:Reasonable Force

In my last post I remarked that I don’t live a very Christ-like life. What I meant by that was that my life is primarily concerned with me, my family, and various entertainments and distractions between the necessities of day to day life. Well, that and the fact that sin is a constant lurking presence, that my heart is often as hard as a diamond, and that I sometimes go long stretches without seeking my Father’s face in prayer.

Why would I tell you this? Primarily because I don’t think I’m alone. I suspect that a discouraging percentage of the Church here in the U.S.A. are of my stripe, and I’d like to see that change. Convicted by a combination of sermon messages at my home church and by the murmuring of the Holy Spirit in my soul, I have begun to allow God to re-sensitize me. I am committing myself to a discipline of daily time with Him, and consciously trying to be aware of opportunities to make godly choices rather than worldly ones. Already I feel a difference in the attitude of my heart.

I want to share this tidbit from an interview with Ravi Zacharias, Christian apologist and one of my favorite authors, that was published in the latest issue of his “Just Thinking” resource.

I really think that today, as Christian apologists, that the biggest challenge to the faith is not an intellectual question. In fact, I have not heard an intellectual question to the faith that has disturbed me. I am more convinced than ever of the message of the Gospel. But the biggest challenge to the Christian faith is this: If the message that we have lays claim to a supernatural regeneration, then why is it that we do not see that regeneration more often? No other religion claims a supernatural regeneration. They may claim ethics and morality. Hinduism does. But we are the only ones who claim a new birth. Born of the Holy Spirit, our hungers have changed, our disciplines have changed, our behavior has changed. If it is a supernaturally engendered thing, why do we not see it more often?

Now I have evidence in my own life that this regeneration actually did take place. It came in the form of freedom from alcohol and marijuana and a faith that has been unwavering, unlike the easily cast aside belief of my youth. But I also have experienced the reality that the new man, that lives by the Spirit, and the old man, who lives according to the desires of the flesh, can not be maintained in stasis. One must ever be increasing and the other decreasing.

If I give fuel to the old life by letting gazes and thoughts linger, or by indulging in entertainment that is profane or salacious, or even just generally unwholesome, then the old man is strengthened while the new man wanes. Actively feeding that nature, however, is not even required for it to encroach on its old stomping ground within my heart. All that is truly required is the neglect of the things of the Spirit.

The Word and prayer. These are the things that give strength and increase to the new man that has been given birth within us. We all know they are needful. They are the answers to more than half of the questions asked in Sunday School classes, after all. If I neglect these things it is next to certain that the effects will be readily apparent in my attitude, my speech, and my inclination toward temptation.

I love the way Stephen Charnock puts it in his Existence and Attributes of God:

It is necessary to excite man to daily and actual considerations of God and his nature which would be a bar to much of that wickedness which overflows in the lives of men.

The purpose of this post is to exhort and encourage believers to begin living lives that make evident the transformation that has taken place within us. I’m going to be working very hard to do that and I would be thrilled if someone were convicted by my moment of transparency to commit themselves to the same. We are the body of Christ. He is within us and willing to empower us if only we ever let go of ourselves enough to see Him work.

I’m tired of mundane, Sunday morning Christianity. Time to see things get shaken up a bit.

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Andrew Morrison asks:
What do you make of this?

Why should the British, with far less devotion to Christ, suffer fewer social ills than we?

The article concerns this study published in the Journal of Religion and Society. While the author of the study, Gregory S. Paul, like Andrew above, is careful to point out that correlation does not establish causation, the U. K. Times religion correspondent, Ruth Gledhill is less hesitant to lay at least some blame for societal problems at the feet of theists, declaring, “Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.”

Does the acceptance of the theory of common descent promote a healthier society than an unwavering belief in God? Certainly the data compiled in this study cannot answer that question definitively. Taken as presented, however, it does provide food for thought.

Intuitively, I cannot see why this would be so. It seems reasonable and logical to presume that a people who believe that they will one day be held accountable in some way for their actions should comprise a society that is more compassionate, more loving, more considerate of others; it should be more moral, at least as defined by the tenets of the religion they observe.

Likewise, I cannot conclude how a purely materialistic view of nature and man could logically lead to any other conclusion but that life has no inherent value except what enjoyment can be derived in the life of the individual, that anything is permissible provided the consequences can be avoided, and that the grave is the terminus of all our ultimately empty endeavors.

This is fairly well in line with the view of “conservative theists” cited in the study and these are essentially the claims supposedly refuted therein.

Now I’m not really in a position to take issue with the numbers so let’s just assume for the moment that the raw data is accurate. While I find these results troubling, I am not ready to throw in the towel on the positive impact of faith on the culture just yet.

Before I continue, however, it’s important to clarify what I believe is a common mistake among believers and non-believers alike. While moral behavior is a desirable result of religious belief, and can be useful as an indicator of the strength of one’s convictions, it is not a reliable indicator of a particular belief’s validity. Christians holding a Biblical view of salvation in Christ’s name alone are often confronted with the example of the “moral” Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or even atheist. The questioner demands to know on what basis these good people should be excluded when there are so many Christians who fall short.

The problem lies in the fact that the questioner presumes to be an able judge of what constitutes virtue. They fail to consider that if Christian theology is true then all of the above paragons of human morality fail in one monumental, glaring sense; either they believe themselves to have no sin or they seek to expiate their own sins by their own efforts. Sin is an offense to the holiness of God. Once stained by it, as we all are, there is no power inherent in humanity to remove it.

It is one of the peculiarities of the Christian religion that we don’t believe we are made righteous by how good we are, but rather by how good another person was. I can’t atone for my sins, but Christ could and did. The moral behavior for the Christian is therefore not the means by which we are saved, but rather a result of our salvation; an overflow of the love and gratitude we have toward the One who has saved us.

All this to say that it is certainly possible for a person to have all the appearance of moral behavior and yet be sinful in the eyes of God. Likewise, let me to some degree concede Gregory Paul’s conclusion: It is not necessary for a society to be religious in order to allow its citizens to live in safety and prosperity.

And if religion were merely a pragmatic device, the only value in which was allowing humans to survive against their baser impulses and their members that yield to them, it would then follow that religion is not necessary at all.

Such a view of religion is common among those who subscribe to naturalism, though the religious often unthinkingly act or speak as if it were the case themselves. We do not… or should not, hold religious beliefs because we think they will make us better people, but because we think they are true. We believe, in the case of the Christian, that God loves us and so sent His Son Jesus to share in our sufferings, and take our sins upon Himself to make a way for His perfect justice to be satisfied, so that we could be with Him eternally as we were always meant to be.

That belief should produce in me behavior consistent with those beliefs. If my faith is not producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) in my own life then there is little hope of others being positively influenced by my beliefs. Even if I am growing in these respects, however, there is not necessarily a corresponding increase in virtue in the society around me.

I don’t know why other, largely secular (according to the study) societies seem to be doing so much better than the U.S. I’m sure Gregory Paul, Andrew Morrison, and perhaps even Ruth Gledhill would acknowledge that there are a great many other variables that would have to be examined in depth before we would conclusively establish religious belief as a societal poison in and of itself. I would swiftly agree in many cases that certain beliefs are precisely that. In the case of the Christian religion, however, while the goal is our salvation one of the results should be that we live as Jesus lived. Can anyone argue that if we all did that the world wouldn’t be a better place?

Of course, if I ask that question then I must ask whether or not I am in fact living as He lived myself. When I consider how far I deviate from His example I confess that I am convicted that the implications of Gregory Paul’s study may not be so easily glossed over as I have attempted to do here. What it suggests to me is not that religious belief is harmful to society, but that Christianity is not particularly beneficial to society as I have been practicing it.

We are not saved, after all, so that we can sit back and put our feet up, contented in the knowledge that we’re going to heaven, but rather to go into the world and do the work that God has prepared for us. I’m long overdue to be about finding out what works are prepared for me. How about you?

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