Cosmology is that branch of philosophy which deals with the origin and structure of the universe. At the heart of biblical cosmology is the Creator-creature distinction. Biblical cosmology includes man as the image of God (with the sub-themes of male and female; the dominion mandate; and biblical anthropology).
Central to biblical cosmology is that God is Creator and ‘Definer’ of what He has made. God as Creator gives designations, definitions, categories and relations of what He has made.[i] God’s defining role over His creation has established the creation structures of male and female and marriage and family. These creation structures are foundational and ontologically real (which is why social contract theory and sexual perversion constitute a radical overturning of biblical cosmology).[ii]
The absolute truth of cosmology is essential in interpreting the universe.[iii] God’s relation to the creation is the ordering principle of the universe and of reality. Because God is the sustainer and definer of all that He has made; there is no such thing as a reality greater than God—or a reality in which God is but a component. Thus, biblical cosmology is the sole vantage point ‘high enough’ to provide the foundation for a unified cohesive worldview. Cosmology alone provides a wide angle lens broad enough to see man’s place in the universe. Biblical cosmology is a totally unified ordering principle—without it, worldview has no foundation.
Consequently biblical cosmology is the foundation of the gospel—for the gospel only makes sense in a world in which our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God is Creator, Owner, Upholder, Lawmaker, Redeemer, and Judge. The gospel has no point of contact in a world in which pagan cosmology has replaced biblical cosmology. This is why there is an increasingly desperate need to define categories as God does—that He is Ruler, Sustainer, Owner of His creation—and that the designations He has made concerning His creation are absolutely essential for accurately interpreting reality. God has authoritatively set forth His ‘blueprint’ for His creation. His blueprint, found in His Word, is not only our moral map; but also our ‘metaphysic’—our fixed point of reference which provides our understanding of the nature of reality. Only by what God has said in His infallible Word do we know what is true, real, right and wrong.[iv]
The Western world is undergoing a process of ‘paganization’—the influence of the new paganism is impacting Christianity. Militant paganism has declared war on the family. As more and more Americans accept the assumptions of society, the shift away from our Judeo-Christian roots will be reflected in government, business, law, education, religion, marriage, and family.
Paganism is growing and thriving in the ‘seedbed’ left by secular humanism. Like an immense wrecking ball, secular humanism has been moving through society for the better part of a century. It has left destruction in its wake. The ‘wrecking ball’ of naturalism has systematically broken down the boundaries set by God. Philosophic naturalism (evolutionary theory) has so thoroughly permeated our culture—it has practically become our national worldview. Students imbued with Darwinism find themselves metaphysically lost in a materialistic/chance universe without a fixed point of reference. Paganism is rushing into the spiritual void left by secularism. And, though paganism offers itself as a new comprehensive ordering principle; it still needs evolution in order to function.
As more people assimilate neo-pagan assumptions about reality; they justify their syncretism with an appeal to modern science. Having ‘shaken off faith,’ they claim that they have a view of reality grounded in science. Yet their supposed grounding in science is nothing but anti-rationalism—it is scientism; not science.[v] “When scientific method dominates so totally as to overstep legitimate boundaries [i.e. the empirical investigation of physical phenomenon] by making universal claims; it becomes a worldview—it becomes ‘scientism’ rather than science.”[vi]
Scientism’s assumptions about the material nature of reality are the result of a leap of groundless faith. A universe formed by chaos (in which the impersonal is considered prime reality) cannot produce the pre-conditions of knowledge—those conditions being: logic, morality, personhood, correspondence between one’s mind and the world, uniformity in nature, and science.
Scripture proclaims God to be the only authoritative vantage point for all reality. God structures all reality—He is the ultimate reference point for all reality. God and His plan for His creation constitute ultimate reality. Our rationality is grounded in His rationality.[vii] Denial of the Creator-creature distinction constitutes a plunge into absurdity—for it is impossible for the creature to set up his own rationality in defiance of his Creator who is the source of all rationality.[viii]
The secularists have used the above philosophy of materialism to target the divine ‘blueprint’ given by God by which His creatures are to interpret the world, and order their lives and society. Naturalism has been ‘shredding’ the divine blueprint.
This new level of human rebellion is reminiscent of the Lord’s words through Jeremiah addressed to apostate Judah, “Do you not fear Me? Declares the Lord. Do you not tremble in My presence? For I have placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, so it cannot cross over it. Though the waves toss, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet they cannot cross over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and departed” (Jer 5:22-23).
“Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand by and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you will find rest for your soul. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (Jer 6:16).
Secular humanism’s assault has torn down God’s creation structure and it has left society craving a replacement. Paganism offers itself as that new ordering principle. Naturalism’s denial of God’s creation structures has left an immense vacuum. Paganism is proposing to put the world back together again (after postmodernity has deconstructed the world and emptied it of meaning).[ix]
In that sense, paganism is the ‘stepchild’ of secular humanism—it has germinated in the seedbed of secular humanism. Secularists want a ‘spiritual’ answer—but not from Christianity. Paganism offers that spiritual answer. In presenting its totalizing cosmology, paganism has gone to war against theism and the image of God as standing in the way of its goal of global oneness.
Paganism as a worldview presents a new view of the order of creation—a new way to view reality. This ‘lens’ of paganism proposes a sweeping monistic vision—stressing the oneness of all things; the divinity of man and nature; and the goal of global harmony. This is a patent denial of biblical cosmology. It is a rejection of the Creator’s order. The antithesis affirmed in Scripture demonstrates that paganism is not partly right—but is the very antithesis, or opposite of the truth.[x]
Biblical cosmology is expressed in the distinctions which God has made in creation. We could say that God creates by ‘separating things’—heaven and earth; dry land and sea; animal and plant; day and night; good and evil; man and woman.
“Two-ness” is the very essence of biblical cosmology. The creation structures formed by God are: male distinct from female; human distinct from animal; animal distinct from plant; etc. These ‘binaries of two-ness’ constitute boundaries or divisions established by the Creator. “These principles should not be seen and understood merely as primitive cosmology, but as stating a metaphysical principle and teaching a point that the universe has a moral base.”[xi]
In other words, there is a moral order built into the creation. “Human beings are only correctly understood in relationship to their Creator [and His moral government].”[xii] As humans, our identity and purpose are inseparable from our designation as the very image of God. Our rationality, worship, and morality are the direct expression of having been created in the image of God. Thus to be human is to be ‘mission-focused’—we are to raise up God-fearing communities; we are to devote ourselves to marriage and family; we are to exercise the dominion mandate over the works of God’s hands. Our identity and calling as humans made in the image of God are inseparable.[xiii]
“The goal of paganism is the conjunction of opposites” (Peter Jones). Paganism is built upon the fundamental oneness of all things (monism). Under the pagan worldview, all is divine, all shares the same substance. In modern pagan thinking, to give good and evil objective status is to NOT understand reality. According to pagan spirituality, one is not enlightened if he or she still makes distinctions between good and evil—for good and evil are not regarded as absolute opposites.[xiv]
Under paganism the ‘two-ness’ of biblical worldview is overturned. It is viewed as false to make distinctions if all is the same. Paganism seeks to achieve spirituality by removing the distinctions which God has made. Pagan spirituality seeks to erase the distinctions between God and man; between man and animal; and between man and woman. Perversion is the inevitable result—the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter one that the overturning of created order will result in unnatural ways of living (Rom 1:24-27).
The worship and serving of nature is man’s ‘default response’ and consequence of setting aside the knowledge of God and His created order. To remove the distinctions between God and us is ultimately the same as no distinctions.[xv]
The breaking down of the gender binary (male-female) is central to the whole new vision for society—a vision which intends to usher in a new moral order with new laws and ethics. The deconstruction of male and female lays the groundwork for a new morality in which laws are made to ‘prevent discrimination against alternative lifestyles.’ The pagan worldview rejects the created order substituting pagan cosmology in its place. The outcome is a new set of ethics which enforces homosexual politics.[xvi]
In pagan spirituality, the male-female distinction is erased making homosexuality appear ‘natural’ within that worldview. As pagan spirituality is applied everywhere, Christianity will increasingly be regarded as the adversary of progress. Because of the male-female binary aspects central to biblical cosmology; Christianity is regarded as the single greatest threat to public acceptance of homosexuality.[xvii]
Relativism has been eroding the antithesis view of truth—replacing it with the synthesis view. As the Western world has lost the Creator-creature distinction so also it has increasingly been discarding antithesis (that truth and error are mutually exclusive). It has bought into the synthesis concept of truth whenever it serves its purpose. The synthesis approach merges opposing religious systems so that they are accommodated to each other. One religious belief no longer ‘limits’ the other.[xviii]
With synthesis ‘in’ and antithesis ‘out,’ crass pragmatism has become the over-arching value by which life choices are made. People conduct their lives in a manner which could be designated, “ontologically egalitarian.”[xix] In other words, by erasing the Creator-creature distinction; they place their own ideas above the Creator’s infallible revelation. Having rejected biblical cosmology they are now ‘free’ to engage in self-worship. Their own minds now occupy the precise place which Scripture reserves for God’s aseity (or, God’s own mind—as He is self-existent and self-contained. The Word affirms that our knowledge depends on His knowledge).[xx]
The church has been napping amidst this drift away from antithesis. In the recent past believers haven’t had to make a full cosmological response to the unbeliever’s objections; but now it is absolutely essential—for the cosmological base for the gospel is gone. Nothing can be taken for granted anymore. The Creator-creature distinction cannot be assumed in our dialog with the un-churched.[xxi]
We now live in a world in which religious truth and error are no longer mutually exclusive—they are just different ideas or ‘tastes’ with no one ‘view’ constituting absolute truth. Pastor Tim Keller comments on this phenomenon: “The Western world now is a mission field never faced before—it is ‘ex-Christian.’ It has been inoculated; but retains only a distorted memory of Christianity; a memory of Christianity as the age of prejudice. With the memory of prejudice comes the commonly held notion that Christianity cannot be credible because there cannot be one true religion to the exclusion of all others.”[xxii]
Concerning the loss of categories, consider the following assessment of the spiritual state of our culture from a college pastor who heads up a large ministry on the campus of a secular university in Southern California:
Students steeped in postmodernism have given up trying to answer ‘ultimate questions’. We are finding more and more in our evangelistic efforts that we are talking past unsaved students. In other words, when we try to share the Gospel on campus, we are discovering that the foundations for understanding reality are absent. Postmodernism has given students a view of reality so steeped in relativism that God is inconsequential—outside of reality if you will. In addition, philosophic naturalism, like a corrosive acid, has been gradually eroding away confidence in the reliability of the Bible.
The traditional view of truth—that truth and error are mutually exclusive, is disappearing. Pastor Hal Farnsworth notes that today’s younger ‘emergent’ Evangelicals are leaving behind antithesis. They are abandoning the boundaries between truth and error and gravitating toward synthesis. They are embracing a ‘realized pluralism.’ Having imbibed postmodernism into their thinking; they lack discernment; therefore they are easily drawn into a synthesis view of truth. They have discarded the very absolutes they need for growth—namely commitment to a position which demonstrates the elimination of false options and the love of the truth.[xxiii]
Older church members are not faring much better. The majority of believers have never had any serious biblical theology. This makes them highly vulnerable in a world fraught with the new ordering principle of paganism. Professed believers without a theological foundation lack the categories necessary to guard critical thinking. As a consequence they are apt to assimilate the world’s philosophies—often without knowing they have done so.
Without a theological foundation believers are left with disconnected categories. Thus apart from biblical cosmology (which under girds coherent biblical worldview) there will be no holistic vantage point—we will not be able to clearly see God, ourselves, our world, and our place in the world. In a word, we will not be able to recognize, nor hold back, the syncretism which is opening the door to the paganization of the church.[xxiv]
It is more and more common today to find professed believers who do not view unified Christian truth as absolutely essential in interpreting the universe. There is a growing phenomenon known as the ‘syncretistic Christian’—a professed believer who possesses both biblical and pagan categories. This is indeed disturbing because it shows that these professed Christians have no grasp on the totalizing worldview of biblical cosmology. Hence, there is a huge need to recover the doctrine of creation. Believers do not see the relevance of cosmology to coherent worldview; but they desperately need to see it![xxv]
Christians have too easily conceded immense areas of culture because they do not see God over all. Their compartmentalized Christianity will necessarily manifest itself in compartmentalized convictions.[xxvi] Certainly this ‘disconnect’ born of fragmented knowledge weakens the entire Christian life. Without a coherent worldview, truth and life become divided and ethical consequences follow in one’s behavior. Many of the Christian college students I disciple illustrate this problem of ‘disconnect’—they see only a vague link between what they believe and how they should live. A set of disconnected categories also shows up in ineffective evangelism.
Christian college students are often ‘mute’ when it comes to engaging our culture.
“One of the reasons the mouths of our college kids are often closed in their public witness is because they are intimidated by the politically correct, diversity-inclusivistic ideology of the academy. Students are ‘brainwashed’ into a survivalist mode of, ‘Can’t we just get along?’ with its implicit appeal to intolerant oneness.”[xxvii]
Regarding our believing university students, Peter Jones goes on to say,
Christian college students for the most part are unable to mount a convincing critique of the erroneous worldviews on campus, and they are unable to give a theological defense of the Gospel. You cannot take on the enemy of paganism that surrounds us if you ignore the categories that identify it—religious categories by which it must be forced to make its public case. Understanding those categories will help Christians find their minds and voices.[xxviii]
Our Christian students are in trouble because they cannot make the truth they believe ‘speak’ to this culture.[xxix] They lack the training necessary to see the total relevance of God’s truth to all of life. As a consequence, they either keep their convictions private, or blend with the world. Unfortunately, the latter choice is the most common one; but it doesn’t have to be that way. Through training in biblical worldview our young people can be equipped for effective Christian apologetics and evangelism.
Unlike evangelism in the recent past; our struggle now involves a ‘worldview clash.’ The unbeliever’s faulty worldview must ‘collide’ with the timeless truth of God’s Word so that the unbeliever sees where he opposes God. It is only the Word of God that is capable of deconstructing the unbeliever’s faulty worldview. This ‘clash’ between worldviews is necessary because in today’s world, knowledge has been privatized into personal opinions without absolute truth. And, without truth claims there can be no objective sin or evil—one is left with a domesticated God who does not judge, govern, or redeem.[xxx]
Recently I spoke with college students in Los Angeles County regarding the shootings which took place on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic. Not a single student we spoke with was willing to identify the shooter’s actions as ‘evil’ or ‘wicked.’ This refusal to identify objective evil is now endemic to our culture—a culture which has accepted moral relativism as ‘reality.’ In addition, all of the students interviewed by myself and another university pastor at two Michigan universities said that morals are not fixed or absolute; but are constantly evolving. This unwillingness among students to identify objective evil goes hand in hand with the moral relativism and synthesis view of truth that makes room for paganism.
The philosophical ‘climate’ on college campuses literally ‘stacks the deck’ against biblical Christianity. D. A Carson makes the following observation: “The pressure exerted by philosophical pluralism is so great that to press for an exclusive truth claim is to be regarded as a bigot. The postmodern world is relativized so totally that one is no longer allowed to say somebody else is wrong without sounding like a hypocrite.”[xxxi]
Author Christian Smith notes that, “The very idea of religious truth is attenuated, shifted from older realist and universalist notions of convictions of objective Truth to more personalized and relative versions of ‘truth for me’ and ‘truth for you.’” Smith comments, “We often hear youth proclaim, ‘Who am I to judge?’ ‘If that’s what they choose, whatever,’ ‘Each person decides for himself’ and ‘If it works for them, fine.’”[xxxii]
Again Sean McDowell observes, “Rather than holding to the traditional definition of truth as correspondence to reality, youth today seem to have adopted a pragmatic approach to truth. In other words, many youth see truth as what ‘works’ in their lives, rather than a belief that accurately reflects the world. A recent Newsweek article put it this way: ‘Even more than their baby-boomer parents, teenagers often pick and choose what works for them...’”[xxxiii]
David Wells notes that the correspondence view of truth is rapidly disappearing. The correspondence view of truth holds that statements about reality that are true reflect and correspond to what is there. In other words, for a statement to be true—it means that there is no external reality that nullifies the statement. In a true statement, the words correspond to what is there. Postmodernism casts away any hope of the correspondence view of truth. Consider how this stands in stark contrast with God’s revelation which sets up an antithesis with all that is untrue. God’s holiness sets up a contrast with all error and all evil.[xxxiv]
Biblical cosmology plays a central role in our apologetic strategy. God the ‘Definer’ gives us the correct categories to define our world and to engage our world. The categories given by our Creator are necessary in order to deconstruct paganism. Because students are weak ideologically and theologically; it is imperative that we, as Christian leaders, equip them to define categories as God does. We must cast the battle as a collision between monism and theism; between biblical cosmology and pagan cosmology.[xxxv]
Paul begins his epistle to the Romans with an analysis of pagan thinking. This is intensely relevant in our own world which has lost its biblical cosmology. We must understand the world into which we are called to speak the gospel.[xxxvi]
James Herrick highlights the role of cosmology in our Christian apologetic, “We must revive Christian cosmology in all its comprehensiveness.”[xxxvii] That ‘comprehensiveness’ includes the Christo-centric elements of our biblical worldview—namely that Christ is epistemic Lord; that He, as Logos, is the source of rationality in the universe; that He unifies all knowledge; that He is the embodiment of God’s wisdom; that He alone bridges the gap between Creator and creature; and that as ‘Lord of all,” His rule is both personal and cosmic—He governs the individual and the universe. Christo-centric cosmology is critical in light of the fact that Evangelicalism is migrating away from an understanding of Christ’s supremacy as it touches epistemology and biblical worldview.[xxxviii]
The Person of Christ is the answer to every false form of spirituality. The ‘Christ hymn’ section of Colossians (1:13-23) is meant to dismantle the lying cosmology of incipient Gnosticism.[xxxix]
Paganism’s ‘free ride’ into our generation is proof that post-Christian Westerners have released their grip upon the transcendence of God. The resultant ‘spirituality,’ divorced from the transcendent God of Scripture, is rushing into the church like a flood. Pagan spirituality needs a ‘blank’ god. In the pagan concept of immanence, God is everywhere and everything so He becomes no one and nothing. By contrast, real spirituality comes from real immanence—from Immanuel, ‘God with us’—solely in the incarnation and the work of the Spirit.[xl] In his book, Above All Earthly Powers; Christ in a Postmodern Culture, David Wells exposes the spurious notion of privately constructed ‘spiritual’ spaces:
To the Church, therefore, God has given His Word, His Word of truth. When God the Holy Spirit acts in His illuminating role, He enters the sacrosanct spaces in which postmoderns hide themselves and in which they define their own reality. God respects no sacred spaces other than the ones He is filling, for what we have been considering in this discussion of postmodern individualism and relativism, this postmodern construction of a sacred reality that reflects postmodern sensibilities, is nothing less than the contemporary version of a very ancient idolatry. Since God brooks no rivals, He respects no self-constructed sacred spaces. These are spaces in which the sinner declares his or her own sovereignty and, in projecting human want and need into eternity, is, in that very act seeking to control eternity, to have it on his or her terms. Eros spirituality, however, dies in the presence of God’s Word because biblical truth destroys the sinner’s sovereignty which is at the heart of this kind of spirituality.[xli]
Biblical cosmology offers and preaches antithesis in a world of synthesis. Only biblical cosmology is theologically robust enough to expose and oppose the march of neo-paganism. If we are to check the advance of neo-paganism, the ‘cosmology bomb’ has to hit. Our wedge point or fulcrum is cosmology. It supports the lever by which we tip over the idols of pagan ideology which seek to capture our culture.
CWIPP is well positioned to utilize biblical cosmology in its efforts to deconstruct paganism; but we must sharpen our focus. (Many expressions of Christianity tend to lack a holistic worldview. The lack of a holistic worldview is tied to weakness in the following areas: the preeminence of Christ; the vantage point of redemptive history; the sovereignty of God; the Solas of the Reformation; the importance of man as the image of God; the implications of the Creator-creature distinction; the necessity of critical thinking.[xlii]
Peter Jones notes that Christian college students have been doing their evangelistic work ‘under the radar.’ They have been keeping a low profile. They know from experience that it is somewhat easy to be a Christian if one does not raise the issues of worldview. If one maintains a pluralistic posture while wearing pluralistic garb—it’s possible to avoid social ‘persecution.’ But if one becomes ‘too visible’ by raising the absolutes of biblical worldview—then one will likely experience rejection. The reason is clear; biblical worldview is filled with antithesis from top to bottom.[xliii]
Our job as Christian leaders is to provide students with the cosmological and theological categories necessary to enable them to stand against the prevailing errors of our day. We are standing at a crossroads in church history. We must ‘world-proof’ our kids to avoid sending them like lambs into the wolf packs which populate the academy. Only by providing a full-orbed theology which puts antithesis into bold relief will we give them back their voice.[xliv]
Key in our strategy is to not only set up the contrast between pagan and biblical cosmology—but we must also show the consequences of each worldview. The dire consequences of pagan worldview are catalogued by Paul in Romans chapter one. Those who subscribe to pagan worldview are judged by God. They experience three areas of being given over—they are: given over in their minds; given over in their spirits; given over in their bodies.[xlv]
By contrast Christ as Lord of the cosmos and Lord of the Church is truth and life incarnate. “. . . [He] abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10b). He is sovereign over all knowledge—in His ‘epistemic lordship,’ Christ answers, and delivers from, by His own Person, every version of ‘the lie’ (Rom 1:25). Thus, at the center of Christian worldview is Christ the ‘Savior of the World.”[xlvi]
Conclusion:
Our strategy in exposing and answering neo-paganism involves contextualizing our message—by this we mean that our proclamation of God’s truth is joined to a critical reflection upon our culture. We seek to cast the battle as the fight between biblical and pagan cosmology. It is by means of God’s ordering principle (cosmology) that we may equip the saints to answer the paganism of the academy—we do so by proclaiming the biblical answer to monism. Christo-centric biblical theism operates by antithesis. It penetrates the syncretistic world of inconsistent ideas and false spiritualities. The cosmology of biblical worldview is the weapon capable of piercing and dismantling the fortifications of paganism which are raised up against the knowledge of God.
Endnotes:
[i] Dave Doveton, “Paganism in the Church” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[ii] Jay Wegter, “Worldview, Apologetics, and Evangelism, BCW363A” (Newhall: The Master’s College, 2007).
[iv] Jay Wegter, “Worldview.”
[v] Jeffrey Ventrella, “Grotius or Gaia: Identifying and Defeating the Legal Implications of Neo-Paganism” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[vi] Norman Klassen, Jens Zimmerman, The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006) 116.
[viii] Michael Vlach, “Presuppostional Apologetics” (Sun Valley, CA: The Master’s Seminary, 2006).
[ix] Peter Jones, “Forms of Paganism” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xi] Emil Brunner in Dave Doveton, “The Pagan Deconstruction of a Biblical Worldview,” p. 3.
[xiii] Jeffrey Ventrella.
[xiv] Peter Jones, “Forms of Paganism” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xvi] Dave Doveton, “Paganism in the Church.”
[xviii] Steve Lonetti, “Evangelism TH 701” (Sun Valley: The Master’s Seminary, 2000).
[xix] Hal Farnsworth, “On the role of Biblical Cosmology in the Deconstruction of Neo-Paganism” (Memphis: CWIPP Board discussion on strategies, 2007).
[xx] John Frame, “Aseity and Christian Apologetics” (Orlando: Reformed Theological Seminary) 16, 17.
[xxii] Tim Keller, “Evangelizing Postmoderns” (Minneapolis: Desiring God conference, 2006).
[xxiii] Hal Farnsworth.
[xxv] Paul Helseth, “Reasoning ‘Rightly’ about Contingent Reality: On the Implications of a Sacramental View of the Universe” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xxvi] Mike Law (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xxix] John Stone, “On the Cause of Christian College Students being Mute” (Newhall: The Master’s College, 2007).
[xxx] D. A. Carson, “Reaching Postmoderns with the Gospel” (Minneapolis: Desiring God conference, 2006).
[xxxii] Christian Smith, Soul Searching; the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, p. 144, in Sean McDowell, “True for you; but not for me,” p. 1, www.planetwisdom.com).
[xxxiii] John Leland, “Searching for the Holy Spirit” (Newsweek, May 8, 2000, p. 61, in Sean McDowell, p. 1).
[xxxiv] David F. Wells, Above All earthly Powers (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005) 82-86, 88-90.
[xxxvii] James Herrick, “New Myths for a New Pagan Age” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xxxviii] Jay Wegter, “Introduction to the book of Colossians” (www.frontlinemin.org).
[xl] Ted Hamilton, “How does the Gospel Preach in a Culture of Paganism” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xli] David F. Wells, p. 175.
[xliii] Peter Jones, “Framing the Issues: Finding our Voice for the 21st Century” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).
[xlvi] Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Saviour of the World (Cherry Hill: Mack Publishing Co., r.p. 1972).