Back in the early 80s Francis Schaeffer wrote about what he called “the great evangelical disaster.” The “disaster” was that, over the course of the 20^th century, evangelical Christians forfeited authority in matters of morality and culture and devoted the majority of their energies to purifying doctrine and gaining people for heaven. In the process, we built up a comfy sub-culture of everything evangelical, a kind of on-board-members-only arcade, carried along by the American ship of state.

Meanwhile, the captains of culture drove the ship onto the reefs of relativism, ripping holes in the nation’s moral hull and causing us to take on water from the seas of unbelief swirling all around. At the same time, insiders working in the academy, government, and pop culture, opened all the water-tight doors to make sure the flooding of the vessel of tradition with relativism, narcissism, commercialism, and political power could be as thorough as possible.

Now we’re up to our eyeballs in sea water, and the architects of this disaster have managed to commandeer whatever flimsy vessels people may be clinging to for dear life.

So when a federal court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act because it discriminates against gay couples; and when the US Congress cannot muster enough votes to prohibit gender-based selective abortions; and when more and more states are being given a pass on achieving even the most basic standards of educational achievement; and when people stand in bread lines chatting on their cell phones which they pay for with welfare or unemployment checks; and when an administrative bureaucrat can wield enough power to force the Catholic Church to change its practice on birth control and abortion – when all this and more happens, there’s not a lot we as evangelicals can say.

After all, we ceded these areas to unbelievers years ago through our indifference and distractedness, and we haven’t shown much interest in them up to now. Who are we to tell them what they’re doing is wrong?

And after all, we hardly take the Scriptures seriously in our own lives – we don’t read, study, meditate on, talk about, or obey them like the first Christians did – so how can we hold them up to the unbelieving world as a standard to be followed in repairing the ship of state?

After all, we’ve been drinking the Kook Aid ourselves – indulging the materialistic and entertainment lifestyle, neglecting our calling to bear witness and make disciples, playing fast and loose with sin, and agreeing with our postmodern and narcissistic age that, at the end of the day, hey, it’s really all about me – so how can we call our nation to repentance?

We might like to say to our nation, “This is what the Lord says!” We might like to explain and declare and proclaim that our nation is sinking under the weight of its rebellion against God and the founding principles of our republican experiment. We might like to say, “This is the way: Walk ye in it!”

We might like to say all these things, but we can’t. Because we’ve forfeited the right to insist that the Bible is the authoritative and unchanging, altogether reliable and true Word of the living God. We’ve turned the nation and its future over to the relativists, and they will only let us hang on to their lifeboats if we promise to keep quiet about our beliefs.

They have no clue where they’re going, but they’re in charge, and the power feels really good. So hold on if you must, but shut up about your religion.

We might like to call the nation to return to its roots in the glorious and hopeful Christian worldview, but we can’t.

Nevertheless, we must. We must proclaim the Word of God into the confusion, uncertainty, and growing hopelessness and despair of our sinking culture and society. We must regain the Scriptural high ground by embracing, imbibing, and obeying the Word ourselves, and then by living out all its commandments and promises before our rebellious generation. We must learn how the Scriptures speak to every area of life and begin reforming culture and society accordingly, beginning with our own life spheres. We must talk about the truth of God as it relates to every area of life, and, if we’re not able to do that, then we need to get able by spending more time reading and studying and less time amusing ourselves to death.

We must say, with the authority that comes from clear thinking, careful analysis, and lives rightly lived, “This is what the Lord says! This is the way: Walk ye in it! Look to Jesus and be saved! Repent and believe the Gospel! Surrender all your life to Jesus, so that you might learn to really live in Him!”

We must say these things, and we must begin to say them now.

Related texts: Proverbs 14.12; John 14.6; Acts 17.22-34; 2 Peter 3

A conversation starter: “If we can’t look to the Bible for reliable truth, where can we look?”

T. M. Moore, Principal

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