Questions on Christianity

In the church that I attend, we have been talking about prayer.  For me, prayer raises a lot of questions such as:  If God is all-knowing, why does he need us to talk to him in prayer?  He knows more about us than we do ourselves.  Another question is:  Does our prayer really change anything because John tells us “. . .if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”  (1 John 5:14-15 ESV)  So whatever we ask must be according to God’s will, not our will which appears to mean what we want does not matter.

The preacher at our church made a comment about prayer this last Sunday that addresses some of these questions.  He stated that God is more concerned about how we respond to circumstances in which we find ourselves than he is in giving us what we ask for in our prayers.  The purpose of prayer is to align our will with his.

We said something similar in our blog of November 12, 2017 when we wrote about the book of Ecclesiastes.  Now most people interpret this book as describing what life is like without Christ.  Well, life can be meaningless with or without Christ.  It is not the fleeting moments of our lives that concern God but rather the decisions we make during these fleeting moments  The reason is because those decisions will impact our soul and our soul lives for eternity while the momentary circumstances of our life are so temporary..

Most of our prayers ask God to remove us from the difficult situations in which we find ourselves.  God’s concern is us, not the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Ri Le runs a very successful restaurant business and I have been a patron at his restaurant many times.  In a recent newspaper article about him, Ri Le states one of the most important moments in his life occurred 25 years ago when he attended a five-day retreat by a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.  This meeting changed his life. [1]

So if other religions can have a profound impact on people’s lives, what makes Christianity different from other religions?  One answer is that we have different beliefs.  However, as we have demonstrated in this blog and in my book (see pages 55 to 57), we are finite and that means our beliefs are not totally accurate and they are not totally under our control (what we believe depends largely upon the culture in which we were brought up).

Other Christians maintain that changed lives are evidence of Christianity’s validity.  As we have stated in the blog before “the only way we can truly know our sins are forgiven is if we have a changed life” (see January 13, 2019 posting).  However, as we have seen above, other religions can change people’s lives as well.  So are they valid?

Other Christians maintain that Christianity is a relationship with God.  So can a person of another religion have a relationship with God?  True, some of their beliefs are different than what is taught in the Bible but in looking at the history of Christianity, we see that Christians have held erroneous beliefs as well.  So it is apparent that just because someone holds erroneous beliefs that does not preclude them from having a relationship with God.

So what makes Christianity different from other religions?

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[1]   Scott Cherry,  “Ri Le fuels success in Tulsa”.  Tulsa World, January 27, 2019, p. D3.

He was an honor student in high school and excelled in sports.  He was a World War II veteran serving in Korea.  He married Naomi and together they raised 10 children.  He was a farmer for most of his life.  He occasionally preached at a local church.

He was the hardest working man that I knew and he passed on this passion to many of his descendants.  He loved telling stories, sometimes the same ones over and over, always laughing as if he were telling them for the first time.

Robert Allen Coy was my father-in-law and he went to meet our God this year.  When someone passes from this life to the next, we often say:  ”rest in peace”.  I doubt if Robert is resting in heaven.  He was too much a man of action.

Several years ago in a philosophy class I was taking, a fellow classmate gave me a list of three books he suggested that I read.   Well, I finally got around to reading one of those books.  It was a book about the Existential philosophy.  This branch of philosophy emphasizes that we must deal with the reality of human existence, with “the concrete life of ordinary mankind” [1] and not just some theoretical concepts.  The author defines Existentialism as the attempt to bring the whole man, all of him, into philosophy. [2]  He also criticizes mainstream philosophy  because it teaches detachment as a path to wisdom instead of the Hebraic tradition which teaches commitment and “the passionate involvement of man with his own moral being”. [3]  The existential philosopher Kierkegaard states that religious truth is not a truth of the intellect but a truth that “must penetrate my personal experience or it is nothing”. [4]

The philosophers called the Greco-Roman moralists had the same view.  They were more concerned about what it means to be human and how we should live than they were about theoretical concepts [5].  They thought philosophers should teach as much through the example of their lives as their words. [6]

That is what we have been emphasizing in this blog.  The concept of salvation in Christianity involves the changing of our soul so it is like God; it is not just some theoretical exercise.  It is more than a set of beliefs—our doctrine.  It is more than finding reasons for the validity of our faith—apologetics.  Does not the Bible tell us it is a changed life?  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”.  (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

A few Sundays ago our pastor summed it up when he stated that the only way we can truly say we are Christians and the only way we can truly know our  sins are forgiven is if we have a changed life.  Christianity must impact our entire life or it is not Christianity.  The same can be applied to any philosophy or religion.  If our philosophy or religion does not have an impact on our lives, what is the purpose of holding those beliefs?

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[1]   William Barrett, Irrational Man.  New York:   Anchor Books, 1958, p. 135.

[2]   Barrett, p. 275.

[3]   Barrett. p. 77.

[4]   Barrett, p. 171.

[5]   Luke Timothy Johnson, Practical Philosophy:  The Greco-Roman Moralists (Part 1).  Chantilly, VA:  The Teaching Company, 2002, p. 9.

[6]   Johnson, p. 67.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow says it more eloquently than the above title does.  At times it does seem that this world is a lost cause.  It is only because we have “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV) that we strive to change ourselves and our world into the likeness of God.  It is only because of this faith that we can look with a positive gaze into the future.

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas day, Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along th’unbroken song Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:  “There is no peace on earth,” I said, “For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:  “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Till, ringing, singing, on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men! [1]

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[1]   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells, 1807–1882.

When things go our way, we tend to think of ourselves as lucky.  When things do not go our way, we think of ourselves as unlucky.  A recent column in Flying magazine puts a different perspective on this issue.

Peter Garrison designed and built his airplane which he flew across the Pacific so it is obvious he is an accomplished aviator.  In 1982 as he was holding short of a runway, another propeller driven aircraft ran into his aircraft and proceeded to chew his airplane into pieces.  Fortunately, Mr. Garrison was able to escape.  When the news media arrived on the scene, one reporter asked Mr. Garrison if he felt lucky.  That seemed like an odd question to Mr. Garrison because he had just lost his aircraft into which he had invested so much of his life and he thought that was very unlucky.  However, Mr. Garrison recognized that from the reporter’s perspective, he had survived an airplane accident and to survive such an accident obviously one must be lucky. [1]

So was Mr. Garrison lucky or unlucky?  That all depends upon your perspective.  This particular event had aspects of both—Mr. Garrison was lucky he escaped with his life but he was unlucky he lost his airplane.

As Christians we can learn from this story.  While we are confident that ultimately “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV), even in our present circumstances we should recognize that there are good and bad aspects to what we experience in our lives.  Whether we see the positive or negative is just a matter of our perspective.

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[1]   Peter Garrison.  Technicalities:  “Random Acts of Luckiness”.  Flying, December 2018, pp. 68-69.