Bucking the Cultural Trends:  The TxC “Swiss-Army Knife” Advantage

When facing anticipated, but unspecified dangers in the wild, it pays to have a versatile and effective tool that can handle these challenges.  This is one reason many people carry a Swiss Army Knife – it’s portable, versatile, and effective no matter what the hiker encounters.  Being armed with the right worldview can function in the same way as the Christian engages the culture.

The Christian worldview rightly rejects historical determinism, whether Hegelian, Marxist, or Darwinian.  With some variations, this is the notion that impersonal (and irresistible) forces of history drive reality.  Grin or grit your teeth and just bear it.  This notion ignores that a loving, caring, just God personally attends to His creation, sovereignly directing it toward His glory. Yet, this latter Truth can be exchanged for the Lie.[1]  When that happens, we tend to live by trends, rather than truth.  And, today’s trends do not merely lack encouragement; they are alarming.  Is there a cogent Christian response, rooted not in fear, but in faith?  Is there a worldview that works like a Swiss Army Knife?  Let’s get to the gist.

Recently, Christian researcher, George Barna presented some rather disturbing cultural trends.[2]  Among these recent findings:[3]

1. Syncretism Train Will Keep Rolling – Since I began measuring worldview in the 1990s, the incidence of a biblical worldview in America has steadily declined—with just 4% of adults, 2% of parents of preteens, 1% of teenagers, and only 37% of Christian-church pastors holding a biblical worldview. Meanwhile, Syncretism—a worldview blending multiple philosophies for personal satisfaction—dominates, with 92% of Americans adhering to it. This trend is likely to grow as biblical teaching loses cultural influence.
2. Discipleship Drops Off the Radar – Although discipleship claims by churches and parachurch ministries are many, the act of biblical mentoring is uncommon  and my research provides no basis for expecting an upturn in serious discipleship, fueling the continuing decline in the influence of the Christian faith in American life.
3. Mental Health Issues Escalate – Bombarded by news of institutional collapse, corruption, climate turbulence, financial chaos, crime, disunity, and social alienation, Americans already face skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, fear, and addictions. This mental health crisis will escalate in the coming year to unprecedented levels.
4. Altering the Political Conversation – In the wake of the 2024 election, a new slate of social issues is likely to emerge, including a diminished focus on abortion and continued decline in political party affiliation, along with a redefinition of climate change and expansion of gender issues, moving beyond “transgenderism” to new frontiers in the gender rights and sexual autonomy battles.
5. Reimagining the Family – In 2025, the family will be a contested and maligned social construct. After decades of debate over biblical family standards, a confused population will likely settle for inclusive solutions over biblical definitions, which will have significant negative, long-term consequences for our nation.

What are the indicia of these trends, how can we think Christianly about them, and more importantly, how can we combat them?  Let’s consider a few of them.

Worldview Weakness

Barna first begins – appropriately – assessing the worldview weaknesses in society and the church.[4]  Two data points cause concern:  First, only 37% of Christian pastors hold a biblical worldview – let that sink into your mind for a minute. This means that nearly 2/3’s of Christian leaders hold a non-Christian view of reality.  This is deeply problematic.  How our leaders understand reality is crucial.  Why?  Because in God’s economy, the Gospel presupposes and only makes sense in the cosmology that God created.  In other words, the Gospel ceases to be the true gospel if disconnected from the Christian creational cosmology.[5]  A pastor lacking a Christian worldview cannot adequately “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”[6]

Second, Barna documents that among Americans, 92% hold to a syncretic worldview – a pick-what-you-want spiritual “happy meal” from a thoroughly pagan smorgasbord.  In other words, people dominantly live by preference, not precept.  In doing this they become their own authority and thus, their own god.  Or, as Paul describes it:

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for imagesresembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.[7]

How can we effectively engage with 92% of the population?  Here lies the TxC advantage.  TxC engages the culture with Paul’s cosmological claims.  These claims, because they reflect real reality, apply to all people, in all places, and at all times.  This means that we can approach any and every pagan syncretic variant with Paul’s “super truth serum”. 

This is good news for the Good News.  There is no need to grow weary in trying to keep up with every trendy cultural Tom, Dick, and Heretic. Paul’s cosmology teaches us that the root issue for every human is worship – what does he or she worship:  The Creator or the creation?  This analysis applies across the spiritual smorgasbord.  Worshipping the creation spawns a myriad of idolatries leading to unrighteous and unnatural practices, thereby undermining human flourishing.  Plainly, theology and ethics correlate:  False idolatrous worship (a defective worldview) leads to unrighteous practices (defective personal and political ethics):

For this reason [false worship] God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.[8]

Paul’s cosmology is not only true, but because it is comprehensively true, it brings broad explanatory (and redemptive) power for the culture, no matter which syncretic pagan variant or trend currently dominates the culture.  This is another reason TxC will “come to you” – your church – with a TxC Intensive – to equip you – (and your pastor) to apply this apologetic “Swiss Army Knife” to every square inch of God’s created order.

Political Polytheism

Barna’s research also indicates a shaking of political vision, particularly following the 2024 election.  The data indicate that certain issues will fade into the background and others will emerge.  While that can describe any election cycle, what is striking here is that traditional core issues for the supposedly conservative GOP are the ones receding.  Barna cites abortion as a leading indicator.  Opposing the taking of innocent life – abortion – no longer occupies a strong platform position for the GOP.[9] We see this manifesting in several ways.  First, the GOP platform significantly diluted its “life position” by deleting a commitment to a national human life policy banning abortion[10] and the GOP Presidential campaign boasted that reelecting Donald Trump would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.”[11] Here’s Mr. Trump subsequent tweet on X:

EVERYONE KNOWS I WOULD NOT SUPPORT A FEDERAL ABORTION BAN, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND WOULD, IN FACT, VETO IT,[12]

And, Mr. Trump has embraced tax-payer funded IVF treatments and boasted about the GOP being a leader with this questionable technology.[13]  This is hardly a robust pro-life position.[14]

Yet, the new administration has rightly rejected the radical Biden position and deleted its “reproductive rights” website.[15]  Yet, on the other hand, Trump has nominated Robert Kennedy, Jr. (“RFK”) to lead the largest federal department:  Health and Human Services – which addresses healthcare etc.  Now, recall that Trump the candidate had been a constant critic of RFK over the years.  As conservative commentator (and Christian) Erick Erickson explains:

Fred Stanback is a progressive donor to major abortion and environmental causes. He seems to be one of those people who think we need less people.

Stanback was an early champion of RU-486, the controversial abortion drug. He put his money behind a campaign to promote RU-486. Eventually, the liberals in the Clinton Administration pushed the FDA to approve it, despite all the well-documented health and safety issues with the drug.

Fred Stanback has also donated $7.7 million over the past twelve years to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s political organization and a host of population control groups.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy will have final say on regulations relating to the abortion pill. He would control Title X family planning programs and the Office of Population Affairs.

Yet as the Vice-President stated in a diametrically opposing direction:

“If you’re not willing to stand up to the left on abortion, you can’t be trusted on anything else. “[16]

So what exactly is the GOP’s and new Administration’s stance for protecting life?  Confused and incoherent at best.

As Barna’s data implies, it’s rather difficult to keep political score these days.  Who are the good guys and just how good are they?[17] 

Family and Sexual Confusion Abound

Barna also notes that politically, the issues will travel beyond “transgenderism” and that the family will increasingly be “reimagined” as sexual mores become untethered from biblical norms.[18]  Culturally, the natural family is receding, and the constructed “family” is emerging.  The family is no longer deemed natural and pre-political.  Rather, there are purported new “families” limited only by what one can imagine, and what unfettered science and human demand coupled with unfettered eroticism can construct and concoct.  Families are no longer natural; they are plastic and elastic.[19]

One recent example of this increasing sexual anarchy comes from technology in the form of “in-vitro gametes.”  What does that mean?  This is the technology that promises to soon manufacture humans – from one person, by teasing their somatic cells to produce both egg and sperm.[20]  In other words, and as the headline indicates, this is “single parent conception.”  One person would be biologically both mother and faither:

‘Holy grail’ of fertility research could allow for baby to be made by just one person

People could soon be able to have a sprog entirely on their own using lab-grown sperm and eggs.

It means one person could provide both elements using genetically re-programmed stem or skin cells. ^[21]

Fact is becoming stranger than fiction.  How can we respond to such Frankenstein ethics, political incoherence, and worldview weakness? 

Do we flinch in fear or flourish in faith?  Fear not.  Our approach and our response must be God-shaped, walking by faith not sight.[22]  This we know:  our faith teaches that God’s Word is sufficient for “all things that pertain for life and godliness.”[23]  In particular, the TxC approach rooted in Paul’s cosmology set forth in Romans 1:18-32 provides a potent protocol for evaluating, explaining, and engaging every trendy pagan soup du jour.  Whether today’s trendy paganism spawns political incoherence, sexual anarchy, or general worldview weakness, understanding and applying Paul’s hermeneutic fits – and remedies – the situation.  We can and should be equipped, come what may.  So that we can boldly

[I]n [our] hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.[24]

[1] Romans 1:25

[2] https://www.arizonachristian.edu/culturalresearchcenter/

[3] https://georgebarna.com/2025/01/2025-trends-outlook/

[4] Judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17)

[5] P. Andrew Sandlin, Creational Worldview:  An Introduction (2020)

[6] Eph. 4:12

[7] Romans 12:22-25

[8] Romans 1:26-31

[9] The ethic of opposing abortion has long been part and parcel of a Christian life lived well.  Note that the Didache from the 1^st century makes this point explicitly.  https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm, Chapter 5

[10] https://rollcall.com/2024/07/08/rnc-softens-platform-stance-on-abortion/

[11] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/24/trump-abortion-reactions-00176276

[12]https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1841295548109955091?lang=en

[13] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-wants-make-ivf-treatments-paid-government-insurance-compani-rcna168804

[14] Caroline Kurt, The Pro-Life Case Against In Vitro Fertilization, https://hillsdalecollegian.com/2024/04/the-pro-life-case-against-in-vitro-fertilization/ and also, Richard DeClue, Despite Appearances, IVF is NOT Pro-life, https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/despite-appearances-ivf-is-not-pro-life/, and Jennifer Lahl, The Problem with IVF, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_zQoGS9TMM

[15] https://www.newsweek.com/reproductive-rights-website-donald-trump-president-2018099

[16] All of this content appeared in Erick Erickson’s Show Notes, January 28, 2025

[17] One must be grateful for the new Administration’s pardon of peaceful pro-life protesters as well as its banning the provision of abortions for military personnel.  Yet, much ambiguity remains on this fundamental issue.

[18] Prior Dicta editions have documented that sexual character doesn’t seem to count much in recent nominations:  rampant serial marriages, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, etc.  See, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Parsing Political Parties in a Age of Paganism: Nine Theses,https://truthxchange.com/parsing-political-parties-in-an-age-of-paganism/

[19] Ashwani Kuma and Vikas Bhandari, Rise of Elastic Sexuality – Intimacy in Contemporary Society,https://puresociology.com/rise-of-elastic-sexuality-intimacy/

[20] Here’s the politically correct technological report – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK599673/

[21] https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/holy-grail-fertility-research-could-34563712

[22] 2 Cor. 5:7

[23] 2 Peter 1:3

[24] 1 Peter 3:15, 16