How Now Shall We Live?
Charles Colson &
Nancy Pearcey
1999
C&P Chapters 31-34
Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 Recidivism
 Human Islands?
 Effects of our Worldview
 4 Questions
 Creation—where do we come from?
 Creation—who are we?
 Fall—what happened to the world?
 Redemption—what can we do to fix it?
(p. 294)
“…transformed people transform cultures” (p. 295)
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Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 The Cultural Commission
 Humans—image of God & dominion (Gen.
1:26)
 Cultural Commission and Great
Commission are inseparable (p. 295)
 Salvation includes creating culture
 Redemption is for all of Creation
 (Col 1:15-20)
 Saved from sin to Christ’s lordship (p. 296)
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Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 The Cultural Commission
 No line separating sacred and secular
 Comprehensive Christian Worldview
 God’s Laws—purpose and design for creation
 Special Revelation
 General Revelation
(p. 297)
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Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 All Truth is God’s Truth
 Tertullian
 “The blood of the Christians is the seed [of
the church]” (p. 299)
 Justin Martyr
 How to transform the culture
 Partial truths in other philosophies point to
Christ
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Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 Irish Christianity
 Patrick
 Monasteries
 Irish Missionaries
 How Irish Christianity saved civilization
 Best of Both Worlds
 Christianity
 Greco-Roman Culture
 Restored European Monasteries (p. 301)
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Saved to What? (Chapter 31)
 The New Millennium
 One with another
 John 17:20-23
 Christian Unity
 Key to Evangelism
 Key to Cultural Renewal (304)
 Taking a Stand
 Together on the Great Truths of Scripture
 Together on Common Creeds
 Obey the 2 Commissions (305)
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Don’t Worry, Be Religious? (Chapter 32)
 Society and Personal Behavior
 Consequences?
 Sexual Behavior
 Health Care
 “Values-Free” Living
 If all choices are =, then no one has to pay
for consequences (310)
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Don’t Worry, Be Religious? (Chapter 32)
 Society and Personal Behavior
 Christian Perspective
 God’s created order
 Sin
 Government Subsidization
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Don’t Worry, Be Religious? (Chapter 32)
 Society and Personal Behavior
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Alcohol Abuse
Drug Abuse
Crime
Depression and Stress
Suicide
Family Stability
Marital and Sexual Satisfaction
Physical Health (311-312)
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Don’t Worry, Be Religious? (Chapter 32)
 Types of Religion
 Intrinsic
 serve God without strings attached
 Extrinsic
 worship for self-serving reasons
 “…the inconsistent Christian suffers even
more than the consistent atheist” (p. 314)
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God’s Training Ground? (Chapter 33)
 The Family in the Age of Murphy Brown
 Liberty = free choice?
 “…It doesn’t matter what we chose; the
dignity of the individual resides in the mere
capacity to choose” (p. 319)
 Individuality trumps community?
 Our choice doesn’t mean it should be
everyone else's choice
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God’s Training Ground? (Chapter 33)
 The Family in the Age of Murphy Brown
 All choices are created equal
 “…the only “sin” is hemming other in the
oppressive rules and artificial moral codes” (p.
321)
 Identity
 “…roles and responsibilities are regarded as
separate from…one’s core self. The self can
either accept or reject them in the process of
defining itself” (p. 321)
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God’s Training Ground? (Chapter 33)
 The Family in the Age of Murphy Brown
 “Unencumbered Self”
 worldview of isolation to all previous, current,
and future moral obligations
 Family relationships are arbitrary roles (p.
323)
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God’s Training Ground? (Chapter 33)
 Marriage as a Mystic Mirror
 Male and Female (Gen 1:27)
 “The implication is that to be a husband
or wife, a father or mother, is not an
artificial or arbitrary role separate from
our ‘true’ self, a threat to authentic
personhood” (p. 324)
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God’s Training Ground? (Chapter 33)
 How to be a Marriage Save
 Principles that Churches can Teach Families
 Treat its own families as a ministry
 Educate the children in a biblical worldview
 Churches implicated in the divorce rate!
 75% “…of all weddings are blessed in a church or
synagogue…” (p. 327)
 Community Marriage Policies
 Marriage requirements agreed to by churches in the
community (p. 328)
 “Divorce is a community issue, not just a religious
matter”—Judge James Sheridan (p. 329)
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Public Education
 Esteem based education
 “…American kids score at the bottom in terms of skills but at the top
in terms of self-esteem. We’ve made them feel good about doing
badly” (p. 332)
 Dewey and Darwin
 “…pragmatism, a philosophy that says there are no transcendent,
unchanging truths but only pragmatic strategies for getting what we
want...Children should not be taught facts and truths; they should be
taught how to conduct a process of inquiry” (p. 332)
 Constructivist Education
 “…children should not be given the ‘right’ answers but should be
taught to construct their own solutions through interaction within a
group” (pp. 332-3)
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Sin
 Jean-Jaques Rousseau
 “human nature in its natural state is innocent—that
people are made evil only by the constraints of
civilization” (p. 333)
 No need for moral boundaries or training
 Leads to “unrealistic and unworkable educational
methods that are blind to our children's need for
moral direction” (p. 334)
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Education
 “lifting society to the next stage of social
evolution” (p. 335)
 Education: “a means to ‘empower students by
alerting them to the need for struggle against
patriarchy, racism, and classism’” —Frederic
Sommers (p. 335)
 Existentialism—each one is an autonomous self
(p. 335)
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Education
 “Students who are taught to look only to their own
feelings soon lose all sense of accountability to any
external moral standard” (p. 336)
 Public Education’s decline is due to “educational
theories that deny the existence of transcendent truth
and morality, that renounce standards of excellence,
and that ultimately render children unteachable”
(p. 336)
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Truth in Teaching
 “…God has communicated with us through the Bible, revealing an
objective standard of truth and morality for all people. Our lives
are guided by revealed truths that are much greater than anything
we could possible conceive on our own” (p. 337)
 Part I: “The goal of education should be to feed children’s souls
through a directive presentation of these objective ideals [of being
created in the image of God and are capable of recognizing truth,
goodness, and beauty]” (p. 337)
 Part II: Teach biblical virtues and enforce them with consistent
classroom discipline.
 Role of Teachers:
 recognize where the students are and help them to see how others
dealt with these transitions
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Christian Schools
 Teach all subjects with a biblical worldview
 Classical Education: Grammar, Logic, and
Rhetoric
 Teach students to use these tools to appreciate
those things that are true and beautiful
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Reforming Public Schools
 Need to restore “high-quality education”
(p. 340)
 Need to form alliances to get basic principles of
truth and morality back into education
 Work with other faiths and moral non-believers
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Still at Risk (Chapter 34)
 Clarion Call
 “What the schools do today determines what
society will be tomorrow” (p. 343).
 The importance of reforming education today is
the most critical task of Christians. Those
students in school today are tomorrow’s
workers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, and
clergy.
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Coming up . . .
November 22:
C&P Ch 31-34
11/22: Critical Essay #3 (PPT format)
On the horizon:
Dec 6 Lunch with Dr. Griffith
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