Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing on our time. And we've got 25 minutes. We'll be done so we can have your meal. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you will meet with us once again. The Apostle Peter told us the old language, gird up the loins of your minds and get ready for action with your minds is the idea. And we pray that we would help us to understand how the redefinition of one word is transforming our culture. And may we bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Lord, we don't know all the circumstances with Pastor Jensen's grandchild, or how old, but Lord, please comfort that whole family. And Pastor Jensen, who's used to giving comfort to people, he needs comfort himself. So grant that to him, brothers and sisters who are going through the valley of the shadow of the death, whatever it might be, we pray that your rod and your staff would comfort them and that you'd be near them. Now grant the spirit to us, we pray in Jesus' name. Okay, I said bring your Bibles, and I mean that Psalm 115 in verses 1 through 11. Very important, is a framework for everything we're going to be dealing with in the weeks ahead. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nation say, where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Their idols, notice the contrast, their idols. are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak, eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear, noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel, feet, but do not walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them. And so do all who trust in them. O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Now that's, again, the framework for all we're gonna deal with and what's coming up. And on idols, not the only idol, The idols of technology are doing that kind of thing in our culture today. Technology's not wrong, but you've got to be careful with it. Okay, so we're dealing with Strange New World, which is the simplified version, although it's not particularly simple, of Dr. Carl Truman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Listen carefully, and you'll know the four-letter word that's been defined. And last week, I particularly wanted to develop that phrase that was used by the person who was probably the most articulate explainer of the secular age, Charles Taylor, the social imaginary. And social imaginary, historically, the book Alice in Wonderland, or the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, Alice goes through a rabbit hole and she's in this really weird world with different characters that were actually based on people Lewis Carroll knew. But it's not a real world, that social imaginary, and it's very interesting when that book came out it was regarded as the book that was the death knell to what was called didactic children's literature, literature that emphasized thinking and reasoning and so on, and The Matrix would be kind of a common or more recent example of that okay and just it was interesting social imaginary Margaret and I had to we went to what we call the shrine on Monday the shrine is Roosevelt Field in Nassau County and if you know it's you go in it's got the liturgy right it's got all the different stores that go in and There's a greeting when you come in, right, a salutation, welcome, and then there's a benediction, you know, have a good day. You give your offering, right? You do it with the credit cards. There's a lot of ways you can look at that. But anyway, we were at Roosevelt Field, and as soon as you go in, There's all the pictures, and there's nothing wrong with pictures, okay? But it's these things you need to buy, the things that make you what you are, if your real self is going to be this, that's social imaginary. Okay, social imaginary, that's the world for many, many people, okay? So anyway, now today we're going to introduce, we're going to give an overview of chapter one. Welcome to this strange new world. And this is Dr. Truman commenting on our day. See if it doesn't describe our day to a T. Things once regarded as obvious and unassailable virtues have in recent years been subject to vigorous criticism and even in some cases come to be seen by many as more akin to vices. Now listen to it again. Things once regarded as obvious and unassailable virtues have in recent years been subject to vigorous criticism and even in some cases these obvious and unassailable virtues have come to be seen by many as more akin to vices. Marriage. is the traditional view is regarded as bondage. Gender. To live out of your biological gender is regarded as bondage. Now, there's more to it than that, but you get the idea. So we've gone from tolerance to criticism of alternate lifestyles is dangerous to criticism of alternate lifestyles is illegal and punishable. When you have pastors being told, if you're dealing with someone who clearly has a biological gender of male but says it's female, and you say, no, no, no, no, no, there need to be some changes made so you can live out of the way God made you, when you can be fined or imprisoned for that, That's a strange new world, folks. And that's not just out there. It's happening in families. In families within the haven, these kinds of things are happening, where children are questioning these things and living in different ways, and it brings hurt. And it brings perplexity. And this is not just culture wars. This is culture wars that gets into the warp and woof of our lives. And it's also in the church. One of the issues that is ravaging our brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church in America is a movement in the Midwest called Revoice. And revoice wants to basically redefine the way we deal with homosexuality. And so what we do, we need, listening? Okay, we need to listen. This is how far they go with it. We need to know as straight Christians what we can learn from gay Christianity. That's too far, folks. That's not a culture of grace, that's a culture of license. But so anyway, it affects the church. So this is disorienting to us. Most of us are the older generation, but not all of us. But it's also disconcerting to the younger generation. That's what you gotta see. They're on a merry-go-round going faster and faster and faster and faster. They don't know how to get off. So that's why we're doing this class. That old hymn, how can I be sure in a world that's constantly changing. But how do you get a handle on it? How do you get a handle on where the change has come? What's the ring that you grab hold of on the merry-go-round that's the gold ring that helps you understand what's going on? Here's the four-letter word. It all comes down to a redefinition of the meaning of self. That's the four-letter word, self. The meaning of self, and I don't mean self like I'm Bill and this is Rick and this is Alphonse, I don't mean that. But what makes you you? What's the real you? that has been redefined radically in not a long period of time. So here, basically, the traditional view, again, largely Dr. Truman's material, I adapted some of it here, a traditional view of self, and this is what most of us were brought up in, or all of us were. It asks questions like this, what are my relationships and obligations to and commitments to others? Whether it be my brothers and sisters, my mom and dad, my school, what are my relationships to, my obligations to, my commitments to others? In our upbringing, our self is formed in part by that question, my relationships to, obligations to, and commitments to others. Another thing that's part of traditional understanding of self, is education training me in the demands and expectations of the wider culture. Am I learning so that I can be of service in the wider culture? Am I being formed to serve others? That's part of our traditional upbringing. Third part of our traditional upbringing is growing up, quote unquote, or maturing a process by which I learned to control my feelings, to act with restraint, and to make my desires subservient to the needs of those around me. And most of us can look back on our upbringing, and however it was done, we were taught that to mature was a process by which you learn to control your feelings. Stop the crying. Stop the temper. That kind of a thing. And to act with restraint. No, no. You don't act that way with your brother. And to make your desires subservient to the needs of those around me. I know you want to go play, but you do the dishes right now. That kind of basic stuff, right? And our selves were formed like that. Today, and this isn't true of everybody, but again it's the zeitgeist, okay, it's the spirit of the age. I am born free and I'm able to create my own identity. I heard this this morning early in a CBS News thing, a commercial. You can do anything you want to do. That's not true. But that is the prevailing zeitgeist. Anything you want to, anything you want to be, you can be it or do it. Education enables me to express outwardly what I feel inwardly. Education enables me to express outwardly what I feel inwardly. I feel oppressed. I feel bruised. And education enables me to express that outwardly. Growing up, number three, is not a process of learning to control my feelings, but to be authentic. and giving social expression to my feelings. That is the modern view of self. I must be free to express my own feelings. And that brings us to one of the three things that Dr. Truman says have formed the modern view of self, and that's called expressive individualism. Let's think of these three things. The third one I already covered, the social imaginary, but we'll mention it again. These three streams come together up in Maine where the family camp that the young people in Maine go to that's on a place called Chop Point. And there's, I think, five streams that come into this huge rock. And they crash on this rock, as they all call it. Chop Point is the place. Well, this is three streams that create our modern Chop Point. One is expressive individualism. And I won't bore you with quotations, but these are not boring. Robert Bella wrote a book in the mid-1990s called Habits of the Heart. And boy, you talk about a spot-on description of our culture in every way. And I don't think Bella was even a Christian, but in Habits of the Heart, he wrote, expressive individualism, he's the one that coined the phrase, holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized. Now there's truth in that, but if you take it too far, it's dangerous. Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized. I'm not being real, I'm not being transparent if I don't express my feelings and live them out the way I feel. Or this is Charles Taylor who wrote about secularism, the culture of authenticity is one where each one of us has his or her own way of realizing our humanity. and that it is important to find and live out of one's own as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed upon us from outside by society or the previous generation or religion or political authority. The culture of authenticity is one where each one of us has his or her own way of realizing our humanity, and it is important to find and live out of one's own as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us like the Christian faith. from outside by society or the previous generation or religious or political authority. Now there's a lot more in that but that's basically expressive individual. It is my personal lifestyle choice and that's insulated from all criticism. My personal lifestyle choice plus Any attempt to express disapproval with my lifestyle choice is an attack against the right of me to be what I want to be. Now, you think of the discussions about rights today, and that's very common. You're not to express criticism of personal lifestyle choices, unless they'd say you're hurting somebody else, which begs a huge question. What does it mean to hurt, okay? Now, this, brothers and sisters, is not completely wrong. We do have feelings, and we are unique. And those feelings are things we need to deal with, biblically. But here's the difference. Those feelings are not the norm, the rise and triumph of the modern self. I tell people I don't feel saved in the morning until I've had a cup of coffee, or two, or today three. But I don't live out of that, at least I try not to anyway. But when you make your feelings normative, that can become not only bizarre, but dangerous. What if you feel like eating another person? Oh, you say, well, you know, the other person doesn't want to get eaten. There are people that argue. That's their lifestyle choice. So as I said, it can get very bizarre and disturbing. That's the backdrop of our culture, expressive individualism. Now, you've got to wed that to this. The sexual revolution. Take expressive individual and realize sexuality is next to drinking water. Sexuality is probably our strongest drive as male or female. And this is not just the 1960s where the envelope was pushed when it came to sexual mores. Today, the sexual revolution is the envelope. It's where people are living, or many of them at least want to live, where promiscuity and homosexuality and deviancy, they're not just normalized, they're celebrated. We need to celebrate our diversity. And there's the shift with the sexual revolution. So we're not talking about people just engaging in gay sex, or pornography, or a hookup culture. But there's no longer any shame to be attached to it. And Philippians chapter four, in verses 17 through 19, whenever I read, the sense of shame is gone. Brothers Philippians 4, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, this is first century folks, for many of whom I've often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. And whatever else the cross is, it's self-denial. Their end is destruction. And we need to say that with tears. The end of what we're talking about here is the destruction of at least a generation. And that's why, thank God, the gospel heals people, okay? But anyway, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly. It doesn't just mean they're obese. They're their gods. My desires are my god. And they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. That's the rise and triumph of the modern self right there. Right there. A few verses. So it's not just again the repudiation of traditional sexual mores. Now listen carefully, but the view today is increasingly if you hold to those traditional views. Now I don't believe a man has another man who's his husband. or a woman as another woman who's a wife. Now, you love people made in God's image, right? That's not the same thing as accepting that. That doesn't mean you need to argue when they introduce themselves like that. But today, if you hold that traditional view, you're regarded as ridiculous, you're regarded as dangerous, And increasingly, having those traditional views is regarded as an evidence of a mental illness. Now do you see how things have been turned on their head in this strange new world? The only standard for many, and I'll give you an example in just a bit, the only standard in our age is the consent people give to engage in whatever. Multiple spouses, if you want to be sadistic to one another, so long as you consent. Now you see there, you see what that is? That's taking the sovereignty of God and replacing it with the supposed sovereignty of the human will. And that's the only moral framework for many people today. If you consent to do it, it's okay. You better not tell me it isn't. But why do so many think like that? This happened in the space of a decade, folks. Less. Why did this happen so quickly? That's why we introduced that phrase last week. The social imaginary. The social imaginary. And this is the way, again, Taylor describes the social imaginary. He says, I speak of imaginary, one, because I'm talking about the way ordinary people imagine their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms, in other words, philosophically why I believe what I do, but it's carried in images, stories, legends, etc. But it's also the case that two, this is in the social imaginary theory, is often the possession of a small minority, whereas what's interesting in the social imaginary is that it is shared by large groups of people, if not the whole society. Let me give you one in the economic realm. It's a given for most people in our culture Government needs to redistribute wealth. It needs to redistribute the wealth of people so that those who are making more money, who are the bad guys, they're made to give their money to the poor people. Excuse me. That's called Marxism. Now, most people won't say that. They'll say, no, no, no, no, that's good politics. No, it's Marxism. Take from the rich, give to the poor. But that's part, again, social imaginary. Which leads, he says, to a third difference, three, the social imaginary is that common understanding, and I'll give you an illustration, which makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy. The social imaginary is that common understanding, Roosevelt Field and all the different things that you see there, which makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy, all right? This is not something that is based on first principles. I believe that when a person earns money, the person has a right to keep as much of that money as possible and should be able to use that money as he or she sees fit. It doesn't think like that. That's a first principle. But rather, it's a faith commitment. We have faith commitments in the Word of God, religious commitments. It's a faith commitment that says if it's done today by a majority of people or it's becoming a majority, it has to be right. That's the faith commitment. Of course, that's dangerous. And it is how people imagine the world to be based on social stimuli that forms my way of responding to the world. I mean, the common one is Facebook. And I'm not against Facebook. I don't like wasting my time on Facebook. I don't like having my account hacked on Facebook. But Facebook in itself isn't wrong. But you talk about expressive individualism. This is what I ate for dinner. with pictures, to which you say, who cares, right? You know, I ate Twinkies at lunch. I burped. Again, who cares? But that's expressive individualism. And it's just a norm. See, we think, see, we see ourselves You know, I love the person that did that, but it's a waste of time for me to look at, hear about their Twinkie experience, right? And so there's the difference between the world. Alright, anyway, but that's kind of a banal one to use as an example. But how we imagine the world to be based on the social stimuli that forms my way of responding to the world. Again, these things like Facebook and posters and the internet, they're not wrong. but they can very quickly get out of hand. Now let me give you a cultural illustration. There's a book, fascinating book, written by a Jewish man, 1959. And that book about that year chronicles, according to the Jewish writer of this book, wasn't particularly conservative in his views, 1959 was the bridge year. that brought in a lot of the catastrophes we saw beginning in the 60s. And he has, I wouldn't say it's a compelling case, but at least an interesting case to look at 1959. But he mentions the birth control pill that went to be patented and marketed in 1959. And he deals with, it was interesting how the Roman Protestants didn't say much of anything about it. The Roman Catholic Church did. They said, you go ahead, you legalize contraception like that with a birth control pill, and we're opening up a Pandora's box when it comes to sexual promiscuity. And they were spot on. They were right on. Anyway, so the book chronicles these. It's 1960, and the pill is introduced. The first oral contraceptive is introduced by the Food and Drug Administration. And I remember this from my upbringing in the 60s. I got this line. Sex is not just for procreation. It's also for recreation. Well, the Roman Catholic Church said basically sexual relations are only for procreation and that's not correct. There's a joy and a delight and an intimacy and sexual relations in the bonds of marriage. But with the pill, you get this. Sex is not just for procreation, it's for recreation. Now previous to that, 1953, a magazine came out and if you bought it, they would have to put it in a dark bag and you were very embarrassed if you even bought the thing in the store. And it was a magazine called Playboy Magazine. And it got more and more graphic as the years went on. 1960, the Playboy philosophy is issued. Rights and free expression, not only for heterosexual relations, with or without the bonds of marriage, for lesbian relations, for male homosexual relations, for transgender expression. 1960, Playboy magazine. Cosmopolitan magazine, which had been around really since the 1880s, I think it was, also changed in the 1960s, basically promoting in its pictures and its articles, promiscuity is really cool. The liberated woman is the promiscuous woman. Then you have the rise of what was called in New York and later elsewhere, no fault divorce. No Fault Divorce basically means we'll make it easier for you to get a divorce. You know where that's gone. And then the rise of feminism. Now certain things about feminism you have to appreciate. The degradation of womanhood. The degradation of womanhood by pornography, by abuse. We need to line up with feminists in that. That's not what they meant. I have a right, I have a right to use my body the way I want and see where that's gone with abortion. And then in the 90s, the internet and the growth of internet porn, television. You want an oxymoron contradiction in terms? Soap operas. Soap operas are hardly clean. They did that because it was soap detergents that advertised. If you ever watch any of those things, this is Peyton Place at least five days a week on TV. And also sitcoms that more and more made fun of marriage, fatherhood. Not so motherhood, but fatherhood. And began to extol the virtues of promiscuity and other things. That, folks, there's your social imaginary. See it? All around. Now let me wrap up with this. And that really is, your own heart tells you this. Don't be despairing by these things, but folks, we've got to be discerning. 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and verses 14 through 16, or 1 Corinthians, no, chapter 2, verses 14 through 16, the Apostle Paul It is helpful if I get to the right chapter. The natural person, the unsaved person, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, which is really here referring to the scriptures, the things of the Spirit of God, for they're folly to him. And he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. I need to communicate to you that marriage and faithfulness in marriage is wonderful, and your course of action, flaunting all of this, is destructive. And they look right through you. You're not relating to my world. They're foolishness to him. They're folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually, that is, by the Spirit. And here's the word, discerned. It's not the word for discernment, which means to judge between two things. Discern means something a little different. Spiritual person judges all things, but he is himself to be judged by no one. That doesn't mean he can't get called to court. But you say, no, the word of God says this, and the world says, you're nuts. That judgment is not valid so long as you're saying what God really says. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Now whether it's the word discerned or judge or judges, it means this. To come to a conclusion by investigating something, when lawyers do due diligence, That's this kind of judging or discernment. They look into the issues, they study the issues, and they come to what they believe is a proper conclusion. That's what we need to do rather than become discouraged, is really think through, as we're going to do in the weeks to come, think through these different issues from the perspective of the Word of God. Then you're better able. to deal with those things in our culture. Okay, now next week, how do we get here? How did we get here? Dr. Truman does more with this than we will. I want to give you a quick historical overview. Most of you glaze over when it comes to speaking about Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Frederick Hegel or whatever, but we need to know a little bit about these philosophies so you know what brought us to this point. Okay, so that will be probably next week. Well, I'm sorry I ran over sorry about that. I didn't really it's hard for me to see the car any any quick questions comments issues debates You're not asleep Ellie dear this is your world. I'm glad you're here she wants to be seen as a cat. So she wears whiskers and she works at the counter in a large, there's a large store. And she says her son tells her in the school there's a few people that want to be known as dogs and they actually go out and around in all fours. It's unbelievable. It's far worse than what you know. There's a book about it, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, that's it. So good, see your minds. And folks, I'm not doing this to be critical. But we do need to be understanding of where we're coming from with things. All right, I don't want to run late with everything. I know you need to head up. Yeah, Mike, Michael. You said this happened less than a decade ago? Yes. It really, most of this began 2000s, not began, but it opened up with the support. Yeah, well with the Supreme Court legalizing quote-unquote gay marriage that's when that's when everything really began to open up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Okay. I forget the Obergum or whatever, I forget the Oberphil or whatever the law was. Kathy, you had your hand up? I have a theory on this. I think what happened was once, you know, you had birth control and then, you know, people didn't have, they had such control over it that they And when they decided to have their babies, I tell this to Tammy, one thing she thinks like I know something about. And then I said, so then when you had a child and it was your own, what you consider your own will, of course we know that it wasn't, then you feel that you have to do all these things for the kid, you know, you have to Instead of just loving the child and bringing him up in the way that you were raised, if you were raised right, you start to get involved in all these crazy activities and your whole world centers around the child. Yeah, it's called making an idol of a child. So how do you expect that child to conform? Yeah, that's a great point, that's a great point. Well, one of the things, Kathy, that'll come up, that's why I read Psalm 115, we live in a culture that idolizes self. Okay, there's other idols. Idols are inherently self-destructive. You all listening to this? Idols are inherently self-destructive. Make an idol of yourself, you'll destroy yourself. And I say that with grief, believe me. All right, let's pray together. Now, our Lord, we pray that you will give us, not only give us the discernment that causes us to investigate things and think about things with due diligence, but also give us that discernment in which we judge between things. And so our Lord, and judge in a righteous way. But Lord, help us to understand what we're dealing with in our culture today, how we got here. But more importantly, as we go through this, how we deal with this, how we minister to people in this culture and deal with people who either are broken or will inevitably be broken by these things and see them fixed up by the great change agent, Jesus. Now may we eat and drink to your glory. Thank you for Joe and Linda and their provision of the food. May we fellowship together with the food before us. In Jesus' wonderful name we pray, amen.