TRUTH AND RENEWAL

WORLD Radio - Truth and renewal

November 19, 2025

Apologist Os Guinness outlines the crisis he believes is reshaping the country and why he still sees hope

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Os Guinness in a scene from Truth RisingColdwater Media

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 19th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: What happens when a culture loses touch with the truth?

That question is one that author, apologist, and theologian Os Guinness says is the greatest challenge of our age. And yet, he has great hope for renewal.

I spoke with Os recently and I started by asking him to diagnose the problem. I asked where does he see the crisis of truth most clearly today, and how does he see it shaping how people think about power and authority?

Let’s pick up our conversation there.

OS GUINNESS: Well, the crisis of truth has two huge consequences. One, if you don’t have truth, you’re open to deception and lies. But two, if you don’t have truth, you will move by power. Now, of course, that’s the whole point that Nietzsche made in the 1880s. “Do you want a name for my world?” he said. “This world is the will to power, and nothing else besides.”

Now, contrast that with the biblical position, say, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous remark, “One word of truth outweighs the entire world.” If we don’t have truth, we’re open to deception. Think of the growth of AA, AI I mean, and if we don’t have truth, everything will be a matter of power.

EICHER: Now, you’ve often warned that America is at risk of losing the very principles that made America great. If you were to identify one or two or even three signs of that loss here in the year 2025, what would they be and what kind of renewal do you think it would take to recover those things?

GUINNESS: Well, I find today that very few Christians can actually say what the roots of the American experiment were. In other words, most of Europe followed the Greek and Roman ways—monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, and so on. But the American experiment grew out of the Reformation and its rediscovery of what they called in the 17th century the Hebrew Republic. In other words, Exodus and Deuteronomy and the whole notion of covenantalism, the consent of the governed, and things like that. And they are distinctively different from the Greek and Roman way and we’ve got to get back to knowing what happened back then—not just as a matter of history, because if this is God’s founding His nation, there are lessons for a high view of freedom today. And I find very, very few Christians can defend that. And to me, it’s tragic.

EICHER: Now, you’ve contrasted this idea of decline and fall—we’re talking about civilizations—but you’ve contrasted decline and fall with the notion of exile and return. And I’d like for you to talk a little bit about that and what gives you confidence that renewal through an exile and return is still possible. Do you see places where you see it starting?

GUINNESS: Well, if you think of the ancient world, it was ruled by fate. You think of Oedipus Rex—the Delphic Oracle speaks. He and his parents do everything they can to beat the Oracle, but everything they do makes sure the Oracle is all the more certain. Fate. There’s no escape.

Now, you think, as modern people, we don’t believe that, but actually, atheists and secularists have the modern equivalent, which is determinism. If you can figure out scientifically all that influences us, we can never do otherwise than we do, whether it’s economic for Marx, psychological for Freud, genetic for others, and so on.

Now, I think our biblical view is freedom—even the freedom to repent. So the secular view that decline always leads to fall is not the biblical pairing. The biblical pairing is exile. Yes, there are certainly huge consequences if you leave the way of the Lord. Adam and Eve are East of Eden. Cain is a wanderer on the earth. Israel in captivity to Babylon and so on. And the church—corruption, decline again and again and again. If we leave the way of the Lord, we’ll be in trouble, and we’ll be effectively in exile.

But the wonderful biblical promise, which you get from the first great prophet Moses right through to the last in the Old Testament, Malachi and Habakkuk and so on: “If you return to me,” says the Lord, “I will return to you and restore your fortunes.” And of course, that happened with Ezra and Nehemiah saving Judaism. And that, of course, is the story of Christian revival, awakening. Think of the First and Second Great Awakenings.

Or think of G. K. Chesterton’s magnificent line. Looking over the story of the church—“Six times,” he said, “the church has gone to the dogs. But in each case, it was the dog that died.” In other words, we really do know that through repentance, you can return, and the Lord will return and reawaken us. So we have strong hopes in revival.

Now, can it happen? Of course. Will it happen? That’s up to the Lord, and there are powerful things against it today. So I’m not just saying because it can happen it will happen. No, no. It’s only in the Lord’s mercy that His word breaks out and His Spirit comes down in conviction and power.

EICHER: Os, before we go, if you could speak directly to Christians who may say, you know, I feel exhausted by politics. I’m exhausted by cultural battles. What charge would you give to them right now?

GUINNESS: Well, on the one hand, we’ve got to put politics in its place, as it were, because politicization is the making of politics more than it should be. So there’s a lot of politics in the Bible, but it is not the first thing. And I love the old saying, “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.”

So we’ve got to put it back in its place. And the first thing is much more in the area of our daily lives—in terms of churches, families and schools and things like that. And if those are flourishing, freedom will flourish, and they’re much more important than politics.

But above all, we’ve just got to live the gospel today. The challenge of our world is faith against modernity, rather like a David against Goliath, and we’ve got to know that just to let God be God and live the way of the Lord is the most powerful thing we can do, and we trust in Him without any fear.

So the idea that it’s all up to us, and we’ve got to do it through politics, is a huge temptation that’s leading people astray and also tiring people out.

EICHER: What wonderful wisdom that is. Os Guinness, it’s great to talk with you. Thanks again so much for taking time for us.

GUINNESS: My pleasure.

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