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By R. Albert Mohler Jr.
"The greatest question of our time," offered historian Will Durant,
"is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America,
not even East versus the West; it is whether men can live without
God." That question, it now appears, will be answered in our own
time.
For centuries the Christian church has been the center of Western
civilization. Western culture, government, law, and society were
based on explicitly Christian principles. Concern for the
individual, a commitment to human rights, and respect for the good,
the beautiful, and the true-all of these grew out of Christian
convictions and the influence of revealed religion.
All of these, we now hasten to add, are under serious attack. The
very notion of right and wrong is now discarded by large sectors of
American society. Where it is not discarded, it is often debased.
Taking a page out of Alice in Wonderland, modern secularists simply
declare wrong, right, and right, wrong.
Quaker theologian D. Elton Trueblood once described America as a
"cut flower civilization." Our culture, he argued, is cut off from
its Christian roots like a flower cut at the stem. Though the flower
will hold its beauty for a time, it is destined to wither and die.
When Trueblood spoke those words over two decades ago, the flower
could still be seen with some color and signs of life. But the
blossom has long since lost its vitality, and it is time for the
fallen petals to be acknowledged.
"When God is dead," argued Dostoyevsky, "anything is permissible."
The permissiveness of modern American society can scarcely be
exaggerated, but it can be traced directly to the fact that modern
men and women act as if God does not exist, or is powerless to
accomplish His will.
The Christian church now finds itself facing a new reality. The
church no longer represents the central core of Western culture.
Though outposts of Christian influence remain, these are exceptions
rather than the rule. For the most part, the church has been
displaced by the reign of secularism.
The daily newspaper brings a constant barrage which confirms the
current state of American society. This age is not the first to see
unspeakable horror and evil, but it is the first to deny any
consistent basis for identifying evil as evil or good as good.
The faithful church is, for the most part, tolerated as one voice in
the public arena, but only so long as it does not attempt to
exercise any credible influence on the state of affairs. Should the
church speak forcefully to an issue of public debate, it is
castigated as coercive and out of date.
How does the church think of itself as it faces this new reality?
During the 1980s, it was possible to think in ambitious terms about
the church as the vanguard of a moral majority. That confidence has
been seriously shaken by the events of the past decade.
Little progress toward the re-establishment of a moral center of
gravity can be detected. Instead, the culture has moved swiftly
toward a more complete abandonment of all moral conviction.
The confessing church must now be willing to be a moral minority, if
that is what the times demands. The church has no right to follow
the secular siren call toward moral revisionism and politically
correct positions on the issues of the day.
Whatever the issue, the church must speak as the church-that is, as
the community of fallen but redeemed, who stand under divine
authority. The concern of the church is not to know its own mind,
but to know and follow the mind of God. The church's convictions
must not emerge from the ashes of our own fallen wisdom, but from
the authoritative Word of God which reveals the wisdom of God and
His commands.
The church is to be a community of character. The character produced
by a people who stand under the authority of the Sovereign God of
the universe will inevitably be at odds with a culture of unbelief.
The American church is faced with a new situation. This new context
is as current as the morning newspaper and as old as those first
Christian churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Laodicea, and Rome. Eternity
will record whether or not the American church is willing to submit
only to the authority of God; or whether the church will forfeit its
calling in order to serve lesser gods.
The church must awaken to its status as a moral minority and hold
fast to the gospel we have been entrusted to preach. In so doing,
the deep springs of permanent truth will reveal the church to be a
life-giving oasis amidst American's moral desert.
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