Ultimate Authority

Tags

America, Authority, Christianity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Freedom, God, Government, Pandemic, Progressive Christianity, Secularism, Truth

Back in August, RNS ran an article entitled, “John MacArthur believes the Bible trumps COVID-19 public health orders. Legal scholars say no.” Here, in a case study of church-state relations, we see the basic failure of a secular worldview.

RNS is, after all, a basically secular organization. “Wait a minute. RNS stands for Religion News Service. How can that be a secular organization?” Because it uses “religion” in the generic sense, various religions, without any conviction as to which religion is true; it is a secular platform for liberal religious views from various traditions, and thus represents a secular society’s approach to religion.

In a secular society’s approach to religion, there is an implicit relativism on spiritual truth, and an elevation of the authority of the state above the church. The separation of church and state becomes one-sided; it is invoked when there is an attempt to bring the church into the state, but ignored when the time comes to bring the state into the church.

A secular approach to religion is not the same thing as religious freedom. Religious freedom is a Christian idea, and happily coexists with the public acknowledgment of Christian truth–as was the case in America for most of its history. A secular society, we are beginning to see, actually impinges upon religious freedom, as atheistic ideologies become public orthodoxy.

We see this in the hypocrisy of certain government officials as they select which gatherings are essential and which are not during the pandemic. Thus we come back around to RNS and their assumption of secular authority: ‘Does the Bible trump COVID-19 public health orders? Let’s ask the experts on government orders.’ That is begging the question.

Of course, the opinions of legal scholars may vary. There is a legal tradition, evidenced in the founding of our nation, that rooted human rights in the authority of God. Then there’s the opinion of one scholar quoted in the RNS article:

“We have rights from the Constitution, not the Bible,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State. “Biblical duties don’t trump our laws. Period. Full stop.”

When confronted with that kind of attitude, what can a Christian say but “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, ESV)? God, not government, is the highest authority. Jesus Christ is Lord.

Legal experts cannot tell us whether the Bible has authority over legal pronouncements–though, if a legal expert is a Christian, he might know the answer. The most legal experts are equipped to tell us is whether or not the law acknowledges the authority of Scripture. If it does not–as is often the case–that tells us nothing about the authority of Scripture vis-à-vis human government. All that tells us is that human government claims to be the ultimate authority.

That is the case in a secular or secularizing society. But that doesn’t make it right.

In this pandemic, Christians have had to wrestle with how the church should respond to public health orders; in particular, we have had to wrestle with how the Bible’s command to submit to governing authorities does or does not apply in these situations. That is a valid and sometimes complex question to work through. But that is not the question RNS is asking; RNS is asking whether God or the government has ultimate authority in these matters–and that is an exceptionally easy question to answer.

The Bible is the Word of God. Of course God’s Word has authority over the word of the state. The state’s opinion on this matter makes no difference, except that it is a potent reminder that what our nation needs most is to return to an acknowledgment of the ultimate authority of God–an acknowledgment expressed at our nation’s beginning: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”

Sojourners and Slander

Tags

Christianity, Justice, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Righteousness, Truth

I was first exposed to Sojourners at college, and my impression of them has always been negative. It was the obvious disingenuousness of the whole thing that irked me; why should such an overtly leftist publication pretend to be bipartisan? Were they fooling anyone? What had such messaging to do with the Christian faith, and why should it be promoted at a Christian college? Maybe the fact that I was studying rhetoric made me especially attuned to the duplicity of ‘GOD IS NOT A REPUBLICAN…or a Democrat.’

Sojourners is still around, and nothing on their website suggests a Christian centrism. They seem quite sold to the left; maybe they don’t pretend otherwise anymore. As such, they present a compelling picture of how putting politics in the center makes us vulnerable to buying into the culture’s lies.

Case in point, an article that caught my eye a little while back: “#DEFUNDTHEPOLICE BECAUSE THEY WON’T REFORM THEMSELVES“, by Chanequa Walker-Barnes. It addresses issues of police brutality and reform, with the headlined perspective of supporting the defunding (possibly even abolition) of police. A careful analysis might draw attention to the one-sided argumentation about a complex issue, and a theological analysis might address the basic naivete of thinking that fallen humans can do without law enforcement (as an aside, the writer is a professor at McAffee School of theology, for whatever that may indicate about that institution).

But I will highlight a single statement, and the point that can be drawn from it: “We live in a militarized police state wherein law enforcement officers view themselves as our overlords and conquerors rather than as servants and protectors of the public.” Unless Walker-Barnes is utterly ignorant of the diverse reality of American police, that statement is slander. Even if Walker-Barnes is ignorant of the American police forces, it is difficult to believe that the editorial team at Sojourners is so ignorant; and, barring this vast ignorance of reality, they have willingly published a slanderous accusation against the police force. But perhaps the editors can defend themselves with a ‘the views in this commentary do not necessarily represent the views of Sojourners‘ disclaimer? No. They highlighted this very statement of Walker-Barnes’ article on the sidebar so that readers could tweet it.

What place has slander in a Christian publication? None. But that is what happens when worldly ideologies infiltrate and influence your thinking.

An instructive warning for Christian institutions, and even churches, in America today.

A Reckoning

Tags

America, Christianity, Church, Faithfulness, Gospel, Religious Left, Same-Sex Marriage, Truth

Religion News Service, a hub of journalistic advocacy for the religious left, has had several rather telling articles lately. First on the docket is this piece from Ryan Burge, who urges Christians to abandon unpopular teachings of Scripture in pursuit of numerical growth.

The headline reads, “On LGBT and women’s equality, stark statistical reality is coming for white evangelicals.” The title alone has several notable features. First is the framing of the issues in terms of equality, which itself suggests that white evangelicals are bigoted in their views on these matters. Next, the liberal triumphalism: the future belongs to them, “stark statistical reality” looms before evangelicalism. Third, of course, is the focus on “white evangelicals”, a favored target for the left in recent times. Are evangelicals of other ethnicities significantly more open to sexual immorality or women preachers? I suspect not; in any case, Burge makes no effort to demonstrate that they are.

Through the course of the article, Burge notes some facts about the American social and religious landscape that are, indeed, important–but not news to most. The rise of the “nones”, and shifting opinions related to LGBTQ issues and women preachers are discussed.

Then he takes the data, and applies it towards the usual ridiculous but unsurprising liberal conclusions. Visualizing churches as businesses, he says that evangelical churches aren’t selling what the younger generations are going to want to buy. Our beliefs are outdated, like a Blackberry in the iPhone age. Our options are 1) to maintain doctrinal orthodoxy regardless of numerical decline, or 2) “evangelicalism could begin to slowly shift its stance on issues like women pastors and same-sex relations.”

To his credit, Burge grants some validity to option 1, stating “There is integrity in this path.” What’s ridiculous is his implication that option 2 would lead to numerical growth. He’s basically suggesting that evangelical take the path of the liberal mainline denominations: change doctrines and practices to keep in step with the times. But his own research shows the correlation between the rise of the “nones” and the decline of liberal mainline Christianity, and he describes his own projection saying that “The results indicate that the ‘nones’ will unequivocally be the largest group in America by 2029, and that’s largely a result of more mainline decline.”

Even in purely pragmatic terms, liberalizing evangelical doctrine and practice so as to be more like the mainline denominations is a terrible idea, and not likely to bring numerical growth. Burge says our ‘product’ is unappealing to young American ‘consumers’; but what his own statistics express much more pronouncedly is that the ‘product’ being sold by liberal churches–a watered-down accommodation of Christianity to secular culture–is precisely what American ‘consumers’ are rejecting.

It is true that secularism is on the rise in America. But what the religious left cannot seem to grasp is that the quickest way to kill your denomination is to liberalize it to meet (post)modern mores.

But the more fundamental issue is that this whole way of looking at things is flawed, one might even say idolatrous. The metaphor of the church as a business selling a product to consumers is natural to Americans, but it is offensive to the church and to the church’s Lord. And this sort of thinking has been a poison within the evangelical world for quite some time.

We are concerned about lost people finding salvation. But they are not consumers, Christianity is not a product, and the church is not a business. We are the body of Christ, the people of God in the midst of a world of darkness. The church has no right to cast aside God’s commandments in pursuit of popularity. It’s an understatement to say, as Burge does, that “there is integrity in this path.” It is the only path with integrity.

It is also the path with the most hope for Christianity in America. As the mainline denominations are strangled by their own compromise, evangelicalism may see another great awakening, if God so chooses. Burge says, “I’m sympathetic to the view that God can change hearts. But I see no evidence of divine intervention in the data.” That’s a remarkably short-sighted view of things. The history of the last two millennia has provides ample demonstration of God’s ability to change hearts. This is not guaranteed in any given time and place; it is possible anywhere, in any circumstances.

God can and does change hearts. The responsibility of the church is to be faithful to her Lord, to advance the kingdom of God in the dominion of darkness, and to pray Maranatha–our Lord, come. The “stark statistical reality” of shifting American opinions is not the reckoning people should be most concerned about.

Authentic Virtue

Tags

Apologetics, Christianity, Doubt, Faith, God, Jesus Christ, Truth

It is axiomatic that, for the Christian faith, faith is a virtue. Believing God is virtuous; doubting God is shameful.

Yet one sees a sort of reversal of this in contemporary Christianity. There is a certain attitude that regards faith as naïve and doubt as courageous or authentic. Perhaps authenticity is the root of it; in our highly individualized and even narcissistic society, we tend to prize being true to ourselves over being true to the truth. So someone who shares openly their doubts is regarded less as a person to be pitied and helped than as someone to be applauded for their authenticity.

This recently showed up in the responses to musician John Steingard’s departure from the Christian faith. After he declared that he was now agnostic, one Christian musician responded, “Man I love that you shared this. You know I’m always around to talk about our belief in God or lack thereof. Love you and always will”.

I think the goal of such a response was to communicate unconditional love, but it comes across as applauding the open rejection of God. Steingard didn’t have to air his doubts before the world; doing so made his personal struggle with faith into an apologetic for doubt. This is not worthy of approval.

That is to say, there is a proper sense of shame that should accompany doubting God. To doubt is all-too-human in this fallen world. Our minds and hearts have been darkened by sin; we cannot recognize the testimony to the Almighty that abounds around us. That doesn’t mean we should deny our doubts or struggle with them alone; doubts should be confessed to trusted and mature Christian friends, who can help us to overcome them. But they shouldn’t be proudly displayed as though doubt were justified, or a sign of maturity.

Faith may seem childish to the world; they mistake for childish the childlike. Simple and genuine faith is the authentic and authentically virtuous response to the God who has revealed Himself. He does not commend doubt. Over and over in the Scriptures, faith is lauded; I can think of no passage where doubt is treated as praiseworthy.

Indeed, “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6, NIV).

Missing Justice

Tags

Celebrities, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, God, Justice, Paganism, Race, Righteousness, Secularism, Society

I said, in a previous post, that a secular or pagan society does not have the resources to deal effectively with the issues facing us, without collapsing into chaos or cementing into control. I want to elaborate on what some of the gaps are in the secular worldview, and how these become evident as a pagan society grapples with injustice. Two elements in particular come to mind, both of which are found in the passage I looked at yesterday, Colossians 3:1-11.

The first is that the pursuit of justice is properly holistic, and a partial pursuit of justice is easily twisted. The Christian worldview understands justice in the context of God’s righteousness, and therefore promotes a holistic justice in line with the character of God. But a pagan culture takes a subjective approach to justice, built on a confusion of philosophies and social theories. Thus we see the same people calling for justice in one area, while they promote wickedness in another. Exhibit A is the American celebrity class, who call for economic justice (while enjoying lavish lifestyles), even as they frequently advance the cause of abortion; exhibit B is the Black Lives Matter organization, which calls for racial justice even while they zealously advance sexual immorality.

In contrast, the Christian worldview calls for a holistic embrace of righteousness; racial unity comes in the context of the entire mortification of the flesh, including “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires…greed…anger, rage, malice, slander…filthy language” and lying (Col. 3:1-9, NIV). Our culture would like to pursue racial justice, while holding on to most, if not all of, the rest of these sins. Justice will not be the result. That is one of the lessons of the past weeks. It seems that the same cultural currents running against retributive justice for criminals have turned suddenly warm to unjust and indiscriminate retribution towards the innocent. That is a consequence of having an understanding of justice untethered to divine righteousness.

The second crippling gap in the secular worldview–and it is connected to the first–is the gross inadequacy of its anthropology. They seek racial justice, but they have rejected the truth about humanity. A culture that does not grasp the logic of human dignity will find new ways to denigrate people. A culture that doesn’t know what men and women are cannot advance human flourishing. This shows itself in the strikingly naïve call to disband police–in an area that has just been ravaged by horrifying rioting, arson, and looting–with the rosy prediction that peace and mutually supportive community will spring up in the absence of any law enforcement. Such policies can only be advanced by people who are ignorant of human fallenness, and think that sin can be remedied solely by education, psychology, housing, and community.

The Christian worldview, by contrast, recognizes that human dignity transcends all differences between us, because we are created in the image of God. This is why there is retributive justice, and not indiscriminate retribution. We also recognize that humans are fallen and now have a sin nature, and that laws (and their enforcement) are necessary. And we recognize that the hope for true and supportive community, for love that transcends all boundaries, is found in a new humanity in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to save us from sin. The hope for racial reconciliation is found in a Christian anthropology, which proclaims that in Christ, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (v.11).

Again–Chaos, Control, or Christ

Tags

America, Christ, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Jesus Christ, Politics, Race, Secularism, Security, Society

The many grim headlines that have met us in recent days point to a nation caught in the tug-of-war between chaos and control, and remind us that we are in this dilemma because we, as a culture, have rejected the Lordship of Christ. We encounter grievous injustice, and try to deal with it with all the resources of pagan or secular worldviews; the results are what we see unfolding.

There can be no doubt that self-consciously Christian societies have often failed to live up to their own principles. But what should be noticed is that these failures were a contradiction of their principles, not an accordance with them. That means that such a society would have within itself the resources to address its failures with repentance and reconciliation. There is a divine standard of justice, pure and glorious, to which all men stand accountable; there is an identifiable spiritual root to all injustice, sin in the human heart; there is a means of challenging wickedness with the gospel of Jesus Christ, of calling sinners to repentance and of seeing change, reconciliation, healing, and love that transcends boundaries.

But a secular or pagan society–and are these different things, or only different names?–does not contain within itself the resources to address injustice. That is why the efforts to address it turn towards chaos or control. The way of Christ has been excluded from the start, in pursuit of freedom from God. But freedom from the Righteous One will never mean righteousness, nor true freedom. A society that rejects the God who is the divine standard of justice cannot be expected to arrive at justice in its social dimensions.

The solution to our situation is neither revolution nor authoritarianism. It is conversion. The price of a just and peacefully society is repentance. Repentance of what? Many things. But, in the first place, of our secularism. If we will not have Christ, it is control or chaos. If we do not want chaos or control, we must turn to Christ.

Tuesday Tea-ology, 04/07/20

Tags

Authority, Celebrities, Celebrity Culture, Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Faith, God, Holy Week, Jesus Christ, Lordship, Pop Culture, Society, Truth

What does Luke 20:1-8 have to do with Miley Cyrus?  Find out on today’s Tuesday Tea-ology!

Really Urgent

Tags

America, Christianity, Culture, Episcopal Church, Faith, God, Gospel, Humanity, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Life, Progressive Christianity, Redemption, Salvation, Theology, Truth

Writing a couple days ago about the call of the gospel involved expressing that the gospel call is urgent.  It matters whether or not people hear the message of Christ, and whether or not those who hear believe; it matters because there is judgment to come, and where you stand in the day of judgment depends entirely on whether or not you are in Christ.

This is the perennial scandal of the Christian faith.  True Christianity will always be scandalous to the world, though different aspects of the faith will be scandalous in different times and places and cultures.  But the exclusivity of the gospel message is a perennial scandal, because it stands against every worldly ideology and religion, and because it is at the irreducible core of the Christian message: eternal life is found in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone.  You have to place your faith in Him if you are to be saved.

This claim is denied not only by avowed secularists, but by some who claim to be Christians.  I came upon the website of a liberal Episcopalian church in San Francisco, noteworthy (among other things) for how they use their sanctuary for a popular yoga program–the sentence “Colorful mats cover the labyrinth, the aisles and even the altar” has a certain resonance with 2 Kings 16.  I saw that they had sermons online, audio and transcripts; I wanted to see what their preaching was like, but didn’t want to give it a lot of time.  I needn’t have been concerned; my sampling suggests that, in keeping with typical liberal practice, their sermons range from fairly brief to very brief.  Given their beliefs, brief is probably for the best.

So here is a sermon from “The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clements Young.”  He’s the dean of the cathedral and has a Doctorate of Theology from Harvard, so no one can say I’ve chosen a straw man.  His text is John 3:16-17…and if you say, ‘Why just through verse 17? …aha, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

John 3:16 is quite understandable a beloved passage, a one-verse encapsulation of the gospel.  Dr. Young, in his short message, says a number of things, some of them good.  But things get particularly suspicious about halfway through–manuscript page 3, that is–when he turns to examine Jesus’ reference to the bronze serpent, a story detailed in Numbers 21.

The Israelites were complaining against God, and the text says, “Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them” (Num. 21:6, NIV), but Dr. Young says “God allows poisonous snakes to come among them”; perhaps the change from God’s direct action to divine permission is unintentional.  But stranger is Dr. Young’s assertion that “In both this exodus story and the Gospel of John sin is less a punishment from God than it is a self-destructive human choice.”  Well, yes, the sin of the Israelites is a self-destructive choice–and if that’s all he meant, that’s one thing, but we’re still going to have to grapple with Romans 1–but the punishment from God is clearly present: they chose to grumble against God, but God sent the venomous snakes.

Dr. Young brings this back to John 3, which is good, and Jesus’ statement that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14).  But this is Dr. Young’s comment:

“In this world which is poisoned by envy, greed, fear, betrayal and death – Jesus promises that we can be healed by experiencing him near to us in our suffering, and the hope that we have for the resurrection”.

Is that all Jesus promised, His nearness in our suffering?  Why no mention of the atoning significance of His death upon the cross?

After this suspicious beating-about-the-bush about the wrath of God and atoning work of Christ, Dr. Young makes his last point quite clearly:

“My last point has to do with what my friend Matt Boulton calls the “anti-Gospel.” Gospel means good news and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news for all people, not just Christians. It is the message that God does not condemn the world, but always reaches out to save us even when our choices have led us disastrously astray. But somehow many Christians warp Jesus’ words into an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”

The Gospel, for Dr. Young, appears to be a message of universal salvation.  Faith in Christ is not necessary, and those who say that it is are guilty of promoting “an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”  This is the rhetoric of the religious left, where ‘inclusion’ is good and ‘exclusion’ is bad, and where the other side is regarded as showing hatred or contempt.  But how does this message square with the very text of Scripture being expounded?  Dr. Young quotes John 3:16 in its entirety, so he has right there before him that the verse says “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It does not say that Christ gives life to everyone; it says He gives life to those who believe in Him.

How does Dr. Young deal with this?  He doesn’t, really.  He emphasizes that the text is saying this is a demonstration of the way God has shown His love:

“The Greek doesn’t mean to emphasize “how much” God loves us but instead shows us the character of God’s love, that God loves us in this way, through not even withholding his own son. The point is not that Jesus only saves the few who believe, but like the Israelites looking at the snake, everyone is healed by God through Jesus.”

Like the Israelites looking at the snake?  But it wasn’t all of the Israelites who were healed by the bronze serpent–it was only those who looked at it.  In the same way, it isn’t all people who are saved by Jesus, but only those who believe in Him.  The parallel seems to work rather against Dr. Young than for him.  Can he really justify such a shaky interpretation in the face of the clear teaching of the biblical text?

He can try.  Here’s the clincher:

John confirms this interpretation and writes, “God did not send his son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3).

He’s quoting John 3:17, a wonderful verse about God’s love.  Jesus came to save.  God sent His Son to be our Savior.  And, if this verse was all we had to work with, we might conclude that it teaches a universal salvation, regardless of whether people know Jesus or not.

But this verse doesn’t stand alone, and a basic principle of biblical interpretation is that verses must be interpreted in context.  The verse before it, verse 16, says that it is those who believe who are saved.  What about the verse that follows?

And this is why it is so interesting that Dr. Young stopped with verse 17.  Now, I can’t read his mind.  Maybe he forgot what verse 18 said.  Maybe he just didn’t have time to bring it up.  But it is awfully interesting that he didn’t mention the verse that says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (Jn. 3:18).

So we have an Old Testament parallel and two clear assertions that a response of faith is required in order to receive the life Christ offers, sandwiching the ambiguous verse that Dr. Young tries to use to nullify the clear message.  It is overwhelmingly obvious that Dr. Young has misinterpreted the Scripture, and has done so in a way that shows either a remarkably careless disregard for the context or a deliberate desire to twist the message of the gospel.

He wants to do away with the exclusivity of the gospel.  In the process, he has thrown out the urgency of the gospel, for a message of universal salvation is not a message that anyone needs to hear; and, if heard, it is a message that perfectly suits the individualistic self-determination of the (post)modern west, because it means that how you choose to live your life doesn’t really matter in the end.

Can Dr. Young’s own charge be reversed?  Is he guilty of teaching an anti-gospel?  I think so.  Maybe he teaches that people should repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus, but he doesn’t preach that such is necessary in order to be forgiven and receive eternal life.

The true gospel is urgent, because it proclaims that God’s gracious offer of life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ, is received exclusively by faith in Jesus Christ.  You need this gospel, and you need it now.

And you may have it, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done.  Turn from your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and rose from the dead to bring you life.  Accept His mighty hand reaching down to draw you to Himself.  Be cleansed, forgiven, made whole, adopted as a child of the Most High.

The time is now.

 

Imagine that (again)

Tags

Atheism, Celebrities, Celebrity Culture, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Eschatology, God, Ideology, Naturalism, Secularism, Socialism, Society, Theism, Theology, Worldview

…a postscript to my ruminations a few days ago on the celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and the song’s message of despair.

In that earlier post, I noted in passing the hypocrisy of super-wealthy celebrities singing a song that contains the line “imagine no possessions”. Upon further reflection, I think that dissonance reflects one of the basic fallacies of the song and its misunderstanding of naturalistic, materialistic ideology.

For the song suggests that embracing a naturalistic and materialistic ideology—rejecting religion, with its metaphysical notions of heaven and hell, of transcendent morality and judgment and eternal hope—thus “living for today”, will help us break down the barriers and “live as one”. This is, ostensibly, the future that those promoting this ideology dream of.

Now, let us assume that the celebrities singing this song hold to such a naturalistic and materialistic ideology—they are atheists, who believe that this world is all we get, and intend to live for today. This may not be true; I’m not very knowledgeable about celebrity news, and for all I know Gal Gadot et al may claim to believe in God; but the public testimony of this song is that they don’t, so let us suppose that to be the case. Ostensibly, they are “living for today”, they dream this dream.

But they are not sharing their possessions. Oh, I don’t doubt they give to charitable causes; but they keep vast amounts of personal wealth for themselves. They make no effort to “live as one” with the people of the world. Apparently “a brotherhood of man” is not their dream, after all?

Why should it be? This is not a simple matter of hypocrisy—singing the song is, but living a lavish lifestyle isn’t. Naturalistic materialism provides no moral impetus. “Living for today” is perfectly consistent with living selfishly. Transcendent morality and eschatological hope, on the other hand provide a profound foundation for charity.

Of course, many Christians fail to live out the faith, sometimes infamously; because our sanctification is incomplete, we are all hypocrites to a greater or lesser extent. Still, we should see clearly, and here is the key difference: selfishness and greed are hypocrisy in Christians, but are perfectly consistent with an atheistic worldview.

Therefore, if in fact selfishness and greed are bad, then atheism is wrong. If there is good, there must be God.

Imagine that…

Tags

Celebrities, Christianity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Culture, Eternity, Faith, Heaven, Hope, Jesus Christ, Life, Pandemic, Peace, Salvation, Society, Truth

The pandemic has called up a variety of responses, some of them more helpful than others.  “Keep Calm and Wash Your Hands” is sound advice.  But is there a deeper message we might speak to this time of fear, danger, uncertainty, and death?

Actress Gal Gadot got together with a number of other celebrities, producing a little video that was promoted by major media channels.  The idea of serenading the world in a time of crisis was a kind sentiment, and good for morale; the content of this particular serenade was awful.  Gadot says that the time of isolation has got her feeling philosophical, and says that she heard of another serenade she heard, of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Gadot then begins the song, which is picked up by numerous celebrities as described here.  The song is a naïve humanist fantasy, imagining a world where the elimination of nations, private property, and religion leads to perfect unity and peace.  The hypocrisy of a group of celebrities singing a song that contains the line “Imagine no possessions” is staggering, but not nearly so troubling as the rest of the vision for mankind they exhort us to imagine.

“Imagine there’s no heaven…No hell below us,” the song suggests, as though the loss of a sense of eternal destiny will encourage generosity and the brotherhood of man.  “And no religion too” it later adds, as though the loss of transcendent morality and meaning will contribute to world peace.  The song’s diagnosis of the human condition is profoundly flawed.

But, more importantly, it is a delusion.  We are being asked to imagine a world that simply does not and cannot exist–a world without God and without hope.  It is a comfort to know that Lennon’s vision can never be realized; even a global atheistic socialist state could do nothing about the fact that there is a heaven, there is a hell, and there is a God whether humans acknowledge Him or not.

In a time of crisis, we need to be reminded of the profound truths that define our existence in this life and in the life to come.  That is what has been lacking in so much of our society’s response to the pandemic, and it is the opposite message of “Imagine.”  On the contrary, this is not a time to daydream, but a time to wake up.

Memento Mori, says the ancient Christian tradition–remember that you have to die.  A pandemic should serve to remind us that life is finite, and all too often short.  Life is serious, and meaningful; but it is serious and meaningful because there is a life to come.  There is a God above, there is a heaven and there is a hell.

We have had national calls to prayer, and that is very good; but they ought to be accompanied by national calls to repentance.  It would be a tragedy if concern about the pandemic moves us to wash our hands, but not our hearts.  It would be a travesty to pray one moment for God’s deliverance, and the next moment to sing “Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.”

I am not a prophet, to claim that COVID-19 is God’s judgment on us for x sin.  But every disease is a consequence of the fall, and a reminder that we live in a fallen world.  And every such reminder urges us to wake up and look to the wellbeing of our souls and of the souls of others.  God sent His Son to bear the sins of the world, to take away the curse and bring us the offer of eternal life by faith in Him.  And God offers, to all who will receive the gift of life in Jesus Christ, a future more wonderful than we can possibly imagine.