Reason To Stand

Where have the men gone in the Church?

By that I mean where have real, rough and tumble, men willing to fight and die for their beliefs gone in our churches?

One of the saddest things I’ve noticed in most churches is a woeful lack of men willing and able to take a stand and fight.

Sadly, new Christians are more willing to fight for the truth than their jaded counterparts and I believe this has to do with the feminization of the modern Church brought about by the corresponding feminization of the culture we live in.

What is even more sad is that those new Christians quickly learn that “good Christian men” sit down, shut up and merely give their time, money, and energy to their local Church. “Good Christian men” don’t get riled up unless that is what the worship service calls for (a la Promise Keepers), and GCM definitely don’t confront anyone.

God forbid we make waves. God forbid we actually make a difference in the world around us.

God, save us from our pitiful representation of you. Help us be more like men than boys and actually start living like men and stop being pacifistic pansies like most of the men around us.

BTW: Here is a great lecture on the topic if anyone is interested.

In Colossians 2:8 we are warned to beware lest anyone take us captive through philosophy and empty deceit and reflecting on this I wonder if most Christians today realize that, like Christians ever since this letter was written, we need to be on guard against the “philosophies of men”. I wonder, since we don’t seem to be too interested in teaching what these doctrines are in most churches, if we would even recognize what these philosophies are that we are warned about, much less have the ability to effectively combat them when they rear their ugly heads and cause “wars and divisions” within the body of Christ.

Because of this I want to dedicate a series of posts to identifying a few of these philosophies which are running amuck in most churches and in the lives of most Christians and, once identified, how to combat these philosophies through well-placed questions.

The core of this philosophy is that God directly causes every event that happens. This is vastly different than the Biblical notion that God is sovereign over all of creation but He is not the only one active in his creation creating history.

One of the easiest ways to spot this deterministic attitude (which is more in line with the Greek fates or Islam’s Allah, but also has a representation in the naturalistic worldview as “genetic”) is when people make comments like “well, I suppose it was just meant to be”, “everything happens for a reason”, or “it’s in his/her genes”.

The fallicy of this view is seen most clearly in 1 Corinthians 15 wherein we are told that the last enemy to be defeated is death. Consequently death was the first result of the fall so it is rather odd when people claim that 

The easiest way to combat the ingrained philosophy of determinism in people is to draw their attention back to the fact that God gave Adam and Eve, and indeed all of us, the ability to choose (within limits) our own courses in history and that without this disctionction, there is nothing seperating God from the sin and evil present in the world around us.

Ultimately, this deterministic philosophy is attributable to laziness as it takes real effort to judge and evaluate what is right and wrong and work accordingly to make the world a better place by fighting the effects of the fall.

Just a head’s-up for those of you who’ve been reading my posts on here (and even elsewhere).

As I’ve been studying, I’ve recently abandoned several philosophical presuppositions which will definatly produce a noticable change in my writing style and positions from now on. Most notably, I no longer hold to the notion that God directly determins everything that happens in the world or that we are somehow predestined to choose Christ by some sort of puppettering act of God (known traditionally as Calvinism).

This doesn’t mean my core beliefs in the inerrancy of Scripture or the God, or his son, of whom the Scriptures speak, has changed but I felt it nesicary that before I continue writing too many new posts I clairify that since I don’t intend on rewording or removing any of the previous content here to match my new positions.

Think of it as me allowing you to watch me grow spiritually as I continue to study and test what I place my hope and faith in as I expect all those I come into contact to do as well. 

When I decided to place my trust and faith in Christ, I did so with a very real dread that I was going to become completely miserable. I had already accepted that Jesus was who he claimed to be, that all the facts lined up, and that I desperatly needed a savior to save me from the deplorable situation I found myself in and yet my salvation was far from a joyous celebration but mroe like a solumn funeral.

Now I know many people would say “it was a funeral” according to Romans 6:4, but the death I dreaded went far beyond the death of the “old man”, it punctured the very essence of who I was and still am.

You see, I love intellectual inquiry. I like perusing wisdom, questioning and exploring and generally learning as much as I can about as many things as I can.

However the primary message I kept getting from most of the Church was a bunch of tasteless pre-chewed morsels which ultimatly lead to becoming a brain-dead mindless adherent of an essentially blind faith riddled with an endless string of dos and donts (which seemed more numerous than the dos).

I fought long and hard against this notion of blind faith and recently came to grips with the completely unbiblical nature found in most Churches (and indeed, among most Christians) that intellectual inquiry into the Christian faith is a hinderance at worst and an academic niche at best. Jesus himself spoke mostly with questions designed to stimulate the minds of those listening. Most of the apostles argued and debated. God Himself even told us in Deuteronomy 8:3 that “man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord”.

So if you are starving or have come to the conclusion that the depth of learning about Christ ended with the Cross, I implore you to dig a little deeper. Perhaps you’ve bought into the lie that biblical faith can be manufactured by our own feelings rather than mined with great labor through diligent study and reflection.

Learning is a life-long endeavor and when you come to the realization that the same joy of studying your favorite subject such as mathematics, biology, or chemistry can also be applied to the infinite Creator, you’ll understand why Psalms 34:8 tells us to “taste and see that the Lord is good”.

One of the most essential questions for any person, and indeed especially for any disciple of Christ is; What are you chewing on? Does it have any substance past your own personal feelings or is there true meat there that can also serve to nourish others?

Perhaps the old adage is true; You are what you eat.

Whenever we talk with people of other faiths (especially with people who are not Christians), we ought to take the attitude of Paul and invite them to “taste and see” whether the claims of Christianity are objectively true or whether they are simply fanciful wishes we’ve decided to codify and believe.

Christianity is the only faith that has any objective evidence to show that it’s clams are not just wishful thinking but something we can, and should, place our hopes in the future in through something called “faith”.

Everyone has faith in something, the only question is whether or not that something is worth having faith in.

If I were to offer you a million dollars to believe that grass were red, you’d really want to believe it wouldn’t you? The trouble is; no matter how much we desire to believe something, we are built in such a way that we can only believe when we have reason to believe and the desire to believe it.

In the scenario above, you would defiantly have the desire to believe that the grass were red, and you might be able to make others think that you believe that the grass were red, but you wouldn’t be able to actually believe in the concept of red grass unless you were able to remove the doubts and questions that naturally insulate us from destructive beliefs and ideas.

In order to believe that the grass were red, you would have to undergo a process of gathering evidence and reasons that could make red grass possible. You would have to come up with ideas like “the grass could have been recently painted red” or “there was a horrible accident at the local astro-turf plant”. Regardless of how outlandish the reasons are; as rational beings, we need them.

Beliefs can unfortunately come occur even without being based on objective evidence or reasons. When that happens a person is said to be delusional, believing in something that is false.

Religious beliefs are no different than the belief in red grass mentioned above. We can claim to believe in something we desperately want to believe in, but not actually believe it because we lack evidence and reason. We can also be faced with overwhelming evidence and reasons to believe in something that is objectively true and still not have the desire to accept the reasonable beliefs.

Only when we have both reasons and a desire can beliefs be borne. Since we all believe in something, the only question is whether our beliefs are based more on desire than evidence.

The most important thing we are told to do in the Bible in relationship to God is to fear him. The Bible mentions fearing God roughly 103 times. Compare that with the roughly 73 times we are told to love God and you’ll begin to understand that a solid reverence for the God who can, and rightly should, send us to the Hell we justly deserve is the bedrock of our faith in the same God who has not only canceled our debt, but called us co-heirs with Christ as well.

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John 1:1-14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

How many times have you ever stopped to think about Jesus being the Word of God?

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