Evading reality

Many years ago I was attempting to witness to a lady who lives near my Baptist church. She looked me in the eyes and said, "that church is a cult." I have never gotten those words out of my mind. Then, I ignored her words and tried to forget them. Now, all these years later I think I am beginning to understand what she was trying to say.

Christianity is a belief system that is given to mankind as the only story of redemption for mankind. Philosophers would call it a narrative, technically it is a meta-narrative, meaning it is the all encompassing story for life. It is the story of redemption given to us by God himself in Scripture. It is the story of God (theology) and man (anthropology) which is all inclusive in describing how we - mankind - are to live in relation to the Holy God.


Given that it is God who has revealed Himself to us, there are no optional choices that can be made concerning our responsibility in our practical application of this narrative in our lives. We are made in such a way that we either must conform to the entire narrative or find in the end that in denying part of it we have become guilty of denying the whole, there is no middle ground.

The reality of the Christian belief system is that its story of redemption cannot be told in part if it is to be affective. If we tell a person he can be saved without explaining to him saved from what and why he needs salvation, the price paid for his redemption is cheapened and thus denied by default. The price paid by Christ was too costly not to be told as the major reason for God's demand that we repent. The gospel (good news) is not good news if any part of it is evaded or omitted in the re-telling. Repentance and redemption are opposite sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.

When we preach "ye must be born again" without explanation of why this "rebirth" is necessary, followed up with explanation of the requirement of repentance, we have effectively nullified a major component of what the Holy God has revealed of Himself. God is a just God and part of His justice demands an acknowledgment from those He is redeeming that they have indeed violated His law and are sorry for their affront to His nature.

The general (overall) narrative in Scripture is a litany of mankind's flouting of God's law and His actions taken to redeem his chosen violators. His plan of redemption began in the Garden of Eden, and ended with the death of Jesus, His Son, on the Cross of Calvary. Without telling others this basic narrative, at some point preaching will deteriorate into a gloss of man-made concepts which quickly slide into no gospel at all. Preaching will become nothing more than psychological manipulation as the Preacher attempts to coerce people into a false sense of security that will soon evaporate - as all of man's desires do.

When someone tells another human being that all they need to do to gain heaven is accept Jesus as their "personal savior," without an explanation of the entire narrative, that person has committed what can only be seen in God's eyes as an usurpation of His authority. Moreover to inform someone that they are "guaranteed" heaven when they die, goes beyond simply usurping authority, it becomes a matter of assuming the role of God. This is a very dangerous enterprise for any human to undertake.

Scripture says that "faith comes by hearing..." but Scripture also says that mankind is born "dead in trespasses and sin." Faith is not something that one man can tell another he has or has been granted. Faith is the ability to believe and only God can give a human that ability. Faith is a change in one's nature that is granted super-naturally by God to His elect after He has "quickened" or regenerated their dead souls. Faith is not something men can casually walk down an aisle and tell a Preacher, "Hey Dude I believe that stuff you said, now what?" Or, more commonly, "I gave my heart to Jesus, what I gotta do now?"

Evading telling the entire story of redemption either for personal or secular reasons, for example, to brag about a tally of numerical conquests, can only be the result of a mind blinded by the particulars of the immediate moment. The particulars of the moment may be as innocuous as a desire to "win the lost," but no matter how one achieves an affirmative response to this kind of spiritual manipulation, it is dangerous work. Whatever the underlying motivation, to imply to another human "you have been granted the faith to believe" is God's prerogative, not ours.

Faith, once it has been given by God is evidenced by a change in desires on the part of the grantee. Scripture calls it "fruit." The evidence of being born again is not in writing the day, date, and time of a "decision" in the front of a Bible; the evidence is shown by a life lived out denying execution to old impulses and desires. It is a costly change for God but for us it is free. Our only job once this faith has been granted is to use it. We do that by taking up our Cross daily as we follow Jesus who gave us the Holy Spirit as our assistant in this endeavor. Anything less than full disclosure of the entire Gospel message is, in my opinion, a terrible sin committed against God. In ethical terms, it is fraud.

Unless we accept the fact that God told us He "added to the church daily those who should be saved," we will continue to have churches in America filled with unregenerate pretenders who are living a reality evading life. Those responsible for this effrontery will, I'm sure, be judged in the end.

For too long I participated in the charade which perpetuates this kind of thing. I have finally learned enough to know that what I was doing was wrong and plan to spend the rest of my life trying to make amends. I've started by trying to educate myself in the meta-narrative as given to us by God and not the particular one men have made up to further their own agendas.

I think I have finally figured out what the neighbor lady meant when she said that church is a "cult." She meant it was mistaken in some of the things it did. I agree and hope to live long enough to see if God will make changes in its narrative to the World.