What Is It?

     On Friday we summarized part of Timothy Lamer's article about our crime rates ... in 2019 more than double the 1960 number. And that doesn't account for our free-for-all the last four years. He partly cites welfare and the decline in two-parent families. 

     Something else is missing. Lamer quotes British theologian John Stott: "We should ask, 'What has happened to salt and light?'"

     In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, modernists began taking over American seminaries and pulpits. They called themselves Christians but preached a religion that taught the goodness of man and rejected Christ's messianic claims, his miracles and need for atonement. They took over entire denominations.

     Lamer: "When churches stop preaching about sin and repentance, bad things happen. The worship of God suffers. Eternal souls go unsaved. Sin gains an easier foothold. Differences in different communities, but it will never look good. In America, decades of liberal preaching softened up society for the sexual revolution."

     "Theological descendants of the modernists celebrate each new frontier and attempts to redefine the family despite documented harm to children and society. Untethered from the Bible, liberal churches become active agents of decay instead of preserving salt." 

     He concludes, "Remember how much lower the crime rate was in the past and could be today if Christians would produce more salt and light."

What is salt and light? Views Wednesday and Friday.

        Jimmy