Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105); “Your statutes are my heritage forever, they are the joy of my heart” (Psalm 119:111);

Psalm 119, verses 105 and 111, New International Version

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very grateful to be with you as today as we continue the series we began last week on Anchored by Truth. We’ve entitled this series “Why am I here?” To help us continue considering a question that has probably occurred to just about every person who has ever lived. The answer to the question is both simple and profound. We’re all here because God made us. That’s a pretty simple statement but it has profound implications. So, to help us explore some of those implications, today we’re fortunate to have Dr. Gregg Alexander back on the show with us. Gregg is a retired Tallahassee physician who has taught an adult Sunday School class for more than 25 years. As such he has seen humanity from all sides and he is definitely a very deep student of the Bible. GREGG would you like to take a couple of minutes and tell us a little about why you have been such a faithful teacher for your church?

GREGG OPENING COMMENTS -

VK: One of the reasons we wanted to have Gregg back on the show is because several years ago Gregg did a study series for his Sunday school class on Biblical illiteracy. As we have been discussing in our first episodes in this series in order to develop an answer to the question of why we are here we must understand our role in the created order. This, in turn, means we must recognize that we were created by an almighty, loving God and that God has designated man to bear His image within the created order. The only creature that God made who is said to bear God’s image is mankind. That designation is not given to any other earthly creature or even to the angels. But we cannot fully comprehend what bearing God’s image means if we are not familiar with the Bible. So, we wanted to spend at least one show in this series talking about the poor state of Biblical literacy within our current culture. Gregg, when you did your series on Biblical illiteracy why did you feel that it was so important to take that up as a subject?

GREGG: The Church competes in the marketplace of ideas and ideologies. Listeners to Anchored by Truth are probably far more Biblically literate than members of our society at large and that’s good. But we need to understand what is going on in the culture around us if we are to minister effectively to it. Groups like Barna, Gallup, and Pew Research try to keep track of trends, and if they are correct in their analysis, the picture is not good. In 2006, Gallup asked people whether the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Only 26% said “yes” – down from 40% in 1980. The number of people who said the Bible is a collection of stories, fables, myths, history, and teachings increased from 10% in 1980 to 19% in 2006. Consider these numbers as you remember that more than 75% of the respondents were professing Christians.

VK: Yikes. That’s pretty scary. 75% of the people responding to Gallup self-identified as professing Christians and yet only 26% said that the Bible is the inspired word of God. And that was 15 years ago and we know that the situation quite likely hasn’t gotten any better. That’s one of the reasons we launched Anchored by Truth. We want to reawaken a widespread understanding that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

GREGG: And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back on Anchored by Truth – to help sound a wake-up call. Plus, you have a good variety of coffee choices in the studio. But aside from the coffee I want people to begin to rediscover that their lives will be richer and more meaningful if they will take the time to really begin to study and dig into the Bible. I would like to serve as a stimulus toward greater and more regular study of the Bible, and greater trust in its ultimate authority for our lives. God wants us to pray and read our Bible. It’s not about hearing someone talk about the Bible, it’s about digging into it deeply. God wants us to be an instrument in His hand, but He needs His instruments to be sharp.

VK: Well, I know that you believe that God’s desire for His children to be informed students of His word which is effectively illustrated from a passage in the book of Acts from chapter 17. What specific passage are you thinking about?

GREGG: I think that the way Luke describes the Apostle Paul’s encounter with a group of Bereans illustrates our need for scripture perfectly. Acts described the believers in Berea, which is a region in Greece near Thessalonica, in this way:

“As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” This is Acts 17:10-11.

Note that this part of Acts says that they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” To the Bereans the Scriptures were the test for truth. And, since the time of Christ, the books that have been put together to form our Bible have been revered by Christians as the word of God applicable to all time and all circumstances, and the revelation of the mind and will of God.

VK: And frankly there was a time in America when you might have been able to make a similar statement about a large percentage of the population. As the survey information you cited above shows that may no longer be true but at one time it certainly was.

GREGG: When this country was founded the Bible was respected by just about everyone, and biblical principles formed the shape and stability of the culture. This was clearly evident in the realm of public education. Children were taught the alphabet using the textbook entitled The New-England Primer, published in 1687. Most, if not all, of the Founding Fathers were taught to read and write using this book which unashamedly taught the Christian worldview. This textbook was gradually replaced by a series of books known as the McGuffey Readers. William McGuffey was a committed Christian who was consumed by two passions: public education and preaching the Gospel. McGuffey presented education from a biblical foundation, and he reinforced biblical principles of life and morality in the lessons.

VK: So, it sounds like we started out pretty well in America. In our early history the Bible was not a book that was relegated to church buildings on Sundays as it is so often today. The Bible was a book that was a part of everyday life and not just for adults but for people of all ages. That opens up the question of “what happened?”

GREGG: When McGuffey died in 1873 his book underwent a radical transformation. America was changing into a pluralistic society – a melting pot of religions and worldviews. Europe was already reacting to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx; the philosophy of Kant followed by Nietzsche; Europe's increased concern with material naturalism disguised as science in general and Darwin in particular; and a general intellectual rebellion against tradition and authority. The revised McGuffey Readers went totally secular to meet the supposed need of national unity and the dream of America as the place of refuge for the world’s oppressed masses.

VK: You know we sometimes think that the secularization of America started in the latter part of the 20th century. A lot of people think of the 1970’s as a decade of “free love” and the anti-institution movement. But you’re saying that the roots of secularization started almost 100 years earlier aren’t you? And along with that secularization there was a steadily diminishing regard for the Bible wasn’t there?

GREGG: In general, yes. The secularization of America did not start in period following World War II though it certainly accelerated them. In the latter part of the 19th century the biblical doctrines of salvation, righteousness, and piety, and their biblical examples and references, began to be replaced by civil and social values and morality. McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer of 1836 was published as a “Revised Edition” in 1881, and it contained no reference to God, His sovereignty, or man’s accountability to Him – the revised McGuffey Readers were then wholly secular. And, if all that wasn’t bad enough, in the 1920s/1930s American education came under the spell of John Dewey (1859-1952), a psychologist and philosopher who is the person most responsible for how American children are educated today. Dewey changed the priority of education from acquiring knowledge to experiencing knowledge. In the 1920s, he became known for his criticism of traditional teaching with its didactic delivery of facts to be remembered in favor of a dialectic (the use of logical argument or discussion: a “back-and-forth”) experience of “facts.”

VK: So, what you’re saying is that this trend toward a loss of a Biblical worldview began to be reflected in a wide variety of ways and by a large number of people. That reminds me of Galatians, chapter 5, verse 9. “This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!” That’s from the Good News Translation. The English Standard Version says, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”

GREGG: So, part of the lump that Dewey’s teaching leavened was author Stephen Prothero who wrote a book in 2007 called Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't. Prothero, who was a professor of religious studies and chair of the religion department at Boston University, was initially a follower of Dewey’s progressive educational model. Having been turned off since high school to the study of history as a mindless accumulation of names and dates, he embarked on an enlightened teaching career using a test-free environment of “challenging conversation.” He quickly learned, however, that students can’t discuss what they don’t know – that there had to be some common knowledge in order to understand what the words meant! Can you imagine how things would be dangerously different if engineering, aeronautics, law, or medicine were taught by “dialectic”?

VK: Well, I don’t think I would like to fly in a plane by someone who had not been taught that there are certain facts and laws of physics that aren’t subject to your opinion. And I certainly don’t want a doctor who thinks that anatomy is a subject where cultural trends are a substitute for knowing the difference between muscles and bones.

GREGG: Prothero tells an interesting story of a conversation with a visiting professor from Austria who offered some observations on American undergraduates. This visiting professor from Austria said American undergraduates are “very religious” compared to their European counterparts, but they know next to nothing about religion. The European students have compulsory religious education, but wouldn’t be caught dead in a church, and are far less likely to believe in heaven and hell. The Americans, in contrast, are simultaneously religious and ignorant of religion – they attend churches and synagogues but religious ignorance is bliss.

VK: We don’t think about that very much. In America religious education is almost entirely confined to seminaries or divinity schools where those happen to appear in a broader university setting. But it is common in European nations for there to be mandatory religious education at all grade levels. But the visiting professor’s observation shows that it takes more than intellectual knowledge to be a follower of Jesus. We must trust with our hearts in Jesus’s atoning work for salvation to occur.

GREGG: True, but that does not mean that we can neglect the intellectual, informational aspect of our faith. In America, faith without understanding appears to be the standard among college undergraduates. They are Protestants who can’t name the four Gospels, Catholics who can’t name the seven sacraments or the seven deadly sins (“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers” [Proverbs 6:16-19]), and Jews that can’t name the five books of Moses.

VK: And that lack of religious comprehension in college students pretty much mirrors things in other parts of society, doesn’t it?

GREGG: Yes. Things are no better in the society/culture at large. For comedians, there are subjects that are almost too easy – sure things that guarantee a laugh. For Jay Leno one late night, it was the Bible. During the taping of one of his television shows, Leno moved through his audience asking people what they knew about the Bible. "Name one of the Ten Commandments,” he said.

"God helps those who help themselves?" someone ventured. "Name one of the apostles," Leno told them. No one could. Finally, he asked them to name the Beatles. Without hesitation, the answer came ringing from throughout the crowd: George, Paul, John and Ringo. Leno wasn't spoofing the Bible that evening. He was spoofing our society, which claims a grounding in Judeo-Christian principles and yet – according to a number of surveys – is increasingly losing touch with the Scriptures.

VK: George Barna is one of the pollsters who follows faith trends most closely isn’t he? I’ve often seen citations from surveys that he has conducted and they rarely contain good news if you are interested in how well American Christians grasp the basics of their historic faith.

GREGG: That’s correct. Evangelical pollster George Barna says that over the past 20 years we have seen the nation's theological views slowly become less aligned with the Bible. Americans still revere the Bible and like to think of themselves as Bible-believing people, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Christians have been increasingly adopting spiritual views that come from Islam, Wicca, secular humanism, the eastern religions, and other sources. That's because we're not reading and studying the Bible. If we don't know what God says is truth, it makes us vulnerable to believing a lie.

VK: So, you would share the perspective that we often express on Anchored by Truth – that is important for Christians to fully engage their minds in practicing their faith. And the centerpiece of that practice must be devoting time and attention to understanding and comprehending the Bible.

GREGG: I definitely agree that one of the most serious problems in the church today is one of "Biblical Illiteracy.” And unfortunately this problem is limited to those in the world, but it is also present in the church. Another pollster George Gallup has said “Americans revere the Bible - but, by and large, they don't read it. And because they don't read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates." How bad is it? Consider these results from various surveys:

• Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels.

• Many professing Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples.

• 60 percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments.

VK: Wow. That’s pretty startling. I think when I was young just about every kid in my neighborhood would have known those things.

GREGG: And it doesn’t stop there. Here are a few more statistics that should stagger anyone who thinks that the Christian faith is important.

• 82 percent of Americans believe "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse.

• 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

• A survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.

VK: 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife? Ok. I don’t know whether that is funny or sad.

GREGG: Well, here is one more for you. According to David Eikenberry, youth pastor at Orchard View Congregational Church in Muskegon, Michigan only two of 10 people participating in a recent Gallup survey correctly identified who delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Most thought. The Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham and not by Jesus.

VK: So, all of this goes back to the purpose of this series. We are trying to help people develop a trustworthy answer to the question of why we are here. Why are human beings present on the earth in the first place? And in our first two episodes we made the point that for us to have a meaningful answer to the question of why we are here we must understand that we were made by an almighty and loving God. But after the creation of our first parents, Adam and Eve, they rebelled against the one prohibition that God gave them and that introduced sin and death into the created order. But God began a plan of redemption and we know live during a unique time in that plan. We live in the period between the first coming of the Messiah and His planned future return. This points out the need for people to become very familiar with the Bible. It is only from the Bible that we can develop a full-orbed understanding of who and what God is. The Bible gives us as comprehensive a picture of God as the human mind is able to form. From the Bible we learn about God’s unrivaled power, unblemished righteousness, immaculate character, and amazing love and grace. This enables us to have a full appreciation of His glory and majesty and then contemplate our own lives and meanings knowing that the sovereign, royal and perfectly holy God has chosen us to bear His image.

GREGG: The first step in Christian understanding is the reading and understanding of the Bible. Therein contains all the truth any person can need for an understanding of God (in all Three Persons); forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life; the commandments of God that we are to follows in order to glorify Him and bring blessings on us; and the moral guidelines for living a righteous life. If we don’t understand these basics I don’t see how people can ever truly understand their purpose in this life. The verse that I have used to best describe the theme of this short series is Hosea 4:6.

VK: That verse says, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.”

GREGG: And here are a couple of other verses that make the same point that without a knowledge of God's Word, a person has no real direction or guidance in life: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105); “Your statutes are my heritage forever, they are the joy of my heart” (Psalm 119:111); and: “ Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. I wait for your salvation, O Lord, and I follow your commands. I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly. I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you” (Psalm 119:165-169).

VK: And, of course, these are just a sampling of verses that we could point to where scripture makes it clear that we must know God’s word if we are to know our purpose in God’s kingdom. But, as we did in our first two episodes, we want to be clear that pursuing meaning for our lives is a journey not necessarily a single destination. We have to meet people where they are so someone in a crisis who is wondering if their life has meaning needs reassurance first. That reassurance comes in the form of knowing there is a God who loves and cares for them and has a plan for their lives. But as the crisis hopefully passes we need to help them move on to a deeper and more sustaining answer. If we don’t, and they don’t, the next crisis will be a question of when not if.

GREGG: And those kinds of crises occur more often today than ever before because if they don't know the Bible they can't know the truth about why they are here. If there is a new “religion” in America, it is the religion of “tolerance.” The primary dogma of tolerance comes from religious pluralism, which affirms that all religions are equally valid and deserving of equal respect, and from postmodernism which refuses to commit to any absolute truth. Christianity is clearly out of step with today’s culture. Jesus said this in John14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s easy to see how Jesus’ exclusive claim could be very difficult and embarrassing for a child coming up in the pluralistic soup of the last few decades, or for anyone who has grown up in America in recent decades. The paradox of “tolerance” by today’s definition is that Christians lose in two ways. First, the Christian is labeled intolerant of other religions because of the narrowness of his views. Second, Christianity is the least tolerated of all religions. But the paradox of “tolerance” is that our society also loses. Without a firm anchor to the truth people start drifting in this sea of religious pluralism and like any boat that can’t be secured it may be easily swamped by storms or rough waves. As Anchored by Truth is doing in this series we must master the basics about God, man, and purpose from the Bible to truly understand why we are here. If we don’t gain a firm grasp on those basics we may ask the question “why am I here” until the second coming but we won’t get any closer to finding an answer that will keep our boats afloat. Well, before we close I’d just like to thank you for the opportunity to join you on Anchored by Truth.

VK: And we’d certainly like to thank Dr. Gregg Alexander for being our guest today. His service to the church has spanned decades and he is certainly an inspiration for all of those of us who are privileged to know him. So, before we go here is a brief summary of where we are in our series about “why am I here.” To know why we are here we must understand the nature of the created order and a few other basics. Those basics include knowing that God created the universe. We need to know this so we can understand the nature of reality. Next, we need to know that the created order fell when man sinned. But that God began a plan of redemption and the key step in that plan was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. So, to know why we are here we must know how we are related to Jesus. And to get a firm grasp on those first two point we must study the Bible because if we don’t our knowledge of God, Jesus, reality and redemption is going to be incomplete. As always we want to close with prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for the renewal of the church. The church is a great place to begin to know what the Bible is saying so we want strong and healthy churches. But for us to be strong and healthy members of the church we have to study the Bible for ourselves. And as we mentioned today scriptural literacy is one of the greatest challenges of our age.

---- PRAYER FOR RENEWAL OF THE CHURCH

VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quote from the New International Version)

Psalm 119, verses 105 and 111, New International Version