Category: Culture

We are living in an age when there is a profound clash of world views, the classic western worldview and the modern atheist/agnostic worldview.  The latter can accept some aspects of eastern mysticism but not any concrete faith that provides the foundation of ethical norms for society. 

Nowhere is this clash of world views more revealed than in the issue of human sexual identity and purpose.  It is a window into the whole world view battle. 

The foundation of ethics in a biblical worldview is God’s revelation of his will expressed in his law and the teaching of the Bible, theistic revealed ethics. Other societies also intuited that their ethical systems had to be rooted in a transcendent realm, the Chinese, the will of Heaven, the Hindus the laws of ethics and karma rooted in Brahmin, in the Greeks, the realm of the eternal forms which include the Good and the eternal values.  The impersonal views of the Greeks end up being more subject to questions and weaknesses (witness the Greek Sophists and skeptics). 

There is no foundation for ethics in the modern atheist/agnostic worldview. All is based on the consensus of the society, and its emotive preferences, at a particular time.  Nothing holds things back from very bad directions. A very little is taken from the Biblical worldview by Marxists and leftist radicals but with no grounding.  That little is that a better world should be sought that is a more equal, humane, and provides greater provision for all, a better world for fewer people. This value of a better more humane world is rooted in the Bible and only societies influenced by the Bible have this ethical orientation See English atheist Tom Holland for this argument.  Holland is brutally honest about both the lack of grounding today but embraces the hope that this humane orientation will prevail. In the Bible, all ethics on a human plain is rooted in the value of human beings as created in the image of God.  However, an ethic of the survival of the fittest and the serving of an elite by the masses can easily gain ascendency as we saw with Nazism.  However, the atheist/agnostic worldview has very little behavioral guard rails.  Their views on a more humane order are short-sighted and lead to sorrow and destruction.  They seek to cancel those who argue against them.   Because there is no objective ground for ethics, emotional preferences reign. 

In the Bible’s view, God created human beings in His image and provides the rule book or guard rails that lead to human flourishing.  Such guidance is clear on the matter of human sexuality. God created male and female for complimentary identities to be fulfilled in heterosexual and lasting marriage (see Matthew 19 and the teaching of Yeshua on this).   Sexual distinction is to be fostered in the way we raised children and intentional biblical social construction is important. The Torah enjoins distinctions of dress as well. Children are raised so the distinction will be attractive and complementary to the opposite sex.  The expression of sexuality leads to a bond that is the basis of family life. Family is highly valued as the essential unit to produce a humane society of people who act in ways that are beneficial to the society over the long run.  Those very few born without normal sexual organs are to be loved and find a way to choose an identity that will not undercut the norm.  Others that do not fit into sexual heteronormality and marriage are encouraged to live single lives serving the kingdom of God with deep friendship and community.  (See Matthew 19 and I Cor. 7)

The atheist/agnostic worldview can find no basis to define any human essence. Biology itself does not define gender today.  Yes, hormones may lead to opposite-sex attraction for most, but gender is a human social construct. As such sexual and gender identity is fluid and anyone can choose identities according to whatever they feel.  Feeling dominates.  One must not disagree with their feeling/identity since that is hurtful.  Homosexual identity, bi-sexuality, poly amorosos, transgender and every kind of identity is affirmed along with all the sexual expressions that follow therefrom.  The only rule is that the adults consent.  Yet with the flood of pornography and promiscuity, enforcing consent, is more and more difficult.  This is because sexual promiscuity seeks stimulation from breaking rules since “the high” is no longer experienced in normal consent. Violence is and will thus increase.  Also, the big argument now taking shape is that children can consent.  If they can choose a gender at young ages, why may they not choose sexual experiences; thus argue pedophiles. 

It is not an accident that this sexual revolution leads to family breakdown.  Family breakdown is a desired end of a contingent of radical leftists.  Marx argued that the family fostered inequality.  The state needed to raise the children.  It is no accident that the founder of Black Lives Matter (an avowed Marxist) argued that they were against fostering the heteronormal family system.  The ideal of the radical left is to foster communal child-rearing.  We see this today in the teachers’ unions that seek to work with young children on gender issues in secret, not telling parents.  They foster the world view of gender fluidity with young children and groom them if they give any indication of sexual questioning, though they are way too young for such decisions on sexuality.  The end of all this in a generation will be anti-social adults who are simply not sufficiently bonded to parents and family to become healthy productive and trustworthy citizens.  The breakdown of law and civility is certainly a result of great increases in poverty.  The correlation between family breakdown and poverty is one of the strongest in social statistics.  The state cannot overcome this.  

All of this fits a larger world vision to re-create the world around a subjective and chosen vision. Not all of it is incompatible with the Bible but most are.  A generation ago, George Wald, the Harvard biologist spoke of “A better world for fewer people.” His nemesis was Julian Simon of the University of Maryland who argued against his population bomb predictions.  However, a better world for fewer people means many less people.  The more radical desire a world of 500 million people.  The abortion agenda fits their desire for a small population world.  Decoupling sex from marriage and family is helpful in moving toward that world.  Easy access to abortion also fosters the goal.  The child in the womb is not in the image of God and can be killed.  Libertine sexuality requires easy abortion.  However, this is not publicly admitted.  We can argue if families should be smaller and population growth limited.  But the agenda of the left is quite anti-family.

There is one more very troubling orientation among some in science and history.  The human being as given is not sacred, so there is no compelling reason to not recreate a new super race.  A bio-engineered human, maybe part robot, is envisioned by Yuval Harari, a professor at Hebrew University who has related to the Davos World Economic Forum and its leader, Claus Schwab, who seeks to foster a one-world order controlled by elites.*  It is anti-democratic. 

The revolution vision of Herbert Marcuse (An Essay on Liberation), requires pitting ethnic groups against one another and the breakdown of the present order to be replaced by an authoritarian government worldwide that will foster a more equal world for fewer people.  Of course, the elite will keep wealth and privilege but will create a more equal order for the masses.  If communication is controlled then the masses can have an illusion of democracy, but real control will be in the elite who will move the world to a better world for fewer people, with sexual libertine orientations, few children communally raised, and sexual orientations all embraced toward the end of this “better world.” The danger is that the humane idea will break down in violence to those who do not go along as we see in historic communism.  I am quite sure that violence against those who foster a biblical worldview is on the way.  Believers stand in the way of what they see as progress. 

Unless believers understand this as an anti-Christ worldview and see what we are up against, the battle in prayer, witness, and proclamation will miss the mark.  Believers will not be left free to live out their convictions in their own communities, but as in communism in the past, they will be forced to bow to the beliefs of the new world order.  Without a massive revival, this direction will continue and will not end well.  

*Yuval Harari at the World Economic Forum, quotes

Again, I think the biggest question in maybe in economics and politics of the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people?  The problem is more boredom and how what to do with them and how they find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless?  My best guess at present is a combination of drugs and computer games as a solution for (most).  It’s already happening.  I think once you’re superfluous, you don’t have power. 

– FROM A TRANSCRIPT AT RIELPOLITIC ALEXANDRA BRUCE, “BRAVE NEW WORLD: YUVAL NOAH HARARI ASK’S, ‘WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THESE USELESS PEOPLE?’,” (MAY 17, 2022)

Harari goes on to outline a transhumanist vision of the future in which brain-computer interfaces make our footedness in the material world obsolete, human relationships become meaningless due to artificial substitutes, and the poor die but the rich don’t.

Of course, the biblical view is joy and creativity with worship forever. No boredom forever. 

The other evening, I was watching the news.  There was an interview with an astronomer touting the amazing capability of the new telescope that was way more powerful than the famous Hubble telescope.  We now see, due to the penetration of light years, times very close to the origins of the Universe.  Something of the mystery did come through.  The universe began as what is popularly called a “big bang,” but it is more accurately called “the unique singularity.”  From a point of the dimension of a speck of dust, came all matter and energy in the entire universe.  All was super dense beyond our comprehension, and all we know as the whole universe was packed into it, all the galaxies, billions of stars, and planets.  After hardly any time passed, it was the size of a baseball, then a basketball, and then all else.  For an account of this, see Gerald Schroeder’s amazing book, Genesis and the Big Bang.  Dr. Schroeder was an MIT Ph. D. graduate and physicist, a very high-up scientist.  His study of science led him to believe in God, and today he is an Orthodox Jew.  His other books, The Science of God, and The Hidden Face of God, are well worth reading.  They show that belief in God as the designer of the Universe is the most rational and plausible conclusion from the scientific evidence.  From the point of no dimensions to the complex design of the cell, the conclusion is inescapable.  A naturalistic explanation, in simplified terms, of time, plus chance plus matter, cannot be the explanation of the universe and our existence. 

Back to the interview!  The interviewer then asked that in the context of the billions of stars and planets, did he think it was likely that there was intelligent life on other worlds in the Universe.  The astronomer voiced his certainty.  It is likely that there are planets like the earth with the circumstances that would give rise to life.  Many may not have realized it, but they were just given propaganda for atheism.  How so?  Note the statement, “Circumstances would give rise to life.” Really?  How?  It assumes that as our world came about by chance including sentient life and human beings, so also it would happen by chance in another world.  When we read Schroeder, William Dempsky, Michael Behe, and many others, the idea that naturalistic circumstances would give rise to life has been discredited.  There is zero possibility for that scenario.  The right answer to the question of the reporter about other worlds with intelligent life would be, “Yes, there could be intelligent life on other worlds if God so willed and intervened to bring it about, but we do not know if He did.”  Billions and billions of planets make it no more likely that a designed cell would come about, for without God it is impossible.  As Schroeder notes, the statement by the famous biologist George Wald, that time gives the answer as to how chance could bring about life is false.  There can never be enough time. 

Sadly, in the program after program naturalistic propaganda is pushed on all of us, including our children.  There is no credible naturalistic explanation for our existence, and even trillions of stars do not make a difference.  It is self-delusion that just presenting huge numbers makes chance more capable of producing a cell.  

About 55 years ago a number of thinkers developed what I called cultural apologetics.  Some of the famous names were Francis Schaeffer of the L’Abri Study center in Switzerland and Hans Rookmaaker, Professor of Art History of the Free University of Amsterdam, Holland.  The basic argument is that the true worldview is one in which human beings can find a lasting sense of joy and fulfillment.  Schaeffer and Rookmaaker analyzed art including painting, sculpture, movies, literature, and philosophy to show that modern anti-biblical philosophies like Atheistic Evolutionary Naturalism and Atheistic Existentialism produced cultural despair as reflected in artistic and philosophical expression.   Schaeffer expressed this by saying the “mannishness of man” cannot live comfortably in this worldview and shows rebellion against the meaningless of existence.  The famous apologist, Norman Geisler said that a worldview is an environment in which we live.  Fish live in the environment of sustaining water.  A fish is not meant to live outside of water.  The life of those opposed to the biblical worldview is like fish out of water.  They thrash around and cannot find meaning and fulfillment.  

Art especially shows that the anti-biblical world views lead to depression or despair.  Shaffer saw that people try to escape from the meaninglessness of their rationally asserted world views.  They take a leap of faith to find some mystical meaning.  For Albert Camus meaning is found by rebellion against meaninglessness.  We rebel against the absurdity of life to find a sense of meaning.  (See his book The Rebel.)  For Karl Jaspers, it is to have a mystical final experience that cannot be described.  For others it is to create the theater of the absurd to at least express ourselves and life’s absurdity.  For John Paul Sartre, it is to choose or create our own meaning and though it is not based on any real given meaning, it is to hold our ethical choice as having ultimate value as if it was of objective ultimate value.  We can go on and on.   Machine art, where humans are depicted as machines, shouts against the dehumanizing of the modern worldview. 

Others have pointed out that society, as a whole, becomes more and more uncivilized over time when such depressing world views are embraced.  The great philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that if human beings do not believe in life after death and a moral judgment of rewards and punishments, society will deteriorate into more and more crime and barbarism. Other cultures do have some hope in their world views, in my view nothing compared to the vivid hope of the Bible view.  But we are talking here about the world views of atheism and the assertion that there is no ultimate meaning to life.  We contrast this to the biblical world view, that we were created to be in loving community with God and others forever, to enjoy all the glories of God’s creation.  

In recent years until our own day, there are many who argue that the progress of societies in the west, against slavery, for hospitals, humane treatment for all, orphans, widows, those with handicaps, the poor, and the mentally ill only came through the influence of the Bible.  So argues even atheist British historian Tom Holland.  He argues that human rights and the compassion we treasure are unknown apart from this influence.  What an amazing admission!  The great sociologist and historian Rodney Stark argued in the same way.  The evidence was so overwhelming to him that in his last years he became a Christian.  Even the rise of modern science is due to the biblical view that God created a stable world whose laws could be studied.  (Alfred North Whitehead, in Science and the Modern Mind,  and the historian Herbert Butterfield)  

Doesn’t this make the most sense only if the Bible is really God’s revelation to us and that the biblical worldview that gives hope for this life and for everlasting life is the right and best of all world views?

The history of text interpretation is a great study.  The discipline of text interpretation is called hermeneutics and is applied to historical writing from the ancient Greeks, to the Bible in parts or as a whole (if one believes as I do that there is a unity in the Bible that can be interpreted as a whole) to a newspaper from the 1930s to Shakespeare and Wordsworth. 

Religious leaders many centuries ago developed rules of interpretation such as the Rabbinic rules from the early centuries A. D.  A more exacting set of rules for interpretation is more recent.  Only in the last few centuries was the primary thrust to understand a text according to the intention of the author or authors.  Understanding that intent required some understanding of what became known as cultural-historical exegesis.   In other words, we have to understand the language and culture of the time of writing to understand the intent of the author.  Craig Keener’s Cultural Background Commentary of the New Testament is a good example and a great resource. I recall the adage, “A text without a context is a pretext.”  The consensus until the mid 20^th century was that we can know the meaning of texts with reasonable probability even when the author and something of his biography is not known.  

Parallels in Biblical Interpretation to Constitutional interpretation

There are amazing parallels to the interpretation of the Constitution of the United States and the Bible.  In both cases, we seek to know the original intent or as we say of the Constitution, the intent of the framers.  With regard to the Constitution, we have an amazing resource in the Federalist Papers that give a commentary on the Constitution.  Plus we know of the political philosophers whose ideas shaped the Constitution.  The Constitution is one of the most amazing governmental documents.  The United States has drifted away from it, but much is still in place.  Here are three responses to interpreting texts which now will affect the hearings for a new Supreme Court Justice.  The same responses are affecting Biblical interpretation. 

1. Conservativism.  We can know the meaning of the texts.  This meaning is binding law on the United States, and we cannot stray from the meaning.  That which is not enjoined or precluded by the texts is required of us.  So also, for the Bible.  We can know its meaning and when we do know it, it is binding on us.  In the Bible, we are bound to the New Covenant application of the Torah. 
2. Classic Liberalism.  We can know the meaning of the texts, but that meaning is antiquated.  The text may give us good principles but if it does not, we must have a flexible approach that enables us to make legal decisions that are more fitting to our cultural situation.   This would be the approach of liberals to the Bible’s teaching on morals and its accommodation to the culture and especially today to the LGBT agenda in liberal churches.  H. Richard Niebuhr in his classic Christ and Culture, described the liberal approach as Christ subsumed under culture.  The prevailing directions of the cultural elite subsume the meaning of the Bible and the Constitution under their preferred vision for the society.   The words of the text are made to say what they really don’t mean. 

Of course, there are centrists that want to respect the text but still want a freedom of transcending the original intent when needed.  

1. The third approach to texts is postmodern interpretation. They say that a text has no objective meaning.  It can mean whatever the reader sees it to say (reader-response). Postmodernists approach the Bible in churches and then build their orientation on the consensus of the readers.  The tools for accurate interpretation are not really that important.  How destructive to scholarship!  Applied to the choice of a Supreme Court judge, postmodern ideas produce judges that simply make the text to say whatever he or she wants to and makes the law to say whatever he or she prefers.  Postmodernism is a dangerous aberration leading to chaos and anarchy!  Sadly is still pervasive in universities. 

It is important to note that our texts, either in the Bible or in the Constitution do not cover all situations but may give principles for application to new situations.  In Judaism, this is called Halakah.  For example, is it wrong to disconnect a person from machines that prolong life when the person is in a coma?  What about assisted dying?  Taking large doses of morphine relieves pain but hastens death. Ethicists in Judaism and Christianity think about such issues.  Is artificial insemination ethical?  Abortion to save the physical life of a mother (very rarely needed)? And we can go on and on.  Conservatives recognize the need for judging law application as well as being restrained so legislatures speak where the Constitution does not.  Liberals want courts to be super legislatures that further their goals. 

Obviously, the reader understands that I am a conservative.  In choosing a congregation or denomination, we should only choose one that pursues an objective interpretation of the Bible and teaches that the text is normative.  In choosing judges for the Supreme Court and other courts that judge constitutional issues, we need to choose judges that submit to the intent of the text and only show flexibility where the text gives principles but is not clear in application to new situations but also are reticent so that legislatures perform their duty.  This is the battle we face from Joe Biden’s choice for a judge that most likely will be liberal, but the horror of horrors could be postmodern. 

Liberalism and post-modernism in the Church are so very parallel to the same in civil government and the courts. 

There are four books that are at this time are my four chosen books to give to seekers for the truth.  I would like to include my book The Biblical World View, An Apologetic.  Yes, since I wrote it and gave great effort to it, I think it is a very helpful and comprehensive book, but to pierce the heart, I think the four I name here are amazing.  I will make my book #5.  

1. N. T. Wright, “Surprised by Hope” is an amazing book.  It is the best book I have ever read both on the resurrection of Yeshua and on our resurrection and life in the Age to Come.  Anglican Bishop Wright is one of today’s top New Testament theologians, presently teaching in the renowned department at St. Andrews University in Scotland.   He powerfully presents the evidence that Yeshua rose from the dead.  Then he presents the wonderful hope that comes from the fact that our resurrection life is a real bodily life fit for a totally renewed earth.  His language attains to a C. S. Lewis level of quality. 

1. John Burke, “Imagine Heaven” is the most balanced and theologically solid book I have yet read on what is being called “near-death experiences.”  The most miraculous of these are clearly death and resurrection experiences, not near-death experiences.  The common and different descriptions of heaven, people knowing things that could not be known in the natural, and the transformation of those who have experienced such, is amazing and stirs faith and hope.  It is a great book to give to those with terminal illnesses. My best friend from our public high school read it before he died. It gave him and his wife a more vivid hope.  The book is proof that the body is not our whole self and that we indeed survive death.  It also shows that Yeshua is Lord of heaven and earth. 

1. Craig Keener, “Miracles Today” is a shortened version with additions of his monumental two large volumes, “Miracles, the Credibility of New Testament Miracles.”  The latter is about the same kind of miracles happening today as in the Gospels and Acts. Keener is one of the world’s leading New Testament theologians. He teaches at Asbury Seminary and has written some of the most foundational books in his field. Keener travels the world to document miracles, ones that cannot be naturalistically explained. They are done on the cutting edge of Kingdom expansion.  Keener shows that miracles are predominantly and overwhelmingly done in the name and power of Yeshua, confirm the Gospel, and manifest compassion for the sick.   The compendium is amazing.   Keener’s great capability as a theologian puts this all in a framework of solid biblical theology and interpretation.  Dr. Keener is a great gift.  This book is like drinking from a fire hose.  Wonderful miracle after wonderful miracle is documented, often with medical evidence. 

1. Thomas Dubay, “The Evidential Power of Beauty.”  Dubay was an amazing professor at Catholic University in Washington, D. C.  He also was a leader in spiritual retreats.  Dubay presents the evidence from creation and how beauty pervades creation, from the fauna and flora to microscopic life to the macroscopic level of the whole universe.  His presentation of intelligent design with beauty is one of the best I have read. Then he presents the beauty of Yeshua, his life, his teaching, his death, and resurrection.  And finally, he presents the evidence from the lives of the saints.  The book can take your breath away.  I try to read this book again every year. It is that good 

Today’s evidence is much greater by far than in my student days.  Taken all together, the evidence and argument for the truth of our faith is amazing.  As I said about miracles, the whole evidence as well is like drinking from a fire hose.  I wish the evidence available to me in 1968 was like the evidence I now have available.  The developments in science in the last 60s years have been very helpful, and now the evidence form the miraculous which two of the books document (#2, and #3 above) is far more than I had in those years.