George Barna, director of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit in Leesburg, Virginia, on Oct. 8, 2021. | Family Research Council.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20 — King James Version
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 — English Standard Version
Longtime friends, subscribers, and visitors to this place may have in the past eleven years or so that A Crooked Path has been available come across my writing, with my usual redundancy, how we continually hear the refrain, “children are our future…” and I always say that is an incomplete sentence as it needs to have as its conclusion — “and oh what a future that is going to be, do you really want to live in that future?”
We’ve lost objectivity, knowing the Word of God, therefore what the truth is, and the people of our nation have been given over to reprobate, wicked minds. Utter insanity. Relativism is the rule among a people destroying all the rules, foundations, and established ways. We are living in Biblical times dear ones. We are living in Romans 1. Among other passages and places within the living Word. The Bible is not an antiquated ancient book It is the only book wherein one can find past, PRESENT, and FUTURE history. Wherein every word within the Word being true. No other book on earth ever written or to be written can stand through time and make that valid claim.
It is not only tragic, and a glaring sign of the times, but an indictment on parenting, society, what constitutes the professed Christian Church — a body flailing about believing it can live and function properly without having a Head, or obeying the Head — or denying the Head, attempting to make the Head into something He is not and never should have been permitted to be made into.
We live in an age when there have been television commercials made telling people they ought to sit down as a family and eat together at least once a week.
Are you kidding? And this is ignored by the overwhelming majority in the illusionary created blur of daily life [there are still 24 hours in a day and folks in the past had it much harder than most do now, truth be told, enough of perpetuating this lie about not having enough time for what really matters. along with all the other lies we tell ourselves to excuse our increasing decline] because we choose to be otherwise occupied rather than in the Word, learning from and obeying the Head, Jesus Christ the Lord.
It is clear by the sorry condition of our union, our churches, our families we much prefer our sin. The increasing evil. The unsound doctrines of people-pleasing appeasement over the Way, the Light, the Life, and the Truth.
I realize I’m considered antiquated, out of step [thankfully, as I know I’m on the right path taking the steps I need to take according to my Lord and His Word rather than on the path of the world — that very wide path most are on and we should know where that wide road leads — including at this juncture the majority saying they are “Christians”] but there wasn’t one night of the week where all the members of my immediate family did not sit at the table and eat together. With a prayer of thanks given up to God at every meal. And a prayer of thanks was given AFTER the meal was consumed. Imagine that? That mattered more than an individual selfish endeavor. Such as soccer practice. Or being so overly involved vainly imagining that leads to a better more fulfilled life.
Imagine that time, dear ones?
And it didn’t occur in the book of Haggi. Or Obediah. It took place in America in the 1950s and 1960s and early 1970s. Nothing in the timeline of the continual woven threads of history.
Where is the Word being taught in homes? Parenting? Under how many roofs? Really?
We need others telling us how to teach the children? We need public and private schools to replace the parents? The government to take the place of parents? Because it has gotten to such a point.
How did it get here? [Rhetorical, as anyone here paying a modicum of attention ought to know].
How can it change?
We do know. You ought to know.
But the question is are we willing, able, and going to do anything to alter the course of the rudderless ship of family life, what so-called education has become on the ever-increasing turbulent seas of the rampaging storm of spiritual warfare all are enjoined in?
Well?
From intensive, extensive brilliant work and questioning from Mr. George Barna and his group of people doing their work, we live in a time in America, a tragic time, in which only 6% of our people live with a Biblical worldview. And of this overused, now corrupted word “evangelical?” Only 21% of those professing to be evangelical possess and live with a Biblical worldview.
Do we see where this is going?
Do we understand the individual effort it takes from each person, in their REPENTANCE, in their FAITHFULNESS, in their DAILY DILIGENCE, in their SPENDING TIME IN FERVENT FAITHFUL PRAYER NOT AMISS [stop asking for God to be your real estate agent, car buying guide, and taking every self-centered thing to Him and begin praying LARGE and outside of self during the day, the evening, at night among all our prayers for what will truly make a difference — a revival of true Biblical teaching and living among a greater number of folks in this dying and dark land given over to reprobate, wicked minds and words, all the unsound appeasing people-pleasing teachings need to be exposed for what they are and cast out, cast aside. And a true repentance takes place. Not merely a “feeling of remorse,” but a TRUE REPENTANCE and then KNOWING and OBEYING the INERRANT INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD.]
If we’re truly disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, truly Scripturally fluent and literate, if we’re truly obedient children of God, by example in our knowing the Word how frequently does Jesus, do the apostles pray selfishly? Or do they pray for others, for the believing body of Christ? For the truth of the gospel to increase and for people to obey God and not this world.
THERE IS A REASON WHY WE ARE INSTRUCTED TO PRAY:
“Our Father in heaven YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN, YOUR KINGDOM COME.”
How many of us pray that fervently, with heart, and in our prayers? Not by rote without thinking but having it said aloud and have it pull our hearts and minds upwards to God in so doing? How about God’s will be done on this earth rather than our will be done, the Republican or Democratic parties will be done, or some school districts will be done, so on? Why do we ignore and remove the Head vainly in error imagining we know better? Or do we think we can bring God down to our level rather than our looking up, rising up as best we can towards Him?
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. And rather than us thinking foolishly, dangerously we can somehow turn the Almighty unchangeable God into our grandfather in a rocking chair handing us sweets in little wrappers how about we bow humbly and faithfully before Him in submission and service. Taking up our cross daily. Abiding in the Word. Which entails KNOWING the Word!
Okay. Enough from me at this point. Please read on as to the state of our unholy, unrighteous in utter darkness and wallowing in sin nation…
If unfamiliar, from my years of researching Mr. Geroge Barna and the work he and his people do their work and results can be trusted and believed. Due to their methodology. Their desire is to provide the most accurate surveys and polling you’ll find today. And they accomplish that desire and goal in my humble estimation.
~~~
Note of reminder for those unfamiliar — I do not abide in the world’s teaching in adopting this errant belief that if a person uses uppercase letters it indicates anger. Utter rubbish and who is it that determined that to be universally accepted? Do we just accept such nonsense? As we accept whatever comes down the pike and we do not think. We just adopt and adopt and continue to adopt this rubbish?
How is it so few can be bothered to open a Bible and learn the truth of God, of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit yet they know this universal rubbish — and minds filled full of similar utter rubbish? Sadly, TRAGICALLY, most reading this will know the outcome of yesterday’s results of the NFL football team they follow but not really know what is in Matthew 24, or James 1, or the 2nd Psalm, or the Book of Genesis, so on… I had a friend and brother in Christ bring this truth to my attention in a conversation with him last week.
I use uppercase in Italics, solely, only for emphasis. PERIOD. No anger to be found here. Oh, plenty of frustration at how my fellow men and women walk about in this realm, but no anger folks…
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Monday, October 11th, 2021
ACP — A Crooked Path
George Barna shares 4 ways Christian parents can combat media’s influence in children’s lives
Friday, October 08, 2021
By Ryan Foley
Reprinted from The Christian Post
A prominent Christian researcher is urging parents to take an active role in combating the influence of the media on their children, which he believes has led Americans to embrace teachings that run contrary to the biblical worldview.
The third day of programming for the Family Research Council Action’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, formerly known as the Values Voter Summit, was held on Friday. The annual gathering of social conservatives took place at the Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia, this year. The first panel of the day discussed the “crisis in the church” that has developed because “Christians don’t have a biblical worldview.”
Moderated by David Closson, the director of the Family Research Council’s newly launched Center for Biblical Worldview, the panel included George Barna, director of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, Joseph Backholm of the Center for Biblical Worldview, and Nancy Pearcey, professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University.
While much of the discussion focused on problems that resulted from the decline in the number of Americans who hold a biblical worldview, the panelists also provided advice to parents and faith leaders about how to instill a biblical worldview in their children.
“The most significant influence on the development of a worldview in America today is what we absorb from the media,” Barna contended. “And if that’s the case, then that says to me as a parent or a grandparent or somebody who cares about the development of the worldview of children that I’ve got to pay attention to what media is investing in those children’s minds and hearts.”
Barna then listed “four Ms” that parents should employ to combat the harmful influence of the media on their children.
He first advised parents to “monitor what these kids are being exposed to because our research shows that most parents are happy to buy their children every device the kids want, and then they leave the kids up to determine what they’re going to take in through all those devices. They don’t even know what their kids are being exposed to.”
Barna also suggested that parents “minimize it because our research also shows that in America, the biggest addiction in our country is media. We spend more time literally absorbing messages from media than anything else we do except for sleep.”
Illustrating the need to limit “the enormous exposure that we have to that kind of information,” Barna maintained that parents do not tell their children to “eat everything in the house,” but rather “eat a certain amount of things … three times a day.” He told parents that “we need to do the same kind of ingestion methods … with media.”
Introducing “mediate” as the third “M,” Barna called on parents to “serve as the mediator between what the media is trying to get you to believe and what we, as followers of Jesus, believe based on what the scriptures teach.” He remarked that if parents are watching a show with their children that exposes them to an idea that runs contrary to the biblical worldview, they should tell them: “We know that’s a lie … because the Scriptures teach us this.”
The final “M” Barna urged parents to rely on was “moralize.” In other words, “helping them to understand the difference between right and wrong.” He predicted that “if parents simply did that in the lives of their kids, it would revolutionize America today.”
Setting the stage for the conversation, Barna pointed to research that found only 6% of adults have a biblical worldview, a number that rises to 9% among “people who call themselves Christian.” Another statistic that’s particularly concerning is that only 19% of born-again Christians have a biblical worldview.
Barna further noted that only 21% of those who attend evangelical churches have a biblical worldview.
He implied that the small share of Americans who have a biblical worldview stems from the fact that “a large proportion of our senior pastors don’t have a biblical worldview.” Describing worldview as a “critical element,” he explained that “a person’s worldview begins forming at 15 to 18 months of age and is almost fully formed by the age of 13.”
Acknowledging the important role that pastors have in shaping people’s worldview, Pearcey advised faith leaders to teach “apologetics from the pulpit,” specifically “any time you introduce a biblical doctrine, you tell people how to defend it.”
Pearcey added: “We need to be equipping people with the tools to face the attack that they’re going to face … as soon as they go out of the sanctuary.”
She stressed that the exposure to the media and internet alone are not the only factors causing many children to develop a non-biblical worldview: “What you’re seeing now is a trend toward ‘I got it at school.’” Pearcey also emphasized that young children are given the idea that gender is a social construct from schools as well as from children’s programming, saying, “Our kids are being exposed … to secular worldviews from a very young age … from the Saturday morning cartoons.”
Panelists also elaborated on what constitutes a worldview. Backholm defined a worldview as “assumptions about origin, meaning, morality and destiny.” He indicated that a person’s worldview is formulated by answers to questions asking “where did I come from,” “does my life have meaning, yes, no … and why,” “who determines what is right and wrong” and “what happens when I die?”
Backholmattributed the lack of Americans who actually subscribe to a biblical worldview to the fact that “we don’t take those assumptions and then connect the dots to everything that we believe in public policy.” He pointed to “pressure to believe the correct things politically about gender, about human sexuality [and] about marriage” as the reason why rather than making sure their worldview forms their politics, many people allow their politics to form their worldview.
“As Christians, we’re supposed to start with the foundation of … this is what God said is true about the world. I know that’s true, therefore I’m going to make sure everything I think about X, Y, and Z is actually based on these assumptions about what God said is true, but most of us aren’t doing that,” he lamented.
“We have all this pressure to be good people and to prove we’re good people by thinking the correct things about X, Y, and Z, and we know we have to think these things to prove that we’re good people, and so we’re going to form a worldview deductively after we’ve concluded after we’ve formed our political opinions and made sure our worldview fits our political conclusions rather than make sure that our political conclusions are based on our worldview.”
Noting that “there are 16,000 hours between kindergarten and 12th grade,” Backholm proclaimed that “you cannot overcome the impact of those 16,000 hours by taking them to church on Sunday and maybe taking them to youth group on Wednesday night.” He also elaborated on the effects of what children learn at school on their worldview: “They’re cucumbers that are becoming pickles. And the brine that they soak in has a lot to say about what they become.”
Backholm warned that even if children are not introduced to “pagan lies” by their teachers, “They’re still soaking things in from the culture that’s around them that’s influencing what they love, which the research tells us, what they love determines what they ultimately believe is true.”
Barna added that children experience “32,000 hours during that same period of time of media exposure.” He accused schools of “laying a foundation that the media then supports,” exposing children to “48,000 hours’ worth of content” that runs contrary to the biblical worldview.
The founder and namesake of the Barna Group, Barna also founded the Cultural Research Center in March 2020.
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