Questions on Christianity

In the last blog we quoted Michael Ward who asserts that true religion should be “. . .both self-critical and open to criticism from without, open to revision in the light of new knowledge and in response to new situations.” [1]  What situations should cause us to be self-critical and open to criticism about our religious beliefs?  One reason would be if there are contradictions within our belief system.  It would make sense to at least try to determine why these contradictions exist.

In this blog, we have identified three contradictions within the Christian doctrine of salvation.

1. Our doctrine of salvation contains, in the worlds of the Christian philosopher David Elton Trueblood, “a contradiction at the heart of the system” [2] because a majority of people who have ever lived will be sent to hell for eternity even though they have never heard of Jesus. [3]  Yet God claims to be a God of love and justice.
2. If we consider the fact that we are finite, we realize that being finite means we cannot obtain certain proof that Jesus died and rose again from the dead and yet God demands that we believe in these events if we want to go to heaven. And yet God claims to be a God of love and justice.
3. We encounter passages in the Bible that teach salvation is through belief in God, our conduct, pattern of behavior, motivation, use of abilities, and repentance.  The Bible does not solely teach salvation is through belief in Jesus.  If we really believe that every word in the Bible is inspired by God, there must have been a reason he made these statements.

So why are not Christians addressing these questions; why do they continue to ignore them when they are raised?

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[1]   Michael Ward, “A Time to Scatter Stones and a Time to Gather Stones Together”, Imprimis, July/August, 2017, Volume 46, Number 7/8, p. 3.

[2]   David Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion, New York:  Harper & Row, 1957, pp. 221-222.

[3]   John Sanders, What About Those Who Have Never Heard?, Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 1995, p. 9.

Michael Ward is a professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University and a Fellow of Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford.  He asks a question that not too many Christians ask these days.

Is it possible to be too religious?  To be so interested in unity and oneness that you never look for change?  Can’t the religious impulse devolve into a kind of frigidity or frozenness, a paralysis in which the way we’ve always done things must be the way we always do things, forever and ever, amen?

True religion should always be corrigible:  both self-critical and open to criticism from without, open to revision in the light of new knowledge and in response to new situations.  Not cramping in on itself, or incessantly ratcheting up the interior tension, but periodically relaxing, taking stock, surveying new horizons. [1]

In raising the questions about Christianity in this blog, what has been most surprising to me is that most Christians simply do not ask these questions.  When I confront Christians with these questions I have yet to find one individual who has challenged the conclusions we have reached on the basis of logic, reason, and what the Bible says.  Instead the response has been to just continue to ignore these questions.  Is that the type of religion to which Dr. Ward says we should aspire.  If that the type of religion we want to basis our life upon?

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[1]   Michael Ward, “A Time to Scatter Stones and a Time to Gather Stones Together”, Imprimis, July/August, Volume 46, Number 7/8, p. 3.

If you are in the scientific or business community you have heard the term “data driven”.  This term means that we base our conclusions and decision on the basis of data, not upon our intuition or personal experience, or what we have been taught.  In religion, we base our belief on faith.  Does not Paul tell us:  “. . .for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV)?  But does this mean that we ignore what data we have?

In this blog we have come to the conclusion that salvation is more than belief in Jesus and his death for our sins; it is the renovation of our soul so it becomes like God.  Part of the reason we have reached this conclusion is because of data–it is what the Bible teaches.  In my book we have listed 70 passages which support this conclusion.  Below we will give five examples.

First, in Matthew 3 John the Baptist states that one must produce fruit in keeping with repentance in order to be saved.  A belief or a resolution to change is not sufficient.  One must actually put a belief into practice.

Second, in Luke 10 a prominent person asked Jesus what he must do to obtain eternal life Jesus responded by saying he was to love God and love his neighbor.  Nothing is said about belief in Jesus.

Third, Peter in Acts 10 states that “God. . .accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right”.  Jesus is not mentioned at all.

Fourth, Paul in I Corinthians 13, Paul teaches us that love is not an emotion or feeling but an action.  At the end of the chapter he notes that:  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).  Why is love greater than faith or hope?  If faith in Jesus is the only way of salvation, why does Paul place love greater than faith?  Paul states that without love we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2).  Even if we “have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if [we] have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, [we are] nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).

Fifth, James 2 makes is impossible to assert that salvation is only by belief in Jesus and his death for our sins.  James makes two points.  He states that faith without works is dead.  He also notes that the demons believe in Jesus but that does not mean they will be in heaven because their will is opposed to God.  We can say we believe but if our will is opposed to God we will not go to heaven.

If words have meanings then I fail to see how Christians, if they objectively consider the above passages which are just a sample of the 70 contained in the New Testament, can believe that salvation is through faith in Jesus alone.  So what will we do with this data?  Will we ignore it or will we use this data to better understand God and how he deals with us?

In the past few posts we have drawn upon the work of James S. Stewart.  If you are like me you have never heard of this individual before.  Stewart is a Scottish preacher and taught at the University of Edinburgh.  He served as the Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland.  In addition, Preaching Magazine in 1999 proclaimed Steward the best preacher of the 20^th century.  So maybe we should pay attention when he speaks to the essential message of Christianity as he does in his book A Faith to Proclaim.

In this book Stewart states that the problem for Christianity today is not secularism but a reduced Christianity. [1]  What is a reduced Christianity?  To me Evgeny Barabanov  explains best what Stewart means.

It turned out to be too hard to accept all the complexities and antinomies [a contradiction or inconsistency between two apparently reasonable principles or laws] of the Gospel.  And that greatest of all temptations began to rear its head—that of “simplifying” Christianity, of reducing it from being a teaching about the new life to a mere caring for the salvation of one’s own soul.

These two aspects of the Christian attitude to the world, active participation in its transformation and renunciation of its temptations, turned out to be extremely difficult to reconcile.  Heavenward aspirations often went hand in hand with execration [a detesting, loathing] of the earth.  Too often the ideal of salvation was built on a foundation of inflexible renunciation of this world.  Thus salvation itself was understood as an escape from the material world into a world of pure spirituality.  This gave rise to contempt for the flesh, the belittling of man’s creative nature and, as a necessary consequence, a special religious individualism.

It seems at times that we Christians deliberately do not wish to understand our historical failure or to admit our historical sins.  We shift the blame onto anyone we can find—the state, atheism, secularization—but ourselves always remain only innocent victims. . . The world, of course, has abandoned the Church, since the traditional groove reserved for creativity turned out to be too restricted for man. . . Today it is not the Church but the world which is creating a new civilization, and it is solving the problems with which it is faced on the basis of its own understanding of existence. . . Dragging along behind the world, the Church has been left to adopt principles which at first were alien to it, but which by now have become firmly established in spite of it. [2]

Maintaining that salvation is only by belief in Jesus and his death for our sins has its consequences.  It reduces Christianity to a concern about the salvation of our soul and ignores the new life that God has planned for us.  And because it only addresses our lives after we die and totally fails to adequately address the problems everyone in the world faces, the world ignores our message.  That is sad because the gospel does have the power to transform if we would just put it into practice.

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[1]   James S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim, Vancouver, British Columbia:  Regent College Publishing, 1953, p. 31.

[2]   Evgeny Barabanov, “Schism Between the Church and World”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, ed., From Under the Rubble, New York:  Bantam Books, 1975, pp. 180-186.

James S. Stewart maintains that forgiveness is not the elimination of the penalty of sin but the repair of a broken relationship. [1]  An example is the well-known story of the prodigal son that Jesus told.

A father had two sons.  The younger son asks for his inheritance and left to experience riotous living.  He was soon destitute and was reduced to feeding pigs.  There he resolved to return to his father with the proposal to become one of his father’s servants because he felt he was not worthy to be his father’s son. But his father would have none of that.  Instead he organized a party to celebrate the return of his son.

Stewart also makes a point about this story that most of us have not considered.  He states that the prodigal son of Luke 15 was forgiven “but that does not mean there were not months of slow and difficult readjustment and rehabilitation”. [2]  The bitterness of the brother of the prodigal son who protested the celebration for his brother says there was much that would need to be repaired in this family’s relationships.

Do we think it will be any different as we repair our relationship with God?  Do we think that all we need to do to make our relationship with God work is a one-time confession of our failures and the rest of the time we can continue to do as we want?  So why does our doctrine of salvation teach that?

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]1]   James S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim, Vancouver, British Columbia:  Regent College Publishing, 1953, p. 62..

[2]   Stewart, p. 62.

We have stated many times that because we are finite we cannot have definitive proof for events that occur away from our space and time.  That includes the death and resurrection of Jesus so are we Christians totally devoid of any evidence for our faith?

“The evidence [the apostles] offered was neither signed statements of neutral observers nor closely reasoned philosophic argument:  it was the evidence of lives changed utterly by contact with the risen Christ.  And today if anything will shake and persuade the mocker, perhaps it will not be our arguments:  it will be the degree of our own conviction.  And that depends always upon the reality of our personal commitment to the risen Lord.” [1]

Before his conversion, Lee Strobel, the author of several books on Christian apologetics, had not spent much time investigating Christianity because it seemed to him that God was just a product of wishful thinking.  He thought, from his cursory look, that Jesus was just another man and saw no reason to look further.  It was only when his wife became a Christian and he saw her transformed life that he began to investigate. [2]

Stewart quotes Nietzsche as saying:  “These Christians must show me they are redeemed before I will believe in their Redeemer. [3]  Until we include in our doctrine of salvation that it is necessary to change of our soul so it becomes like God and turn that doctrine into reality, we will not be able to show people like Nietzsche that we are redeemed.  And as a result we make it difficult for them to believe in our Redeemer.

A transformed life is the best evidence we have for our faith.  Why do we ignore it in our doctrine?  Why do we fail to implement it in our lives?

“. . .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).

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[1]  James S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim, Vancouver, British Columbia:  Regent College Publishing, 1953, 116.

[2]   Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1998, pp. 13-14.

[3]   Stewart, p. 45.

Readers of this blog or of my book will have noticed that I question why the resurrection of Jesus does not get more attention in our theology.  For much of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an “epilogue to the Gospel, an addendum to the scheme of salvation.  . .” [1]  That is except for Easter Sunday when it receives attention for just one day.  Why?  The Bible teaches that Christ’s resurrection is necessary for our salvation (Romans10:5-11, 1 Peter 3:21-22) but we seem to have delegated it to a minor event.

Others have asked this question as well.  James Fowler back in 2001 issued a call for a resurrection theology but I have not seen an answer to his call.  H. A Williams wrote True Resurrection in which he states that for most of us, Christ’s resurrection is meaningless because it does not have an impact on our lives. [2]  James S. Stewart asks similar questions.  He states the apostolic teaching of the resurrection is that it demonstrates that a power exists and is in action that is stronger than the evil that crucified Jesus. [3]   What the Christian community has failed to understand is that the power of the resurrection is available to us and as a result we have failed to use that power.  Stewart asks:  “Why is there such a difference between the promise and the actuality as we know it in our lives and see it in the church and in the world around?” [4]

Part of the answer is that we have reduced Christianity to a belief system.  All we need to do to be saved is to believe in Jesus and his death for our sins.  But is that what the Bible teaches?  Stewart maintains that Christianity is “a decisive relationship to a living Person”  [5], the resurrected Jesus.  What Christianity needs is to recover that decisive relationship and we recover it by meditation on the Gospel and by following the teachings of Jesus. [6]  We recover it by living the new life God has planned for us.

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[1]   James S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim, Vancouver, British Columbia:  Regent College Publishing, 1953. p.105.

[2]   H. A. Williams, True Resurrection, Springfield, IL:  Templegate Publishers, 1972, pp. 3-5.

[3]   Stewart, p. 122.

[4]   Stewart, pp. 137-138.

[5]   Stewart, p. 146.

[6]   Stewart, pp. 159-160.

Christian doctrine states that we must believe in Jesus and his death for our sins to be saved.  This is the only requirement we must meet to spend eternity with God. The problem with this doctrine is, as some theologians admit, it is possible for “a person to receive Jesus as Savior without in any way embracing him as Lord.  Neither repentance or submission to Christ’s Lordship is a necessary element of saving faith” [1]  Is it true that “For a one-time admission of weakness and failure [we get] eternal peace with God.” [2]

So what else is there for us to do once we believe?  Can we just go on living our lives as we did before we were saved?  Or maybe we will latch onto what is called the prosperity gospel.  God does want to give us good things (Matthew 7:11) but is that God’s primary goal for our lives once we are saved?

As this blog has adequately demonstrated, the Bible teaches, and our doctrine of salvation should teach, that what God wants from us the most is to become like him.  Believing in Christ and his death for our sins is a great first step but God wants more than that first step.  Maybe we should heed the words of Jesus when he says “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  (Matthew 7:21-22 ESV)  And doing God’s will is more than a one-time profession of faith.

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[1]   R. C. Sproul, Faith Alone, Grand Rapids, MI:  Baker Books, 1995, pp. 168-169.

[2]   Chris Stamper, “Authors by the Dozen”, World, Vol. 17, No. 23, p. 53.

This past Sunday our pastor mentioned 2 Peter 3:9-10 in his sermon and that prompted me to ask a question.

In 2 Peter 3 the apostle talks about why Christ has delayed his second coming.  The reason is:  “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9-10 ESV)  Peter says God is delaying Christ’s return because he wants everyone to repent.

Now, of what do we repent?  Do we repent of our beliefs?  Generally not.  Our beliefs are our concept of how the world is constructed.  If we discover those beliefs are in error, we change them.  We might regret our former ignorance but we generally do not repent of our ignorance.

Nowhere in the Bible that I recall does God condemn us for our beliefs.  If you know of a passage, please let me know.  In fact, Paul in Romans 3:20 and 5:13 says where there is no law there is no sin because we become knowledgeable of sin through the law.  In John 15:22-24 Jesus says if he had not spoken to the people of his time about sin, they would not be guilty of sin but because he make them aware of sin, they have no excuse for their sins.  God will not hold us accountable for what we do not know.  He made us finite and will not require us to do what we cannot do.

That of which we do repent is our actions.  Everyone has a concept of what is right and what is wrong (John 16:7-8).  When we go against what we know to be right, we recognize it is our responsibility to acknowledge our error and makes the necessary changes.

The Bible teaches God will hold us accountable for our actions.  In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus talks about the nations gathered before him for judgment.  And how will we be judged?  It is whether we gave the hungry food to eat, the thirsty something to drink, those needing a place to stay a room in our houses, clothing to those who needed it, and visited the sick and incarcerated.  All are actions.

The apostle Peter tells us what God wants from us is repentance.  To repent is, as Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary states, “to feel such sorrow for sin or fault as to be disposed to change one’s life for the better”.  What God wants from us is more than a change in our belief; it is a change in our actions, in our life.

K. Chesterson has stated: “original sin . . .is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proven”. [1]  Now I do not know what all Chesterson includes in his doctrine of original sin but most doctrinal statements at which I have looked focus solely on our rebellion against God and our sinful nature.  However, there is another aspect of our existence that was impacted by original sin which, for some reason, does not merit much theological discussion.  This additional aspect is the fact that we are finite.  No one doubts this doctrine.  Even Chesterson alludes to this doctrine when he emphasizes the need for mystery to aid our understanding.  “. . . man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand”. [2]  To recognize that mystery exists for us is to recognize that we do not know everything.  There would be no mystery if we were not finite.

However, being finite poses problems for our theology.  Our theology states that we must believe in Jesus and his death and resurrection for our sins in order to be saved.  If we are finite, how can we have certainty that Jesus did die and was raised again for our sins?  Maybe that is why there is not much theological discussion on this aspect of the human condition.

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[1]   G. K. Chesterson, Orthodoxy, Kindle edition, p. 7.

[2]   Ibid., p. 20.