 |
| Dore: Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law |
The easy answer is that "God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our life," as one famous religious tract once put it, and in a sense that is perfectly correct. But the whole truth is more complicated than that. God loves us, but He is also angry with us. Why, you ask? Because we have rebelled against Him.
The apostle Paul gives us a vivid portrait of human society in Romans 1:18-32. Here Paul begins by stating that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (v. 18: NKJV) Here we are told that God's anger is directed against two things: "ungodliness" and "unrighteousness." The translation "ungodliness" is a little misleading. The Greek word actually means a lack of piety or reverence. It is the refusal to acknowledge God and honor Him. "Unrighteousness" is the unwillingness to do what is right, to conform our lives to God's laws. In modern terms what Paul is describing here is nothing less than secularism.
Paul goes on to describe a civilization in decline. Significantly it all begins with the refusal to acknowledge the true God. Paul points out that people are surrounded by the evidence of God's existence (vv. 19,20), but that in spite of this they "did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful" (v. 21). The result was a kind of intellectual impairment. They "became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." This, in a word, is the story of Western philosophy from the 17th Century onward.
And where does it all lead? The answer is terrifying: "Therefore God also gave them up . . ." (v. 24). He gave them up to their natural inclination to do evil, and especially to sexual immorality, including rampant homosexuality (vv. 26,27).
The end result of sexual license, then as now, was social disintegration. God "gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting" (v. 28). People were filled with every kind of wickedness and iniquity. They were full of envy, violence, strife and deceit. They hated God, and soon they hated each other. They lacked discernment, integrity, and even natural affection. They had become implacable and unmerciful (vv. 29-31).
Does all of this sound familiar? It should. Paul could very well have been describing us. In some ways the decisive turning point for us was the Theory of Evolution, which, in turn, led to the secularization of society as a whole. If there is no such thing as Intelligent Design, then there are no such things as universal truths. Social experimentation then follows. Tragically, in the midst of all the intellectual and social change of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries the major Protestant denominations caved into the new modes of thought and largely abandoned the central message of Christianity, the gospel of redemption in Christ Jesus. In society in general there was an initial spasm of licentiousness in the "Roaring Twenties," tempered somewhat by the hard times of the Great Depression and World War II. But then came the '60's, and the standards of public morality began to crumble. We have now become the picture of depravity described by Paul.
It is not hard to look at current events and see what is happening now. God has given us up, and we are now in the terminal stages of social decay. The whole push to legalize "gay marriage" is an indication that He has given us up to our own sin and depravity. But it is important to note that it all began with secularization, with the refusal acknowledge God and honor Him. Religious apostasy inevitably leads to social disintegration. We are a society under divine judgment.
But, you might ask, shouldn't God rather pity us than be angry with us? God certainly does pity us, but He is also angry with us. The reason is that we must take full responsibility for our sin and rebellion. We know that God exists. We know the difference between right and wrong. Yet we choose to do what is wrong. We "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (v. 18), and therefore are "without excuse" (v. 20). We in the United States are especially inexcusable: we had a rich Christian heritage and deliberately turned away from it. We can hardly plead ignorance. If God is angry with us, we have no one to blame for it but ourselves.
It is hard to think of our country as being under divine judgment. But we must look at the situation soberly and realistically. The great need of the hour is repentance. We are rich in the things of this world, but poor in the things of heaven. We assume that God is pleased with us, and expects nothing more from us, but we are sadly mistaken. The truth is far different. We Evangelicals are a worldly and apathetic church in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We need to start thinking about what God wants, and live accordingly. God wants us to have a meaningful relationship with Him – a relationship marked by faith, love and holiness.
Related blog posts:
What God Thinks of Us
The Problem of Evil
We have been discussing the current debate about "gay marriage" and the two cases surrounding the issue now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The attorneys opposing gay marriage are required to present a secular argument against the idea, which amounts to a pragmatic argument that gay marriage is somehow harmful to American society.
ReplyDeleteYep, that pretty much sums it up.
So, what's your best shot? How should they handle it?
But there is a deeper issue to...
Uh Oh.
As human beings we must also ask the ultimate question, what does our Creator think about all of this?
(...facepalm...)
Bob? There's a rumour going around that the attorneys opposing gay marriage are REQUIRED to present a secular argument against the idea, which amounts to a pragmatic argument that gay marriage is somehow harmful to American society.
Even Bill O'Reilly has peeked at the man behind the curtain and realised that the jig is up.
Just one other thing...
ReplyDeleteImagine a Muslim hardline fundamentalist.
Somebody who would love to, say, set up Sharia Law in your country.
Someone that would probably horrify you if his brand-name religion became the majority in your community.
Now, let's imagine he's got himself into a lather about something that he morally disapproves of. Heck, for the sake of good fun, let's make it that he's upset with the homosexuals.
So the man is going to preach.
But he's lazy.
Very lazy.
He just doesn't have you literary drive.
So he decides to palgiarise your work. A simple cut-and-paste job and he's going to pass it off as his own.
Because he's lazy, right?
(Of course, he's going to have to reference the koran rather than the bible and he's going to talk about Allah being upset rather that God being upset but that's just switching labels around. No biggie.)
Now re-read your own article. Look at how very little he would have to change. Imagine this guy reading it in his voice to his congregation at the mosque. Imagine the flecks of spittle decorating his big, bushy beard as he preaches into the microphone.
Your logic and your words and your sentiments but...he's using it.
The Muslim Sharia Law guy.
My aim in this blog post was to transition back to the subject of salvation that I was discussing before, and so I wanted to encourage individuals to think about the nature of morality and their individual relationship with God. I am very far from wanting to set up a theocracy in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam is that Islam, strictly speaking, is theocratic, which means that in an Islamic country you could never have a democracy. It is not for the people to decide how the country should be run. Rather, an Islamic ruler is supposed to impose Sharia on the populace, and thereby achieve social justice. In Christianity, on the other hand, (at least in the Protestant and especially Baptistic versions), the civil authorities are not allowed to impose a form of religious belief on the general populace because a) only the Holy Spirit can make one genuinely a Christian, and b) politicians are not competent spiritual authorities. Hence we have separation of church and state, and what we aim for in the civil realm is freedom of conscience.
Strictly speaking , the issue properly before the Supreme Court is whether or not laws forbidding gay marriage violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, and was intended to protect the civil rights of the newly freed black slaves. Over the years, however, the Court had a tendency to whittle down the rights of African-Americans, and instead used the amendment to protect the rights of Corporations as legal "persons." The framers of the Amendment never dreamed of homosexuals getting married. The question, then, is how does the Amendment apply to the current situation? My best guess is that they will leave the matter of gay marriage to the states, and that the "blue states" (the ones that normally vote Democratic) will legalize gay marriage, and that the "red states" (the ones that normally vote Republican) will continue to forbid it.
I am very far from wanting to set up a theocracy in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear it. It would be nice if you made that a very clear thread in your articles to avoid them being useful to those that would be very happy with a theocracy.
As I said, at present it's child's play for the Sharia Law guy to just steal your work and press gang it for his purposes.
You should not make it so easy for people like that.
In Christianity, on the other hand, (at least in the Protestant and especially Baptistic versions),...
Why the qualifiers?
One of the fundamental differences between Christianity and Islam...
If you have to make qualifiers then you've made a tacit admission that the fundamental differences are not really that fundamentally different.
Would you like to read some stuff that will nauseate you?
Get on google and type in "christian theocracy movements".
The question, then, is how does the Amendment apply to the current situation?
Another question? Does it never end?
...attorneys opposing gay marriage are REQUIRED to present a secular argument against the idea, which amounts to a pragmatic argument that gay marriage is somehow harmful to American society.
Why do you suppose there doesn't seem to be one?
When you try to talk about gay marriage you end up somehow talking about something else. You never reach your destination.
I did Google "Christian Theocracy Movements" -- I am familiar with some of the authors and have some of their works. Many of them come from a Presbyterian / Reformed background and look back to Calvin's Geneva as what a Christian country should look like. They typically look back to the civil laws of the Old Testament for guidance, but because they often have a Capitalist orientation they can be inconsistent. (They don't like Old Testament property laws, for example.) I especially have problems with Gary North, who's really big into capitalist economics.
ReplyDeleteSome of it, however, is a reaction to secularism, and it is hard to look at the social developments over the past several decades and not be concerned. And certainly every citizen in a democratic society has a duty to vote his conscience and do what he can to promote justice and human rights. I think that the judgment of history will be that too often the church remained silent when it should have spoken up!
Bob: "In Christianity, on the other hand, (at least in the Protestant and especially Baptistic versions), the civil authorities are not allowed to impose a form of religious belief on the general populace because a) only the Holy Spirit can make one genuinely a Christian, and b) politicians are not competent spiritual authorities. Hence we have separation of church and state, and..."
ReplyDeleteCedric: Christian Theocracy Movements?
Bob: Oh, those?!? Ah. Well....They don't really count. Besides, hey look at secularism.
Cedric: Oh Bob.