Twilight of A Great Civilization

"Colleges and universities are faltering as the intellectually critical centers of society; some have even become launch-pads for social anarchy. The confusion and chaos of society have moved onto the campuses and into the classrooms of our schools; in the name of democratic pluralism major educational institutions forsake the name of God, pride themselves on academic excellence while they neglect objective truth, disagree on ultimate values, and bend to the anti-intellectualistic temper of our times" (p. 16).

Barbarians "are being nourished wherever a pulpit no longer preaches the commandments of God and the sinfulness of man, the ideal humanity of Jesus Christ and the divine forgiveness of sin, and the fact of saving grace. Obscure the vitalities of revealed religion, detour churchgoers from piety and saintliness, and in the so-called enlightened nations not only will the multitudes soon relapse into a retrograde immorality, churchmen will encourage situational ethics, and the line between the Christian and the worldling will scarce be found. Even in the church barbarians are breeding: beware, the Scripture says, of the lawless one who will occupy the temple of God (2 Thess 2:4). Savages are stirring the dust of a decadent civilization and already slink in the shadows of a disabled church" (p. 17).

With such salvos as these, a leading evangelical scholar and former editor of the evangelical journal Christianity Today begins his penetrating, even prophetic, critique and analysis of contemporary education and church in North America. Though not an Adventist, Henry takes the Adventist position "Jesus Christ fulfills the ceremonial law and annuls it; He fulfills the moral law and perpetuates it" (p. 30) and says many of the things we Seventh-day Adventists should be saying to ourselves and to society.

It makes us wonder what it is that has blunted the Adventist sword at such a critical time. Why the strange malaise of uncertainty that seems to have settled like a pall over our church in North America and other parts of the western world, tempting some of us to lie down with humanists, ecumenists, universalists, and infidels?

The book is a collection of seventeen essays, divided into six parts. All were written within the last three years except the first essay, which dates from 1970. Some have previously appeared in such prestigious publications as Eternity, United Evangelical Action, This World, and Christian Scholar's Review. The book is not light reading, but it is challenging and rewarding reading.

A Holy Initiative

Part 1, "The Rise of Neo-Paganism," contains a ringing cry for the proclamation of Christ's return! "What hiding place then," asks Henry, "for God-is-only-love religionists, when the Lord who desires truth in the inward parts asks whether men have obeyed the truth?" (p. 18). He calls for Christians "to take a holy initiative in history" and put the ungodly world on the defensive. He lambastes liberal theology which has married itself to the god of revolution and "begets no criterion for distinguishing the divine from the demonic," while "sounding an unclear gospel from a blurred Bible" (p. 19).

By the end of this century, Henry predicts, "humanism will have lost its humanism and the regenerate church will survive in the social context of naked naturalism and raw paganism" (p. 23). The evidence is present already in a million and a half unborn children being destroyed each year, the alarming increase of crime and terrorism, rejection of monogamous marriage, acceptance of homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle, the channeling of eroticism into homes via TV, etc. All these are widely touted as superior options to Judeo-Christian values.

"Do in good conscience what the Bible expressly enjoins us to do, to strive to embrace God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves, to keep the commandments of God."

What are Christians to do in the face of what has come upon western society? Henry's answer we can wholeheartedly endorse: "do in good conscience what the Bible expressly enjoins us to do, to strive to embrace God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves, to welcome the fullness of the Holy Spirit, to follow Jesus's example of moral obedience, to keep the commandments of God, to emulate the holy and just One by living out the will of God" (p. 30).

Battle for Truth

Part 2 discusses "Essentials in the Battle for Truth," in which Henry asserts that the battle for truth can best be fought when Christian people recognize that "western society is experiencing a great cultural upheaval.... The sludge of a sick society is rising to the top and, sad to say, the stench does not offend even some public leaders" (p. 41).

Christians must realize that their duty is not to "build an ark to escape" but to vigorously proclaim and apply the Christian message (p. 42). Never before has there been a harvest so ripe for reaping; therefore, instead of wringing their hands over the lack of workers, God's people should "beg the Lord of the harvest for workers" (p. 46).

A major essential in the battle for truth is the recognition that theologians can "distort and pervert" the Word of God, thinking that "the speculative philosophy they bring to the Bible is what makes the Judeo-Christian revelation and faith in God especially credible." But the truth of God "is not a tentative proposal awaiting human reorientation" (p. 53).

"The pagan option is always knocking at the door of the person who crowds God out of his or her life" (p. 59). Now is the time to put life right with the Creator.

False Theologies

In Part 3, "Illusion, Idealism and Biblical Truth," the author exposes liberation theology as sociological rather than theological. It is "not identical with Biblical 'salvation theology," and "embraces violence as a means of social change." Out of harmony with the Bible, it "erroneously views the human predicament in terms of class struggle," superimposing upon Scripture "a Marxist analysis of human history that calls for Marxist solutions" (p. 65).

Liberation theology is nothing more than a "religious front for a long-entrenched modernist socio-economic agenda" (p. 66). It is one of the consequences of the loss of theological credibility by Protestant liberalism, and rests on faulty sociological principles of Bible interpretation. A new day has dawned. Instead of suppressing religion, revolutionary forces are now beginning to use it to advance their agendas, in some places to cloak Marxist goals.

Rather than responding forthrightly to false theology, evangelicals have relativized their doctrine, according to Henry. "Almost every denomination today reflects an incomplete doctrinal consensus. Moreover, the lingering influence of neo-orthodoxy on some professedly evangelical seminary campuses (including Southern Baptist schools and Fuller Seminary) and of Marxist social analysis by left-wing evangelicals adds to the confusion, which evangelical magazines do little to dispel when they confer equal visibility on diverse views without giving guidance to readers" (p. 79).

Shift in Education

Of particular interest for this education issue of Adventists Affirm is the shift on evangelical campuses, reducing differences from ecumenically oriented institutions: "Standards of conduct are less stringent, chapel attendance has become optional, there is larger theological openness among faculty, and not least of all, there is some accommodation of diverse views of Scripture" (p. 80).

Dr. Henry expresses his concern for evangelicalism today: "Can evangelicals square their multitudinous diversities with their profession of the inerrant authority of Scripture, a dilemma all the more problematic when Biblical authority itself has become engulfed by dispute?... Might the evangelical movement be open or vulnerable to the accommodation of larger ecumenical diversity provided that this is prefaced by a mimimal transconfessional credal statement?" (pp. 80-81).

Educational Challenge

Part 4, "Education and the Quest For Truth," is the heart of the book for this education issue of Adventists Affirm. The Church must perpetuate the Christian heritage. Christian truth is universally normative, but if the churches are "doctrinally weak and experientially oriented, they will obscure the cognitive content and supports of revelatory truth." No Christian denomination can permit its educational institutions to "relativize all truth claims" or "promote skepticism over the supernatural" (p. 87). The schools' perspective must be theistic rather than naturalistic.

Christian colleges err seriously when they "take the secular institutions as a model". Their "effectiveness in conveying a cohesive Christian perspective" is impaired when they make concessions to alien views. One of the challenges to the faculty of a Christian institution of higher learning is to "vindicate the intellectual credibility of theism and to exhibit the cognitive weaknesses of humanism and raw naturalism, rather than to rely on untenable theories of natural morality" (p. 88). Graduates must not be left without moral absolutes.

"Somewhere a Christian college will rise to the challenge, focus on the great Biblical themes, and send seniors into our decadent society with a lucid comprehension of the Christian world-life view."

The solution to the problem, Henry says, is not social and political activism. "Without clear understanding of the Christian world-life view and a cohesive philosophy, evangelical activism will through its diversity and conflict nullify its own social impact." Somewhere, he pleads, a Christian college will rise to the challenge, focus on the great Biblical themes, and send "seniors into our decadent society with a lucid comprehension of the Christian world-life view" (p. 89).

Home and Church must shape "a comprehensive and consistent faith that stands noon-bright amid the dim shadows of spiritual rebellion and moral profligacy" (p. 94). Such graduates would be trained to look critically at contemporary culture, which sounds like the original intention of Adventist education!

Henry poses another challenge for Christian education: "Can we get past administrators [of Christian schools] who are satisfied if education simply helps build character, adds personal life perspective, and enhances vocational objectives? Do not many educators greet with dragging feet any proposal to alter a curriculum hard-won in the face of academic turf battles?" (pp. 94-95). He does not hesitate to say that the Bible must be the basic book!

Finding Finances

In soliciting financial support for the advancement of Christian higher education, nothing can surpass "quality education and the victory for truth it achieves in the struggle for the mind and will of our generation" (p. 110). All promotion should be done "conspicuously in the service of preserving, propagating and vindicating truth. To do this requires an unapologetic statement of doctrinal conviction, a platform of fund-raising principles compatible with those commitments, and a promotional policy that above all else stresses how the institution's faculty and alumni succeed in advancing the triumph of truth in the contemporary world" (p. 111).

What are the greatest assets of a Christian school? They are its "comprehensively integrated Christian world-life view; its instructional and literary contribution of able scholars who expound that view; faculty books and articles that both expose the cognitive weakness of modern regnant alternatives and articulate the logical and moral superiority of the Biblical option" (p. 111). Faculty development of the Biblical option must rise above the devotional level to the scholarly.

Superior Alternative

In Part 5, "Confronting Neo-Paganism," Henry states the task of the Christian scholar as that of putting the various manifestations of secular humanism and raw naturalism on the defensive by perceptive criticism of their philosophy, axioms, disposition and limitations (p. 140-141). Christian scholars are to offer the "superior alternative—namely, the revelation of a personal Creator of a purposeful universe, and the incarnate Christ manifest in Jesus of Nazareth". This to be affirmed in the confidence that "we are on the side of reason, that theistic claims stand the test of publicly-shared criteria, and that the Lord battles with us and for us".

Crucial Urgency

Finally, in Part 6, "Before Hell Breaks Out," Henry pleads that evangelicalism not be swamped by the very culture it seeks to change. The book ends as well as it began: "If evangelicals believe that the enduring corrective of modernity's badly-skewed ethical and epistemic compass is the self-disclosed God and His moral agenda, they had better say so and live so in this crucial turning-time in America. Otherwise they may soon find themselves aliens in a once promised land. We may even now live in the half-generation before hell breaks loose and, if its fury is contained, we will be remembered, if we are remembered at all, as those who used their hands and hearts and minds and very bodies to plug the dikes against impending doom".

Adventist Implications

The best books are those which stimulate thought. Twilight of A Great Civilization is one of those. It ought to make us think about our own church in relation to the challenges of mission offered by the contemporary situation so vividly and accurately described by Dr. Henry. That the devil is furious with the "remnant of her seed" (Rev. 12:17) Adventists have known for 150 years. How do we resist his assault from within? To do battle with external "Babylon" and storm the citadels of unbelief is one thing, but to defend ourselves from betrayal in the ranks, which is especially demoralizing, is another. Nothing is more discouraging, more contributory to skepticism, cynicism and malaise.

"While we have been winning the world, the world has been winning the church!"

While the faithful are occupied in evangelism, unbelief creeps in through the unguarded back door. While we have been winning the world, the world has been winning the church! Some see it, some don't, some won't. The parents of this church, who have been sacrificing for Christian education, visualizing their children on the cutting edge of evangelism and world mission, have been stunned by an unprecedented defection of those children from the faith of their fathers and mothers. Some suspect that secular humanism and doubt of Biblical values have somehow captured the minds of their children during the educational process.

Reconsider?

Is it time to reconsider how Bible is taught in our elementary schools and academies? The low number of academy graduates who elect ministry as a career option has to be unacceptable for a church with a mission. Simply to retrench or restructure is not enough. When God calls and sends workers He will also provide the means for their education and training. We need to take the evangelistic task of Christian education much more seriously. What will it profit us if we win the whole world while losing our own children?

Responsibility

Because the primary responsibility in educating children rests with parents, Adventist parents cannot simply assume that the education their children receive in church schools is Christian and Adventist. They must find out if the school is representative of orthodox Adventism by scrutinizing texts, interviewing teachers and administrators. They must get involved in Home and School, not only for the purpose of raising money, but out of concern for curriculum content and classroom activities. One of the things parents should be concerned about is whether the curriculum and teaching methods support the male and female role distinctions created by God, or an unbiblical unisex.

Resources

Adventist young people training for the professions need to learn basic biblical theology and ethics as their philosophical framework for life. Students must not only be taught to think for themselves, they must be given the right theological/philosophical basis upon which to do so. The best way to do that is to adhere to the absolutes that have stood the test of time: the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:12). Only those absolutes will put us ahead of the relativists when it comes to spiritual resources. Learning grows out of finding resolution in the conflict of ideas, not out of accommodation to pluralism of views.

Renewed Look

Perhaps we should also take a renewed look at the purpose for college religion departments. Are they supposed to be mini-seminaries concentrating on training for pastoral ministry? Or should their primary focus be on training those entering the professions how to be Christians in the world, and how to take their place in the church?

Adventist teacher/scholars should be writing the kind of book reviewed here, providing a critical, analytical view of contemporary culture from the Adventist perspective, and offering the alternative of a Christ-centered, mission-oriented theology. We cannot be satisfied that citizens of the world find a religion; we must help them find Jesus Christ and live for Him by preaching to the consciences of people and nations.

Crucial Choice

We have a crucial choice before us. We can settle for being a sub-culture; we can allow ourselves to be conditioned by surrounding culture; or we can be what the Lord intended the Seventh-day Adventist Church to be: a counter-culture opposing the sin and creeping paganism of the day and offering faith in the Advent as the hope of the world. We need to recognize doom on the doorstep, but preach the dawning of a new Day! When things are the worst, we must invite people to the best.

The Adventist conscience ought to be troubling us as we look at our church and its educational institutions in relation to the conditions, spiritual needs, and challenges for evangelism and mission facing us today. Adventist schools are threatened by mounting financial pressure. This may be indicative of an underlying spiritual softness and lack of clear vision. The church members need to be concerned about it and become involved in restoring and sharpening our schools' distinctive educational mission.