In an interview with Shane Morris on the Upstream podcast, Natasha Crain pointed to the recent results of the American Worldview Inventory, conducted by George Barna and Arizona Christian University. According to that survey, just 6 percent of Americans hold a “functional biblical worldview,” meaning they gave recognizably Christian answers to questions like, Who is God? and What are human beings? and Is there absolute truth?
The Apostle Paul’s prayer for the church at Philippi is one we need to claim as our own in this cultural moment. Paul prayed for this church that “their love would abound more and more in truth and in all discernment.” We need truth, and we need the skills to navigate all of the ideas, the competing authorities, and the information of this moment. The word for that is discernment, the ability to distinguish between what is true and false, what is genuine and counterfeit, what is good and what is evil.
Le Petit Robert, a popular dictionary of the French language, recently created a gender-neutral pronoun. The word is “iel,” a merging of the masculine pronoun “il” with the feminine pronoun “elle.” But, it isn’t sitting well with many French folks. Some see the move as an export of American wokeism into French culture, while others hail it as a travesty, an abuse of the French language.
American Christians are not encountering the persecution our sisters and brothers face in Malaysia and China these days. However, we are facing a rising tide of opposition to biblical truth and morality on a level that is unprecedented in US history.
Ours is a day of declining commitment to evangelism, fueled in part by a growing belief that sharing the gospel is wrong in a culture that elevates tolerance above all other values. But the “passive congeniality” that is unwilling to speak of Jesus in everyday conversation is not enough.
When God is our strength, we stay humble. When we lean on his sufficient grace, we know that our self-indulgence never leads to peace and joy. It's one of the Bible's wonderful ironies – you can't be a great man until you know that only God is great. When you grapple with that and believe it from the heart, it builds a foundation that keeps you from falling.
For the Christian, there are immovable Biblical principles that should mark and form the structures of our lives. These should not be moved, edited, or altered by cultural shifts.
Because of globalization and the internet, as well as the marching zeitgeist of postmodernism, words and their definitions have become more and more slippery. To help, we've compiled a list of crucial ideas that the Denison Forum frequently comments on, along with brief definitions (though their connotation may change in mere years), and biblical responses.
Sometimes Christians think of “culture” as all the “bad” stuff “out there.” But culture is simply what humans do with the world. When God told Adam and Eve to fill the Earth and subdue it, He was telling them to make good culture. The result is that there are stories, art, music, and technological inventions that glorify God and build His Kingdom. Christian believers’ contributions to culture and the arts have been historically some of the most beautiful and influential in the world. But evil corrupts culture-making, too. That’s why humanity also makes art that spreads bad ideas, lifts up false idols, and hurts people.
