More than two millennium ago, the prophet Jeremiah warned the Israelites that the prophets and priests were falsely proclaiming that “all is well� saying, “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace� (Jeremiah 6:14). We, very much like the Israelites have also been lulled into believing that all is well within the church.

As is my custom each year, I will be taking a hiatus from writing my weekly commentary to concentrate on various administrative responsibilities as well as enjoying a much needed rest from what has certainly been an eventful year. I pray the Lord bless you during this Advent season and the year ahead. May His kingdom come!

The loss of community and civic virtue along with all of their deleterious effects; the inadequate transmission of values and beliefs from one generation to the next; the reduction of education to mere utilitarian purposes and the idealization of a superficial existence are symptomatic of a culture adrift from its past. The solution to these issues lies within the realm of a renewed Church that endeavors to recover historic Christianity and press these unchanging biblical values into contemporary public life and culture.

As we once again approach this national day of “thanksgiving� I thought it necessary to reflect upon our nation’s long history of acknowledging and giving thanks to Almighty God.

I received many responses to last week’s commentary, Marriage Survives! Can it Endure? Some revealed the very problem I was addressing: the next generation, including many Christians, are either confused or compromised on the issue of homosexuality and, by implication, biblical authority. The following dialogue with a young Christian reveals a great deal about what this generation knows about Scripture and the diminishing authority of Scripture in their lives. This dialogue, I hope, models an effective way of engaging younger Evangelicals on this and other "hot-button" issues.

In a momentous turn of events, Proposition 8 (California's Marriage Amendment) passed! Similar measures passed overwhelmingly in Florida and Arizona, bringing to 30 the total number of states that have amended their constitutions in order to protect marriage from special interest revisions. However, these political victories will be temporary if we do not strengthen the cultural understanding of and commitment to marriage. There is a distinct difference between politics and culture, .... Politics always follows and reflects culture—it does not create culture. So how do we create a culture that exalts marriage?

John Adams warned more than two hundred years ago, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. … Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.� (Emphasis mine.) In other words, it is moral knowledge informed by religion that best serves to restrain destructive human passions and enlighten the electorate, thus rendering them better equipped for governing themselves. Given the recent decline of this moral knowledge, the question must be asked: Have we grown unfit for democracy?

As I discussed last week, the first step toward freedom from consumer debt and financial profligacy is a transfer of trust in financial security (a fallacy) to trust in the Sovereign God. Once freed from dependence upon temporal things, we together—the Body of Christ—can seek first the kingdom (Matt. 6:33) rather than remain isolated in the illusory construction of our own individual enterprises that can crumble in an instant. Might the looming financial downturn (to be optimistic) or economic meltdown (to be extreme), offer the church a unique opportunity to bear witness to a watching world?

It is an ironic fact that this phrase appears on our currency when so often it is money (or financial security) and not God that we trust in first. In these uncertain economic times, the tendency of our frail flesh is to be fearful. However, if the church is to be a faithful witness in such times this, fear must be replaced by confident faith in the sovereign God who causes all things to work together for good. It was only by God’s merciful grace and providence that I was delivered from this very same fear and dependence upon the things of this world and it is this story that I wish to share.

In the wake of an unprecedented $700 billion bailout plan passed by Congress, many are asking, “How did this happen?” While there is plenty of blame to go around—much of which rests with reckless politicians and avaricious profiteers—many of us still don’t fully comprehend exactly what has happened. All most of us know is that the stock markets are all over the place and there is real potential for a widening financial crisis. I don’t claim to be a financial expert or economist; however, economics are not so much the source of this debacle as is a fundamental shift in values, namely, away from the historic Christian virtue of thrift.

Last week I demonstrated how secular humanism as a worldview fails because it doesn’t deal with reality. This manifested failure has ushered in the postmodern era, in which Westerners, having lost confidence in the secular story of the world, are floundering. Cynicism and relativism have followed, resulting in a careless approach to life’s great questions. In the wake of this void comes Islam, which secularism can neither persuade nor resist. The predominant representation of the (reductionist) gospel we now see in the West is, I would argue, similarly ineffective. Through neglect, cultural accommodation, and historical indifference, the Christian faith in the West has been largely reduced to a few doctrines of self-interest.

In last week’s article, I pointed out how Great Britain, through incremental concessions to Muslim demands, is sowing the seeds of its own subjugation. As to the cause of this civilizational suicide, Europe rendered itself impotent long ago when it traded its Christian philosophical foundations for that of secularism.