The Everyday Club

7/29/10    Marvin   about 40
"I believe in God and go to church and all that, but I'm not all serious about it like some people." Hannah (my daughter) and I heard this from Marvin, whom we met in the park today. This is a popular thing to say in our culture where to be tolerant no longer means that one respects people with strong views in opposition to their own. Our popular culture looks down on people with strong beliefs. Instead, tolerance now means that one has no strong views or personal opinions at all. Why? It has a lot to do with the trend in our culture to deny such a thing as absolute truth and, behind it, to deny God's absolute authority. What does this have to do with Marvin? He came across as a "good ole boy" who doesn't take God or religion seriously, but at the bottom of all this is a refusal to acknowledge God's supreme authority in his life. I asked Marvin if he knew the Ten Commandments. He did not. Why? Not because he is an easy-going person who doesn't get too worked up about religion. At the bottom of his ignorance of the Ten Commandments is that he has no intention of obeying them. After this conversation Hannah and I observed that Marvin had talked in circles. He was like the "lukewarm" believer in Jesus' parable, difficult for God to work with because he is nether cold nor hot. Rev.3:15-16