The Ultimate Threat

We humans have a remarkable capacity for self deception. Introspection only makes things worse because we second guess our second guesses and we suspect the motivations behind suspecting our motives. As with most gifts, self consciousness also carries a curse, an infinitely regressive tendency to spiral inward with a skeptical and jaded regard for anything outside our inner space.

The Age of Reason died after birthing the Age of Psychology, but both Ages share a common hatred for Christianity. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 1 that we are without excuse in our rejection of God because God is self evident in His creation. Philosophers of the Enlightenment did not accept this premise because they found evidence which contradicted the Biblical story of creation. Philosophers of the Mind need no evidence because there is no such thing as sin. So preachers tell us that the skeptic rejects God out of rebellion; skeptics tell us that Christians believe in God because they are weak and easily duped.

In this new Age of Psychology, Eastern mysticism has come to flower in Western culture. Although skeptics reject these beliefs, they do so with far less venom than their outrage toward Christianity. Mysticism and cults have gained wide acceptance in pop culture, but receive only occasional criticism or legal challenge compared to Christian belief.

What is it about Christianity which evokes venom from the skeptic? A pastor once told me in my atheistic years that I did not accept Christianity because I wanted to sin, not because I did not have enough evidence of Christ. Evangelists in 1970 assumed that no rational person could reject God's grace; therefore the only reason for rejection was also found in Romans 1, that human beings want to sin and to go on sinning. I'm OK, you aren't.

Interestingly enough, evangelists in 2006 believe that people reject God's grace out of ignorance; all we need to do is tell them about Christ because they simply do not know. I'm OK, you are ignorant.

Christians are no different than any other psychological being. We become trapped in our world view, our paradigm, or whatever buzzword you like. It is convenient to think that either people reject Christ because they are in rebellion, or they reject Christ because they don't know Him; both reasons are completely true and completely Biblical. Skeptics don't accept either explanation, and we assume that they have been blinded by Satan or their hearts hardened by God; this too is Biblical and defensible.

As a skeptic in remission, I have a different point of view. The number one reason that skeptics despise Christianity is neither a desire to enjoy the sinful life, nor is it out of ignorance of the Gospel message. As a teenager, I saw John 3:16 as a threat, not a blessing. If I simply accept the magic incantation, I will live forever. If I cannot force myself to believe it, then I will burn in Hell forever. This is why skeptics hate Christianity. To the skeptic, the Christian is the ultimate terrorist carrying the ultimate threat -- eternal damnation. This is also why rabid atheists are hell-bent (great phrase!!) on purging Christian expression from public life in the United States.

In the movie "Luther", one of the Pope's fund raisers, Johann Tetzel, travels from town to town in Germany selling indulgences. His theology has been reduced to providing people an opportunity to buy their way out of Purgatory, or worse, eternal Hell and fire. The carrot and stick approach to winning souls, that is, offering salvation while threatening damnation, has dominated the Christian church for most of 2000 years. The movie portrays Luther's spiritual journey beginning with total fear of damnation, then transforming into a profound realization that God's grace is given freely through Jesus Christ. I must admit that in my own life, I have followed the same journey. Escaping from Hell was more important than loving God, and in my atheistic years, my anger toward God was a direct result of the threat of eternal damnation.

The skeptic believes that the Biblical description of God's justice is fundamentally unfair. How can a finite lifetime of sin justify an eternity of damnation? Or worse, how can a person's lack of faith justify eternal fire, regardless of their deeds and misdeeds? What about those who are raised in a different faith; must they suffer eternal torment because they were born in the wrong time and place? The skeptic cannot see the grace of God because he is blinded by the wrath of God.

C.S. Lewis paints Hell as a self inflicted prison in his book "The Great Divorce". This is one of the most understandable explanations of free will and consequence in apologetics. A skeptic might ask, "how could anyone voluntarily choose Hell?" Unfortunately, life is full of examples of souls consumed with their own self torment and destruction. Like Stephen Crane's wonderful poem, self loathing is just an inverted form of narcissism:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

It's mine, damn it all! God agrees. His justice is that we are free to turn away from the source of life, to condemn ourselves to the torment of separation from Him, and the consequent endless agony.

We live in a world permeated with marketing, and the church is no different. I recently read a newsletter which referred to the church logo as a "brand". Marketing always presents the positive spin. Jesus loves you. Life is better with Christ. The church does internal marketing as much if not more than external marketing, primarily on the false premise that this is how we retain members and financial support. Is it any wonder that everyday Christians don't understand why the secular world hates Christianity? If the marketing only presents sweetness and light, then how could anyone hate the Gospel message?

Why did the Pharisees hate Jesus? If Jesus had only preached love and performed miracles, they would have left Him alone. He did two things which directly threatened not just their power, but their eternal lives. First He told them that He was God. Then He told them that they were going to Hell. This was the ultimate threat from the ultimate terrorist.

After many years of skepticism, I have become a believer in Jesus Christ, but I also know that the body and blood which I eat are not only sweet, but also bitter. I am different from the man in the desert eating his own bitter heart, because I choose to eat the flesh of my Savior instead. I cannot escape from the Sovereignty of God. He has the complete authority to do with me as He will, and until I accepted this, it was impossible for me to love Him. Knowing this, it is not the threat of Hell which keeps me in line, but the gratitude that God has descended into Hell and suffered in my stead. He has saved me from my own self.

The Christian church must abandon marketing and painting a pretty picture of heaven on earth. Only the truth will set us free, be it sweet or bitter, or both.

What do you want it to mean?

A friend gave me a copy of an essay by Robert Jensen titled "Why I Am a Christian (sort of)" which was published in the Houston Chronicle on March 13, 2006. Jensen is an associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, and a look at his web page and bio give me a sense of his ideology.

Professor Jensen does a succinct job defining the motivations of a modern day secular humanist, although he avoids this label. Instead he has done something which is pervasive in modern thought: he stretches the definition of Christian until the word fits his own ideology. This sleight of hand is like removing the golden egg machine from the goose. The secular humanist wishes to retain the blessing of God while denying the existence of God, and although secular humanists may subscribe to Christian ethics, they deny the source and justification for the ethic. Jensen takes it a step further by "joining" a Christian church; this is an interesting move since in most Christian churches one must make a public statement of faith in Jesus Christ. This might be encouraging since God does indeed work in mysterious ways and [the Holy] Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26). Robert, are you listening?

Jensen takes aim at Christian theology or any theology which excludes unbelievers. In Jensen's big tent, the only creed which matters is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus placed this commandment on an equal footing with the other commandment which Jensen rejects; that is, to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. Taken out of context, we might say that Jensen loves God because he loves others, but Jesus makes it very clear that if we reject God's Son, then we reject God. Nevertheless, Jensen's philosophy is appealing, especially to the modern agnostic or atheist, and it defines a new religion for the modern age, a radical ecumenism which no longer needs God. This religion can be taken as the intersection of all major world religions; that which those religions have in common remains, and that which contradicts is excluded. In short, the modern secular humanist builds a moral foundation on consensus alone. Indeed, consensus has replaced objective morality as the highest good in the modern world.

So the Bible is symbol, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a metaphor, and God is just a pair of parentheses which we wrap around everything we can't understand. Jensen's dream sounds very much like John Lennon's "Imagine", and we could have universal peace if the major religions of the world would stop trying to convert and seek the common ground of universal love and compassion.

I wonder if Professor Jensen has ever tried to convert anyone to his ideology. Probably not, after all, most rational and compassionate people would naturally agree with him. Who cares if a few people in the world believe that Jesus Christ lived, died and rose from the dead. Big deal if a radical minority belief in eternal life through Christ, and take quite literally Jesus words that no one can receive eternal life without accepting Him.

And what is the consensus?

The consensus defines morality in modern civilization, doesn't it? The consensus in Nazi Germany believed that Jews were less than human and should be exterminated. The consensus in the Soviet Union under Stalin believed that private ownership of property was the ultimate evil. The consensus in the antebellum South believed that blacks were property and also not quite human. Very reasonable and otherwise moral people participated in the systematic oppression or genocide of those who were excluded from the consensus. Is it the consensus today that those systems were wrong, and if so, on what basis? Consensus? Common sense? A feeling? The golden rule?

Robert Jensen says that he is a Christian on the basis of adopting a moral system, but denies the Creator of that system. If our morality comes from social instinct, and that instinct has survival value in the face of evolutionary pressures, then consensus is nothing more than an arbitrary width we set on the Gaussian curve.

I suspect that many, perhaps even a consensus, of those who call themselves Christian do not believe in the exclusivity of Jesus' claim of divinity. Maybe they take their children to church for purely pragmatic reasons rather than because Jesus Christ is the only Son of the living God. In a multicultural society, the church is under pressure to provide social services and therapy rather than truth. If eternal life is a fantasy and the death and resurrection of Christ is a metaphor, then these are useful and harmless delusions as long as they don't cause people to strap bombs to themselves. The heart of Christianity is the compassion of Christ, not Christ Himself. After all, nine out of ten journalism professors agree.