Dear friends of Vital Signs Ministries, July 2026
In a few days Claire is hosting a birthday party for me, inviting friends to join us in celebrating my milestone of 75 years. Approaching this event has stimulated a lot of reflection and evaluation, a lot of thanksgiving and renewed resolve, and memories galore of a life adventurously lived and marvelously, graciously blessed by Almighty God.
One of those memories is on my mind this morning, not only because it’s a vivid and meaningful moment involving my Dad, but also because it provides a springboard for the message I want to share in this month’s letter. Let me set the scene…
It was sometime in the late 70s and I was walking with my Dad around his “old home place” in rural northeast Missouri. Dad hadn’t been there since 1933 when a domestic storm shattered his world, prompting him to leave and go out all on his own. He was 16. By the way, his first shelter was a tent and he made his way by shooting and trapping animals. No kidding. In fact, his months there were the inspiration for my short story, “The Winter in the Woods” which can be found on Kindle, if anyone is interested. (Smile.)
But back to this story. Dad’s house — a rather ramshackle 3-room structure even in its best days — was now falling apart. The windows were long gone; the wood was extremely weathered and bug-eaten; and the cement which had been poured between the walls as insulation was falling out in chunks. I could tell that the sight of his home, so radically different than what he remembered, kinda’ saddened my dad. Yet it was later, when I noticed him pacing a spot not far from the house that Dad seemed most affected. I asked what was the matter.
“Son,” he paused and slowly waved his hand in front of him. “It’s the ground. The very ground has changed!”
He shook his head slowly and went on to explain with a wistful solemnity about him. “I thought it must be my memory playing tricks on me, Dennis. But I’ve gone over and over where it is from the house and the road. And it’s no trick. It’s the ground itself. Right here where I’m standing, right here on this flat piece of old hay field, there was a slope. Not a hill exactly, but steep enough we could take our sleds down it in the winter.” He paused again and smiled at me. “Son, I can’t get over it. The very ground has changed.”
Of course, on one hand, this incident simply illustrates that “the times, they are a’changin” as Bob Dylan famously sang. But the changes are reflected not merely in fashion or architecture or musical tastes or even the wear and tear on buildings (not to mention our physical bodies). They also represent such cataclysmic change as transforming Dad’s sledding hill to a flat field in just a few decades. History is, if nothing else, movement and affected in the process can be the very ground we stand upon.
But here’s another lesson from this memory of me and Dad — we can underestimate, even miss altogether, even massive transformations if they occur gradually enough. For instance, my father was perplexed by the metamorphosis in his “old home place” because he hadn’t seen it for more than 40 years. Had he continued to live there, seeing the same scenery day after day, with the changes being so incremental and seemingly minute, he might have missed them entirely or, at least, as we say, “gotten used” to them. We too have “gotten used” to an awful lot of stuff that should still surprise us, still break our hearts, still move us to principled response.
With this landmark birthday on my horizon, this memory of my Dad has moved me to consider these matters quite seriously. For as I’ve stepped back and tried to conscientiously review the panorama of my 75 years, I understand anew just how shocking and agonizing have been the changes in my country’s cultural topography. Talk about the very ground being changed! Let me cite just a few of our tragic and shameful “de-volutions” over these years.
In 1951, the year of my birth, Americans were not murdering their own offspring by the millions. School teachers (even those who had joined the NEA) were diligently and efficiently teaching “the 3 Rs” after leading the class in a Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag. Schools did not prohibit prayer or Christian speech and they were nowhere near the degrees of bullying, sexual grooming, cheating, and leftist indoctrination that mark the government schools of 2026. In the 1950s anti-Semitism was not being systematically fomented on college campuses.
Neither were such university courses offered in that era as “Environmental Justice,” “Class Consciousness in Children’s Literature,” “Queer Theory,” and “Feminist Fine Arts: Tools for Destroying the Stifling Patriarchy.” No, our schools and libraries and museums were, in those days, proud to serve as repositories of the best of Western Civilization.
Back in the day, violent criminals were not coddled and excused; they were found guilty under the law and quickly moved through the courts where prison (or worse) awaited them. Elections were decided in a timely manner by counting paper ballots filled in by…wait for it…American citizens. Boys were competing in athletic contests against boys and, after the game, those boys used the appropriate showers, dressing rooms, and bathrooms. Homosexuality was still “the sin that dared not speak its name” instead of “the sin that won’t shut up,” being trumpeted nowadays with lavish praise by schools and government and media and Madison Avenue and professional sports and even churches. Transvestites were arrested rather than given lucrative TV contracts and opportunities to entertain and warp the minds of schoolchildren. Policemen were honored and obeyed. Families had fathers…and those fathers were working.
The U.S. was ending forced racial segregation. Remember the two Brown vs Board of Education cases (1954 and 1955) when yet again, Republicans had to fight Democrats to win basic rights for African-Americans. Indeed, we were making truly significant progress in race relations. Divorce was rare (except in Hollywood) and cohabitation between unmarried couples was almost unheard of. American cities were not suffering from large contingents of vagrants with the resultant plagues of filth, coercive pandering, lawlessness, and the overwhelming of hospital emergency rooms. Street drugs were (compared to today’s stuff) weak and difficult to come by and everyone — including the users themselves — knew it was bad news for your health and mental well-being. To gamble your life away (and the lives of your family members) at least required a trip to Nevada or the pool hall downtown — you couldn’t donate your gambling losses to organized crime simply from your computer or smart phone.
In the 1950s patriotism was extolled. We had parades back in the day, but they were peaceful, joyful demonstrations occasioned by heroic deeds, sports victories, and holidays rather than the promotion of sexual perversion, far-left causes, and anti-American angst. The parades of the 1950s didn’t feature destruction of property, bricks thrown at policemen, or businesses on fire. In fact, the only bonfires were those at campus homecomings or after hayrides at summer camp. Law enforcement in that era prosecuted abortionists, not anti-abortion advocates. Churchgoers dressed well and respectfully as if they were going someplace special, almost like they were going…to church! And, in the 1950s, young men greased their hair back into ducktails, and rolled up their jean cuffs, but at least they pulled their pants up to their waists. In the America of my childhood, rather than having our attention consumed by “social media,” adults and kids alike were literally social. We talked to each other. We used our front porches and back patios. We knew our neighbors and cared about the neighborhood.
Christians of that time were not being harassed and violently persecuted across the globe, including in countries that had once embraced the honor of being part of Western Christendom. Piercing loudspeakers were not demanding prayers to Allah several times a day in American cities. The profession of journalism gave at least some semblance of fairness among varying viewpoints. Taxpayers were not being soaked in order to line the pockets of abortionists, purveyors of perversion and persecution, criminals, or foreign thugs seeking to destroy America.
The Democrat Party did not then support (categorically and enthusiastically) the wholesale killing of preborn children, even if they survived the attempt of abortionists to kill them. Democrats of Harry Truman’s and “Scoop” Jackson’s day were not a driving force behind abortion, the erosion of family values, euthanasia, the never-ending expansion of a Welfare State, the enablement of massive vote corruption, attempting to end freedoms of conscience and expression of religion, and constantly pushing government give-away programs that benefit foreign fraudsters abroad and non-citizen fraudsters within our borders.
Let’s face it. The noble experiment which was once America — John Winthrop’s “shining city on a hill” — the country of George Washington and Daniel Boone and Abraham Lincoln and Clara Barton and George Washington Carver and Louisa May Alcott and D.L. Moody and Jackie Robinson and Dwight Eisenhower has been radically stained, derided, and dismantled. In other words, in my lifetime, in my nation, the very ground has changed.
Francis Schaefer has been one of the most perceptive prophets in not only seeing the cultural digression of the West, but in making excellent efforts to chronicle it (going way, way before my time), explain it, and provide answers for Christians who wanted to do the right things about it. His 1976 book had the provocative subtitle, The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. That was the analysis part, the looking back. But the book’s primary title looked forward and emphasized his call for the believer’s relevant, redeeming response right now.
That title? How Should We Then Live?
Now I don’t have the space here to describe the contents of Schaeffer’s book or all the lessons I’ve been accumulating from this “long view” I’ve been taking of my life and times. On the next (and last) page, however, are a handful of the foundational principles of Christian activism that I’ve tried to pursue lo, these many, long years.
1) Don’t accommodate yourself to the “new normal.” Rather, understand (and rejoice) that God’s truths are pure, powerful, and practical in whatever cultural setting the Christian lives. Those truths may not be “in style” but they are always “in force.” God is not mocked; nobody is getting away with anything; and we must not envy sinners for their currently carrying the day. Oh no; their success is an illusion of the most terrifying kind — and even that is oh-so-fleeting. We believers in Christ, however, must not love the world or the things in the world (Psalm 33, Isaiah 1, John 17, 1 John 2, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 15, and many more).
2) Don’t lose the proper perspective. Rather live with heaven constantly in view. Hallelujah — in heaven there will be no evil, no rebellion, no remnants whatsoever of the curse of sin (save the wounds suffered by our Lord when He purchased our redemption.) There, in that “blessed, soon-to-arrive country,” wholeness, harmony, holiness, and hopes fully realized will be the constant experience under Christ’s reign. We live with Him, with the hosts of His angels, with His restored creation, and the millions of our brothers and sisters whose names are written in the Book of Life — forever! And the sufferings we endure now, the sacrifices we make, the battles we fight aren’t worthy to be compared to the glories to come. (Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 4, 1 Peter 5, Hebrews 11, Colossians 2, and many more.)
3) Don’t lose heart. Rather reconsecrate yourself to courageous, consistent service as Christ’s warriors. We will one day beat our swords into ploughshares, but not yet! So think and act every day as a loyal man at arms in the Savior’s royal guard. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:10-12, and many more.)
Finally, 4) Don’t forget that God’s judgment is most assuredly on the way! Oh, my; talk about the very ground changing! When our omnipotent Creator God begins to clean house, the ground will not only change; it will “shake, rattle, and roll” as He judges, redeems, and makes all things brand new. (Malachi 3, 2 Peter 3, Nahum 1, Haggai 2, Isaiah 24, and more.)
So, there you have it. Several examples of the “ground-changing” devastations that have befallen American society in my 75-year sojourn — along with 4 patterns of resistance as a Christian desiring to truly be a “doer of the Word and not a hearer only.” Changes will come.
As I said earlier, history is a matter of movement, the outworking of God’s omniscient purposes for mankind…and for His glory. Our task is to wisely evaluate the spiritual significances of those changes, effectively resist them in the power of the Spirit, and thus ensure that whatever changes occur in us are not compromises with the world, but growth in Christ. Indeed, may “the inner man be renewed day by day” as shine His light until the glorious day He receives us home!
