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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 11 September 2023

Have you noticed how often mental health is now referenced by celebrities, sports figures, and politicians? 

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #108 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

For a while now, reaching back at least into the COVID experience, I’ve noticed that mental health seems to have taken center stage, particularly among the young. Sports figures like Olympics swimming gold medalist Michael Phelps, Japanese professional tennis player Naomi Osaka, and Olympic gymnastics star Simone Biles have all revealed struggles with what they called mental health issues. 

Actor Elizabeth Olsen addressed her mental health struggles, which she only experienced when she was living in New York at age 21. "I remember I would get [panic attacks] on the hour every hour," Olsen recalled. "I used to live on 13th Street between 6th and 7th. I was crossing 6th Avenue at 14th Street, and I realized I couldn't cross the street — I stood up against the wall, and I just thought I was going to drop dead at any moment."

Singer Selena Gomez, said, “Last year, I was suffering mentally and emotionally, and I wasn't able to stay all that kept together. I wasn't able to hold a smile or to keep things normal…It felt like all of my pain and anxiety washed over me all at once and it was one of the scariest moments of my life.”

These athletes and entertainers are people in peak physical condition, in their 20s and 30s, and they live with considerable resources and access to entire entourages of support. Yet they have struggled with mental health issues.

Of course, fame and fortune are no barriers to stress, emotional traumas, depression, and tragedy. I understand that these people are just human beings like the rest of us, and in no way am I expressing disrespect or making light of them or their struggles. I recognize, too, that mental health issues are real, and that people can experience an extensive variety of mental challenges, some rooted in their own earlier choices and behaviors, some traced to sources of no fault of their own, e.g., difficult a family upbringing or physiological imbalances. Whether Nature or Nurture, we live in a fallen world and many things can contribute to mental ill-health.

While my heart goes out to anyone struggling with mental health issues, I wonder why there is a significant increase of this challenge in the US, especially among female and also wealthier adolescents: mood swings, psychological distress, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, suicide-related outcomes, psychosis symptoms. Some say this is happening due to loneliness or frightening current events or social media isolation or drugs. In the U.S., this phenomenon is being called a mental health crisis.

I am also concerned when I hear Christian leaders, churches, or Christian ministries talk about mental health as the primary goal of their ministries. This is a relatively new thing, religious organizations suppressing, let’s call it spiritual vocabulary, in favor of psychological vocabulary, medicalizing spiritual issues. Theology is replaced by therapy.

This watering down trend that trades theology for therapy is part of a larger DIY religioun movement in the US – described with a ten-dollar phrase, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

The term, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism was first introduced in the 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by the sociologist Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton. The authors coined the term to “describe the (religious) system as being ‘about providing therapeutic benefits to its adherent’ as opposed to being about things like ‘repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering…’ and further as ‘belief in a particular kind of God: one who exists, created the world, and defines our general moral order, but not one who is particularly personally involved in one's affairs – especially affairs in which one would prefer not to have God involved.’

The authors state that ‘a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

“A church has become therapeutic if the gospel is reduced, and reducible, to the premises and vocabulary, concepts and recommendations of therapy. A therapeutic church does not speak of sin, judgment, guilt, shame, wrath, hell, repentance, punishment, suffering, crucifixion, deliverance, salvation, Satan, demons, exorcism, and so forth.

It takes most or all of these to be in need of translation or elimination: the latter, because they are outmoded or harmful to mental health; the former, because they are applicable to contemporary life but only in psychological, not spiritual, terms. A therapeutic church speaks instead, therefore, of wellness, health, toxicity, self-care, harm, safety, balance, affirmation, holding space, and being well-adjusted.”

“The question is not whether mental health is real (it is), whether medication is sometimes worth prescribing (it is), or whether therapy can be helpful (it can be). The question is whether mental health is convertible with spiritual health. The question, that is, is whether the work of therapy is synonymous with the work of the gospel; whether the task of the counselor is one and the same as that of the pastor. Answer: It is not.”

The “therapeutic church is atheist because it has lost its raison d’être: it preaches a gospel without God.”

“A therapeutic church has, in way, lost its nerve. It simply does not believe what it says it believes, what it is supposed to be preaching. It does not believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the best possible news on planet earth, meant for every soul under heaven. It does not believe that the problems of people today, as at all times, have their final answer and ultimate fulfillment in the Word made flesh. Or, to the extent that it does believe this, it is scared to say so, because the folks in the pews do not want to hear that. They want to be affirmed in their identities, in their desires, in their blemishes and failures and foibles. They do not want to be judged by God. They do not want to be told they need saving by God.  They do not want to learn that their plight is so dire that the God who created the universe had to die for their sins on a cross. They want to be told: I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay—so long as we accept our imperfections and refuse the siren songs of guilt and shame. They want, in a word, to be heard, to be seen, and to be accepted just as they are.”

But “God is not a therapist, and his principal goal in Christ is not to ensure a high degree of mental health in the context of a larger successful venture in upper-middle class professional/family life. God, rather, is in the business of holiness.”

“Does this mean that America is becoming more secularized? Not necessarily…Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith. This radical transformation of Christian theology and Christian belief replaces the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of the self. In this therapeutic age, human problems are reduced to pathologies in need of a treatment plan. Sin is simply excluded from the picture, and doctrines as central as the wrath and justice of God are discarded as out of step with the times and unhelpful to the project of self-actualization.”

“According to the veteran researcher (George) Barna, ‘Practitioners of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are not anti-religion or anti-Christianity. They just are not willing to surrender themselves to authentic Christianity’s demands—or to believe that a real faith would even make such demands of them.’”

“As Barna noted, ‘It seems that most of these folks want to do the right thing; they simply have been led down the wrong paths toward achieving that end.’”

The “therapeutic gospel concerns itself with people’s ‘felt needs’: for love, significance, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-assertion, pleasure, and excitement. The therapeutic gospel gives people what they want. It makes them feel better—at least temporarily. It centers around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. But…it discards the glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep human flourishing and eternal joy…(Yet it is) the gospel of Jesus Christ brings change through repentance, faith, and transformation into the image of the Son.”

Therapy asks us to change ourselves, something we cannot do.

Theology provides a way through the Word for God to change us.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Pet. 1:3).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 15 August 2023

Does the culture in which we live seem like it promotes ideas and values foreign not only what you remember from your youth but contradictory to religion, especially Christianity?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #103 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

There is a sense today, actually a reality, that Christians, the Christian family, the Christian church and nonprofit ministry organizations, including missions and certainly universities are under attack.

They are now experiencing direct, head-on challenges to their existence or worthiness, to their beliefs, values, and goals. And they are experiencing flanking movements, hijacking the meaning of words or promoting new anti-biblical ideologies, approaches that are just as threatening, if not more so, as the frontal assaults.

Either way, I see this asSatan’s deception, diversion, and division tactics designed to water down the Christian, i.e., biblical message to the point of ineffectiveness or to an unrecognizable version of what God spoke in his Word.

I suppose it could be said with both historic and theological accuracy that this Satanic blitzkrieg is not new. In fact, it dates to the Garden of Eden when Satan in the form of a snake said to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

And Eve said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

Now, God had not said anything about not touching the tree. Eve made this up.

The serpent Satan then said, “You will not certainly die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened.” (Gen. 3:1-7).

So, there it is, in seven verses, the fall of humanity into sin. Satan comes along and deceives, diverts, and divides. He planted wrong ideas.

Eve saw the fruit was good for food – lust of the flesh. She considered the forbidden fruit pleasing – lust of the eyes. She bought Satan’s evil twist, thinking she would not die – Satan’s lie – and that the fruit would give her wisdom like God – pride of life.

So Satan has been attacking God’s purposes and people from before Creation right up to today. But today, Satan is using new tools of deception, diversion, and division.

I’ve noted before that Christians, churches and denominations, and Christian organizations are being tempted, “dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed,” as James 1 puts it, by several ideas and ideologies originating in rebellion against God.

Christians and Christian organizations are being enticed by moral relativism, affluence and materialism, secular humanism, socialism, a new climate change orthodoxy, self-aggrandizement or narcissism, sexual liberation, ideological social justice including woke ideas about race, and a host of political thought rejecting basic human freedoms, ironically in the name of tolerance, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

As I’ve said repeatedly, and will be forced to keep saying, one deceitful enticement now attracting Christian adherents is LGBTQ+ sexual orientation and gender identity ideology.

What began as an argument for personal freedom has morphed into totalitarian demands for not simply tolerance but acceptance and affirmation and promotion.

What was once a matter of adults deciding what they do and with whom in their own bedrooms has morphed into a drive to recruit children, propagandizing in school curricula, and now social, corporate, cultural, and increasingly legal efforts to silence the freedom of speech of anyone who disagrees with what they call the “prevailing acceptable narrative.”

And now, it is coming, an attack on freedom of belief and speech within the church itself, i.e., attacks on freedom of religion.

You mean here, in the USA? Yes. It’s already happening in Canada.

There is much to be sad about in the record of this explosive social phenomenon in the past twenty years. But our topic here is how these Satanic ideas are being accepted as a new orthodoxy, against which no opposition is allowed.

It’s almost like the old blasphemy laws. At one time, a person could be prosecuted or imprisoned for perceived wrong religious speech. Now, it’s perceived wrong statements that question the LGBTQ+ juggernaut that can get a person in professional if not personal trouble.

For saying they believe in man-woman marriage, or they believe biological males identifying as females should not be allowed to participate in female sports, people have lost jobs, had their reputation trashed, been called horrible names by people who supposedly don’t like “hate speech,” or been threatened physically. This has happened not just to John Q. Public and Jane Doe but even celebrities like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling or professional athletes forced to remove tweets or grovel apologies for daring to share their point of view.

Many Christians, churches, denominations, and Christian organizations are literally changing their theology, adopting views supporting LGBTQ+ sexual orientation and gender identity values that are in direct contradistinction to these Christian groups’ presumed or traditional Christian faith beliefs. The result has been what Satan wants, buy his deception, and reap diversion from your historic biblical beliefs, life, and practice, and also reap division among the brethren, splitting families, churches, and organizations.

Christians are being enticed to medicalize or psychologize sin. I don’t mean that people do not suffer from real mental, physical, or emotional challenges, nor that medical or psychological understanding is of no value. I’m just saying that words or phrases like “mental health” are now being used for a wide swath of emotional, social, spiritual difficulties that once were the province of religious faith.

One hears Christians worrying aloud about their “mental health” and to address this perceived problem they are taking several steps, none of which involve the Word of God, the church, Christian fellowship.

Why is it that we think there is greater power to fix our problems out there somewhere when we have in our hands and hopefully our hearts access to the greatest transformative power in history, the Gospel and Christian teaching, promising we will become a New Creation?

Many Christians today are susceptible to this devilish deception. Christian social researcher George Barna calls the new, emerging American religion as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a Do-It-Yourself religious mix that gives Satan what he wants – Christians “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim 3:5).

Arizona Christian University President Len Munsil noted, “As a nation, the biblical worldview is running on fumes…People see themselves as Christians, but…they are actually living out a watered-down, counterfeit worldview that looks more like the culture around them than the biblical Christianity they profess.”

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism can be understood with 5 points, but truly biblical Christians will have a problem with all five:1. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism says “a god” exists, but biblical Christians believe in not just “a god,” but the God of the Bible, who has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 5:23).\1. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism says “a god” exists, but biblical Christians believe in not just “a god,” but the God of the Bible, who has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 5:23).]1. The new Deism believes God wants people to be good, nice, and fair, but biblical Christians know God commands us to obey Him. God is the One who definesgoodand nice. He calls sin “sin” and promises to judge it (Rom 1:18–32).

1. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism says “a god” exists, but biblical Christians believe in not just “a god,” but the God of the Bible, who has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit (John 5:23).

2. The new Deism believes God wants people to be good, nice, and fair, but biblical Christians know God commands us to obey Him. God is the One who definesgoodandnice. He calls sin “sin” and promises to judge it (Rom 1:18–32).

3. The central goal of life is not just to be happy and feel good about oneself but to give glory to God (Rom 11:36).

4. Unlike Moralistic Therapeutic Deism that believes God is not necessary except when there are problems, biblical Christians believe our primary goal as believers is to be constantly in tune with God (1 Thess 5:17).

5. Unlike DIY religion that thinks one just needs to be good enough to go to heaven, biblical Christians know that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23). No one is good enough, and that is why we need Jesus, God in the flesh. (1 Pet 2:24).

In a Post-Christian culture, more than ever, Christians need to understand theology, to learn how to apply it in everyday life, and to live out our faith as unto the Lord.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me atwww.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 03 October 2022

In a culture increasingly less Christian than the one in which we grew up, what is our challenge and what is our task?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #48 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

"We live in a world that is de-Christianizing, often self-consciously and intentionally.”

You’ve heard of the Greatest Generation or the Boomers—my generation—and Millennials—so-called “digital natives,” the first to grow up with the internet and computers, and then Generation Z or “Zoomers”—the first cohort to grow up with social media and near unlimited access to screens. 

“Generation Z are young people born between 1997 and 2015, and they are the least religious generation ever. Roughly one third of Gen Zers also claim that they have no religion whatsoever, but Gen Z’s percentage of atheists is 21 percent while the percentage of Millennials who are self-proclaimed atheists is 15 percent…Barna Research calls them ‘the first truly post-Christian generation.’”

And by the way, “alongside this (declining faith among young people) in America today, we have seen dramatic increases in the rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide. Both the decrease in overall faith and the increase in depression have been amplified by the pandemic.”

Our emerging generations hold a different view of truth. The general sense among those in Gen Z is that what is true for someone else might not necessarily be “true for me.” …52 percent of these young people have no trust in organized religion. 

They have a connection to a religion, but it is completely different from what that meant in the past. Almost one third of the same group of affiliated individuals note that they do not believe that being a part of a religion means that you have a faith community. Barna Research also notes that (incredibly,) “more than one-third of Gen Z (37%) believes it is not possible to know for sure if God is real.”

If you think truth is a merely preference, and if you don’t know for sure if God is real, what does this say about your religious views? Certainly, you would not call these view “Christian.”

Some call this emerging culture “Post-Christian.”

“Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian. Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies.”

“A post-Christian society is not merely a society in which agnosticism or atheism is the prevailing fundamental belief. It is a society rooted in the history, culture, and practices of Christianity but in which the religious beliefs of Christianity have been either rejected or, worse, forgotten.”

In 2020, Dr. George Barna’s research found, “Evangelicals are rapidly embracing secularism, with a majority (52%) rejecting absolute moral truth, 75% believing that people are basically good rather than the biblical view of humans having a sin nature, and 61% admitting they no longer read the Bible on a daily basis. One-third to one-half of evangelicals (those that supposedly really tune in to the Word of God) embrace a variety of beliefs and behaviors in direct conflict with longstanding evangelical teaching.

Meanwhile, 60% of mainline Protestants’ beliefs directly conflict with biblical teaching. Their customized belief system revolves around three key values: truth and morality are decided by the individual, not God or the Bible; life has no inherent value or purpose, so individuals should pursue personal happiness or satisfaction; and traditional religious practices are no longer seen as central or essential to their Christian faith.

How can you call this Christian?

‘It’s one thing for Americans to be confused on the finer points or even hotly debated elements of theology,’ Barna explained. ‘But for Americans to misunderstand or to flat out reject the Bible as a foundational source of truth and moral guidance, to reject salvation by grace alone, and to reject core doctrines of the Christian faith points to a major crisis in our society.’”

This crisis starts, by the way, in the family. “Family breakdown is in fact the largest single social disaster plaguing the post-Christian society…When the family breaks down, we get crime, drug-taking, impoverishment, psychological problems, and much else at the personal level; and we get a cycle of deprivation, the growth of an underclass, spiraling social-welfare costs, over-government, and severe budgetary problems at a national level.”

“Only 6% of Americans possess a biblical worldview.  biblical worldview – which refers to consistently interpreting and responding to life situations based on biblical principles and teachings.”

Some have called the emerging, ambiguous religious outlook a mouthful of a term, “Moral Therapeutic Deism.” This jargon probably does not help much, but it may be helpful to recognize what it stands for:  

• God wants people to be good, nice, and fair.
• The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
• God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
• Good people go to heaven when they die.

Christians, those who actually believe the Bible for what it claims that it is, the inerrant, infallible Word of God, cannot embrace these watered down, fake Christianity viewpoints of so-called Moral Therapeutic Deism.

We do not just believe God exists but believe he is actively engaged in our lives.

Yes, we believe we should be nice, but the real challenge is we know we must follow the Lord and not sin. We know that in contemporary terms “fair” means everyone gets what he or she wants and everyone must get the same, which is not realistic, not always right, and ironically, in the end not “fair.” We know that being happy is not the end-goal of life; working to glorify God is our ultimate goal.

And Christians know that we are not righteous and not worthy of heaven no matter what life we lead, and that everyone needs to respond to the Good News of the Gospel, that Jesus died to pay for our sin so that we might be forgiven, liberated from sin, and one day indeed go to heaven.

Today’s post-Christian world, with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity.

The term “post-Christian” has some value as a descriptor of an age, but frankly I don’t like it much, because I don’t believe the world will ever be without Christians or Christian witness and influence. 

Our calling in this, our moment, is to discern truth from error, speak the truth in love, and to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” (1 Pet. 3:15).

We are to be real.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 05 July 2022

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live during what the Scripture calls “the Last Days”? Well, you may know more about this than you think.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #33 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Maybe every generation facing some dark development of history thought it was facing what Scripture calls the Last Days. I don’t know because I didn’t live during those times.

I do know people honestly considered whether the End Times was upon them when the sadly named “War to End All Wars,” WWI, stagnated in the muddy trenches of Western Europe. I know, too, that more than a few people seriously believed Adolph Hitler was the Anti-Christ himself, heralding events leading to the end of the Age.

But what about now, 2022? Are we actually living in the Last Days?

I’ve noted before in this space that my 90-year-old Mother thinks we are living in the Last Days, and I’ve begun to agree with her. She knows, and I know, that the Bible warns us about setting dates, but it also gives us a heads up on the conditions human beings will experience during the Last Days.

Think of 2 Tim. 3:1-5: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

Does that sound like the early 21^st Century? 

Or how about Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul tells us why humanity behaves the way we do in the latter days, and why we need salvation:

• suppress the truth by our wickedness,
• since creation God’s invisible qualities clearly seen, so people are without excuse, 
• thinking became futile and foolish hearts were darkened.
• claimed to be wise, but became fools, 
• sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
• exchanged the truth about God for a lie, 
• women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. 

• filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful,
• disobey their parents,
• have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,no mercy, 
• invent ways of doing evil.

Again in 2 Tim. 3:12-13, 

• everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 
• evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse.

Luke 21:

• nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
• great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
• when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 
• nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
• people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 

So, the Last Days is not a cakewalk. Things go from bad to worse, and it feels like this has accelerated in the past few years. But again, I don’t want to suggest I have an insider knowledge of God’s timetable, nor that we are living in the Tribulation Period, which will be much worse than we’ve so far witnessed.

But still, social conditions are worsening.

Once people embrace the idea there is no God to whom we are accountable and no truth standard to live by, which American culture has done, we’re left with moral and behavioral chaos. That’s what we see today.

• Increasingly rootless, anxious, alienated, sometimes rage-filled youth, resulting in a long list of personal and social pathologies, including mass shootings, 
• not just a growing bias against but direct harassment, possibly persecution, of the Christian Church, 
• sin and moral choices are medicalized, and the resulting emotional ripple effects are labeled mental illness, 
• more pestilence, like pandemics, more wars, like Ukraine, more economic pain, including inflation, unemployment, lack of resources, supply chain problems.

Now what is the Christian response to all this genuine doom and gloom?

1. Do we withdraw and hide? Live in our own churchy cocoon?
2. Do we attack, attempting to slay the dragon, the Prince of the Power of the Air, Luther himself, and all his minions?
3. Or do we sally forth with knowledge of the Sovereign God, the Word, and what he says about the end of history, then live out our life proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in all of life?

I like option #3, know the Word, proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life. 

How do we do this?

1. Well, we understand and share that we don’t have all the answers, but we have the answer, so, we place our hope in Christ, not politics, not political parties, not ideology, not politicians, which means we studiously avoid what a lot of conservative Christians seem to have done in recent years.
2. We speak the truth in love, with gentleness and respect (2 Pet. 3:15). And we recognize that people around us, including family and friends, may not always want to hear the truth, and thus associate those who speak truth with something intolerant, holier than thou, or unloving.
3. We demonstrate an attitude not of despair but of optimistic realism– recognizing the reality of sin in a fallen world but acknowledging that our Sovereign God is there, and he is not silent.
4. We live not in fear but in hope – not a vain wish, like I hope my team wins this Saturday, but real hope in an event—the Parousia—already accomplished on the Cross and the empty tomb two millennia ago.

We live as unto the Lord. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9). 

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. 

If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 18 August 2021

“We do not know why God is doing what he is doing, but we know why we trust God, who knows why…We may be in the dark about what God is doing, but we are not in the dark about God.” 

I thought of this favorite Os Guinness quote this evening watching coverage of Afghanistan and Haiti, then hearing of a young family in our church just in an auto accident in which the teen daughter was seriously injured.

Why? I don’t know, but I am blessed to know and trust God who is at once the omnipotent, omniscient Sovereign God of the Universe and our Heavenly Father. These are not hollow platitudes. This is knowable truth.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021    

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