C.S. Lewis wrote in the Screwtape Letters, “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Letter XII

Most of us have heard the term “slippery slope.” We hear it and, in today’s world, we allow ourselves to become distracted because we know whatever follows is someone’s projection of imminent disaster at some future point in time. There are voices from all aspects of the political and sociological spectrum forecasting the demise of society as we know it resulting from an initial tiny step being approved today by some arm of our government. The fact that God is in control gives us great comfort, but we must also deal with the reality that He gives us great latitude in determining our own, and society’s, pace of ethical and moral decline. Refusal to acknowledge the broader and long term implications in favor of a short-term pain point or vocal minority viewpoint, has, over the years, led us to depart from God’s perspective in making our decisions.

Because of many of these decisions, the new reality of our world is that we live in a very different world than the one in which many of us grew up. Just yesterday, I was talking with family members about how life was when our daughters were growing up. And, yet, we wonder how we have arrived at the place in our world in which we now live. Why do we feel so much more insecure? We have just purchased cameras for the security of our home? Why are we becoming increasingly concerned about the worldview of our society? Our institutions of higher learning were once paragons of free speech and places where various worldviews could be openly discussed. Today, public speech on our campuses is limited to those who agree only with a narrow band of worldviews. Opinions arising from other worldviews are not given a voice.

During the days of the Revolutionary War, battles took place in an open field with opposing forces marching toward each other. Everyone knew who and where the enemy was. The Vietnam War was notable for the guerilla warfare that made the enemy less visibly identifiable. The enemy was not always uniformed military. During this war, the enemy took on the appearance of common citizens. More recently, wars are being waged against invisible networks of people inspired by ideologies that are spread transparently across the internet.

I was reading a pre-release copy of a book by Dr. Jeff Myers, “The Secret Battle of Ideas About God.” In his book, Dr. Myers compares the ideological battles of today to that of fighting a virus. Rather than debating specific ideologies, i.e., Islam, Mormonism, post-Christian society, et al, Christians today, must focus on being grounded in a system of truth against which to test all the random values and ideas that are surfaced by today’s various communications media.  These inputs can come in the form of commercials, news analysis, headlines, social media, and pronouncements made by high profile personalities. These are just a few. At least part of the danger lies in repeated intake of messages. Being constantly barraged with bad thinking based on invalid worldviews does have an effect.

These messages seep into the church. Our Christian friends repeat things they have heard, a pastor says something that sounds right but doesn’t really align with Scripture, a Bible Study leader offers an opinion that is counter to Scriptural truth, a church leans on its own tradition rather than what the Bible says, and down the road we go. Just because something goes viral in social media, doesn’t make it the truth. The slippery slope has begun. I was reading an interview with a former pastor who has been given a credible voice because he wrote a book containing a restatement of an old line of thinking that suggests all will go to heaven because God loves everyone. This interview focused on this man’s perspective on Scripture. He indeed has taken the next steps in the slippery slope created by his new truth system. His view of the Bible is that it is a collection of ideas that have been put together by several human writers, that lead us to think divine thoughts. Rubbish!

This is how we stray from the truth. When we declare that truth, as handed down by God Himself, is simply a collection of human ideas that leads us to think of God, we have no truth at all. We’ve begun to slide down the slippery slope. The virus gains a foothold into our immune systems. How can we reverse the slide or stop the viral infection? Is there an antidote?

Scripture attests to itself that “all scripture is God-breathed.” The Bible is a trustworthy foundation for our worldview. The antidote is to become familiar with its words and its teachings. If its teachings come from God, then nothing can overrule it. The Psalmist wrote, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

We need to store God’s words in our hearts so that we can fight off the infection of false teaching by recognizing it when it comes to our ears. False teachers will infiltrate even the most Christian environments. After listening to the Apostle Paul, the Bereans would go home and search the scriptures to see if what he said was true. We need to do the same so that we are able to fight off infectious viruses that make us spiritually sick.

Perhaps it is time for a good helping of spiritual food that will help us ward off viruses. Psalm 119:11 says “I have hidden your word in my heart that I may not sin against you.” A good place to start.

Be well, friends.