In a recent essay, Ravi Zacharias devoted a few paragraphs to the importance of moral reasoning and an ethical foundation. He reminded us of the insight that can be found in the book, The Roads to Modernity. Gertrude Himmelfarb makes a very powerful statement in the book. She argues that the difference between the European Enlightenment and the English and American Enlightenment was really one word.

For the French philosophers, reasoning was supreme. For the English and American philosophers, moral reasoning was supreme. Edmund Burke makes a similar observation in his commentary. Ethics, morality, and moral reasoning were important not only in that period of time but also were important in the framing of our government.

Ravi Zacharias then goes on to tell of a dinner in a European country he attended. One of the heads of a prestigious school of business proudly stated that a class in ethics was not part of their curriculum. “As the topic of conversation moved from curriculum to impact, several moments later he said that in the last national election three of the candidates were graduates of their school. “What happened,” I asked? “One lost because he was a womanizer, the second lost because he was an alcoholic, and the third, because he was corrupt” was his answer.” Ravi Zacharias then said that his wife whispered in his ear, “Maybe it’s time they started teaching ethics.”

Yes, it probably time they began thinking about teaching ethics in that school and in the major universities of Europe and America. The problem, of course, is they can’t even agree about the moral foundation necessary to effectively discuss ethics. Once you reject a belief in biblical absolutes, any ethical conversation quickly devolves into a discussion about personal moral preferences. This is often what we are left with in this world of postmodern personal truth and relative ethics.

More and more Americans believe in pluralism and many believe in universalism. First, let me define the terms. Universalism would be the belief that everyone will be saved after death and go to heaven. Pluralism is the belief that all faith positions and belief systems are equally true or essentially true.

According to a Barna survey, Americans are still not embracing universalism. A majority of Americans still believe in exclusive views rather than inclusive views concerning heaven. Those surveyed were asked if they agreed or disagreed with this statement: “All people will experience the same outcome after death, regardless of their religious beliefs.” Americans disagreed with the statement by 55 percent.

This survey shows that Americans still reject the idea that everyone is saved, but the declining percentages suggest that universalism may become the dominant theological view in the next few years. Given the influence of tolerance and political correctness, it is reasonable to assume that universalism will become more prevalent over time.

What about pluralism? The survey asked if Americans agreed or disagreed with this statement: “It doesn’t matter what religious faith you follow because they all teach the same lesson.” A majority (54%) disagreed with that statement, though 43 percent agreed with the statement.

The study also discovered that 59 percent of adults believe that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God even though they have different names and beliefs regarding God.” The study also found that 43 percent believe that “the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths.”

Pluralism is already becoming the dominant theology of Americans. Pastors and Christian leaders should take note and address the influence of pluralism in our world today.

The box office success of the film I Can Only Imagine is one more illustration of the success of faith-based films. Obviously, some have done better than others. Not all of them have a Christian theme like this one, but they all do well.

Movieguide released its “2018 Report to the Entertainment Industry” that looked at the box office performance of films released in 2017. Films with very strong Christian content or content that has a strong redemptive or moral theme did the best. The box office average was $57.84 million in receipts.

By contrast, they found that films with very strong non-Christian content only had box office receipts of about $10.49 million. And those films with very strong secular humanist or atheist content did the worst. They only had $1.16 million in box office receipts.

Ted Baehr is the founder of Movieguide and released the results at their Annual Movieguide Faith and Family Awards Gala. He noted that “Despite a couple of disturbing trends, 2017 was another big year for family movies and movies with faith and values.” These family-friendly films are not only better for the culture, they also do better financially. Of the top 10 movies worldwide in 2017, a full 90 percent of them contained “strong Christian, redemptive, biblical, or moral content.”

If these family-friendly films do much better financially, why don’t more directors and producers make more family films and fewer films with gratuitous sex and violence? Unfortunately, they want accolades from their peers about doing edgy films and art house films.

That is all the more reason for Christians to go to films like I Can Only Imagine in order to send a signal to Hollywood that we want more faith-based films.

Should the United States have a military parade on Veteran’s Day? The reaction to the suggestion by the president has brought lots of comments. When I asked the question on my radio program, the phones lit up.

Rachel Alexander wrote an article about the response from liberals concerning the idea, so I had her on the program. She explained that many liberal groups and news organizations argued that a military parade is what despots and authoritarian governments do. She reminded us that the president got the idea by watching the French military parade on Bastille Day. And she provided a short list of other non-authoritarian countries (like Finland, Portugal, and Australia) that also hold parades for their military.

When the president first floated the idea, news outlets were obsessed with two issues. First, they warned that tanks driven down the streets in Washington, D.C. would damage the streets. But the administration announced the parade would not include tanks. However, I might mention the last US military parade (after the first Gulf War of Desert Storm) did have tanks.

The second criticism was over cost. The parade could cost $3 million or much higher depending on how elaborate the parade might be. Callers responded that no one seemed to care about the costs of many of the other marches, protests, and parades held in Washington, D.C. that require everything from law enforcement to clean up. I suggested that in the current budget of $1.3 trillion, a few million dollars is hardly even a “rounding error.”

The general consensus was that if the parade was used to honor veterans, this would be a positive experience, especially for Vietnam Veterans. But not everyone agrees. A number of Democrats in Congress have sponsored the PARADE Act to prevent tax dollars from being used for a military parade. I suspect we will be debating this issue all the way to Veteran’s Day.

Can a state government compel speech? That is a question that surfaced in the Supreme Court case concerning a Christian baker. It came up again last week when the same court heard oral arguments about a California law that compels pro-life pregnancy centers to promote abortion.

Pro-life people with religious objections to abortion run these centers. But this case is much more than a religious liberty case. It is fundamentally a First Amendment free speech case. The law forces these pro-life centers to provide free advertisement for abortions through posters and their websites.

You would think that a federal court would strike down the law, but not the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, that columnist George Will reminds us has “reasoning that is frequently novel” and “rulings that are frequently reversed.” To show the problem with the law, he poses this hypothetical.

“Suppose a pro-life state government were to require all publicly and privately funded abortion providers to advertise on their premises the locations and services of crisis-pregnancy centers. Or even to post the following accurate information on their premises, website, and advertisements.”

That would be such facts as the baby’s brain forms after 18 days. The heart begins to beat after three weeks, and brain waves are detected after six weeks. At seven weeks, the baby is kicking. At week nine, the baby can suck its thumb. By 26 weeks, the spinal cord and pain receptors are in place, and the baby can feel pain.

Of course, the abortion providers would howl with anger at such requirements. But essentially that is what the California legislature did by requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to promote abortion. Hopefully, the high court will understand that this is an important free speech issue and strike down the California law.

In his new book, The Hidden Enemy, Michael Youssef warns us that we face both external threats and internal threats.

We face an external threat from radical, political Islam. That does not mean that all Muslims are an enemy. He has great concern and passion for Muslims, having been born in Egypt. His broadcasts go into Muslim countries to proclaim the gospel. But he is well aware that radical Muslims want to sweep away Western civilization and impose a global caliphate.

The internal threat we face is from a coalition of secular humanists, atheists, and leftists. They want to erase America’s Judeo-Christian values and replace them with relativism, sexual liberation, and hedonism. He calls this the great American delusion. Humanists and atheists have been successful in transforming much of America through the media, the courts, the education system, and popular culture.

He also recognizes that these two groups could not be more opposed to each other in theory. But there is a surprising alliance that sometimes has developed between Muslims and humanists. His book provides some interesting details and examples of how this has happened in the past.

Near the end of the book, he also talks about another enemy inside the church. He reminds us that some believers in the past opened the door to the false religion of Muhammad. He sees a similar accommodation today where church leaders in certain denominations are preaching a false gospel. It is another warning that we should stay true to the gospel and reject those who want to try to make the Bible relevant to society by making the church and the Bible conform to society.

This book will help you understand the threats we face and encourage you to take a bold stand for the gospel.

Shelby Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and an African-American author and commentator. Recently he was reflecting on the stark difference between the civil rights movement and the current liberal marches and protests.

“Unlike the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, when protesters wore their Sunday best and carried themselves with heroic dignity, today’s liberal marches are marked by incoherence and downright lunacyhats designed to evoke sexual organs, poems that scream in anger yet have no point to make, and an hysterical anti-Americanism.”

Not only is there a stark contrast between the two, but there is what he calls a “lostness” to the liberal marches. In the past, shame had a purpose. It was to expose racism, Jim Crow, and segregation. It was to remind Americans that they had a moral duty to right past wrongs and to fulfill the unfulfilled aspirations of the founders.

He argues that today shame has weakened. Liberal activists call the president and anyone who voted for him racists. The reaction from the president and many others is to roll their eyes because they know that the term has been devalued. As I often say on my radio program, when everyone is called a racist, no one is a racist. The term loses any meaning.

Shelby Steele puts it this way: “Bigotry exists, but it is far down on the list of problems that minorities now face. I grew up black in segregated America, where it was hard to find an open door. It’s harder now for young blacks to find a closed one.”

All of this is worth remembering when liberal activists take to the streets and pretend they are following in the tradition of the civil rights marches.

In my commentaries I often refer to the millennial generation. But what does the term “millennial” really mean? According to John Quiggin, “millennial means nothing.” That is the title of his op-ed in the New York Times.

He is on to something. Some social commentators make broad statements about a particular cohort of people: baby boomers, baby busters, or millennials. As we all know, for any general rule there are bound to be exceptions. That is why he rejects what he calls “the generation game.” That is the insistence on dividing society into groups based on birth year.

When I wrote a book years ago on baby boomers and when I speak in various venues today about the millennial generation, I always talk about the fact that the trends we see are general rules. I even say that if you know millennials, you may notice that the trends I am talking about don’t necessarily apply to them. If you are a millennial, you may say some of the trends don’t apply to you.

Once we have that disclaimer, it then seems fair to notice general trends within a generation. After all, people born in the 1950s grew up in a time of unprecedented economic expansion. Young people born after the year 2000 grew up in a time when America was at war with terrorists. Even though there are important differences within a particular generation, they all had some common social experiences.

And I believe that one factor that really binds a generation together is the shared technological experiences. Computers, the Internet, video games, and smartphones have had a profound influence on the millennial generation and the following generation (often called the iGen). In many ways, that common experience unifies a cohort like never before. That is why I am not ready to say millennial means nothing.