I was just doing some reading between my morning swim and our prayer time as a staff, and came across this news story. Here's the brief: Americans are becoming increasingly less exclusive in their views about their own faith and path to heaven. A majority believe that there are many ways to heaven, and that their personal faith doesn't have a handle on heaven, nor the right to suggest that if a person doesn't follow their faith, that they will end up in hell. Alright, just read the article...
Tolerance is very trendy and 21st Century and American. It makes people feel good and doesn't put others in a disparaging light. And therefore, it makes the holder of those views more civilized and sophisticated for not holding to a "narrow", bigoted theology.
However, when I was in college calculus and was asked a question, the goal wasn't to make all my classmates feel good about their varying and opposing answers. I wanted to know the right answer and how that answer was derived. Same in chemistry, in English, in history, in physics, and in just about every academic and life pursuit I've studied.
It is primarily because people don't like the premise of being wrong about something so profoundly life-altering as their personal faith, that they expected others to "lighten up" on their theology, and give them a pass or let them off the hook. I'm not being harsh, just honest.
I'm confident that the Bible doesn't just contain A way, but THE Way to an eternity in heaven. I believer passionately in Jesus and His LOVE for all mankind, that I'm willing to risk offense, my own reputation, and even a little "political correctness" backlash, to communicate as broadly and as relevantly as possible that Jesus is the Answer that ALL people are looking for.
And He is the ONLY way! If you don't like it, that's okay... my classmates didn't like it when they got the answer wrong and I had it write on the final either, only this time there's a lot more at stake. The beauty of this final is we are all willing to share the answers and even show everyone how to come to the same answer.
3 comments:
Well said.
I just came across your blog and am glad of it.
Be Blessed and Be a Blessing.
I conversation today with friends and staff at Lifehouse, we talked through John 14:6. You know the one, Jesus said that He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but through me." Sounds very exclusive, right? What's more profound is that He didn't just say, "I'm the Truth." This isn't some intellectual debate reserved for academia. Jesus offered us first and foremost a lifestyle centered on truth.
Let's model for others a Life that reveals the Way centered on the Truth.
The statistics in this study are alarming and the Barna group has plenty more alarming ones, as you know. The one person said it well, that this is an indictment on the church to better teach and equip people. This is all the result of a lack of discipleship. Perhaps the term discipleship has become too convuluted or in some ways pajorative in our culture and a new term needs to be coined to describe the essential process of building towards spiritual growth and maturity.
Your examples make tremendous sense when considered rationally. Certainly no one would believe that 2+2 would equal anything but 4. Most would relent that gravity is the force which causes objects to fall to earth. However, religion has been relagated to a philosophical realm where one can speak in fanciful abstract concepts. I think too often we fail to assert the historical veracity and textual evidence of Christianity in conjunction with scientific data from creationism and archaeology.
These are good challenges for us as we seek to change the world.
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