Over the holidays, I have had quite a few conversations with young people home from college.  These are young men and women who have grown up in our local church here in Grove and some friends from a former pastorate in Virginia who came and spent some time with us.

We talked about their dreams for the future and plans of career and family.  One of the young ladies is an athlete on a track scholarship; another young man is almost finished with his bachelor’s degree and he is not yet 21 years old.  There were several others that I have had the opportunity to talk with recently including my own two older children who are both in college.

Frankly, I’m impressed.  I’m impressed because this is the generation that has grown up with television, video games, internet pornography, day care and divorce.  They have been studied, used as guinea pigs for numerous educational and social experiments, tested and analyzed as no generation ever has before them.

They have grown up in an era where almost anything goes and almost anything is accessible to them.  Granted, the young people that I have been conversing with recently are the blessed ones.  For the most part, their homes have been stable, their parents have been normal (according to my definition), and they have been brought up in the ways of the Lord.  I’m still impressed.

I’m impressed because they have managed to navigate this maze of temptations and diversions without losing focus.  They are smart and they are spiritually minded.  That’s a powerful combination.            

We all understand that many of their peers have not fared so well.  Many have been snared by drugs, promiscuity or any one of a myriad of electronic reality escape mechanisms.  All teenagers struggle with identity and an almost uncontrollable need to be accepted. 

My generation searched for that identity in marijuana, long hair, promiscuity and rebellious rock music.  All of that is still around today, but the list has grown to include piercing, tattoos, dark clothing, cutting, an oral sex craze, new designer drugs, gambling,  dangerous internet chat rooms and lots of loneliness.

In spite of all these things, most church youth groups in our community are flourishing.  There is a strong presence of Christian young people in our schools who are successfully standing for Christ and learning to lead others. 

My point is that the future of the church in the 21st century is bright.  But it won’t look like the church my generation grew up in.  These young people are not bound by tradition, or hemmed in by unrealistic restraints.  The church of the future will be dynamic and powerful.  It will be in the work place and in the streets.  It will be in the coffee shops and break rooms. 

It will not have hang-ups about the style of the music or the clothing of the choir.  It will be relevant and in-your-face.  Yes, the future of Christianity is bright, but it is also very different.  Hang on for the ride!

Just five days before Christmas, Federal Judge John Jones issued his sweeping 139 page ruling in the Dover, Pennsylvania School Board case.  Intelligent Design is not science, according to Judge Jones.  It is not scieJust five days before Christmas, Federal Judge John Jones issued his sweeping 139 page ruling in the Dover, nce, he reasons, because it allows for the possibility that some higher intelligent being may have been involved in the origins of life. 

Judge Jones further reasoned that this unanswered question about the origins of life amounts to a religion and therefore the U.S. Constitution prevents it from being mentioned in the public schools of Dover, Pennsylvania.

This judge’s sweeping opinion pretends not only to decide this particular case, but also to once and for all define science and religion for the rest of us.  The sheer arrogance of his attitude toward both subjects is appalling.  The arrogance of one man with three years of law school training in contracts and divorces who now sets himself up as the final word on science, religion and the origins of the universe is beyond ludicrous.  If he weren’t taking himself and his opinions so seriously it would truly be laughable.

The judge has decided that science is only science if it is rabidly and exclusively atheistic.  His opinion claims that allowing even the question of a supernatural cause to be raised immediately means the discussion or investigation is no longer science.  The list of scientists who would have been (and are) insulted and demeaned by such an ill conceived definition is long and illustrious.  It includes Einstein, Newton, Pasteur, Galileo, Pascal and Booker T. Washington. 

Furthermore, the judge’s sweeping opinion claims to define religion for the rest of us ill informed, uneducated peons who do not have the benefit of his magnificent intellect.  Religion, according to Judge Jones, includes anyone who even thinks there is a possibility that there might maybe have been a higher power of some kind at some time.  The list of theologians, statesman and great leaders of this country insulted and demeaned by that definition is equally illustrious and much longer.  It begins with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, flows through our history including Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth and continues to the present with Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham.  Even President Bush (who appointed the judge) is impugned by these ridiculous pontifications.

If that weren’t enough, Judge Jones then proceeded to demean and insult the school board members who were the defendants in the law suit.  He essentially called them hypocrites and concluded by ordering the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania to pay the legal fees of the plaintiffs.  (Remember they were not the ones who brought the law suit.)  This latter move was no doubt intended to intimidate others from taking stands in the future.

It won’t work.  Judge Jones can bask in the glow of his 15 minutes of fame and fade into obscurity as a legend in his own mind – but it won’t work.  Science will not be redefined by a judge.  Parents and local community leaders will not be intimidated by his feeble attempt to muzzle them, and religion certainly will not be redefined by such ill-informed and ridiculously secular boundaries.

Had this judge issued a simple ruling in the case, it would not have raised such a stir in me.  But he has given in to the Platonic temptation that captures so many when they are appointed to a place of power.  Unlike the days of Plato and the Greeks, we are not a society of unfortunate illiterates begging to be ruled by all-knowing philosopher kings.  What Judge Jones thinks is the final battle will only serve to infuriate the warriors to continue fighting with a greater fervency.

What if Jesus had never been born?  We’re in the midst of the Christmas season and the battle is raging over who should acknowledge the birth of Christ and how.  But what if Jesus had never been born?  Stop and think about what the world might be like.

Hospitals, as we know them, were started by Christians.  Virtually all of the world’s major universities were begun by Christians for Christian purposes. 

Capitalism, free enterprise and the enormous wealth created as a result have grown out of biblical principles.  So has representative government and separation of powers. 

The abolition of slavery, both in ancient and modern times, was the work of Christian believers.  The liberation of women has mostly come from the application of New Testament principles into Western society.  (Incidentally, that’s why it’s not taking hold in Eastern and Muslim cultures.)

The elevations of the common man along with the value of work and property have characterized Western culture and America in particular.  It all grew out of biblical principals applied into everyday life.

Elevating the value of human life in general has been one of the most notable aspects of Christianity.  Many, many times, the introduction of Christianity into a pagan culture has resulted in the cessation of cannibalism or child sacrifice.  It was common knowledge among anthropologists and other scientists in the 19th century that it was much safer to follow the missionaries into the jungle than to precede them.

And then there’s science.  The modern scientific era began almost simultaneously with the Protestant Reformation in Europe.  It developed out of a world view that saw the world as ordered because God is ultimately rational and unchanging. 

The early Christian scientists then reasoned that an ordered universe could be studied and understood.  The Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1:28 gave them the commandment to bring the earth under control.  The doctrine of original sin added the element that man is ultimately sinful and flawed, therefore everything they observed needed to be backed up by experimentation.

Some of the names of those early pioneers include Johannes Kepler, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Blaise Pascal, Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pastueur; all Christians who studied God’s creation and presented mankind with marvelous discoveries.

Certainly skeptics could argue that some of these advances might have taken place without Christ and His influence.  Perhaps that’s true, but the fact remains that Jesus Christ has influenced the world as no other person ever has, or ever will. 

So, this Christmas season as you are thanking God for family, faith and salvation through Christ, perhaps you might also add to the list electricity, automobiles, microwave ovens, antibiotics, political freedom and human rights.     

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.

The late Harry Reasoner delivered this commentary on the CBS News broadcast “Sixty Minutes” some years ago.  It touches something deep inside the heart of a Christian believer:

Eleven years ago I did a little Christmas piece and it seemed like a good idea to repeat it. The basis for this tremendous burst of buying things and gift buying and parties and near hysteria is a quiet event that Christians believe actually happened a long time ago.

You can say that in all societies there has always been a midwinter festival and that many of the trappings of our Christmas are almost violently pagan. But you come back to the central fact of the day and the quietness of Christmas morning, the birth of God on earth.           

It leaves you only three ways of accepting Christmas. One is cynically, as a time to make money and endorse the making of it. One is graciously, that’s the appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them. And the third, of course, is reverently.

If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It is a startling idea, of course. The whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear his son as a way of showing his love and concern for man.

It’s my guess that in spite of all the lip service given to it, it’s not an idea that has been popular with theologians. It is somewhat an illogical idea and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It’s so revolutionary, a thought that it probably could only come from God that is beyond logic and beyond theology. It is a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God and almost nobody has any real idea what he is like, and the truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely comforting or appealing idea.

But everyone has seen babies and almost everyone likes them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, He moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man, He moved correctly, for the experience of birth and family-hood is the most intimate and precious experience that any of us will ever have.

So it comes beyond logic. It is either a falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God the baby. God in the power of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart that if it is not true to Christians, then nothing is true.

So if a person is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it. And maybe on some given Christmas some final quiet morning, that touch will take. The touch of God coming into this world as a vulnerable baby.