Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Dr. Adam Rasmussen: Biblical Illiteracy Leads To A Fragmented Nation

Transcript

Dr. Adam Rasmussen: Biblical Illiteracy Leads To A Fragmented Nation · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

0:00
Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
0:10
defending biblical Christianity.
0:13
No topic, off limits.
0:16
And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
0:19
Hey, friends, thank you so much for tuning in.
0:22
God bless you for sharing the podcast.
0:25
It's growing and our audience is letting us know.
0:28
We really appreciate you for doing that.
0:31
Great topic today, World View.
0:34
The foundations of Western civilization are being attacked, as we've been talking about
0:39
for many, many years.
0:41
America is abandoning the values upon which it was founded.
0:44
In the time span of a single generation, the vast majority of American young men and
0:49
women are no longer introduced to a biblical world view.
0:54
And the consequences are evident in our culture, in our media, in our schools every single
1:00
day.
1:01
Now, the Cultural Research Center was formed by Arizona Christian University in partnership
1:07
with Dr. George Barnum, one of the most respected researchers in America, to produce credible,
1:13
non-partisan research and analysis, establishing the transformational impact of a biblical
1:19
world view on our culture.
1:22
And today we have a special guest, Dr. Adam Rasmussen.
1:26
He's the Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, Associate Professor of Humanities and Fellow
1:31
at the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.
1:36
Dr. Rasmussen has 25 years in Christian education.
1:39
He graduated from Northwestern College, has a Master's from Wheaton College, as well as
1:44
a PhD from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
1:48
He specializes in biblical literacy and Christian apologetics.
1:54
Adam Rasmussen, welcome to World View Matters.
1:57
Hi David, thanks so much for having me.
2:00
Well, thanks for your time.
2:01
Hope I got everything right, and it's a pretty impressive bio.
2:05
And so I understand you're in Arizona now, you've transplanted from Chicago and the Midwest.
2:11
And you've been out there, connected with the Cultural Research Center for how many years?
2:17
Well, this is my seventh year here at Arizona Christian University, and I've been working
2:21
with the Cultural Research Center most of the time during that time.
2:25
Okay, well, what we have you on to talk about today is get your commentary and your feedback
2:29
on the most recent research.
2:32
And for most of people, Christians, conservatives, people that have been informed and paying attention
2:37
and following the trends, which Barna and the research center is a great job of doing.
2:43
A brand new one came out talking about United States being deeply fragmented.
2:49
And the survey proves that, in fact, every survey continues to show the divide.
2:54
And the confusion may be spiritually and about world view.
2:57
And it says America's future hinges on spiritual renewal, not politics.
3:05
So before we get into the nuts and bolts of this atom, if we only had three to five minutes
3:12
to explain the problems and solutions of this, how would you kind of dive in and maybe
3:17
sum it up before we get going deeply into this?
3:20
Right, David.
3:21
The foundational beliefs of Americans are so fragmented right now that it is impossible
3:28
where we are to come together with any kind of unifying perspective.
3:34
And we can support that viewpoint scientifically.
3:37
We've done research based on 258 million adult Americans.
3:45
We've looked at their world view.
3:47
And this is an annual survey that we do.
3:51
This is the fifth time we've done it.
3:53
And all of our research is free and available online at the Cultural Research Center dot
3:59
com.
4:00
And when we look at that research, what we see really is that all of these societal ills
4:07
that we are seeing, this torrent of problems actually stems from the fragmentation of our world view.
4:15
So the problems that we are seeing here fundamentally, foundationally, are a problem with a world view.
4:23
And we maintain that biblical world view is the best framework for human flourishing,
4:31
not just for Christians, but for all Americans.
4:34
And so that's the research in a nutshell.
4:37
Okay, before we get into some of the points of view that most adults cannot seem to agree on,
4:42
we'll go through those bullet points.
4:44
It's from the research.
4:46
There's so many articles that go hand in hand with what you're talking about.
4:50
Just one of them that came up just a couple days ago, this is from Dennis Prager.
4:55
And he's talking about ideology.
4:56
He says the left right divide in America is not bridgeable.
5:01
And it says millions of Americans depressed by the ideological divide harbor a wish
5:06
that something or someone could bridge this divide.
5:10
But as you said, it's practically impossible.
5:13
And we'll talk about some of the reasons why.
5:15
Because when we've got, for example, Adam Rasmussen, when we've got some people saying,
5:22
there is no God, no creator.
5:23
So they don't want to talk about marriage family, God's design, and even male female.
5:29
And when you've got a group or a percentage of the population saying a man can be a woman
5:35
or a woman can be a man, and the rest of the population saying, what?
5:41
You've got to divide right there.
5:42
And that's turning into a bigger issue than what I think any of us saw coming.
5:46
And that's part of the biblical worldview.
5:48
Once you abandon the biblical worldview, anything goes.
5:51
Your thoughts on that or any follow up on that.
5:54
Yeah.
5:55
We're made in God's image, right?
5:57
And Genesis 127, it's reiterated again after the flood.
6:01
When God speaks to Noah and Genesis 9, then again in James chapter three in the New Testament.
6:08
So when God is speaking about people being made in his image, that is all human beings,
6:14
regardless if they believe in God or not.
6:16
And so once we say, well, we don't want to believe in the biblical God anymore,
6:23
consistently as defined as the God of Israel in scripture.
6:27
Then what happens to the vision of ourselves?
6:30
We kind of have to make it up for ourselves.
6:33
Instead of seeing God as holy and just and loving and kind and intelligent,
6:39
the greatest person, the triune God of the Bible.
6:43
And instead of seeing him as who he is, there's nothing.
6:47
There's just a void out there.
6:49
So we have to invent our own meaning and purpose.
6:53
And that is an incredibly difficult burden for any person to bear.
6:59
And it's a very difficult burden for a society.
7:02
So when we look at the society saying, okay, we need to put our hope somewhere,
7:08
the very sad reality is we're very fragmented.
7:14
I like to say that we're a drift and alone.
7:17
That people have this subjective reality,
7:20
that they kind of invent on their own,
7:22
taking from lots of different worldviews.
7:24
And we don't have one unifying viewpoint that sees people as having an incredible value
7:31
as individuals, as being lovable and able to love.
7:36
Why?
7:37
Because they're made in the image of God.
7:39
All of that's gone and the alternative just isn't very pretty.
7:45
And we're going to get more into the details of what that looks like.
7:50
And this has been by design, the left.
7:52
I mean, influenced by Satan and his minions.
7:55
It is a demonic movement that would try to divide and conquer,
7:59
divide people into groups.
8:01
That's why Marxism is so prevalent in America,
8:03
putting oppressed in oppressor and groups and victim groups.
8:06
And you're getting people divided on all these.
8:09
But it starts with abandoning scripture,
8:11
abandoning the God of the Bible and the biblical worldview.
8:14
And Adam, one of the things that has surprised me in recent years,
8:18
as we've seen the increase of people's ideologies,
8:22
like religious pluralism,
8:24
one word is syncretism that shows up big time.
8:28
We're going to put up this graph and help explain to us
8:31
how this high number, a percentage of Americans,
8:36
can believe like just like all kinds of different beliefs,
8:40
ideologies, they kind of take a little bit of this,
8:42
a little bit of that, maybe I'll throw some Christianity
8:45
and maybe I'll throw some Buddhism,
8:47
maybe I'll throw some Marxism or whatever.
8:50
Explain the chart that we're looking at right now
8:52
when you've got 92% of people have syncretism as the dominant characteristic.
9:02
Go ahead and share.
9:04
Yeah, David, isn't that alarming?
9:06
Look at that, 92% incidence of syncretism.
9:11
And what this is, this is a fusion of disparate ideologies,
9:16
beliefs and behaviors and principles
9:19
called from a variety of competing worldviews
9:22
into a customized blend.
9:24
So most Americans are syncretists.
9:27
That's by far the largest religious belief.
9:31
I kind of think of it kind of like as Kudzu.
9:34
If you remember, Japanese arrowroot was first introduced
9:38
to our country back in Philadelphia at the Centennial Exposition in 1876
9:44
and it's taken over the South.
9:46
And it's an invasive species.
9:49
So we can think of syncretism kind of as this worldview Kudzu
9:52
or where I go fishing up in Minnesota,
9:55
the zebra muscles or the spiny water fleas that don't belong,
9:59
but it kind of ruins the makeup of the whole area there.
10:05
And so syncretism has cut across all religious groups.
10:11
So it's not like people are going to quote syncretist religious services.
10:17
Right.
10:18
It's that syncretism is in every service.
10:20
And what we mean that our research has shown,
10:25
which was just published back in January,
10:27
is that there's a surprisingly weak correlation between a person's worldview
10:33
and the church that they attend.
10:35
So while there's 66% of Americans would say that they believe that they're Christian,
10:43
okay, they're self-identified Christians,
10:45
only 6% of those that go to, I'm sorry, 4% of Americans right now have a biblical worldview.
10:54
Wow.
10:55
So what's the gap between the cultural Christianity and the biblical Christianity?
11:00
What's the gap?
11:01
The gap is syncretism.
11:04
So they're taking these, as you mentioned, these religious ideas like karma or maybe,
11:10
as you mentioned before, Marxism or its grandchild,
11:16
critical theory or critical race theory.
11:18
And they're taking an amount of all of these ideas,
11:21
instead of coming back to the basics of the Bible.
11:24
And what God says about people being made in His image,
11:27
about us being fallen, about Jesus Christ being the only source of redemption as our Savior and Lord.
11:34
There are no easy answers or solutions to this, Adam, when you've got that many people believing
11:41
in different kinds of philosophies, ideologies, worldview, I mean, to make up to, kind of like a,
11:48
in the old, I'm thinking about an old school example of a woman making a quilt.
11:51
It's kind of like a patchwork theology.
11:53
You take a little patch here, a little patch of that.
11:56
Here, well, that sounds good, but that's not biblical.
11:58
And one of your areas of interest is biblical literacy.
12:04
And this fault, this point's right back at the church, the pastors, the pulpits,
12:09
and what is not being taught from the pulpit.
12:12
We are not equipping the saints in the biblical world.
12:15
We're your quick thoughts before we take a pause.
12:17
Well, a couple of years ago, we did a study on pastors.
12:20
So this study that you and I are talking about is about all American adults.
12:25
But we didn't want on pastors.
12:27
And surprisingly, only 37% of pastors have a biblical worldview.
12:32
And children's pastors and youth pastors are at the lowest,
12:37
with 12% having a biblical worldview.
12:40
So it's hard for people at church to have a biblical worldview
12:44
if the pastors aren't teaching the Bible.
12:47
And so we're not here to point fingers at anybody, but to say, hey, let's take a real
12:54
serious look at our own lives and ask.
12:57
And as it says in scripture, examine ourselves to see if this is matching up to scripture.
13:03
And that's really what we're all about.
13:05
Well, we're with Dr. Adam Rasmussen, Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.
13:10
We'll be right back on World View Matters.
13:13
Today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily.
13:16
The world news biblically understood.
13:19
Stay informed at harbingerstaley.com.
13:23
Well, friends, if you're listening via audio, a lot of people just like to put us in their ears
13:35
and move on and do something in their lives, we appreciate you guys.
13:39
If you're on these platforms, give us a five star review that helps the show rise in the rankings.
13:44
And also, we're open to new sponsors.
13:47
So if you have any interest, if you know a business or Christian ministry that might be interested
13:51
in sponsoring World View Matters, go to the website and email us.
13:55
Our producer, Mike Mensa, will get right back to you, the website worldviewmatters.tv.
14:01
Adam Rasmussen, we've got two shout out to Dr. George Barna now at this point in the podcast.
14:06
And he's got a book out called Raising Spiritual Champions.
14:11
And we encourage you guys to look that up, nurturing your child's heart, mind, and soul.
14:16
And that's by George Barna.
14:17
So Adam, you want to speak to this briefly because, yeah, there we go.
14:23
Now we'll quiz you on it on the content.
14:25
We know that I think some Christian parents have maybe not realized their responsibility
14:35
to bring up their own kids in the biblical worldview and the ways of God teaching them at home.
14:41
And now they're realizing, wow, they're bombarded by Hollywood, social media,
14:48
corporations, you know, like Target and others.
14:51
And then we've got the government run education system, which is not exactly
14:56
biblical. In fact, it is hostile to the biblical worldview.
14:59
So raising spiritual champions, go ahead.
15:02
I know it's not your book, but I know we want to make sure people know about it.
15:07
I'm very familiar with the book, David, and it's a great resource for parents.
15:12
As you mentioned, big government, big business seem to have been
15:16
have taken the place of authority in our culture today.
15:19
And it should be God's word, Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, parents raising their children.
15:25
Here's one startling statistic.
15:28
Pre-teens, tweens, the adolescents,
15:32
less than 1% of them are on track to have a biblical worldview.
15:36
That should just scare us to death.
15:39
I mean, we need to turn the tide in this generation.
15:43
And this book, Raising Spiritual Champions, is very helpful.
15:47
Because sometimes people get overwhelmed like, what should I do?
15:50
Where should I focus?
15:51
And we talk about seven cornerstones of the biblical worldview.
15:56
These are seven teaching points in there.
15:58
They used to be pretty simple, you know, Sunday school,
16:01
things like the God of the Bible is the creator of all,
16:05
that Jesus Christ is His Son.
16:07
Those seven cornerstones can help parents know, okay,
16:11
here's where I can help my children to know the Lord.
16:15
And then there's some excellent modeling in here,
16:17
talking about how to disciple.
16:19
That it's not just, you know, content in the mind,
16:22
but it's lived out in our lives.
16:25
We do an analysis of media.
16:28
You mentioned media.
16:29
Right now, the number one influence in the lives of children
16:33
isn't their parents.
16:35
It's media more than parents, teachers, pastors, siblings,
16:41
and friends combined.
16:43
So what we do is we analyze the top seven children's shows on Kulu,
16:50
you know, Amazon, Disney.
16:53
We analyze those from a worldview perspective.
16:56
And biblical worldview has mentioned a few times.
16:59
It's kind of poked on at.
17:01
But then all of the other worldviews are there.
17:03
So we want to give these resources to parents
17:07
in this very excellent book.
17:09
So before we talk about some of the points of view
17:11
that most adults cannot possibly seem to agree on,
17:16
years ago, I think maybe in the 80s or 90s,
17:19
there was research that was done that, you know,
17:23
kids abandoned their Christian upbringing
17:27
by the time they're in high school.
17:30
And then actually, no, no, no, it started with college.
17:32
Once they get to the university,
17:35
after one year, they leave the faith
17:38
if their Christian's growing up.
17:39
And then it went to high school.
17:41
And now I've seen in recent years,
17:43
kids start doubting their Christian faith in middle school.
17:49
Well, they don't call it programming for nothing.
17:51
Would you care to speak about that briefly
17:53
and if you have any specifics on that, you can share Adam.
17:58
Yeah, there was some research called already gone.
18:01
Maybe that's what you were thinking of.
18:02
Yeah, before they even get there, they have these questions.
18:05
I did my entire PhD on somebody named Francis Schaefer
18:09
and his wife Edith.
18:10
And what they did is they opened their home from 1955
18:15
till 1984 to people that had questions.
18:19
And so, you know, I did my research on Francis Schaefer
18:23
as an educator.
18:24
A lot of people looked at him as a missionary
18:27
or as a political activist.
18:28
But what did he do to instill the biblical worldview?
18:31
And three dozen people like Oz Guinness
18:34
and Nancy Pierci and others said it was his use of questions
18:38
that allowed a place for people to ask serious questions
18:42
about their faith and about the Bible.
18:44
And we know that Francis Schaefer and his wife Edith
18:47
were staunch believers in the Inherency of Scripture,
18:50
but they had this openness about them
18:52
that allowed people during that very turbulent time
18:55
to ask those questions.
18:56
They called it Liberi, a shelter.
18:59
So that's what we want to do at HCU.
19:01
We have students come in.
19:03
We, you know, some people call it like a covenantal school.
19:06
Every professor here is a believer, every student,
19:09
they're a believer.
19:09
But as we do in our research,
19:11
we know people have all kinds of ideas
19:14
that they're not consistent.
19:15
So we want to disciple them and give students a safe place
19:19
to ask their questions to grow.
19:21
And that would be what I would say to parents, to pastors,
19:24
for those that want to lead this generation out,
19:26
is you have to, on one hand, hold to what the Bible says.
19:31
But at the other hand, in the other side,
19:34
is you have to be approachable.
19:35
You have to allow people to ask questions
19:37
and give them space.
19:39
Because frankly, they're too big of a hurry.
19:41
They want to talk their way through life.
19:44
And we need to help them slow down
19:45
and work through some of those problems.
19:47
Yeah.
19:47
And by the way, friends, the website is
19:49
ArizonaChristian.edu.
19:52
And boy, Adam, you had me at Francis Schaefer.
19:56
I mean, I've quoted him in my books.
19:59
I write about him.
20:00
I just loved what he stood for and what he did
20:02
is methodology.
20:03
And I think he was actually ahead of his time.
20:06
And I'm not going to try to paraphrase it,
20:07
but he had a phenomenal quote that I often
20:09
use about the inerrancy.
20:11
Once you abandon the inerrancy of scripture, anything goes.
20:15
And those are my words.
20:16
But the quote is much longer than that and deeper than that.
20:20
But we've seen seminaries abandon the inerrancy of scripture.
20:24
And what happens then?
20:25
They teach about church growth or attracting a crowd
20:28
or whatever, then pastors become CEOs
20:31
and not those in the pulpit that are equipping the saints.
20:34
But I'll get off my soapbox because Adam, we've
20:36
got to get back to the research here.
20:38
And let's talk about one, the points that most adults cannot
20:42
seem to agree on from the recent research.
20:45
Number one, truth.
20:47
That's no surprise, right?
20:49
Go ahead and we can go down the bullet points,
20:50
but share whatever you'd like on any of these highlights here.
20:54
Well, do you have the stat right in front of you,
20:56
the number on truth?
20:59
I don't have that right in front of me.
21:02
But so this idea of absolute moral truth
21:09
or the ability for truth to exist outside of ourselves
21:13
is a major problem.
21:15
And people do a lot of emotional reasoning.
21:19
Like does this feel good to me instead of is it in scripture?
21:23
Did you find the stat?
21:24
No, I have to look a little bit further here.
21:27
But I don't want to pay attention to what you're saying.
21:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:31
So like with all of the stats are up on our website
21:35
and we can do, you can mind them to find where we're at.
21:38
I kind of watch them as we trend.
21:41
And this idea of syncretism that we've been talking about
21:44
in just one year, it has increased 4%.
21:50
So we went from 88% when we last did this to now 92%.
21:58
So that kazu keeps cutting through.
22:01
And it's on the back of subjectivism, right?
22:05
So if we have objective truth, the truth is out there
22:08
like the sun, which never moves, doesn't change, okay?
22:12
Of course, it's moving through space.
22:13
But I mean, it's always where it needs to be
22:16
whether I'm thinking about it or not, it exists.
22:19
That's objective truth.
22:21
If we say only subjective truth, my truth,
22:24
what I feel is true is the only reality.
22:28
And then we put God in that same category,
22:31
we put morals in that same category.
22:33
That's why we have syncretism.
22:34
It's on right on the back of overemphasizing
22:38
the subjective feelings that we have.
22:42
And this is why people are imploding.
22:45
Cory Templin said something like,
22:47
if I look to myself, I am depressed.
22:52
If I look to the world, I am stressed.
22:54
If I look to Jesus, I am at rest.
22:57
We need to have that place, that foundation.
23:00
And that's what objective truth is.
23:02
Jesus said, build your life on the rock of my word.
23:07
It's not going anywhere.
23:09
And we need to get back to those basic ideas as a culture.
23:13
And it will bless all people.
23:15
You know, David, the biblical principles of truth
23:19
and love that Jesus gave his very life for.
23:23
Those are the things we need to come back to.
23:26
And when Christians have given themselves
23:30
in their day to day lives to biblical truth,
23:33
what ends up happening is a reform
23:36
that goes through all culture and blesses all people.
23:39
We've seen it in the early church
23:42
through the times in the middle ages.
23:44
We've seen it in the great awakenings of the 1730s,
23:48
1800s, even the 1970s.
23:51
And why is this?
23:52
It's because the biblical worldview
23:55
gets at the heart of the problem, which is,
23:57
how do we understand who we are as humans
23:59
and how do we function properly?
24:01
And what we're talking about is that the Bible
24:03
gives the best place for us to have that foundation
24:07
for human flourishing.
24:08
And we will see that foundation bless people
24:11
as it has in the past, in education, in medicine,
24:15
in political freedom, in just economic prosperity
24:19
when we are operating correctly as human beings.
24:23
And the converse of it is true.
24:25
When we destroy that foundation,
24:28
when we attack that worldview foundation
24:31
that is necessary to thrive as human beings,
24:33
then we have all of these societal ills
24:35
that we're talking about.
24:36
The main problem is a worldview problem.
24:39
And the Bible, amen by the way to what you just shared.
24:42
The Bible is the source of truth.
24:45
That's why we've got such this fragmentation,
24:47
like that word, we're deeply fragmented in our country.
24:51
And that's why people can believe all these different things,
24:54
not understanding their own contradictions,
24:57
that these worldviews and these isms and these ideologies
25:00
or philosophies that they sometimes take a little bit
25:02
of this, a little bit of that.
25:03
They conflict with each other, but they're okay with that.
25:06
And I guess questions would be helpful,
25:08
but let's just go through the bullet points
25:10
and you can talk about whatever one you want,
25:12
because we're quickly running out of time.
25:14
In fact, we might not even get to that, Adam, I'm sorry.
25:17
But these are things that people can't agree on.
25:19
The importance of the God of Israel
25:22
as an authority, source, belief about the value
25:27
of human life.
25:28
Hello, the abortion movement during, you know,
25:31
we believe it life in the womb.
25:33
Acceptance of the existence of absolute moral truths,
25:36
the existence of Satan, the means to happiness in life,
25:41
morality of consensual, premarital, sexual relations.
25:45
This just shows me, people can't agree on that,
25:48
means a lot of people don't understand the Bible.
25:49
And one more thing, when you said 66% of adults
25:53
claim to be Christian about 12 years ago,
25:56
that number was around 78.
25:59
Now, it doesn't matter, though,
26:00
how many people claim or profess
26:02
when only 4% actually are, that shows
26:06
that they don't understand the biblical world.
26:08
You so Adam Rasmussen, wrap it up for us
26:11
in 60 seconds or less.
26:14
Yeah, well, Jesus Christ is still on his throne.
26:18
And somehow he is going to present his bride blameless.
26:24
And I want to serve him.
26:26
I know you do too.
26:27
We have to take a good look at our own selves
26:30
and then reach our neighbors, reach the person probably
26:33
in the pew next to you at church.
26:36
We need to help all of us live,
26:39
to biblically change lives.
26:41
And that takes a humility.
26:43
It also takes a courageousness, a confidence.
26:47
And that gets me up every morning.
26:49
I am so excited about the gospel
26:51
and I know you are too.
26:52
So David, thank you for having me on your show.
26:54
Well, thank you for your time, Adam.
26:56
God bless you and the Cultural Research Center
26:58
and also Arizona Christian University.
27:01
It's much needed in this country.
27:05
And just we're thankful for the work
27:07
that you guys do shout out to Dr. George Barnas
27:09
so Adam, appreciate your time.
27:11
God bless you, brother.
27:13
God bless. Thank you.
27:14
All right, thank you.
27:15
All right, guys, I know we could have talked
27:16
like three, four hours on that topic
27:18
and we just skimmed over some of the bullet points.
27:21
But it starts with a Bible.
27:22
It starts with truth, biblical worldview.
27:25
So important and I like the point that he made.
27:28
We've got to reach people in our own churches.
27:31
Obviously in our culture, our own society.
27:34
But there are a lot of people confused about
27:36
what the biblical worldview teaches in our churches.
27:40
So let's be discerning and sensitive to that.
27:43
Well, friends, thanks again for sharing the podcast.
27:45
God bless you and as always,
27:46
keep speaking the truth about things that matter.