Truth Rising, a documentary developed through a partnership between Focus on the Family and the Colson Center, premieres today at noon EST, and I highly recommend making time to watch it. It’s free to stream and, as its creators describe, the film is “a call to action at a critical time in our culture.”
However, what I appreciated most about the film is that it provides both a realistic assessment of the state of Western civilization as well as reasons for optimism grounded in the fact that God is still at work using his people to offer redemption and hope to a world in desperate need of both.
The documentary begins with Os Guinness—a brilliant author, theologian, and social critic—examining the ways in which other civilizations have declined and fallen in the past to use as comparisons when evaluating the degree to which our current civilization is following in their footsteps. To that end, he outlines how we are at a “civilizational moment,” which he defines as the time when a culture loses touch with the inspiration that created it.
When that moment occurs, he shows how there are really only three options for what comes next:
- Renew the original inspiration
- Replace the original inspiration
- Decline
As made clear by both he and John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host for the second part of the discussion, the original inspiration for Western Civilization is the sense of Judeo-Christian morality that undergirds our most foundational beliefs.
But while Guinness and Stonestreet are equipped to outline that reality by themselves, I appreciate the way they incorporate the views of others in the conversation. Throughout the documentary, they speak with a host of experts who bring unique perspectives and experiences to the discussion that add both context and nuance. And though the contributions of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Konstantin Kisin, and others in the first half of the film are excellent, the personal stories of those interviewed by Stonestreet in the latter half often stood out the most.
Why Christians should be a “people of hope”
In the film’s second part, Stonestreet interviews a number of individuals who have been “canceled” or threatened for their beliefs. The accounts of Ayaan Hirsi Ali—who shares more of her story in this part—Jack Philips, Seth Dillon, and others demonstrate how God redeemed the trials they faced in ways that often expanded their ministry while providing opportunities that couldn’t have happened otherwise. They don’t minimize how hard those times were, but they do point to what God has done through them.
Remembering the Lord’s ability to take what man intends for evil and turn it into good is vital when so much of what we see around us tends to draw our focus toward the negative. God does not call us to a naïve ignorance of the problems we face, nor does he permit us to give up on being part of the solution (Matthew 5:13–16). Learning to do both is a key element of living out our identity as Christians.
As Stonestreet describes, “Christians must remember who they are—people of the resurrection, and therefore people of hope.” If our solution to the state of our culture is to hunker down and wait for the world to hit rock bottom, then we’re doing Christianity wrong.
Jesus entered a world with no moral compass outside the vague, philosophical ideas of right and wrong that people were free to disregard. And even in his more immediate context, where the Jewish people still professed—and, typically, lived in accordance with—a desire to please the Lord, their approach to doing so was rooted in the kind of legalism and performative religiosity that was slowly suffocating any chance at a personal, intimate relationship with the Father.
In response, Christ met the people where they were, showed them a better path forward, and then was willing to pay the price for not flinching from God’s truth when it contradicted the culture’s. Now he calls us to do the same.
Fortunately, we don’t have to look very far for the chance to make a difference.
“Secularism let them down”
In our conversation with John Stonestreet on today’s special edition of Faith & Clarity, he makes the point that when he first started teaching on worldview and culture, many of the warning signs like shifting gender norms and postmodernism were theoretical. There were indications, but not necessarily evidence, that this is where our society was headed. That’s no longer the case.
Many of those problems are now present, and they’re having a dramatic impact on the way our civilization functions. Moreover, an ever-increasing part of the population is coming to realize that the secular alternatives just aren’t working.
As John goes on to describe, the reasoning among those who left the church used to be that “the church has let them down. And now we have a whole bunch of young people going back to church, talking about how secularism let them down. So, what an opportunity right now for truth to rise.”
This is truly an exciting time to be a follower of Christ. Many of society’s solutions to humanity’s problems are beginning to crumble. This brings us to the question each of us must answer: Will we help them rebuild on the foundation of God’s truth, or will we sit back and watch as they try in vain to reconstruct those walls on a new set of lies?
When those who have wronged us suffer the consequences of their sins, it can be tempting to find pleasure in their pain. Many of the stories in Truth Rising demonstrate what it looks like to choose a better path, one that is more in line with Christ’s example.
When Jesus looked out on a people who were lost and desperate for something more than the lies and half-truths that defined their culture, he was filled with compassion (Matthew 9:36).
Will the same be true for us? Will it be true for you?
Quote of the day
“There’s something as deep as the human experience goes that we’re missing, so it’s not going to be a political solution, it’s not going to be an economic solution to this. We have to go back to what is true.” —John Stonestreet, Truth Rising
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