Epiphany Services/En Presentation on Helsinki RY 06.01.2021 14.14

Listeners, dear sisters and brothers, we will join before the introduction in mutual thanksgiving and prayer.

Holy and righteous God, almighty heavenly Father, on this day we want to thank you for your holy word, for the unchanging, lasting word, which in the middle of all times has guided and still guides the way for us towards our Redeemer. Just like it led the steps of the wise men to the manger.

Let your holy word be the light on our pathway, refreshing and consoling us, enlightening your holy will. Let your holy word again and again open up the views of hope for the future so that it could, in itself, refresh a person who feels unsure and scared, that it could refresh with the word of forgiveness of sins. And let your holy word be guiding us and guiding those who are not participants of this grace to enter your kingdom. Bless our service moment for the thanksgiving of your word. Amen.

As it was mentioned before this, we started the theme of this introduction as values changing with time. So we have two portions in this. The first one discusses the changing values in our time, the depth of this change. These changes are widely visible between generations, as differences between generations, differences in ways of thinking. And the first portion is analysis of this change and the direction of change. And in the second portion, the end part of this introduction, examines the message of the unchanging word of God and the doctrine in the middle of our changing time.

The society and the culture and the values embedded in it are in a constant change. They have been that way. Always. But it is clear that these changes have accelerated markedly over the past decades. There are many drivers for this change. The changes in livelihoods and their effects on nature and the environment. Urbanization. Changes in education. Population. Age structure. Movement across borders. Development of technology. And from time to time, unexpected and improbable events can change the culture and values very quickly. For example, this corona epidemic can potentially be one such event.

The developments, all in all, have been so fast over the past two decades that every new decade has sort of stepped into a new era. And the differences between generations are so visible that in both Finnish and international generational study, these different generations have been given specific names relevant to each era. So we speak of, for example, the following, the generation of wartime and rebuilding, which is the oldest currently existing generation. People who approach the age of 100 at the highest.

Then we speak of the generation of a great turning point, a great rupture. 70 to 82 year olds. Then we speak of the generation of suburbs born in the 50s to 64. Then we have the generation X, the generation of well-being born from 1965 to 1979 in the U.S. known as the generation X. Then we have the generation of individualism born in the 80s, also called the millennials or the generation Y. And as the newest and the freshest generation, we have the generation of competition or accomplishment, also known as generation of the time of uncertainty, the Z generation, born in the 90s.

And the values assumed by these different generations have naturally always been reflected to the society and the cultural values by shaping the way of thinking and shaping attitudes. Even though the changing of the population age structure is a megatrend, the proportion of generations X, Y, and Z of the adult population is, according to the Bureau of Statistics, already almost 60%. And the citizens that belong to these generations are opinion leaders and decision makers in today's society.

At the moment, especially this generation of individualism, so the millennials are reaching a central role in the society. And how do the differences between values in these generations, how do they reflect to religion and religious values? All of us, we have observations of the change in values in the society. And in this introduction, I do not rely on my subjective experiences, but I refer to a fresh study by the church, the research group of the church, titled Religion in Everyday Life and in Celebration, published in September 2020.

And in the church research, they have since the 70s, looked into the values of the sins and the changes in the culture. And this report reflects the ways of thinking, the values, and the changes in them over the decades. A couple of examples here. First, the generation following the wartime, 73% of them considered children important, but of the youngest generations, only 18% considered children important. And the young generation valued the possibility to give time to friends and hobbies 42 percentage points more than the older generations.

And the matter of sharing duties at home was experienced in different ways. So, of the young generations, 55% considered the sharing important, when of the older generations, only one fifth considered this important. And the young generations considered marriage as an outdated institution, especially millennials, whereas of the older generations, only 10% viewed it that way.

And the majority of the young generations, 73% of the young ones, especially 85% of women considered gay and lesbian couples equally good parents as other kind of couples. And in the older generations, this kind of attitude was prevalent only amongst one-fifth.

So the greatest difference is visible in how people view the importance of religion. So, in this fresh study, of the older generations, more than 60% considered religion important, but of the younger generations, Y and Z, only 17% considered religion or faith important. There's a direct quote here which might be difficult to translate now. Especially amongst women, the proportion of religious people and the falling, dropping of this proportion has been exceptionally stark. Amongst the oldest generation, or between the oldest and the youngest generation, and women in those generations, there's been a change of 59 percentage points. This is huge. Huge.

So, this kind of a generational shift in the attitude towards religion and its importance are the largest here in Finland amongst the 30 European countries. In no other European country were the differences this big.

So, when commitment and ties to religion and faith have become thinner, it has been reflected on how people view religion to be by its nature. In 77, 51% of all Finns said that they believe in the God of the Christian faith, while in the most fresh study only 25% state this. Even though faith in God has been fading also in the oldest of generations, still 43% of 70 to 80 year olds experience that they believe in the God of our Christian faith. This number amongst the young ones is only 15%.

In Helsinki now, only 40% of children that are born are baptized. This proportion has dropped over the past decade by 22 percentage points. The significance of Christian celebrations and their biblical significance has faded. This has happened to Christmas and Easter and other content has replaced the Christian content. And this has been reflected on how we also spend the holiday or Sunday.

So the report by church uses the word secularization to describe all of these changes. And that is exactly what it is. And we can summarize this phenomenon as follows. Ties to Christian faith and commitment to Christian faith is being reduced strongly at the level of individuals but also at the level of the whole society. Religion and freedom of religion is considered solely as a private matter. Which it of course is but it seems that there is a goal to change the society and its fundamental structures such as teaching at schools to be completely free of any religious content.

And what we read in the Bible and the rights of human beings are increasingly positioned against each other. So humanism, liberalism, equality, rights of minorities, freedom of expression, human rights, they are being uplifted in discussions and the times in the times in the way that goes and the values, values, the value base that people have matters here. All of these things that have been mentioned here, acceptance, equality, they are important basic values, but if the goal is to water down the understanding of sin and to seek for permission for sin, it is against the Bible.

And the board of SRK took a position on this in October 2020 by saying that according to the law, everyone needs to have the right to the concept of humanity according to the Bible, the right to an understanding of marriage and family life without this kind of understanding that is based on the Bible being questioned by human rights questions.

So the positive freedom of religion is being overshadowed versus the negative freedom of religion. By positive freedom of religion we mean freedom to believe and confess faith and teach as one believes and by negative freedom of religion we mean the freedom to be without believing. And it seems that this negative freedom to believe is being highlighted and it threatens and limits the right of an individual to express religion and faith in the society.

And the demand for our state church to adjust to the prevailing values of the society is increasing all the time. And the position of the church in the society is criticized increasingly and pressure for change is being created by the lawmakers even and by interpreting the existing laws.

So the matters that are most central drivers of the secularization are difficult to define. But we can think that the names given to these generations by researchers such as the generation of individualism or the generation of competition and accomplishment or generation of uncertainty give some reference to these drivers of change. Individualism seems to include these frameworks for increasing secularization.

And these include the resistance of authority, sort of uplifting of specialists, heroes, self-defined truth, concepts of truth, the need to have these huge experiences and these no one wants to be mediocre or cautious but experimental and different.

And in addition to individualism a research house has highlighted in its own megatrend analysis the effects of digitalization and has stated that digitalization is changing the power structures of the society and it has increased the power of networks. Social media is undoubtedly a strong channel for affecting opinions and with massive intensity and volume it is shaping the hierarchies, demand hierarchies or need hierarchies of people and their interpretations and opinions of the surrounding reality.

A couple of decades ago the society was more coherent, the basic values were experienced as being mutual and they were accepted more or less by everyone: home, religion and fatherland type of values and marriage was considered as something between a man and a woman and it was considered to be lifelong and marriage between the same sex was seen being against the Bible.

And there was a letter by the bishops of the church in 66 when they wrote this kind of letter where they stated this clearly. I'm not able to translate the reference here but it points out that still in the 60s amongst the church and to a large degree amongst the Finnish citizens the values were mutual and they were tied to the Bible. This is no longer the case.

The relinquishment of these values has become evident in individual people at homes and more broadly in society even at church. The words of Jesus come to mind but when the Son of Man comes will he find faith upon the earth? This is in Luke 18:8 or in Paul's letter to Timothy where he describes the people at the end times.

You need to know that in the last days difficult times will come. People will only love themselves and money. They are boastful and arrogant. They swear and they are disobedient to their parents. They are unthankful, ungodly, without love. Violent and brutal. Enemies of all good. They are deceitful and nefarious and mindless. They love enjoyments more than God. They are outwardly righteous but they deny the power of faith. Stay away from them.

The psalm said Lord your word is eternal. Its solid foundation is in heaven. Your truth will last from generation to generation. And prophet Isaiah writes that our God, the word of our God shall last eternally. Malachi says I Lord shall not change.

According to the Lutheran principle regarding the Bible to which our study in Christianity with which we agree, the Bible is the highest authority of faith which gives to life and to the doctrine and teaching the correct direction. And we believe that the only correct order or piece of advice according to which all doctrine and teachers have to be examined and evaluated are solely the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

It has been written your word is the lamp of my feet and delight on my paths Psalm 119 and Paul says even if an angel from heaven would come and declare differently let him be cursed. If faith Luther writes in his writings that if the faith is correct then your God is correct and vice versa but if you find security in the wrong thing if it is incorrect there is no correct God either.

So these two, the faith and God belong together and even though the doctrine does not make one righteous we can say that if the doctrine is wrong the faith is not correct either and even if a person has the right understanding of the doctrine of Christ he shall not be saved if he is missing the gift of faith.

So if the faith only becomes a social thing, a way of life, maintaining some kind of tradition, the real meaning of faith and its core will disappear. Faith and life cannot be separated. We are believers everywhere even though faith for all of us is personal it is not completely our personal matter but this faith unites just like the third chapter of faith describes it unites the children of God to one congregation to the care of the good shepherd.

I encourage all of you to listen to a presentation kept on the SRK channel on Saturday the 9th at 6 o'clock titled What is Faith.

So the more the word of God establishes a foundation for the societal structure and the societal values the more it is a blessing for this people. In the book of Proverbs we have a good reminder of this: righteousness is a glory for the people but sin is the shame of nations.

At times we hear that the Bible is tied to tradition and to its time and that's why we should not take it literally and this viewpoint has been highlighted especially in the past few decades when we have discussed the women's priesthood, the holiness or sanctity of marriage and lasting a lifetime and in the past years especially when discussing the marriage amongst the same sex.

Peter writes not one word of prophecy has come about through the will of people but the people of God have spoken being guided by the Holy Spirit telling what they have received from God and every holy writing born out of the Spirit of God is beneficial as doctrine and teaching for guiding towards life according to the will of God in 2 Timothy 3:16.

So the Bible has two natures: it is this godly nature but it has a human nature. It is fully the word of God as it's been born out of the effects of God's Spirit but it is also fully the word of man since people have spoken it and written it.

The Bible is not a flawless history book or biology book or book of medicine. Its power and authority is limited to faith and the message of salvation and in that arena it is unchanging and unchangeable.

Letter to Galatians as Luther points out shows that the congregation remains only relying on the correct doctrine of righteousness and if we give that up we give up the entire Christian doctrine.

So if we do not keep the doctrine on how one becomes righteous clean we cannot fight against any delusions. So the matters that relate to the foundations of faith are always dependent independent of time place culture these questions are sin reconciliation of sins redemption the law and the gospel faith righteousness the congregation the priesthood the word and the sacrament resurrection and eternal life.

And our time is offering us an unbelievable amount of matters that are in conflict with both our faith and in conflict with the word of God.

The advice by Paul: do not conform to this world but renew your minds so that you can assess what is the will of God what is good according to his will and perfect.

And Jesus guides us: first seek for the kingdom of God and his righteous will and furthermore he said Jesus said if someone loves me he will obey my word my father shall love him and we shall come to him and live in his heart.

And Paul writes thanks to God you who were slaves of sin have now become through your entire hearts obedient to this teaching which you have been given to you have been led to to follow the love which is created as the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Guides us to be responsible for each other the letter to the Hebrews advices take care of one another so that we are diligent in love and good deeds.

So the basic will of God is that no one would give up faith and the love given by God affects in us the will to give up those things that take us further away from faith that lures a weaker brother to sin and unbelief.

So this love guides us to the teaching of God's word to your listener even at this moment you can believe your sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus name and holy atoned my blood.

Finally this teaching which Jesus spoke to his disciples when he discussed the signs of the end times Jesus advised us stay awake.

The promises of the word of God and the gospel open up views of the future and hope in all times and this foundation shall last through storms as we heard in the song before this introduction song 179 even if the storm would rage and the waves would beat our ship even if night would fall upon us and Jesus would sleep he's with us still.

Zion do not fear he shall lead this us to the shore no matter what we face.

Dear sisters and brothers we cannot have a mutual discussion on these topics here today but hopefully this opening introduction here awoke some thoughts in your mind that you can share with your friends and I hope that these same greetings remain on top of your mind which the Redeemer spoke to his disciples look I shall be with you every day until the end of the world.

We will join in the Lord's benediction: Lord bless us and keep us. Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious unto us. Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Thank you.