june 2010

how should we then live? - a clashing of world views

XXXXXXXXXXXXPicture above: Steven and R.K. Ulrich in 2009

norway 1969

      It was the fall of 1969 at the student forum of Bergen University in Norway. The auditorium was packed with over two hundred students: lively and engaged.  The debate was intense and passionate. On the platform sat a panel consisting of six students who took turns trying to overturn each other’s points-of-view through convincing arguments. At issue were one’s ideologies and worldview.

XXXXXXI had been invited onto the panel to represent the Judeo-Christian worldview, as I was studying toward an MB in Christian Education in a nearby college, and was a member of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

XXXXXXWhen it was his turn, one of the debaters, a zealous Communist, kept waiving Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book (widely distributed on campus) while proclaiming with dramatic rhetorical style his Humanistic ideology: Man — being inherently good at the core — is the measure of all things.  Evil originates from an unjust society.  Social justice brought about by revolution of the masses, will remove evil, i.e. the class system, resulting in the proletarians creating a utopian society in which people live in perfect harmony and peace without war, jealousy, greed, or selfish ambition — a result of everybody being equal, having equal opportunities, and equal ownership in all things.

XXXXXXWhen my turn came to rebut his statements, I said, “The society you describe is bound to fail!”  “Why?” he shot back. “You have excluded the most important component in the universe: the living God as revealed in the Word of God — the Bible!  You have also failed to recognize man’s true nature — he is born self-centered and sinful. The Bible states that the heart is desperately wicked; it can only be changed by regeneration through God’s righteousness and love, which is received by repentance and faith in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, who was without sin.  The change is from the in-side-out, not from the out-side-in.  Transformed people transform society — society does not transform people’s hearts!

XXXXXXThe 1961 launching of the first man into space from Russia, heralded the progressive Soviet Communist system a great success, while the fact that tens of millions killed and displaced by Stalin, was ignored. In 1969, Communist China launched the Cultural Revolution; the fact that the regime tortured, killed, and starved to death 3 million intellectuals, artists, and people of faith during that era, was not yet known.

XXXXXXMy opponent and I agreed to revisit our worldviews in thirty years, to determine who was right. I never saw him, again.  Through an unconfirmed source, I heard that he had followed his convictions, left his studies in Norway, joined the revolutionary freedom movement somewhere in South America, where he disappeared.  Almost forty years later, Steve and I have witnessed time and again the power of the Gospel transforming people and communities in many nations!

europe during the Nineteen sixties and seventies

      The written narrative above, is an illustration of the ideological debate that took place throughout Europe in the 1960s which galvanized the democratic socialist form of government that has been the hallmark of most Western European countries ever since.

XXXXXXThe basic premise for the European form of socialism and Soviet communism are identical: the Humanist ideology, which was defined in the first publication of The Humanist Manifesto in 1933 as a religion without God. Its fundamental belief is that man, being intrinsically good, is the final measure of all things, and that man’s reason determines values of life — X“…the universe is self-exiting and not created… humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change…religion consists of those action, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant… ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience…”

XXXXXXThe original Humanist Manifesto has been revised three times, as the principles and thoughts of men are vacillating and evolving without God. To read the original and 2003 third revision, please copy the following two websites into your browser:

http://www.jjnet.com/archives/documents/humanist.htm
http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/HM3.pdf

XXXXXXA young adult in Europe from the mid-sixties to 1973, when I moved to the States, I knew I was on a collision course with the culture of my day, having experienced while in college a very personal, powerful, life-changing encounter with the Living God of the Bible, and embraced the Word of God as absolute Truth to which I was submitted.  I watched absolute moral values; based on the Judeo-Christian faith, that had been fundamental to our European way of life, give way to Atheist Humanism, resulting in a dependency on the socialist government, rather than God, for provision and direction. Pursuing personal convictions and the creative gifts and talents endowed the individual by God, were curbed by bureaucratic regulations and muddled by political correctness.

XXXXXXThe result of the breakdown of the socialist societies of Western Europe is presently evident in increased numbers of mental and emotional problems resulting from the generational breakup of the nuclear family (In Norway, the abortion rate is 25%; in the United States it is nearing 50%!), and a generation that is not immoral (knowing the difference between right and wrong, but choosing to do wrong), but amoral (having no sense of right and wrong, thus doing what is expedient at the moment without any pangs of conscience or remorse.)

XXXXXXThe church at large in Europe had little impact on the culture of the day. Many of the Christian leaders adapted to the political correctness of the day, denied the Bible’s absolute Truth, thus lost the ability to be salt and light in the church or the secular society.

XXXXXXNevertheless, there were lighthouses — individuals and groups of people who took God at His Word and enacted on it in practical ways, and had spiritual and moral impact on people in their communities.

XXXXXXIn Norway, one such person was Niels Skjælaaen, who, as a youth, left everything to reach the inner jungles of the Amazon in South America where he lived for several decades among the Indians, while sharing the Gospel with them and teaching them from the Bible in applicable, practical ways. “Just follow the example of Jesus in the Scriptures”, he would say. In later years, he visited college campuses in various parts of our country. As a student, I joined in informal discussion groups, where he engaged us in relevant dialogue about spiritual matters.  I was impacted by his strength of faith and his practical approach to missions, which I adopted later into my own mission work in the nations.

XXXXXXI was also greatly influenced by another beacon of light, Francis Schaeffer, renown American Reformed theologian and philosopher living in Switzerland, where he and his wife, Edith, founded the Christian retreat center, L’Abri. At the time, he was a lone, prophetic voice in the spiritual wilderness of Europe. An avid writer and public speaker, he warned Europe fifty years ago about the danger of embracing Humanism; that it would lead into a post--Christian era in which we might lose - not only our Christian culture - but our 2000 year old Christian civilization!

XXXXXXIn 1976, Schaeffer published an excellent series:: How Should We Then Live? — The rise and decline of Western Thought and Culture.  It is presently available in DVD, which I highly recommended as relevant background information for you and your family (available on Amazon.com).

XXXXXXSchaeffer spoke at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in 1982 in Fort Lauderdale, and outlined his Christian Manifesto, exposing the Humanist Manifesto.  Consider the present relevance of his opening words:

XXXXXX"Christians, in the last 80 years or so, have only been seeing things as bits and pieces…instead of understanding that they are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one; things such as over permissiveness, pornography, the problem of the public schools, the breakdown of the family, abortion, infanticide, increased emphasis upon the euthanasia of the old….
      "All of these things and many more are only the results. We may be troubled with the individual thing, but in reality we are missing the whole thing if we do not see each of these things… as only symptoms of the deeper problem. And that is the change in our society, a change in our country, a change in the Western world from a Judeo-Christian consensus to a Humanistic one …. instead of that which is the basis of all reality being… a Creator God, now largely, all else is seen as only material or energy which has existed forever in some form, shaped into its present complex form only by pure chance.”

XXXXXXSchaeffer ended his address with the following words, “CHRIST MUST BE THE FINAL LORD; NOT CAESAR AND NOT SOCIETY!” Read the full article at http://www.peopleforlife.org/francis.html.

present day america

XXXXXXWhen I arrived in the United States in 1973, I immediately sensed the tremendous freedom Americans enjoyed; a freedom most were unaware of, therefore did not appreciate. I quickly discovered, however, that in the States, there had been a — just as intense, although more subtle — battle as in Europe, to remove the Judeo-Christian worldview from the American society. Since then, for almost four decades while living in this country, I have watched the clashing of civilizations grow in scope and velocity

XXXXXXAlthough it has been an ongoing process, the most important overall issue facing the Unites States today, as well as the Western world, is that people in powerful positions - judging from recent events and political decisions - are progressively endeavoring to usher in a new Humanist-based global world order and world religion. To do so, their agenda is to first marginalize, then replace, the Constitution of the United States, as it is based on the Judeo-Christian, Biblical principles, thus intrinsically spiritual in nature.  This beacon of light must be snuffed out in order to make relative ethics take its place...

...Therefore, be vigilant in standing up for your rights as a citizen, and make your voice be heard!

XXXXXXBe prepared — read Matthew 24 and Luke 21.  Jesus exhorted his followers, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

XXXXXXOn a personal level, my desire is to continually demonstrate through my life that "...I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile (Romans 1:16); and...

... that I am a letter from Christ, "...written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3).

XXXXXXSo - let us be firm in faith, bold in witnessing, honest in all matters of life and conduct, committed to the Word of God, quick to forgive, slow to anger, enduring in love, generous in giving.  Pray for Israel, the peace of Jerusalem, for the nations; and that the Gospel will prosper among the ethnos (peoples) of the world!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXBlessings, R.K. Ulrich