Christian apologist Alex McFarland recently spoke with CBN Faithwire about the seemingly crumbling culture around the United States. McFarland, co-author of 100 Bible Questions and Answers and The Assault on America, runs a ministry that focuses on educating Christians in Biblical truth. His ministry recently hosted the “Truth for a New Generation” Conference in April in Tennessee, with the purpose of “confronting the issues that are threatening the future of America, the traditional family unit, and Christianity.” Speaking with Faithwire, he stated he traced the beginnings of Christian deterioration from the popularity of German liberalism attacking the Bible. “Friedrich Schleiermacher said God is not the communicator. Charles Darwin, in 1859, said God is not the creator,” he said. Known as “the father of liberal German theology,” Schleiermacher sought to understand the Bible through an Enlightenment lens, leading to conclusions that absolute truth was difficult to obtain, if accessible at all, church authority and Scripture were open to interpretation and not “infallible,” and that moral and religious beliefs were personal in nature and not universal. Darwin’s Origin of the Species, although not the first work to do so, opened the doorway for creation without God. 

McFarland noted the creation of the word “postmodernism” in the 1920s and the “incremental change” such denials as Darwin’s and Schleiermacher’s caused within the human understanding of God and reality. “If God is not the author of Scripture and the Bible is not a Word from God — if God is not the creator, God is not the ground of moral truth, then we’re living in a world of meaninglessness and nihilism,” he said. He asserted that such thought processes have led to the breakdown of two essential human institutions- the family and the church. “We got here because of the breakdown of the family and because of the silence of the church,” he said. Earlier in his interview, he addressed the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) and the transgender movement. He noted that humans don’t fully grasp the implications of AI. He noted the liberal skew of ChatGPT, noting that it will not respond to requests for arguments against gay marriage but that it will list out reasons why Christianity is bad. 

The transgender issue also remains a hot-button topic, and McFarland stated that many pastors are failing to address it as an issue at all. He stressed the objective truth of biology and called gender fluidity “demonic.” He stated that the transgender movement is essentially saying that God has no ability to determine who people are and that they get to decide that for themselves. Despite the bleak picture that McFarland painted, however, he offered a hopeful outlook on the future. “We can turn things around. God can use us, and we must,” he said. “But we have to be vigilant for truth and courageous in proclaiming it.” 

In an article on his website, McFarland called America to repentance. “Our nation is crumbling, our president is bumbling, and our vice president is mumbling. And what, according to our wise cultural overlords, will fix it? Imposition of trans ideology throughout all levels of culture, keeping the southern border open, and fighting a war on gas stoves and incandescent light bulbs,” he wrote. “The solution to this decay is clear — we must repent, turn back to God, and wholesale admit we are a nation in trouble,” he went on. He stated that national repentance begins with individual repentance. “We rebuild roads with money and concrete. We heal the soul of a nation one penitent heart at a time. Three trillion dollars can’t widen the road to heaven; it will always be narrow. But a heartfelt personal, ‘I was wrong — I repent,’ can rebuild the bridge to God.”