“The culture wars are being fought in virtually every sphere of life—government, business, law, politics, commerce, education, the sciences, media, the arts, entertainment, religion, marriage, family, health care, and popular culture to name just a few. Each of these spheres produces seemingly unrelated instances of cultural conflict. Yet, it is in the accumulation of such present-day moments of conflict that we gain an understanding and direction of the cultural drift. The purpose of these posts and the books I have written is to participate in the redemption of culture in all institutions of American life through sharing the truth of the biblical worldview which was at the heart of the nation’s founding and formed the central cultural vision by which it is to be governed.
Over the last 15 years I have written and posted many articles about American culture from the perspective of the biblical worldview. Therefore, I have selected a few of the posts that continue to offer time-tested answers to the questions of life and the turmoil found in modern society that we encounter every day.”
Larry G. Johnson
Revival – 1 – The only hope for the Church and America.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the most gifted preachers of the twentieth century. In addition to preaching as the minister of Westminster Chapel in London for twenty-five years, he preached extensively in Europe and the United States. In 1959, Dr. Lloyd-Jones preached a series of sermons commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the Welsh Revival of 1859 which had a powerful and profound impact on Wales, England, the United States, and other parts of the world as well. He did so because he saw the appalling condition of the church of his day and the need for revival as exceedingly urgent. These sermons eventually became a widely acclaimed book titled Revival.[1] Dr. Jones saw a profound and perilous difference between the conditions of the […]
The Bible and The Benedict Option – Part III
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. [2 Corinthians 6:17-18. KJV] In the Old Testament, God’s requirement for the Israelites was separation from the people of other nations whose lifestyles and practices would influence and corrupt His chosen people. In the New Testament, God still requires His people to separate themselves from the world as we see above in 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. But New Testament commands are not for separation from nations but separation (1) from world systems (by which is meant the “beliefs, lifestyles, and God-defying ways of […]
The Bible and The Benedict Option – Part II
Rod Dreher believes that Christian participation in a hostile secular culture is no longer possible and that conservative Christians must develop a unique, countercultural way to live their lives and raise their families in order to hold on to their faith and their values. To fight the world’s efforts to assimilate Christianity and infuse it with the world’s value system, conservative Christians must have a paradigm shift as they rethink how they live their lives within the family, their church, and community. Dreher calls this strategic withdrawal from a hostile culture “The Benedict Option.”[1] Although Dreher rightly assesses the need for greater separation between the church and the world’s value system in many spheres of life, the implementation of many of Dreher’s options based on […]
The Bible and The Benedict Option – Part I
In 2017, Rod Dreher published his book The Benedict Option – A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.[1] Dreher is a senior editor at The American Conservative. Dreher is Roman Catholic and received book endorsements from high level Catholic officials as well as favorable endorsements from several well-respected Protestant conservatives including Russell Moore, President, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore wrote, “I’m more missionary than monastery, but I think every Christian should read this book. Rod Dreher is brilliant, prophetic, and wise. Even if you don’t agree with everything in this book, there are warnings here to heed and habits here to practice.”[2] Reverend Moore may be correct in his assessment that there are nuggets of wisdom that […]
The Shack – False doctrine
One of the great afflictions of the modern evangelical church in America is the absence of biblical knowledge by a large majority of professing Christians in the last decades of the twentieth century and to the present day. This pervasive ignorance of the Bible is consistent with the spirit of the age in which constant and thematic biblical preaching and teaching have substantially declined in many evangelical churches. The preaching of the message of the Bible has been dumbed down and therefore is made a husk without the life sustaining core from which the Christian finds spiritual nourishment. As a result a large segment of American Christianity does not have a solid grasp of the basic elements of the faith as taught in Scripture and […]