6/23/19 Don (see video HERE)
Can your religious beliefs stand up to public scrutiny? Or will they go the way of Santa Claus once
you get older and wiser to the ways of the world?
We need to be critical thinkers to stand up to the commonly
accepted dogmas of co-workers, peers, and, more than ever, the social media mob
that threatens to expose our independent thinking and subject us to mass shaming
and shunning. We need to be critical
thinkers who have the ability to defend and articulate a reason for our counter-cultural
beliefs.
I was talking with Don, a former churchgoer who had long
since abandoned his religious beliefs.
He had equated them with his former belief in Santa Claus, and decided
to move on. Although he still believes
in a higher power of some sort, he abandoned Christianity as just another
man-made religion and decided to respect all religions as having equal but
limited value as man-made attempts to deal with unanswerable questions.
Don's original faith didn’t withstand scrutiny, because it
was a man-made understanding of a religion that can only be true if it is a
God-made faith. In the book of Acts, an early skeptic of Christianity, a
Pharisee named Gamaliel, wisely said of Peter and the Apostles who were on
trial before them for preaching in the name of Jesus “…if their purpose or
activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not
be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
I don’t think Don had really done his homework with regard
to his rejection of Christianity. I
think he had made the mistake of equating the man-made fairy tale of Santa
Claus with the historical reality of Jesus Christ. Those who reject Christianity as just another
man-made religion have missed the central point of the Gospel: it’s not a
religion, not a dogma, not a set of rules and rituals, but a person, Jesus
Christ. I do believe Don was starting to
grasp that toward the end of our short conversation.
Biblical Christianity is a person who brings each person who
encounters him to a point of decision.
Jesus made an exclusive claim about himself: “I am the way and the truth
and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He doubled down on this claim when he told
Thomas the skeptic “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” And he tells his followers that he is to be
the very fuel of their spiritual life: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my
blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Is your faith of human origin? If so, it will fail. But if it is truly from God, it will stand,
even at the point of a sword as did that of those original Apostles. It will stand in the face of public scrutiny,
and it will stand in the face of the shaming and shunning of the skeptics and
the masses.
Thanks, Don, for allowing me to record our
conversation! It can be seen HERE at https://youtu.be/fjsdZpkIjns
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