A mom and dad whose daughter was away at college received this letter from her:
“Dear Mom and Dad,
I just thought I’d drop you a note to clue you in on my plans. I’ve fallen in love with a guy named Jim. He quit high school after grade eleven to get married. About a year ago he got a divorce. We’ve been together for two months and plan to get married in the fall. Until then I’ve decided to move into his apartment, (I think I might be pregnant). At any rate, I dropped out of school last week although I’d like to finish college sometime in the future.”
On the next page she continued: “Mom and Dad, I just want you to know that everything I’ve written so far in this letter is false. NONE it is true. But Mom and Dad, it IS true that I got a C- in French and flunked Math….it is true that I am going to need some more money.”
Pretty smart girl. She knew that even bad news can sound like good news if it is seen from a certain vantage point. She could shape her parent’s attitude towards her minor failure by shaping their perspective; at least she didn’t screw up big time! One of the great truths of life is that one’s mental perspective is what determines one’s attitude. Eve believed the lie that God’s command not to eat the fruit was selfish and that God was keeping something to be desired—the knowledge of good and evil—from her. That perspective led to the attitude of rebellion which led to the action of sin. This episode seeks to better understand how wrong thinking leads to wrong attitudes, which is why we need to protect the rising generation from the destructive ideas invading their lives.
Let’s dwell a bit more on the life-reality that our attitudes are determined by our perspective. Suppose you are at a busy street corner in Manhattan. The “walk” light turns green, you step off the curb, and someone grabs you from behind yanking you back, causing you to lose your balance and fall to the sidewalk ripping the knee of your suit pants. You will be angry at the guy who grabbed you, but only until you notice a car that had run a red light fly right over the spot where you were standing. Then your anger will turn to extreme gratefulness. You have the same bruised knee and torn suit pants—but the opposite attitude. Perspective—the way we view life—has an enormous impact on the way we live. We observe this truth in Jesus’ portrait of kingdom living, the Sermon on the Mount. He begins with four kingdom attitudes. Notice how each one depends upon the right perspective.
RIGHT ATTITUDES RESULT FROM RIGHT PERSPECTIVES
A. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The correct view of YOURSELF. I am utterly destitute when it comes to righteousness.
- I cannot earn salvation. Attitude: gratefulness, indebtedness to God.
- I cannot serve Jesus in my own strength—in weakness his power is shown the more completely. Attitude: humility, dependency.
- My brokenness means I must be open to reproof. Attitude: teachability.
- I cannot be unforgiving. I cannot demand that others never hurt me by their sin when I, myself am so sinful. Attitude: forgiveness, patience.
B. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. The correct view of SIN.
- Seeing our sin against God as a personal afront to him which demands profound repentance and sorrow. Attitude: grieving over sin.
- Knowing the wage of sin is always death and destruction. Attitude: mercy, and grace towards others who sin.
- Recognition that those who promote evil values and lifestyles in our culture are not the enemy but held captive by the enemy, sin. Attitude: love for ideological enemies.
- Realizing that we do not so much break the law as the law breaks us. Attitude: compassion for those broken by their sin.
- Knowing that God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Attitude: the fear of the Lord, hating sin.
C. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Correct view of YOUR RIGHTS.
- Knowing we have been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus we do not belong to ourselves but Jesus. Attitude: trust in God’s character, loyalty
- Having transferred ownership of ourselves to God and knowing he takes good care of what belongs to him. Attitude: Inner peace, generosity.
- Knowing I was put on earth for God’s glory. Attitude: meekness, endurance.
- Seeing time as an earthly trust from God, which invested wisely will produce eternal treasures. Attitude: faithfulness, stewardship.
D. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Correct view of the relationship between THE MORAL LAW and LIFE.
- Knowing that obedience is God's love language (If you love me keep my commandments) we hunger to obey what is right. Attitude: love for God, allegiance.
- Knowing as followers of Jesus that the discipleship call to “be careful to do all that I have commanded you.” cause us to hunger and thirst to do what is right. Attitude: obedience, thoroughness.
- Remembering that God gave us the Law as the path to life, we humger to know that path. Attitude: love for God’s Word.
- Knowing that sin broke creation and Christ has come to restore it caues us to hungering for that restoration. Christians have a vital role in God’s creation to retard the decay of evil as salt and to reveal evil by shining the light of truth. Attitude: resisting apathy, engaging culture.
Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. That is why the third function of successful spiritual leadership in the home (which we’ve been studying)—EQUIP—requires us to teach our teens to identify the culture’s worldviews, analyze them through the lens of Scripture and winsomely oppose their influence. That is why in Romans 12:2, after Paul says that the right response to the gospel is to offer ourselves to God, the next command he gives is. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Let’s consider three key words in this command, conformed, this world, and transformed.
DO NOT BE CONFORMED
A. This Greek word, SUSSCHEMATIZO, means to shape or fashion one thing according to another. It suggests being shaped from the outside in. Its focus is on the human inclination to want to fit in. Phillips translates this concept in Romans 12:2, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” Let’s consider how a teen girl named Grace was squeezed into the world’s mold.
As a 12-year-old, Grace began posting her artwork, along with her friends on the website called DeviantArt. She noticed the Gay is good message, which started to seep into her thinking. She heard the word, transgender for the first time and asked her mom what that was. Her mom did have a willingness to say, “We Christians don’t agree with that.” But she did not take time to explain the folly of the transgender worldview. Grace had the courage to post to her Facebook page, God created people male and female. But the response of her LGBTQ friends was not to shun or reject her but to put their arms around her and invite her to their GSA (Gender & Sexuality Alliance club). The key theme of this group of 12-13-year- old girls was feeling uncomfortable in their bodies as they started through puberty. Through the guidance of online “trans coaches” Grace decided one Saturday to send a text to her parents: “Mom and Dad, I’m not actually a girl. My pronouns are they and them. I am coming out today as transgender.”
Being conformed to the destructive idea that you decide your gender and not your anatomy has taken place among thousands of girls. And this is just one of the lies capturing the minds of children in our church and culture. Why does this kind of thing happen to Christian kids? Their parents are naïve about how anti-biblical worldviews are capturing the hearts of rising teenagers and they fail to grasp the truth that the spiritual battle that rages around them is the battle of IDEAS. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor 1-3-5).
(DON’T BE CONFORMED) TO THIS WORLD
The Greek word translated “world” is significant. It is not COSMOS meaning the physical earth but AION which means this age. It is Paul’s way of describing the current cultural values that are seeking to squeeze our loved ones into their mold. It is our job to stop this process both as our family’s protectors and because God assigns us the same task, which he assigned Abraham: that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice (Gen 18:19).
Most of the destructive anti-biblical world views of our culture can be identified by the word suffix ism. This suffix transforms a word into a worldview in which that word reveals the highest value. For example, the word, secular is a good word, which describes the non-spiritual sphere of life. Secularism is a worldview that makes ultimate the secular sphere of life over any spiritual part of life. These ism’s catch our attention because the very first commandment, You shall have no other God’s before me tells us that nothing is to have more ultimate significance than God himself. But since humans are created to be worshippers, when sinful man refuses to submit to God’s authority, he will fill that need for something to be ultimate with a person, statue, false religion, or false ideology.
BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWAL OF YOUR MIND
Scripture makes clear that our race’s fall corrupted our thought process. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Prov 14:12). Let's examine some current ideologies and put a Biblical lens over them.
Ideologies in Our Culture with Biblical Response
Humanism: The elevation of the welfare of humans and opinions of humans to the highest level of importance in disregard of God. The biblical view is that the value of a human is rooted in his identity as an image-bearer of God accountable to him.
Naturalism: The elevation of this physical world of nature and its study, science, to the ultimate place of arbiter of truth. Scripture highly values this material world as a mirror of his glory and because God commands us to develop its potential. Science, by definition, deals only with the material and not the supernatural. So it is unqualified to answer the question of the existence of the spiritual. But science is the discovery of the order of creation, which points to an orderer who is outside of creation and the behavioral sciences point to aspects of human experiences such as beauty and love, which can't be explained by the argument that the material order is all that exists.
Moral Relativism: The belief that truth, morality, and other values are relative to a person's perspective or culture, and thar absolute truth does not exist. An example is the argument that same-sex attraction and homosexual sex are not wrong but reflect cultures that misunderstood it. The biblical view is that truth is objective, that objective holiness exists in the nature of God, and that the objective law of God is written on the hearts of all men. However, humans suppress that truth because sin has polluted their entire being, including their sexuality.
Subjectivism: A philosophical view that holds that reality is shaped by our perceptions, beliefs, and feelings. If you believe Budha saves you, that is true for you. If you believe you are a boy in a girl’s body that is true for you. The biblical view is that truth is objective. True truth is rooted in the unchanging nature of God. The natural world is an objective expression of his unchanging attributes.
Pragmatism: What is of ultimate importance and highest value is getting results. Technically, truth is measured by results. “Pragmatic” is sometimes confused with practical application of truth, which Scripture highly affirms. But Scripture collides head on with pragmatism. How we get a result, whether righteously or unrighteously matters. The ends do NOT justify the means.
Egalitarianism: Equal treatment is elevated to the highest value in disregard of the biological differences between men and women, the importance of teaching obedience to children at home, and the need for structural accountability in society. The biblical view is that men and women, adults and children, leaders and followers have equal worth as those made in God’s image. The impulse to rebel against God’s structure of authority began in the heart of Lucifer the first egalitarian. He said, ‘I will ascend to heaven, above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’ (Is 14:13-14)
Cultural Marxism AKA Critical Theory: What It Teaches
Summary: Critical Theory is a way that some in our culture try to explain and confront power structures. To understand Critical Theory, we need to understand its two primary claims. 1) First, everyone can be divided into two groups—those who have power—and those who don’t. 2) Those who have power always OPPRESS those who don’t. How do we know who the oppressed and who the oppressors are? According to Critical Theory the categories of oppressed and oppressor are based on your group identity. Membership in categories of race, gender, religion, immigration status, income, sexual orientation, and gender identity determine whether we are oppressed or one of the oppressors.
Historical Roots: It traces back to Karl Marx’s view of history as class conflict and parallels his view of animosity between the oppressed proletariat (workers) and the oppressor bourgeoisie the (business owners). He defined capitalism as the exploitation of the masses and predicted that the workers in the industrialized nations would revolt and overthrow the capitalist establishment. Marx died in 1888. Though his ideology led eventually to the bloody Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 in Russia and execution of millions of landowners by Mao Zedong in the 1950’s, this revolution never took place in the industrialized west. Why not?
The answer was supplied later by one of Marx’s followers, Antonio Gramsci, cultural hegemony. The word hegemony is normally used of nations that exert dominance, authority, or influence over other nations. But Gramsci applied this term, hegemony, to the capitalist establishment who, he argued, unjustly gained cultural power and dominance, (not just economic dominance as Marx argued) and has victimized everyone else. Gramsci defined cultural hegemony from Marx’s class warfare perspective, as: Domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society (Voddie Bauchem, Lecture: Cultural Marxism). The oppressed worker that Marx predicted would revolt against capitalism didn’t, because that worker was also oppressed by cultural hegemony.
Have you ever wondered why women, who outnumber males in the world, are considered a minority? Because women are not seen as part of the cultural hegemony. The cultural hegemony in US culture is based on unjust patriarchy. So, the cultural hegemony in our society is white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, non-poor, and born in the USA. EVERYONE who IS that is part of the PRIVILEGED OPPRESSIVE CLASS and corresponds to Marx’s hated bourgeoisie. Everybody who IS NOT that (which corresponds to Marx’s proletariat) is a victim of the cultural hegemony (including, especially racism) established by THE PRIVILEGED CLASS, and ought to be at war with the privileged class.
Biblical Lens. Scripture DOES validate the INTENT of Christians who support CRT, though not CRT’s ideology. Here is why it is anti-biblical:
- Critical Theory offers a wrong view of human personhood. It argues that our identity is rooted in categories like race, gender, income, economic status--all features that differ from one another and become the basis for hostility towards one another as oppressors or those who are victims of such oppressors. Scripture bases human identity upon all being made in God’s image. CT deliberately fuels class warfare and reverse racism. The Bible says, "love your neighbor as yourself."
- Critical Theory teaches a wrong view of oppression. Oppression is not the result of being born into privilege. Nowhere does the Bible teach the Marxist class division and warfare making white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, non-poor, able-bodied, natively born, by definition, oppressors. Jesus was a white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied Jew. I guess this makes Jesus an oppressor. Oppression is using whatever power you have to harm another. The Bible teaches that every race oppresses others. Oppression comes from human, sinful nature. Now the works of the flesh are evident: … enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy (Gal 5:20-21).
- Critical theory teaches a foolish view of truth. The degree to which you are oppressed gives you the moral authority to make truth claims. This is silly. No one lives this way. If you have a stomachache, you don’t find someone from the most oppressed group to find out what is wrong; you go to the doctor. Such folly is from the world of academia, which is disconnected from reality.
- The CT definition of oppression turns the loving action of being truthful with someone on its head. Critical Theory advocates see practices like discipleship, leadership, correction, and reproof as sinful assertions of power if the speaker’s identity group is among the oppressors.
The impact of cultural Marxism upon the rising generation of Christians is enormous. Just this past week one of the national leaders of my denomination, the PCA, publicly repented of allowing lawlessness to have been encouraged on our website for ministry to immigrants. Why did this happen? Could it be the result of the influence of Cultural Marxism, which sees immigrants as the victims and ICE as the oppressors?
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- What examples most stood out to you about the way our mental perspective determines our attitude?
- Of the eight ideologies identified and evaluated through a biblical lens, which ones do you see most clearly in the culture? Which ones do you think are most deceiving teenagers?
- What are the evil parallels between Marxism and cultural Marxism? Why do you think that otherwise mature Christians who are calling the church back to a concern for social justice are falling into some of its evil tenets?
Resources
- A Practical Guide to Culture, Stonestreet and Kunkle
- The Secular Creed, Rebecca McLaughlin
- Five Lies of Our Anti Christian Age, Rosaria Butterfield
- Mamma Bear Apologetics, Hillary Ferrer
