FROM WHERE DO WE OBTAIN AN ACCURATE ROADMAP FOR LIFE?

Why do some people seek out God? They understand that the secular, materialistic worldview cannot account for their experiences and perceptions; it cannot explain the facts of our lives. Nor can it provide an accurate roadmap for life. In “Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical,” Timothy Keller wrote:

·       One of the world’s most prominent philosophers, Jürgen Habermas, was for decades a defender of the Enlightenment view that only secular reason should be used in the public square. Habermas has recently startled the philosophical establishment, however, with a changed and more positive attitude toward religious faith. He now believes that secular reason alone cannot account for what he calls “the substance of the human.”

For one thing, materialism is unable to provide a basis to believe in the things that we must. It cannot provide a basis for objective moral law. Consequently, with the rise of irreligious states, there has also been a rise in genocide:

·       Habermas tells those who are still confident that “philosophical reason . . . is capable of determining what is true and false” to simply look at the “catastrophes of the twentieth century—religious fascist and communist states, operating on the basis of practical reason—to see that this confidence is misplaced.” Terrible deeds have been done in the name of religion, but secularism has not proven to be an improvement.

Secular humanism is unable to provide any moral basis for our indignation for the surrounding evils. The poet and atheist, W.H. Auden moved to Germantown in NYC from his Ireland in the early 1930s. While he was watching a news clip in the movie theater about the Nazi invasion of Poland, he was horrified to see the audience rise to its feet, applaud and cry out, “Destroy the Poles.” Auden wanted to take a strong moral stance against their response, but he realized that, as an atheist, his values were merely self-constructed and, therefore, lacking in any persuasive value. This sent him into a moral tailspin, resulting in his becoming a Christian.

Materialism could not give Auden what his heart demanded – objective moral truth to combat evil. There are also many other things that materialism cannot provide. Keller writes:

·       Habermas writes: “The ideals of freedom . . . of conscience, human rights and democracy [are] the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. . . . To this day there is no alternative to it.”

Nor can science provide the ideals that are so essential to human thriving, like the concept of human equality. Keller writes:

·       In 1926 John T. Scopes was famously tried under Tennessee law for teaching evolution. Few people remember, however, that the textbook Scopes used, Civic Biology by George Hunter, taught not only evolution but also argued that science dictated we should sterilize or even kill those classes of people who weakened the human gene pool by spreading “disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country.” This was typical of scientific textbooks of the time. It was the horrors of World War II, not science, that discredited eugenics.

When we find that our roadmap will not take us where we need to go, it is time for find a better one.

FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, ISLAM, SECULARISM, AND HOW IT BLINDS

The Daily Mail just revealed that:

·       During his election campaign, [the French Socialist President Francois] Hollande was regularly on the estates, claiming he was at one with poor communities. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3834003/President-Hollande-admitted-France-problem-Islam-warned-country-s-national-symbol-one-day-woman-burka.html#ixzz4Mz20wue0

However, Hollande has evidently changed his mind:

·       Francois Hollande has admitted the country 'has a problem with Islam' and warned France's national symbol will one day by a woman in a burka.

·       The words were all part of a more general attack on people from Muslim backgrounds whom the Socialist Mr Hollande views as a major difficulty for his country.

·       …exposed by authors Gerard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, Le Monde journalists who base their book on 61 interviews carried out with Mr Hollande over the last four years.

·       He reveals that he no longer supports mass immigration, saying 'I think there are too many arrivals,' and says: 'It's true there's a problem with Islam, it's true. It's not in doubt.'

Hadn’t this always been obvious?

1.    Hundreds of Islamic no-go-zones growing across Western Europe

2.    Riots, rapes, and a burgeoning assortment of criminal acts

3.    Explicit Islamic threats to take over

4.    Non-Muslims relegated to a demeaned status in every Islamic nation

5.    The terrifying teachings of the Koran and Hadiths on jihad and world domination

Why hadn’t Hollande and a vast assortment of Western leaders seen this before? The evidence was there. Why didn’t they seriously consult the available evidence? Evidently, they didn’t want to. Why not?

I think that the reason is obvious. Our Western elites have adopted a philosophy or worldview that prevents them from seeing Islam as it really is, as it has always claimed to be. They are wearing a pair of eyeglasses that filters out what they do not want to see, leaving only what agrees with their worldview.

It is a common worldview, albeit naïve. It maintains that if we accept others, they will reciprocate. If we love them, they will just naturally love us back. Love conquers all. It must! If we merely accept all forms of anti-social, immoral behavior, they will naturally disappear on their own. Therefore, we can take down our borders, remove our border guards, and embrace everyone. After all, we are one big human family, aren’t we!

The secularist wants to view himself as a good person, perhaps even a morally superior person. He is therefore above those medieval ideas of crime and punishment. He is, after all, enlightened.

However, reality has a way of stripping us of both our arrogance and perhaps even our upside-down lenses. So check the rubbish heaps for all of those discarded lenses.

OUR WORLDVIEW IS THE LENS THROUGH WHICH WE SEE

Our worldview can either bring reality into sharp focus or it can distort and prevent us from seeing what is right in front of our eyes.

Atheist Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick, also approached the evidence with a worldview. However, rather than preventing him from seeing the evidence, it caused him to reject it:

* “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to have been satisfied to get it going."

Why then does he reject the miraculous? Because there is no place for it within his atheistic worldview, which demands a natural answer. Meanwhile, when a theist is confronted with the same evidence, he concludes otherwise.

Former atheist, Sir Fred Hoyle, concluded in favor of an Intelligent Designer:

* "Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shuffling of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero." So, there must be "an intelligence, which designed the biochemicals and gave rise to the origin of carbonaceous life." (Norman Geisler is the source of these quotations.)

Why are people unwilling to revise their worldview when confronted with overwhelming evidence against it? Often, they don't want to.

Atheist Aldous Huxley wrote:

* "I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption.... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom." (Ends and Means, 1937, pp. 270, 273, emp. added).

Not everyone rejects God in favor of sexual freedom. However, Huxley demonstrated, very transparently, that we have reasons for our worldviews that might have nothing to do with the evidence.

Freethinkers, Materialism and Worldview Confusion

When we reject God, we reject ourselves and our dignity. When we harden our heart and mind against the knowledge and awareness of God, we blind ourselves to life itself! Paul explained it like this:

·        They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts... Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:25-28)

When we reject God, we have to replace Him with something else as supreme. Some may call their God-substitute the “human spirit,” “the will to power,” or merely “captains of our own ship.” In any event, we have done the very thing that the Bible warned us against - We have “worshiped and served created things [namely ourselves] rather than the Creator.”

As a result, God has given us over to the very thing we wanted - a “depraved mind!”

Let me just offer one example of how we have mentally degraded ourselves and have reaped confusion. Atheists consider themselves “freethinkers.” Meanwhile, by rejecting God and any spiritual reality, they have condemned themselves and have adopted materialism – the belief that everything is merely energy and matter, the stuff of science. Consequently, their thinking is also just a matter of chemical-electrical reactions.

However, if thought is no more than chemical reactions, there is no room left for freewill, let alone, free thought! While they want to believe that they can think freely, they have denied this possibility when they rejected God. They have deprived themselves of any meaning, purpose and dignity when they rejected their Source!

Transgendered and Pat Robertson

 We tend to regard ourselves as “freethinkers.” What we think – our ideas and worldviews – we automatically equate with truth and reality. In doing so, we tend to disregard the influence of the culture that has nurtured our thinking.

One interesting example of this is Pat Robertson, the 83 year-old televangelist. When asked about transgendered people, he answered:

• "I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that.”

Is it true that “there are men who are in a woman's body?" Well, if this is so, there is absolutely no evidence of this apart from the fact of the say-so of the transgendered themselves.

This reminds me of a Barbara Walters investigative report some years ago. It featured people who were convinced that, although they were born with legs, they were convinced that they weren’t meant to have legs. Consequently, they did everything they could to have their legs removed.

Of course, we regard this as pathological. But why? If we respect the say-so of the transgendered -  that even though they might have a male body, they are really a female – why do we regard those who claim that they are supposed to be without legs as pathological? Culture! The media! The steady drone of a solitary voice saying that it is a human right to be transgendered, even a source of pride! Meanwhile, those who have had their legs removed are regarded as “sick” – no basis for pride there!

Add to the steady drone are the vicious accusations that if you fail to fall in line with this thinking, you lack compassion and sensitivity. Even worse than that, you are a “bigot” and a “homophobe.” Soon, we will also be called “pedophobes!”

Instead, wisdom instructs us to be aware of the messages, influences, and the less-than-subtle messages to conform or else!

Atheistic Communism and Genocide

As the West continues to move in a more totalitarian direction – bigger government, control, spying on its citizens, political correctness as the membership card, social group-think - I think that it would do us well to examine the possible implications of such a move. Ironically, these moves are justified in the name of creating a more progressive society.

This also had been the claim of atheistic communist regimes. However, genocide reached unprecedented levels under these regimes. Wikipedia claims:

• Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million.

The human toll has been unbelievably high. While Western civilization is very ready to remember the fascist Third Reich – they will not call them what they had called themselves (“National Socialists”) – they are very ready to downplay the communist atrocities. However, I think that it is important to revisit these and to ask “why.”

Many historians have tried to explain the almost uniform horrors that had been committed by atheistic communism. According to Rudolph Joseph Rummel, the communist genocides were a product of absolute power and Marxism.

• "Of all religions, secular and otherwise," Rummel positions Marxism as "by far the bloodiest – bloodier than the Catholic Inquisition, the various Catholic crusades, and the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. In practice, Marxism has meant bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal prison camps and murderous forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and fraudulent show trials, outright mass murder and genocide." He writes that in practice the Marxists saw the construction of their utopia as "a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism and inequality – and, as in a real war, noncombatants would unfortunately get caught in the battle. There would be necessary enemy casualties: the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, 'wreckers', intellectuals, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, the rich and landlords. As in a war, millions might die, but these deaths would be justified by the end, as in the defeat of Hitler in World War II. To the ruling Marxists, the goal of a communist utopia was enough to justify all the deaths."

What we believe determines how we behave. The cognitive/belief conditions in the West seem to be ripe for these kinds of atrocities. There is the necessary identification of the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” those who need to be eliminated from any public influence – the “religious bigots,” the “homophobes,” the Wall Street” folks, anyone who is opposing the dawning of the new age, a sexually free, guiltless society.

Just recently, the military – they had placed Catholics and Evangelicals on their list of terrorist organizations along with Al Qaeda – threatened Christians with court marshal if they tried to proselytize.

It is common today to regard the Stalinist purges as merely the product of Stalin’s alleged mental illness and not the ideas of atheistic communism. However, the evidence tends to argue that he was merely following in Marxist-Leninist footsteps:

• Robert Conquest stressed that Stalin's purges were not contrary to the principles of Leninism, but rather a natural consequence of the system established by Vladimir Lenin, who personally ordered the killing of local groups of class enemy hostages. Alexander Yakovlev, architect of perestroika and glasnost and later head of the Presidential Commission for the Victims of Political Repression, elaborates on this point, stating that "The truth is that in punitive operations Stalin did not think up anything that was not there under Lenin: executions, hostage taking, concentration camps, and all the rest." Historian Robert Gellately concurs, saying: "To put it another way, Stalin initiated very little that Lenin had not already introduced or previewed." Said Lenin to his colleagues in the Bolshevik government: "If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and White Guardist, what sort of revolution is that?"

According to this world view, the “bad guys” stand against progress and the common good. In his book, The End of Faith, Sam Harris writes that “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” “Kill people?” His obvious contempt for Christianity makes us wonder whether he has us in mind, as many atheists in the past have had and have gladly acted upon their contempt. However, it is safe to say that we are not the only “bad guys”:

• In The Lost Literature of Socialism, literary historian George G. Watson saw socialism as conservative, a reaction against liberalism and an attempt to return to antiquity and hierarchy. He states that the writings of Friedrich Engels and others show that "the Marxist theory of history required and demanded genocide for reasons implicit in its claim that feudalism, which in advanced nations was already giving place to capitalism, must in its turn be superseded by socialism. Entire nations would be left behind after a workers' revolution, feudal remnants in a socialist age, and since they could not advance two steps at a time, they would have to be killed. They were racial trash, as Engels called them, and fit only for the dung-heap of history."

Judging from the extreme and inflammatory language coming from our U.S. administration and those closely associated, it seems that they have a very clear idea of the identity of the regressive “bad guys.” We are the “homophobes,” the “hate-mongers,” the “bigots” – those who are prejudicially denying others their “human rights.” We are the enemy, and we know, only too well, the fate of the “enemies” of national socialism and atheistic communism. Who will be “fit…for the [next] dung-heap of history?" A warning to the revolutionary: The revolution also has a venerable history of turning against its own!

How the Addition of One Idea can Create a Worldview Tsunami

Our thought-life is all-powerful. If I think that my mailman intends to shoot me, this will profoundly affect the way that I feel towards him and behave. It will affect my words and my future plans, and perhaps even exert a long-lasting effect upon the direction of my life.

As such, our thoughts and beliefs are not merely the boat’s rudder; they are also its engine and sails. This principle also pertains to our worldview – our philosophy or theology of life – and we all have one, or several.

The atheistic poet turned Christian, W.H. Auden, wrote about the inevitable implications of secular-liberal thought in 1940:

• The whole trend of liberal thought has been to undermine faith in the absolute…It has tried to make reason the judge…But since life is a changing process…the attempt to find a humanistic basis for keeping a promise, works logically with the conclusion, “I can break it whenever I feel it inconvenient.” (Humphrey Carpenter, A Biography)

Without transcendent moral absolutes, convenience, not reason, reigns. Without these truths to feast upon, reason is a naked beggar living in a vacuum. It’s like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without its pieces. In the absence of absolute moral truth, the persuasive appeal of convenience becomes irresistible.

Even the modification of just one theological truth can create a paradigm shift redefining all other truths, like adding “not” to a sentence – “God is not holy and righteous.” This simple addition changes the entire meaning of the statement.

There are many examples of this. For instance, there is a great resistance, even in the church, to distinguish between “us and them,” “saved and unsaved.” Removing such distinctions is very appealing and even convenient in our professional and multi-cultural world. Where people hope to create bridges of common cause among all peoples, such distinctions have become politically unacceptable, even repugnant. Emergent Church pastor, Doug Pagitt, puts it like this:

• We are connected to each other as well. Christians like to talk about community, yet the dualistic [us-them] assumptions surrounding our theology make it almost impossible for us to experience true community. As long as we hold on to “us” and “them” categories of seeing the world, we live behind a barricade that prevents us from joining in with God and others in real and meaningful ways. And it doesn’t really matter who we decide “them” is – the non-Christians, the sinners, the liberals, the conservatives, the Jews, the Catholics, that weird church on the other side of town. Division is division, no matter how righteous we want to make it sound. (A Christianity Worth Believing, 91-92)

However, Pagitt is merely creating another division – this time between Emergents and Evangelicals. The Emergents have become the “we” and the Evangelicals are the “them.” More importantly, this one modification – removing Biblical distinctions – has the power to reformulate the entire Christian faith.

If there are no “us – them” distinctions, then many Biblical teachings must be either reinterpreted, ignored or simply rejected. However, these distinctions are an integral part of the Gospel – God’s purposes, our own identity and understanding of the world in which we live.

For example, Jesus taught that the “we” are set apart from the rest of the world. We are the “children of God” (Mat. 5:9; John 1:12) and the “light of the world” (Mat. 5:14).

Even as I write this, I do so with tinge of embarrassment, knowing that this represents pure arrogance in the eyes of the Emergent Church – “How can you think that you are more favored than others. It’s these kinds of distinctions that create prejudice and warfare!”

However, these are the very distinctions that the Bible has always made. The Israelites had been the people of God (and from the perspective of God’s future plans for Israel, they still are).  Indeed, arrogance was a danger, and therefore, God guarded against this danger by warning that Israel was no better than other peoples. If anything, they were least (Deut. 7, 9). If they performed better, it was only because God had enabled them to do so (Deut. 8:17-19). However, to whom more was given, more was also expected. Therefore, Israel was judged with the stricter judgment.

We find these distinctions throughout the Bible. Although God’s people were chosen from among the dregs of society (1 Cor. 1:26-29), He would raise them up. However, He would never allow them to forget their humble and broken beginnings.

“Us – them” distinctions were always a part of Jesus’ preaching. Those who reject Him “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life" (Mat. 25:46, 41; 13:42, 50).

“Us – them” distinctions – those who are with God and those against - are part of the fabric of the entire Bible, and we are required to heed these distinctions. Paul warned that God’s people mustn’t forget about this distinction:

• Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (2 Cor. 6:14-15)

When we forget this distinction, we place ourselves at great peril. Therefore, a believer was warned against marrying an unbeliever (1 Cor. 7:39). Likewise, church discipline was applied to those who professed Christ and not those on the outside (1 Cor. 5:13).

While the “us – them” distinction has separated, it has also joined together. It has been the awareness of the lost-ness of the great masses of humanity along with of the blessedness of Christ, that has impelled Christian missions, and missions has done much to improve the world. The late theologian B.B. Warfield wrote:

• Hospitals and asylums and refuges for the sick, the miserable and the afflicted grow like heaven-bedewed blossoms in its path. Woman, whose equality with man Plato considered a sure mark of social disorganization, has been elevated; slavery has been driven from civilized ground; literacy has been given by Christian missionaries, under the influence of the Bible. (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield)

Outreach requires an “us – them” distinction. However, this is the main point – if we want to eliminate the “us – them” distinction, we must also eliminate many other essential distinctions, and, ultimately, jettison the entire Gospel.

If we have to throw away the “saved – unsaved” distinction, then the eternal “punishment – reward” distinction must also be eliminated. Consequently, we would then be compelled to adopt universalism – the salvation of everyone!

However, this worldview tsunami doesn’t stop there. If we reject the “heaven – hell” distinction, then we have to reformulate the very nature of God. Hence, He can no longer be righteous and punitive. Instead, God must simply be indiscriminate-love, and salvation then becomes an entitlement program. We become entitled to salvation without any consideration of our response.

Well, if God is just love, and His righteous nature doesn’t require punishment for sin, what then do we make of the Biblical judgments, like the worldwide flood? A God who is just “love” would have no reason to bring such a horrific judgment!

Besides, if God is just “love” and His righteous nature need not be propitiated by the atoning work of Jesus, then the Cross was unnecessary, and therefore, it represents the worst case of cosmic child abuse, as the atheist claims.

Of course, it could be argued that after the Cross, God no longer required any form of retribution, and therefore, all are saved and going to heaven. However, this will bring about other, equally deadly, worldview tsunamis. If God is our role-model, and He has washed His hands of any form of judgment, then we too must do likewise. We have to give every student an “A” and every criminal his liberty – an absurdity.

Besides, such a tsunami contradicts Scripture, which requires faith-repentance as the condition of salvation and punishment for those who refuse.

Is this revelation offensive to humanity. Admittedly so! However, the more important question is this: “Is it true?”

When we begin to button our shirt with the wrong button, every subsequent button will be out-of-place. It is also this way with our theological starting points. One wrong idea can throw all the others out-of-kilter and birth many unintended consequences.

What are the consequences? It’s hard to tell. However, there have been many failed utopian schemes. What starts out looking so loving and accepting can turn into a house of horrors, as the various communist experiments have so amply demonstrated.

If the Emergent Church or others who believe that removing essential distinctions can build better communities and nations, could demonstrate but one such enduring community or nation, we might have reason to regard their formulation with some credulity. However, we are still waiting.