As an example of the foreign aspects of the cognitive environment, people in the ancient world had no category for what we call natural laws. When they thought of cause and effect, even though they could make all the observations that we make (e.g., when you push something it moves; when you drop something it falls), they were more inclined to see the world's operations in terms of divine cause. Everything worked the way that it did because God set it up that way and God maintained the system. They would have viewed the cosmos not as a machine but as a kingdom, and God communicated to them about the world in those terms. His revelation to them was not focused on giving them a more sophisticated understanding of the mechanics of the natural world.

In addition to teaching us not to seek power, the Lord Jesus taught us not to seek human praise. Those who seek the praise of men, He said, have their reward when they have the praise. we often read this pietistically and miss the point. Jesus meant what he said: if our aim has been praise and power and we have it, either in the world or in the church, we have had it. It is the one who does not seek it now who will have the praise when he stands before the dear Lord's face. Scripture is clear that we must either humble ourselves not or be humbled in the future.

For Marxists, social justice meant an equal distribution of society's material goods. By contrast, Christian social justice sought to create conditions of unity that enabled all people--rich and poor alike--to live in solidarity and mutual charity as pilgrims on the road to unity with Christ.

In our time, secular social justice has been shorn of its Christian dimension. Because they defend a particular code of sexual morality and gender categories, Christians are seen by progressives as enemies of social justice....

Without Christianity and its belief in the fallibility of human nature, secular progressives tend to rearrange their bigotries and call it righteousness. Christianity teaches that all men and women--not just the wealthy, the powerful, the straight, the white, and all other so-called oppressors--are sinners in need of the Redeemer. All men and women are called to confession and repentance. "Social justice" that projects unrighteousness solely onto particular groups is a perversion of Christian teaching. Reducing the individual to her economic status or her racial, sexual, or gender identity is an anthropological error. It is untrue, and therefore unjust.

We need propositional facts. We need to know who He is, and what His character is, because His character is the law of the universe. He has told us what His character is, and this becomes our moral law, our moral standard. It is not arbitrary, for it is fixed in God Himself, in what has always been. It is the very opposite of what is relativistic. It is either this, or morals are not morals. They become simply sociological averages or arbitrary standards imposed by society, the state or an elite. It is one or the other.

In the culture of death, no dissent is allowed.

What this means is that eventually Christian medical professionals around the globe may be forced by law to act against their biblical convictions--or lose their jobs and shut down their healthcare facilities. It is imperative to act now to persuade our colleagues, neighbors, students, and children of a more humane view of life.

Is the secular position neutral? Is it unbiased and objective? Of course not. It rests on a highly contentious,  two-level view of human nature that involves a crassly utilitarian view of the body (lower story) along with a subjective, arbitrary definition of the person (upper story). Nothing neutral about any of that.

And when the government mandates policies based on that worldview, it is imposing a secular ideology on an entire society.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satisfied; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

But notice this: Being a Christian and knowing God has made the external world, I know that there is an objective external reality and that there is that which is imaginary. I am not uncertain that there is an external reality which is distinct from my imagination. The Christian is free; free to fly, because he has a base upon which he need not be confused between his fantasy and the reality which God has made. We are free to say, "This is imagination." ... As a Christian I have the epistemology that enables me not to get confused between what I think and what is objectively real. The modern generation does not have this, and this is the reason why some young people are all torn up in these areas. But Christians should not be torn up here.

And for those who are professors at evangelical Christian colleges, the responsibility is awesome. Yes, you must clearly and carefully present the full range of learning in your discipline. But this is barely the beginning of your responsibility. Will you then go on to explain the points at which there are fundamental conflicts between the ideas in your discipline and biblical truth? Or will you--in the name of academic freedom, or tolerance, or neutrality--let it all slip by without confrontation? This is not the way the world works. The Marxist sociology professor at the secular university is not interested in neutrality, but will make sure that his ideological position gets across in the classroom. Again I would say, in the area of academic scholarship the evangelical world has often failed to take a clear stand. This of course has not been true of everyone, and we can be thankful for those who have taken a stand. But there has been and is a growing accommodation to the spirit of the age as it finds expression in the various disciplines. And because of this, how many will have come to our schools looking for the bread of life, and leave with only a handful of pebbles? This danger is present in the colleges which are thought of as the best Christian colleges. The problem is not future but present.

The central message of biblical Christianity is the possibility of men and women approaching God through the work of Christ. But the message also has secondary results, among them the unusual and wide freedoms which biblical Christianity gave to countries where it supplied the consensus. When these freedoms are separated from the Christian base, however, they become a force of destruction leading to chaos. When this happens, as it has today, then, to quote Eric Hoffer (1902-  ), "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom."