Are we Headed for Trouble?

Several years ago I sent a letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star & Tribune in which I expressed my conern about the unintended consequences of our unquestioning commitment to secularism. Two recent events reminded me of the point I was trying to make in the letter. The first event were the riots in London, Philadelphia, and Chicago, while the second was the brouhaha created by Gov. Perry's remarks about evolution and global warming. Now what, pray tell, could riots have to do with a politician's controversial opinions, and beyond that, with secularism?

While it's not readily apparent, they are connected, they both arise from our current view of our world and of ourselves. The legacy of the Enlightenment is that a large number of people in the Western world believe we live in a world shaped entirely by natural forces. The famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell explained where this belief takes us,


That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving that his origin, his growth, his hopes, his fears, his loves, and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all devotions, all inspiration, all the noon day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins-all these things, if not beyond dispute, are, yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. (Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's Worship)


Ideas affect the way we live, and this idea has deeply impacted modern Western culture. Russell is expressing the logical conclusion of the enlightenment. If the religious beliefs of mankind are the product of the superstitious imagination of pre-scientific men, and the assured result of 300 years of scientific research is that matter and material forces are the only reality, then we are left with the world that Bertrand Russell describes. It is a world devoid of significance and meaning. Russell is not alone in his deductions, most of the art, philosophy, and music of the twentieth century were a reflection of his "unyielding despair." All one has to do is read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman or visit a modern art gallery or listen to a composition by John Cage to see the loss of hope and faith in the modern world.

There is a term for this philosophy of nothingness, it is called nihilism. The goal of the enlightenment was unlimited human freedom. But to achieve this end it had to kick God off the stage of human history, the unintended consequence of this rebellion is the elimination of every sustaining influence for good, including freedom, in the world. We are left with (according to Richard Dawkins) only the illusion of a human soul and so, "free will," our sense of control over our thoughts, actions, goals, and our conscience is only our brain playing tricks on us. We are, thus, reduced to a short life span in a meaningless universe, in which all of our thoughts and acts are attributed to stimulus-response mechanisms. A more cynical view of human nature could hardly be imagined.

It seems to me that nihilism has arisen as the unintended consequence of the desire for purely secular societies. In a nihilist world, there are only two options: pure hedonism or existentialism. The vast majority, and that includes those who have no idea of the philosophical principles behind it, have embraced hedonism. The riots in London and Philadelphia are part of the breakdown of decency, honesty, and concern for others (and their property) that accompany an "anything goes" culture. The world of Jersey Shore is a classic example of the nihilism of modern youth culture. It is "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die," lived out for all to see. This is essentially cultural child abuse, as we leave our children without faith and therefore without hope.

There is no future for a generation that embraces the non-values of nihilism. It is definitely one of my fears that as the "nones" grow more numerous (15% of our youth now mark "none" for any religious affiliation and it is projected to become 20-25% in the next decades) we will be ill prepared as a nation for the many challenges we will face in this new century. The response to austerity by the youth of London (Europe is way ahead of us in the influence of secularism) was definitely not re-assuring.

We talk a great deal about the importance of education, but if we aren't teaching our kids the right things then education is not the solution, it becomes part of the problem. So, if our goal is to promote secularism through education then we are really promoting the worldview of "unyielding despair" that Russell describes. By the way, Christians are often accused of seeking to "impose" their values on society. But whose values are actually being forced upon us through the classroom, in the media, through the courts, and by legislation? Just look at what is deemed illegal; prayer, Bible reading, the posting of the Ten Commandments, even Christmas trees, and then tell us what is being imposed upon whom. A high school calculus teacher was recently ordered to remove banners from the classroom that declared, "In God we trust," and "All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with these inalienable rights..." We are sending a very loud message to our children, religion is illegal, even harmful. We are no longer neutral, we have made secularism the politically correct worldview of Western culture.

This is where evolution comes into the picture. I argue in my book that naturalism and therefore secularism are built upon the theory of evolution. Without evolution they can not have a naturalistic and atheistic explanation of life and mankind. The approach the educators, judges, and leaders of our society have taken is that the science is "settled" and the only acceptable answer to our origin is evolution. But what if the science isn't "settled," and this is another example of the abuse of science for the sake of ideology and poltical control?

At the heart of the secular worldview is the philosophy of naturalism. Naturalism, the way it has come to be defined today, excludes any and all spiritual forces or causes. God is eliminated from any explanation of the universe by definition. According to Naturalism, if you say that God created the world you are being unscientific and by implication irrational and superstitious. This is the central argument used to justify the exclusion of any alternative to the teaching of evolution in our classrooms. This is primarily a political strategy rather than an attempt to promote science and scientific education. And this brings us to Gov. Perry's comments about global warming and the teaching of evolution.

We live in an era in which science has been politicized, because science is used to support ideological (political) agendas. Evolution is the first and foremost example of this phenomena. A naturalistic explanation of the world in which we live is impossible without the theory of evolution. I wondered for years why evolution was so irrationally defended, why so many scientists would ignore or deny the weaknesses in the theory and the lack of any direct evidence of the types of macroevolutionary change that should be crucial to establish the theory. Instead they rely upon hypothetical explanations, and establishing the cause (evolution) by observing its effects (geological column, fosil record, and DNA patterns). But none of these things come close to answering the crucial questions that would normally be required of a scientific theory. We have no realistic explanation for most, if not all, of the great mysteries of the origin of life, of DNA, or of the internal structure of the cell. So why is evolution so fiercely defended? It is because without evolution the only option is God and creation. And, more importantly, without evolution there is no justification for imposing a purely secular ideology upon society.

This brings us back to Bertrand Russell, and the fact that this is not a "so what" question, this goes to the core of who we are as human beings. And, I am not arguing that we should adopt a religious view of reality in order to "feel good" about ourselves and our place in the world. I do not want us to believe in fairy tales. My belief in God is based in both reason and experience. I have a bachelor's degree in physics and my scientific education has only strengthened my conviction that a personal creator God is the only reasonable explanation for the clear evidence of design in nature. I am convinced, based on probability theory and other relevant facts, that all the billions of creatures, organs, and organisms on earth could not have developed by a purely accidental process. In my book, I cite the example given by David Attenborough of the development of flight in insects. But flight would require at least three things to all occur at the same time: wings (with proper weight, shape, and strucure), fatigue resistant muscles, and pattern of wing movement that provided lift and didn't just fan the air. I know, evolutionists claim all these things developed slowly over thousands of years. But it seems hard to imagine how all those crucial elements could have developed gradually and added to the survival capability of the creatures involved.

Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most well known biologists of our time, wrote a book in which he attempted to deal with the inordinate probability of life arising by accident. His point was that, as low as the probability is for the accidental development of life, earth "won the lottery." His argument would be valid if the origin of life and evolution were a single event, and in this single instance we got incredibly lucky. However, we must account for billions of events that are restrained by levels of probability so low they each make the odds of winning the powerball look like a sure thing. In other words, evolution requires that we get "lucky" not just once but billions of times.

My career has also taken me into the realm of theology and philosophy, and here I find God the only reasonable explanation for human personality and conscience. Naturalism is, of necessity, reductionistic. It must reduce everything to chemical processes and stimulus-response mechanisms. But this leaves no room for the personal and there is nothing more obvious to human observation than that we are personal beings. All attempts to see human beings as machines to be programmed or animals to be trained has rightly been rejected as de-humanizing. A major part of the counter-culture of the 60's was a rejection of this mechanistic and reductionistic view of mankind. For this reason I am convinced that the only rational explanation for human nature is that we are the creation of a personal God.

Finally, I became a Christian in my sophomore year in college. I had a personally undeniable conversion experience. In all the years since, my belief has only been strengthened by the answers to prayer and the ways that God has made Himself known to me. And, I am not alone in my experience. As a teacher in a Christian college, I have heard the stories and seen the fruit of God's work in hundreds of people's lives. It is the undeniable reality of His presence in the world that accounts for the fact that the vast majority of Americans believe in a personal God.

The bottom line is that we must acknowledge that the enlightenment picture of reality is incorrect. Part of the reason we can assume it is not true is that it must operate in denial and intimidation in order to maintain its dominance of Western society. Further, secularism doesn't work. I am not calling for a theocracy or imposing religious education on our kids. What I am asking for is the simple common sense approach taken by American society prior to the 1960's and an end to the war against Christianity being waged in the name of secularism. Our nation was founded in the pursuit of both faith and freedom, what we have proven in our 200 years of existence is that the two are related. If we would continue to be a free people we must leave room for faith.

Postmodern Intellectuals

I know, only Christians use "postmodern" as a perjorative, but as I considered so many of the public intellectuals of today, I realized how deeply this philosophy has influenced the world of academics and education. Postmodernism is supposed to be a rejection of "modernism" which was the enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and scientific objectivity in the pursuit of truth. Going back to at least Immanuel Kant, philosophers of the last 250 years have understood the limits of unaided human reason to answer the really big questions of life. The philosophy we call postmodernism is the latest rendition of this lack of confidence in human reason, and is born out of the influence of French existentialism and the will to power as described by Fredrick Nietzsche.

The problem with postmodernism is that it is taking us to places we were never meant to go, such as the redefinition of marriage, of gender roles, and even of gender and personal identity. We are left with a situation where people, and most often the younger among us, must decide who or even what they are at an entirely unprecedented level. It was hard enough being a teenager in my generation, but I cannot imagine what so many kids face today. They must not only decide on a career path and the education required, they have to figure out if they are gay or straight, a man or a woman. And in case you think I'm making this up, the website Mercatornet.com posted an article this May by Mary Hasson about the growing level of gender confusion in the Western world. Boston Children's Hospital has a "Gender Management Clinic" where they give children as young as 9 years old hormones to prevent normal sexual development in puberty. The perverse reason for this is so that their subsequent sex change operation will be less difficult. As the article reported, these clinics (there are several in the world) aren't there to help confused kids and their parents but to advance their transsexual agenda. The victims of this agenda will pay a terrible price in this attempt to redefine human nature. Ms. Hasson makes the important point that an adolescent or pre-adolescent is in no place to decide on something so catastrophic to their future, such as, everyone who undergoes these kinds of sex change operations are rendered sterile. The door of family and offspring are closed to them. Not to mention the emotional damage of reaching an adult perspective on their teen or pre-teen emotions.

This tragedy is a consequence of the loss of the moral compass and standards of the Judeo-Christian system and the belief in Natural Law. In reality, these principles are built in to human nature and human society and to ignore them is to invite diaster. In the 1950's Dr. Spock wrote his famous book on child raising. My parents along with millions of other parents raised the 60's generation following his advice. His advice then; go easy on discipline, it will only stifle the child's creativity and development. In the 70's, as he looked on the consequences of his advice, he recanted and admitted that he had been wrong. As he put it, "I have helped to raise a generation of spoiled brats." In other words, we ignore Biblical values at our peril. In many ways, the Bible is "owners manual" for humanity, and in rejecting its teachings we are endangering people's lives.

How did we get to this terrible place? Jean Paul Sartre is the most famous of the French existentialists, and his philosophy was built upon the principle of personal responsibility for our existential status in this world. Sartre turned the classic philosophical principle, Essence precedes Existence, on its head. Thus instead of saying that a person's nature determines their characteristics, he taught that people by their choices and intentions can shape their destiny. Postmodernism has taken this even further, postulating that we can change our very nature, thus women can be men and men can be women. This has, in fact, become the politically correct dogma of the feminist and GLBT world.

We have come to believe that we can change our very natures because we have lost our moral and rational moorings. As the Bible says, "Professing to be wise, we have become fools." We have abandonded much of the wisdom of the ages, wisdom that protected human happiness and fostered the values of peaceful and prosperous societies. We have abandonded wisdom because we followed the pied pipers of academia, whose postmodern assumptions led them to abandon wisdom and truth in the process of "deconstructing" Western values. One of the great dangers of the intellectual life is the belief that one's learning gives one the authority to impose one's obviously correct views on everyone else. Our universities are filled with large numbers of agenda driven intellectuals (To be fair, there are also many fine teachers, who truly seek to pass on the accurate and relevant understanding of their field to their students).

The bottom line is that we must take what comes out of the intellectual centers of our society with a grain of salt. Because of the influence of postmodernism, I expect that a professor from Yale or Berkley will be spouting dangerous nonsense. We must ground our own thinking in the Word of God and in the moral and spiritual wisdom that is being so quickly abandoned by our society. This is what Jesus meant by describing us as the light of the world. My fear is that as the influence of postmodernism grows it will envelop more and more of the church, and more and more of the "dangerous nonsense" that emenates from it will be brought into the church. It is already happening, "Christian" books are already being written that promote the nonsense. We, as followers of Jesus, must stand our ground.

What about the Middle Class?

For the sake of full disclosure, this post is a reaction to the television ad that is currently being run by Gov. Mark Dayton and his party to gain public support for their approach to the budget deficit and the problems with our economy. What I'm most concerned about is their assertion that these policies are all about protecting the middle class. I recognize that this has been the strategy of the Democratic Party in the last two elections: that they are the party concerned about protecting the middle class. As a child of middle class parents and someone who is a member of the class myself, I disagree strongly with the claims that these policies will "preserve" the middle class. In my view, the ideology and policies of the party of FDR, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barak Obama oppose the values, needs, and aspirations of the middle class.

I begin with the central fallacy behind their claim that they are the party of the middle class. Writers on their side such as Frank Rich and Robert Reich claim that Republican tax policy is responsible for the growing separation between rich and poor in our society and thus for the financial set back suffered by the middle class. Matt Taibi of Rolling Stone Magazine wrote, "The last ten years or so you have seen the government send massive amounts of money to people in the top tax brackets, mainly through two methods: huge tax cuts and financial bailouts."

Notice the chosen word "send" in regard to government activities. First, the government doesn't send money through taxation, it takes it. Taxation is legal confiscation that we agree to for the common good and the rule of law. One of the significant problems in Greece today is that the level of taxation has risen to such an outrageous level that a vast number of wealthy Greeks feel justified practicing tax evasion. At some point, raising taxes in any nation is counter productive as people take steps to protect what they have earned. In our own society, the use of tax shelters, off-shore investments, and other forms of legal tax evasion have been the means by which tax revenues rarely rise above 19% of GDP no matter the tax rate.

Why is the left so concerned about how much the wealthy pay in taxes? Is it merely an issue of "that's where the money is" or is something else behind this concern? Notice that when they speak of the issue they often appeal to "fairness." The rich must pay their fair share or raising the capital gains tax is the fair thing to do. But the wealthiest 1% provide 40% (they earn 24% of the nation's income) of the revenue from income taxes now. They are already paying far more than their "share" of the expenses of government. Looking at this statistic one must ask, what does the left mean by the word "fair?"

Closely related to fairness is the notion of leveling. We often hear of the need to "level the playing field," what they appear to mean by that is the profits and incomes of the top earners need to be brought down so the incomes of the poor and middle class can be brought up. But if we expect the government to do the "leveling" we asking for the redistribution of income and a process that contradicts traditional American economic values. So, it mystifies me how tax policy can have anything significant to do with restoring the middle class. It seems, rather, an act of class warfare and an attempt to bring rich people down a notch or two.

To relate this to middle class values, both my father and my grandfather were small business men. They reflected one of the central values of the middle class; self-reliance. They literally hated the idea of getting something they didn't earn or deserve, and government charity was at the top of the list. The very idea that we should sustain the income level of the middle class by redistribution of income from the wealthy, the "spread the wealth around" statement by President Obama, is an utter contradiction of middle class values.

Further, while government does have an important role in society, much of what is does is counterproductive. One of the great frustrations of the middle class is that their taxes are squandered for programs that don't work, for an educational system that never seems to improve, and for a welfare system that is incapable of dealing with the root causes of poverty and thus only perpetuates the problem. It is the middle class, by the way that pays the tax bills, they and the wealthy provide 97% of government revenues. So explain to me again, how the party of big government is also the party of the middle class.

The irony is that enlightenment philosophy, the philosophy that drives so much of liberal ideology today, is radically opposed to what many call, "middle class values." Among those values are life-long marriage, the work ethic, the traditional family, the importance of religious faith, the moral and spiritual education of children, thrift and savings, and charitable giving. Just about every one of those values (except possibly savings and charitable giving) are under attack today from the very party that claims to be the party of the middle class. Because of this obvious animosity to what are core values for my family and I it is very difficult for me to take the claims of the Democratic Party seriously. They may be concerned about income inequality and the economic difficulties facing the middle class, but their solutions and policies end up not helping because they end up weakening the very principles and freedoms that produced the American middle class in the first place. For the middle class, with friends like the democrats, they don't need enemies.

A Time of Great Moral Confusion

Sam Harris, one of the group of secular intellectuals who call themselves "the new atheists," has written a new book to present a rational and scientific basis for morality. The Moral Landscape is the latest attempt to provide a unchanging and unchangeable set of moral values to govern human behavior while also denying the existence of God. From the time of Charles Darwin, leaders of the enlightenment have understood the need to find a secular and rational replacement for the moral values provided by Christianity. Thomas Huxley (called "Darwin's bulldog") advocated for Bible classes in the British school system to teach morality. They recognized that in seeking to destroy religion, in this case Christianity, they were also, as an unintended consequence, greatly weakening morality, and how can we have a healthy society without moral values? They were right, by the way, and we have watched a serious deterioration of moral consciousness and behavior in the last 50 years.

Dr. Harris, as a member of the new atheists, is deeply antagonistic toward organized religion. His organization, Project Reason is established to spread secular values and oppose organized religion. His book on morality is an attempt to both provide a secular, scientific, and rational basis for moral values and to refute the view that religion is necessary to provide morals and give meaning to human life.

He actually creates something of a strawman argument when he speaks of the issue. He states that Christians teach that a person can't be moral without belief in God. Actually the Bible says the opposite. Paul tells us that Gentiles (those with a wrong concept of God or no concept of God) instinctively follow the moral principles of God's law, because it is "written on their hearts." (Rom. 3:16) This notion, that morality is built-in to human nature, lies at the foundation of the principle of natural law and Christian ethics. For this reason, an atheist not only can be moral, he/she actually wants to be moral. It is one of the ironies that escapes Dr. Harris, his argument against God and Christianity is grounded in his moral sensibility (Religion is the source of war, evil, and oppression in the world), yet he has no explanation for how an entirely amoral, natural process such as evolution could have produced these moral inclinations in man. It's not that they don't try, which explains much of what the book is really about.

The moral system of the book is built upon classical utilitarianism, which holds that morals is about creating or protecting well being for the largest number and likewise, avoiding pain and suffering for as many as possible. Utilitarianism has two serious problems that has been demonstrated in its use in human history. The first is that it's logic tends to de-value the individual in the debate over good and evil. The well being of an individual (or a few individuals) is not as important as the well being of the larger community. This results in two problems, first, if you are not one of the lucky ones who is part of the "larger community" you get to be the sufferer. In other words, it leads to justifying the elimination or exclusion of those not fortunate enough to be the greater number. Second, it endorses a moral reductionism. Immorality is bad for very pragmatic reasons, it harms society or makes it difficult for people to trust one another, rather than because it is just wrong. So, in the extreme, drugs might be considered wrong because of the harm they do to communities but not because of the harm they inflict on the individuals who take them.

The danger in any attempt to create a rational foundation for morality is that human beings are much too good at rationalization. We are wonderful excuse makers and at using our minds for all types of self-justification. Look at the response of most politicians when they are exposed and accused of wrong doing. It is always some form of "I'm innocent of all charges." The larger problem with utilitarianism is that it is too easily set aside and rationalized or worse, twisted into the justification of actions that are both evil and deeply harmful. As a case in point, I would simply direct you to eugenics and the forced sterilization of thousands of people in the 1930's in the name of science and utilitarian moral principles.

The danger in invoking science and reason in morality is that these have no transcendent foundation. They are based on limited human knowledge and experience. We are too short sighted to understand the good or the bad of chosen behaviors or lifestyles. Only decades later, after we have weakened the institution of marriage, do we discover the damage the arises from no-fault divorce and single parent households.

Worse, since the enlightenment, we have rejected much of what human society assumed to know from history and thousands of years of human experience. We think we can change the rules about marriage and the family simply because we are so advanced, but in doing so, we are not acting reasonably, we are rationalizing. I believe that later generations will look back at our time as a time of outrageous arrogance. As we have sought to create a "new" morality that is really the old immorality, and that will, in the end, not acheive the greatest good for the greatest number, but will produce massive damage to the majority that always ends up following the cultural pied pipers.

Our own society was not founded on utilitarianism, even though it was a powerful concept that emerged from the enlightenment. We value the individual and we seek to protect minority rights. As we state in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." Many have argued that we were not (or were) established as a "Christian" nation, and I would be one who would say that we were not in the direct and intentional sense. The founders understood that we were religiously diverse, even at the end of the eighteenth century. They wanted a free and just society open to all, but founded upon Christian principles. There is no question that in regard to the value of individual and the importance of a transcendent moral structure for society, that they were influenced by Christianity and not by the enlightenment thinking of their day. For not only do they invoke the importance of the individual, they invoke "inalienable rights" these rights are not given by the state or by society at large, they are inherent rights based upon an inate structure of right and wrong built into the universe itself.

Based on the success of the great American experiment, one could assume that a transcendent view of morality gives better results and fits human nature far better than the innovations of utilitarianism. Like so many attempts to create a secular and rational morality this latest attempt by Dr. Harris crashes into the rocks of human fallibility. We are Romans 7 creatures, "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." (Rom. 7:18) Not only do we need a set of transcendent moral values, we need the grace of God to keep them.

What's at Stake in the Budget Crisis

With Paul Ryan's budget proposal we are seeing the beginning of a serious discussion on entitlements and the size and scope of government. I would refer you to two articles that reveal what is at stake in the national debate over the budget and deficits. The first was written by Yuval Levin at National Affairs. You can read it here. The second is from Walter Russel Mead at the American Spectator which you can read here. Mr. Levin's article should be read by every politician and voter in this country. He presents the tragedy of the American welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars to create a nearly permanent underclass. The reason for this sorry state of affairs is that the political left, which drove the welfare agenda, possessed a distorted view of the central institutions of American culture; marriage, the family, and the church. As a result, policies were developed that undermined the "glue" that held communities together, and provided the means for sky rocketing numbers of single parent households, which led inevitably to the increase in family poverty and cyclic welfare dependency. In other words, the mis-distribution of wealth between the economic classes and the differences between the educational and social achievements of the races is not primarily because of de-regulation and the excesses of capitalism, it is one of the consequences of the social welfare policies of the American government.

The collapse of the family among the poor-powerfully propelled by the ethic of social democracy and by a horrendously designed welfare system that was not improved until the 1990's-has vastly worsened social and economic inequality in America, and the capacity of generations to rise out of poverty.

Walter Russell Mead puts it in even more graphic terms.

The failure of the blue social model to solve the problems of the underclass in American inner cities was one of the great tragedies of the last thirty years. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent; tens of millions of lives remained blighted, and a culture of violence, degradation, and despair has taken hold among some of our society's most vulnerable and needy people.

We have spent vast amounts of money on programs and policies that simply have not worked as we had hoped. Mead, who is a self-declared Democrat, believes that there have certainly been benefit from all that money and effort. In other words, the "blue social model" was not a total waste of money and effort. The anti-poverty programs and affirmative action has helped produced a large and increasing Black middle class and beyond. One need only read Barak and Michelle Obama's stories to see the positive effect he is talking about.

But the tragedy of the story is that these individuals are the exception to our approach to social progress. Looking closely, in fact, we see many of the influences of family and friends that kept the Obamas from being swallowed up by the vast malaise that accompanied the welfare world.

So, why are we spending yet more trillions to perpetuate this failed model of public assistance? In the debate over the budget, can we begin to talk about results and not just about intentions. Part of the reason we are in this mess is that the politicians have told us we need this or that program for the "poor," for "children," or for "education," without telling us how it was going to actually solve the underlying problems. Worse, there has been no accountability for the failure of these programs, nor a demand that they be fundamentally changed from within the political class. Criticism and demand for change have come from outside government, and thus have little power to change the model. And political correctness prevents the types of faith based, family and church oriented approaches from even being considered.

The problem extends to our assumptions about health care (we forget that the current health insurance connected to employment model is the result of government intervention), taxation, and entitlements. We claim to be caring for the middle class and the elderly while never asking if what we are doing will actually help based on real life example and experience. This becomes particularly important because Europe has already operated on many of the same assumptions we are using with horrendous results. Whether we look at Greece, Spain, or even Great Britain, we see that the social democratic welfare model cannot be sustained. To solve this problem, Sweden, for example, has already adopted some of the elements included in the Ryan budget plan, such as vouchers for education and health care and stands as a real time demonstration that they actually work. And Canada has dramatically improved its economy by a strong commitment to deficit elimination and ongoing fiscal responsibility.

As we face the upcoming battle over the budget and as we approach the 2012 elections, we must keep in mind that business as usual and the old political assumptions cannot be allowed to continue. This is not just about deficit reduction, it is about ending failed policies and approaches. It will not be easy, there are a great many entrenched interests that will fight to maintain their positions of power and priviledge. Just look at what happened to Michelle Rhee and Gov. Scott Walker when they attacked the status quo. We must prepare ourselves for a long and difficult battle, but we must also keep before us that we are fighting for the very future of our society as a bastion of prosperity, freedom, and goodness. May we declare with our patriot forefathers, "We have only begun to fight."

Tucson: Evil Exposed

Moral relativism breaks down when it encounters the kind of monstrous evil we saw in Tucson a few weeks ago. This type of evil is not a "mistake" nor is it a matter of taste or preference, it is dark and cruel and destructive. There can be no possible justification for such a heinous act. None. There are no mitigating circumstances to explain it, no moral dilemma to be resolved. In this act, we saw evil in all its ugliness.

Roger Simon on the Politico blog states the dilemma for moral relativism. On January 18 he wrote, "In modern times, are we embarassed by the term 'evil?' To some it seems too primitive or too religious or both." Yet, what else can we call the heinous acts of that day? And yes, evil is a religous issue.

This act reveals the monstrous capacity for evil in the human heart. While the murderer appears to have been severely mentally disturbed, insanity does not adequately explain the cruel inhumanity of his actions. As the facts of the case unfolded, I was often comparing this act of murder by a madman with the similar mass murder of men, women, and children in a public place by a suicide bomber. Mass murder can be rational or irrational, it is still murder.

Evil exists as a fearful reality in our world. We are confronted with its horrors every day. The death of a child at the hands of a molestor, death and dis-memberment of rivals by drug war lords in Mexico, or a car bomb blowing up a church in Baghdad are just some examples of the tragic events that fill our daily news broadcasts. There is no escaping the awareness of this monstrous reality.

The murders in Tucson were different in one aspect however. They gave us a glimpse of the sinister nature of evil. Who can forget the look on Jared Loughner's mug shot. It is almost enough to convince one of evil as a transcendent or metaphysical reality. Or to put it in biblical terms, to convince one of the demonic. The kind of evil displayed by these murders is inhuman, as beyond human. Dostoyevsky is said to have described the transcendent nature of human evil. It is un-natural, in that it cannot be explained just by the fulfillment of natural appetites, it goes beyond nature. As he wrote, "To call human evil 'bestial' is to insult the beasts, for no beast was ever as cruel as a man."

The existence of evil in the world is often used as an argument against God. Yet no system of thought or belief whether religious or non-religious deals as clearly and honestly with the existence of evil as Christianity. I would put Isaiah 59 up against any explanation for the existence of evil in the world. Particularly since it declares that our God does not just "explain" evil, He has acted to end its reign. "Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, and he was astonished that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him." God was not only disturbed by the evil in the world, He sent His Son and did something about it. Christ came, He bore our evil in all its monstrous cruelty on the cross, and by His death and resurrection liberated us from its power.

In the midst of the terrible evil of that day, there shone the light of faith. I was deeply moved by testimony of the parents of Christina-Taylor Green, as they expressed their conviction that their daughter was in heaven. And of Dorwan Stoddard who shielded his wife and died protecting her, confident of the reality of everlasting life through faith in Christ.

Evil is real but it will not have the final say. Even in the midst of such a tragedy we saw another transcendent presence: faith, hope, and love. May we display some measure of the courage, the faith, and love that were manifested on that day of infamy. And may we draw near to the God whose grace was present on that day and whose love is available to all who who will put their trust in Him.

Why Belief Matters

In the past year I began working on a seminar on the importance of faith for the future of the church and our society. It is driven by the fact, recently reported, that a disturbing number of young people no longer consider themselves religious and experts expect that number to increase dramatically. Today, the number stands at 1 in 7 young people who delcare "none" in the religious affiliation box of an employment or academic application. Many experts predict that this number could grow to 1 in 4 in the next 20 years. This group, now designated as "nones," are a reflection of the growing influence of relativism and secularism on our culture.


Relativism is affecting the church too. A recent American Thinker article stated that 64% of Christians believe there are no absolute truths (some say it's 91% of Christian youth). In addition, a recent Barna survey declared that 50% of Christians no longer believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches.

This does not bode well for the future of the church or our society. We are as Jesus said, "salt," but if we lose our saltiness how do we have any beneficial impact on our world? Even worse, we are losing our kids. Just last year, an alarming prediction was made that the size of the evangelical church in Americal will shrink by 1/2 in the next several decades, and most of the shrinkage will take place within the next generation.

The reduction of Christian influence upon our culture will have drastic consequences. It will become more dysfunctional and even dangerous as we turn away from the core values of our civilization in the pursuit of a hedonistic utopia. The problem with utopias is that they are imaginary, they cannot exist in the real world because the basic assumptions upon which the utopia is built do not match reality. Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union fell under the weight of its hypocrisy. It's promise of a worker's paradise was founded upon a false view of human nature and economics; it didn't "fit" the world we actually live in and crumbled in a heap of contradictions.

There is only one antidote for this poison; the truth. And yes, truth actually exists. One of the goals of my seminar is to defend the core values that flow from the Bible, not in some type of political defense of my personal point of view, but out of a concern for the loss of benefit that arises when we fail to adjust our decisions in life to the brute facts of reality. The reason that I am deeply convinced that absolute truth exists, is that I see the consequences of its disregard every day. Our present educational crisis is not primarily a crisis in what we teach our children but more a crisis in the things we assume about their character and nature, and thus our assumptions about how they are to be treated in the educational process. I am certainly no expert in education, but looking at the current rank of American schools in global education standards, one must assume that many of our approaches such as enhancing self-esteem, and emphasizing diversity have not led to improved results. Those methods were based upon both a rejection of the former Judeo-Christian assumptions about human nature and the assumption of enlightenment utopian beliefs that have now been shown to be counter-productive. Truth is real, and denying it only leads to tragic consequences.

The Bible tells us that judgment begins with the household of God. In other words, Christians must first deal with the issues of sin and unbelief before they can turn and speak to the outside world. Thus, any attempt to deal with the influence of relativism must begin with the encroachment of relativism in the church.

None of this encroachment has taken place at the official or formal level. You will never hear a "relativistic" sermon from an evangelical pulpit. The encroachment has taken place at the personal and private level of individual Christian lives. All of us who follow Jesus are confronted by all the same pressures and influences of our deeply secular society that have produced the terrible confusion of our time. So, while every church publicly stands on the authority of Scripture and its teachings, many of the members don't in the recesses of their own personal convictions. This contradiction cannot remain hidden, it is already breaking out in things like the emerging church movement and the lack of church growth in the West. It stands behind the predictions of shrinkage in the next decades. The reason given for the shrinkage is that we have not given our children sufficient understanding for their faith to survive the arguments and attacks of secularism and relativism. We have not taught them how to defend the Bible or the historic doctrines of the Christian faith in the face of the increasing opposition we see in our culture. And, we have not taught them (nor has public education) the basic history, wisdom, and logic that stands behind Western civilization.

In a nutshell, then, my hope is to be able to speak to these issues in Sunday school classes, Bible studies, and week night services in any churches that will have me. I've already developed a powerpoint and many pages of notes, along with all the material I've accumulated in teaching apologetics and writing a book on apologetics in the past 19 years. I've given a title to the material, "Why Belief Matters," and I hope to get going on this as soon as possible. If anyone is interested in having me speak or teach in your church on this vital topic, please contact me by email, facebook, or through this blog. May we work diligently to enable a "yes" answer to the Lord's question while He walked the earth, "When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)