Issues In Perspective

One of the most important thinkers of the modern era was Karl Marx, one of the key founders of ideological socialism and communism. His Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital influenced the formation of the USSR, the Peoples Republic of China, Cuba, North Korea and many other smaller experiments in constructing a socialist / communist utopia.

One of the key founders of the Apple brand and product line was Steve Jobs, who died recently as a result of his struggle with pancreatic and liver cancer. His contribution to our technological society was truly revolutionary.

I just returned from conducting my annual study tour of Israel. As usual, it was an invigorating trip. While I was there, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, petitioned the 66th session of the United Nations to in effect unilaterally declare a Palestinian state. In this Perspective, I want to present a multifaceted analysis of this development.

Sociologist Christian Smith recently led a research team that conducted in-depth interviews with 230 young adults from across America, all of which focused on the moral lives of today?s young adults. The results are quite depressing. Columnist David Brooks summarizes several of the salient findings:

Christianity is not only a personal relationship with the living God through faith in Jesus Christ; it is a worldview. It is an entire way of thinking, covering not only theology, but how to think about ethics, history, science, literature, etc. Because God has revealed Himself verbally in the Bible, Christians have the answers to the most penetrating questions of life.

By the phrase ?genuine biblical Christianity,? I mean the faith clearly revealed in God?s Word, the Bible, and validated through human history. Using the seven questions of James Sire, let?s examine biblical Christianity as a worldview.

Mormonism is by far the largest and fastest growing worldview, with as many as 10 million adherents worldwide. I believe that it needs to be scrutinized and evaluated for its viability and its commitment to truth. Hence, this edition of Issues in Perspective will be devoted to such an analysis.

God. Mormonism teaches that God the Father was once a man, but became God. He has a physical body, as does his wife (the Heavenly Mother).

Mormonism has a strong commitment to the spiritual world, the realm beyond the physical; it is possible to connect with this spiritual world through the specific activities of the believer. As Bible-centered Christians, we believe that as well, but teach clearly that a relationship with God is possible only through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

Last weekend the USA, and indeed the world, remembered the horrors of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Today, ten years later, politically, financially and socially, America seems to have lost its way. That sense of fear, of anxiety, is real and at times almost overwhelming. It is this long shadow of fear that I seek to address in this Perspective.