“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...” So wrote William Butler Yeats in 1919, as he described the unraveling of European culture amid the onslaught of modernism. Yeats’ vision seems more like a prophecy in our day, as venerable institutions and trusted values come under the corroding influence of secular, relativist, postmodern, and materialist values.

We are becoming what Arthur Schlesinger referred to as a “disunited society” in more ways than one. Ethnic tensions are heating up, but so are conflicts of class, politics, sexual orientation, and economic interests. In many ways it seems the country no longer possesses and integrating core of values, ideals, traditions, and aspirations.

The problem with a good many Christians today is that they don’t know how to be themselves.

We’re so concerned not to offend people, not to upset the apple cart, make waves, appear to be judgmental, or whatever, that we very often suppress our true identity in an effort to conform to the world’s expectations of what Christians ought to be.

What’s gone wrong with the Church?

Over the past generation we’ve tried just about everything we know to fix the Body of Christ. We’ve thrown out the old hymns and liturgies, upgraded our facilities and technology, revamped our programming, enlarged our staffs, lightened up our language and dress, and used every tool and technique of marketing and entertainment that didn’t compromise our convictions – too much.

This weekend a gathering of very reasonable people, led by the most reasonable Dr. Richard Dawkins, will assemble in Washington to extol the virtues of reason and their own reasonable use of it.

That seems reasonable, no?

Do you ever feel as if you’d just like to give up? Pack it in? Quit this sorry race and move on to glory?

We all do, from time to time. Life’s tough, let’s admit it. But just because it confronts us with trials, disappointments, and setbacks doesn’t mean that our lives aren’t worth living, or that we should not continue to press on toward the upward prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14).

It’s not that we’re totally opposed to government; we’ve just had enough of big government and of big government’s tendency to make itself bigger. This is not good for government. Bigness makes government unwieldy and susceptible to inefficiency and corruption.