Category: Culture

For many Western analysts, the problems of the world are rooted in the material conditions of the people. Then, some problems are rooted in a sense of the lack of dignity and self-determination. Applying this to the Israel-Arab-Palestinian situation, some look to solve the problem by creating good material prosperity and by giving the Arabs of Judea and Samaria their own state.  While I would not decry the significance of material provision and dignity (see my book Social Justice), this analysis leaves out the most important factor.  It is that war and peace are often determined by what people believe in their hearts.  As the famed psychologist-biologist Bruce Lipton argued, you always act on the basis of what you truly believe in the heart.  What you believe in the heart is often not what you profess with your mouth.   That profession is often just repeating what is socially expected. 

 

The factor of what is believed in the heart is really what is at the root of so much terrible destruction and pain.  It is also the root of great progress and redemption.  Let’s take a few examples.

 

What the colonial powers believed about the native American populations, that they were inferior, that they could be enslaved, and that they could be treated as inferiors at every level was behind 350 years of atrocities.  Even the idea of those who were professing Christians, first Spanish Catholics, and then Puritans, the fact the natives were pagan was a reason to mistreat them rather than to show love and care to win them.  The contrast with David Brainard, Jonathan Edward’s son-in-law in the 18th century, who gave his life for them, is great. However, this was due to what he believed in his heart both about the Native Americans and about the Gospel.  How few professing Christians really believed what the Bible taught about all humans being in the image of God!  This implies treating people with love, as ends and not means, as the great philosopher Immanuel Kant taught. 

 

Antisemitism is a great case in point. It is based on terribly bad beliefs/convictions, that the Jews are evil and worthy of persecution and death, either because of their racial inferiority or because of their religious perversity by which they deserve persecution. All sorts of conspiracy theories are rooted in the belief that Jews are evil.  The horrors that resulted from these beliefs are beyond calculation. 

 

Then let’s look at the issue of the African slave trade and slavery in America.  Those involved in this terrible practice and system convinced themselves that African peoples were not fully human and were therefore rightly subjected as slaves to white people.  When one reads the writings of southern slave owners and the slave traders, it is clear that there was no heart conviction of the wrong of their practices.  Some did not have real conviction of the inferiority of blacks.   Jefferson knew that his statement that “All men are created equal,” and endowed with inalienable rights by their creator conflicted with his owning slaves.  He submitted to the system despite his misgivings.  Washington also knew it was wrong and compromised like Jefferson.  He freed his slaves at his death.  They needed the slaves for their farms!  We see here that people can be conflicted and act contrary to what they know. This is what the Bible calls a divided heart.  The challenge is to see people have deep enough belief or conviction that is good that they live by what they believe.  However, it is possible to live without deep belief or conviction.  We call this being shallow.  The convictions of the Evangelical Abolitionists were so strong that they organized and sacrificed to eliminate slavery, first in the United Kingdom in the amazing movement of William Wilberforce and then in the United States.  We think of Charles Finney and Harriet Beecher Stowe, her famous clergy relatives and so many more.  Without the Evangelical Abolitionists, it is questionable whether slavery would have ended.  Lincoln told Stowe that her writings caused the Civil War.  Yet within two decades both North and South reneged on the 14th Amendment and allowed the most terrible discrimination and the elimination of equal rights until the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. 

 

When we analyze the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Land we see how belief plays out. Most Israelis believe in their hearts that it is necessary to have a Jewish state, a place for self-determination, in the light of the history of antisemitism.   Right-wing religious nationalists believe that only the Jewish people should have a state in their ancient Land that stretches from Hermon to the Red Sea and from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.  They have such heart conviction that they will establish settlements in the areas of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) though they are not legal by Israeli law.  The mandate to settle the whole Land, for them, requires them to ignore human law.

 

The largest source of conflict in this Land is not that Israel is a colonial imposition on the indigenous population.  First of all, Israel came into existence against colonial opposition. Its first settlements were not under the colonial power of the United Kingdom, but Turkey and Britain only supported the Jewish settling in the Land for a few years after World War I when Turkey lost control of the Land.  Many Arab inhabitants of the Land today are descendants not of indigenous people, but immigrants.  Many have seen over many years that the Israeli-Arab conflict is at root not about material prosperity or dignity but is a matter of heart convictions, and deep religious beliefs.  The idea of Dar Al Islam is that the Land once controlled by Muslims is Islamic land and must never again be ruled by infidels.  This deep religious commitment means that the state of Israel must be forever resisted until it is destroyed.  While poverty might open some up to radical preachers, many of the radicals were quite wealthy.  Witness Ben Laden and the attack on America in 9/2001! 

 

As an observer of Israel and the Middle East for many years, and more intensively since I became a leader in the Messianic Jewish world (June, 1972) I am convinced that the deep convictions or beliefs held by the Arabs in this land are the primary barrier to peace.  When Mahmoud Abbas walked away from the peace offers in 2007 and 2008, he sealed the fate of the Arabs to not have another state, at least for the foreseeable future.  Why?  Did Abbas share the religious convictions about Dar Al Islam?  It is hard to know.  However, he could rightly fear for his life if he accepted a peace plan that embraced the acceptance of the Jewish state of Israel.  Since then, with Hamas in power in Gaza and a great influence in Judea and Samaria in the Arab villages, it is hard to see a peace plan that could be accepted. A massive change in education and then a change of heart conviction will be needed.  A recent article in the Jerusalem Post from Friday, March 16th, noted the great problem is the deep belief in Islamic Fascism and the commitment to martyrdom in the quest to eliminate Israel.  See the book Islamic Fascism by Hamed. That is what the mini-holocaust of Oct. 7, 2023, was about.  All atrocities are acceptable as methods to destroy Israel.  Until the West sees that the big problem is the belief system and the depth of conviction/belief that motivates Arab Muslims to lay down their lives and commit any atrocities for it, the West and the rest of the world will not grasp the true situation.  In addition, the antisemitic beliefs mean that Jews do not have to be treated as sacred beings in the image of God.  This belief in the Image of God is the greatest foundation of humane behavior. 

 

This is just a little piece of reflection on what is civilization. For some civilization refers
to societies with civilized behavior. This would be connected to the word civil and hence
treating people in civil or respectful ways. However, many writers treat the meaning of
civilizations as societies that are well organized, powerful, or produce sophisticated art,
or sophisticated technology. Civilizations are extensive in territory, like Rome,
European civilization, or Chinese civilization in its classic period with its amazing art
forms and incredible bureaucracy with civil service exams and stratified class
distinctions. Some point to inventions and advances.

The Bible does not divide people based on the idea of whether or not they are civilized
in the above terms. Rather, the center of Biblical evaluation is whether a society is just
and good. The Greeks gave us the idea of the transcendentals, truth, beauty, and
goodness. The Bible indeed reflects these transcendentals and gives them definitions.
Let’s drop the term civilization and replace it with what is a good society. A great and
good society attains a high level whereby its people pursue truth, goodness, and beauty
as defined by Scripture and its collimation in the life and teaching of Yeshua.

Such a society first of all promotes the treating of all people with love, dignity, and
justice based on the idea that they are all equally created in the image of God. This
means that love and kindness are established values. Justice is pursued as an order of
righteousness where every person can attain his or her God-intended destiny. This
destiny begins with loving and knowing God. Every person has a God-intended good
destiny to exercise gifts and talents as God distributes and to exercise such gifts for the
benefit of all. Love is the passionate identification with others that seeks their good
guided by God’s Law. Good is defined by the destiny fulfillment of each individual. It is
not equality of wealth but sufficient wealth to fulfill one’s destiny. Of course, it includes
food, shelter, education, and provision for families and communities.

Various cultures, even outside of Biblical influence, can be evaluated by how much they
attain to these norms. Romans 1 and 2 teach that people have something of the law of
God in them and are better or worse to the extent that they live out the law that is more
or less perceived intuitively or by experience. H. Richard Niebuhr in his Christ and
Culture makes Christ the measure for evaluating what is good in various cultures and
what is bad and to be discarded and what can be transformed through Christ.

In the light of Biblical norms for evaluating cultures, we realize that even the history of
the “Christian West” shows an incredible failure to live out biblical norms but that
selfishness, rationalizations for power, and greed, too often were dominant. Such evil
has been defended in the name of Christianity. Dr. Peter Hocken rightly uses the idea
of “The Glory and the Shame” as the title of his book showing the great things and the
shameful things in Church history. Human beings terribly mess it up in their sin. We see
this in the history of the United States with wonderful ideals in the Declaration and the
Constitution but a terrible history in dealing with native Americans, black slavery, and
then the abandonment of the equality ideals that were to be enforced after the Civil War.

Germany considered herself the height of civilization in her philosophy, music, art, and
scientific progress. They then gave rise to Nazism and the Holocaust. So much for
Civilization!

When we read the Torah, then the Gospels and Epistles we see an orientation toward
life, the treatment of people, and love that the world and even the Church in history was
challenged to really understand and live out. This is the center of righteousness and
real civilization. It is not whether urban or rural or highly educated or simple. It is rather
that the center is how biblical norms are perceived and lived out.

Ps. 19:7 in some translations says, “the law of the Lord revives the soul”, whereas other versions say “restores the soul”. The Hebrew can be translated both ways and probably includes both. Soul can be understood as the person, but in my understanding is a reference to the person in his thinking, feeling and willing. Wholeness from a God perspective would be intended. 

This verse is a key for our modern problem of disintegration. We are living in a time in the west where the individual and the society is in disintegration. This is a manifestation of rebellion against God as described in Romans 1, where human beings claiming to be wise become fools and worship the creature rather than the creator. As such, a reprobate mind is the result.   

One great manifestation of this disintegration is in transgenderism. How is it that a biological male can now identify as a female and visa versa? How is it that we have come to give hormones to prevent normal puberty?  How is it that we cut off natural and well-functioning organs, breasts, genitals and sometimes replace them with non-functioning copies of the opposite sex genitals? How is it that men compete in women’s sports and change in women’s locker rooms? And the younger in schools?

With regard to using preferred pronouns to affirm transgender people, we even use they for those with what used to be called multiple personality disorder. Integrating different aspects of a person into one integrated person was normal in the goal of psychiatry. Now we affirm them not only in those who claim to be non-binary (sometimes more male and sometimes more female) but embrace even multiple personalities. We call these “they.” Thank God the pronoun you can be singular or plural! 

But there are other symptoms of social disintegration. The majority of students in poor communities graduate and are still illiterate. Crime is rampant but it is considered racist to stop the crime and prosecute criminals. The poor suffer the most from the crime! Then the homeless who are drug addicted take over parks and sidewalks.  Businesses and stores close. No one seems to know what to do or how to care for them. There does not seem to be enough money, and forced shelter is said to be wrong. Then marijuana is legalized, and studies say it is indicated in mental illness. 

What is the ultimate philosophy behind this? It is the idea that each person can look within and intuit their authentic meaning and define themselves. It is a radical idea of freedom first developed 65 years ago by French existentialism. It is based on nothing but a self-description from philosophers looking within. Jean Paul Sartre embraced this radical idea but said it does lead to nausea since such radical freedom leaves one ungrounded and feeling faint! His solution was to hold to one’s decision as if it were an absolute given. 

It is no surprise that this social and individual disintegration leads many to depression, drugs, and suicide. It is personal and social disintegration at a mass level which disintegration is supported by radical politicians and the culture elite in our universities.  

The biblical answer is the Gospel. The Gospel says we are created in the image of God and do not self-define. We are redeemed by Yeshua. We give up radical freedom for a freedom that lives within boundaries. There are guard rails! God creates us male and female. He creates us for monogamous marriage. He defines what is lawful and what is not. In submission to God, we submit to his Law by the power of the Spirit.  Truly the Law of the Lord or the Instruction of the Lord restores the soul. The individual and then the society becomes integrated or restored.  In that restoration is peace and prosperity. As Billy Graham said in his 90s, “I know who I am, and I know where I am going.” He gives us the grace to be male and female even if traumas and abuse turn us toward wanting to be something else, for in his power we can embrace the way He made us. May we be examples, joy filled people who attract people because we have been revived and restored. 

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Recently, Arizona Christian University took legal action when their teaching candidates were declared no longer eligible to be student teachers in the public schools.  As a result of this legal action against religious discrimination, the policy was withdrawn.  (In Canada right now there seems no recourse for Christian believers.) The education leaders who sought to remove ACU from the program claimed that the conservative Christian views were not inclusive to LGBTQ+ people, and the views of conservative Christians were hateful.  We expect more and more attacks against classical orthodox varieties of Christianity: Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, independents and more.  I think Orthodox Jews will be included as well. This will be the case even if Christians support the civil rights for LGBTQ+ people with the provision that artists are not forced to create art contrary to their conscience.  

I do think the center of the attack is likely to be against Christian colleges and other schools at all levels. The idea of live and let live is not where the LGBTQ+ community activists are going. It is not an option for them to allow theologically conservative people to freely practice their faith, education and seek to convince other people of their faith. Why?  Because the very existence of theologically conservative believers is a challenge to the foundations of the world view of the LGBTQ+ activists. It is not that the LGBTQ activists simply want to be free to practice every kind of sexual arrangement and radically support trans-sexuality as well. No, they seek to force all people to confess to their world view or be marginalized. One can be religious in a secondary sense, but the religion of the LGBTQ+ community is the LGBTQ+ religion. This religion may be gaining ground because it is supported by a new movement of trans-humanism which is supported by very rich elites that seek to overcome human nature as we have know it.  (see Jennifer Bilek research)

LGBTQ+ begins with support for the idea of “my truth.”  “My truth” is not the old idea of an objective order of reality but affirms a subjectivism for self-definition and is in accord with post- modernism and its view of knowledge (epistemology). Every human being is said to have equal worth and this includes a deep level of freedom. The individual can look inside and discover their true authentic self and can create their own meaning and lifestyle directions from that authentic center. Thus, a transgender child, even at 5 years old, can define themselves as a female in a male body or visa-versa. This self-definition is one’s ultimate meaning. One could be an atheist or have some vague spirituality or religion but that is secondary.   

This new post-modern religion is contrary to the old atheism of scientific naturalism. Two scientific naturalists did indeed declare the tenets of this new religion to be irrational and without any foundation in reality. For the historian and futurist, Yuval Harari at Hebrew University, there is no free self that can freely chose and define their own meaning. While not pushing against transgender identities, the idea of equal worth and inner authentic freedom is a non-existent reality. It is a myth. Everyone is biologically determined. The equal worth of all is also such a myth. For the famous atheist biologist, Richard Dawkins, all is determined and that includes the fact that there are only two sexes, male and female, whose distinctions are total and biologically pervasive. A male can see to live as a female but he is still male!

The Biblical world view is contrary to the old atheistic scientific naturalism and the post-modern relativism with its idea of all being radically free to somehow intuit and then chose to live out the authentic self. First, the idea of the equal worth of human beings cannot be sustained without its biblical basis in the image of God. This is why trans-humanists despise this idea and think it keeps them from the technological re-creation of human beings. They support the LGBTQ agenda as part of breaking down traditional norms so they can create their “brave new world,’’ but they reject the equal inherent worth of every human being. The Biblical world view provides us with a given objective meaning of who we are as created in God’s image and provides us with God’s guide book for how to live. This is rejected by the LGBTQ people as terribly restrictive and hateful. For Bible believers, meaning is not self-derived but received through our relationship to our Creator. There is great room for freedom, but He defines our authentic meaning, including the norms for human sexuality, marriage and family and the basics for all the spheres of life. The biblical orientation threatens not just lifestyle choices but the deepest world view orientation of the LGBTQ+ activists. This is why they must destroy biblical faith. 

Recently a conservative who was speaking against woke-ism was asked to define it. He hemmed and hawed when trying to define it, but I did not blame him. It is complex and not easy to define. Woke-ism is a combination of beliefs, faith confessions, and a set of narratives that do not cohere or imply with each other. Yet, this set of beliefs or confessions are usually embraced by the radical woke-ism folks that are described as radical leftists. 

Sometimes when a person awakens to what they think is truth, there is a sense almost of revelation, such as when the hero in the movie Matrix takes a little pill and comes to see he lived in an illusion. The person who thinks he discovered radical freedom so he or she can be whatever they choose (as in the view of philosopher Jean Paul Sartre) can experience a sense of exhilaration and release. The former believer may come to unbelief as a sad conclusion which may cause despair, but it might also be experienced as exhilarating and a release. One can then define one’s own life and values without any reference to an intrusive god. A radical behaviorist who thinks there is no free will experiences exhilaration in not having the weight of free choice. Yet when a person comes to God and is born again, it is also something that can be received with exhilaration and release. It is interesting that the Biblical text says, “Wake up you sleepers.” So, the truly woke biblically are those who are converted by the Gospel. The beliefs that many in the left are supposedly woke are often incoherent and the opposite of a biblical world view. Let’s list out some of these beliefs and the contrast. 

1. The first is the belief that there is no objective truth. Truth is relative, so people can speak of “my truth.” The phrase “my truth” is a redefinition of the word truth itself. Truth historically referred to views, assertions or propositions that conformed to the way things really were. “My truth’’ means the way one is committed to live their life and see things. There is no objective evidence of whether such a way is true or not. While it seems that at least science is still accepted as bringing objective truth, even science has been affected. Yet the person who is in the “my truth” orientation will hold to commitments, narratives, and views with dogmatic tenacity, giving no quarter to other viewpoints. The dogmatism is amazing. You would think relativism would produce tepid commitments but the narratives of the so-called work somehow produce fervor. I attribute this to the fact that many people need a religious level of fervor to feel that life is worth living. A biblical world view states that God created an objective world. We can discover how it works. Also, there is biblical revelation that defines who we are and how to live, an objective basis. This is sometimes confirmed by natural wisdom, but often natural wisdom is too weak to stand against the onslaught of relativistic assertions in social issues. 
2. A second big assertion of the so-called woke is that human sexual roles are social constructs. Therefore, biological sex does not define gender. This is a huge tenet of the LGBTQ movement. However, LGBT really defines only five genders. One can be classically male or female (cis-gender) or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transexual. How do we come to transexual? It is not that a biological male or female is attracted to the same sex. That would be lesbian or gay. However, one can see an easy flip where if one who is a biological female is not attracted to a male but a female than she could declare that she is really a male in female bodies since she is so attracted. The same could be said for biological males. One homosexual stated that transsexuality is homophobic because the person in rejecting same sex attraction identifies as the opposite sex.  The fact that we also list bisexuality, attraction to both sexes, shows that things can get dicey. At one count there were over 50 genders that could be chosen for self-definition. Some claim alters (multiple personalities) of all different kinds. Of course, there is the fact that transexuals identify with the stereotypes of the opposite sex. Rather than being a sensitive, artistic, and non-athletic oriented male, they must be a female. Then the opposite is also so. The confusion is amazing. With the fifty genders we come to a reduction to absurdity (reductio ad absurdum). Believing that sex is only a construct, and that we can self-define as any of many genders can seem liberating and exhilarating, as if being woke. These nostrums lead to pornography in school libraries, drag queen shows for children, and more so that the society proves that it is inclusive. Children are sexualized as part of gender liberation. It also leads to hormone therapy and surgery even for minors. This produces an orientation whereby the schools seek to hide their teaching from parents so they might further the woke agenda. Even doctors have bought into the new genderism despite the great reservations of doctors in Finland and Sweden.  The Biblical world view tells us that there are two sexes. Yes, there are social constructs that influence how sexual roles are lived out, but the basic framework is that God created us male and female, and that sexual intimacy is to be limited to a heterosexual lasting marriage. Supernatural healing can resolve gender dysphoria or homosexuality. See the amazing writings of Leanne Payne on this! When one is delivered from the complex maze of today’s gender ideology, repents of sin, and embraces the biblical framework, it can also be liberating and can free us from forever having doubt. We know who we are as male and female in His image. We also discover that almost all world cultures seek to foster the distinction of male and female, but we can also understand flexibility in the way this is lived out. The Gospel calls us to repent and really be changed by the power of the Spirit. 
3. A third big assertion comes from critical race theory. In general CRT asserts that the white race is especially sinful. This is a world-wide evaluation of whites. This sin of white privilege and domination is pervasive in the culture and produces systemic discrimination that is not always overt. It is why there are disparities in wealth and position in society. The world is made up of oppressors and victims. This bipolarity is neo-Marxism. The wealthy class and the workers, the whites and the blacks, the Jews in Israel and the Palestinians, and so on and so forth. The history of the United States is thereby redefined as an evil oppressive society. Slavery was not just one dark blot on U. S. history but is the defining meaning of the country and the founders were not good in any sense. The way through is an everlasting groveling by whites (even white children in schools) and quotas and set asides so that equality is achieved. It leads to absurdities in claiming that achievement is racist and even math is racist. It redefines racism (they view that white races and ethnic groups are inferior) so that the oppressed can never be racist no matter what their prejudice against the defined oppressing group. It vilifies the founding fathers of the United States as evil and nothing they did was good since the country accepted racism when it was formed. This is a very skewed reading of history. Once again, this is contrary to a biblical world view. All act sinfully. We do not act with justice and fairness but favor our own kind. When we come to Yeshua, we repent and embrace people of all races and colors. Genuine reconciliation then can pervade a culture and produce a just meritocracy. It can also seek to redress real systemic poverty and see all people lifted. Of course, Chinese and other immigrants from India show how much this theory is wrong since in the United States anyone can excel and they do. They are not white! Reconciliation through Yeshua is the key, and all must repent of sin, selfishness, hatred and prejudice. We also assert that a stable family is the key to liberation and overcoming. This view is hated by the CRT folks. Just a little note on education. The leftist woke want to control education and marginalize parents who stand in the way of conveying the woke ideas and narratives. This is why you see such battles in schools today. 
4. Woke economic theory tends to a Marxist redistribution since attaining wealth is not fair in their view. Yet the incoherence here is amazing since the wealthy corporate leaders who back the woke really are not wanting to give up their wealth. So, there are re-distribution schemes that look socialist but keep an elite in power that is more like fascism. Economic justice is defined by equality in wealth. In a biblical world view an economic system should provide the greatest opportunity for the most. Equal opportunity is not a biblical norm since all have various advantages and disadvantages due to family wealth, gifts, talents and more. So equal opportunity is a myth. However a just system is one where there is real and good opportunity for the greatest number. Justice in the Bible is not leveling equality. Such a just system provides the greatest potential to lift the greatest number of people. This is best done in a true free enterprise system with fair rules and a rejection of crony capitalism where the government and the wealthy corporate leaders control all for their mutual benefit.
5. Those who support abortion rights may be part of the woke. It is easy to see this as embraced by the woke. The child in the womb is dismissed as having no value and abortion is defined as health care for the woman. What a strange re-definition of health care. It is certainly not health care for the baby, and abortion does not add health to the woman.  In the Bible the baby in the womb is a creation of God, in his image to be valued and protected. 

So how do we define “woke-ism?” Woke-ism is a set of beliefs and narratives that are not necessarily connected that are destructive to society. They have been embraced by the promotion of ideas that have impacted the emotions and minds of people but are not based on solid evidence or epistemology (how knowledge is obtained). Woke-ism includes the ideas of gender ideology and fluidity, critical race theory promotion, a binary analysis of groups as oppressors and the oppressed, radical abortion rights, and semi-Marxist economic redistribution commitments.  

Recently there were two media reports that show world view implications.  In the first report a Catholic school in Canada suspended a student who said that the Bible teaches that there are two sexes and there are not other genders biblically.  Some were also complaining about open bathroom and locker room policies for transgenders.  I suppose this school  was catholic in name only.

A second media source interviewed Jordan Peterson, the brilliant psychologist and cultural philosopher explaining the radical environmental movement in worldview terms.  Yes, he agreed, we should care about the environment.  However, the radical environmental movement has defined the earth (gaia-the earth goddess) as being raped and wounded by the cancer of the planet, human beings who consume too much, pollute too much and destroy too much.  It is a very dark picture.  He noted that nuclear power, which could solve energy problems, is rejected.  This is not a rational view but a type of irrational religion. Biblical faith is a rational religion.

It is not only these two issues, human sexuality and the environment, but several radical so called “woke views” that have now been joined together to produce an anti-biblical world view and could well lead to more persecution for those who are Bible believers.  The biblical world view provides us with a set of beliefs and norms arising therefrom.  It teaches that God created the world and human beings in His image.  And indeed, Thomas Jefferson was right that it teaches that all human beings are created equal. Therefore, we must find our self- definitions in Him and His Word, and cannot define ourselves.  In this it provides the norms and guard rails for human fulfillment.  It teaches us that human being were made as male and female and for lasting monogamous marriage.  Some few are called to celibacy.  It teaches the centrality of the family.  It also teaches that the earth is not goddess but was created for human beings who were given dominion but are to be wise stewards.  If we make the earth our deity we will destroy the earth since we will lose wisdom (Romans 1-“Claiming to be wise they became fools.”)  We are called to make a decision to conform ourselves to God’s Word.

The biblical worldview teaches that all have sinned and need the atonement and forgiveness that is found only found in Yeshua.  It also teaches that through Yeshua and His Spirit, reconciliation, practicing love, and sacrificing for others enables all races and ethnicities to join together communities where deep fellowship is possible.

The worldview that is now followed by the radical left so called “woke” roots itself in an idea of human authenticity that is the direct opposite of the biblical worldview.  It promotes the idea of the autonomous free human individual who looks deep into his or her own consciousness and discovers in experience their “authentic self.”  They define themselves.  As such they can define themselves as male or female or several other genders: transgender, fluid gender, non-binary gender, homosexual, heterosexual and more.  The society and all its members are called to support self-definition.  This includes medical treatments to change genders, hormone suppressants, taking hormones and surgery (even for minors).  Those who do not agree are labeled phoebes and are to be canceled and driven out of society.  They are disfellowshipped.  This is an enforcing of an orthodoxy.  The state and business corporations are the instruments of forcing compliance just as the inquisition was in Catholic Spain in the 15^th century.  For America,  it is probably unconstitutional religious discrimination.

The radical environmentalists then enforce policies that will lead to increased poverty all over the world because their radical non-solutions value the earth above human beings.  They cannot produce solutions.  Solutions must be based on lifting human beings as the first priority of environmentalism.

Those who embrace “critical race theory” have defined the white races as bad and this includes all Europeans, eastern and western, including Russians, Poles and all others.  All other tribes and peoples no matter how depraved in are given a pass.  Whites are the oppressors.  When there is analysis of why there are disparities in opportunity, having rebelled against biblical teaching, they reject the importance of the factor of stable families.  The family is sometimes despised, and it is thought children must be raised by the state as in Marxism to overcome the resistance to progress.   Reconciliation, forgiveness, mutual service and love are replaced by hate and grievance forever.  Guilt and innocence is defined by skin color.  But in the Bible, all have sinned, and no one is given a pass.  Blaming others forever is contrary biblical norms.   

We are living in the most profound clash of worldviews.  Those who hold to the biblical worldview are called to act in love and compassion for the repentance and salvation those who are lost.  And we do see those who embrace these false views as very lost.  But God has given us the message of reconciliation, and we proclaim be reconciled to God.