An “unprecedented” threat on the Gulf Coast: In a year of crisis, an empowering key Christians need to remember

The year 2020 continues to make history for all the wrong reasons.

The good news is that Hurricane Marco weakened overnight to a tropical storm before it makes expected landfall on the Louisiana coast later today. The bad news is that Tropical Storm Laura is forecasted to strengthen to a hurricane before it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday. 

Parts of Louisiana will start to see the effects of Laura by Wednesday morning, after Marco leaves the state Tuesday evening. National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Scott said, “The unprecedented kind of thing here is that it’s the same state within forty-eight hours of each other.” 

And this is happening in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic; the Louisiana Department of Health reported 1,223 more cases and fifty-nine more deaths in the last two days.  

In a year filled with so many challenges at the same time, Christians can make a transforming difference in our culture. However, there’s an empowering key we need to remember. 

When we are more Socratic than biblical

I teach the history of Western thought in the doctoral program at Dallas Baptist University. In our study, we note that an essential shift comes early in our intellectual history with Socrates’ dictum “Know yourself.” 

Four centuries before Christ, Socrates taught that we know truth by knowing ourselves. This focus on the individual as the locus of knowledge, in contrast to truth known through the community or by divine revelation, has been foundational to secular culture from his day to ours. 

Even evangelical Christians can be more Socratic than biblical. 

In answer to Jesus’ imperative “You must be born again” (John 3:7), we rightly emphasize the urgency of personal faith in our Savior….