DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9 | Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
If God’s central command concerning parenting is that we should teach our children how to love Him from our own example…then where did it all go wrong? As a nation founded upon Christian principles, how did we become a post-modern, post-Christian culture? These are bigger questions than a blog post can cover, but let’s at least start the conversation.
Back in 2011, David Fitch published an insightful post that described the reasons why people are rejecting religion and leaving the local church. Whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, it is an indisputable fact that people are increasingly turning elsewhere for the answers to life’s great questions and teaching their children to do the same.
In 2020, Barna released a study that found the share of practicing Christians had declined nearly 50% since 2000. Gallup recently reported that U.S. church membership fell below 50% for the first time in eight decades.
So what explains this? God is still every bit the source of life, love, and joy that He has always been, so what’s changed? And why does it seem like any attempt to defend Him or the Bible invites such mockery and contempt from our culture?
I’m going to suggest that at least part of the answer lies in how people of faith have provoked this response by misrepresenting God and His Scriptures.
“Church people” often condemn the very acts they themselves are guilty of doing.
“Church people” often view certain sins with greater disapproval than others, while marginalizing (or even ignoring) sins they consider “socially acceptable.”
“Church people” often live outwardly “religious” lives while lacking a deeply transformative, intimate relationship with God that resonates with authentic love, joy, and peace.
Only God knows how many people have been repulsed by, and/or walked away from, the false religion of “churchianity”, whose primary doctrines are:
Sin-Management
Behavior Modification
“Just-Try-Harderism”
In fact, it’s far more likely that these people were never introduced to a truly intimate relationship with God and understandably rejected the pseudo-Christianity that was presented to them.
Perhaps another reason driving the present culture’s mockery and contempt is that the Bible and post-modernism are as diametrically opposed to one another as any two worldviews can be. Yes, there are those who claim to hold both a Bible-based worldview and post-modernist views, but they are quite rare. And even those who make such claims do little more than cloak post-modernist ethos with religious sounding rhetoric. On virtually every fundamental value, the Bible and post-modernists are completely opposite.
For instance…
The Bible describes human beings as image-bearers of God who sinned by choosing to believe a lie instead of His Truth. Evil therefore, comes from the rejection of Truth and human nature is often in conflict with that Truth. For post-modernists, they variously identify the source of evil as capitalism, patriarchy, poverty, religion, racism, nationalism, sexism, or some other external cause.
But IF you abandon the heart (which is passion, desire, living authentically) THEN behavior is all you have left. IF you can’t live from the inside out, THEN you have to live from the outside in. At that point, religion just becomes, “Tell me how I should behave.” But Jesus promises life to the full…not behavior modification.
JOHN 10:10 CJB | The thief [satan] comes only in order to steal, kill and destroy; I [Jesus] have come so that they may have life, life in its fullest measure.
So, our first order of business is to recover the truth of the gospel (which, by the way, means “good news.”) And the good news is that it makes your heart new; it makes it free. Then, God’s restorative process of healing and growth begins. Sadly, we often act as though our heart remains wicked…it’s just that we’ve been forgiven now.
But that simply isn’t true.
God reminds us, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you; I will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26 CJB).
In the parable of the four soils, Jesus teaches that, “But what fell in rich soil—these are the ones who, when they hear the message, hold onto it with a good, receptive heart; and by persevering, they bring forth a harvest.” (Luke 8:15 CJB).
The seed that fell on good soil represents those with a good and receptive heart. A good and receptive heart? Where do you ever hear that? Your heart has been changed. The truest man that you are, the truest woman that you are…has been redeemed by Jesus and restored. That IS good news.
Here are a few more examples:
BIBLICAL VIEW: God created nature for human beings.
vs. POST-MODERNIST VIEW: Human beings are just another part of nature.
BIBLICAL VIEW: Human beings are created in the image of God and formed with a transcendent immaterial soul.
vs. POST-MODERNIST VIEW: (The view of all secular ideologies) human beings are solely comprised of randomly assembled atoms of cosmic material.
BIBLICAL VIEW: God created order out of chaos. Therefore, order is defined by distinctions. For example, male and female, which is the only inherent human distinction that matters to God. There are no racial or ethnic distinctions in God’s order, only the distinction of human gender.
vs. POST-MODERNIST VIEW: The concept of divine order is received with contempt and this hatred is the primary driving force behind their efforts to obliterate the distinction between male and female.
BIBLICAL VIEW: Human beings have free will. While reason alone can lead a person to conclude murder is wrong, murder is ultimately and objectively wrong only because there is a transcendent source of right and wrong—God—who deems murder wrong.
vs. POST-MODERNIST VIEW: (The view of all secular ideologies) human beings have no free will. Instead, everything is determined by environment, genetics, and the matter which comprises our material bodies. Therefore, neuro-chemical impulses, not free will, explain both murder and kindness.
BIBLICAL VIEW: The acquisition of wisdom begins with acknowledging and respecting God.
vs. POST-MODERNIST VIEW: God is not only unnecessary for acquiring wisdom, but also destructive to wisdom…assuming His existence is even acknowledged.
If you are still wondering which of these opposing views is true, consider this: the most godless and Bible-less institution in our society—colleges and universities—are also (unquestionably) the most foolish. As satirist and staunch critic of organized religion, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wryly observed,
His [college professors] whole professional activity is circumscribed by the prejudices, vanities and avarices of his university trustees, (i.e., a committee of soap-boilers, nail manufacturers, bank-directors and politicians). The moment he offends these vermin he is undone. He cannot so much as think aloud without running a risk of having them fan his pantaloons.
Returning to Deuteronomy 6, God clearly designed the nuclear family as the fundamental unit of society…a married father and mother and their children.
Are there incredible foster parents? Unquestionably! (I know several)
Are there amazing adoptive parents? Of course! (I know several).
Are there wonderful single parents? Absolutely! (I know several).
However, this does nothing to change the fact that the nuclear family was established by God as the best way to create thriving individuals and a healthy society. This is not meant to judge or shame anyone. I am merely pointing out that anyone who takes the Bible seriously should acknowledge the ideal family structure as God defines it.
For nearly all of this nation’s history, the Bible was revered as the most important book in America. It is no longer. And the consequences, both individually and collectively, have been morally and intellectually catastrophic…especially for our children.