The Vision
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Do you have any convictions? How many of you, I wonder, upon reading the word "conviction" think of crimes? How many of you thought "Well, I've gotten a few traffic tickets before, does that count?" I would suspect that the younger you are the more likely you so thought. And those of you who wanted the President to hurry up and finish last night's State of the Union so you could find out OJ's civil verdict probably are in the same boat. Conviction, however, was once some- thing people sought with vigor. And when they found it they held on for dear life.

In our age of tolerance, however, it is convictions which are the crime. People have stopped being shocked at what we believe. They can't believe that we believe. This is the cultural shift from modernism (with all its confidence in the scientific method as the arbiter of truth) to post-modernism (and its happy assurance that we can't be sure of anything). Tolerance has become the summum bonum of our age. Conviction then must be the most despicable of crimes.

The Highlands Study Center is a counter-cultural teaching ministry. We exist for the purpose of promoting and persuading folks of counter-cultural convictions. And counter-cultural conviction #1 is that convictions are good things to have. The first thing we know is that we can know things. Each issue of Every Thought Captive will strive toward that goal. It also will do so in a counter-cultural way; that is, we will affirm and defend our convictions with vigor, eschewing our culture's propensity for namby-pamby, limp-wristed assertions. Issue #1 looked at our culture's incessant drive to divide things, and suggested that we need to think corporately. This issue we compare and contrast the spiritual fruit of patience with the demonic fruit of tolerance.

Every Thought Captive, however, doesn't look at these kinds of issues in the abstract. We do not merely have convictions about convictions, we have convictions about families, churches, states, etc. And so we will in each issue have an over-arching theme. And that theme will be looked at through these various spheres. What follows then, is a sort of guide to our newsletter, a sneak peak at some of our fundamental convictions on fundamental issues:

This column is called The Vision. Each issue we will here explain how each theme relates to the purpose of the Highlands Study Center. That, of course, is what you have just been reading.

The HIStory column will be somewhat unusual, and varied. Of late I have been telling my daughter Darby more stories than I have been reading her. She likes to hear about Goldilocks and about Ruth and Naomi, about Jack and the Beanstalk and about David and Goliath. Daddy is always very careful to tell her which are real and which are just stories, that Goliath existed, Jack's giant did not. Here you can get a story or history, or even as with this month's excerpt on patience from Pilgrim's Progress a historical story that is also a historical story that is also His story.

Ekklesia is our column on the church. The name we chose reflects one of our most basic convictions. Ekklesia means "called out ones." We believe the church has stopped seeing itself in this light, and needs some conviction over this sin.

Family Circle is named such to affirm our conviction that families need to be seen as a unity, as a whole, the circle being a symbol of unity. How do patience and tolerance relate to the family? Read about it here.

Culture Matters, as a title, speaks for itself. Culture does matter. The culture war, though not new, is very real. It is that arena in which Christ is making footstools of His enemies.

Leviathan, our column on the state, also communicates one of our deepest convictions, that the state is a consuming monster to be resisted by all biblical means.

We hope you will keep reading, and that our convictions will be shared, and spoken forth with conviction.