“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
Resistance thinking – Part VI
The third and final prescription for the church is to seek a broad spiritual awakening across the body of Christ as well as revival of individual Christians and the local church. The pattern of sin and falling away from God followed by repentance, revival, and restoration of His people is a recurrent theme in the history of God’s dealings with the Israelites in the Old Testament. This pattern is illustrated in Psalm 80 as the author pleads with God to once again revive and restore His chosen people. Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself. Your vine is cut down, it […]
Resistance thinking – Part V
In Part IV, we saw that resistance thinking is an essential prescription for what ails the evangelical church in American and Western civilization and is a characteristic of God’s prophetically untimely people who have the courage to give voice to a message that stands against the church’s cultural captivity by the humanistic spirit of the age. The second prescription for the church is a return to New Testament Christianity by embracing all of its distinguishing elements found in the first century church. Restoring New Testament Christianity There are several norms or hallmarks that give shape, definition, and context to New Testament Christianity. All of the distinguishing elements found in the early church (except for the writing of the New Testament Scripture) are available to the […]
Resistance thinking – Part IV
The American church is dying and parts of it are already dead. If one needs proof of its condition, a re-reading of Part II will reveal the severity of its illness. This is not to say that Christianity is dying for Jesus said, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” [Matthew 16:18. KJV] [emphasis added] The remnant church will always survive, perhaps bloodied and bent for the moment, but it will survive. There are three prescriptions for what ails the evangelical church in the West: development of the art of resistance thinking to challenge the forces of cultural captivity (conformity, popularity, and a […]
Resistance thinking – Part III
One eminent European scholar at Oxford University asked the question, “By the end of the 1970s who will be the worldliest Christians in America?” Following the silence of his stunned audience, he answered, “It will be the evangelicals and fundamentalists.” At the time this assessment was made, it seemed almost irrational because evangelicals and fundamentalists were considered to have been at the vanguard of understanding the dangers of the world and worldliness which had been exhibited by their forthright resistance to such for almost three centuries. The form of this legendary resistance was both rational and cultural, that is, their inner thought life and their outer life within the culture had stood as the bulwarks against a rapacious world and worldliness. But in the intervening […]
Resistance thinking – Part II
Part I ended with Os Guinness’ words which call for individual Christians and the church “…to regain the courage of “prophetic untimeliness” and develop the art of “resistance thinking” and so become followers of Jesus who have the courage to become “untimely people” despite the mesmerizing lure of the present age and its fixation with the future.”[1] But resistance must be preceded by an accurate assessment of the condition of the church, recognition of the nature of the mesmerizing lure of the spirit of the age, and how that spirit has wheedled its way into the church. The evangelical church in America and much of Western civilization is in a deplorable state and declining. George Barna[2] and the American Culture and Faith Institute (ACFI)[3] recently […]