In our Lenten Friday series we have examined the cultural worldview and its rejection of absolute truth. We have seen that the gospel must be relevant before our society will consider that it might be right. Last week we learned the significance of taking our message to our friends, admitting that they will not come to us. Today we finish our discussion with the imperative to act now.

As we have seen in our Friday series, much of our society does not believe that it needs what we offer. Only two percent of Americans are afraid they might go to hell. "Truth" is personal and subjective; Christianity is "your" truth but that doesn't make it "my" truth. As we continue this Lenten season, how do we help our friends trust the Christ we love? Do we let them try to climb out of their spiritual graves, or curl up in the corner? Or do we go and get them out?

Why does our culture believe that "truth" is personal and subjective? Why is faith to be kept private, Sunday separated from Monday and the "religious" from the "real world"? Why does our society believe that sincerity in our beliefs + tolerance of others = acceptable spirituality?

I aim to please. So this Friday and next, we'll survey 200 years of Western thought. Fasten your keyboards.

However smart we may feel about now, we're all about to challenge our IQs considerably. This week we will consider what may be the most formative mind in modern Western history. What he did was so significant and influential that his ideas are still the intellectual air we breathe this morning. Many historians of Western culture suggest that the story is Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. I agree, and not in that order.

In this chapter I'm not going to contribute to the knowledge glut beyond what is absolutely essential. Writing what follows is painful for me, since I'm leaving out far more than I'm putting in. But since this is a survey intended to help Christians understand their faith and serve God more effectively, and not a survey of historical philosophy on its own merits, perhaps the scholars among us will forgive me.

So far in our Friday series we've watched speculative philosophers take the stage and offer their views of the world and life. All the while we're wondering when someone is going to get practical. This week we're in luck--sort of.

We are truly in the Information Age. But we're not the first people to center our lives and culture around the accumulation and transmission of such. The second great thinker in Western history would have loved the Internet. Except that he already knew more than it does, or wanted to. As we continue our Friday series on the reasons we think as we do, let's meet Aristotle today.

This week, our pastoral care minister and I sat down to discuss a memorial service he would be conducting for the family of a teenage suicide victim. As we talked about this tragic issue, it seemed to us both that a brochure dealing with this subject would be helpful for families in such times. What you are reading today is the result of that conversation.

Things are changing faster than ever before, it seems. Compare a map of the world today with one 20 years old. A new web site is created every two seconds. The world's store of knowledge doubles every eighteen months. More knowledge has been accumulated in the last thirty years than in the preceding 5,000.