The thing which most offended critics and reviewers of Ben Stein’s film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, was his attempt to link Darwinism to the Holocaust. It is here, in the area of moral philosophy, that the Darwinian paradox is revealed. On the one hand, modern Darwinians posit that the universe is the result of impersonal, amoral, natural forces while on the other denying this undermines objective moral standards. However, the Nazi’s understood what modern Darwinians do not; if you reject the Creator you cannot hope to live within the safety of the Creator’s rules. It is either God’s loving law or the law of the jungle.

Two years ago I wrote that we may be seeing the first signs of what could be a new cultural renaissance in Italy. Recent events in Italy seem to indicate that this "renaissance," if you will, has not only continued but may be gathering momentum. Could this indicate the revival of Christian influence in Europe?

I think many in the American church know God in the same way they know the President—they know some facts about him, where he lives, what he does, etc.—but they do not have a relationship with him. This could be described as a cultural theology but a biblical theology is more akin to the relationship between a child and a good parent. The child in this sense has a much more intimate knowledge that, through time and maturation, reveals the loving nature of the parent. Experience only confirms this knowledge and this produces trust, which in turn fosters obedience. Failure to develop a coherent and systematic theology affects our ability to live as faithful followers of Christ.

For more than five decades, self-proclaimed experts and so-called sexual reformers have worked to advance the belief that there are no public consequences to private sexual behavior. And Americans, for the most part, have bought into this notion, proving what Lenin said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth!” However, first-ever research reveals the fallacy of this notion and quantifies the high cost of immorality in America to be more than $112 billion each year!

If Christians living within a distinct community is an essential witness to the mission of God, and because so many of us seem unwilling to surrender the independent self, and since our present understanding and expression of this community falls painfully short; what can we do to remedy this situation? What hinders this community is NOT a weakness of the institutional church and its leadership but rather the radical individualism of its members. This is not simply a matter of concern over sporadic church attendance or mediocre participation in the church potluck dinner; this is a central underlying principle, which nullifies the witness of God’s people and opposes the redemptive mission of God! 

If Christians living within a distinct community is an essential witness to the mission of God, and because so many of us seem unwilling to surrender the independent self, and since our present understanding and expression of this community falls painfully short; what can we do to remedy this situation? What hinders this community is NOT a weakness of the institutional church and its leadership but rather the radical individualism of its members. This is not simply a matter of concern over sporadic church attendance or mediocre participation in the church potluck dinner; this is a central underlying principle, which nullifies the witness of God’s people and opposes the redemptive mission of God! 

As Americans, we enter the church with nearly overpowering individualistic inclinations. As a result, we are failing to fulfill an essential part of God’s mission because we fail to demonstrate the reign of God within the authenticating community of faith that is distinct from the world. If we don’t get this right, our service will remain indistinguishable from any other and our proclamation of the risen Christ will appear shallow and without basis.

As I wrote in the first part of this series, the church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the gospel, but rather its instrument and witness.” This brings us to our second question: What exactly is the church’s mission?In order to answer this adequately, we must first accurately define the gospel or “good news.” I say “accurately” because I think many Christians, particularly in our highly individualized culture, have come to view the gospel as simply the personal plan of salvation. The modern emphasis tends toward “fixing the sin problem” in terms that are entirely personal. However, the Scriptures speak in a more comprehensive way that goes beyond the private version of the gospel that we know in the West.

In the age of Christendom, the church occupied a central and influential place in society and the Western world considered itself both formally and officially Christian. So when we speak of post-Christendom, we are making the point that the church no longer occupies this central place of social and cultural hegemony and Western civilization no longer considers itself to be formally or officially Christian. This clearly represents an historic change in the cultural context into which the Western, and specifically American, church is now attempting to carry out its mission. This raises two fundamental questions: What does this new cultural context mean for the church and its mission? And, what exactly is the church’s mission?

As orthodox Christianity continues to ebb in the Western world there follows a spiritual vacuum and as it has been observed, nature abhors a vacuum. At present this spiritual void appears to have found its latest alternative to Jesus Christ in the convoluted and ambiguous world of New Age religion.While this may conjure up images of incense, crystals, and Shirley MacLaine—or associations with flower haired hippies—this “new” spiritual movement, which is anything but new, has acquired a most powerful and influential advocate: Oprah Winfrey.