Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Why are we here this morning?

Philip Ryken wrote a book several years ago A City on a Hill.

The first chapter is titled “The Church in the 21st Century.”

He says that we are now living in post Christian times.

In fact, he says we're living in a time when the barbarians are now in the gates.

He quotes one Christian culture watcher Charles Colson who said,

“Today in the west, and particularly in America the new barbarians are all around us.

They are not hairy Goths and Vandals, swilling fermented brew and ravishing maidens; they are not Huns and Visigoths storming our borders or scaling our city walls.

No, this time the invaders have come from within.

We have bred them in our families and trained them in our classrooms.

They inhabit our legislatures, our courts, our film studios, and our churches.

Most of them are attractive and pleasant; their ideas are persuasive and subtle.

Yet these men and women threaten our most cherished institutions and our very character as a people.

There are many ways to prove that American culture is under attack from this new barbarism.

One is to review the titles of the books that thoughtful people are writing: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, The Culture of Disbelief, No Place for Truth, The Twilight of American Culture, The End of Democracy.

Needless to say, the authors of these books are not optimistic about the future of American culture.

Another way to see what is happening is to watch television, with its voyeuristic presentation of sexuality and suffering.