People often assume that we must determine whether or not God exists before we can raise the question of what this God is like.
In other words, why bother with the question of the nature, attributes, and characteristics of God until and unless we first determine the existence of God?
But this exactly what we must do. The question of the existence of God must be secondary to the question of the nature and attributes of God.
Why?
Well, for one reason, how can a person look for God if they don’t know what God looks like? If a person doesn’t know what to look for in God, they cannot very well look for God.
Furthermore, if we begin with the question of the existence of God without first seeking to understand what this God would be like (if he existed), we run the danger of looking for a God who does not actually exist.
And in fact, this is what I think has happened to most atheists.
God-Worshiping Atheists
Many atheists, I believe, have rightly declared their non-belief in a god that truly does not exist.
They have gone looking for a god that does not exist, and, having failed to find him (and how could they?), have declared that god does not exist. Christians take offense to this, and come up with all sorts of arguments for the existence of God, but fail to recognize that they too are arguing (in many cases) for the existence of a god that does not actually exist.
In such cases, it is the atheists who are the true worshipers of the true God, for they have recognized the non-existence of the non-god.
The Christians who seek to defend the existence of the god who is not God are the idolaters, for if they are seeking to call people to believe in a god who is not God, they are calling people to believe in an idol. In such a case, the rejection of this false god by the atheist is an act of pure worship.
Let me get real concrete and specific.
The vast majority of atheists I know today have rejected a god which is believed in by the majority of Christians, namely, a god who hates people of other religion, hates homosexuals, hates democrats, and hates “sinners.” This god of popular Christianity commanded Israel to commit acts of genocide, drowned millions of people in a flood because they sinned too much, and is planning to send the vast majority of the people of this world to an everlasting torment in flames and boiling lava.
Since the God which Jesus revealed to us is nothing like this sort of violent, blood-thirsty, people-torturing god, the atheistic rejection of such a god is an act of true worship of the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
If God is not like what we have been taught, then when we declare, “God does not exist,” we are not denying the God who does truly exist, but the god who is nothing more than a figment of human imagination, philosophical speculation, sociological superstition, and religious wish-fulfillment.
To deny a god who does not exist is to say nothing about the God who does.
When atheists deny a god who does not exist, this is an act of pure worship to the God who does.
A Call for Christian Atheists
So this bring us back to the idea I began with: Before we can discuss whether or not God exists, it might be best to discuss what sort of God we are looking for.
I propose we invite people to look for the God revealed in Jesus Christ, for this is a God who not only exists, but this is a God who can be found.
I believe that if those people who have rightly denied the existence of a god who does not exist were properly introduced to the God who does, they would no longer deny the existence of God.
In my experience, it seems that the vast majority of atheists have not rejected the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but the false god of popular, power-based, political religion.
I reject and deny the existence of that god too … Does that make me a Christian atheist?
So Christians, let us follow our atheist friends in denying the existence of this false god of power, money, bloodshed, and violence, and instead call people to believe in the enemy-loving, all-forgiving God who is found in Jesus Christ dying on the cross.
Only once we present God as what He is like in Jesus Christ can we expect people to “find God” as He truly is, because the God who looks like Jesus is the only God who can be found.
I often ponder the mystery of the meaning of Jesus “hidden Kingdom” words – – – “Many will come from east and west and north and south….” – in contrast to “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord…’ “
Hmm. I hadn’t connected that text with what I am saying here. Interesting.
I may not be the strongest in my faith, but I do know that the Bible tells of the truth. God doesn’t hate the sinner but the sin. Thats why Jesus came to die for us-right? Yes. Don’t lead others astray. He made hell for Satan and heaven for us. Sadly, people choose to follow Satan, so, the gates of heaven close upon them, and, well, you know the rest.
You nailed it! I was taught the wrong way growing up (the merciless god who throws non-believing sinners in the eternal bowels of hell was in-comprehensible)it’s not that way at all. Even souls who’ve passed are in a temporary level of hell now, not as punishment, but to give them the opportunity to see the other side. If hell exists, so must God, and for non-believers/fence walkers, don’t worry, he gives you a lifetime to find him, then revelations, then Armageddon (which he will carry you through should you find him during it) to endure (to awaken souls, every passage is harder then the first to ultimately save your soul) until he finally closes the door after the second coming, and at that point if one hasn’t figured out, it’s probably futile. God vs. Satan is a war for souls. God wants to spare you all this as he is your father, and God doesn’t send people there; if they wind up there for eternity, it was their choice to not go Him. His door is always open. He doesn’t ask perfection, only discernment, truth, a heart with pure intentions, to be of service to others, and to go to Him when you do meet when your time comes, and it will. The last thing God wants is eternally suffering souls.
It seems like you are promoting the pre trib rapture; you may not have expressly stated that, but you have certainly implied it … hence, a false God, or certainly a false promise.
When is the ‘last’ trump (and I’m not talking about either Donald or farting)? 💨 It’s not three and a half years before and it’s not seven years before .., it’s ‘Immediately’ after the tribulation of those days. That’s when that generation will be given a sign. We don’t know what it is yet, but the people at that time will be left in no doubt, because they will be so deluded that they will try to make war with him and think that they can nuke him out of the sky. But he who sits in the heavens laughs at them in derision.
The many that will come from the East,West, North,and South arẹ people of all races who live by his word. Those that Profess him but beings shame to the kingdom through sinful lifestyles and breaking the commands of his word, whose lived don’t show Christ, cannot enter God’s kingdom because they don’t belong there. If they did they will live like those eho do.
you’ve got a point there…
You’re definitely right in saying that an incorrect presentation of God will be harshly rejected by atheists and others who do not hold to Christianity. I really loved the part of your post where you talked about a “god” that hates people of other religions, homosexuals, Democrats, and sinners haha. It always irks me to no end when I see what politicians have been doing in the name of God, Christianity, and family values that does nothing more than alienate others and cause them to embarrass themselves and other believers.
I think though that you should be more careful when dealing with the more theologically complex ideas in your post such as hell and violence in Scripture. One of the things I’ve learned as I started getting into reading the Bible daily is that the more I learn I realize that there’s more and more I have to learn. For every important doctrine and belief in Christianity there are many gifted minds who have labored on studying them and have all come to convincing but different conclusions (which is unfortunate for me because I have the hardest time deciding between competing views lol). I am grateful that you’re not like many I’ve encountered who are quick to label you unsaved if you don’t hold to their interpretation but to boldly proclaim that we should deny the violent God who sends souls to hell seems very dangerous to me as well. Even though you and I and many others would long and hope for there to be less suffering and violence, especially from our God, I don’t know if as Christians we have learned and understood God’s ways enough to make such definitive statements. While it doesn’t help our case with those outside the faith I think an honest response despite our research with these complexities is a humble “I don’t know” or at the most “This is what I believe this means based on what I’ve studied.”
I do apologize if it seemed I singled you out in this comment or suggested you don’t know a lot about the Bible. This was mostly meant to be towards all camps of thought because I’m just a bit frustrated being caught in between all these different thoughts and interpretations and not knowing which one to believe, especially when the claims are bold. If you’re interested and have the time to read it the thing that’s thrown me in a loop recently was looking at both your views on Hell and Dr. Max D. Younce’s “A Biblical Examination of Hell”. It’s a bit of a lengthy read but I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read it or decide to take a look through it. It just stuns me that every side has looked at the Hebrew and Greek and comes to all these different conclusions, and it makes it even worse for me because I don’t know a bit of either language haha.
Anyway that’s enough out of me for now. Looking forward to hearing back from you so we can keep on growing in knowledge.
Justin,
Thanks for the kind and thoughtful comment. I have tried again and again to say that what I am presenting is a “proposal” and I value and seek the input of others on this proposal through the comments. If you have been reading the series for a while, you may remember that I have tweaked and modified my proposal several times due to the input of others on this topic.
So, I am NOT saying “This is how it is.” No, I am saying, “I cannot reconcile the enemy-loving Jesus with the enemy-killing God of the Old Testament… Here is a way that might help us reconcile those two…. What do you think?”
Anyway, I do not have the book by Younce. I will look it up. Thanks! This is it, right? http://www.heritagebbc.com/library/biblicalexamhellweb.pdf
Hey Jeremy,
Thanks for the quick response! I forgot to mention I’ve been following your work on this and was aware it was a proposal. I just think it might be good to reiterate a bit more often for someone who stumbles on one of your posts and misses that piece of it. I do think it’s awesome that you can present your ideas with confidence.
I got caught up personally because I’m lacking confidence in a lot of important issues. I’ve heard more than a handful definitions or repentance and the content of saving faith and all make pretty strong arguments to someone like me who doesn’t really know a whole lot (and even though I hold to faith alone in Christ alone there’s even tons of different opinions on what that even means lol). Some go as far to say you’re not saved if you differ.
And yep the book you found is it. I don’t think it makes any claims about the salvation of those who have different views but the website I saw it on sure does so that’s why I was flustered the other day. I’m interested in hearing what you get out of it and thanks again for the response!
want to give you a verse my friend 🙂 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Just as many of us would have trouble loving a person who hates most people and has killed many, it is not difficult to understand why someone would want nothing to do with a god they have not seen or spoken to who hates and kills. Should we not be surprised when someone says they do not even believe in such a god?
Is that the god we know? Or is he best revealed in the person of Jesus? For me the question is not whether God has the power or even the right to hate and kill people. Rather, Does He?
Right. It is not a question of power or right. The real question is what you have stated: “Does He?” Especially in light of the fact that Jesus reveals the father to us. To make the question more pointed, we can say, “Does Jesus hate and kill people?” The answer is obvious when stated that way.
This is an interesting angle. It helps explain why so many atheist are repulsed by “certain people’s god”
p.s. You could play Jesus on TV
Ha ha! Just the other day someone called me a hippie and told me I was shaming myself because of my long hair. I forgot to mention to them that maybe Jesus had long hair too….
I think you are describing Christians that were led/forced into athiesm by their pastor, or church.
On the other hand, one of the Four Horsemen (I’ve forgotten which one), upon being asked if he believed God exists, asked “What is this thing you are asking me about?” His point being that we can’t know whether something exists, unless we have a rough idea of what we are trying to determine the existence of.
Western proofs that God exists, such as Pascal’s Wager, have implicitely assumed that God is the Christian God. The Militant Atheists are reformulating “traditional” proofs that there is no God, to cover every possible definition of God.
###
The anti-Christ is to be worshipped as God. Ask an athiest what it would take, for them to worship something, as God. Tell them you are trying to reconcile Biblical prophecy with the current beliefs of athiests.
The results might surprise you.
“Ask an athiest what it would take, for them to worship something, as God.”
*********
Their concept of God usually looks very much like the image they see in a mirror.
Jonathan,
Yes, I agree. I am not saying that atheists will simply become theists if we present a Jesus-like God to them, but at least doing so will give them less ammunition to argue against Christianity.
Anyway, I like your statement there at the end. I wonder what they might say…. have you done this?
I have asked a few.
It has been an interesting experience.
The major difficulty has been for them to view it entirely as a thought-experiment.
One individual had pondered the subject, and brought up an interesting point — scripturally, the god, and his prophet are male homosexuals. (I didn’t write down the verses, but at least one in Revelation, and one in the Tanakh could imply that they are sexually intimate with each other.
Atheists often make the point that, since we all deny the gods of other religions, we are all atheists relative to some gods. The atheist, they say, just goes one step further, and just happens to deny the existence of the Christian God also.
I think my own theological beliefs might be called Christian atheism to some folks. I know some people who believe that God has a physical body just like ours – I don’t believe in that god, so to those people I am an atheist, if they believe that God is the only God.
Some people believe that God is male. I don’t believe in a male God. I don’t believe in a God that is like a big, invisible man.
Some Christian thinkers insist that God is a ‘concrete object’ – whatever that means…. I don’t believe that either.
I think there may very well be some who think they are atheists, but who in truth are closer to the kingdom than many so-called believers (I am crossing my fingers for Arthur Schopenhauer…).
That being said, however, I honestly haven’t encountered many that would be willing to accept a God who created and loves bigots, homophobes, racists, pedophiles and republicans. A God who breathes life into tyrants, and grants them power over the weak and helpless.
Generally, their objections amount to the very thing referenced in the guest post I saw on your blog yesterday, they have moral objections to God. They look at the world God created, and since it is not as they like it, they deny that its maker can be good. My concern is that just as it would be wrong to believe in a God characterized according to the biases of American republican evangelicals, it would be equally wrong to believe in a God who is not in the flood-waters as much as he is in the air we breath to live.
I think we also need to be careful that we do not make our own caricatures. God does not hate the people he created. But he is not a teddy bear. Or as CS Lewis put it, if I recall correctly, he is not a tame lion.
*[[Exo 34:14]] LEB* For you will not bow in worship to another god, for ‘Yahweh Is Jealous’ is his name, he is a jealous God,
That form “another god”, implies that there is Yahweh, as well as other gods.
As such, the difference between an athiest and a Christian is not a matter of one less diety, but rather, a Supreme God, Yahweh, with these other gods implied by the Ten Commandments, and no gods at all.
Yes. In fact, the early Christians were called “atheists” by the Romans because they rejected all the Roman deities.
I completely agree that there are some atheists who are closer to the Kingdom than some Christians….
Um, atheists don’t believe in any god, good or bad. I’m not sure how you can claim that unless you don’t understand the term.
Yes, but looking for a God would be someone intending to find something. By definition that would be an agnostic, not an atheist. An atheist either has already looked and come up with a conclusion, or is uninterested in the concept in general.
I agree that “Agnostic” would have been the better term here, because Agnostics (and Deists) generally deny the god of Christianity not because they don’t like how Christ described him, but rather how Christ’s “followers” have portrayed him.
The new athiests/militant atheists have redefined atheism to include agnostics.
Jonathan – I think your perception of “militant” atheism is clouded. People who you see as “militant” atheists are, in large part, people who are so fed up with being oppressed by modern Christianity that they are in open rebellion against the church.
In a sad, possibly even sick sort of way, I kinda find it humorous that American Christians believe they are “oppressed” by “militant Atheism”.
Talk to me when you are crucified, or fed to lions, or made target practice for gladiators. Then you’ll know what true oppression is about. Remember that before you get arrogant about your Christian status and whether or not the local town hall is willing to display a manger scene (which is largely bogus, especially considering the time of year in which his birth is celebrated).
@Scott
Both “militant atheism”, and “new atheism” are their terms, not mine.
They point to _The God Delusion_, wrtten as a response to the incidents on 1 Septemer 2001, as the fountainhead of this movement within atheism.
One point on their agenda, is for DSM-6 to revoke the “exemption” that religious and spiritual beliefs have, when diagnosing “mental illness”.
IOW, an affirmation that one is a Christian, automatically defines one as “mentally ill”, and thus subject to “psychological treatment” for “delusional thinking”.
Fights over depictions of the Ten Commandments, Nativity scenes, and Crosses qua memorials, are as much about freedom of speech, as they are about separation of chrch and state. (What I find really ironic, is that none of those athiests have sued the fedeal government over grants whose explicit purpose is to convert people to Islam.)
@Jonathan
This is really not difficult stuff to process, my friend. The state or local government displaying a scene from someone’s holy book is NOT free speech, it is explicitly prohibited by the constitution as an “endorsement of a religion”. The free exercise of the religion is not thwarted by banning government officials from endorsing it using government funds or government property.
The framers specifically inserted this ban on such endorsements because of what they witnessed in Europe that people forget about here. The Anglican Church was the only officially recognized church in England. All across Europe, governments routinely tortured and executed people for heresy against the Roman Catholic church. And, even worse, because of this power given to them by the church, they executed people who had done nothing wrong other than be political enemies, CLAIMING heresy.
Jesus said you shall suffer for his name’s sake. By railing angrily against the government for following the law of the land and demanding special favors for the church (like tax exempt status) and laws that reflect your personal interpretation of scripture, you are rejecting his call and poisoning your faith with a lust for worldly power.
Paul said no one is put into earthly power but by the direct endorsement of the Almighty. How dare any Christian speak contemptuously about ANY politician? How dare any Christian spit vitriol like the Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell did about politicians who disagreed with his philosophy?
Maybe if more Christians did more to WALK like Jesus instead of endorsing their faith with mere bumper stickers and jewelry while behaving like those they believe are condemned, there wouldn’t be a “War on Christianity”.
@ Scott
The _Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof_ argument, which completely ignores what the Founding Fathers of the US did do. Little things like mandatory chapel for members of the House and Senate, prior to starting the business of the say, when the Houses were in session, or Sunday being excluded as a day, for both legislative and executive government purposes, or maybe you’d prefer the Federal holidays that were Holy Days for Christians.(Those Holy Days have since been renamed, and re-purposed, usually, but not always, with a change in the date.)
When the issue about the Ten Commandments comes up in court, it usually is over a set that was installed decades earlier, usually at private expense — no taxpayer money involved.
Maintenance and restoration costs for them is the same as any other work of art. Or, in some instances, the walls of the building.
Nativity scenes are awkward. But no more awkward than the laws that banned the celebration of Christmas, or the laws that ban certain goods and services from being sold on Sundays.
The hypocrisy of government is especially evident when it can honour Fat Tuesday, but not Christmas Day, despite both of them being (maybe that should be “were”) Holy Days of Christians.
The Crosses qua memorials are usually, if not always privately set up. Almost as often, they are also privately maintained — to the point that the only maintenance that has to be done, is fixing potholes, and other normal roadwork. Nonetheless, they have been subject to court orders requiring the demolition, and removal at taxpayer expense.
FWIW, several state legislatures invited, and in one instance tried to mandate a specific denomination to be the “official state church”. Indeed two states, extended the invitation on two or more occasions, more than a decade apart. In all instances, the denominations declined the invitation. (One account claims the rejections were because the state that extended the invitation was too evil to become the Kingdom of God.)
Arguably, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the official church of the State of Utah. (Maybe, that should be the other way around, The State of Utah is the official state government for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (The Utah delegation for the Libertarian Party lied when they said the church and state were separated by a street. Temple Square is good half mile from the state government, and, furthermore, the Office of the President doesn’t have any offices within one block of the state government.))
Churches were granted tax-exemption, because they were the social safety network of the people. Indeed, until less than two decades ago, churches did more that directly helped the poor and indigent, than either federal, or state programs did.
One thing that people that want churches taxed usually forget, is that such a requirement will require an overhaul of the entire 501 section. (Churches, and church-like organizations, can be found in virtually every subsection of 501.)
Personally, I have no issues with churches being taxed, if tax is levied on gross annual revenue for both non-profit, and for-profit organizations. IOW, if an organization has US$10,000,000,000 in gross revenue, it pays taxes on that figure — ten billion dollars — regardless of what their net revenue is, or their gross profit (prep-tax) or net profit (post-tax) is.
The prophets of the Tanakh repeated said when the leaders of Israel were violating God’s commandments. John the Baptist also notated that the leaders of his time were violating God’s commandments. Paul’s statement does not prohibit one from criticising a government, or a government official, when what they are doing is immoral, unjust, unethical, or illegal.
I’ll grant that the majority of contemporary Christians don’t practice what they purport to believe. I don’t see it as a war against Christianity per se, but rather as a war against those who oppose thuggery.
Getting back to Paul’s statement: According to him, then, God endorsed Hitler, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etc., etc.
Or, could it be that God does not endorse, but simply endures – endures the results of our freedom of choice? Could it possibly be that Paul was wrong in his assessment?
We are who we are not by the endorsement of God, but simply by being of God. God lives not only in us, but through us.
To put it even more “heretically”:
If we understand that each of us is the embodiment of the Christ, the human aspect of God, then we can begin to realize that through us, some part of God must be just as tormented as unenlightened perpetrator, as “He” is as suffering victim.
Human physical nature is just as much of God as is human spiritual nature. In order to nourish our spiritual natures, we must overcome the adversary, or “Satan”, which is our physical nature. At first thought, it may seem an unnecessary hardship; but all things considered, it can be no other way. Jesus did it first, but he didn’t do it FOR us, he just showed us the way. Each of us must continue to choose our master from moment to moment.
God not only lives in us and through us, but works through us to subdue “the adversary”, all the time allowing us the wonderful freedom for each of us to do it at our own pace, no matter how badly we mess up in the process.
We are all suffering victims, in one way or another. We will continue to be, until we stop being unenlightened perpetrators, which we all are as well. An insidious aspect of that is judging people who don’t subscribe to the same dogma. That is where a degree of “atheism” is in order.
As for politics, we must certainly stand up against immorality and injustice. The hardest part is to do it in a Christ-like manner.
Every time we delude ourselves into believing that someone else is somehow worth less than we are, we are being unenlightened perpetrators, by that attitude alone causing more suffering instead of healing.
Lutek,
I love that contrast between endorsing and enduring. I think that is exactly right.
@Jonathan
I’m not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that there isn’t hypocrisy in the modern American government regarding what favors are granted to religions and what favors aren’t. That said, I don’t consider an observation of Yule (fact: this was a Germanic pagan tradition LONG before the birth of Christ) or Eostre/Ishtar/Easter (all sorts of convoluted Roman and pagan traditions regarding celebration of spring and death/resurrection were happening around this time of year prior to Christ’s existence) to be favoring one religion over another, since so many different religions are involved in those mixes.
As to Sunday, well, I’ve always taken a dim view of local “blue” laws anyway, but the towns which still embrace them are also typically small enough to where someone who really doesn’t like it can just move without disrupting their lives all that much. For the average person, this is less hassle than initiating a lawsuit against the city to try and fight it. It’s not for want of reason, but want of will that they continue to stand.
As to the question of taxation, your proposal is a bit unrealistic. What business, for-profit or not, could survive if they had to pay taxes on revenue with no allowance for operating costs? The vast majority of corporations out there don’t run a gross profit margin anywhere approaching the 15% bottom line tax rate (income up to 50K), never mind the top tier 35% (income in excess of 18.7M). Personally, I’m in favor of abolishing the corporate income tax entirely and restoring the old “Millionaire’s” tax brackets that were in place prior to Kennedy, then Ford, then Reagan cutting taxes left and right, coupled with the treatment of investment income as ordinary income in the tax codes. Those brackets were in place for one simple reason – we were in debt and needed to pay it off. Without getting into a great deal of song and dance about a side topic, I’ll just say that I believe our GDP growth would explode as companies rushed to establish operational headquarters in the US, and the changes in the individual income tax codes would have a chilling effect on both the Wall Street money churners (people would be rewarded for going long with their investments instead of shuffling money around to chase pennies) and the out-of-control executive compensation at the expense of the long-term health of the company.
The prophets you reference were sent to Israel because Israel was supposed to be the beacon of God’s law on earth. You never saw Jesus waxing vitriolic against Rome (the secular government of the time), just against the Sanhedrin, the supposed spiritual leadership of Jerusalem. Daniel didn’t stage protests against Nebuchadnezzar’s excesses and amorality, even when Nebuchadnezzar was tossing people into the fire left and right. God is fully aware when a secular government behaves badly, and God will judge that government in his time, as he always has throughout history. It is not for us as Christians to pass judgment on those who are perishing, but to reach out to them with a demonstration of Christ’s love. How will one single homosexual person ever find Christ when the Church stares them down angrily and pronounces judgment on them, and further tries to influence the secular government of the land to persecute them? “Let he without sin cast the first stone.”
@Lutek
It is difficult to maintain the perspective, but “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Perhaps you are correct in your suggestion that God “tolerates” rather than “endorses” the bad behavior of secular government. Either way, it wasn’t Christians that stopped Hitler, but the united power of three secular governments, including one every bit as evil as Hitler. Perhaps God tolerates the rule of bloodthirsty tyrants so that the world can see unspeakable evil, which then gives Christians an opportunity to show them the light of Christ in direct contrast to that darkness. When will we take up the mantle? When will we collectively start being good poets for God and showing, rather than telling people about Christ? When will we follow the example of Mother Teresa, quietly and tirelessly ministering to those who are suffering, instead of the countless televangelists, screaming holy fire and brimstone from the pulpit while amassing monstrous wealth for themselves and eventually succumbing to the temptations of debauchery that such excess provides? When will we stop justifying our materialism and greed and start behaving as though we are IN but not OF this world?
Maybe we need an Isaiah in America – but not for the government, rather for the church…
@Jonathan
I knew I was going to wind up missing something trying to answer two people at once.
You mentioned the “thuggery” in the last post. I again point you back to the early Church. Did they try to “make a stand” against the “thuggery” being visited directly upon them with torture and physical harm? Did John rail against his exile? Did Peter scream curses upon his tormentors as they crucified him? Having symbols of our faith and heritage removed from government property pales in comparison to such persecution, yet the Church fights them with as much piss and vinegar as Jesus turning over the moneychanger’s tables in the temple! “How dare you persecute us?” scream Christians everywhere in America. Why, the same way God’s chosen people were persecuted throughout history, only they were silent about it and accepted it as part of God’s plan.
Ian, I claim it by the way I explained in the post…. Did you read it?
Great post. People tend to find what they are looking for.
If they’ve decided, for whatever reason, they don’t like rules, they find all those rules in the Pentateuch and decide they don’t want a God of rules. If they abhore physical violence, they find Joshua (or the associated stories) and decide they don’t want that God. Strangely enough, I’ve met very few who decide they want a God of love, find Jesus, then decide they don’t want that God.
As you said, if we shape people’s searches by giving out selective information, we don’t help much. We need to direct ourselves and others to a search for a loving God in the form of Jesus.
Yes, the more we point people to Jesus, the better our theology will be, and the better people will learn to see and understand God.
Hi Jeremy,
For many weeks I have been reading news posts on news24.com here in South Africa. It has been sad to see how many people post comments under an ‘atheist’ umbrella, dragging the Christian’s God into the picture irrespective of its direct relevance to the news item or not. Some clearly state that they were raised in a Christian home. Your post and the dialogue it created are valuable observations in this regard as it will continue to grow in being a need for Christians to be able to answer in responsible way.
Ephraim Currier wrote in 1841 that if it is important that we have the Bible, it is important that we understand it. Before we even venture one step in reading the Old Testament, we need to understand and acknowledge that those books were written to the people of a specific nation and in specific circumstances.
I will be printing this post and dialogue in order to read again and again (skipping Louis Farrakhan’s part) and make notes. Thank you.
Your focus on the centrality of Christ for us I fully support. Too many preachers are preaching the bad news of a so-called antichrist instead of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus of Nazareth preached. Once we do that it is inevitable that we start looking at our theologies through renewed eyes.
I like that idea from Ephraim Currier. I have never heard of him. Is that from a book? I might like to read it.
Hello Jeremy,
Currier’s book is available as a free download – http://www.preteristarchive.com/Books/1841_currier_second-coming.html
It is an interesting debate between him and other learned universalists of whom he was part.
Gerrie
…”I believe that if those people who have rightly denied the existence of a god who does not exist were properly introduced to the God who does, they would no longer deny the existence of God.
In my experience, it seems that the vast majority of atheists have not rejected the God revealed in Jesus Christ, but the false god of popular, power-based, political religion.”…
Sounds to me like you haven’t talked to very many atheists. Many, if not most, of them are all too aware of people who say “That’s not my god! Here, my god is totally believable.”
No, he isn’t.
I have talked to quite a few atheists. You are right that most would not simply believe in God if presented with a different God. But at least i can show them atheists a better picture of God than one who wants to smash them because they don’t believe in him.
I think you nailed it here! I often find myself in this camp. Thanks for the post!
Intresting…………..
Actually, no one completely understands God since it is beyond our limited ability to do so as finite humans. The best we can do is hopefully get a reasonably clear view from what he revealed to us about himself in scripture. The simple definition of “atheist” is one who does not believe in God whatever his attributes may be. Similarly, a polytheist believes in many gods. An idolater is one who worships a false god and not the one true God. I don’t know if it is possible to be a Christian atheist, certainly not if one is a true follower of Christ, since Jesus believed in God. There certainly are a lot of Christian idolaters. Many of them form a notion of who God is and then work backwards, interpreting scripture to justify the picture they have of him. If we read scripture faithfully we will see that God is a God of love, but he is also a God of judgment against sin. That is primarily why we seek salvation – so that we might inherit eternal life and escape the fearsome judgment of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. If we ignore the judgment side of God’s character, we are idolaters since that aspect of who he is is made plain throughout scripture. Our God is a consuming fire. As we see in John 5, Jesus himself will execute judgment.
27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Our job as Christians is not to try to please and appease everyone by proving that we have a god they will like. Our job is to point to the true God of the Bible and tell people, “He is who he is. If you desire the salvation he offers, believe in him and the Son that he sent to die for our sins.” We must be very careful about denying who God and Jesus really are. There is a tough side to them we would be foolish to ignore.
Mt 10 14 And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town….
32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
Martin if we follow God out of fear then we dont know God it is out of love that we obey him not because we are fearful of his judgement.Jesus took that punishment we deserved upon upon himself so that we could see that in fact he has nt come to punish us but he offers us his love and acceptance through what Jesus has done.A believer needs not fear that judgement will come upon him if they are in Christ the scriptures say to love the lord with all our heart mind soul and strength and love others as yourself i believe if we do that then we are secure in our faith.brentnz
brentnz,
I hope you are okay with correction because your first statement is completely wrong. It is precisely because I know God that I fear him.
Do you have any idea how many verses enjoin us to fear God? Here’s a famous one from Proverbs 3.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
I hope you aren’t one of those “NT only” lopsided Christians but just in case, there are many references to fear of God in the last part of the Bible as well.
Mt 10 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
So I guess you could say that because Jesus told me to fear God, I most certainly do. Okay, maybe the fact that he has the power to throw my body in hell also has something to do with my fear/respect.
This is not to imply that we also don’t love him. We love him because he first loved us. I love him because he rescued me not only from much sin and unhappiness in this life but he has promised me an incomprehensibly happy and fulfilling eternal life. So my motivation is both love and fear. Different Christians will probably have different ratios of the two and I imagine that the more we grow in Christ the more the balance will tilt toward love.
The rest of what you say I can agree with. If we truly love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love others as ourselves, we will feel secure in our faith and relationship with him. I hope you appreciate how much effort is involved in living up to that high standard. Loving the Lord with all your strength takes a lot of work, to say nothing of loving others as yourself.
As CS lewis wrote of God, “He is not a tame lion…” I know some would like to put the spirit of Yaweh into a box and proclaim, “He would never allow a butterfly to die, never allow suffering ever,” but logic, life, and scripture paint a different picture. Do not call yourself a rational “christian athiest” if you irrationally believe our Lord was brutally tortured and died, before he unnaturally mastered death and literally rose from the dead, and all of this was an act of love. Without His sacrifice, EVERYONE would be tortured eternally in “lava,” (likely symbolic) not because God wants them to suffer, but because we chose imperfection and pride over obedience to His nature… and His presence fundamentally destroys imperfection. Perhaps He died and lovingly changed His nature so that everyone could be with Him, in my opinion. It is complex issue and there is a lot that we simply don’t know.
only proof is what you read in the bible i dont belive in any thing that lets children suffer if he has all this power use it to protect them and this reply you always give out is god has a plan we might not understand it but he has a plan i have heard all my life ..im so tired of all this stuff
Oh crikey!! Nice one Jeremy. Let’s take it a step further. I am a Christian atheist agnostic. In fact I could string a lot more tags on to be honest. Ism, s galore! You are very correct in your post in my eye, s. Atheists are absolutely sound human beings. Maybe much more than we appreciate. There is an honesty with them that is an example to others. Jesus was an atheist to a point. On the cross he tied to the father about bei g forsaken. But was he? No! But jesus was human and this was utterly to prove that he was. We can identify with this moment in the dark night of our own souls. Chilling stuff. We are not God but from God.
Fear!!!! Another redefinition required in this one. Fear as a child means fear as in scarey shit! Fear in adults is more along the lines of respect. I think biblically we should focus more on the respect rather than the fear of the Lord. Yes? Less scarey and more loving. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So respect more and wise up y, all!! Lol.
This reminds me SO much of what John Eldredge – my FAVORITE author, whose book Beautiful Outlaw aboutbrought my heart back to the TRUE nature of the God I deeply knew and loved when I was a lot younger and even at the age of about 8 knew Him better than the posers that I was surrounded by and had a heart for Him long into my older years until some hard knocks distracted me and I felt too lost and alone to feel His presence surrounded by religious bullies who eventually convinced me I was too little, and mentally handicapped (slow and socially awkward after years of being abused and scapegoated and ostracized for being “different” like something was “wrong” with me for not fitting some cookie cutter mold or conforming or somehow growing a thicker skin/backbone… I was called “too nice” and “too sensitive”… “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”…I didn’t know yet that I WAS strong, stronger than all of those fakes, for NOT becoming a conformist robot who says God is Love and yet squashes others who show it and who stay true to the self God made them to be instead of what others wanted me to be. It took me until my mid-20’s to even start seeing my beauty God sees through the oddness shallow people focus on but rare awesome real people see beauty in which was all I felt was worth enough to keep on until more was revealed, like His Heart’s beautiful awe-inspiring unconditional love that’s so much deeper and more amazing than some fleeting chances at popularity in a world without real love)…
not aboutbrought… the “about” was from an accidental mouse touch later on that moved the cursor but I couldn’t find the missing word til after posting. It did bring my heart back full-swing into a deeper love for Him which he returned to me tenfold and showered me so deeply in His love that I walked on air feeling like Princess Esther chosen by the King for a huge life of purpose He trusted with someone like me… Lately though I again feel like humble Hadassa, too small for the task… I am glad I saw this perhaps soon enough…