The Bible, the Word of God – Part 2

“Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Jerome).

The Bible, the Word of God

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

Moral Ideas – Part 4

“A moral ideal can exist nowhere and nohow but in a Mind; an absolute moral ideal can exist only in a Mind from which all Reality is derived. Our Moral ideal can only claim objective validity in so far as it can rationally be regarded as the revelation of a moral ideal eternally existing in the mind of God” (Hasting Rashdall).

Moral Ideas – Part 3

“Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the ‘right’ notes and the ‘wrong’ ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

Moral Ideas – Part 2

“The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

Moral Ideas – Part 1

“If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

The Debt

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23″Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26″The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28″But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29″His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

30″But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32″Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35″This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

(Matthew 18:21-35)

A Christian Response to the Horror at Virginia Tech

Written by Rick Wade
http://www.probe.org/current-issues/a-christian-response-to-the-horror-at-virginia-tech.html

Many of us found ourselves glued to the television on Monday, watching videos of the events surrounding the mass murder in Blacksburg, Virginia. A day like all other days for thousands of college students, faculty, administrators, and all the rest that make up the mini-city of Virginia Tech University suddenly turned into a waking nightmare, the kind of experience that happens on TV but never really happens to us. Or so we think. I’ve been to the campus in Blacksburg; it isn’t the kind of place one would imagine mass murder. But where would one expect such a thing, except in far away places like Iraq?In such situations, our emotions typically take the lead since it takes awhile to get all the information that informs our thinking. What emotions do we experience? Shock? Fear, as we think about students of our own there or at similar campuses? Sadness for the loss of life, especially for such senseless loss? Another sense we have, sometimes not till after the initial shock has worn off, is moral outrage, a deep-seated sense that what happened was wrong: not in terms of economics or simply the proper functioning of an organization, but in terms of moral wrong. Deep down we know there is good and there is evil, and this event was evil.

But upon what do we base this sense? Before you just brush the question aside with the ubiquitous “Duh!” or ask incredulously, “What kind of question is that?!” pause a moment and give it some thought. Why is such a thing wrong? After all, if we push a Darwinian, naturalistic worldview to the limit, we might think ourselves justified in seeing this kind of horror as really no different from animals attacking and killing each other. Keep in mind that the Nazis were able to carry out their slaughter because they had relegated Jews to a lower level in the evolutionary chain.

The first point I want to make is that Christianity explains our moral outrage. It’s explained by the fact that we are created in God’s image and have in us a sense of moral right and wrong. The apostle Paul wrote that “the requirements of the law are written on [our] hearts,” that our “consciences [are] also bearing witness, and [our] thoughts now accusing, now even defending [us]” (Romans 2:15). God is the standard of moral right and wrong, and we reflect that knowledge in ourselves. Of course, we can deaden that knowledge; a conscience can be trained to ignore promptings to do good.

Have you seen someone get angry (or maybe you got angry yourself) when a person who commits such an evil act commits suicide immediately afterwards? Oh, I know: some people ultimately want the person to die himself. But there’s something about being denied to express our moral outrage at the person. We want justice for the crime committed, and we don’t always want it to be a quick and dirty justice. Frankly, we’d like the person to suffer and know what he’s suffering for.

How do we explain our desire for justice? What I described above is more a desire for vengeance. However, we do want justice. We want the person to face up to the charges, to hear the condemnation (consider the trials where families of victims get to speak their minds to the accused). We want him to know he did wrong and to know he’s going to suffer the consequences, and then we want justice meted out.

Along the same lines that Christianity explains moral outrage, it also explains our desire for justice. We know some things are morally wrong and are deserving of punishment. And we want to make a strong enough impression on the guilty that he (or observers of the case) doesn’t do it again. God is very interested in justice. A quick search in the New International Version lists almost one hundred twenty instances of the word “justice” in the Old Testament. The psalmist writes, “The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love” (33:5). “Truth is nowhere to be found,” God said through Isaiah, “and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice” (Isa. 59:15). And, “Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (1:15-17).

This isn’t just an Old Testament concern. In the New Testament we have this promise: “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

A question comes naturally to mind. If God is so interested in justice, why doesn’t He fulfill it now? This is an extremely important question. However, it’s one I’m going to forego for now (search Probe’s Web site for articles on the problem of evil; Sue Bohlin’s article “The Value of Suffering” is a good start). The long and short of it is that we don’t know just what God is up to. We can hazard some guesses. C. S. Lewis said that suffering is God’s “megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Let’s say we can’t give an answer to the question, Why is evil allowed? What then? If that’s the primary criterion for accepting a particular religion or philosophy as true, we will be able to accept none, not even secularism!

What, then? Where does that leave us? Christianity does have an answer to that: Christianity offers hope. Even in the worst of situations, the person who has received the grace of God in salvation has the hope of a future in which death has no place. This isn’t “hope” as in cross-your-fingers hope, like, “I sure hope the game doesn’t get rained out this weekend.” In the New Testament, hope is presented as the assurance of the future. We have the hope of eternal life—of that life which has no room for death—by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The apostle Peter wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Jesus proved that He had broken the hold of death through His own death on the cross by breaking free from the tomb and appearing live to hundreds of people. Because He rose and conquered death, we who trust in Him will, too.

Hope is a fundamental ingredient of Christianity. Faith enables us to say “yes” today to what we know we should do; hope enables us to say “yes” to the future, because it rests in the hands of the God Who loves us. One of my favorite verses in Scripture is in Romans. Paul wrote: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13). This is God’s desire for us, to live in the (sure) hope that our future is secure in Him.

One more thing. Christianity isn’t just some set of religious dogmas and practices that keeps some of us off the streets on Sunday mornings! Christianity provides a way of life that minimizes such tragedies. It provides both the framework within which we order our lives and the ability to do it by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. Blaise Pascal held out the value of Christian morality as an enticement to see if Christianity is true. Even if it isn’t true, he said, look at the kind of life it calls us to lead! Thomas Jefferson, who so rejected the miraculous in the Bible that he edited out of the New Testament all such things, recognized a high level of morality in its pages. And when you ask people who the best exemplars of goodness have been in history, Jesus is typically on the list, even the lists of those who don’t believe He is the divine Son of God.The point is that built into Christianity is a structure of life that prohibits people hurting each other. Of course, this isn’t to suggest that Christians never do wrong! But it is to say that we have more than just pragmatic reasons for doing right. We do right to honor God, to honor people, because we believe in moral right and wrong. Sometimes we do the right thing—only because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of the rewards! However, I would be dishonest if I didn’t note that there does lie in our future many blessings for obedient lives.

But Christianity goes beyond simply providing a moral code. It also provides the power to follow it! The Holy Spirit somehow resides in us (one of the mysteries of the faith!), and He transforms us, changes us through a number of ways into the image of Christ (cf. Rom. 8:5-17; 12:1,2; Gal. 5:16-26).

To sum up: Christianity explains our moral outrage at the mass murders at Virginia Tech this week. It explains our desire for justice, and guarantees that it will be carried out eventually. It offers real hope, hope that is sure, for those who suffer. And it provides a way for people to live with one another without having a reason to give in to such evil impulses.

It’s likely that some people will read this who aren’t Christians. If you’re one of them, I’d like to ask you to consider thoughtfully what I’ve said about Christianity, but also consider what you believe. You may be an adherent of another religion or philosophy, or you may simply be a secularist who believes in God but believes He doesn’t really have much to do with our lives. My question is this: If you agree that the issues I’ve raised are important, how does your belief system answer them? If it does answer them, do the answers seem plausible? Is there good reason to believe them? If not, maybe the whole belief system needs to be evaluated.

If you’d like to know more about a Christian understanding of these issues, hunt around on our Web site for other articles. Or send us an e-mail . You can even use the old-fashioned method of calling on the phone!

We’d love to hear from you.

© 2007 Probe Ministries

The Remedy

“You have been once more warned today, while the door of the ark yet stands open. You have, as it were, once again heard the knocks of the hammer and axe in the building of the ark, to put you in mind that a flood is approaching. Take heed therefore that you do not still stop your ears, treat these warnings with a regardless heart, and still neglect the great work which you have to do, lest the floor of wrath suddenly come upon you, sweep you away, and there be no remedy” (Jonathan Edwards).

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Matthew 24:36-44).

Our Condolences

Our condolences go out to the community of Virginia Tech. We are extremely saddened by what took place. We try to find reason behind people’s actions, and not only reason but also spiritual view behind the physical. We’ll leave out for now the action of the criminal offence that has happened on your campus. But we will illuminate the clear evident spiritual aspect of an expression of a student body that has held together under extreme grievance and pressure from the media. We are encouraged to see such a family of a student body hold each other up in true unconditional love.

“A perfect man would never act from a sense of duty… Duty is only a substitute for love, like a crutch which is a substitute for a leg. Most of us need the crutch at times; but of course it is idiotic to use the crutch when our own legs can do the journey on their own” (C.S. Lewis).

Lament

By Evangeline Paterson

Weep, weep for those
Who do the work of the Lord
with a high look
And a proud heart.
Their voice is lifted up
In the streets, and their cry is heard.
The bruised reed they break
By their great strength, and the smoking flax
They trample.

Weep not for the quenched
(For their God will hear their cry
And the Lord will come to save them)
But weep, weep for the quenchers

For when the Day of the Lord
Is come, and the vales sing
And the hills clap their hands
And the light shines
Then their eyes shall be opened
On a waste place,
Smouldering,
The smoke of the flax bitter
In their nostrils,
Their feet pierced
By broken reed-stems…
Wood, hay, and stubble,
And no grass springing,
And all the birds flown.

Weep, weep for those
Who have made a desert
In the name of the Lord.

Love Your Enemies

9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[1] says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[2] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:9-21

[1] Deuteronomy 32:35
[2] Proverbs 25:21-22

Paul’s Letter to American Christians (exerpt)

From A Knock at Midnight by Martin Luther King, Jr.

But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about “improved means to an unimproved end.” How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: “everybody is doing it, so it must be alright.” For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Or, as I said to the Philippian Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.

The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept…

Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.

But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways.

There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name” and “Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind,” you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is…

I must say to you as I have said to so many Christians before, that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Moreover, I must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: “God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”…

May I say just a word to those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos…

So don’t despair if you are condemned and persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Whenever you take a stand for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Don’t worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority, because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded than ever before that “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, “God is love.” He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates does not know God.

So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you “speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
You may have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries. You may be able to break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the heights of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge. You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to absolutely nothing devoid of love.

But even more Americans, you may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as history’s supreme hero. But even so, if you have not love your blood was spilt in vain. You must come to see that it is possible for a man to be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be generous in order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride. Man has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a tragic vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.

So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here that we find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is most durable power in the world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. Only through achieving this love can you expect to matriculate into the university of eternal life.

I must say goodby now. I hope this letter will find you strong in the faith. It is probable that I will not get to see you in America, but I will meet you in God’s eternity. And now unto him who is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority, forever and ever. Amen.

The New Religions

From Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

Whereas modernism sought to rid the world of religion, postmodernism spawns new ones. Unconstrained by objectivity, tradition, reason, or morality, these new faiths differ radically from Christianity. They draw on strains of the most ancient and primitive paganism.

Even the deconstructionists speak in mystical terms. They have been compared to the medieval practitioners of “negative theology” who refuse to say what God is, maintaining that they could only say what God is not. More precisely, they are like the monks of Zen Buddhism who undercut rationality itself, obliterating all distinctions to achieve the enlightenment of Nirvana, the state of cosmic nothingness. The deconstructionists dissolve every positive statement, every rational argument, every truth claim – destroying form, they say, so as to open up what lies beyond the possibilities of representation. What lies beyond the final eclipse of absolutes will be beyond our imagining, conditioned as we are by rationalists categories. The inadequacies of language will be left behind, and the alienation of the isolated individual supposedly will be healed in a mystical reconciliation of nature, psychology, and culture. (Postmodernists naively assume the best, lacking the doctrine of original sin, which would predict that destroying all form would release horrific evil.)

Postmodernism, in its rejection of objective truth, has clear affinities with Hinduism and Buddhism, which teach that the external world is only an illusion spun by the human mind. The Eastern religions also provide the basis for more popular brands of spirituality. As the postmodernist Walter Truett Anderson points out:

“The rush of postmodern reaction from the old certainties has swept some people headlong into a worldview even more radical than that of the constructivists. Many voices can now be heard declaring that what is out there is only what we put out there. More precisely, what I put there – just little me, euphorically creating my own universe. We used to call this solipsism; now we call it New Age spirituality.”

New Age religions, for all of the pagan trappings, have in common the idea that the self is divine, that you are God, the creator of your own universe. As old as the serpent’s lie to Eve (Genesis 3:5), this idea now finds its way into self-help books, motivational tracks, and pop psychology (“you create your own reality”).

The New Age movement, like postmodernism, exists is bewildering diversity, yet with common themes. New Age gurus may be “channelers” of ancient Egyptian warriors or extraterrestrial life forms. They may teach the beneficent powers of crystals or promote herbal medicine. They may do pseudoscientific research into extrasensory perception, or they may put on ropes to practice Tibetan meditation. They may throw the iching or they may practice witchcraft. For all of their differences, they will all assert the dogma that the self is god, that the objective universe is an illusion, and that truth is relative.

The New Age religions are, of course, little more than a revival of the old paganism. Behind the craze for horoscopes, ESP, and channeling lurks old-fashioned divination, magic, and demon possession. With the eclipse of Christianity, primitive nature religions come creeping back in all of their superstition and barbarism. These are, of course, adjusted to the contemporary imagination. Feminists, in reacting against “patriarchal” religions such as Christianity, try to restore goddess-worship. Environmentalists stress how the whole planet constitutes a single interdependent ecosystem. It is as if we are all individual cells of a larger organism, a living being long worshiped as Mother Earth, the goddess Gaia.

The pagan faiths, at least in their modern reincarnations, are morally permissive. Computer hackers, the cyberpunks, cultivate what they call “techno-erotic paganism,” using their modems to enter the electronic realm of “cyberspace.” Here on their interconnected computer screens, they attain a sort of global communication that enables them both to carry on quasi-theological conversations and to tap into pornographic email. The new religions are often tied to moral rebellion. The revival of goddess worship may relate to homosexuality as well as to feminism. Scholars have shown how in ancient times homosexuality was associated with goddess worship. Many ancient religions also practiced infanticide. Whether or not abortion is a form of Molech worship, its acceptance signals a profound shift away from the presuppositions of a transcendent ethical religion back to a darker, more barbaric ethical consciousness.

The next major new religion, however, will probably not be one of the old forms of overt paganism, but rather a syncretic hybrid. In a postmodernist and increasingly consumer-centered world in which truth is relative, people will pick and chose various aspects of the different faiths according to what they “like.” George Barna predicts that “left to their own devices, adults will be less impressed by, and less accepting of, Christianity’s most basic and important beliefs. Instead, as adults continue their search for truth and purpose, they will become syncretistic.”

“As elements of Eastern religions become more prolific, the most appealing aspects of Christianity (which will be the lifestyle elements, rather than the central spiritual tenants) will be wed to the exotic and fascinating attributes of Eastern faiths. The result will be a people who honestly believe that they have improved Christianity, and who would even consider themselves to be Christians, despite their creative restructuring of faith.”

Barna goes on to observe that “those who feared the takeover of Communism railed against the dangers of America becoming a godless nation. They need not fear: we will become just the opposite, in a nation filled with many gods.”

Biblical Christians will find themselves in exactly the position of the ancient Israelites and the early church – having the hold on to their faith in the midst of hostile pagan neighbors. They will also face the same temptations. Many of the Israelites fell into syncretism, going so far as to erect pagan altars in the temple of the one true God. Many in the early church fell into heresy as they attempted to combine Christianity with Gnostic philosophy and Manichean mystery cults. The pressure to follow the practices, values, and beliefs of pagan neighbors has always been intense. But God’s Word is clear:

“Be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How to these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:30-32).

Truth or Desire

From Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

To review, postmodernism assumes that there is no objective truth, that moral values are relative, and that reality is socially constructed by a host of diverse communities. These beliefs by no means rule out religion, as modernism tended to. But the religions and the theologies they promote are very different from both biblical orthodoxy and modernism.

Before, in both the modern and the premodern eras, religion involved beliefs about what is real. There either is a God, or there is not. Jesus was either the incarnate Son of God, or He was just a man. Miracles happened, or they did not. Some Christians vehemently disagreed with each other; Is there such a place as purgatory? Does Mary intercede for us in heaven? Are some predestined to damnation? But these were disagreements over questions of fact. Today religion is not seen as a set of beliefs about what is real or what is not. Rather, religion is seen as a preference, a choice. We believe in what we like. We believe what we want to believe.

Where there are no absolute truths, the intellect gives over to the will. Aesthetic criteria replace rational criteria. Listen to the way people today discuss religion. “I really like that church,” they will say. Agreeing with that church or believing in its teaching scarcely enters into it. People discuss tenets of faith in the same terms. “I really like the Bible passage that says, ‘God is love.’” Fair enough and amen. There is much to like in Christianity – God’s love for us, Christ’s bearing our sins, His grace and help.

But then we start hearing about what the person does not like. “I don’t like the idea of Hell.” This is certainly an appropriate response – who could possibly “like” Hell? But our natural distaste for this horrible doctrine is surely beside the point. The issue is not whether we like it, but whether there is such a place. Reality seldom takes into account our personal preferences, even in the most trivia facets of everyday life. That there might actually be a Hell, a realm of punishment and torment that lasts forever, is a momentous concept, staggeringly important.

To determine whether or not there is such a hideous existence beyond the grave – and to find out how we can be delivered from such a fate – a Christian must turn to the source of everything that we can know about spiritual reality, the revealed Word of God. The Christian must not necessarily expect to “like” the information thus uncovered. In fact Christians must be leery of wholly pleasant theologies void of hard edges or challenging demands. Such a faith is nothing more than wish-fulfillment and seductive fantasies.

Today even conservative and evangelical ministers seldom mention Hell. Certainly “people don’t like to hear about that,” and we do not want to scare them away. But people have never liked to hear about Hell. The difference is today, unlike any other time in history, many people are unwilling to believe (as if belief were a function of the will) what they do not enjoy (as if aesthetic considerations determined questions of fact).

This completely different way of thinking about religion – that it is a matter not of what is true but what one likes and what one wants – explains why the cults take in so many intelligent and well-educated people. The Church of Scientology, for example, teaches that aliens from outer space entered our universe millions of years ago and fought a galactic war. These aliens affected us in our past lives. We can solve our problems by hooking up to an electronic box and by being counseled by a Scientologist (at great expense), who will remove the negative “engrams” accumulated in our past lives. Thus we become “clear” spiritual beings.

People who think of themselves as too sophisticated to believe in the Gospel of John can believe in this? Scientology, in fact, especially attracts affluent business executives, successful movie stars, and well-educated young professionals. For all of its scientific rhetoric, Scientology makes no pretense of giving real evidence for the existence of these space aliens and previous lives. Scientologists may reject the possibility of revelation from God, but be quite willing to except revelation from founder L. Ron Hubbard.

But postmodern religions do not require evidence or plausibility. Hubbard was originally a successful science fiction novelist. Many people tremendously enjoy the aliens and galactic conflicts that are the staple of science fiction. Would it not be even better if these were real? The doctrines of scientology are fascinating, imaginatively stimulating, even entertaining. Why not choose to believe them?

Talk to a member of any cult, and notice how the person describes and evaluates its teachings in completely subjective and pleasure-oriented terms; “The Maharashi is really cool.” “Transcendental Meditation gives me a natural high.” “The Reverend Moon makes me feel good about myself.” Liking something and wanting it to be true are the only criteria for their beliefs.

A Christian would explain these cults’ popularity in more depth by saying that their followers have been ensnared by Satan. We need to realize that Satan seduces us by appealing to our desires. Satan lures us by promising preciously what we like and what we want. (Of course, by demonic irony, what he actually gives is what we do not like and what we do not want, namely, Hell). In light of “the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:14), we dare not make the satisfaction of our desires our prime spiritual authority.

Spirituality Without Truth

From Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

Ever since the Enlightenment and throughout the modern age, scholars have expected religion to die out. It hasn’t happened. “Modern man,” it was said (this was before feminism), was incapable of believing in the supernatural.

The twentieth century opened with a theological battle between the so-called modernist and the fundamentalists. With the Scopes trial of 1925, the media caricatured the fundamentalists, and the intellectual elite ridiculed them. The modernists seized the denominational structures of most mainline churches, including the seminaries and emerged triumphant. Ever since, modernist theologians have been “demythologizing” the Bible in an effort to make Christianity palatable to the twentieth century mind. They assume that “modern man” is so oriented to the scientific method and the triumph of the “secular city” that he simply cannot believe in miracles, divine revelation, and a God unseen.

Seminaries began studying the Bible, not as the authoritative Word of God, but as any other ancient document, using the historical critical methodology of “modern scientific scholarship.” This approach assumed that the miracles of the Bible did not occur and must be accounted for in nonsupernatural ways. Rather than seeing the Bible as authoritative, it held that the Bible statements should be received “critically,” as reflecting the culture and preoccupations of an ancient people. According to the modernist approach, what the Bible says is not necessarily true. Rather, theological liberals put their confidence in the alleged truth about Scripture as uncovered by the biblical critics, garbed in the infallible robes of modern scientific rationalism.

Liberals designed the theology to accommodate modern thought and culture, turning the church away from its preoccupation with an otherworldly salvation to a concern with society’s tangible problems. The church’s traditional concern for good works shifted into political activism designed to usher in the centrally planned utopia modernists expected. The church’s traditional concern for spirituality switched to psychology, using the very same methods and assumptions of the secular “social scientists.” Churches began to sponsor and counter groups, and pastors began counseling their flock to help them to “self-realization.”

Now the political utopianism and the psychological naivete of liberal theology – while still dominating most mainline seminaries – seem curiously dated. Far from appealing to modern man, the liberal churches have plummeted in membership. If the liberals were right, there is really no need for a church. If the Bible is a myth and we really do not need to be saved, as the liberals so earnestly preached, why not sleep in on Sunday morning? Ironically, the conservative and fundamentalist churches began to grow, addressing the genuine spiritual needs that modernist churches deny.

Of course, the “modern man” the liberals try to appeal to did not really exist. The new breed of humanity, so scientific, so rational, was a projection of modern philosophy, a myth created by a tiny number of intellectuals who wanted to attribute their own scientism and rationalism to the whole human race. Ordinary people face their limitations and their guilt as they always have, and many of them found faith in the Word of God. The theological liberals squandered their Christian heritage in a futile attempt to gain favor with modernist intellectuals. After a while modernism itself, with its supreme overconfidence and manifest failures, became a mockery. The fall of modernism dragged down liberal theology with it. For that, we can be eternally grateful.

The postmodern era holds promise for Bible-believing Christians. But it also holds new and different perils. Modernist heresies have floundered, but now postmodernist heresies replace them. Rationalism, having failed, is giving way to irrationalism – both are hostile to God’s revelation, but in different ways. Modernists did not believe the Bible is true. Postmodernists have cast out the category of truth altogether. In doing so, they have opened up a Pandora’s box of New Age religions, syncretism, and moral chaos.

The fundamentalist churches could easily define themselves against the modernists – the battle lines were clearly drawn. Today the issues are more complex and more insidious. Tragically, the postmodernist mind-set is gaining a foothold within evangelical churches.

Needed: Men of Prayer – Part 5

From Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds

The real sermon is made in the closet. The man—God’s man—is made in the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the pastor.

The pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official—a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is not to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul’s life or Paul’s ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world.

Needed: Men of Prayer – Part 4

From Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds.

The preacher’s sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God—men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.

After this order, the early Christians were formed. Men they were of solid mold, preachers after the heavenly type—heroic, stalwart, soldierly, saintly. Preaching with them meant self-denying, self-crucifying, serious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied themselves to it in a way that told on their generation, and formed in its womb a generation yet unborn for God. The preaching man is to be the praying man. Prayer is the preacher’s mightiest weapon. An almighty force in itself, it gives life and force to all.

Needed: Men of Prayer – Part 3

From Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds.

The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move. The preacher must impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be embodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the preacher as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, in dependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child. The preacher must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the salvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they be timid time servers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God.

Needed: Men of Prayer – Part 2

From Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds.

An eminent historian has said that the accidents of personal character have more to do with the revolutions of nations than either philosophic historians or democratic politicians will allow. This truth has its application in full to the gospel of Christ, the character and conduct of the followers of Christ—Christianize the world, transfigure nations and individuals. Of the preachers of the gospel it is eminently true.

The character as well as the fortunes of the gospel is committed to the preacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is the golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not only be golden, but open and flawless, that the oil may have a full, unhindered, unwasted flow.

The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon. The preacher makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from the mother’s bosom is but the mother’s life, so all the preacher says is tinctured, impregnated by what the preacher is. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may discolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful. The sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.

Paul termed it “My gospel;” not that he had degraded it by his personal eccentricities or diverted it by selfish appropriation, but the gospel was put into the heart and lifeblood of the man Paul, as a personal trust to be executed by his Pauline traits, to be set aflame and empowered by the fiery energy of his fiery soul. Paul’s sermons—what were they? Where are they? Skeletons, scattered fragments, afloat on the sea of inspiration! But the man Paul, greater than his sermons, lives forever, in full form, feature and stature, with his molding hand on the Church. The preaching is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory; the preacher lives.

The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher. Under the Jewish dispensation the high priest had inscribed in jeweled letters on a golden frontlet: “Holiness to the Lord.” So every preacher in Christ’s ministry must be molded into and mastered by this same holy motto. It is a crying shame for the Christian ministry to fall lower in holiness of character and holiness of aim than the Jewish priesthood. Jonathan Edwards said: “I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness and conformity to Christ. The heaven I desired was a heaven of holiness.”