|
NARROW-MINDED?
ALL BELIEVERS ARE
A lady wrote to the editor of
our local paper the other day, upset that someone suggested homosexuality
is forbidden in the Bible. "My God," she wrote, "is
a God of love and not a God of judgment."
Now, the lady is free to worship
whomever she pleases, and if she wants to make up her own god
who will let her do as she will, well, it's been done for thousands
of years. My only question to her is "Where did you find
this God without standards?" Certainly not in the Bible.
Open it at any page and you will see this God makes demands on
His people. He sets limits on their behavior and holds them responsible.
I suspect the writer created her
god from her own imagination. This puts her lord in the same class
as a rag on a stick in Botswana, a volcano in the South Pacific,
or a statuette in a Singapore flat. God-making has a certain appeal---your
creation can look like anything you choose and it approves whatever
you want to do.
Not long ago, local citizen Ray
Whiting wrote to our editor taking issue with a letter from Gary
Hanberry who had claimed, "The Jesus of the Bible is the
Christ, the Son of the Living God, and is compatible with no other
religion." Mr. Whiting responded, "It is my belief that
the Jesus of the Bible is merely the retelling of the ancient
sacred myths of divinity, told and retold through the ages in
every language and every culture. The Jesus depicted in the Gospels
is an image compiled from the earlier myths, not a real person
who walked the earth 2,000 years ago." He concluded, "I
would suggest to Mr. Hanberry that…his version of Christ
is both shallow and impotent. If his Christ cannot embrace us
all…his Christ is insufficient for the need. On behalf of
all Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Wiccans, (and) pagans…I
beg him to find a bigger Christ."
I'd like to ask Mr. Whiting where
exactly he located this Christ who embraces all religions without
expecting anything from any of them. Certainly not in the Bible.
And, since the Bible is the only book on earth giving information
about Christ, how did he manage to find a Christ different from
the one presented there?
Anyone doing even a cursory reading
of the Gospels sees that the story of Jesus is presented as historical
fact. He lived in this place, at this time, with these people.
The men and women who knew Jesus and followed Him told others
who passed the word on to others who told their friends. The process
has continued right down to the present day. With the ancient
myths and fables, a story was repeated around campfires and dinner
tables for a few generations, and then died out because it was
only a tale. It had no basis in fact and the people found no reason
to prolong its existence.
Mr. Whiting insists Truth must
accommodate all the religions of the world, otherwise it is not
Truth. What fascinating reasoning. Only in religion---and in no
other field of inquiry known to man---would we claim that all
beliefs are equally valid and demand that they be given a place
at the table, so to speak.
Try that on medical science. All
schools of medicine must teach voodoo, quackery, superstition,
and opinions as well as the proven principles of sound medical
practice. The primitive who rubs dung on an open sore and drills
holes in skulls to cure headaches is given the same hearing as
the head of Johns Hopkins or Sloane-Kettering. Value judgments
are out; everyone qualifies as an authority.
Try it on the physical sciences.
Every opinion carries equal weight. There are no right answers
and no definitive way to determine the orbit of a planet, the
makeup of a chemical compound, or the formula for unraveling a
math problem. Pity the astronaut who climbs into a rocket-ship
and stakes his life on the collected ignorance of every person
in the world with an opinion on physics.
Only in matters of faith do we
insist there can be no Absolute Truth, that those who claim to
have possess Truth are narrow and selfish and bigoted, and that
whatever "works" for a person is by definition "true."
In no other area of life would we fall for such foolishness. Not
in the kitchen where we insist on standards of cleanliness and
tastefulness, not in construction where workers must follow regulations
to make buildings safe and dependable, nor in matters of health
or safety or a thousand other fields. Yet, claim you have found
Absolute Truth about God and you are automatically branded as
shallow and narrow.
Narrow is actually the right word.
Scientists have observed that all truth is narrow. Two plus two
always equals four. The space shuttle's descent from orbit must
coincide with an incredibly narrow slit in time and space, otherwise
the mission fails spectacularly. The nuclear power plant a few
miles up the river follows complex and strict guidelines. The
manufacture of medicine is a precise business. An organ transplant
follows exacting procedures. Truth is always narrow.
The Lord Jesus said, "I am
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except
through me." What could be narrower? In so few words, He
has presented Himself as the only Savior and ruled out every other
religious alternative in the world. He said, "No one knows
the Father except the Son, and those to whom I reveal Him."
Either Jesus is the only way to God or He is the world's greatest
egomaniac and not to be believed on anything. (John 14:6; Matthew
11:27)
Make no mistake---the issue is
Jesus. Whether He is who He claimed to be or just another religious
charlatan is a question every person must answer. But, please
note, the Scriptures are not neutral or ambiguous on this subject.
"In the past, God spoke to
us in various times and ways through the prophets. But lately,
He has spoken to us through His Son, whom He has appointed heir
of all things, through whom He made the universe. The Son is the
radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being,
sustaining all things by His powerful word." (Hebrews 1:1-3)
We conclude with a word from the
inimitable C.S. Lewis. In a letter to a friend who had questioned
the deity of Jesus, Lewis wrote: "…what about Mark 2:18-19.
(Jesus had said, "No one need fast while I am here.")
What man can announce that simply because he is present, acts
of penitence, such as fasting, are 'off.' " Who can give
the school a half-holiday except the Headmaster? The doctrine
of Christ's divinity seems to me not something stuck on which
you can unstick but something that peeps out at every point so
that you'd have to unravel the whole web to get rid of it."
("CS Lewis's Case for the Christian Faith," by Richard
L. Purtill, p. 48)
The early Christians put it succinctly:
"Jesus is Lord." He is indeed.
|
