Kerby Anderson
Erwin Lutzer calls for Christians to take a bold stand for Christ in a collapsing culture in his new book No Reason to Hide. He says we should not be complicit with the culture, nor should we be complacent in the culture. Instead, we should be courageous.
He identifies all sorts of threats coming at Christians from the culture. Most of them are from outside the church, though some have made their way inside the church. One chapter was surprising to me. He focused our attention on the issue of self-worship.
Erwin Lutzer uses an illustration he heard from John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center, that illustrated the modern self-movement. Suppose that you are lost and have a compass that points to true north. That means you can figure the direction in which you are walking. But let’s now suppose you have a magnet in your backpack that causes the compass to always point to you. Without a point of reference, you have no idea of which direction you are heading. This is an apt metaphor for self-worship today.
He also quotes Carl Trueman and his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. I did an interview with him when the book came out and have been encouraged to see how many Christians are reading his book. He explains how Sigmund Freud’s drive for sexuality was combined with Karl Marx’s quest for political power.
Sex is now politics. Our modern society now associates sexual freedom with political freedom. Therefore, the great sin in our culture is repression of our sexual desires. That is why Christianity, the church, and the Bible are seen as enemies that must be overthrown. That is why we Christians find ourselves in a society of self-worship promoting sexual freedom.

Kerby Anderson
Once students were back in school, Jeremy Adams decided to write a five-part series that proposed ideas for fixing American education. What I found so surprising was how many of his ideas had less to do with teachers and the classroom. For example, his first idea was to “ban cell phones in class once and for all.”
When he was a guest on a radio program recently, he described what he called “one of the seismic changes to classroom life since the birth of the cell phone era.” Notice what happens when students are given a few minutes of free time at the end of the class period. In the past, the classroom was filled with juvenile chatter, nervous movement, or youthful gossip. Instead, the class is transformed into a silent void with everyone looking at their phone.
More and more teachers have arrived at the conclusion that cell phones in the hands of teens (and pre-teens) is nothing less than a metastasizing generational cancer. He reports that “teachers are fed up. They are tired of students playing video games and watching TikTok videos in the middle of class. They are sick of the incessant cheating. They are sick of students who feign engagement but still have earbuds playing music throughout the entire class period. They are exhausted from having to repeat themselves multiple times because attention spans have been hijacked.”
Fortunately, school districts are setting policies that will make a difference. One school district he mentions requires students to lock up their devices in a magnetically sealed pouch during the school day. One state is considering a bill to ban phones on buses and inside classrooms.
These are all positive steps. In previous commentaries, I’ve talked about the impact these digital devices are having in schools, businesses, and at home. This is one positive step toward fixing American education.