I would like to elaborate on the end of my post titled “What’s Wrong With Our Teenagers Today.” We have a youth problem largely because we have a greater parent problem. We have a parent problem largely because we have a greater cultural problem. We have a cultural problem largely because we have a greater church problem (2 Chronicles 7:14). Today’s church has allowed Baal in the camp and hasn’t gotten rid of the high places. We have confused worship with entertainment; carnal pleasure with spiritual fulfillment; ministry needs with career desires; and, man’s lusts with God’s will.
To address the specifics of all the above would be a daunting, but a doable task. But, the overarching answer, to all the points mentioned above, is that first and foremost the church itself must return to a commitment to living life from the standpoint of a biblical worldview. Yet, knowing that even within the church the consensus for exactly what this looks like may never be agreed upon perfectly, to the degree that we can be unified in this area we will succeed in bringing a little bit of the Kingdom of God right here on earth. If only America could attain to the level of a unified biblical worldview she experienced before the cultural revolution of the 1960’s how different things would be today–racial inequities and other hypocrisies notwithstanding. But, as much as America and the church suffered for these things, they pale in comparison to what the masses are experiencing today as a result of forsaking a biblical worldview altogether.
The current problem is that these past and current church and cultural inequities and hypocrisies have turned our culture so far away from viewing the church as a credible entity that we have effectively lost the culture to a large degree to postmodern thought–resulting in unbridled sin. The good news is that God seems to be pruning the church, eventually leaving only the most committed to truly do the work of the Kingdom—and to suffer for it as has always been the case. Hopefully, America and the world will soon see the church’s consistent and congruent adherence to a higher moral ground and an infectious joy that will attract our society back to the church through and for the person of Jesus Christ. It will be this remnant—the true and healthy body of Christ–that will revive our nation lest our Lord returns first.
Until the church generally and genuinely returns to a biblical worldview, neither America nor the church have a chance of adequately dealing with the specific problems mentioned above. Rather than exercising wisdom, balance, and a proper context, we will continue to choke on the pleasures of our idolatrous entertainment, technology, sexual perversions, and a multitude of other unbridled sins until we or God have had enough. My prayer is that before America de-civilizes much further into a primitive moral abyss that we as a church will become sick of it, come to our senses, and repent; so, that we as a nation can truly and unashamedly ask God to once again bless America. In turn, America can then be used by God to once again bless the world.
Author: Trace Embry is the Founder of Shepherd’s Hill Ministries. He hosts the License To Parent radio program. For over a decade, Shepherd’s Hill Ministries has helped struggling teens through its residential program and Christian boarding school, Shepherd’s Hill Academy located on an 86-acre property in Georgia. Call 706-779-5766 for more information, or join us on Facebook.
