I want you to hear the following assessment our culture. "A reversal has occurred in our time. The faithful have in fact outlived the collapse of the foundations of secular society. Familiar dominant patterns of thought have lost their immune system for recuperation. The modern outlook is disintegrating. But communities of traditional faith flourish more than ever," (Thomas Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, ix).

The man who said that is Thomas Oden, Professor if Theology and Ethics at Drew University. In his new book, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, he tells the heart-wrenching story of his journey from being an elitist member of academia, opposed to biblical religion, to being caught and transformed by orthodox Christianity. In his book he points out that the foundations of secular society are collapsing in part because secularism has raised but not been able to answer troubling questions such as these.

Can children be nurtured? Can the madness of all-out war be avoided? Can humanity survive? Is life worth living? Can the earth as we know it be preserved? Is the human future worth tackling? (ibid, 2). The bothersome issues of cloning and fetal stem cell research, the wanton destruction of unborn children, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the global threat of terrorism, the threat to the environment, and the pervasive, destructive features of youth culture give rise to these questions.

Professor Oden's conclusion about this crisis goes like this. "The crisis of the new millennium is not political but rather spiritual and moral. It is a crisis of courage and, more profoundly, a crisis of faith. Can we effectively retrieve our faith-heritage for a meaningful human future?" (ibid.). I commend his conclusion for your serious consideration, and on this Easter Sunday I would like to read with you a piece of our faith-heritage that offers hope for a meaningful human future on a global scale. Please join me in Romans 8:31-39.

Five Questions
The apostle Paul built these nine verses around five questions. Let's take the questions and their answers one by one, and allow them to give us hope and strength to face our uncertain future. We begin in verse 31.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Who is us? Who is God for? The previous three verses tell us whom the apostle had in mind.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

That's who God is for: those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, those He foreknew, predestined, called, justified and glorified. That is Paul's way of referring to God's chosen people, which is made up of Israel and the Church, and that chosen people is the group that God is for.

Some people think God is not fair to have a chosen people. But that all depends on what he chose them for, doesn't it? God chose Israeland the Church to embody in human flesh the presence of God in our human history and the love of God for all humanity. He did not choose in order to exclude; He chose in order to include more and more people in the blessings He wants to give to all humanity.

You could make a good caes that if God did not reach down and tap a people to be His chosen people, He might not hae any people at all. In Romans 1:28 the aposle said that humanity did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. Left to their own devices, humans have a long track record of being anti-God.

So, here's the point. The knowledge of God in the human family depends on a chosen people that will embody in human flesh the presence of God in our human history and the love of God for all humanity. God chose people for that purpose. He is behind this project. He is for us. Do you think He will allow any opposition to His purpose and people to have the last word?

Individual churches can do goofy things. They can become ingrown and forget that they have a mission to the world around them. They can repel people by their silly rules. They can even close their doors and go out of existence. In places like Indonesia and Pakistan their places of worship can be bombed and burned and some of their members killed. God notices. God will act to preserve His chosen people. That's why the apostle asks in defiance of the rot within or the wrath without, If God is for us, who can be against us? No opposition to His purpose and people will have the last word.

That brings us to verse 32 and a second question. He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? The first half of that verse, which determines the answer to the question, also identifies what captured the heart and soul of the Apostle Paul and millions of other Christians. It has captured the heart and soul of many of us. God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.

Earlier in this letter, the apostle put the same idea in these words. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Here in chapter eight, the apostle's language does not call attention to the kind of people God loved, but rather to the last, full measure of devotion of almighty God on behalf of man. He did not spare his own Son.

Overwhelmed by the divine generosity, the apostle draws the obvious conclusion. If God has already given His best on our behalf, why would He hold back other, lesser gifts? What ugly images we have of God. We say He is out to get us, out to spoil our fun, kill our joy. You might as well say the sun shines to make the world dark. People can be killjoys. The God of Jesus Christ is the great Joy-giver. He is also the great Wisdom-giver and the great Patience-giver. Might He not have just what we need for the moral and spiritual crisis of our age?

Verse 33 raises the third question. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. This doesn't mean that Christians are always beyond reproach. It doesn't mean that clergy should not beh held just as accountable as anyone else, if they do wrong. It doesn't mean that being on God's good side gives anyone a license to get away with questionable behavior.

It does mean that God has chosen us with His eyes wide open to the obsessions, compulsions, addictions and despicable habits that we once had and are still susceptible to. The crucial factor is not our fidelity toward God but God's decision about us, and His decision about us is captured in that important statement, It is God who justifies.

"As a gift, without payment," (Dunn, I, 168), by "sheer generosity," (ibid, 179), God absolves us of guilt for our sins. That is God's decision about us. The death of Christ makes that decision possible. His death at first looked like a particularly cruel and unjust way to die. But when God raised Jesus from death, people took another look at His death and found a new and powerful meaning. Guided by the Jewish Scriptures, the apostles came to view the death of Christ as the permanent and material sign of God's merciful intentions toward humanity.

We can have hope on the day of God's wrath, because the death of Christ atoned for the sins that separated us from God. We can have hope in the face of our continued failures that people charge us with, because the death of Christ atoned for the sins that separated us from God. We know that God loves us in the face of the charges that people bring against us, because the death of Christ embodies that love for all to see.

These benefits of Christ's death come to bear on human life through faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith in Christ releases the power of His atoning death into our experience, and God's merciful offer of forgiveness becomes personal for us. I hope it has become personal for everyone of us.

Paul's fourth question is closely tied to question #3. Verse 43 says, Who is her that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Have you ever asked someone to put in a good word for you, when you were applying for a job or a promotion? Paul says that when those who are part of God's chosen people through faith in Christ behave badly and are condemned by other people for behaving badly, Jesus Christ is there to put in a good word with God for them.

In another location the apostle says of Christ, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus is the Gatekeeper to God, and He is on our side, especially when others would condemn us or we would condemn ourselves for our frailty. A surprising number of people find it very hard to forgive themselves for certain events in their past. If you feel like that, Holy Scripture here promises that Christ stands rerady always to put in a decisive, good word with God on your behalf.

So, where do things stand? The apostle asks in defiance of the rot within the Church or the wrath without, If God is for us, who can be against us? He will not tolerate any opposition to His people to have the last word. If God has already given His best on our behalf, why would He hold back other, lesser gifts from us? We can have hope on the day of God's wrath, and in the face of our continued failures that people charge us with, because God has absolved us of our guilt, and Christ stands ready always to put in a decisive, good word with God on our behalf.

With all that before, the apostle raises his fifth and final question in verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we - we, your people, whom others might expect to be exempt from such hardships - we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

And we might add, "Shall the bothersome issues of cloning and fetal stem cell research, the wanton destruction of unborn children, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the global threat of terrorism, the threat to the environment, and the pervasive, destructive features of youth culture separate us from the love of Christ?

The answer then is the answer now. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death by weapons of mass destruction nor life in vitro, neither angels nor demons, neither the present, which is most uncertain, northe furture, which we cannot know, nor any powers, political, military or economic, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
So, how do we live as the old, secular order slowly crumbles and leaves behind its grave threats to human happiness and to the planet on which we live? First, we defy the old order and the threats themselves in the name of the love of God that He has demonstrated for all time in Jesus Christ.

We don't bury our heads in the sand and pretend the threats aren't there. We don't delude ourselves that any of us might be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have our lives snuffed out in an act of terror. We don't minimize the knotty problems raised by biogenetic technology. We don't blink when other nations call our nation's entertainment industry toxic. We defy them all in the name of the love of God. God loves humanity too much to allow evil to have the final word. We know in the marrow of our bones that the old war between heaven and earth is over. God and man are reconciled, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is something else. This past week in Iraq we saw the most remarkable scene in the history of warfare. The triumphant U.S. military allowed thousands of Iraqis to march in protest through the streets of central Baghdad, asking the U.S. to leave their country. We saw U.S. Marines handing out AK-47 rifles to Iraqi policemen.

I ask you. If Hitler had conquered London, how do you think he would have responded to a Cockney protest march down Piccadilly, asking the Germans to leave England? Do you think he would have handed out rifles to the English police? We know how the Soviets responded to the Budapest uprising of 1956 and to the Prague Spring of 1968 - with tanks and torture and prison. How do we think Saddam would have acted, if he had marched into Teheran in 1988?

Do you really think this is nothing more than the politics of realism? Does it never cross your mind that the behavior of the mightiest nation on earth reflects the Judeo-Christian heritage that has shaped this nation for four centuries? The Gospel has gone down into the white-hot center of personality, disappeared from sight, done its powerful work and reemerged in unexpected ways, one of which surfaced in Baghdad last week.

And what nourishes this Judeo-Christian heritage in the soul of a nation? In faith communities like this one and only in faith communities like this one is the legacy of Israel, Christ, the apostles and the past two thousand years of accumulated wisdom preserved and made available to the peoples of the earth. here and only here is a passage like the one we read today cherished and assimilated into human souls and transmitted to children. Here and only here is there a collective will to defy and reshape secular ideas.

That is why it is important to note another important change that has begun among Christians. It is the change from saying, "I go to church," to saying, "I am the church." Church is not another item on your Palm Pilot; it defines your humanity. You are a living piece of the People of God that circles the earth, submits to Christ, and has at its disposal nearly 4000 years of collective wisdom. We are that people that embodies God's presence on earth and communicates God's love to all humanity. Let us all come in out of the cold, participate in the Church in the life of God on earth and be at peace.