Questions on Christianity

My wife was going through her dad’s papers (see my blog on Robert Allen Coy from January 29, 2019) when she came across a newspaper article that he had kept.  The article was about the memoirs of a Japanese pilot who had participated in the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  Zenji Abe describes the intense training he went though and notes that he had no idea he was training for this historic mission.  However, whether he had known what his mission would be or not most likely would not have made a difference.  Why?  The reason is because we are finite.  As a result we are the creatures of the culture in which we are raised.  We adopt the belief system, the world view of our culture.  Zenji Abe was just doing his best within the framework of his culture.

So how can God condemn to hell those who are raised in a culture that espouses another religion or no religion?  God is the one who made us finite.  God has allowed different cultures to exist within our world.  Why would he do so if that leads us to erroneous beliefs?  This is a question Christianity has not answered.

We have attempted to answer the above questions in my book but I find very few Christians who want to discuss them.  Why?

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[1]   Benjamin Kline, “’I bombed Pearl Harbor’”, Journal-News, December 2, 2001, pp. A1-A5.

One more takeaway from Amy Shively Hawk’s book Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton.  She quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson at the start of one of her chapters.  “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

From our reading of the Bible, this is God’s hope for us as well.  As we discovered in this blog and in my book, God purpose for us is more that to change our belief system, it is to renovate our entire soul—our beliefs, our actions, our abilities, our values, our motivations, our pattern of behavior.  If our soul is changes so it becomes like God, then what lies before us or behind us is of little consequence because we will be able to face anything life can throw at us.

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[1]   Amy Shively Hawk.  Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton.  Washington, DC:  Regnery History, 2017, p. 63.

In the last blog, we talked about the life of the Vietnam War POW James Shively.  In the book about Shively, the author recounts a story from John McCain who was also a POW along with Shively.  At one point, McCain was severely beaten by his captors, was tied up with ropes, and he essentially wished he would die rather than ensure the pain.  Then a guard entered his cell and loosened the ropes which helped alleviate the pain.  At the end of his shift, the same guard came back into McCain’s cell and tightened the ropes.

Several months later, on Christmas Day, McCain was allowed outside for a short period of time.  The same guard who had loosened McCain’s ropes months earlier walked over to him and traced a cross in the dirt and then removed the cross with his feet, not saying a word. [1]

Now we do not know if this North Vietnamese guard was a Christian or not but it seems like it.  Imagine the courage it took for this guard to show this simple act of kindness by loosening McCain’s  ropes.  If he had been caught, he undoubtedly would have been severely punished.  This reminds me of what C. S. Lewis says.

When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is as well to put this the other way round.  Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. . .God does not judge [a man] on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. [2]

What have we done with what God has given us (Matthew 25:15-30)?

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[1]   Amy Shively Hawk.  Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton.  Washington, DC:  Regnery History, 2017, pp. 135-136.

[2]   C. S. Lewis. Mere Christianity.  New York:  The Macmillan Company, 1952, p. 71.

The book about the Vietnam War POW, Jim Shively, contains a tribute from a friend and a former POW cellmate.  This tribute concerns the character of Shively; the fact that even in the North Vietnamese prison he showed those he was around how to live. [1]

Should not the goal of every Christian be to have that tribute engraved on their tombstone:  “He (or she) taught us how to live”?  Does not Jesus tell us:  “. . .let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  (Matthew 5:16 ESV)

Yes, we know we all are sinful creatures and do not always live up to the ideals expressed in the Bible.  However, I see such a lack of emphasis in Christianity of the person we are to become.  Yes, the Bible teaches God loves us.  Yes, the Bible teaches God sent his son to die for our sins.  But the Bible also teaches he wants us to become like him; to be holy as he is holy.  If we become the person God wants us to be, then we will show those around us how to live.  Just as Jesus did.

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[1]   Amy Shively Hawk.  Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton.  Washington, DC:  Regnery History, 2017, p. 189.

I was talking to an individual about my blog and book.  Specifically, our conversation was why some people just accept what the main stream religions teach while others need to search out, for themselves, the questions they have about religion.

What does God mean when he says:  “. . .When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord. . .” (Jeremiah 29:13-14 ESV)?  What must this search involve?

As we have pointed out many times, we are finite and being finite means we cannot research every topic that comes up or interests us.  And that includes our religious beliefs.  So if we accept the belief system of a particular church, will God judge us for not making a more thorough search?  Will he judge us for not critically examining the various religious beliefs that exist around our world?

As I stated in my last blog, we are discussing prayer at the church I attend.  What caught my attention was that there are many verses in the Bible which simply instruct us to pray.  These verses have no preconditions or requirements or instructions on what we are to do other than to pray.  For example:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-9 ESV)

However, there are at least 20 verses in the Bible that teach our prayers will only be effective if we conform to God’s will; do something besides pray.  For example:

“We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” (John 9:31-32 ESV)

So does God place a condition on whether he answers our prayers or is he more concerned that we just pray?  The Bible seems to give us different answers.  Why does God seem to confuse this issue?

This question is similar to the problem we noted in our discussion on salvation.  We can pick out a verse or two out of the Bible and prove just about any idea we have about a particular subject, including prayer.  That approach makes it very easy for us but to really know what God is saying to us, we must consider what the entire Bible says.