation is to understand the date when it was penned. There are two main views regarding the date of authorship. One is that it 186 was written before 70 A.D. and the destruction of the Temple, and probably before 68 A.D. and the death of Nero. The other, and more popular pre-millennial date, is 96 A.D. during the reign of Domitian. The question comes down to whether Revelation was written during the reign of Nero or Domitian. Although less popular currently, the earlier date is to be preferred for many reasons. First, is the lack of evidence for any great period of persecution under Domitian. While Domitian was demonstrably cruel, there is no mention of an alleged widespread persecution of Christians by Domitian until the 5th century. Domitian did briefly banish some Christians but they were eventually allowed back into the Empire. John Robinson remarks: “When this limited and selective purge, in which no Christian was for certain put to death, is compared with the massacre of Christians under Nero in what two early and entirely independent witnesses speak of as ‘immense multitudes,’4 it is astonishing that commentators should have been led by Irenaeus, who himself does not even mention a persecution, to prefer a Domitianic context for the book of Revelation.”5 Robinson’s reference to Irenaeus refers to Irenaeus’ writing in Against Heresies in the late second century that the prophecy of the Revelation had been seen around 96 A.D. The sentence in which that information appears is difficult in the original language and could just as easily be read that it was John who was seen in 96 A.D., not the prophecy. This one sentence from Irenaues, provides the only hard alleged evidence for the date during Domitian’s reign. Regardless of the ambiguity of the language, it is also possible that Irenaeus was mistaken if he was claiming a later date for the prophecy of John. Second, the familiarity that the author demonstrates with specific Temple worship practices suggests that the Temple was still standing when written. As the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., this would favor the earlier date. Third, when interpreted properly, the book of Revelation is primarily dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem. This would clearly put the date of authorship before September, 70 A.D. Fourth, Scripture teaches that the particular type of special revelation that resulted in the Bible would end by A.D. 70. “The angel Gabriel told Daniel that the “seventy weeks” were to end with the destruction of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-27); and that period would also serve to ‘seal up the vision and the prophecy’ (Daniel 9:27). In other words, this special revelation would stop – be sealed up – by the time Jerusalem was destroyed.6 The brilliant, fourth century church father, Athanasius understood this to be the meaning of Daniel 9. “When did prophet and division cease from Israel? Was it not when Christ came, the Holy One of holies? It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stand, neither is prophet raised 187 up nor vision revealed among them. . . For the same reason Jerusalem stood until the same time, in order that theie men might premeditate the types before the truth was known. So, of course, once the Holy One of holies had come, both vision and prophecy were sealed. And the kingdom of Jerusalem ceased at the same time.”7 There are many other items that point to the earlier date for Revelation but the fact seems clear. God warned that the kingdom would be taken from the apostate Jews (Matthew 21:33-43). He held off his final judgment on the nation of Israel until the writing of the New Covenant document was complete. Once that was accomplished, God terminated the Old Covenant once and for all with the destruction of Jerusalem. To understand the book of Revelation, and really the whole Bible, we must understand that the Bible is a book about the Covenant. The Bible is not a complete theological treatise, an encyclopedia of religious knowledge, a collection of moral tales, or a grouping of studies of spiritual heroes from times past. The Bible is the record of God revealing Himself to mankind and creating a relationship with man through His Covenant. The Covenant is the meaning of biblical history, biblical law, and biblical prophecy. “The prophets were God’s legal emissaries to Israel and the nations, acting as prosecuting attorneys bringing what has become known among recent scholars as the ‘Covenant Lawsuit.’”8 The prophets did not give prophecies that would fit our culture’s definition of what a prophecy is. In other words, they are not a prediction but more of an evaluation of man’s response to the warnings of the Word of God. For example, look at God’s words through Jeremiah: “If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it” (Jeremiah 18:7-10). The words of the prophets were only predications in the sense that they relayed what would happen if the people did not respond humbly to the warnings. This is why Jonah’s prophecy that Ninevah would be destroyed in forty days did not come true, so to speak. The Ninevites repented, and so disaster was averted. Like so many other Biblical writings, the Revelation is a specific covenantal prophecy. The only way to properly understand the images in Revelation is through the understanding of the covenantal context. If it is ignored, the intent of John’s message is lost and Revelation becomes open to the latest fanciful eschatological flavor of the day. The book of Revelation is a covenant document not a predictive look at the very near future. If it is not read in the proper context of 188 covenantal understanding it, loses its continuity with the rest of the Bible and becomes little more than a disturbing appendix to the rest of God’s Word. God’s relationship with Israel was described in covenantal terms throughout the pages of the Bible. Israel was God’s bride, bound to Him through covenant. The Covenant was a legally binding contract between Israel and the Lord God. It should be of no surprise, then, that the structure of many of the Old Testament Covenantal books in the Old Testament are extremely similar to the accepted form of peace treaties and covenants in the ancient Near East. It is not as if the biblical writers copied the old world’s form of treaties, rather it would seem the other way around. Treaties in the ancient world were pretty simple. A conquering king would make a covenant with their defeated enemy. In the covenant certain promises and stipulations would be made that would guarantee protection for the defeated vassal. The vassal also agreed to obey and respect the authority of their new lord. If the vassal or inferior king violated the covenant terms, the lord would send messengers to warn the vassal to remind him of the curses and consequences of breaking the sanctions. This was the function of the biblical prophets. They were reminding Israel of the curse-sanctions if they did not quickly repent of their covenant-violating activities. The standard treaty in the ancient world consisted of five parts, all of which appear in the biblical covenants:

1. Preamble (identifying the lordship of the Great King, stressing both his transcendence and his immanence);

2. Historical Prologue (surveying the lord’s previous relationship to the vassal, especially emphasizing the blessings bestowed);

3. Ethical Stipulations (expounding the vassal’s obligations, his “guide to citizenship” in the covenant);

4. Sanctions (outlining the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience);

5. Succession Arrangements (dealing with the continuity of the covenant relationship over future generations).9

We need look no further than the book of Deuteronomy to find a biblical example of this treaty form.

Deuteronomy 1. Preamble (1:1-5) 189

2. Historical Prologue (1:6-4:49) 3. Ethical Stipulations (5:1-26:19) 4. Sanctions (27:1-30:20) 5. Succession Arrangements (31:1-34:12)10

Once the covenant had been set in place it was God’s expectations that the stipulations be followed. When they were not, the prophets were sent as prosecuting attorneys. The pattern of the lawsuit was always patterned after the same structure of the original covenant. This means that the biblical prophecies follow the five-part treaty structure. The book of Hosea, for example, is laid out according to the covenant outline:

Hosea 1. Preamble (1) 2. Historical Prologue (2) 3. Ethical Stipulations (4-7) 4. Sanctions (8-9) 5. Succession Arrangements (10-14)11

In the tradition of many other biblical prophecies, the Revelation is a prophecy of the Covenant demonstrating God’s wrath against Israel and a reminder of the covenantal curses that will follow as a result of their violation of the stipulations. By rejecting Jesus Christ, Israel had rejected the Covenant and now the curses would kick in. The Revelation is written in the same five part treaty structure style in which many other biblical prophecies are written:

Revelation 1. Preamble: Vision of the Son of Man (1) 2. Historical Prologue: The Seven Letters (2-3) 3. Ethical Stipulations: The Seven Seals (4-7) 4. Sanctions: The Seven Trumpets (8-14) 5. Succession Arrangements (15-22)12

Another indicator that Revelation is covenant lawsuit is the fact that it so closely mirrors and follows the structure of Ezekiel, one of the clearest covenant lawsuits in the Bible. Revelation is very dependent upon the language and imagery of Ezekiel.13 According to Albert Vanhoye there are at least 130 separate references to Ezekiel found in the Revelation.14 John does more than just make some allusions to Ezekiel; it appears that he follows him step-by-step. Phillip Carrington says, with just a slight hint of hyperbole: “The Revelation is a Christian rewriting of Ezekiel. Its fundamental structure is the same. Its interpretation depends upon Ezekiel. The first half of both books leads up to the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem; in the 190 second they describe a new and holy Jerusalem. There is one significant difference. Ezekiel’s laments over Tyre is transformed into a lament over Jerusalem, the reason being that St. John wishes to transfer to Jerusalem the note irrevocable doom found in the lament over Tyre. Here lies the real difference in the messages of the two books. Jerusalem, like Tyre, is to go forever.”15 Look at the obvious parallels between the two books.

1. The Throne-Vision (Revelation 4/Ezekiel 1) 2. The Book (Revelation 5/Ezekiel 2-3) 3. The Four Plagues (Revelation 6:1-8/Ezekiel 5) 4. The Slain under the Altar (Revelation 6:9-11/Ezekiel 6) 5. The Wrath of God (Revelation 6:12-17/Ezekiel 7) 6. The Seal on the Saint’s Foreheads (Revelation 7/Ezekiel 9) 7. The Coals from the Altar (Revelation 8/Ezekiel 10) 8. No More Delay (Revelation 10:1-7/Ezekiel 12) 9. The Eating of the Book (Revelation 10:8-11/Ezekiel 2) 10. The Measuring of the Temple (Revelation 11:1-2/Ezekiel 40-43) 11. Jerusalem and Sodom (Revelation 11:8/Ezekiel 16) 12. The Cup of Wrath (Revelation 14/Ezekiel 23) 13. The Vine of the Land (Revelation 14:18-20/Ezekiel 15) 14. The Great Harlot (Revelation 17-18/Ezekiel 16, 23) 15. The Lament over the City (Revelation 18/Ezekiel 27) 16. The Scavengers’ Feast (Revelation 19/Ezekiel 39) 17. The First Resurrection (Revelation 20:4-6/Ezekiel 37) 18. The Battle with Gog and Magog (Revelation 20:7-9/Ezekiel 38-39) 19. The New Jerusalem (Revelation 21/Ezekiel 40-48) 20. The River of Life (Revelation 22/Ezekiel 47)16

This step-by-step “pegging” of Revelation with Ezekiel demonstrates more than just a literary relationship. “Level pegging is not usually a feature of literary borrowing. . . Level pegging is a feature rather of lectionary use, as when the Church sets Genesis to be read alongside Romans, or Deuteronomy alongside Acts. . . Furthermore, it is plain that John expected his prophecies to be read aloud in worship, for he says, ‘Blessed is he who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear’ (1:3).”17 The fact that John repeatedly refers to his book as ‘the prophecy’ indicates that he was aligning himself with the Old Testament prophecies. David Chilton sums this up saying that, “. . . the Book of Revelation was intended from the beginning as a series of readings in worship throughout the Church Year, to be read in tandem with the prophecies of Ezekiel (as well as other Old Testament readings).18 M.D. Goulder further describes the purpose of Revelation, “. . . both books divide into about fifty units, and the Jewish (Christian) year consists of fifty or fifty-one sabbaths/Sundays. So we have what looks like material for an annual cycle of Ezekiel inspiring a year’s cycle of visions, which could then be read in the Asian churches alongside Ezekiel, and expounded in sermons in its light.”19 191

Another insight into properly interpreting Revelation is to understand the symbolism in the book. As stated above, prophecy is not strictly predicting the future. It is primarily a message from God reminding the hearers of their violation of the Covenant and the proclamation of a covenant lawsuit. The prophets did predict future events but they did not do so in historical form. They predicted the natural results of the way events were going. They used symbols and figures from history, the surrounding culture, and creation. Most errors in interpreting books of biblical prophecy, including the Revelation, are due to misunderstandings of the nature of symbolism in prophecy. It is important to remember that the Bible is literature. It is divinely inspired, but it is literature, nonetheless, and must be read as literature. When one reads poetry, it must be read differently than if it was the Wall Street Journal. In the same way, prophetic symbolism cannot be interpreted anyway you would like. Think of how silly it would seem if we were to expect to read Psalm 23 literally. Is there literally a valley of the shadow of death? Does Jesus make us lie down in green pastures? I know of no one that would suggest the twenty-third Psalm be read that way, yet these same people have little problem in attempting to read prophetic symbolism like that found in Revelation that way. From the very first prophecy in the Bible we already see the tendency to use symbolic language: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This is clearly not as simple as being history written before it happens. This is a symbolic statement, as is most biblical prophecy. John tells his readers from the first verse of Revelation that this is a book of revelation and signs: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [it] by his angel unto his servant John” (KJV). The Revelation was signified or “sign-ified” by the angel. John wants his readers to know that this is a book of signs and symbols and should be read that way. “The symbols are not to be understood in a literal manner. We can see this by St. John’s use of the same term in his Gospel (12:33; 18:32: 21:19). In each case, it is used of Christ ‘signifying’ a future event by a more or less symbolic indication, rather than by a prosaic, literal description. And this is generally the form of prophecies in the Revelation. It is a book of symbols from beginning to end.”20 John did not intend for the Revelation to be read as “tomorrow’s newspaper today.” He expected that his readers would read his prophecy in the terms of the Old Testament symbolic language with which he wrote the book. 192

The key here is to use the Old Testament symbolism that John intended. We must interpret symbols using the system the author intended and used. We cannot make symbols mean whatever we wish them to. This is irresponsible and dangerous. David Chilton agrees that we cannot interpret symbols however we choose. He says, “. . . nor did St. John create the images of the Book of Revelation out of his own imagination. He presents Christ to his readers as a Lion and Lamb, not because he thinks those are a pretty picture, but because of the connotations of lions and lambs already established in the Bible.”21 It is obvious that John used allusions to Old Testament language and symbols as a starting point for his own symbolism. Merrill Tenney says that if looked at conservatively, John makes 348 clear references to the Old Testament, although he never once quotes the Old Testament. This includes 57 from the Pentateuch, 235 from the Prophets, and 56 from the historical and poetical books.22 The earliest Christians would have easily understood John’s language, references, and symbols. By the late second and early third centuries, the Hebrew influence had largely vanished from the Church and so did the ease in understanding such a Hebrew book. Our current difficulty in finding the key to unlocking the Revelation lies in our inability to understand the Old Testament references and symbolism. We simply cannot, however, fall into the trap of interpreting Revelation’s symbols without an understanding of the Old Testament references. One clear example of the misinterpretation of symbols in Revelation is that of the seal or mark on the hands and/or foreheads of people (Revelation 7, 9, 14, 22). These are clear references to the Old Testament concept of the seal or mark (Genesis 3:19; Exodus 28:36; Deuteronomy 6:6-8; Ezekiel 9:4-6). The symbol mark or seal is a clear allusion to the Old Testament symbol of the mark or seal referring to man’s total obedience to whomever or whatever he was sealed by. Yet, this symbol has been interpreted to mean all kinds of fanciful and fantastical things. We must read the symbols in the way that John intended them to be read which is according to the Old Testament language. When we do this, we see that the book is a covenant lawsuit, not some fanciful prediction of the end of all things. Another example is the often-misinterpreted phrase “coming on the clouds” (Revelation 1:7). This should not be taken, as it often is, as Jesus riding gloriously down from heaven to scoop up His people. There is no biblical precedent to interpret this symbolic phrase in that way. A quick look through the Old Testament will show us that God coming on the clouds is one of the most familiar biblical images for judgment (Genesis 15:17; Exodus 13:21-22; 14:19-20, 24; 19:9, 16-19; Psalm 18:8-14; 104:3; Isaiah 19:1; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Nahum 1:2-8; Matthew 24:30; Mark 14:62; Acts 2:19). When God comes on the clouds it is not generally a happy event, this is judgment language and people should tremble. Several times throughout the opening chapters of 193

Revelation, Jesus says that He will come to the churches if they do not repent (2:5; 2:16; 2:25; 3:3). I hardly think that Jesus is threatening the churches with His Second Coming. When we see the Bible talk about God coming or coming on the clouds it is almost always in judgment; it is not referring to some sort of rapture scenario. The final category through which we can understand that the Revelation is a message to the first century church and a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem due to Israel’s Covenant violations is the contemporary focus of Revelation. The Revelation was written to remind a suffering and battered church that Christ was Lord. John wanted them to not forget during the coming times of turmoil that Jesus had claimed “all authority on heaven and on earth,” (Matthew 28:28) that He was in control, and that He was the King of all things. John wanted them to understand that their suffering was a part of God’s plan, that they were an integral part of the great war of history. Israel would soon be punished as a Covenant breaker. The sufferings of the Church and the coming destruction of Israel was not a sign that Jesus had abandoned the world to Satan; rather it was part of the plan to exalt the Church. They were no abandoned by God; they were on the front line of the battle of the ages. The battle was won at the Resurrection, everything since then has been nothing more than a mop- up operation. The message was for the church to have heart and overcome the world because Christ has already conquered it and has passed off His dominion to His bride. The true message of the Revelation can only be understood if it was written to John’s contemporaries. Of what comfort would the Revelation be to the persecuted church if it was concerning events over 2,000 years in the future? Is it logical to consider that the book of Revelation would be irrelevant and unintelligible for 2,000 years of Christians? Interestingly, since the time of Montanus, all groups have interpreted Revelation futuristically, and have assumed that their own generation was the end of all things. The early church’s biggest enemy was an apostate Israel. The message that God was soon about to clearly terminate his ties with the violators of His Covenant was exactly what the first- century church needed to hear. The message of Revelation for Christians since the first-century is not futuristic, but is instead, that Christ has already defeated our enemies, now it is up to us to exercise dominion and transform the world. Some would claim that a contemporary understanding of Revelation would make it irrelevant for today, but that could not be further from the truth. If this were the case then all of the epistles would also be irrelevant as they were written to deal with first-century problems. In fact, although not addressed specifically to us, the Revelation’s message of dominion and overcoming is just as relevant for the Church today as it was 2,000 years ago. 194

There are at least four specific areas that point to the contemporary nature of the Revelation. First is simply the contemporary focus of the book. John seems to address the martyrs throughout the book (6:9; 7:14; 12:11). When we realize that the Revelation was written to comfort a suffering church, we realize that John was addressing the needs of the first-century martyrs. What would have been the point of writing a book to a suffering group of people that were told to read and ponder the book that was full of futuristic references that would have made no sense to them? Second, John himself says that the Revelation would “soon take place,” (1:1) and that the “time is near” (1:3). The words shortly and near would be nonsense if they were referring to events 2,000 years in the future. Some might be tempted to trot out 2 Peter 3:8 which says “a day is like a thousand years.” They forget that Peter cancels that out with the end of the sentence, “and a thousand years are like a day.” Plus, the context of this passage is completely different. Third, John clearly references several events and situations as contemporary. In 13:18, he tells his readers that if they have insight, they can calculate the number of the beast. This would be a cruel hoax if the beast were not to arrive for another 2,000 years. In 17:10, a passage that is clearly referring to ancient Rome, John informs his readers that the sixth king is still on the throne. Further, in 17:18, John says that “The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” The present tense used indicates a contemporary situation. Fourth, the angel tells John to not seal up the prophecy of the book because the time “is near” (Psalm 22). This again implies that the prophecy is about events in the near future. In addition to that, compare this with the command Daniel received at the end of his book, “close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4). Daniel’s prophetic vision concerns things in the distant future so he is told to seal it up until the time of the end of the Old Covenant. John, in contrast, is told not to seal up his prophecy because the time to which it refers is near. We will look at the specific areas in which properly understanding Revelation effects the worldview of our young people, but at this point it will suffice it to say that properly interpreting Revelation has a major impact on the worldview of the reader. Before we consider the specific impact on worldview, however, we first need to look at the biblical concept of dominion.

Dominion To really understand the role of the Christian in the world today, we must understand the concepts of dominion and sovereignty. A sovereign is one that exercises supreme or permanent authority. Dominion refers to a territory or sphere of influence or control. One can only be given 195 dominion over a certain sphere by one who is a sovereign. For instance, a dictator of a country is a sovereign over his country. Because he is sovereign he has the ability to grant to dominion to other men to rule specific areas in his stead. The one with dominion has authority in that realm but only in so much as he keeps in line with the will of the sovereign. If the one with dominion does not follow the wishes of the sovereign then he will most likely be stripped of his dominion. My older son and I have had many discussions lately about this concept of dominion and sovereignty. I have explained to him that he has dominion over his bedroom. He has the freedom to put things where he would like and hang things that are important to him on the walls. He can even have friends into his tiny realm of dominion. What he cannot do, however, is challenge my sovereignty. He has a certain amount of freedom but if he goes against certain hard and fast rules of the house, he violates my sovereignty and will lose his dominion. His dominion does include freedom but with it also comes certain responsibilities. He needs to keep his room clean and in order, for instance. This may not match up exactly with my idea of clean, but I have given him dominion, so he has the freedom to vary somewhat from how I would do things. Basically he has the responsibility of being my representative in his realm of dominion. He can do things a little differently as long as he sticks to the overall heart of my will as sovereign. When he has friends over, he is in charge, for the most part, in his room. It is his responsibility to enforce the rules of the house with his friend. This is what having dominion is all about. It means that you represent the sovereign and exercise his authority for him. You only have that authority, though, because it was given to you by the sovereign. Deuteronomy 4:35 says “You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other.” It is not as if there was a host of lesser gods over whom God is supreme. It is not as though there is pantheon of equal gods. God was informing the Hebrew people that He was it. He is the only God, the sovereign over the universe. God made the universe and everything in it. It is His; He is sovereign. God is sovereign and that can never be changed or lessened. When God created man He gave him dominion over the earth. We learn in Genesis 1 that humans are made in the image of God. The word translated ‘image’ here is the Hebrew tselem which means literally idol or representative. From the very outset of the earth God has retained sovereignty but He gave man dominion over the earth. We were to be His representatives and exercise His authority over His creation. Man had dominion over the realm of earth as long as he continued to do so under the auspices of God’s sovereignty. Shortly after God created man, He charged him with naming the animals. God could have done that. He could have pre-programmed man with knowledge of the names of all animals and 196 plants. Yet, God charged man with that responsibility. Man was given dominion over all the animals in God’s original plan, and naming them was part of that dominion. God charged mankind with the command to be fruitful and populate the earth. Again, God could have done this on His own. He could have created enough humans to fill the earth. There would have been no need for us to do so. Man was given dominion over the things of the earth. Man was to be the steward of the earth. God gave man the freedom and responsibility to build cities, create governments, and order societies. He gave us certain limits that kept in the bounds of His sovereignty but as long as we remained in right relationship with Him, we had dominion. The key words in the preceding paragraph are, “as long as we remained in right relationship with Him.” As stated earlier, one can only exercise dominion as long as it is in keeping with the standards of the sovereign. Adam and Eve were given dominion and were to fill the earth with offspring and pass that dominion on to them. They were deceived by the Serpent, however, and disobeyed God. That act of disobedience meant that they were no longer in a right relationship with God and could no longer act as His representative. They had forfeited their dominion. God tells them as much in Genesis 3 following their decision to eat from the forbidden tree. Eve would have pain in childbirth and Adam would have to work hard for everything he would eat. No longer would things come easy because they no longer had authority. Death was ushered into the world; God gave them clothes to cover their nakedness, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden. Man sinned and surrendered dominion to Satan. Satan snatched it away. God could have stepped in at this point and taken it right back, but then what would be the point of giving it to man in the first place? Man had to learn the hard lessons that come along with failing to exercise the proper dominion. With responsibility comes the need to experience the consequences of failing in that responsibility. Mankind surrendered the dominion that they were supposed to have and now they must deal with the consequences of those actions. They would live in a world ravaged by the destructive power of sin. Rather than man ruling over the earth and having communion with their creator, dominion was surrendered to Satan. Man had made his bed and now God would let him lie in it. This is why Satan is called the prince of the earth (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Man was no longer in control of the earth. Satan was free to roam, and to tempt and test man (Job 1:7). Satan surely has a kingdom. Jesus tells us that in Matthew 12:26. Satan’s kingdom is vast and his main weapon is death. It was his main weapon against man (Romans 5:12) because it is what will keep us from God forever. There are passages that indicate that Satan’s kingdom in organized into a hierarchy (Ephesians 6:12; Daniel 10). Satan’s main problem is that He is 197 always trying to be like the most high God (Isaiah 14:14). He has convinced himself that he had sovereignty when he really only had dominion, a stolen dominion at that. The fact that Satan had wrested dominion from mankind coincides the fact that man ceased to be God’s representatives. In Genesis 1, we are told that man was made in God’s image and likeness. After the Fall, though, we discover that man was now having offspring “in his own likeness, in his own image.” Adam and his offspring were no longer the representatives of God in this world. Their dominion and authority had been forfeited to Satan. This really explains what Satan was doing in the wilderness with Jesus. Satan was clearly concerned that Jesus was the one promised by God that would crush his head (Genesis 3:15). He came to fix that problem before it got out of hand. Satan comes in Matthew 4 to the wilderness trying to figure out exactly who Jesus is and what He is up to. At one point in their encounter, Matthew records the following exchange: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only’” (Matthew 4:8-10). What exactly was Satan up to here? Some have offered that Satan was trying to offer something to Jesus that he could not deliver. Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, yet, Jesus never disputes the fact that he could do so. If this was a false offer, wouldn’t Jesus have made the claim that the earth and everything in it was God’s? Although this is still a true statement, Satan did have the ability to offer the kingdoms of the world because he was in possession of dominion. Satan was offering Jesus dominion over the earth. Jesus refused, not on the grounds that Satan was offering what he could not deliver, rather He recognized that sovereignty was God’s and so was the worship due Him. Only One who is sovereign is worthy to be worshipped. Jesus knows that He was here to represent God’s will. No deals for dominion would be made apart from God’s will. He knows that the Sovereign God will soon deliver dominion to Him, but it must be done according to God’s will. Jesus’ work on the Cross wrested dominion away from the pretender, Satan. Jesus defeated Satan’s main weapon, death. Paul wrote very clearly that Christ had taken away Satan’s main weapon by defeating death on the Cross (1 Corinthians 15:12-22). We will still die, but death is no longer our master. The sting and victory have been taken out of death by Jesus. It is important to note that Jesus defeated death but did not destroy it. When Jesus died on the Cross and rose from the dead, He took back dominion from Satan and defeated his kingdom. Shortly after that, Jesus opened the Kingdom of God for all men. Jesus told His disciples just before His ascension to heaven that, “All authority in heaven and on 198 earth has been given to me.” In other words, Jesus had taken back dominion for mankind. This dominion, however, was not turned over to all men automatically. It is, in some sense, a partial dominion. God values free will, so being part of His Kingdom must be chosen. Satan has been defeated but is still allowed to have dominion over those who choose to remain in the dark. We must be citizens of the Kingdom of God in order to take part in that Kingdom and be God’s representatives once again. Sharing in Christ’s dominion is a choice but for those who choose, He will bring us out from under Satan’s dominion and under His. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:13). Once we have been rescued, Jesus allows us to freely share in His authority and dominion. Being one who has earned the authority and dominion that He has, Jesus is free to share that with His co-heirs. In Matthew 28, just after He says that all authority has been given Him, Jesus tells His disciples to “go.” This is a word of shared authority. If I have power and tell you to do something, I am imparting a certain amount of authority to the person to whom I am talking. When I tell one of my sons to go and tell the other one something, I have given the message bearer a certain amount of authority on my behalf. If the other son disregards the words of the message bearer, he is really despising my authority. Jesus gave us the authority to be His ambassadors to the world (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are God’s representatives and are to exercise his dominion authority through the auspices of His kingdom. He gave clear orders to expand the borders of His kingdom wherever we and increase the realm of Christ’s dominion. Consider the following passage:

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:19b-23

Christ has been raised so high that He is above things like authority, power, and dominion. This is not to imply that He doesn’t have those things, though. They are under his feet. He has them and has given to His church. If I stand on a chair, my head is over, but so is my body. Whatever my head is over, my body is over. If something is under my feet then not only my head, but my body is also over it. If Christ has all dominion, power, and authority, and all things 199 are under His feet, then his body, the Church, also has been given that dominion, power, and authority, and all things are under the feet of the church. One day, in the age that is to come, Christ will return and destroy all dominion, power, and authority. Right now, He is exercising his dominion through His church. One day that will no longer be necessary. Look at the way Paul puts it:

But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:23-28

When the end comes, Christ will destroy all dominion, power, and authority to the Father when He hands the Kingdom of God over to Him. Dominion, power, and authority are no longer needed when the sovereign is directly present and running things. There need be no concept of dominion when the sovereign God is directly at the reigns of His Kingdom. It is at that time that death, which has already been defeated, will be completely destroyed. Those who are in God’s Kingdom at that point can never be removed from it. Let me make one final cautionary note regarding this concept of dominion. I am not espousing the sort of dominionism that morphs Christianity into a political movement to set up theocracies around the world. What I mean by this term is that we are to transform culture from the inside out, not through laws or politics. This is not to say that Christians should not be involved in politics if that is part of their life or the area to which they feel they are called; it simply means that this should not be the focus of the church in transforming society. We are to live authentically, love our neighbor and to be good stewards of the earth. In so doing, we will transform the culture. The focus goes far beyond the pietism of withdrawing from the world and only engaging it in order to convert a few people. It means that every member of the body of Christ realizes that they can turn every aspect of their lives into sacred space. Everything that we do can be done for Christ to increase the influence of His Kingdom on earth. The primary goal of dominion, then, is to expand the Kingdom of God into the realm of Satan’s Kingdom. It is to go into every area of life in which we see Satan’s Kingdom ruling, defeat it, and claim it for God’s Kingdom. This means that when something negative in our culture happens that clearly expands Satan’s Kingdom and influence, that rather than sitting back and waiting for the rapture because 200

Jesus must be coming soon, we fight. We do so because it is our job to take dominion over this world for Christ, the King. This ties into the message of the Revelation, which is for the Church to overcome because her enemies have already been defeated. We, as the body of Christ, have had all things put under our feet. The clear question remains, however? What does this have to do with creating a sound and comprehensive biblical worldview in young people? We will answer that in the conclusion of this chapter.

Conclusion In many ways the information in this chapter is the key to unlocking a true biblical worldview. That is not to imply that someone must view the Revelation from the partial preterist perspective in order to live like a Christian, only that a proper understanding of John’s prophecy and the doctrine of dominion help us to truly grasp what it means to be a Christian. A very real danger for the Christian community is for there to be a disconnect between knowledge and action. The Christian worldview cannot be reduced to a mere construct of a set of facts or a philosophical viewpoint. It is an embodied community committed to faithful discipleship. If Christianity is reduced to a set of beliefs then it is hardly any better than any secular worldview. There is such a thing as truth, however, and that cannot be abandoned. There is a new emerging view of Christianity that completely rejects the biblical worldview concept and embraces only the embodiment of Christian living. There must be a balance between these two views. Neither extreme is particularly healthy. I believe that the Revelation and the doctrine of dominion presented earlier in this chapter provide that middle ground. Revelation is a difficult read, no doubt, but there are certain truths that can be gleaned from it. We may never know precisely what John was trying to say in every verse, but the overall message to the church is clear truth: Christ has defeated His enemies, now hold firm to the truth and overcome. How that is done must be worked out by each Christian community over time but the message stays the same. The message of Revelation is important because it ties together the truths of the Bible such as the resurrection of Christ and His victory over Satan (truths that need to be defended apologetically at times) and the need to put those truths into action, to overcome. It is the message to exercise dominion over the world that protects us from drying into a congealed wad of facts. It keeps us from being an inactive group of Christians that don’t impact the world and just sit around waiting Jesus to come back and fix a world that the followers of Christ have allowed to 201 sadly deteriorate. There are at least four truths concerning the Revelation and the dominion of the Church that have an impact on the worldview of young people. First, teens need a cause. They need something bigger than themselves for which to fight. Growing up, my father used to always tell me, “If you don’t have something to die for, you don’t have anything to live for.” Overcoming the world and exercising the dominion of the Kingdom of God is a fight that we have been called to and one worth fighting. A Christian worldview with an empty eschatology that calls us to watch the world around us go to pot and wait for the Second Coming (and maybe even cheer for it because it will hasten Christ’s return) hardly inspires the drive within young people to take up and fight for a cause beyond their own world. Taking dominion for the Kingdom of Christ is a tangible battle for young people to fight. Rather than watching the world around them crumble and waiting for a rapture rescue, we are called to reform. This means that young people are to be a light wherever they go. They don’t have to slip quietly through their halls at school hoping to find a friend or two to witness to. It means that they transform their schools in the same way a bright light transforms a dark room. They can boldly fight in their schools against Satan for the battle of dominion because this is what Christ expects of them. The Christian life becomes about reform not waiting for rescue. Second, a proper eschatological worldview leads to a healthier view of the Christian community and the purpose of salvation. And what is the purpose of our salvation? “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Getting to heaven is the result of our salvation but not the purpose. We were saved for the cause of transforming the world. We are called to be salt and light, to change the world. A waiting-for-Jesus-to-come-any-minute mentality causes young people to become self focused. They will assume that there is little more to Christianity than going to heaven, so what is the real rush. Why hurried to be justified before God? Why hurry to help anyone else be saved? All they would need to know is the signs of Jesus’ return so that they can quickly repent and go to heaven. Christianity is much more than that. We are called to finish the battle that Christ already won. He wants us to transform the world so that it can be saved. Without transformation, salvation becomes less and less likely for millions of people. Third, the futurist view causes a complete lack of planning for the future. When I was high school teacher I spent considerable time planning for the school year. I was also careful to keep everything that I taught so that I could access it in future years. I even kept extra work for the kids that had been copied so that they could be used the next time I taught that subject. In my own, small little way I prepared for the present and the future. I knew that I would be teaching for years to come so I prepared for them whenever possible. This changed, however, during my 202 last year. I knew I was leaving, so I did not need to prepare for the following year. I did not keep or save much. I gave things away that I did not want to take with me. I no longer saved articles or items that I might use in the future. I still taught in class the same way but everything else about how I prepared and went about teaching changed because of my view of the future. The same is true for the church and its young people. As mentioned earlier, churches that don’t think they’ll be here in a hundred years are not preparing for that possibility. What if Jesus does not return for another thousand years? If we think He is coming back in the next twenty years or so, then the condition of the culture is of little import to us. But what if He doesn’t come back then? What will our culture be like in five hundred years if it keeps going down the road it is heading? The job of the church is not merely to go make disciples. It also includes being good stewards of the dominion that God has given us. It means transforming the culture. This phenomenon also impacts the lives of specific young people. When I was younger I grew up in a church that taught futurism. I have a specific memory of sitting in the pew one night and truly assuming that I would never have to worry about things like going to college or getting married because Jesus was coming back at any moment. Even then, I knew that I was not yet saved, so I paid close attention to the signs of Jesus’ return so that I could quickly repent before the rapture. I am not implying that every young person will drop out of school and not get married if they believe in futurism, but there is a real danger in them becoming self-focused and not having the proper perspective of the Christian faith. Exercising God’s dominion is about making the lives of other people better. I do not believe that it is possible to be unhappy when we are truly focused every day on making the lives of other people better for the cause of the Kingdom. This futurist mindset exists in the young people in our churches, even if we don’t always realize it. On the scale of 1 to 5 with 5 signifying the highest level of agreement the average score was 4.0 in agreeing with the statement that the job of Christians is “to save the world not to transform the culture in any way.” Identical scores of 3.8 were scored in response to the statements that the “end of the world is coming very soon,” and “Jesus will return before the end of my lifetime.” This is in a church that teaches partial-preterism to its adults. This demonstrates that the cultural Christian influence has affected them to a greater degree than the beliefs of the church. This aspect of our teaching has not been stressed enough to impact their worldview. Fourth, the pre-millennial view of eschatology causes undo fear and bitterness. Most of my peers growing up were scared to death of the rapture and the tribulation and all of the supposed end time events. Many of us were worried every time we came home and our parents weren’t there that the rapture had happened. We lived in constant fear. This has caused bitterness in two 203 ways. One is that now, over twenty years later, Christ still hasn’t returned. We were told at the time that it was very unlikely that the world as we know it would be around that long. Many of the kids who buy into that teaching now reject Christianity on the grounds that Christ never has and probably won’t ever return. Many mock the apostles because it is claimed that they expected the Second Coming at any moment even back then. This is a misreading of the Scriptures and opens the Bible up to unfair criticism. The other obvious cause of bitterness for many is that they were kept in constant fear of the near future with no hope. The pre-millennial view is hopeless in many ways. A proper understanding of Revelation gives us hope. It lets us know that our king has already won and we are now to overcome and transform the world.

204

Conclusion

We all know the basic story of the Israelites in the Old Testament. After over four hundred years of servitude and mistreatment in Egypt, God heard the cries of the descendants of Abraham and rose up Moses to deliver them. Let’s imagine the story from a bit of a different perspective for a few minutes. Imagine if you were a five year old when Moses first came to the children of Israel. You have grown up in Egypt your whole life. It is all you know. You may have heard of the God of your fathers, but the reality of everyday religious life is dominated by the gods of the Egyptians all around you. Think of the awe and wonder that would fill your five-year-old mind as you heard the adults talking about this man Moses who was claiming to be there to free all of you. Free you to what, they wanted to know. Now there were all kinds of strange and terrible things happening to the Egyptians, but everything was fine where you lived. Then one day you heard that the firstborn of all the Egyptians had died. Suddenly everyone was bustling around grabbing their possessions. You hear that you are leaving and going to your homeland. Where is that? What is that? This is all you’ve ever known. On the way panic begins to run through the crowd as they realize that the Egyptians have changed their mind and our now chasing after all of these people following Moses. Then comes the Red Sea. Would that not have been the most amazing sight for a five- year-old? Your young mind would have been swimming, so to speak. Shortly after that Moses disappears on a mountain. No one seems to know what he is doing or if will come back. Things break down quickly. Suddenly it is just like being back in Egypt. Perhaps all of this revelry and idolatry are a bit confusing because after crossing the Red Sea, all of the adults talked about the one true God, Yahweh. They had sworn off the thoughts of any other God and told you that this was the only God. Now, they seem to be contradicting themselves. Now flash forward two years. It seems that the time has come despite many hardships and much complaining, you’ve heard that God has told Moses that it is time to enter the Promised Land. He has sent out twelve scouts and they have returned with a report.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan." 205

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Numbers 13:26-33

We’ve all probably read this passage many times, but have you ever thought about it from the perspective of a now seven-year-old seeing this? What would this do for your faith? Ten of the men come back with a faithless and evil report. First they claim that the men are huge, which they may have been. Then, as if that might not be good enough, they begin to really exaggerate and claim that these men were so big they must be descendants of the fabled Nehpilim. This was a land that God had told them was theirs for the taking (Deuteronomy 11:22-24). The response of the adults was so faithless that God determined that no adult would enter into the land. What lessons did those young people learn that day? Our faith is so much more than personal. Young people look, and see, and calculate, and measure. The sins of this faithless generation would continue to cause problems in the next generation. It would be thirty-eight years before they were allowed to enter again. In Joshua 1:3, they are told, “I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.” This is the same promise from thirty-eight years before. Now it was finally time. Moses had died and Joshua was the new leader that would take them into their inheritance. By this time, those who were young children when they left Egypt were in their mid-forties. Although they had followed Moses and now Joshua, it seems that the lack of faith demonstrated by their parents had carried on in their ethos. The time of the conquest was marked with great victories but also many instances of faithlessness and disobedience. By the time of Joshua’s death, the cumulative effect of not having full faith came to fruition. “Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:8- 10). The people, through their lack of obedience and faithlessness, had turned God’s gifts into curses. It couldn’t be possible that this passage is implying that this next generation didn’t know 206

God, meaning that they had never heard of Him. They didn’t know what He had done for Israel. What I think this means is that the adult generation that conquered the Holy Land may have told their children about God but they never explained His influence in every area of life. They left their children with the impression that they had conquered the Holy Land by their own power. They never taught a comprehensive view of God in every area of life. They probably relegated God to a certain time of the week and kept Him in that box. The next generation then grew up, and although they had heard of God and were familiar with Him, they did not “know” Him. Paul described what the lessons of the Israelites recorded in the Old Testament means for us:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 11

Paul gives the ingredients that can turn a people of God into a people of faithlessness. We are given these examples so that we may avoid the same mistakes that they made. They raised a generation of children who did not understand that God is in every area of our life. Being a Christian is not about just believing the right things. It is about seeing God in every area of life and living as though He is there. The adults of Israel knew God but they did not pass that on to their children. They did not present a comprehensive picture of God in every area of life and so their children received a compartmentalized view of God. This limited understanding of God will lead to a God that does not meet the experiences of life. A God like that will quickly be abandoned to do what is right in your own eyes. That is really what this book has been about. It is an attempt to help us present a comprehensive God that will affect every area of their life, a God that matches their experiences. Not matter what they experience or learn in school, they will not only know about God and how to defend their faith but they will “know” God. They will be able to meet the challenges of life and the attacks of Satan because they view the world and everything in it through the lenses of a biblical worldview.

207

Endnotes

Chapter 1

1 Potter, Humanizing Religion, p.3. 2 Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species (New York: New York University Press, 1988), p. 154. 3 Colson and Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live, p. 89. 4 Lee Stroebel, The Case For a Creator (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), p. 198. 5 Ibid., p. 214. 6 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, MD: Adler and Adler, 1986), p. 107. 7 Allan Sandage, “A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief,” Truth: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Christian Thought, Volume 1 (1985). 8 Stroebel, The Case For a Creator, p. 130. 9 Ibid., p. 131. 10 Colson and Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live, p. 64. 11 Stroebel, The Case For a Creator, p. 132. 12 Vera Kistiakowsky, “The Exquisite Order of the Physical World Calls for the Divine,” In Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, Theos (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1992), p. 52. 13 Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence (Rocklin, CA: Forum, 1997), p. 55, 26. 14 N. Hawkes, The Times (London), August 11, 1997. p. 14. 15 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of what we teach about evolution is wrong (Washington: Regenery Publishing, 2000), p. 73.

Chapter 2

1John Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason (Florissant, Mo.: Liberty Bell Press, 1964), p. 94. 2 Dr. Fred Schwarz, You Can Trust the Communists (to Be Communists) (Long Beach, California: Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, 1972), p. 129. 3 Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason, p. 94. 4 Edward Hunter, Communist Psychological Warfare” (testimony before Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session, Washington D.C., March 13, 1958). 5 Ibid. 6 Marlin Maddoux, Public Education Against America (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2006), p. 105. 7 Ibid, p. 79. 8 John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed,” National Education Association Journal (May 1927), 134. 9 John Dewey, “Soul-Searching,” Teacher Magazine, September 1933, p. 33. 10 Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed” pp. 6, 15, 17. 11 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege (Nashville, TN: Word, 2000), p. 114. 12 John Dewey, Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World (New York: New Republic, Inc., 1929), p. 4, 15, 57. 13 Ibid, p. 61, 67. 14 John Dewey, Education and the Social Order (New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1934), p. 10. 15 Ibid, p. 10. 16 Lahaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 115. 17 Rob Schenck, Ten Words That Will Change a Nation (Tulsa, OK: Albury, 1999), p. 30. 18 Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 110. 19 Ibid., p. 110. 20 Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981), 180. 208

21 David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom, and Bertram Massia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classificaiton of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain (New York: McKay Publishers, 1956), 55. 22 Thomas Sowell, “Indoctrinating the Children,” Forbes, February 1, 1993, p. 65. 23 Berit Kjos, “Molding Minds Through Group Manipulation,” News With Views, September 15, 2002. 24 Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 136. 25 Ibid. 26 B.K. Eakman, “EDUCATION: Bushwacking Johnny,” Chronicles Magazine, September 2002. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/September2002/0902Eakman.html (July, 2006). 27 Ibid. 28 John J. Dunphy, “A Religion for a New Age,” The Humanist, January/February 1983, p. 26. 29 Paul Blanshard, “Three Cheers For Our Secular State,” The Humanist, March/April 1976, p. 17. 30 Potter, Humanism: A New Religion, p. 128. 31 Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1977), p. 45. 32 Henry M. Morris, The Troubled Water of Evolution (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974), p. 69- 72. 33 S. S. Chawla, “A Philosophical Journey to the West,” The Humanist (September/October 1964), p. 151. 34 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 77. 35 Paul Kurtz, Humanist Manifesto II (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18. 36 LaHaye David Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 77. 37 Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 235. 38 Ibid., p. 14. 39 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 82. 40 Julian Huxley, “A New World Vision: Selections from a Controversial Document,” The Humanist (March/April 1979), p. 35. 41 Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, P. 281. 42 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 83. 43 Claire Chambers, The SIECUS Circle (Belmont, MA: Western Islands, 1977), p. 87. 44 Ibid., p. 69-70. 45 Paul Kurtz, “Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism,” Free Inquiry (fall 1999), p. 8-9. 46 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 85. 47 “Cronkite Champions World Government,” Washington Times (3 December 1999): A2. Taken from a speech by Walter Cronkite before the World Federalist Association at the United Nations, 19 October 1999.

Chapter 3

1 Epimenides, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides> (July, 2006) 2 Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 1996), p. 14. 3 Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 42 4 Robert Simon, “The Paralysis of ‘Absolutophobia,’” The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 27, 1997): B5-B6. 5 Christina Hoff Sommers, “Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong,” Imprimis, (March 199): Volume 27, Number 3, 1. 6 N.T. Wright, The Bible for the Post-Modern World, http://latimer.godzone.net.nz/orange_lecture/orangelecture99.asp (July, 2006) 7 Barna Research Group, “Third Millennium Teens” (Ventura, CA: The Barna Research Group, Ltd., 1999), p. 43. 8 Thomas A. Helmbock, “Insights on Tolerance,” Cross and Crescent, summer 1996, p. 2.

209

Chapter 4

1 David Noebel, Understanding the Times (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1991), p. 8. 2 George Barna, Think Like Jesus: Make the Right Decision Every Time (Nashville, TN: Integrity, 2003), p. 22. 3 Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, six volumes (Waco, TX: Word, 1976), vol. 1, p. 43. 4 Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1981), p. 17. 5 Carl F.H. Henry, Twilight of a Great Civilization (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988), p. 94. 6 Noebel, Understanding the Times, p. 7. 7 James C. Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk: The Battle For the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids (Dallas, TX: Word, 1990), p. 19. 8 Noebel, Understanding the Times, p. 2. 9 Francis Bacon, “Of Atheism,” reprinted in Selected Writings of Francis Bacon, ed. Hugh G. Dick (New York: Random House, 1955), p. 44. 10 Carl Rogers, “A Humanistic Conception of Man,” in Humanistic Society, ed. Glass and Staude, p. 30. 11 Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), p. 118. 12 Paul Kurtz, et al., “Credo,” The Humanist, July/Aug. 1968, p. 18. 13 Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1968), p. 149. 14 Ken Ham, The Lie (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1987), p. 24. 15 Tim LaHaye and David Noebel, Mind Siege (Nashville, TN: Word, 2000), p. 157. 16 Roy Wood Sellars, The Nest Step in Religion (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918), foreword.

17 Roy Wood Sellars, Religion Coming of Age (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928), p. 270. 18 Charles Francis Potter, Humanism: A New Religion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930), p. 3. 19 John Dewey, A Common Faith (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1934), p. 87. 20 Tolbert H. McCarroll, “Religions of the Future,” The Humanist (November-December 1966), p. 51. 21 Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation (New York: The New American Library, 1957), p. 208. 22 LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 166. 23 Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 242. 24 Ibid., p. 258. 25 Theodosius Dobzhansky, The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 35, No. 3, March 1973, p. 129.

26 John W. Whitehead and John Conlan, “The Establishment of the Religion of Secular Humanism and Its First Amendment Implications,” Texas Tech Law Review 10 (winter 1978), p. 30-31. 27 Kurtz, Humanist Manifesto II (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1973). 28 K.H. Reich, F.K. Oser, & P. Valentin, Knowing Why I Now Know Better: Children’s and Youth’s Explanations of Their Worldview Changes, Journal of Research on Adolescence, 4 (1), 154. 29 Ibid, p. 165. 30 Ibid. p. 155. 31 Ibid, p. 167. 32 Rolf Muuss, “Marcia’s Expansion of Erikson’s Theory of Identity Formation,” Adolescent Behavior and Society: A Book of Readings. (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill College, 1999, pp. 260-269). 33 William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 15. 34 Concept adapted from video, Deliver Us From Evil, Ravi Zacharias, 1997.

Chapter 5

1 Steve DeNeff, Whatever Became of Holiness? ( Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House), p. 20. 2 Ibid, p. 31. 3 Ibid.

210

Chapter 6

4 Porn Facts, http://www.xxxchurch.com/ (August, 2006) 5 Ibid.

Chapter 7

6 Wayne Jackson, “My People Are Destroyed For a Lack of Knowledge,” Christian Courier.com, http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/my_people_are_destroyed_for_lack_of_knowledge. (August, 2006). 7 “Biblical Illiteracy,” http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/top/bibillit.htm. (August, 2006). 8 Dennis Bratcher, “A Model for Biblical Exegesis,” http://www.cresourcei.org/exegesismodel.html, (August 2006). 9 Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals, p. 99. 10 Ibid, p. 100. 11 Mike Metzer, “Open Forums for Reaching Post Moderns,” http://leaderu.com/cl- institute/openforum/chap04.html. (August, 2006). 12 Thomas Oden, The Living God. (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins Publishers, 1987), p. 5. 13 Ibid., p. 6.

Chapter 8

1 Flatland, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland (August, 2006). 2 Gary Moon, Falling for God. (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press, 2004)

Chapter 10

1 Chas S. Clifton, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics. (New York, NY: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1992), pp. 98-99. 2 Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Visions of Glory (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 16. 3 Randall Watters, “When Prophecies Fail: A Sociological Perspective on Failed Expectation in the Watchtower Society”, Bethel Ministries Newsletter, May/June 1990. 4 Robinson is referring to the writings of the early church father Clement (1 Clement 6), and the ancient historian Tacitus (Annals xv.44). 5 John A.T. Robinson, Reading the New Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 233. 6 David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance (Horn Lake, MS: Dominion Press: [1987] 2006). p. 5. 7 Athanasius, On the Incarnation 8 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 11. 9 Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., second ed., 1975). 10 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 15. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid, p. 17. 13 Ferrell Jenkins, The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, [1972] 1976), pp. 54. 14 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 20. 15 Phillip Carrington, The Meaning of the Revelation (London: SPCK, 1931), p. 65. 16 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 21. 211

17 M.D. Goulder, “The Apocalypse as an Annual Cycle of Prophecies.” New Testament Studies 27, No. 3 (April 1981), pp. 342-367. 18 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 22. 19 Goulder, “The Apolcalypse as the Annual Cycle of Prophecies,” p. 350. 20 Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 53. 21 Ibid, p. 29. 22 Merrill C. Tenney, Interpreting Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957), p. 101.