OPINION:
More than a century ago, President Teddy Roosevelt spoke about the significance of traditional families to our civilization’s success:
“Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs — but first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well — just so far, and no further, we may count our civilization a success.”
By that standard, our civilization today is failing. The percentage of children raised in single-parent homes is more than triple the average in the rest of the world. The juvenile crime rate and the number of young people grappling with substance abuse, depression and anxiety are connected to the acceleration of family breakdown and the pervasive influence of social media.
We know that family breakdown is directly related to the declining influence of biblical Christianity in America.
Dr. George Barna, who joined Arizona Christian University in 2019 as co-founder of our Cultural Research Center, has been chronicling this decline for four decades now.
The precipitous decline of Americans with a biblical worldview — from 12% to 4% over the past quarter-century — is staggering. Nearly half of Millennials today are what Dr. Barna refers to as “Don’ts” — they either don’t believe, don’t know or don’t care if there is a God.
For sure, all of the cultural bad news is hard to absorb. Sadly, some are discouraged enough to consider retreating from engagement with the culture.
President Ronald Reagan famously said that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” And that is true.
But I believe the converse is also true: We are also only one generation away from reclaiming our biblical foundations and living in a completely different culture —one characterized by virtue, liberty, peace, justice and strong families.
But we must shake off the prevailing mindset that decline is inevitable and recognize that history and Scripture include countless examples of communities and nations turning back to God. In some cases, their circumstances were much more dire than ours today.
To build a different future, we have to think beyond today’s headlines and plan longer term than the next election cycle. We need to focus on building institutions — families, churches, Christian schools and universities — that will prepare young people to bring a biblical worldview into the future.
At Arizona Christian University, we are teaching biblical truth to young men and women from all over America and the world — from 40 states and nearly 30 countries. Our enrollment has tripled since 2010, and we are now America’s nineth-fastest growing college. We are equipping and educating Christian leaders to bring biblical wisdom to all areas of cultural influence.
We are also encouraging young people to marry and build families — a Scriptural command often ignored today. In the Bible, children are always viewed as a blessing, not a burden. God’s first command to mankind — “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” — has never been revoked. And yet most churches either ignore this command or make fun of it. With declining fertility rates worldwide, young families who are open to the blessing of children will help shape our world’s future.
Through ACU Press and the Cultural Research Center, we are also providing resources like Dr. Barna’s best-selling book “Raising Spiritual Champions.” These resources seek to equip parents, churches and Christian school leaders with data-driven wisdom to help children grow up, as Dr. Barna writes, in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
We are literally only one generation away from a complete spiritual turnaround — from living in a world where the Gospel is freely proclaimed and all people have the opportunity to flourish. Where families and churches thrive and communities are characterized by hope, opportunity and love. Be encouraged and don’t give up!
• Len Munsil, J.D., is the sixth President of Arizona Christian University, a culturally and theologically conservative non-profit university in Glendale, Arizona. He and his wife, Dr. Tracy Munsil, have eight adult children and 18 grandchildren.
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