Friday, April 6, 2012
The event caught my attention on
a number of different levels. It was
billed as a “Reason Rally,” and it was held in Washington D.C.’s National
Mall on March 24, 2012, ostensibly to promote and bring recognition to non-religion and atheism. First, I guess I
don’t grasp the motivation of why someone would travel such a significant
distance at significant expense, to rally around what you don’t believe
in? If you know anything about the
National Mall, a gathering of 20,000 people is small in comparison to other
similar events. That didn’t keep someone
though from engaging in shameless self-promotion or inept reporting calling it,
“the largest secular event in the history
of the world.” Really?! In the history of the world?! Then, there was the overall tenor of the
event, which seemed more about attacking Christianity than celebrating the joys
of atheism. There were signs that read, “So many Christians, so few lions.”
Numerous references were made that speaking about your faith was tantamount to “hate speech.” And, oh yes, calls for everyone from Rick Santorum to Pope Benedict XVI to Tim
Tebow to be arrested. Their crime? I
guess if you have faith, you should literally be silent about it. Anyhow, it inspired me to wade in to make it
perfectly clear that ours is a “reasonable
faith.”
Faith Under Fire
You should know that when it
comes to Christianity and especially belief in Jesus Christ, there has always
been its detractors and its skeptics. One of the unique features of our age is we
are witnessing the rise of both
skepticism and faith; doubt and belief are growing side by side. This accounts for the resurgence of what’s
been called the neo-atheists, with names like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins
(author of “The God Delusion”), Sam
Harris and others.
“New atheism is a more aggressive and anti-religious form of atheism that presupposes the validity of scientific theories and reason, and applies them to religious phenomena in an attempt to disprove that God exists and that religion is dangerous”
 |
| Richard Dawkins |
Have you ever looked up the
definition of skeptic or skepticism? The dictionary says, “To look at a matter closely; to scrutinize; to study with great care;
in minute detail.” True skepticism
is not an excuse or refusal to think or investigate things closely; just the
opposite. I think this is what’s
different about today: the goal is not honest dialogue or even honest
disagreement, but the intention is to disparage and refute the truth of the
Bible, often using mockery to
intimidate believers. I think of that
intellectual giant, Bill Maher, of
HBO who along with others have alleged that Christians should be in mental
wards and are nothing more than sycophantic sheep. That tone was definitely present at the “Reason Rally,” when Richard Dawkins
told the crowd that (Christians) “need to
be ridiculed with contempt...mock them, ridicule them! In public!” Uhhhm, where’s the civility and the towering
“reason” in all of that? The bottom-line
is that faith in Jesus Christ has always been “ground zero” of spiritual
warfare. Every believer and generation
will be faced with its own adamant rejection of the message and truth of the
Gospel.
By No Means A New Phenomenon
 |
| Francois Voltaire |
Looking back, there is a long,
long list of famous or infamous skeptics, agnostics, and atheists who’ve
crossed the stage of history. There was
the noted French author, historian, philosopher, and infidel, Francois Voltaire, whose boast and aim
in life was to demolish Christianity. He
said, “In twenty years, Christianity will
be no more. My single hand shall destroy
the edifice that took twelve apostles to rear.” Well, Voltaire died like everyone else, and
what’s more is that his home was used by the American Bible Society for the
publication and distribution of Bibles!
In America, Robert Ingersoll
drew large audiences for his lectures on atheism. He liked to shock his hearers by taking out a
big pocket watch and announcing, “I give
God — if there is one — five minutes to strike me dead.” When someone called this to the attention
of the English evangelist, Joseph Parker, I like his answer. He said,
“And did the gentleman presume to exhaust the patience of the eternal God in five minutes?”
 |
| Nate Phelps |
There is an added question here
that is valid and interesting, and it is what makes an atheist. I certainly don’t know everything or have all
the answers, but I can tell you that there’s almost always a back
story! I was fascinated by the
author and professor from New York University, Paul Vitz, in his book called Faith
Of The Fathers. He studied the 72 most well-known atheists in history,
the Bertrand Russells, the Voltaires, and the Freuds, to see if they had
anything in common. The only thing he
could find in common with every one of them is they all hated their dads, every one of them. They had a distant dad, a demeaning dad, a
dead dad...they had no relationships with their fathers. That’s why it wasn’t surprising, but a bit
sad, that one of the speakers at the Reason
Rally was Nate Phelps, the son of Westboro Baptist Church pastor, Fred Phelps. The church has become infamous fore picketing
military funerals with signs and epithets such as “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags.” Their
position and ugly misrepresentation is that all of this represents God’s
judgment on America for homosexuality.
Just imagine growing up in that home environment. Is it surprising that at the stroke of midnight
on his 18th birthday, he packed all of his belongings and left home,
rejecting God and the distorted faith of his parents, in particular his father? There is always a story behind things, often
hidden, but nevertheless real.
In the end, you have to work
hard at suppressing your belief in God since Scripture tells us “He has put eternity into man’s heart.” It’s describing man’s instinct for God, not
the result of some evolutionary process but God’s creative design. You are either a Christian or an atheist, you
see, by faith! Robert Rowe is an atheistic professor from
Purdue University, educated at Oxford who said: “Even as the evangelical Christian accepts God by faith, I reject the
idea of God by faith, but I cannot reject God by reason alone for there is too
much evidence of His existence. It is by
faith I am an atheist.” I can
appreciate the man’s honesty.
If you keep telling a lie
frequently enough, eventually people believe it. It seems that the common claim and biggest
misconception about Christianity is that it’s all about “blind faith.” It is portrayed as a blind leap into the dark, instead of a bold step into the light!
The caricature presented is that to become a Christian is to commit “intellectual suicide.” In order to become a follower of Jesus Christ
you have to unplug your brain first. We
need to dismantle that deception so that the truth can really set you free!
The Wonderful Possibility
God is such an awesome God! The text that comes to mind is (Isaiah 1:18) “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they
shall become like wool.” Can’t you see the heart and the character of God
here? God is saying “Why don’t you and I sit down and reason together about the things that
really matter in life.” You know,
the big things, the big questions that set the direction of your life and
ultimately determine both its quality and outcome. True wisdom possesses this quality as well, “But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” (James 3:17)
Christianity is open for reason because of a simple fact: Christianity holds
its own and can operate in the arena of ideas!
Throughout the NT, this was the
Apostle Paul’s strategy. (Acts 17:2, 3)
“And
Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with
them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the
Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus, whom
I proclaim to you, is the Christ."
He reasoned with them from the Scriptures. The word means “to dialogue; to discuss
thoroughly; to open, explain, and give evidence.” Arguments by Christians are more “reasonable”
than those of the skeptics or the atheists.
Dr. George Eldon Ladd in his book, I
Believe In The Resurrection, observes that “faith does not mean a leap in the dark, an irrational credulity, a
believing against evidences and against reason.
It means believing in the light of historical facts, consistent with
evidences, on the basis of witnesses.”
It is completely “reasonable” to put your faith in Him and serve Him all
the days of your life. There is a
“divine reasonableness” to faith, to the Cross, to the resurrection, and to the
call to holiness. That is why ours is a “reasonable
faith” to those who will take the time to examine and then to trust.
Here is insight into the task of
every believer. (1Pet.3:15, 16) tells
us, “But in your hearts regard Christ the
Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you
for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and
respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile
your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” To live winsomely for and effectively for
Christ in our age, we must first make Jesus Lord of every area of our hearts
and lives. Until this is done our lives
will be half-hearted and we will not be taken seriously. The second thing is we must be ready to give
an answer (make a defense; reasoned argument) to everyone for the reason for
the hope in our lives. He’s talking about
the field of apologetics. Not that everyone has to be a Bible scholar,
but we should be able to enunciate the what
and the why of our faith and hope in
Christ. Then he tells us that our
attitude and approach is what backs it all up.
A winsome witness is underscored by our lifestyle, “do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that,
when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be
put to shame.” The truth backed up
by a committed lifestyle is a winning strategy!
The Verdict
Paul’s closing argument was
concise, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” I was
intrigued reading about an award-winning writer, John Jeremiah Sullivan, who had what he called an adolescent “bout
with evangelicalism.” Sullivan walked away from the church and a biblical
faith, but after all these years he can’t fully reject the person of Jesus
Christ. He claims, “Once you’ve known [Jesus] as God,” it’s hard to find comfort in
Jesus as just another man. And even
after years of unbelief, Sullivan admits, “one
has doubts about one’s doubts.” You
see, it always comes back to Jesus and our encounter with Him. When the Apostle Paul made his defense before
King Agrippa in Acts 26, the final piece of evidence was his testimony of how he met Jesus on the Damascus Road! It was there that the greatest destroyer of
Christianity became its greatest defender!
That’s why the saying is true: A MAN WITH AN ARGUMENT IS NO MATCH FOR
MAN WITH AN EXPERIENCE. That’s why
Paul’s life passion from that point on became “that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.” Christianity is both a FACT to be believed and an EXPERIENCE to connect with. One without the other is to have a form of
religion with no power. DO YOU KNOW THEM
BOTH? Christianity says if you want to
experience God, you have to believe the truth: you have to believe that He
really lived that He really died, that He really raised...which leads to a real
experience, which leads to more understanding of the truth, and the truth leads
to more experience. And this cycle keeps
growing and being repeated in our lives!
Ordinary Or Extraordinary God
God needs to deliver us from the
idolatry that is so common
today. Idolatry is defined as “the worship of anything or anyone other
than or less than the true and living God” revealed in Scripture. Several years ago in Britain, researchers
went door-to-door asking persons about their belief in God. One of the questions: “Do you believe in a God who intervenes in human history, who changes
the course of affairs, who performs miracles etc.?” When the report was published, it took its
title from the response of one man who became typical of many. He answered, “No, I don’t believe in that God; I believe in the ordinary God.” If all we
have is the ordinary God, then He certainly wouldn’t be worthy to be worshiped
or adored with all your heart, soul, and mind!
I am so grateful that Jesus Christ is an extraordinary God and Savior; otherwise, I wouldn’t be a Christian
today.
In some of my reading for this
message, I read Tim Keller’s introduction to “The God of Reason” - Belief
In An Age of Skepticism. He told of
a Columbia University graduate and atheist, Kevin,
who was working on Wall Street with J.P. Morgan. He and his future wife, Kelly, had their doubts about
their doubts, so they started going to church. It was still a slow grind, since they had a
lot to work through. But, let me put it
in his words:
Kelly wrote, “As an atheist I thought I lived a moral, community-oriented, concerned-with-social-justice kind of life, but Christianity had an even higher standard–down to our thoughts and the state of our hearts. I accepted God’s forgiveness and invited him into my life.” Kevin wrote, “While sitting in a coffee shop reading C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, I put down the book and wrote in my notebook, ‘the evidence surrounding the claims of Christianity is simply overwhelming.’ I realized that my achievements were ultimately unsatisfying, the approval of man is fleeting, that a carpe diem life lived solely for adventure is just a form of narcissism and idolatry. And so I became a believer in Christ.” Oh, yes! Oh, happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away.
Dear ones, “Reason Rallies” come and go, but the God of Reason endures
forever, and one day we will all stand before Him. In fact, “In
Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” and He invites
you to give Him your hearts and your head, and discover that He is in the
life-transforming business! There is
a tipping
point for this to be a reality in your life? The prophet Isaiah tells us
in this internal reasoning process: “If
you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you
refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord
has spoken." I URGE YOU THIS
EASTER SEASON TO BE WILLING AND OBEDIENT: AND GIVE THE LORD JESUS WHO IS THE “”RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE” A PLACE IN
YOUR LIFE! YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT.
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