Questions on Christianity

The apostle Paul, in Romans 7:1-6 and Ephesians 5:22-33, compares the relationship in a marriage to the relationship of Christ to those who follow him.  The Old Testament prophets also compared a marriage relationship to Israel’s relationship with God (e.g. Hosea).

What is a marriage?  Webster’s defines it as:  “The social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.”  Is a marriage just the ceremony?  Is a couple married who exchange marriage vows but who continue to live their lives the same as before they were married?  They might be married in a legal sense but are they truly married?  Would that marriage last long?

So why do we Christians think that salvation is only making a commitment to Christ?  Why do we think that we can continue to live our lives the same way we lived them before we make a commitment to Christ and still consider ourselves saved?  Yet that is what our doctrine of salvation teaches—we only have to believe to be saved and no change is required.

Just as a marriage is more than saying a few words at a ceremony, so too is salvation more than just professing a belief in Jesus and his death for our sin.

None of us like to be criticized because it implies a failure on our part.  However, all of us, including us Christians, are finite.  We also are less than perfect.  This means we will make mistakes.  How do we handle those mistakes and the criticism that sometimes follows?  Joel Belz describes how some do.

Too many Christian leaders and too many Christian organizations seem to believe than an open forum for criticism jeopardizes their believability.  So they sit on the facts and stifle appropriate discussion.  They clam up and shut off the flow of information.  In the process they forget that light always trumps darkness.  Truth, by God’s order of things, always beats out ignorance. [1]

My question is:  Do we hold our theology to the same standard?  If questions arise about a particular point of theology, do we have an open discussion or do we ignore the issue?  In this blog and in my book, The Renovation of Our Soul, we have raised questions about the doctrine of salvation.  What has been interesting is that most Christians with whom I have discussed these questions (including some pastors) either have not asked them or ignore them because they do not have an answer.  Why?  If “truth, by God’s order of things, always beats out ignorance” should we not make an effort to resolve these questions about salvation?

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[1]   Joel Belz, “Absorbing the punches”, World, March 7, 2015, p. 5.

I recently completed reading a book that was written in the late 1890’s namely St.  Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen by W. M. Ramsay.  It is a book about the book of Acts and like Acts a major part of the book details the missionary journeys of Paul.  The author also draws on information about Paul and his journeys contained in the rest of the New Testament and other historical documents in order to draw a more complete picture of Paul.  One aspect of this book that was of interest to me was Paul’s approach to other religions.

First, Ramsay states that Paul’s missionary method was “not to insist where there was no opening and not to draw back where the door was open”. [1]  This most definitely was not an “in your face evangelism” but it was no shrinking violet either.  It was a very respectful approach.

Second, Ramsay notes that Paul did not rebuke other religious ideas but tried to guide them.  He understood some were honestly striving to worship God given the knowledge they had. [2]

Third, “Polished courtesy of address to all, was valued by Paul as a distinct and important element in the religious life; and he advised his pupils to learn from the surrounding world everything that was worthy in it”.  [3]

Is this how we Christians view and approach other religions?  Do we respect other religions and recognize they have value?  Do we try to learn from other religions?  Unfortunately many in the Christian community do not because we view Christianity as the only true religion and all the other religions are leading their adherents straight to hell.  Paul’s approach to other religions indicates that this belief needs to be rethought.

I have suggested an approach we should take with other religions in my book The Renovation of Our Soul and it is similar to Paul’s.  Chapter 18 specifically deals with this topic.

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[1]   W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896, p. 61.

[2]   Ibid., pp. 146-147.

{3]   Ibid., p. 149.

Last week we discussed that in many cases the translation of the Bible is more of an interpretation of the Bible than a translation.  The past couple of weeks I have been reading a book on a totally different subject—about the history of man’s quest to harness the power of the sun. [1]  In recounting this history, Kryza discussed the feud between Roger Bacon and the papal court.  The papal court subscribed to a reading of the Bible in terms of science that was guided by the metaphysics of Aristotle and divine revelation (which generally is someone’s interpretation of divine revelation).  Bacon maintained that experimental science had the final say in interpreting matters of science discussed in the Bible. [2]

So how do we interpret the Bible?  Yes, there is a whole field of study called hermeneutics which should guide us but hermeneutics will not solve all the problems we encounter when we read the Bible.  For example, in this blog we have raised three questions about the Christian doctrine of salvation.  These questions came up because there was a difference between what I was taught the Bible said about salvation and what I observed in the world and what I read in the Bible.  So do I stick with the traditional interpretation of what salvation is or do I utilize what I have discovered in my personal experience to try to resolve these questions?

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[1]   Frank T Kryza, The Power of Light, New York:  McGraw-Hill, 2003.

[2]   Kryza, p. 53.

When we read our Bibles, most of us to do not consider the process that is involved in translating the Bible from Hebrew or Greek into English.  Leland Ryken in his book The Word of God in English gives us insight into the complications of translation.  One aspect he spends considerable time upon is called dynamic equivalence which is somewhat controversial.  Dynamic equivalence is an approach to translation that translates what a passage means rather than translating the exact words.  Its purpose is to make the Bible more readable.

Ryken gives many arguments for translating the actual words of the Bible instead of the meaning of a passage.  One argument is the fact that when any other book is translated, the emphasis is on accurately translating the words of the author not their meaning.  We must have respect for the author and how they chose to express an idea. [1]  So why should the Bible be any different?

Another of Ryken’s arguments is that there is a distinction between a translation and an interpretation of the Bible.   A good translation should enable us to determine what the author (God) actually said, not what the translator thought the author (God) wanted to say.  Should not we want to know exactly the message God is communicating to us and not the translator’s interpretation of that message? [2]

The danger in substituting our interpretation for what God actually says has been illustrated in this blog.  We have pointed out there are over 70 verses in the Bible that discuss salvation as being other than through belief in Jesus and yet these verse are ignored by the majority of Christians because they conflict with an established doctrine.  So what has priority—our established doctrines (what we think the Bible means) or what the Bible actually says?

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[1]   Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, Wheaton, IL:  Crossway Books, 2002, p. 146.

[2]   Ryken, p. 144.

I have just finished reading J. Warner Wallace’s book, Cold-Case Christianity.  He puts his skills as a homicide detective working on unsolved criminal cases to use in determining if Christianity is true. [1]  It is among the best books I have read on Christian apologetics.  In a chapter discussing how much proof is necessary to know if a particular proposition is true, Wallace describes the standards or degrees of proof that are used in the legal field:

1. Some credible evidence – There is sufficient evidence to begin an investigation.
2. Preponderance of the evidence – The proposition is more likely true than untrue.
3. Clear and convincing evidence – The proposition is significantly and substantially more likely to be true than untrue.
4. Beyond a reasonable doubt – There is no plausible reason to believe that a proposition is untrue. [2]

What standard or degree of proof would you use when evaluating the evidence for Christianity?

I can see why some would use the highest standard—beyond a reasonable doubt—when considering the evidence for the validity of Christianity.  Why?  First, believing in most matters of history does not impact us one way or the other.  It does not matter to us if tomorrow it is discovered that Alexandria the Great was a mythical figure.  The same cannot be said about Jesus and his death for our sins.  Therefore, before we make major changes in our lives, a very high degree of proof would be prudent.  Second, according to Christian doctrine, God expects us to believe in an event that has never occurred in the history of the human race—the resurrection of someone from the dead.  Most of us would definitely want substantial proof for such an extraordinary event.

Do we have proof that is beyond a reasonable doubt for the death and resurrection of Jesus for our sins?  Some would say “no” and it would be difficult to argue with them.  If we truly understand what it means that God made us finite—that God limited our ability to know what is true of events that occurred over 2000 years ago and in a different culture—then it is not unreasonable to have doubts about these events.  As William Lane Craig states:  “Christianity can only be shown to be probably true”. [3]

So why would God require that we believe these events are true to be saved?  Christianity has never answered this question.  My book, The Renovation of Our Soul, is a start in developing an answer.  We in the Christian community need to have a discussion.

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[1]   J. Warner Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity, Colorado Springs, CO:  David C. Cook, 2013.

[2]   Wallace, p. 131.

[3]   William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Wheaton, IL:  Crossway, 2008, p. 55.

Joel Belz recently suggested the world would be a better place if people would live their lives in the same way that good airplane pilots approach their jobs. Good airplane pilots make a habit of correcting the little mistakes they make in flying before those mistakes become tragedies. Just imagine what the world would be like if each of us did the same in our personal lives. Belz gives three reasons why most people do not have this habit—we no longer believe in error, we justify our errors by saying everyone is doing it, and we have become cleaver at inventing instant solutions to our errors. [1]

We Christians have a great deal of responsibility for the third reason. We teach that all we need to do is to believe in Jesus and his death for our sins and automatically all our sins are forgive and we get to go to heaven. This view of salvation impacts how we live our lives and is aptly summarized by David Wells:

For a one-time admission of weakness and failure they got eternal peace with God. That was the deal. They took it and went on with their lives as before. The result is that there is no significant difference between the way born-againers live at an ethical level as compared to those who are nonreligious. [2]

In this blog and in my book we maintain that salvation is the change of our soul so it becomes more like God. It is not just a belief system. Salvation takes more than saying a few words at one moment in our lives. Salvation is not an event, it is a process (2 Corinthians 2:15, Philippians 2:12, Hebrews 10:14). It involves our entire being and our entire lives.

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[1]   Joel Belz, “The little adjustments”, World, Vol. 30, No. 24, November 26, 2015, p. 3

[2]   Chris Stamper, “Authors by the Dozen”, World, Vol. 17. No. 23, July 7/13, 2002, p. 33.

Is it our responsibility as Christians to convert the world to Christianity? The great commission Jesus left us—“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15 ESV)—would seem to indicate that we must.

The problem is there are plenty of examples of Christians whose efforts to spread the gospel are an unmitigated disaster—televangelists who use the gospel to enjoy a lavish lifestyle, priests who use their position to prey on young children. And then just look at all the different Christian religions and all the different denominations within the Protestant religion and their differing views of salvation. If I was an unbeliever, who should I believe? The problem is that we Christians are sinful and finite creatures and we do not always correctly present, in word and deed, God’s plan for our salvation. So why would God use such a defective means to communicate a message on such a critical subject—the eternal salvation of our souls?

The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit’s responsibility is to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8) and he can do a much better job of that then we can. Our job is to assist in that effort by being a light on a hill (Matthew 5:14-17), by being the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). I like the way Rosaria Champagne Butterfield states it: Salvation is God’s work; service is what our responsibility is—selfless love and sacrifice. [1]

As for the great commission, my dad has said for many years that a better translation of it is: As we go about the world we are to share with others what Christ has done for us. Our responsibility is not to convert the world but to be an example of the impact Christ can make on the life of one person. God will take care of the rest.

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[1]   Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Pittsburg, PA: Crown & Covenant Publications, 2012. P. 67.