Theology, Convictions and Evil

This is an in-house entry…. To the “faithful” I write…

Throughout history, there have been plenty of evil done in the name of God by those who supposedly call on the name of Christ.  Why is that?  One answer that jumps out of the pages of the Bible is clear:  human beings are naturally evil.  As one text says, our natural behavior is obvious and includes things like idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. There is also a number of sexual behavior that we naturally desire but is not healthy nor good and as Christians we should not practice including sex outside of marriage, using or producing pornography, orgies, and even lustful thoughts (See Galatians 5:19-21).  

One translation calls our tendency to desire and give into such desire for these things our “sinful nature” but the actual biblical writers simply call it our flesh - the Greek word is “sarx” - and it includes (a) the physical body; (b) the body’s natural desires, appetites and cravings that go against God’s design; and (c) the tendency to give into these desires.  There is a word strictly used for the “physical body” and it is not “sarx” but “soma”. This word primarily means the physical body alone.

Why the mini theology lesson?  Because Christians (if they happen to stumble onto my blog) need to be aware that the internal battles and fights we have over supposed theological issues such as the role of women, leadership in the church, what is heretical, eternal condemnation, and the like – when we have deep convictions about such things and our emotions flare up or our heels dig in, it is likely that the flesh is peeking it’s ugly head.  The Bible makes it clear what is of first importance – Christ Jesus and Him Crucified.  This does NOT mean such things (women’s roles, leaderships, heresy, etc) are not important – it just means we should not and must not destroy the church or worse, literally kill people over such things!  In fact, we should not kill people ever and we should never resort to coercive force, violence, hatred, fits of rage, yelling and screaming, and other such things. There is no Christian theological foundation for such behavior NONE – note even against those who reject or are antagonistic against our faith.

As it is written, we preach Christ and Him crucified; and he was raised to life.  This alone is the core of the gospel, the “crux of the matter”.  Get it? “crux”… out of the cross!   We preach Christ and him crucified, a stumbling block for those who consider themselves good religious people and foolishness to those who are nontheistic and/or secular humanist in their view of the world.  Out of this core comes love – love for God and love for others.  The core message implies a view of the universe that is ultimately supernatural – a sinless man rose from the dead!  It implies that we are inherently evil which NOBODY likes to accept.  But this message gives us the ONE way out of these natural desires and tendencies that go against God’s design:  forgiveness through the blood of Christ.  Ugly, illogical from a human perspective, yet this is the message.

If Christians who FIGHT over the role of women or contemporary Christian music verses traditional hymns, or other such things would step back and examine their own selves, they would see that they may NOT be representing the absolute truth of scripture but instead, defending something that may be important, but is not essential.  It may even be the traditions of men verses the will of God (Matt 15:3).  I struggle with the more "weightier matters of the law" in my life, specifically true conviction and faithfulness, resisting sin to the point of death. (Matt 23:23, Heb 12:4) Where is our commitment?  Are we 100% engaged and involved in serving the risen savior by practicing the two fundamental commands Jesus gave us:  love God with everything and love our neighbor?  Do we fully practice the fruit of the spirit to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  And by the way, these things should be practiced Monday through Saturday, not just Sunday in a one or two hour worship service.

I encourage you, if you happened to find this article and you call yourself a Christian, I encourage you to examine what I have written carefully and the implication for Christian unity and solidarity implied by this.  The core message is essential.  The one biblical idea we don’t like – that we ourselves are sinful – is very real, and we know it to be true.  Certain values that spring from the teachings of Christ and the apostles PRIMARILY impact the bulk of our lives – Monday through Saturday, not the 1 or 2 hours on Sunday.  Come on people, what’s the real deal?  Will you stand before Jesus and defend your bold adherence to theological purity about issues that cannot be clearly explained in the biblical text and that only impact ONE HOUR a week? Please hear me.... I am not saying we shouldn’t have standards or define healthy, biblical practices for our churches, but I am saying, let’s keep the main thing the main thing and not let theology we can’t fully and clearly prove and our blind convictions about such theology dictate the practices of our faith or the things that ultimately cause division due to our sinful nature.

Honest Faith

Right now I am in the mountains southern Pennsylvania.  It’s absolutely beautiful.  I’m at a camp run by the Church of the Brethren called “Camp Eder” and the facilities are excellent.  They take very good care of this camp and I am truly impressed with the immaculate care and detail they obviously put into keeping this place up-to-date.

I also get to relax and read – I love to do this.  In reading a book I have stopped and started multiple times, I ran across a thought that triggered another thought, which triggered another thought. (This trait of mine… to drift fluidly between thoughts that seem unconnected drives my wife crazy!).  I recentely learned of a book written by Peter Boghossian entiled, “A Manual for Creating Atheist” or something like that.  I do plan to buy and read it although I am a theist – open minded, yes, but currently convinced that the metaphysical framework I accept as true is indeed true.

I had not known the name Peter Boghossian until I recently ran across this title.  He has a number of Youtube videos (I love the 21^st century where we can instantly learn about people and things).  There was one I viewed entitled something like “The Best of Peter Boghossian, which caused me to somewhat respect what I think to be his message. Of course, I have a long way to go to really get to “know” this man and what he is really all about, but he seems to promote certain principles that I also hold: seeking truth, looking for evidence, respecting others, using your mind, being reasonable, and a few others ideas.  Now, I am certain the semantics we pour into such principals are slightly skewed from each other – me being a theist and he trying to convert me - yet I am also certain that we would agree to the fundamental or primary meanings applied to such concepts.

With that said, even though I enjoyed Boghossian’s video clips, I am strongly opposed to how he defined faith in his “manual”.  He writes that faith is “pretending to know things that you don’t know”.  For the sake of argument, let’s “pretend” (pun intended) there are no religions on the earth.  Let’s pretend that all people on the entire planet are pure naturalist and base everything on empirical data, evidence, and repeatable and verifiable proof.  If this was the way the world was today, would the word “faith” exist in the lexicon of at least our shared language – American English?  If it did exist, how would it be defined?  If I said, in such a world, when verbally making a business deal, “I have faith that you will honor your agreement”, what would I mean?  If I said, in such a world, “I have faith that my wife is faithful and I will remain faithful to her”, I ask, what would I mean?  Language is not that complicated, nor is t dogmatically ridged, nor sterile.  With or without the supernatural, the fundamental meaning of faith still holds – a type of belief mixed with trust.  It has to do with confidence to act on what one anticipates will occur based on another person’s integrity, reputation, or proven track-record.  When applied to religion, the difference is only in the acceptance that a supernatural being (or realm) actually exists and can be trusted based on what another person, an ancient text, or trusted cleric has said.

My his definition of faith, Mr. Boghossian betrays a prejudice. We all have biases and we all have agendas – that I can easily accept.  Yet, to abuse language like this by making up a definition that is illogical, unfounded, and disingenuous is terrible.  I don’t know this man, but from the little I have gathered, he values and promotes honesty and facts.  Minimally, he should replace the ideas implied in his definition, the idea of “pretending”, with something like “accepting as true what you cannot prove empirically.”  Instead, he creates unnecessarily an antagonistic relationship with more than 90% of the human race.  His definition is intentionally provocative.  I must conclude then, based on reason that he is being is disingenuous by devising and using such a definition to convince theist to become non-theist or atheist.  Such rhetoric amongst those who are trying to persuade me or convince me that my theistic world-view is built on mythology, falsehoods, and made-up superstition is not a good place to start.  As I said, I am open minded, but those that approach me must be honest, reasonable, and  - like me – open to change themselves.

I can easily admit that there are many aspects of my view of reality, built on a theistic foundation, can not be proven empirically.  I can confidently embrace that various foundational components of my “faith system” require the somewhat blind acceptance of what I cannot prove.  However, I am not pretending anything.  Mr. Boghossian, just like the rest of us, lives his life without being able to prove many, many things but he is not pretending.  Does he “pretend” to care for his family, even though a child, a relative, or even one’s own spouse could turn on you and even take your life!  This happens all the time, just as Adam Lanza killed his own mother before shooting a bunch of children.  Granted, mental illness was involved, but I’m pretty confident this mother didn’t “pretend” to trust her son.  She may have been unwise and even self-deceived, but she was not pretending.  Mr. Boghossian should be more honest IF he really wants to convince those of us with religious faith to give it up for a greater truth!