A Conversation with Ivey Scarbough

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio. And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland. What is worldview and why does this matter? Today on Truth for a New Generation, we're going to talk about worldview and why worldview is so significant and how our culture and our world, as you may perceive, is really in a battle of worldviews. Hi, Alex McFarland here. So glad you're with us. Folks, this is potentially one of the most significant radio shows you will listen to all year. In a moment, you're going to meet a guest, an author, and a book that I want you to get. A book that I really think will be beneficial to everybody that reads it. But first, let me share a story.

Literally 15 minutes ago, I walked out of a college class. I was teaching worldview at a Christian university in front of about 600 students, and a married couple came up, very distraught, adult students in this particular class, and they talked about how they were originally from Sweden and their daughter wanted to transition from female to male. Their daughter has gender confusion and wants to, as a transgender, transition. Now in Sweden, because the girl was under the age of 18, the doctor said, we can't do this, we won't do this, we're not going to operate on you or give you hormone therapy because you're underage and you're a minor, and so we won't do this.

That's in Sweden. But she comes to the USA, because they were originally American citizens, and at 17 finds an American doctor, and the mother emotionally is telling me this story, mutilated her body, mutilated and is giving her these just incredibly high doses of testosterone to try to help this young female become a male. Now my point in sharing that is, in the United States of America, though we were founded on Christianity and we were founded on a Judeo-Christian moral code, we have so rapidly, shockingly abandoned belief in moral truth. We've actually abandoned belief in biological truth.

We, at least in academic circles, don't believe that a male is different than a female. And folks, our battle of worldviews and our loss of a Christian worldview, a biblically informed worldview, I would submit to you, as sad as this story is, Christian parents grieving over a 17-year-old daughter who, for one thing, needs Christ, needs counseling, but now, for the rest of her life, has a physical body that, as the mother said, and I know having interviewed people, mutilated, damaged by botched gender reassignment surgery. Do you understand our loss of a Christian worldview is bringing pain and destruction into the lives of people. Now the Lord Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, and I want to encourage everyone who hears this broadcast to obviously pray for the country, share Christ with those around you, but commit yourself, please, commit yourself to the responsibility of understanding worldview, understanding the spiritual-cultural battles in which we find ourselves, and then rise to the challenge and learn to defend the truth in an age where millions are lost in darkness. Well, to that end, I want you to meet a very special friend. He is an attorney, he is a radio and television commentator, an adjunct professor at a university, but he is the author of a very important book that I want you to be aware of.

His name is Ivy Scarborough. He has become just a very close friend and a very close colleague. And Ivy, I want to thank you for making time to be with us on the program today. And we're going to talk about your book, Into the Night, The Twilight of Western Civilization. First and foremost, thank you for being on the show, but also thank you for making this incredible contribution to Christian scholarship. Well, Alex, thank you. I thank you for the opportunity to talk about the book and to be heard on things I believe in so strongly.

And as you and I know, we both share the same Christian worldview. And I see that the dynamics in my life, the positive ones, come from God, not from me, including my ability to write this book. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation, Alex McFarland here. We're talking with author, attorney Ivy Scarborough, an expert on worldview, and his book, Into the Night.

Here's the subtitle, The Crisis of Western Civilization. Ivy Scarborough, what is the premise of the book? In a nutshell, and we'll unpack this, Into the Night, what is this book saying?

Well, I think I can best answer that, Alex, by saying it this way. I feel God's leading to write this book, and the objective of it was to depict very, very precisely in a scholarly and an accurate way the state of Western civilization, why we're in the condition we're in, how we got here, and where it's going, and try to make it clear to the audience all the dynamics that have played into this. And I wrote it with the premise of the notion that I would not only have a biblical foundation for everything that I said, but a very honest, starkly realistic historical foundation. So everything in the book is designed to first bring the reader to a point of extreme realism about the state of affairs in Western civilization, particularly here in the United States, and then to say to them, this is what's happened, and this is why it's happened. That's part two of the book, trying to describe how it is that this all evolved and developed this way. And then finally, part three is a strategic plan.

I don't believe in just describing a problem, no matter how analytically sound or insightful it may be, plus I felt God had a purpose in this that was a call to action. In other words, everything that I teach the reader through the first two segments of the book, I'm leading up to the third segment, which is what I sometimes refer to as the strategic plan. If you see this situation realistically, then what are we going to do about it? Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to take a very brief break. We're going to come back and drill down more deeply. We're talking with attorney and author Ivy Scarborough about his incredible book, Into the Night, and we're talking about, frankly, folks, the saving of the country, the saving of the culture, but even more importantly, the saving of souls. Stay tuned.

Truth for a New Generation Radio is back after this. America today is like a patient struggling to live, yet is being forcibly euthanized by her, quote, doctors. The life force within the patient fighting for survival is the honest citizens like yourself.

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Alex McFarland here, and I know frequent listeners, you know that we talk about ideas and trends. We talk about worldview. Now a worldview is a set of beliefs.

What do you believe about God? Creation, life, morality, the family, right and wrong, ethics. Worldview shapes really everything about our life, and we're embroiled in a lot of struggle over worldviews right now.

The United States of America, we're really in the process of determining will we continue to be a moral, representative republic, a stable nation, or will we descend further and further into anarchy and move toward socialism. Well, as is always the case, in times of danger and crisis, God raises up leaders. God raises up prophetic voices, one of which belongs to Ivy Scarborough. His book, Into the Night, honestly like few books I've ever owned or read, accurately lays out how did we get where we are.

Ivy, I want to continue the conversation. The book, Into the Night, you really do lay out an impeccably accurate historical timeline, and you quote a lot of names, many of which we've heard. You quote people like Arnold Toynbee and Francis Schaeffer, and along the journey of reading your book I've met some new names, but let me ask you this. How did you get into worldview? How did this become something you're so knowledgeable about? Well, first of all, ever since boyhood, I was always interested in international history, world history. And when I went to law school, I focused on international law. So my viewpoint, so to speak, in that sense, has always been on the world as a whole, not on some narrow aspect.

And so anything that relates to that really catches my attention. And my objective was to integrate my experience and training as a trial lawyer with my experience and training in a scholarly realm. And the book was written then, as one person quoted, to be bulletproof.

Well, I really appreciated that term. And what he was saying was, the book is written in such a way with such authority, and I tried to support every point that I made, that it would be almost impossible for somebody to refute basic statements that appear throughout the book. I want to read a quote, and then I'd like for you to comment on it, and I'm sure you'll remember this, but in the book you quote Arnold Toynbee, a historian and just really an acclaimed historian. He died in 1975, but Arnold Toynbee, very famously, he said, Democracy is a leaf lifted from the book of Christianity, but in modern times... Now, folks, he said this in the 70s.

Democracy has been really divorced from its meaning and from the Christian context it was formed in and secularized. But now here's the quote, and Ivy, I want your response. Toynbee said, quote, We have obviously for a number of generations past been living on spiritual capital, clinging to Christian practice without possessing Christian belief, said Toynbee, and this is a wasting asset. In other words, it's like your savings account that's going to run out. And Toynbee said, We have suddenly discovered that this Christian residue is running out, he said, to our dismay in this generation, end of quote. Now unpack that a little bit. Living on spiritual capital that is running out.

Ivy, what do you think Toynbee meant by that? Everything good in Western civilization, right up to and including science, stems from Christianity and the Christian belief system. And that belief system has been so powerful and so real, it is so much in contact with reality and truth, that it has influenced everything in our culture.

The most important thing, though, is the morality of people, the way human beings treat one another, how they perceive themselves in relationship to a Supreme Being, how they perceive themselves in relationship to one another, and how they should behave toward one another. And that has made for such wonderful positive developments throughout Western civilization. In England, for example, the development of what's known as common law and the great principles of justice.

There's nothing else like that in world history, lots of law, but nothing on the scale or with the depth and perceptiveness of the English structure of law. And all these principles came from Christianity, but they devolved from the teachings of Jesus Christ and what he modeled. And what Toynbee is saying is that we have relied on this for a long time, but we have not nurtured it.

We haven't developed it, encouraged it. And in fact, this great tree of supreme knowledge and reality and truth that has so blessed us is withering, it's dying. In fact, large parts of it are already dead. And we have been able to continue to live off of some of what he called the residue. This is dying.

They're allowing this to die. And that is the fault of we Christians and the church. You're absolutely right. And you know, within the first few chapters of the Bible, we get some foundational truths that have been the bedrock on which society stood. God is the creator of life. God is the creator of gender. God is the creator of marriage. God is the creator of family. To one degree or another, and at times very intensely, each of these is under attack, isn't it, Ivy? God the creator of life, sexuality, gender, marriage, family, the rights of parents to raise their children. I mean, all of these things are in the crosshairs right now, aren't they?

Yes. And in fact, everything good, everything that we believe in and hold dear, especially among us Christians, is under attack, has been undermined, and so forth. And I will even cite someone else as a way of reinforcing what Toynbee said and what I'm trying to say. There's a professor, Alan Wolf, who wrote a book on the state of the American church. Now the irony of this is that Alan Wolf is an agnostic. But the central theme of his book is that this same decline is taking place, much like Toynbee talked about. And he decries it, because even though he's not a believer, he understands what a powerful, positive influence the Christian faith has been on humanity. And he talks in there almost poignantly about how he hates to see this withering and dying in the church straying from its principles, because it's adversely affecting the society at large. Amen.

The people of God and the church does such immeasurable good in a society that we lose it at our own peril. Folks, stay tuned. Truth for a New Generation is going to come back with our very special guest, author, commentator, Ivy Scarborough. Don't go away.

We're back after this brief break. Alex has written many books to help you defend your faith. One of them answers questions from skeptics.

It's cleverly titled, Ten Answers for Skeptics. Today's skeptics are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward truth. And in the book, Alex McFarland identifies the ten most common types of skepticism that plague doubters' minds and offers believers proven strategies for connecting intellectually and spiritually with those who are skeptical about the claims of Christianity. Learn how to answer intimidating questions. Identify the root issue behind those questions and dismantle the spiritual bombshells dropped by atheists. Plus, find encouragement to face hostility by persevering in love. The ultimate apologetic Christians can offer as a witness to our loving God.

Check out Ten Answers for Skeptics when you visit alexmcfarland.com. Welcome to the podcast, I Hear You. We are so excited that you joined us. And this is just going to be a great new podcast dealing with issues around race, issues around friendship, and how do we deal with the tough issues. And I'm so excited to be here with my good friend, Alex.

It's great to be with you, Adell. And on the I Hear You podcast, we talk about race, we talk about culture, we talk about politics. And sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree. But we find resolution and common ground. And you know what's really cool? Not only do we learn new things, we make friends, we grow. And that's good for all of us. We're just two friends, one white, one black. And we just invite everyone to come and join and share with us.

It's a big difference between hearing and listening. And we're going to show people. We love it.

We look forward to it. And audience, thank you so much for giving us this chance. I Hear You with Alex and Odell, wherever you get your podcasts. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio.

Welcome back to the program. I do want to remind everybody that we are creating so much digital content. You can find Truth for a New Generation, obviously, on the American Family Radio Network. We do a show every day live called Exploring the Word that you can find at AFR.net. And then on YouTube, if you Google Truth for a New Generation, I'm always putting up short-form three- and five-minute videos. We're on the NRB television network a couple of times a week.

We're on TCT, Total Christian Television, out of Marion, Illinois. And then my own website, which is AlexMcFarland.com. I've got some very special speaking engagements coming up. We're going back down to Texas to our wonderful friends at First Baptist, Silverton, Texas. We're going to Arkansas, Grace Baptist, our wonderful friends in Arkansas. I'll be at the Cove in June, the Billy Graham Training Center, the Cove, to teach the Book of Acts and Principles of Revival and Awakening in the Book of Acts. So, my website, AlexMcFarland.com. Please like us on social media and forward this along, because my dear friends, as you stand for truth, as you influence others, you are a part of the solution. And somebody who I just have come to, oh my goodness, how I admire this scholar and brother is Ivy Scarborough.

His book, which is called Into the Night, the Crisis of Western Civilization, he's graciously with us today for a few moments. Ivy, I've got to tell you, when I hear you talk and your knowledge of history and your knowledge of America, and just the mind God has given you, and you use it for Christ, I'm thinking, wow, I am really glad he's on our team. Well, I'm really glad that God has permitted me to be on this team.

I wouldn't want to be any place else. I always wanted to be at the very pinnacle of what was important. At one time early on in college, I was thinking perhaps God would have me in a political career, but I had not thought through that and I wasn't mature enough as a Christian to really make that decision. And the thing that I have found as time has gone on, God has answered my prayer, but in a very different way.

In other words, I wanted to be at the pinnacle of what was most important, the greatest things and the greatest issues in history that any human being could aspire to, and God has allowed me to participate in a way right at that pinnacle. But we are dealing with things that are truly significant in a culture that thinks that over here all the things are significant, and yet they're shallow and they're superficial and they have absolutely no lasting meaning. Amen. Ivy, I get correspondence from a lot of believers and they're very despondent, and look, I get it.

The election, the state of the culture, everything from free college tuition, free health care, defund the police, there is a lot about which we are deeply concerned. I get it. But what a glorious moment to be a Christian. What a glorious opportunity right now to be a patron. And Ivy, we love the heroes of old, from the Apostle Paul to Finney and Moody and Edwards and all the great, Augustine, Aquinas, C.S.

Lewis and Billy Graham. But I believe, folks, if you're discouraged, think about this, back in the shadows, the saints that have gone on, I'll bet the Apostle Paul would say, oh please, I wish I could minister for six months in 2021. Let me at them.

Let me back in the game. Folks, embrace this moment, because 1 Corinthians 15, 58, your labor in the Lord is not in vain. And so folks, the witness that you project, the seed of truth you sow, the neighbor that you prayerfully gently influence, it really, really matters.

And so Ivy, would you agree? This is a thrilling time to serve Christ and to be alive and to minister, isn't it? I'm so glad you made that point, because you're absolutely correct. And in fact, one of the points that I have made to people who have shown an interest in our ministry, which we named Decision Point America, is that never shall anyone hear from us on this team the view that this is bleak, it's dismal, it's beyond redemption, that there's nothing that can be done. In other words, anything that sounds, smacks of a sense of helplessness or hopelessness or a frustration that they don't know that there can be anything done is not going to be a part of what we're saying to them, because just the opposite is true.

And that's a whole lot of what's said in part three of the book. What I'm trying to get across to Christians is, yes, you can do this, you can offer this course, but you don't have to be willing to get on your knees and do some serious soul-searching and humble yourself and come to grips with the fact that we as Christians and the church in America have failed our culture. We have failed it. Nothing is behind the decaying decline of American culture more than the failure of the church and we Christians, and I'm including myself in that. As a young man, I was very much a part of something that was shallow, and what I want to say to fellow Christians is, not only can we address this, but you put your hand in the hand of God and then you put the other hand on the sword or whatever other tool God seems to be presenting to you, and you use it.

And there are things that we can explain later as to what we can do, more specifics of the plan. But yes, by all means, not only is this not a bad time in one sense to be a Christian. If you're a Christian who wants to rise to the cause of the occasion, there is no better time than now to be there. But you've got to have that willingness.

You have got to love Christ so much, and you've got to love your fellow man so much that you're willing to make whatever sacrifices this calls for. If you love that much, you will do it. If you don't, if you love yourself more, you will continue to back off and stay in your little insular world, complaining, whining about the situation, talking about how bad it is. But you will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And you know what? As we read our Bible and we try to learn scripture, and as we read great books like yours to get prepared, you know, one of the beautiful things about this, friends, as you prepare to impact the world, it is you yourself that has changed. I want to direct you to the website AFASTORE.net. The book by Ivy Scarborough, the person with whom we've been talking, is called Into the Night, the Crisis of Western Civilization. I don't do this often, so I don't apologize. But folks, I'm begging you to get this book.

You need to acquire this book. It is an education. We'll talk with Ivy again, I'm sure. But folks, thanks for listening. This is Truth for a New Generation.

For more information, the website, AlexMcFarland.com. May God bless you. Thank you for listening. And today and always, stand for the truth. Thanks for listening today, and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG Radio.