 which is a theology of public life. So our goal over the next several months will to be to develop or cultivate what we would call or characterize as a theology of public life. And that begins with understanding where we are today and why we would endeavor such a study. And so we're gonna spend a few weeks here, a couple of weeks on what we're calling the rise of the new religion. And we wanna start with the bad news. I'll give you the bad news first, if you will. It's not bad news. There is no bad news when you're following Jesus Christ. He works all things together for our good. But the sobering news in our world, the day and age in which we live, we need to understand our times. We need to understand the context in which we serve. And it's our responsibility as Christians to serve faithfully in our context. So we stated last week it doesn't help us to bury our head in the sand, so to speak. It doesn't help us to cover our eyes and pretend that the train is not coming or to attempt to block out the sun with our thumb. We need to understand the times in which we live. We need to understand our context. And understanding our context helps us to respond faithfully in our context and service to God. In each successive generation of Christians, the torch has been passed down, so to speak. And that generation to which the torch has been passed is to be found faithful in their stewardship of the circumstances that they've been given, there to be found faithful in their service to the Lord in their generation. And so we are tasked with that as well. We wanna be faithful to the Lord. So in introducing then this series, A Theology of Public Life, we wanna begin with the topic that we're calling the rise of the new religion. I don't know if you've noticed or not. You may not, may not have noticed, but things have changed a bit in the last, really in the last generation or so. I am astonished, absolutely astonished at how rapidly things have changed in my own lifetime. And in the course of one generation, if you spend any time at all looking at history or considering what's happened in our country, absolutely astonished at how much things have changed in the period of one generation, really since the beginning of the sexual revolution in the 60s. So it is remarkable and it appears as though we are on a rapid, rapid precipitous decline in the condition, the state, moral condition of our country. I remember thinking clearly, you know, before for example, the Obama administration that it might take a considerable amount of time before things deteriorate to the point that we see described at the end of Matthew chapter 24 or that declining period of tribulation that we understand the church to go through in Matthew chapter 24, another text. And then remember by the end of the Obama administration thinking, wow, things have declined rapidly and we are headed there fast. And since then, we've just increased the speed at which the downgrade is occurring and it seems more rapid than ever. And it's happening as it were now, it would seem before our very eyes. We can see it. You know, if you grew up listening to golf described as watching the grass grow. You know, if you sit there, you try to watch the grass grow, you can't see the grass grow. It's growing imperceptibly, but it is growing. Well, it seems like before a certain period of time it was a little like watching the grass grow. Things just sort of eased from one degree of bad to another. Now it's no longer imperceptible. Things are changing really rapidly. So there's a reason for that. And we wanna take some time over the next couple of weeks to discuss the reason for that and what's happening and give some, what I think is really helpful understanding behind what's happening. And again, I think understanding helps us to respond faithfully. So we start with the rise of the new religion. There is a new religion rising. It would, that statement presupposes that we're replacing an old religion. And we're gonna talk about that some today and what that looks like. Let me read this to you at the outset. It's on your notes. If you've got this outline, this will help you as we walk through the course together. And there under the heading is this paragraph. Proponents of the new religion are determined to raise its edifice or its structure on the ruins of Christianity that it presumes to replace. In other words, it's not enough that these competing ideas merely live in tolerance of one another. It's not enough to show tolerance. One must be constructed upon the destruction or the displacement of the other. Proponents of the new religion are determined to raise its edifice on the ruins of the Christianity that it presumes to replace. Religion in general and Christianity in the US in particular to this new religion are societal conventions that suppress individual desires and oppress individual freedoms. That statement is going to become increasingly clear in coming weeks. Borrowing from the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was a romanticist, a philosopher. He said, I'm only free when I decide for myself what concerns me, rather than being shaped by external influences. And Rousseau would say that religion is an external influence. Family is an external influence. Government is an external influence. It is a standard of freedom that obviously goes beyond what has been called negative liberty where I'm free to do what I want without interference by others because that is compatible with being shaped by society and its laws of conformity. In other words, negative liberty or the liberty that we might conceive of would entail living in toleration with other views. So in our country, we enjoy a certain liberty in which various religious views are freely expressed in our culture and they're protected. Their expression is protected by legislation, by the laws that our government has adopted. And so there's a freedom to express these various views. What Rousseau is saying is that true freedom can't exist in that environment because that so-called freedom is still being shaped by something outside of yourself, outside of your views that merely tolerates your views and doesn't share your views. You see what Rousseau is saying? A very dangerous thought. Self-determining freedom then demands that I break the hold of all such external impositions. Words break the hold of the family, break the hold of societal conventions like religion, break the hold of external objective morality and decide for myself. It's a statement of Charles, philosopher Charles Taylor, I'm borrowing from Rousseau there. So in other words, out with the old necessarily attends in with the new. As the new comes in, the old of necessity must be kicked out, right? So we begin this week out with the old, we'll talk more next week about in with the new, okay? So what we're seeing in the West then and in particular in our country is a rapidly expanding reaction to what has been a traditionally accepted Christian ethic. It's a rejection, a wholesale rejection of a Christian ethic in keeping with what Rousseau is talking about there in that quote. I would argue personally, I think if you've been here for any length of time we've talked about this, you would agree with me that we've never been a Christian nation. United States of America is not a Christian nation. We're not a theocracy built the way that Israel was. We may have been built upon a certain Christian principles but this in no way shape or form has been or is a Christian nation. And that's for several reasons. But our country was founded upon Christian principles. If you look in our history and the writings of our founding fathers, you'll see that. Our laws, laws of this country largely based on an objective, what we would call a transcendent morality. And that transcendent in other words that exists outside of ourselves exists over ourselves in distinction from ourselves. That transcendent objective morality was rooted in the Bible. And that's where we began at the founding of our nation. Our system of government is structured to uphold and to protect those Christian values. And that's a distinct purpose in our founding. And for generations since our founding and overwhelming percentage of our population would have identified with those values and would have identified themselves as being Christian. If not Christian then certainly they were accepting of or at least tolerant of people with pseudo what we would call pseudo Christian values or would be tolerant of those Christian principles. That all has dramatically changed and it's dramatically changed seemingly before our very eyes over a period of years. There's a reason for that. And I would submit to you that that reason is not recent. It didn't only merely start with a certain administration. It didn't merely start with, for example the legalization of homosexual marriage. It didn't merely start, it didn't start with the sexual revolution in the 60s. The seeds of this destruction have been planted in the soil of the heart of our country from its founding and from before. The seeds of this decline are very old and we're gonna talk about that. One of the indications of this can be seen in the statistics. I don't wanna bore us with statistics this morning but I do think it's really helpful to get a snapshot if you will a picture of exactly what's going on. Sometimes we can feel like we're the frog in the increasing hot water, right? The temperature on the water is being turned up. The frog doesn't sense the increasing temperature and boils to death. Sometimes that increasing temperature is imperceptible. Well, it makes it a lot more perceptible when you look at the statistics, okay? So according to the Pew Research Center, 85% of the American population profess to be Christian in 1990. If you go back in time, that percentage is at times even higher but it's pretty consistent. 85% of the American population profess to be Christian. Sometimes that number is as high as 90%. Sometimes as low as 88% or 85%, 84%. But it hovers pretty consistently around that 85% mark. We know that poll doesn't reflect the number of actual Christians there were in 1990. We know that from our experience but I think it does give us some indication of the general acceptability of Christianity. People affiliated with the Christian ethic. People affiliated understood, appreciated a Christian moral code and they were tolerant of that. They were accepting of that. That number, which was 85% in 1990 and had been consistent for decades, that number was 65% in 2018 and declining precipitously in 2018. Now at first blush, you may hear those numbers and think that's not too bad. 85% to 65%. Well, for starters, that is bad. We're talking about a 20% drop in what essentially is an acceptability rating of Christianity as a valued moral code or moral ethic. But 20% over 28 years there from 1990 to 2018 is nothing to wink at. That is a significant decline. That means one in five have gone from being accepting of a Christian morality or Christian moral code to not accepting of a Christian moral code or a Christian value. That percentage had remained relatively unchanged since the 1920s. When they first started taking these statistics, it was always hovering around that 85% mark and in a matter of 28 years went from 85% to 65%. But it's the demographics of the decline where we see more clearly the actual impact and what we can learn from this. The demographics of that decline. The group that affiliates as Christian, that 65% includes 85% of those who were born before World War II, 76% of those who were born of baby boomers, what the young kids call boomers today, 67% of those born in the 60s and 70s and 49% of millennials born from 1981 to 1996. You see the problem, right? Only one in five of those millennials actually attend services at a church. There'd be nothing to indicate that we're even close to reaching the bottom of that decline, right? 85%, you see the decline happening according to what demographic age group you belong to. 85% staying consistent among those born before World War II, 76% of baby boomers that's my gender, or right before my generation, 67% of those born in the 60s and 70s, that's my generation, 49% of millennials. The professing church has responded to this over the years saying that it's a discipleship issue. You hear that in all corners of professing evangelicalism in our country. It's a discipleship issue. We need to close the back door. We need to disciple our children better. We're losing them because we're not doing a good enough job of keeping them in the church. They're being lost to the world when they go off to college, we need to do a better job of discipleship. Discipleship is not the issue, right? These kids were never converted. And so a discipleship is something you do with a converted person. These kids were never converted. These kids are apostate at best. And someone would say, well, I was there when they said that prayer and walked down the aisle. Yeah, that's part of the problem. And that counterfeit Christianity now is burying its fruits in this turn away from, on the part of millennials in particular and those younger and turning away from Christianity. What we're seeing is not the mass apostasy of Christians or Christian children. What we're seeing is a process of what sociologists are calling now a generational replacement. What we're seeing is a process of generational replacement. The new generation is rejecting Christianity in favor of affiliating with something else. And that replacement is occurring about as fast as we add new generations to our population, okay? Young adults in rapidly increasing numbers are entering adulthood. And not merely missing church, these young adults aren't merely drifting away from their Christian roots. Young adults are rejecting any and all affiliation with anything that resembles Christianity. Studies show that age is not a factor. In other words, the younger they are, the more they reject Christianity. But as they grow older, the more accepting of Christianity they become. No, no, no. Once they accept or reject, they're solidified, if you will, in their rejection or in their acceptance. The age has no impact on acceptability, if you will. The older they get doesn't matter. Unbelief, then, is not a stage that young people are going through. And then they become believers later. That's not what's happening. The demographic groups are not changing. They're remaining consistent over time, meaning that the decline is generational. And as older generations die, we're seeing newer generations replace the previously accepted Christian moral code. So where are they going? Where are the millennials and others like them going? Well, we've added 23 million, think about this with me, we've added 23 million more adults to the population of the U.S. since 2009. And over that very same time period, we've added 30 million nuns, N-O-N-E-S. Nuns is a category consisting of those who describe their religious affiliation as atheist, agnostic, or nun whatsoever. Atheist, agnostic, or nun whatsoever. So we've added 23 million more adults to the population and over that same time period we added 23 million more adults, we've added 30 million nuns. So it might be, you might could say, we'd have to look at it a lot more closely, that maybe there's seven million of that number represented by apostate Christians, so-called Christians. But largely what that statistic shows us is that the more adults we add, we're not adding any adults to the overall population of that accepts a Christian moral code. We're adding all of those to a list of nuns, of those who would affiliate with either being a theist, agnostic, or no religious affiliation whatsoever. Yeah, that statistic to the deaths of those older Americans, most likely to affiliate themselves with Christianity, and those older Americans occupying now in our country positions of leadership in business, positions of leadership in government, older, the older members of our population occupy positions of leadership in our country, and as they die they're being replaced ever increasingly by a group of people who reject out of hand any notion of a Christian moral ethic. What you see then as a result of those statistics is a very rapid and a very dramatic shift in the moral condition and in the moral direction of our country, and that exemplifies itself on the nightly news, right? You see this in certain trends over time, certainly. The sexual revolution of the 1960s, 1970s. You saw this in, listen to this, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, a conservative majority essentially legislating abortion through Roe v. Wade. It was a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that did that. Ronald Reagan, a conservative, voted in by the moral majority with the devastating decision to sign into law no fault divorce. That is wreaking havoc, has wreaked havoc on the American family, on marriages across our country. It was a devastating, devastating decision. The systematic dismantling of marriage that eventually came to fulfillment or fruition in the Obergefell decision and the legalization of homosexual marriage and all out attack on the traditional family over that period of time, virtually consequence-free sex outside of marriage through technology like contraception. The pervasive spread of pornography into virtually every corner of our lives, not just the most offensive form of that that you get within a few clicks on your computer, but pornography is seeped into every aspect of life. Everything today is sexualized. College campuses are absolutely out of control. Violence has risen to unprecedented levels. Murder rates are up in cities all over the country. Drag queen story time at public libraries, Bruce becomes Caitlyn, right? The madness, the madness of that. To the degree that we're not numbed by it is to the degree that we see it as utter madness. Now it would appear that that madness has come upon us in the period of one generation. We've progressed from Lucy and Desi in separate beds. If you remember that growing up. To from Ed Sullivan requiring the Rolling Stones to change the words of their song from let's spend the night together to let's spend some time together in order to be able to perform on the Ed Sullivan show. Ed Sullivan concerned about Elvis' hips on TV, on public TV to the point where today we have full nudity and repeated expletives in mainstream primetime entertainment TV. To the point where today it seems that virtually everything can be sexualized. Ed Sullivan would be shocked that he might have a heart attack. And we're not answering to Ed Sullivan, right? We're not accountable to Ed Sullivan. It would appear that over a period of one generation the steep decline of those religious attitudes in our country have been accompanied by a steep decline in the basic morality of our country. A steep decline in the basic spiritual condition of our country. And there would be nothing to indicate that we're even close to reaching the bottom of that decline. That's important for all of us to understand that we're in the process of decline. We're nowhere close to the bottom. We're gonna talk about what constitutes this decline. Really, where it started and why. And because we understand where it started and why, we're not prophets, but I think you'll be able to see into the future a bit at where we might see it reach to, where we might see it go. And we're gonna look at that over several weeks. Why the dramatic shift? Why the dramatic shift? Why has it seemed to have taken place so quickly? And where is all this headed? There seems to be several explanations for that. At some point to the sexual revolution of the 60s as a reason for it, but I would say that the sexual revolution of the 60s was a symptom of the decline, not a cause of the decline, right? The sexual revolution of the 60s happened as a result of the real reason and wasn't itself the reason for the decline. Many secularists today, many humanists today, point to prosperity. Their thought would be is that when prosperity comes, prosperity comes with technology and with technology comes choice. And so people who have technological choices don't choose religion any longer as a consolation for their emotional woes. They choose technological answers to console them in their need. Secular worldviews in the face of technology, in the face of prosperity then are replacing religious worldviews. But I think we can begin to make sense of all this in terms of a reason and a reality. We're gonna talk about the reality this week and the reason next week. The reason within a reality. And it's that confluence of reality with reason that has given rise to what we're going to define as the new religion. So let's talk about the reality and then we're going to talk about the reason that has found fertile soil in that reality, right? Here's the reality. The morality, the morality under which our country has loosely operated, the morality, a so-called Christian morality upon which our freedoms have been loosely established is at its core a loosely biblical morality. That morality has been based in the Ten Commandments. However, it has been proven repeatedly, repeatedly in human history that that morality alone, what we might call adherence to the law can only go so far in restraining the depravity of man. You're not going to fully or completely curb or curtail the depravity of man by adding law. What we've seen in history, what we've seen in the New Testament is that by adding law, adding law actually revives our inclinations or proclivities to sin and causes us death, doesn't restrain us from heading down a path to death. So the more law you add, in essence, the worse our problem gets. And that's a testimony not to how bad the law is. The law is wholly just and good. That's a testimony to how depraved we are that in the face of a law, we get worse, not better. Now the history of Israel clearly demonstrates this fact. You see the decline, the precipitous decline of Israel over a period of their generations, almost as soon as they get into the land. Quickly in the period, we saw that working through the book of Judges, didn't we? That within the period of one generation, we see the Levites concubine and civil war take place within the nation of Israel. Within one generation of entering the land, quote unquote, under the law. We see that decline, not only in outward conduct in the outward conduct of Israel, for example, we also see that decline in the inner spiritual decay of the nation, in the inner spiritual condition of Israel. All of that oppression that Israel, for example, experienced under the Judges is God's object lesson, if you will. It's pointing to that temporal physical reality, pointing to an inner spiritual rot, an inner spiritual decay that gives rise to that temporal oppression. And we see what the Lord did, don't we, in judging Israel. Peter asks, if judgment begins first at the house of God, then what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Judgment is coming. Outward moralism, at best, outward moralism only provided a thin veneer, a coating, a candy coating, if you will, for what was a rotten stinking underbelly, okay? By the time we get to the New Testament, we hear the Lord referring to whitewashed tombs. You were full of dead men's bones. You're a rotting corpse inside something you've painted to look holy. You've done that, quote, unquote, in response to the law. What Israel needed, and frankly, listen, the only thing that's gonna make a difference in our country, what Israel needed was the circumcision made without hints. Israel needed a heart transplant, and what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh. We have the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel to proclaim as many, as much as you may hear, professing Christians today or those in evangelicalism talking about political engagement, which is fine and good, government engagement, fine and good, all those things, it's the gospel that will transform people's hearts, that has the only hope of transforming society. And if the gospel doesn't do it, listen, nothing will. So we have to be, we have to labor, labor, to address and engage this culture with the gospel. We cannot sequester ourselves, monkify ourselves within the four walls of this building. We gotta get out with the gospel. Okay, now, not unlike Israel in this respect, our country has enjoyed a brief period of outward conformity to the law. But as with Israel, the comparisons here are striking in some respects. As with Israel, that moralism, the moralism of our country alone is unable to sustain the mirage any longer. That mere moralism will not sustain the morality that it presumes to elicit, okay? And because of that, there's been a dramatic shift. That shift has taken place in a context. The world of flesh and the devil has exposed our moralism. When I say our, I mean our country's moralism, right? The moralism of the United States of America, professing to be quote unquote a Christian nation. Well, the world of flesh and the devil has exposed that moralism as the fake sham that it is. And has exposed the fake plastic Christianity that has been the wrapper in which that deadly moralism has been delivered to the masses. We have this sham morality that has been delivered to the masses in our country through a fake plastic counterfeit Christianity such that 85% of the population professes, had professed in 1990, had professed to be Christian, okay? Understand what we're talking about? Any questions about that, thoughts? Okay, for reasons we'll discuss, newer generations in our country are simply and increasingly unwilling to accept that sham as you would expect, as you would imagine. Now there are some really strong reasons why we're gonna pinpoint exactly what those reasons are and what's given, it's not that millennials, you're right, are sitting in their one bedroom apartments in urban centers, discussing to themselves that morality that Christians have espoused over decades appears to be a plastic morality in which they're not pontificating over these things. It is sunken in to what one social philosopher called our social imaginary, we're gonna talk about that. It's just become a commonly accepted understanding of the way things are today, that this stuff is a sham and that there is a fake counterfeit oppressive moral code that has been imposed on people and they're unwilling to take it any longer and there's a reason for that. They're unwilling to accept as valid the quote unquote Christianity that our country has administered to them through that rapper of, I don't mean musical rapper, I mean plastic rapper of that bankrupt moral code, okay? This presents an immediate difficulty for the true church. True Christianity has been afforded under that moralism, true Christianity has been afforded a certain level of protection from the prevailing moralism. We've been able to preach the gospel for a time under the veneer of broader cultural acceptability. A vast majority of the country that affiliated themselves with the counterfeit. So there hasn't been widespread persecutions of Christians in this country, of the laws that have been put in place to protect our freedoms have withstood challenges to this point and we have established rights that have been given to us that have been traditionally upheld and what I'm gonna submit to you in a period of time here over a period of weeks is that that is not going to hold and we're gonna see a dramatic erosion of those rights, a dramatic erosion of those rights that you and I would have said a mere few years ago, that's not going anywhere, right? How is it possible that that's going to be undermined? Today it's really clear how possible it is and how likely it is that it will be undermined. But as that moralistic fake Christianity that's been espoused and listen, that moralistic fake Christianity has been propagated by professing churches, that's not a nebulous thing. There are false gospels, weak, feckless, cowardly, false teachers and pulpits all over our country propagating that sham and they've been doling it out to the people and what's happening almost subconsciously the people are recognizing it for the sham that it is and so what do you expect to happen but a revolt to that sham, we're not gonna take it any longer and what this country needs is genuine Christianity. This country needs the true church doing what the true church has been called to do, right? That moralistic fake Christianity is being replaced. Those protections that we've enjoyed will be systematically dismantled by the moral authority that replaces it. There is a moral authority that is replacing that sham Christianity and it's what we're calling the new religion. It's not possible for this woke generation to merely leave Christianity. It's not possible for this woke generation to merely offer a rebuke to Christianity or a correction to Christianity as that prior Christian moralism is increasingly seen as an invalid form of oppressive control over the freedoms now afforded by the new religion. There will be an increasing backlash that will be observable in the stripping of these former freedoms that Christians once enjoyed and that's in keeping with that quote right at the beginning of our class from Rousseau, okay? The new religion will consider it a moral imperative to do it and they will build their construct their edifice on the ruins what they perceive to be the ruins of Christianity. Now you can see that Leviathan sitting on the horizon with its tentacles already down in the valley where we are squirming around, okay? Leviathan rising. I wanna give you an example of this and I think maybe it's best to think about this in terms of an example because you can see how people actually think. I was listening to a humanist online doing a lecture for a humanist conference. They actually have those. And I was listening to it's one of the leading humanists of our day. His name is AC Grayling. Some of you may be familiar with that name. AC Grayling has written a humanist version of the Bible. It's called The Good Book. AC Grayling is highly accepted, highly reputable speaker, not just in the humanist movement, but in general. And AC Grayling was speaking at a conference talking about a recent speaking tour that he was taking in the US. And AC Grayling mentioned, as he was on the speaking tour, being invited to the Creation Music Museum. Can't talk to this morning. Mentioned being invited to tour the Creation Museum outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. And after mocking a bit, scoffing a bit, AC Grayling saying that his flabber was gasted going through the Creation Museum, Grayling wasn't persuaded in any way by the place, didn't have any of his views tempered or changed at all. Grayling said that the real tragedy of the place is the scores of young children that are being introduced to it. Listen to what Grayling says. His initial complaint was that they were being exposed to that ideology as if it were fact. An ideology that Grayling earlier dismissed as nothing but empty moralism. Grayling has observed the inconsistencies, hasn't he? And he then said that the moralist always knows what others can't see. And so he forces his moralism on others. And that's what Christians of the ilk that put together the Creation Museum are doing. They're moralists. The moralists just so happens to have this knowledge that no one else sees. And what does the moralist do? The moralist then imposes his view on everyone else. The moralist always knows what others can't see. And so he forces his moralism on others. Well, Grayling, and remember Grayling is a leading humanist thinker, late Grayling, a professor of philosophy at the University of London. Grayling exceedingly well spoken, very winsome. He's a good spokesperson for that group. He then called it a human rights violation against those children to take them to that museum. And he didn't do that in terms of hyperbole. He backs it up and doubles down on that statement later. He means what he's saying. He views it as a human rights violation against those children for parents to take them to the Creation Museum. That mindset is on the ascendancy in our country. That's not an outlier opinion. That is a mainstream opinion in our country, in our country. Now that was fascinating to me. What was fascinating to me was listening to the Q and A that took place after Grayling's speech. At the end of the conference, an audience member stood up to ask about what he perceived to be the inconsistency of Grayling's comments. I'm not sure if you picked up on that. The person when he asked the question wasn't being combative, he wasn't being accusatory in his question at all. He was asking an intellectually honest question. He was simply trying to work out in his own mind the intellectual consistency that he saw and wanted an answer for the contradiction that he perceived in what Grayling was saying. So he said to Grayling, you called it a human rights violation to take children to the Creation Museum. Earlier you said that moralists always know what others can't see and so they force their moralism on others, right? And then he asked the really good question, how can we advocate for what is right and wrong from a humanist point of view without falling prey to hypocrisy when many religious people could make the same claims about us that going to an evolutionary museum, for example, is essentially child abuse? That's a really good question. That's a question certainly that we would ask. Well, initially Grayling didn't have an answer. In a very winsome way, he squirms and fidgets just a little bit at the beginning. He said it was something that we needed to figure out, something that needed to debate, this needed to be discussed. It was a very important question. You put your foot on something very important. But then he doubles down and he stands by his previous assertion that it was child abuse to take your kids to the Creation Museum. It didn't make him rethink his position. He doubles down on his position. He sees it as the worst kind of indoctrination because he says in his own words, once you're exposed to that ideology, it's exceedingly difficult to escape it. Now, his thought from his perspective, okay? That ideology is something to escape. That ideology is something oppressive. That ideology is something that children should not be exposed to because it's entrapment, right? It traps impressionable minds. It can trap these poor, helpless children, okay? He's a smart man, Grayling. And it's not that he can't consider or can't see from the other perspective. Grayling certainly can. He understood what that person was asking in the audience. He understood the points involved. He understood the apparent contradiction or the apparent inconsistency in his own view. He saw the hypocrisy in it and yet he just abjectly rejects that as hypocrisy. Why? Because this ideology is so dangerous. That ideology is so dangerous to our children, to our society. It's oppressive. It's something that needs to be escaped. It wouldn't be above the pale for many people espousing that kind of view to compare Christian, quote unquote, ideology to the ideology, for example, of Adolf Hitler or Nazism or any other Marxist or oppressive ideology over time that's killed millions, right? He sees Christianity in the same light. He's a smart guy. He certainly can see from the other perspective but in Grayling's mind, Christianity is a terrible delusion that we must help children escape from and he's going to refuse the other perspective for the sake of those children. So Grayling continues, but then on the other hand, as you say, who are we as humanists and atheists and so on to impose our view on everybody else? He's going to attempt to answer the objection now, attempt to give a reason for his rejection. Who are we as humanists and atheists and so on to impose our view on everybody and tell them that they're not allowed to believe in God? Well, of course, the answer is people must be free to believe anything they like, however silly and the constraint onto them is that they shouldn't use that as an excuse for doing harm to others, which I'm afraid happens all too often. Now remember, often you and I, when we hear people refer to Christianity as doing harm to others, what pops up in our head is crusades and inquisitions, right? Those things, awful, absurd things that were done in the name of Christianity, but certainly not done by genuine Christians. There's been much evil that has been perpetuated in the name of Christianity that is in no way whatsoever Christian. So when somebody talks about Christianity doing harm, that tends to be the first thing that pops into our head is crusades and inquisitions. In the context, that's not what Grayling is talking about. What harm is Grayling talking about? Grayling is talking about taking children to the Creation Museum, right? You can have your Christianity as long as you don't do harm with it, okay? Of course, the answer is people must be to free to believe in anything they like, however silly, and the constraint on them is, and what the humanists will ensure is that the constraint on them is, that they shouldn't use that, their Christianity, as an excuse for doing harm to others, which I'm afraid happens all too often. Taking them to the Creation Museum, in other words, is harm. We're all very familiar with the saying that it takes religion to make good people do bad things, and I'm afraid that's too often true. So what I would say about the Creation Museum is, that they should just before or just after have a session with Richard Dawkins or some evolutionary biologist. Hear the other side of the story. The point about these kids is that they're not being given the other side of the story. Now when you and I hear that, as you react as I did when I first heard it, it's like, what are you talking about? They get the other side of the story everywhere they go. They're shoving it in our nose every time we turn around. It's all over the media. It's all in the school. Matter of fact, the schools have been legislated to the point where that's the only side of the story that kids get. That's not what Grayling is talking about. What is Grayling talking about? Grayling is talking about the other side of the story for those particular kids and those particular families where those particular parents would actually abuse them in such a way as to take them to the Creation Museum. Those kids have to be reached with the other side of the story. Do you see? It's not enough. Listen, this is where this is going. We're gonna see this more clearly next week. It's not enough that we eradicate Christianity from the public schools. It's not enough. It's not enough that we eradicate any association with Christian values or Christian moral code with the government or with our politics or with our legislation. That all needs to be absolutely eradicated, but that's not enough. We have to reach into the very homes where those poor kids are and make sure that those kids are being taught properly and given the other side of the story, so to speak, and we'll legislate it to the point where they don't get that side of the story just like the public schools or just like the government doesn't, right? That's what Grayling is referring to when he says these things. That's a statement of appalling arrogance, right? Appalling arrogance. One, his side is taught everywhere. It's the only position taught in public schools and universities. It's the only position taught in the media and everywhere that silliness is taught as it is fact. It's presented as that theory which has been debunked and undermined and just shown to be the sham that it is. Over and over and over again by any kind of science, much less Christian science, everywhere that silliness is taught as though it were fact, but Grayling is not talking about kids in general, hearing both sides of the story. He's talking about those kids from Christian homes who are being abused at the hands of their parents, taking them to the Creation Museum. It's not enough to have public schools, to have universities, to have the media, to have the government, to have social institutions in this country. They've got to get to your children to make sure that they get the other side of the story. Namely, the other side of the story is how silly it is to believe in God. We've got to do something to help these poor children. When kids are rescued from the tyranny of that indoctrination, when kids are allowed to think for themselves, what do they choose? None. We see it, don't we? In the statistics, what do they choose? They choose none. Stats prove it to be so. This is the particular mindset and the mission of the new religion. These are the people now, Grayling and those like him, who are in positions of power and they are increasing their power exponentially. The best indicator of future behavior is past and present behavior, so what will they do with their power? They will legislate. They're already beginning to do that and this legislation, listen, is having success. The Constitution, those quote unquote rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment are not granite bedrock that will preserve the Christian moral code that we've enjoyed. That is giving away as the shifting sand that it is. We're gonna see it happen. Largely in our own lifetime. Not to legislate to protect the freedoms that we've had to teach on our side, so to speak, but legislation meant to care for the children and care for the next generation. It's not enough to tolerate back to our original quote. It's not enough to tolerate the existence of something like the Creation Museum to teach the other side. Their view requires the entire eradication of those silly myths from the public square altogether. He's not willing to allow these ideologies to compete and in fact, humanists, the new religion cannot. There's no room for these ideologies to compete, especially when one of those ideologies does harm and humanist morality is based entirely on do no harm. Christianity only exists because people are not given the freedom to think for themselves and so we must legislate that freedom for people to think for themselves. So what you have then in the place of Christianity when all this is said and done, it's already taking place, largely has taken place. The dust is nowhere close to settling. What you have then in the place of Christianity is a new religion. New religion has its own mission. New religion has its own morality. A new religion has its own sacraments. The new religion is particularly zealous for its religious rights. And that religion, new religion not content with tolerating any other views at all that new religion very militantly exclusive, just as exclusive as any other religion claims to be. Like Islam, that new religion is willing to weaponize, to proselytize, they won't do it at the point of a sword or with guns and IEDs necessarily. They will do it through the Supreme Court. They will do it through the judicial system. They'll do it through whatever means is most efficient, expedient for them. The new religion requires out with the old, in with the new. And we see examples of that already in certain sort of foundational principles that are beginning to crack in our society today. What's very interesting to me in reading on this is the assault on free speech. We see free speech under assault, but so far, although we see free speech curtailed everywhere, that quote unquote, right, is enshrined in our constitution, the First Amendment, and those constitutional protections are beginning to crack. If you think about it, the Supreme Court has limited free speech protections. Certain speech is not protected under the First Amendment. One advocacy of illegal action. You can't use speech to incite illegal action, get people to go with you and do things illegally. Fighting words, incitement, Donald Trump here not too long ago was accused of using his speech to do that and people were saying that that speech, the speech of Donald Trump was not protected under free speech provisions because it was used to incite fighting words. Three, commercial speech. You can't tell lies about your product, you know? Obscenity is not protected by free speech provisions, but fifth and increasingly hate speech, hate speech. It's interesting about hate speech. Hate speech is speech directed against someone because of their age, which they can't control, because of disability, for example, and that's something that they can't control. Race can't control and increasingly gender or sexual preference, which they can control, but now that's no longer defined that way. It's something that they can't control. That speech against those groups is not protected speech, but increasingly what is being defined as hate speech is religious speech. And so religious speech, it won't be very long at all before religious speech will lose free speech protections and the church people can be sued because of the speech that they use against certain groups or certain people. Rulings have begun to expand what is understood by a clear and present danger clause that was instituted in a Supreme Court case in 1969. This clear and present danger clause, that speech that invokes a clear and present danger is not protected speech. Religious speech on that basis will be challenged. In closing, why are we gonna discuss these things? I hope this is beneficial in the sense of just getting more of an understanding of where we are. We're gonna get more and more of an understanding as we move forward and as we move forward, we're gonna see what our responsibility is in our context to be faithful to the Lord in our generation. Torch has been passed to us. We're tasked with being faithful in our generation and this is the context. It does us no good to mourn or lament our circumstances only right into stop at mourning, right? Joshua after Achan is found with the booty under his tent, the men are killed in battle and Achan falls on his face weeping before the Lord. There is a time for weeping, there's a time for mourning but then what does the Lord say? Get up man, get yourself together. We've got a battle to fight, okay? We are to mourn and lament our circumstances. We do have solidarity with this culture. When you see, for example, Ezra chapter nine, Nehemiah chapter nine, Daniel chapter nine, when Ezra is praying for the country, when Daniel is praying for the country, they're pouring out their heart to God, saying to God, we have shame of face. Lord, we have turned our backs on you. We have done wickedly. Please forgive us. We repent of our sin, right? They're praying in solidarity with the nation. We should pray for our nation in solidarity with the nation. We are a part of this nation, just like these other folks are. We're not to be of this world and brothers and sisters. We need to be careful that we are not. We need awareness and awareness of this will help prepare us to respond faithfully. We must avail ourselves of our rights while we have them and we must labor to preserve them. As much depends upon us. And that I think is in keeping with first Timothy chapter two as is prayer. And we must understand what we must do in this generation to take a stand for the sake of the gospel. And we'll see that more clearly as we go. We, please forgive me, don't have time for questions. I'll give us some more time for questions next week. If you have questions, please come talk to me after our services morning. I'd love to answer those or talk to you more about it. And please forgive me for rambling. I wanna get this information out to you and we'll have time for questions, okay? Let's pray and then we'll prepare hearts to worship. Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for this time together. Thank you for the opportunity that we have in a church like this to discuss these things and to consider our responsibility before you to be faithful in our generation with the mission that you've clearly given to us the church to go and to preach the gospel to every creature. Help us, Lord, to be faithful to the mission that you've given us. I help us to understand the context in which we serve and help us, Lord, to remember your words certainly and because the world hated you, it will certainly hate us also but help us to be faithful to you and that which we do to serve you with the gospel. Help us to understand the context in which we serve so that we might more faithfully address it. Help us to be wise in engaging culture. Help us not to be lazy or negligent or sluggardly in engaging this culture. May this be a call to action for our church in engaging the culture and Lord, I pray for fruitfulness in that endeavor, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ who is worthy of it. Thank you for these things. Thank you for this time together. Thank you for your word. Thank you for Jesus Christ. We pray these things in his name, amen.