The Bible: Attacked by our Culture, Anchor for our Faith

I had the privilege this past Sunday evening of sharing with a group of high school students.  These students have joined me these past eight months in a study of Worldview.  I have been so richly blessed by these students and have enjoyed watching them grow in their faith these past months.  This past Sunday evening our topic was Government.  One of the things we talked about was the contrast between government as envisioned by our Founding Fathers and what is evidenced today.  Our Founding Fathers strongly believed that the Federal Government should be very limited in its impact upon the lives of its citizens and that belief is strongly stated within the Constitution.  Yet today the intrusiveness of government into the lives of its citizens has exploded.  There is hardly an area of our lives that is not regulated in someway, shape, or form by the Federal Government.

You might remember that I shared with you an article last week about a four-year old who was "kicked out" of preschool in Colorado because her mother strongly objected to the preschool curriculum that focused upon homosexual behavior and transgenderism.  In preschool, mind you!  Let me give you another example.

This article was written by Douglas Ernst and posted at www.wnd.com/2016/04/parents-face-criminal-charges-for-walking-kids-to-school.  The article begins: "Parents face criminal charges if they step on school grounds to pick up or drop off their children.  A Texas elementary school regularly threatens criminal charges to parents who enter the property to drop off or pick up their children.  Bear Branch Elementary School in Magnolia requires parents to wait in a lengthy car pickup/drop-off zone each day no matter how close they live to the building.  The policy, which is enforced by Montgomery County constables, was instituted under the auspices of increased safety.  Wendy Jarman, a private school teacher and parent who pulled her children from Bear Branch, told KRIV-26 on Tuesday that Principal Holly Ray is out of line.  'She's threatening to arrest people,' Jarman said.  'This has happened to many parents.  They have been cited.  They have been threatened that if they step one foot on school property [then] they will be arrested and charged with who knows what.  Parent Frank Young knows exactly what Jarman is talking about - he was one of those parents issued a warning under the new policy.  Parent Frank Young pulled his children from Bear Branch Elementary School after he was issued a warning for walking on school grounds at the end of the day.  'Mrs. Ray's policy is implying that a parent doesn't have the ability or capability to decide what is safest for her children and that the school district does, ' Young told the station.  'I disagree.'"  So, let's see if I get this straight: if I live next door to this school and my child goes to school there, I need to put my child into a car, make sure his/her seat belt is safely fastened, back out of my driveway, and get into a long line of cars with children attending the school, when all I really need to do is take my son/daughter's hand and walk out the door and on the sidewalk to the front steps of the school and hug my son/daughter and tell them "I love them" and that they should have a great day? 

I want to briefly cite some statistics from an article written by Paul Bremmer and posted at: www.wnd.com/2016/04/expert-government-schools-destroying-belief-in-christianity.  The article begins: "There's a slow erosion of Christianity in America and it flows from the nation's public education system, according to the co-author of the book 'Crimes of the Educators.'  'One of the big things we looked at for"Crimes of the Educators" was how the educators - and by this I think its important to say we don't mean the average teacher in the classroom; we're talking about the education establishment - but what we looked at was how the government schools were systematically destroying children's belief in biblical religion, in Christianity,' Alex Newman told WND in an interview.  Christianity in America does appear to be declining slowly but surely.  While 78 percent of Americans identified as Christian in 2007, only 71 percent did so in 2014.  According to a Pew Research Center report, younger generations are successively less Christian than those before them, so that while 85 percent of the Silent generation considers itself Christian, only 56 percent of younger Millennials do so.  Accompanying this decline in Christian affiliation is a decline in belief in God.  While 71 percent of the American population in 2010 said they were 'absolutely certain' God is real, only 64 percent of those aged 18-29 said so.  Meanwhile, 77 percent of those over 65 were absolutely certain God is real.  Newman, an international journalist and educator, said people are mistaken if they think American public schools are secular or impartial toward different religions.  He said schools do try to force a religion on children, but it's not Christianity; rather, it is humanism."  I strongly encourage you to read this article.  It is an important one to help us understand why we are trending as we are doing as a nation.

Then I read an article posted by the Associated Press which can be found at www.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHALLENGED_BOOKS?  "On the latest list of books objected to at public schools and libraries, one title has been targeted nationwide, at times for the sex and violence it contains, but mostly for the legal issues it raises."  Now can you guess what this particular book is - in fact, it finishes sixth on this list of the ten most challenged books.  If you said, The Bible, then you are correct.  Number two on the list was "Fifty Shades of Grey."  The others on the listing completing the top ten were either stories of transgenderism or homosexuality.  Right in the middle was The Bible. 

I believe this article hits at the reason why our nation is in such terrible straights today.  We find The Bible offensive because it speaks strongly against what our culture and society want to affirm as being okay.  We look at The Bible not as a guideline that will lead us toward absolute truth, but as a book that attacks what we want to believe.  A library might have a Bible on its shelves, but it certainly cannot recommend that someone read it.  A teacher might have a Bible on his/her desk, but he/she is definitely not allowed to even open its cover to address a student's concerns.  An employee might have a Bible in his/her office, but he/she is absolutely forbidden to even proclaim biblical truth to those around that office.  For all practical purposes, the Bible has merely become a "dust-collector."

Read the Bible? Well I don't have time!  Ah, but you do have time to watch your favorite sports team on television.  Ah, but you do have time to take an afternoon nap out on the deck with a glass of lemonade nearby.  "I don't have time to read the Bible" is not a viable reason for not reading it.

Read the Bible?  Well, if I read the Bible I don't get anything out of it; I don't understand it!  Hey, I bet you did not understand your first day in German class either, or your first day in Physics class, or even your first day of Accounting.  What did you do?  You kept at it, didn't you?  And soon you began to figure it out.  In fact, some of you made a career out of something that you once found difficult.  Yes, reading the Bible can be difficult as there are many passages that are difficult to understand.  I always invite people to begin with the Gospel of Mark where you can get a good grasp on the life of Jesus.

Friends, I believe that a family that is strongly committed to the Word of God is a family that will have an anchor through these difficult days.  It begins by children learning the stories from the Bible: Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Esther, Elijah, David, Samuel, and Daniel - just to name a few.  These stories need to become a part of your children's lives.  They almost become your child's friends.  As they learn the stories you will have an opportunity as a parent to teach them valuable lessons from those stories.

It is time that we rediscover the power of the Word of God.  It is not a book that is challenged, but a book that challenges toward the truths from God.