Avoid the Balloon Wars

We’ve demonstrated the truth of George Orwell’s quotation, saying that those who control the past control our future. We have also shown how the replacement of the true history of the world laid out in Genesis 1–11 with the story of evolution has shattered the very foundation of Western culture and thrown it into chaos, confusion, and conflicting beliefs.

That false history, which is even being promoted by a huge number of professing Christians now, has been taught as fact and science throughout the West’s education and media systems for generations. This promotion has caused the “millions of years” time frame to become the dominant worldview of most.

We’ve also shown how this shift didn’t happen by accident. The humanistic, naturalistic, and atheistic thinkers who established the story of evolution likely never dreamed how transforming it would eventually become in culture. They purposefully moved to promote it in direct contradiction to the biblical narrative.

We have arrived at a moment in time where the Bible’s authority is simply not held in high regard whatsoever in the West, even by many professing Christians. The mantra repeated over again is that science has disproven the Bible, so none of what it says can be thoroughly trusted as plainly written.

This is because Christianity is wholly dependent on the New Testament’s authenticity, which itself is inextricably linked to the historical teachings contained within the Old Testament. The following quotation by the nineteenth-century atheist Thomas Huxley explains this concept:

My utmost ingenuity does not enable me to discover a flaw in the argument thus briefly summarized. I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them.1

Back to the Bible?

Interestingly, I have noticed a new generation of more conservative-minded thinkers who are rallying for our culture to return to the Bible to discover meaning and value in life.

They seek to inform people to get back to what established the West in the first place by recognizing that the culture is off the rails and being historically informed and intellectually honest enough to recognize that the Bible was what Western society was initially founded on.

One such person leading this charge is my fellow Canadian and brilliant psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, who has just released a new book titled Those Who Wrestle with God. Having seen Dr. Peterson speak in person, I can attest to his dynamic intellect and insightful analysis of culture, politics, and ethics.

Peterson is constantly mentioning the Bible and pointing to its teachings as the antidote to the malignant cultural malaise we are experiencing, much of which I can agree with wholeheartedly. However, after listening to several of his lectures, I can also identify his greatest stumbling block to a true understanding of God’s Word (and maybe his coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ)—his wholehearted commitment to the story of evolution.

Laced throughout his teachings is the constant referral to our supposed evolutionary past, which he then extrapolates into his understanding of Scripture. He doesn’t take the Bible as plainly written but, rather, almost always changes the true meaning of the text into symbolic metaphors with some kind of psychoanalytic meaning.

Faith becomes courage; hell becomes terrible things some have experienced here on earth. This makes sense considering his belief in the story of evolution. Peterson is intelligent enough to realize that if evolution were true, then the Bible cannot be true in a real, historical sense, so he is constantly referring to it as the “greatest story” mankind has produced and that we should return to it as a reference point for culture.

Myth and Metaphor vs. History and Meaning

Yet he seems to have forgotten what skeptics like Huxley pointed out long ago. If the history isn’t real, neither is the theology. If the theology isn’t real, then all you are left with are interpretations of mythical stories. If all you have are a collection of mythical stories, why should we assume Dr. Peterson’s (or anyone else for that matter) interpretation of these stories should be trusted over any other?

Ironically, the day after I went to hear Dr. Peterson speak in Toronto several months ago, I opened my cell phone to find a satirical story from the (in my opinion, rather hilarious) Babylon Bee website.

The title of the article described what I had heard the night before to a tee: “Jordan Peterson Considers Every Possible Meaning of Bible Story Except That It Might Mean Exactly What It Says.”2 A humorous excerpt, supposedly quoting Dr. Peterson, from the article read,

The death of Jesus Christ is a brilliant symbol. . . . Does the narrative of Jesus’s death on the cross actually mean that the Son of God gave His own life for our sins? Like, no way, man! What it shows is an archetypical manifestation of mankind’s evolutionary need for stable hierarchical structures.

Now I know the Bee’s articles are satirical and that Dr. Peterson’s analysis of Scripture is much more meaningful than this quippy, pretend statement, but it really did encapsulate what I’d experienced him say less than 24 hours earlier.

Even more recently, I saw Dr. Peterson being interviewed by the US Fox News personality Jesse Watters where I experienced the same thing.

The title of the video3 framed the discussion between Jordan and Jesse very well. The title was “There Is a Crisis of Meaning.” This was further emphasized by the text on-screen beneath them, which read, “America undergoes a cultural shift.” Of course, this is exactly what we referred to in Part 2 of this series where I referenced Dr. Albert Mohler saying,

A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us. The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.4

Once again, while referencing the Bible as the source to regain meaning to life, Dr. Peterson relegates it to simply a “great story,” not real history. All the while, he is embracing a false history, the story of evolution, that is in complete contradiction to the true history of the Bible.

Two Castles

Many years ago, I was introduced to an analogy in a presentation by Ken Ham that I feel encapsulates the battle in the West even more perfectly today than when I first saw it. It was a cartoon illustration of two castles in combat with one another sitting side by side.

Castle diagram circa 2010

Although these diagrams have changed slightly over the years, in the big picture sense, the first castle represented the Castle of Humanism, which sat on a foundation based on the story of evolution. The second castle represented the Castle of Christianity, which sat upon a foundation based on biblical creation (as outlined in Genesis 1–11).

The humanistic castle (based on autonomous human reasoning) had balloons floating above it, representing the type of fruit that sort of thinking would produce, with labels like abortion, gay “marriage,” euthanasia, moral relativism, pornography, etc. Each castle had cannons aimed at one another to symbolize the cultural battles that were taking place in Western society.

The Christians were training their weapons on a wide variety of targets. Some were aiming at specific balloons, representing how certain Christians are focused on certain social issues. Others were aiming at one another, demonstrating how sometimes Christians can fight one another more than the world. Still others were firing off into the distance or simply dozing off. Meanwhile, the secularists all had their cannons trained on the bedrock of the castle of Christianity—causing massive damage to the structure above it as its very foundation was being eroded away with each shot.

The most disheartening representation of all was seeing some of the cannons from the Christian castle were also aimed at their own foundation. The cannoneers represented many pastors, theologians, Christian authors, Bible college professors, and even apologists (such as Dr. William Lane Craig) who are actively contributing to the destruction of Genesis 1–11—all because of their belief in the story of evolution.

“Cultural” Christianity?

Ultimately, the message that Ken was emphasizing was that Christianity and the message of the cross cannot stand on a weak (or nonexistent) foundation. Like Dr. Peterson, most of the so-called conservatives of the day are attempting to reestablish Christian morals and ethics in our society by convincing people the entire edifice can be founded on the exact same foundation that the humanistic castle is firmly set upon—the story of evolution.

Even an atheist like Professor Richard Dawkins, who has spent a considerable portion of his life dedicated to the destruction of the Christian faith by promoting the story of evolution through books and lectures, is calling himself a “cultural Christian” because he wants the benefits of our former, stable, law-abiding Western society.

Essentially, everyone seems to want their cake and ability to eat it too. The humanistic culture (based on autonomous human reasoning that recognizes no authority but their own personal thoughts and feelings of right, wrong, and reality) has become so radical that thinkers of all stripes in Western society have realized we’d better get back to what worked in the past—the Bible’s teachings. But that simply will not work if it is propped up on the false foundation of evolutionary teaching.

Avoid Fixating on the Balloon Wars

Christians and culture warriors alike can revel in minor victories among many of the balloon wars out there. However, without dealing with the key issue of biblical authority, it simply will not last.

For example, pro-life supporters in the US may rejoice over the Roe vs. Wade decision all they want, but the murder of children (abortion) is still legal in the United States and all over the world. So just like people in the past never imagined abortion would ever be lawful, there’s no real reason to believe the reversal won’t be overturned in a future ruling.

We need to remember George Orwell’s warning: “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”5

The fact is the current education and media systems in the West still control what is taught about our past—teaching the story of evolution as fact and science in contradiction to biblical creation. Until that changes, there will never be a return to Western culture—in any real sense—in the future.

Avoid the Trap of Compromise

Honestly, this so-called wave of conservatism could prove quite disastrous if the Bible continues to be promoted as just a great piece of literature that we are to “get our cues from” morally and ethically but not to be accepted as historically accurate, especially if the majority of churches embrace that sentiment.

This could be seen by the world as almost an official admission or endorsement by the church against biblical authority, an admission that God’s enemies will use to their advantage the next time they mount an attack on God’s people.

Just as we’ve seen throughout this series, there have always been people working in the shadows, attacking the church by attempting to diminish the authority of God’s Word. Historically, there is a constant pendulum shift back and forth between so-called liberal and conservative (which most Christians conform to) beliefs in society.

Considering how much ground atheistic and humanistic thought has already taken in the culture, when the tide of liberalism returns, the dam holding back Marxism could burst wide open in the West if there is no bulwark against it.

Summary

Well, we’ve reached the end, and I hope this has been enlightening for those who’ve stuck with us through the series. As I said in Part 1, I think we can all safely say that the changes and challenges we’re experiencing go far beyond some little blip that’s going to be a quick fix once we get some different politicians in office.

No, the profound change in the core structure of Western society was accomplished at a foundational level. Our educational institutions replaced the true history of the world with a teaching that is essential to the humanistic faith. This replacement fundamentally transformed the structure of Western culture.

The universal acid of evolution will continue to mar the landscape of Western society, to the detriment of our culture and the world, until the real history of the world is once again taught, believed, and restored to prominence as the foundation of biblical truth in our homes, churches, Bible colleges, and eventually, culture.