Christians must go beyond criticizing the degradation of American culture, roll up their sleeves, and get to work on positive solutions. The only way to drive out bad culture is with good culture.

The most fundamental decision we all face over the course of our lives is what we will recognize as the ultimate reality, the uncaused source and cause of our existence. Everything else in our worldview depends on that initial decision. The Bible speaks of this foundational choice in terms of who or what we worship. We must all answer the challenge Joshua issued to the Israelites as they were poised to enter the Promised Land: "Choose this day whom you will serve" (Josh. 24:15).

The Rosetta Stone of Christian social thought is the Trinity.

The gospel is like a caged lion,' said the great baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. 'It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of it's cage' Today, the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth- truth about the whole of reality.

The first step in conforming our intellect to God's truth is to die to our vanity, pride, and craving for respect from colleagues and the public. We must let go of the worldly motivations that drive us, praying to be motivated solely by a genuine desire to submit our minds to God's Word - and then to use that knowledge in service to others.

The most consistent versions of materialism deny the reality of anything beyond matter - no soul, no spirit, no will, no mind. This is called reductionism: Humans are reduced to biochemical machines.

In studies asking why young people left their family religion, their most frequent response was unanswered doubts and questions. The researchers were surprised: They expected to hear stories of broken relationships and wounded feelings. But the top reason given by young adults was that they did not get answers to their questions.