Good morning and welcome. There are a couple of stacks of handouts on the table, so whichever one is closest to you, grab a handout. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that you set aside for us each week to be gathered together as your people. We ask that you would be with us today as we think about how to become better defenders of the faith and that you would guide us in spirit and truth. We pray this in Christ's name. I'm going to throw some statistics at you today. Those will be helpful in terms of getting an understanding of what our cultural environment is. The title of today's lesson is Our Cultural Context. I said we would spend some time this week talking about what is the environment that we're walking into as we take up the mantle of defending the faith. So I've written a couple on the board to kind of get us started here. I'll just tell you what it says. These are just basic statistics in random numbers, plus or minus 2 or 3 percent, something like that. About 90% of people in this country would affirm a belief in God. So if we ask the question about atheism, you know, atheism is not really a very widespread belief. There are those who say there is no God, but it's a relatively small percentage. About 70% will claim to be Christian. They'll say that they've made some kind of a Christian commitment, or they've had a born-again experience. When you dig a little further, you find that only about 5% will affirm some very, very basic doctrines of Christian belief. The kind of things that we could reduce down to something like the Apostles' Creed. So, this begins to give us a picture. Widespread belief in God. Widespread belief that we're Christians. And yet, when you start digging into that, when you start digging below the surface, what do you find? It tends to be a very shallow kind of belief. I'm a Christian because I was born in America. Christian because we're born in America. Yeah, there's a cultural heritage there, but there's also a great deal of self-deceit about what it means to be a Christian. And on the one hand, we can feel good about a large number of people saying that they believe in God, but does that mean there's not much for us to do here as witnesses? Not with that only 5%. Yeah, if the reality is that maybe 1 in 20 people have a genuine Christian faith or something approaching that, there's still a great deal of evangelism left to be done. So it gives us a picture of where things are as well as an idea of what opportunity is there for us. A couple more statistics for you, referring to your notes. And what I put on the board here, by the way, is kind of a condensation of stuff that I've seen coming from the Barna Group over the years. These are the general numbers that you see coming from the Barna Group when he does his surveys. So this is according to Gallup. About 43% of Americans say that our state of moral values is poor, and 73% say that moral values are getting worse. So 43% would say that our moral values are poor, 73% would say that it's getting worse. The irony of this is that any attempt to answer those kinds of questions assumes that there must be a moral standard. So the type of thing we're going to talk about today, we're going to see a lot of contradiction in terms of what people say they believe and in terms of the way they actually act. And without even trying to define what the moral standard is, there has to be some kind of moral standard for us to be able to say anything about what is our present condition, morally speaking, and what is the trend. Right? So, if you're asked that question, what is the state of our moral values, and you say it's poor, then in your mind, where we are is a long way from where we should be. And then if you're asked again, is it getting better or worse, and you say it's getting worse, then there's got to be a sense that you're moving away from whatever that standard is. See the idea? So there's an implied moral standard in answering these questions. There's only a small number of respondents, maybe 10 or 15%, that will say, well, I'm not sure. So they might be in the category of those who say, well, we don't know. But most people will answer that question. And it points to that sense within our gut that tells us there is a moral standard, there is a moral law, and we're not doing very well with it. Our culture is increasingly characterized by two things that I'll point you to here. Relativism and pluralism. Relativism and pluralism. What do we mean by relativism? Yeah, the idea that there is no moral standard, right? that whatever you choose to do, that is what's right for you, and it might not be right for somebody else, but we each have our own idea of what's right and wrong, and that's what we follow. It's kind of a postmodern thing. Yeah, it has to do with postmodernism, the idea that there is no concrete objective kind of standard out there to guide us. So that tells us a little about relativism. What about pluralism? Isn't it also the absence of any absolute? I mean, that notion that something is always right or always wrong. Yeah, we can't say for sure whether something is right or wrong all the time. We can say, well, this is right for me in this particular context. It might not be right for me tomorrow, or it might not be right for me in a different situation, but in this particular case, at this particular time, this is what's right for me. That's still relativism now, not pluralism. That's relativism. Right, the idea that there's not a fixed moral standard. So pluralism. Every approach is acceptable, or many approaches are acceptable. We would probably still draw the line in some things. I mean, as a culture. Yeah, it's the idea that culturally, whatever you believe is OK. It ties very closely into a couple of things we'll talk about a little later on. when we talk about things like tolerance and multiculturalism. But it's this idea that we've got all these different ideas, different belief systems, and they all coexist, and they all coexist peacefully. How many of you have seen all the bumper stickers? We don't have these where I'm from down in Texas, but up here, every Subaru has got a sticker on it that says, Coexist. Not every superhero. Good for you. What's the idea that's conveyed in that kind of a bumper sticker? The idea that we have all these different kinds of religious beliefs, but ultimately, we can all get along. Yeah, that's one of the fallacies, right? It doesn't matter what you believe about God, all paths lead to the same place. That kind of thing. Essentially, you're basically saying everybody's belief is equally valid. That's kind of conveying the idea, right? So it's this idea that all these different beliefs can exist and Pluralism says we don't try to discriminate between them and say, this one's better than that one, or this one's not very good, or this one's great, or this one's awful. We don't do those kinds of things. Now, additionally, if we embrace a philosophy of relativism, one of the things to notice is that there is no authority outside the individual. So do they reject traffic tickets? The irony about relativism is that even if you say you're a relativist, even if you claim that there are no such thing as absolute truths, even if you say things like, Frank, you can't impose your belief system on me. The world doesn't work that way, does it? You can't drive from the house to the office as a relativist. You can't say, Maybe it's conventional for people to drive on the right-hand side of the road, but that doesn't apply to me. I can drive on the left-hand side of the road if I want to. Or I know for most people a red light means stop, but for me a red light means go. Relativism doesn't work practically. So there's an inconsistency, and that's one of the things that we want to pick up on as we are defending the faith, is the inconsistency of those who try to adhere to these kinds of beliefs. But if we say there's no authority outside the individual, we're basically going back to the Garden of Eden, aren't we? There's nothing new under the sun. What was it that got this all started? God says, here's my word, and Eve says, hmm, I think I'll do my own thing. So there's always a question in the background of what is the ultimate authority? And when it comes to how we interact with people and how we understand their beliefs, one of the things we should be digging for is what is that ultimate authority? To put it kind of crassly, who says, I have to do this, that, or the other? Now, again, if you look at what people believe, generally speaking, they believe that they'll believe in God, and if they're asked, they'll believe that God judges them based on their intentions more than on their behavior. Maybe you've seen some of these man-on-the-street kind of interviews. And somebody's asked, do you believe in God? Oh yeah, I believe in God. Do you believe in heaven? Oh yeah, I believe in heaven. Do you believe you're going there? Oh yeah. Why? Well, I basically tried to live a good life. I haven't killed anybody. Yeah, I haven't killed anybody. I mean, I haven't... I'm not a really bad person like some of these people, so I'm better than a lot of people, so therefore, that should be enough to qualify me, right? So again, there's that kind of relativistic idea that if I can point to somebody that's worse than me, then I can feel pretty good about myself. Problem is, that's not the standard, is it? Something else we'll see, When these surveys are done and segmented by age group, this is particularly prevalent for young people. And this should be very scary for us. In the absence of a fixed moral standard, individual choices are primarily driven by what? Feelings. People say, yeah, my feelings are what help me determine what's right and wrong. Why is that scary? Feelings change. Yeah, feelings are very fickle, aren't they? What's rooted in the fallacy that man is basically good and perfectible, and we understand that that's not true. Yeah, and that's another point, and I don't have that in your notes, but it is a point to put out there. People tend to operate out of a belief that man is basically good. So if man is basically good, then that opens the door for saving yourself. If you think you're pretty good, and if you think you can do what's required in order to please God, then what do you need a savior for? So there are many problems with feelings. One of the biggest ones is that we're very easily deceived by our feelings. Now if we go back and start to try to figure out kind of where things began to really go wrong socially in our country, we end up going back about 60 years. And there was a cultural revolution that took place. And what I mean by cultural revolution is not something that you can see or put your finger on, but something that happened up here in the mind. A change in belief. So what has happened in the last 60 years? In the decades that have followed that, we've seen an explosion of things like sexual immorality, divorce, abortion, just to kind of touch on the tip of the iceberg. And the trend seems to have started with a change in attitude from one that emphasized duty to one that emphasized self-fulfillment. So think about what a sea change that is when we go from an idea that we have duties and responsibilities in regard to family, in regard to society and so on, versus I'm just here to achieve as much happiness and satisfaction as I can personally. So we begin to see the unraveling of family at that juncture. And I put down here that arguably this is when the redefinition of marriage began. Think about the struggle that we're engaged in right now in terms of how do we define marriage, We're way, way down the road with this. If marriage has already been redefined as just a means to an end of self-fulfillment, then we shouldn't be surprised that we're having an argument about who should be able to get married. When we look at the Cultural Revolution, one of the things we see is a redefinition of what The word love means. And where we're at now, the emphasis is on what? Sex. Well, that's part of it, yeah. Self-refueling. Feeling. How do I feel, right? As opposed to what I do. When we look at love in the Bible, what does it talk about? Where's the emphasis? committed, regardless of what comes, I'm committed. Yeah, self-sacrifice, right. So love in the Bible is about action, it's about what you do, and it's also about self-sacrifice. Not what you're going to get, but what you're going to give. Huge difference in the way that that's viewed. So if we change what it means to quote love from what we do, versus how we feel, then how does that impact something like marriage? It's destructive. Yeah, why? Well, marriage, if you're not concerned about the other, your partner, if that's not your real concern, and you're both self-centered, nothing is going to happen good. You're not encouraging one another, It's all about others and not yourself. Yeah. And what's dangerous about those feelings? They change. Yeah, they're not constant, are they? They can change from day to day, week to week, year to year. Moment to moment. Yeah. And so if the glue that holds the relationship together is just based on feelings, boy, we're in trouble, aren't we? And if it's just whether I feel like I'm getting what I want to get out of this relationship, then should we be surprised that there's been an explosion of divorce in the last couple of generations? The passage I'd like to point you today is in 2 Timothy 3. And this is a passage that you can spend quite a bit of time unpacking and digging into. Let me read the first five verses out of 2 Timothy 3. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. Four, people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people. Now if you went through, and I just in the lexicon just briefly looked at the Greek words that Paul is stringing together there. This is a devastating critique. And yet, doesn't it sound kind of familiar? Starting with that first one. What's the first one? Lovers of self. This idea that everything revolves around self, everything revolves around me. So let me put in several elements of our cultural context. And these are actually taken from a secular source. It's a book that I picked up some years ago about understanding American culture. But it's helpful for us to understand the context that we're operating in as Christians and as defenders of the faith. So, several key elements of our cultural context. The first one there is the emphasis on self. In America, individualism tends to be very highly valued. And it tends to be rewarded as such. So, a very high emphasis on self. Second one is emphasis on choice. If you have any doubts about this, just go to Walmart. I sometimes relate the experience of going to Walmart to choose a tube of toothpaste. And you're standing there on the aisle that's about as long as one of the walls in this room. From floor up to about, you know, eight feet off the ground are, what, two or three hundred different kinds of toothpaste? I mean, do we really need that many choices of toothpaste? But it reflects the cultural emphasis in this country on choice. We like to have lots and lots of choices. Third one is the emphasis on more. Whatever I've got, I want more. If it's good, we want more. Think about how that's reflected in kind of this materialistic view of things. We like to have lots of stuff, don't we? Chris. It could be indicative of our mentor's choice, but it's also a reflection of the economic structure of our society and freedom for people to bring different products to market that they think have differentiated value can compete effectively in the market, as opposed to, OK, the government says we can have two kinds of toothpaste, one minted and one not, and that's it. I actually might be in favor of that. Don't quote me on that, though. The same people who can observe hundreds of thousands of kinds of toothpaste have overlooked the fact that they've never seen a person with a trigger. You can't take it with you. One of the things I've noticed over the years is the explosion of self-storage facilities. You remember back about 30 years ago, you really didn't see many of those. Now, every block there's a self-storage facility. Well, there's a multi-story one just off of Voyager down here. The Lord of Powers is going to come in. Climate control. You know, it's indoors. It's not... Climate control. Yeah. I'm wondering how you can get your sofa on the third and fourth. And let me ask you this, and this may be a little bit of an uncomfortable question for some of you, but how many of you know people that cannot get their cars in the garage? Because there's so much stuff in the garage. So we've accumulated a lot of stuff. I'm not inclined to bash capitalism as a system, but because of our fallenness, capitalism gives us the opportunity to acquire a lot of things that we don't really need. We lose the ability to differentiate between what we want and what we really need. We're way past having our needs satisfied, aren't we? Third, the fourth emphasis, the emphasis on new. Man, if something is six months old in America, it's boring. We gotta have the latest thing, whatever's the newest thing. We like to have the latest and greatest thing. If it says new on it, then we're gonna take a look at it. I have to say this one thing about the Southwest and the Western area, after living back East for so many years, It's a delight to see so many old cars. And if people are able to keep those up, they don't have to. And nothing is compelled. Yeah, don't feel like you have to go out and buy a new car every two or three hours. I remember seeing in the Orient, lots of people have made sandals out of old tires. Yeah, in more difficult circumstances, you have to use what you've got. We are very, very spoiled in this country. It really makes no sense to talk about poverty in America. In my mind, that's a fallacy. You haven't been to the third world if you think we have poverty in America. Fifth emphasis is the emphasis on, you won't be surprised by this one, the emphasis on now. So that begins to give us a picture. Emphasis on self. Emphasis on choices. Emphasis on more. Emphasis on what's new. And emphasis on what I can get right now. As we look at these, we can also say that our culture is characterized by an emphasis on pragmatism. And I've reached a point of sensitivity with that word that whenever I hear somebody talk about something that's pragmatic, the hair on my neck starts to stand up. Now, there's nothing wrong with something being practical per se, but pragmatism as a philosophy is a very dangerous thing. And that's something that has its roots back in the early 20th century here in America. The idea that something is valuable based on what it delivers, There might be a relationship there. Offhand, I would say those are kind of distinct ideas. It kind of depends upon how you define utility. But I think that's in a similar vein. And it gets into the issue of means versus ends. Very easy to take a small step and get to a point where we say, whatever it takes to achieve a good end is okay. Utilitarianism is a means-ends kind of belief system. That the thing to do is good that gives a good result. even if we would say what you're doing is objectively bad. But pragmatism is the idea that something has some cash value in terms of what it delivers. And the idea also, as it gets individually applied, is what works for me? What goes logically to the cash value doesn't. It's in the values. to draw that out. There still has to be a standard and that's part of what is problematic about utilitarianism is what is the standard that we use to judge What is the good outcome? Do we define it in terms of happiness? Do we define it in terms of what? What provides the most benefit? How do we define those things? You know, it's taken to extremes, too, by the jihadists who think that they're doing, quote, God-by. This world should be Islamic, the whole world, run by an Islamic caliphate. And so they're justifying killing the infidels. That's an extreme. They think they're doing what we've got, right? So, you know, it's more than bucks. It's about values and religion and morals. It goes a lot deeper than just a service issue. Yeah, and that's what we find when we start digging into these things. And that's part of how we become better apologists by recognizing what are the weaknesses, what are the inconsistencies, what is the standard behind something like that, and where does that come from? So by asking those kind of questions, we kind of put the other person on the spot in terms of justifying what they believe. Now in our cultural context, it's not surprising that we put more emphasis on experience than on knowledge. And so this in part is explaining why I said what I did last week about personal testimony as a form of evangelism. Because if we live in a culture that basically says everybody has a right to their own experience and whatever works for them is fine for them, then how can I be an effective witness if all I'm doing is saying, well, this is what it means for me to be a Christian. Somebody else can say, well, that's great for you, but I'm a Buddhist because that works for me. There's nothing outside of either one of us to appeal to. So it can't merely be an appeal to personal experience. Now, as we look at the context here, let's look and see how these cultural forces come to bear on the church. What are some things we see going on in the church here in America? Building entertainment. Yeah, emphasis on entertainment. That it kind of switched, I think. I think for a few years it was just entertainment. I think now it's just as irrelevant because it didn't meet the entertainment value that they were looking for. Now it's just, man, I gave that a try. It wasn't entertaining enough. It didn't change every six months. So if it wasn't practical or if it wasn't relevant, if it didn't do something for me, then why bother? It all goes back to feeling. How do I feel? How does it make me feel? How do you feel after you hear this sermon? Or how do you feel after this experience in the entertainment world? Yeah, and probably the last thing you want to do is go listen to a sermon that talks about the depravity of your own heart. Because, yeah, I don't feel very good about that. Is that not preached in about 70% of the churches? And that's part of what's happened, isn't it? A loss of a clear description of our spiritual condition. If we don't have a clear picture of our spiritual condition, then where's the point of the Gospel? The gospel isn't being preached in most churches nowadays. It's not. It's superficial. Don't upset anybody. Seeker friendly, we call it. There's not any deep preaching to a lot of churches. We have it here, and that's why we're all here. But if you visit other churches, which I've had occasion for 53 years ago, searching for a new church. It's superficial. What does gospel mean? Good news. So we've got two sides of a ledger here. On the right hand side I'll put good news. What goes on the other side? They have to go together, don't they? How can you preach the gospel before you've preached the law? If someone has not come to an awareness of how they have violated the law, then what's the point of the gospel? I don't need that. It's not practical to me, right? So the two really have to go together. If we're not preaching both of those, then something's missing. And the bad news is what people really don't want to hear, because how does that make me feel? Well, I don't feel very good about that. Is it surprising that we have quote-unquote preachers who attract huge crowds by telling people what they want to hear? Now, the irony of this is that It's what some observers refer to as law light. In other words, if you go to Joel Osteen's church and they'll say, here are the seven keys to victorious living or whatever he preaches. Well, what is that? That's just another form of the law that says you have to do this and this and this and this and this and if you do those things, then this is the result you'll get. Well, what's the problem when it comes to the law? We can't do it. That's the problem. We can't do it. Even if we make it easy, there's really no such thing as easy law. So we see a loss of these kind of things. So what's the attraction? The attraction in a place like Joel Osteen is the feel-good thing. You go and you have great music and you throw your hands up and you have a great time and you leave feeling wonderful. and the next day you wake up and you're empty because you've got nothing to sustain you all week. That would be my, so why would you go back? Because you keep looking for it. You need another refill or what? Yeah, exactly. You keep going back because you've got that emotional high that lasts for several hours or even a day or two. Five weeks ago today I heard Joe Losty say, God is not disappointed in you. I didn't tune that in, somebody else did. But he just stood up and said to his congregation, or whatever he calls that group, God is not disappointed in you. Now if you start like that, you know, point A, you're wrong. The only way it'll ever get better is like Carol just said, make you feel good. And that's what he said. Part of the attraction is that we're all idolaters by nature. We all want somebody to tell us, here's what you have to do. And so it's very easy for someone like Osteen to plug into that. Well, it all goes back to accountability. You don't want to be held accountable for anything. And that's, once they start that way, he's gonna head in the wrong direction. He said God is not disappointed in you. He's talking to, if he were talking to all believers, he'd be right, because Christ has covered that. He was talking to the thousands that were sitting in front of him. Yeah, I know, I'm a little bit differentiated there between the audience members. I would say we even need to qualify that. Because I'm uncomfortable with the idea of saying God is pleased with you and just stopping there. Because in and of yourself, there's nothing for Him to be pleased with. So we qualify that by saying what? By virtue of Christ's work, God is pleased with you. Because when He looks at you, He sees the work that Christ accomplished, not what you've done. I think that's the point. So many of these ministers are not giving God the glory. They're not preaching the gospel. They're not being held accountable. They're creating a bunch of cowards. They won't step up and say, what must I do to be saved? Nobody in those groups are saying that. Yeah, they don't feel like they need to be saved. Right, because he's getting all this It's like going to a banquet and all you're getting is air coming at you. Where's the food? Where's the real meat, the substance of this? It's totally missing. So many of them talk about themselves. It's a Unitarian. I went to, when I go visit my mom, she was living I would go to church with her out of respect. I knew she wanted to go to her Catholic church. And this pastor, priest, was just talking about what he needed. He needed a new TV. You know? I mean, and all these elderly women and men about people of all ages. Oh, he's so funny. He's so down to earth. Oh my gosh, this is terrible. They're not being fed. And all the pastors will be accountable. Oh yeah. Well, I have to say, too, to tie that up, they found out that he was pilfering. Yeah. And they got rid of him. And God blessed him with a priest who was teaching the Word, quizzing them. you know, passing out Bibles to whoever got the answer right. That was a beautiful thing. That was music to my ears. Amen. There are three things here in your notes. Church is entertainment. We got that one. Preaching is relevant. Joel Osteen's a relevant preacher because he tells me how to have a better marriage, or how to have a better career, or how to raise my kids. It surely does that. It's the truth. I mean, it is relevant, isn't it? The truth is relevant. So, I don't have any problem with preaching being relevant, as long as it's not compromised. You may refer to preaching as relevant to making people feel good. Yeah, again, it depends on how you define relevant. Relevant to me. But yes, preaching the truth is always relevant. It may not be relevant in the way that you want it to be. But it is relevant, and part of preaching is preaching the application of the text. Most of what you're hearing from the pulpit and other, these kind of churches, is stuff that is relevant if they were teaching a class, a self-help class, or as a motivational speaker to bring into a sales meeting or something. It's not preaching the Word. That leads right into the last point here. Religion has therapy. Religion has therapy. Does it help me deal with my particular problems? Maybe a better word than relevant for thinking about it in a negative context is preaching is affirming. It's affirming whatever my felt need is, my worldview is. Yeah, it's making me feel good about myself, whatever that is. Preaching is relevant to whatever. Yeah, and when I say relevant, I'm referring to it in the cultural context that we're talking about. This culture of relativism where what is good is defined by what is relevant. What is relevant is defined by what I think is helpful. Or what makes me feel good. And the idea that the Bible is not sufficient. So we have to go read this book by Joel Osteen with his face plastered on the front. because he has a better understanding. This is not enough. I think that's a huge part of it. That goes back to the question of authority. What is the authority? And if scripture is not the ultimate authority, we're going to get in trouble at some point. We think of ourselves as the ultimate authority, or we look at some of the 13 authorities, maybe we look at our priest as an authority, Scripture is the authority. Now the emphasis on self-esteem means that I feel good about myself even if I accomplish nothing. And this is one of those things that apparently, I haven't studied the roots of it, but I'm guessing this is something that's kind of emerged from pop psychology in the last 50 or 60 years or so, the emphasis on feeling good about yourself. And how have we seen that work out practically? There you go. We feel good about ourselves even though we can't do math and science and don't know how to read and write. And that's the idea. And if the emphasis in academia becomes how do you feel about yourself as a student, then what kind of absurd kinds of things are we liable to see? Just an example I remember seeing a few years ago, and I don't remember where this was, but at some school, they made a rule that when teachers grade the papers, they have to use purple ink because red ink makes the students feel bad. It's not about whether you got the right answers or not. It's about whether you feel good about it. It's crazy. Now let's delve into a couple more topics. You all heard about tolerance. Is everybody in here tolerant? I hope not. The irony of tolerance is that it is not particularly tolerant of opposing viewpoints. i.e. Christianity. They're tolerant of everyone but Christianity because we have an absolute and we have an authority and both of those are taboo in tolerance. Right. Having an objective standard is out of bounds. when it comes to tolerance. That is not allowed. But you can believe anything else you want to. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't make sense. Multiculturalism. It's another one you've probably heard a lot about. The popular notion of multiculturalism is in fact cultural suicide. What is multiculturalism? How would we define what that means? In education, it's explained that we are no longer the melting pot of the world, we are the salad of the world. Well, that makes me feel good. That people, when they come to America, should not lose their cultural identity. They can come and we'll add on to what is already in America. But this is huge in California, especially. It's more of a smorgasbord. It's more of a smorgasbord or a salad instead of... It's more than just that. How far can you drive without seeing assignments in English and Spanish? Press one for English. Yeah. Well, even the emergency alert system, there are a couple of them going across the TV this week because of all the storms. And you get in and it hurts 15 minutes out of, or 15 seconds out of whatever show you're watching. But then you've got to go through another 15 seconds. Well, they do it in Spanish. That's multiculturalism. Yeah, the idea behind multiculturalism Tammy's analogy kind of picks up on this. It's the idea that when you come to America, you don't lose your cultural distinctions. So whatever cultural values, whatever cultural beliefs that you brought, including language, when you get here, you get to keep them. And then the burden on the rest of us is to do what? Accommodate. To accommodate, right? We have to tolerate them. At the extreme of that, we're seeing in France and Britain where they're having cultural wars in France and where they're having Sharia law taking over in Britain. Within the last few months, one of the interesting things that we've seen is at least three of the leaders in Europe, from Germany, England and France of all places, repudiating multiculturalism and saying this is bad. This is a bad idea. We're losing our cultural identities because of this. The idea behind multiculturalism is kind of like pluralism. Pluralism we think more in terms of what your religious or philosophical belief is. With multiculturalism the idea is that all cultures are equally valid. And it would be wrong for us to say this culture is better than that culture. And in particular, what's that an attack against? Our Christian culture. Yeah, Western culture, right. It's an attack against Western culture. And the values that are part of that culture. How is language... I was talking with a missionary who's going to Burundi. The English, French, and Kurundi are all official languages of Burundi. And what is it about language that is so... I lived in Switzerland. There are four official languages in Switzerland. I'm trying to figure out why we... I react, but why do we react to the notion that, hey, you're in America, start speaking English. What is it that... creates that visceral gut reaction in us. I think we expect immigrants to assimilate into our culture. I mean, they came here to be in the United States, and we expect them to assimilate into our culture, not to remain separatistic. And just, I mean, the people don't come here for that anymore. They come here for all the perks of the Venice, and the giveaways that we have. knocked the socks off of us in engineering and every other school. So Asians, Asian immigrants are separate from some of the others. But I just think the cultural norm of the West is that it was normative to speak one language. You go to Europe or most other places, it's not normative to speak one language. It's actually normative to speak multiple languages. But in Africa, isn't it paternalistic to have French and English as official languages of a nation that doesn't speak? I'm just raising some questions. puzzled me yesterday as I was talking to the missionary. Why don't you learn Kurundi? I don't know what Kurundi is. It's got some Swahili. Let me just throw out an interesting point, thinking back to what we've been studying in Genesis. What was the original idea behind God confusing the languages of the people at the time of the Tower of Babel? To disperse them, right? To separate them. So language is one of those things that either will unite or separate us, and as we become more divided, it's not helping. I was just going to say, you know, I grew up in a household that was Mexican-American. My father was American, my mother was Mexican. I mean, that's a little different experience than somebody who's just Mexican coming here. But I know that when my mom, when I was a little girl, and we lived in a little town that had 1,600 people. It was an agricultural community in Washington state. There weren't any foreigners whatsoever in the little town. And whenever my mom would come to pick me up from school or something, and she spoke to me in English, I cringed. Because there was nothing more that separated us out. And I think that's the impact of language. It just, we were just totally different from that point on. My mom came over and said, you know, Diana, come on, it's time to go home. She said that in Spanish. It just totally separated us out. And I used to hate that. I used to just cringe a little bit. And she spoke English, you know, well enough. So to her, it was just the most logical thing to do because it was her native language to speak, you know, Spanish. But I always felt really uncomfortable. And when my little friends came over to play, or as I got older, my older friends, I always hated that when my mom spoke in Spanish in front of them. Now, if she couldn't speak English, that was different. But it does create separation. Because people were there in our home, and now my mom was speaking to me in Spanish. And they thought, probably, that my mom was talking about them or something. And it wasn't the case. It wasn't the case. My mom was saying, why didn't you make your bed, or whatever. But you know what I mean. I felt that very much having grown up in that kind of household. And there is nothing that separates you out more than language, because it's something we can't understand at all. Yeah, we become foreigners to each other. We do. We really do. And I saw it. And I had a little friend years later, an exchange student who came from Taiwan. And, you know, her family had moved there, too, and so she kind of was another foreign type family there. But going to her home, I felt that. When her aunt, who was a very sweet lady, spoke to her in Chinese, I totally felt like a stranger, you know? So I think things like food and different things like that, you know, can be enriching and can be a part of bringing more experiences to other people, and there's different things we can appreciate about that. But the language, to me, having grown up in that situation, language is very, and I purposefully, because of that, first of all, it didn't come to my mind to teach my children Spanish, but I also didn't want them to learn Spanish. I wanted them to learn it in school or something. That was great. but I didn't want them to learn it in the home because it would create that separation again. And especially even with my husband who doesn't speak a word of Spanish. But the kids did learn it, didn't they? Well, they learned it from my mom, but I never, you can ask my kids, I've never spoken one word of Spanish. And it never comes to me, you know, because I grew up in that environment where it was half and a half. I, you know, my mom died over a year ago. I haven't spoken one word of Spanish since then, and I've never really noticed it. It's just not. Now, Julian and Christina Jones speak, well, I don't know, Christina understands French, but they speak exclusively French in their homes. Unless there's someone like me visiting, then they condescend and speak English. They're very gifted in language, so they're going to learn several languages. It's just interesting. That's different to me, though, because they're teaching it to their children so that their children know another language. And education has proven that children who are bilingual and multilingual seem to learn quicker and faster, and I think that's a great thing. But the difference is that when someone who speaks only English comes to their home, they speak English to accommodate or to make you feel at home rather than to separate themselves out. How would you feel if they didn't do that? If they continued to speak French when you were there and looked at you like, you know, what's wrong with you because you can't understand what we're saying? So that would be very uncomfortable. On the flip side of that, we saw with our children who are bilingual, is if they were in a soccer field, for instance, we'd give you Chinese with them sometimes. And they'd say, well, gee, that's pretty bad to speak English. And I'd say, fine, it's your choice. You either use Chinese, which nobody else understands, or we yell in English, please start running and playing the game. Choice of answer, please speak in Chinese. That's a little different situation. Yeah, I have something to say about that. Being Chinese, pure Chinese, and our kids are half. They call themselves hybrids. They speak Chinese and they're bilingual. And right now, that's the reason we have our grandchildren. My daughter's kids, we're training them to speak Chinese. However, I think it's a very personal thing, like you said. We give that semestance at home. We don't tell them to go out there and just, you know, in Chinese, so nobody understands you and gets involved in abuse. Their classmates, as a matter of fact, loved it. I once in a while would say, Mrs. Cameron, what are you doing? Are you talking about me? Oh, yes, we are, you know. But we would bring them out of our home for food. We even gave them cow stomach tripe or something. We don't have it. But that kind of stuff. They'd see me, you know, just exposed to all kinds of candies we've got before. And I'd jump in sometimes. But our kids have no problems in the public if they don't want anyone to know what they're saying, especially about somebody else sitting next to them. And so I always, I consider myself an American. Chinese, but I do not lose my identity. I do not lose my culture or my language. And I never will. And my kids never will. They know they have. And my grandchildren are important. And as a matter of fact, I have a very a Caucasian-looking granddaughter and a very Chinese-looking grandson. He's darker than I am. He's nine months old. He gets darker every day. But we have educated them that this is the country. and have become my adopted country, but they do not lose the identity of the concept that they are half Chinese, and it's okay to speak Chinese while it's appropriate. And I know his mother used to come, of course, very, very focused, and she'd say, speak Chinese, speak English. Grandma doesn't understand. Mandy, can we speak Chinese to Mom and English to you? She didn't think that was good. But anyhow, it was one of these things. And I understand how people feel, because we have been to foreign countries. And honestly, you're completely shut off. You don't know the language. But I understand. I don't oppose the keeping of the culture, language, some practices. But being a Christian, of course, I don't go for an Islamic influence here and stuff like that. It's a very confusing thing. You can't really make people forget what they are. But at the same time, I think they should. I think that's the main thing is that one word is the respect that you have for the host country, for their country, whatever you call it. And I thank you, Pastor, for giving the complementations. There are a lot of them that don't go over first. This is how John MacArthur puts it with regard to our culture. He says we're suffering from a case of spiritual AIDS. And what he means by that is that we are losing our ability to discriminate, especially against things that are destructive. One of the warnings I've heard against Islam is that it is a political system masquerading as a religion and is coming into this country and using our value of freedom of religion in order to be seditious against our laws and our culture. So if we wrap our arms around multiculturalism and say every culture is equally valid, then basically we're laying down our arms and saying we're not going to oppose any culture that comes in and tries to take us over. And that's what's dangerous about that. I'll mention political correctness. I would say that that's censorship by another name. Or liberalism. And I'm trying not to use that word because it's overused. But it's the idea that there are certain things that you can talk about and there are certain other things that you can't talk about. Let me finish with some good news for us as apologists. First point there is that people don't think very carefully about their beliefs. And that opens the door for us as apologists to ask the kind of questions that I left for you last week, saying things like, what do you mean by that? Or why do you do things a certain way? Or why do you believe this? How do you know that that's true? So we open the door for being able to ask those kinds of questions and probe a little bit. And then the second point there is that all worldly philosophy contains the seeds of its own destruction. And this is why I'm such a big fan of presuppositional apologetics because what you're doing is you're basically looking for the weaknesses in the foundation of the worldview and you're going after those foundations so that the weight of the worldview causes it to collapse on itself. Alright, final questions or observations before we finish. Let's pray. Father, thank You that You've given us Your Word as authoritative and true. Help us to have confidence in that. Help us to realize that it's by Your Word that we're able to stand, that we're able to defend Your truth. Please empower us by Your Spirit to know and understand Your Word, to be able to use it skillfully. Help us to be gracious in the way that we are witnesses of Christ. And we ask that You would Enable those efforts by your Spirit to be effective for opening the door for the Gospel, that many more may be saved. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.