In the mid-1990s, film maker Rich Christiano did a movie called The Time Changer. The movie centred on a professor named Russell Carlisle who wrote a book promoting the idea that sound morals could be taught without the solid, moral framework and Biblical foundation for those values.
After a publisher agreed to print Dr. Carlisle’s book, the theology faculty gathered together to decide if they would endorse the book. Most of the faculty said, ‘Russell it’s a marvelous work and I’ll be glad to lend my name to its publication.’
All of the faculty agreed except for one. This chap played by actor Gavin McLeod of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat, was late to the meeting. He had just returned from a journey.
The man said that while the book was wonderful, well-written and well-argued, he couldn’t endorse it.
The faculty wanted to know why but he couldn’t say. Russell would have to see for himself.
The film is a semi-sci-fi movie and it turns out that the tardy professor had invented a time machine. McLeod’s character gets Russell Carlisle to travel ahead in time to see the results of attempting to teach sound morals apart from their religious and/or Biblical foundation.
Russell enters the United States in the 1990s and is horrified! God’s name was no longer honoured as holy. Filth permeated the airwaves; children were rebellious. He saw a sex-saturated country that had a casual, if not lethargic attitude about sin.
So what happens when we try to advance morality apart from its Biblical foundation?
We get relativism.
With no objective standard upon which to base moral values, who is able to say whose morals are right or wrong? We say, ‘Stealing is wrong!’ The reply can honestly be, ‘Who says?’
We can answer, ‘Well, everyone,’ or, ‘Society,’ or ‘the country,’ all we want. Yet, without the Biblical foundation and a proper reverence for the things of God, it’s a matter of competing opinions.
This describes the United States right now. If you have any doubt, try arguing moral virtue with just about anyone. We’re awash in relativism because as a culture we’ve thrown away the sound Biblical values upon which our culture was rightly based.
America is in desperate need of a Spirit-fired, Christ-centred, revival. America needs another Great Awakening, but we won’t have one until the Church gets on its knees collectively and repents of its complicity in the moral decay.
This process begins with worship. Spirit-filled, Christ-centred, Three Streams worship cleans us, grounds us in our faith and glorifies the Lord. It’s then that we experience God’s glory!