Lisa Barry: All this week Elisabeth Elliot has been challenging us all to renew our minds with the truth of God's Word, to reject the values of this world and be transformed into Christ's likeness. Nowhere is the struggle for the mind more acute than in the cultural philosophies of our day. And if you're a Christian who feels beaten down by every tough-talking activist, then today's program is for you.

But let's not make winning an argument the goal. Instead, let's make a commitment to turn our eyes upon Christ. Then the things of the earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Here's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you again today about a renewed mind. It says in Romans 12 that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Ever since 1970 I have watched with growing dismay the effects of the feminist movement. The damage, I believe, is incalculable. Few Christians seem to have given much serious thought to the deleterious effects of this thoroughly secular doctrine, which has its roots-did you know this?--it has its roots, believe it or not, in Marxism.

A woman named Joyce A. Little has given serious thought to the feminist movement. Let me read you some of what she says. "It is by now almost a commonplace in literature that this century, especially the two world wars, marks the transition from what has been called the modern world into a new age, post-modern and post-Christian. A new understanding of man, distinctly different from and in many crucial ways radically opposed to the Christian view of man"-and of course she is using the word "man" in the generic sense referring to the whole human race.

"This new man has been variously designated as the imperial, therapeutic, narcissistic, emotive, autonomous or egalitarian self. This is the self which believes it is or can be complete in itself, self-actualized and self-fulfilled; in short, standing in need of no one else.

Peter Berger has written a brief, but brilliant, satire on the age into which we are now moving, in which he notes that one discerns the inner meaning of an age by perceiving how originally disparate [which means unequal or separate] trends come together in a new coherent whole."

I'll read that again. "One discerns the inner meaning of an age by perceiving how originally dissimilar or unequal trends come together in a new coherent whole. He believes that we can now see how the disparate trends of our age are coming together."

Joyce Little says, "Consider the following movements and ask yourself what they all have in common." This was an eye-opener to me. The following movements, what do they all have in common?

"Feminism, gay rights activism, multi-culturalism, environmentalism, and New Age spirituality. The one common thread which runs through all of them is egalitarianism. Now egalitarianism is not simply the belief that all things are equal. It is the belief that in order for all things to be equal, all things must be fundamentally identical." Isn't that interesting? That grabbed me. "Egalitarianism is the belief that in order for all things to be equal, all things must be fundamentally identical."

She goes on to illustrate what she means. "Thus the feminists tell us that the distinctions between male and female, husband and wife, father and mother are not significant. Gay rights activists tell us that the distinction between a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation and lifestyle is not significant. Multi-culturalists preach moral and cultural relativism, which is just another way of saying that the difference between one culture and another, one morality and another, is insignificant. Environmentalists, especially animal rights activists, have been the source of that politically correct condemnation of speciesism-the sin of those who think that any one species (man, for instance) is superior to any other species (slugs, for instance). Many in their ranks have repeatedly condemned any notion that man might rightly exercise dominion over nature."

May I put in my parenthesis. We do remember what it says in Genesis 1, don't we? God gave man the prerogative, in fact, the command that he was to rule over the animals.

"But New Agers of course never cease telling us that any and all differentiations are simply a part of a dream of separation in which most of us are living and from which we must awaken in order to realize that there are no different things, just the great cosmic allness of absolute undifferentiated unity. All of these propositions are eerily reminiscent of the Marxist classless society, in which all differentiations, all roles, are rendered obsolescent."

In one of those strange ironies of history, it seems far more likely that the classless society will be realized more completely here in the capitalist West than it was in the Soviet Union, because it is here"-listen to this-"that the imperial autonomous self is today intent on pursuing a debased freedom which has now worked its way throughout the whole of our society." The imperial autonomous self.

"Freedom of choice means keeping your eyes open. The idea that you can be anything you want, though it preserve something of the older idea of the career open to talents, has come to mean that identities can be adopted and discarded like a change of costume. Ideally, choices of friends, lovers and careers should all be subject to immediate cancellation, such as the open-ended experimental conception of the good life upheld by the propaganda of commodities."

Choices of friends, lovers and careers subject to immediate cancellation. I get many, many letters from men telling me that their wives have left them, very frequently left the children, and gone off with another man. In other words, they felt that their choices were subject to immediate cancellation. And now with no-fault divorce in most states, it's very easy to make an immediate cancellation of one's marriage, isn't it? Of course I get many letters from women whose husbands have abandoned them because of this freedom of choice-keeping your options open. You can be anything you want. You don't have to be stuck with this old boring woman that you've known for fifteen years or twenty or thirty or forty years. You can start over and you can find someone much more exciting.

Joyce Little says, "This notion that I can become anything in general rests upon the assumption that I am not already something in particular. If every human being can become whatever he or she chooses to be, this means that 'who am I' can be nothing more than 'what I have chosen to function as.' Who and what I am and do can no longer be understood as having any transcendent significance whatsoever."

What I am and do reminds me of the words of that young virgin named Mary. "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it happen as you say." She was putting herself at God's disposal. Not choosing herself, but choosing to be whatever God wanted to make her to be, whatever God wanted her to do, whatever God wanted her to have.

This mindset, this secular mindset about which Joyce Little is talking, says, "I am not ordered to anyone else, but rather am interchangeable with everyone else. Since everyone can be anything, everyone can choose to function in any way he or she chooses.

"Thus by way of example, we are now told that mothers and fathers are not ordered to each other, and to their children in particular, in non-interchangeable ways. Instead, mothers, it is now believed, can function as fathers and fathers can function as mothers, and for two reasons. First, the differentiation between mothering and fathering is insignificant, since both are mere variations of a single function now called parenting."

You know, that's a word I really deplore-parenting-because it smacks of that mindset that mothers and fathers are equal and interchangeable. Of course, we know that they're not.

"Second," says Joyce Little, "because every human being is fundamentally a cipher capable of creating for himself his own roles or functions in life, both men and women are interchangeably capable of carrying out mothering, just as both are interchangeably capable of carrying out fathering."

Well, she goes on to quote a whole lot of nonsense, and of course she is categorically opposed to this so-called "new evangelization and gender." But I simply give it to you as one of the examples of the difficulty that we have in learning to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, because our minds are so easily subjected to and willing to accept the secular mindset.

Lisa Barry: If you'd like a practical way to renew your mind, then I have a book that will help. In fact, this book will also provide you some practical suggestions on how to apply God's Word. The title is JOY AND STRENGTH by Mary Wilder Tileston. Just a little bit of reading, meditation and prayer to start each day will be of great help in renewing your mind on a daily basis.

For more information, call us here. Our number is 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or our address is Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Elisabeth will be back with more thoughts on renewing our minds next time, so be sure and join us then for another Gateway To Joy.