THE WISDOM OF JESUS: CREATING A BETTER WORLD

All of the present non-Christian ideologies maintain that humanity is basically good and therefore perfectible. What then is the source of our social ills and evils? Our institutions must be the source!

In Understanding the Times, David A. Noebel has written that since humanists believe that we have been corrupted by our institutions, they are:

• ...antagonistic towards our present society, because today’s social institutions are inferior to the utopian society the Humanist believes is possible. (207)

Instead of comparing our own institutions to others, the secular humanist compares them to his mental ideal and inevitably finds them lacking. Noebel cites sociologist Lawrence Casper who blames even marriage and family for our neuroses:

• [They] have been largely responsible, I suggest, for today’s prevailing neurotic climate, with its pervasive insecurity, and it is precisely this climate that makes so difficult the acceptance of a different healthier way of life. (Noebel, 204)

Casper suggests that children would be far better off without their families. Another humanist sociologist, Sol Gordon, has written that:

• “The traditional family, with all its supposed attributes, enslaved women; it reduced her to a breeder and caretaker of children, a servant to her spouse, a cleaning lady, and at times a victim of the labor market as well.” (Noebel, 204)

As a result of this confident idealism, Christianity has been regarded as the source of repression and the perpetuation of the status quo. Karl Marx’ analysis was little different:

• “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence determines their consciousness.” (Noebel, 214)

Consequently, the culprit is Christian society. Improve society, and we will perfect humanity. However, it is not that simple, as psychologist Rollo May had observed:

• “But you say that you ‘believe that it is the cultural influences which are the major factor in our evil behaviors.’ This makes culture the enemy. But who makes up the culture except persons like you and me.” (Noebel, 168)

In Dark Agenda, David Horowitz, a Jew, has written that a war against Christianity is beginning to follow the example of atheistic Marxism:

• In Russia, Marx’s disciples removed religious teaching from the schools, outlawed criticism of atheists and agnostics, and burned 100,000 churches. When priests demanded freedom of religion, they were sentenced to death. Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Russian Orthodox priests were arrested, 95,000 of whom were executed by firing squad.

While genocide is not yet practiced in the secular West, it’s tolerance for genocidal talk is on the rise.

• “Religion must die in order for mankind to live,” proclaimed left-wing commentator and comedian Bill Maher in Religulous, the most-watched documentary feature of 2008. Both title and script were transparent attempts to stigmatize religious people as dangerous morons whose views could not be taken seriously. (Horowitz) 

Others, like Richard Dawkins, have been expressing the harshest disdain for religion and for Christianity:

• Do we know of any . . . examples where stupid ideas have been known to spread like an epidemic? Yes, by God! Religion. Religious ideas are irrational. Religious beliefs are dumb and dumber: super dumb. Religion drives otherwise sensible people into celibate monasteries, or crashing into New York skyscrapers. Religion motivates people to whip their own backs, to set fire to themselves or their daughters, to denounce their own grandmothers as witches, or, in less extreme cases, simply to stand or kneel, week after week, through ceremonies of stupefying boredom. (Horowitz)

Such contempt is a ready segue into violence. If Christianity is the cause of our social ills, then it must be silenced or eliminated.

This was the issue raised by Jesus in His parable about the weeds. Workers had come to their master to report that someone had sown weed seeds among their wheat seeds, and they asked if they should remove the weeds. The master replied:

• “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”(Matthew 13:29-30)

We might suppose that we would create a better crop or a better world by first removing any competition. However, the master reasoned differently, that the weeding-out process would damage the wheat.

How so? Sometimes weeds are almost indistinguishable from the grain until they set their fruit. Therefore, the weeder might be weeding the wrong plant. Similarly, the idealistic progressive might be wrong about the good and the bad, who is the good guy and who isn’t. We might become so overly committed to our cause that we become blinded to the facts.

Besides, people also change and repent of their evil, while those who are committed to the welfare of society might become abusive, repressive, and even genocidal, as had been the experience of each atheistic communistic nation.

The Apostle Paul had been the worst sinner, yet God had elevated him to the foremost role (1 Timothy 1:15-16), as He had done with Peter who had denied Him three times.

Lastly, our Lord is able to turn evil acts, as well as evil people, into good, as He had done in the cases of Judas and Joseph, who had been sold as a slave by his brothers (Genesis 50:20).

Nevertheless, God will provide justice in the end, and I greatly appreciate the fact that I can leave justice to Him and simply concern myself with loving and forgiving those around me.

This should’t make us passive in the face of evil, but it does curb out idealistic ventures, which might be more a matter of self-serving than of humanity-serving.