August 28, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:
The world may have changed, but God hasn't
By Mike Haynes
“Times are
changing. People are changing. We’ve moved on so much from large swaths of the
Bible.”
With those
words, English journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan urged evangelist
Franklin Graham to get with those changing times and reconsider his views on
social and biblical issues. Morgan, who many know from his stint as a judge on
“America’s Got Talent” and various other media appearances, was interviewing
Graham last month on the News UK program, “Piers Morgan Uncensored” while the
son of Billy Graham was in London for his God Loves You UK tour.
Piers Morgan, right, interviewed Franklin Graham in England in July 2022.
My wife and I
both could have predicted Graham’s response:
“God doesn’t
change. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.”
That claim
comes from the Old and New Testaments, where Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord
do not change,” and where Paul extends it in Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, today and forever.”
Today,
though, some say the Bible is not authoritative and that any words from the
past are subject to being altered, reinterpreted or even ignored. We all know
how scores of words and terms that formerly didn’t cause a stir now are
politically incorrect, and many who have certain political views won’t listen
to any arguments or reasoning that come from “old, white men.” Only the new and
fresh is on their radar.
C.S. Lewis
(yes, a white man who eventually got “old”), had something to say about that. Arthur
Lindsley wrote that one of the famed author’s seven key ideas was
“chronological snobbery,” “the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is
thereby discredited.”
Lindsley set
forth these questions: “Why did an idea go out of date, and was it ever
refuted? If so, where, by whom, and how conclusively?” Lewis suggested that a
person should read at least one old book for every three new ones. His point
was that humans should not automatically throw away the wisdom and knowledge
learned through thousands of years in favor of recent, untested ideas.
Dr. Mary
Dodson, a local English professor, showed a 2014 video to a Bible class last
week of university students being asked basic history questions such as “Who
won the Civil War?” and “Who is the vice president?” Most didn’t know. But most
had no trouble answering what show celebrity Snooki was on and who actor Brad
Pitt was married to at the time.
With brains
so unburdened with even basic facts, how would they be able to intelligently
compare “old” ideas to “new” ideas? And how would they be able to judge the
truth or fallacy of the words of the Bible?
Consider a
quote from George Orwell’s 1948 novel, “1984”:
“Power is in tearing human
minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own
choosing.” That reshaping of the culture is easy to do when much of society
knows more about Angelina Jolie than who fought against whom in the Civil War.
And according to Dodson, the gradual destruction of
traditional values and beliefs stems primarily from the stealthy rise of
Marxism, which values groups over individuals, and postmodernism, which denies
the validity of “metanarratives” such as the grand, unfolding story of the
Bible and says there is no objective truth.
With no universal truth, people have “my truth” and “your
truth,” no one should be judged, and everything is relative. So old paper
documents such as the U.S. Constitution and the Hebrew and Christian scriptures
really have no meaning and are subject to revision or rejection.
Piers Morgan’s opinion that a
preacher should move on from “outdated” parts of the Bible isn’t surprising in
our increasingly secular society. Some politicians have argued that the United
States is not a Christian nation, and since the Marxist-postmodern movement
started gaining ground in the 1960s, their assertion becomes more accurate
every day.
For some of us, that’s alarming
– and sad.
