Should Christians accommodate to their culture, to its values, its virtues, its ethical standards? Instinctively, the answer is no. But it is important to understand what the American culture believes and values. What are its standards for authority? Since at least the 1960s, America has accepted two sources of cultural authority
Philosopher and theologian, David Bentley Hart, currently a professor at the University of Notre Dame, is often provocative and controversial. A former Anglican, he converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and writes prominently on major doctrinal issues of Christianity. His most recent book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation, argues for universalism—that ultimately God will save everyone, thereby rejecting any belief in a literal hell.
Why do people reject God and embrace an atheistic worldview? Are they convinced that biblical Christianity is irrational, nonsensical? Are the “nones” doubting their faith or questioning their faith because of rational argumentation? Are atheists and/or the now infamous “nones” rejecting Jesus because of their deep-seated, well-thought-through convictions, or are there other explanations?
The scandal of abortion continues to plague American civilization, with the entertainment and political culture setting the parameters. Each cultural sector frames the abortion issue according to its preference, refusing to acknowledge that the discussion is about a human life. The nonsense of the entertainment culture was reflected in the recent Golden Globe awards ceremony. The atrocities that accompany abortion (e.g., marketing baby parts for research) has caused some to engage in civil disobedience.
Most US presidents have had a spiritual “advisor” of some sort. For President Lincoln it was Dr. James D. Smith (when he lived in Springfield) and Rev. Phineas D. Gurley (when he resided in the White House). For President’s Eisenhower and Nixon, it was Billy Graham. President Obama turned to Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California. In November 2019, Pastor Paula White-Cain joined the Trump administration as an advisor to President Trump’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which aims to give religious groups more of a voice in government programs devoted to issues like defending religious liberty and fighting poverty.
In late November 2019, my wife and I saw the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Arguably one of the best movies of 2019, it stars Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers, the host of the popular PBS program Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood, which aired from 1968 through 2001.
A pro-life position involves consistency and an adherence to the value of human life at any stage in its development. Humans are valuable because they bear God’s image, which means both a fetus or a 90-year old are of infinite worth and value to God—and therefore to us. Fighting for pro-life consistency means fighting for children who need love and care, whether in the womb or as an infant. For that reason many evangelical Christians devote their lives to foster care, adoption and “similar services to vulnerable children.
According to a recent study released by the Pew Research Center, the ranks of people who do not adhere to any faith in the US are growing and church attendance has fallen sharply. The Pew study demonstrates the triumph of personal autonomy and provides further confirmation that we are now living in a Postmodern, Post-Christian
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Most church historians trace the birth of modern evangelicalism to the late 1940s into the early 1950s. Christian leaders such as Billy Graham, Carl Henry and Harold John Okenga, lamenting the separatism and anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalist leaders, organized an institutional separation from Fundamentalism.
In America, indeed in all of Western Civilization, we are experiencing what has been called “The Great Unraveling.” Evangelical author and educator, Duane Litfin, writes: “We live in a time of shifting sand. The avalanche of social, political and legal changes we’ve experienced has left many believers reeling.”
