In God’s grace, He’s littered life’s highways with street signs pointing back to Him. It takes a tremendous amount of distraction and cognitive dissonance to ignore creation, conscience, the “God-shaped hole” in our hearts, and our impending demise. Rather than follow the signs, non-believers put on blinders, speeding down the road, rarely looking too far ahead. To obscure the “bridge out” warning off in the distance, our relativistic culture discredits Christianity based on the exclusivity of our claim that Jesus built the only bridge to the Father.
No matter how hard they try to ignore the flashing signals, something is not quite right…
- as spiritual “orphans”, not children of our Father, they search for identity in political, social, occupational, or sexual preferences
- the dysphoria of being “fatherless” leads to what we observe among America’s youth today – depression, escapism, promiscuity, addiction, and suicide
- despite appearances, the fields are ripe for harvest because deep down few believe “my authentic self” is genuine or “my own truth” is viable
Our caution signs are going unnoticed because most Christians don’t understand the core assumption behind unbelief – their premise that human nature is inherently good. Any strategy for reaching the “fatherless” (no identity) and “faithless” (no purpose) must account for the key to Satan’s roadmap – the lie that mankind is “flawless” (no sin).
The Football Field
Media portrays Christians as self-righteous (feeling superior), ignorant (rejecting science) and unkind (lacking compassion). Meanwhile, Christians tend to view the world as evil (less moral), uneducated (academically), and misguided (malleable). Both assessments contain elements of truth but miss the underlying reality behind our division – the fundamental disagreement over who is good and who is bad…humans or God. That dividing line is what separates us, tearing our nation apart.
As long as Christians misinterpret the basis for the direction society is heading, flawed assumptions will continue to generate bad strategies for reaching it. Imagine the chaos of a football game where neither team, on both sides of the ball, knows the playbook. The field of play is the debate over whether or not humanity needs a Savior. The division is so pronounced that it’s formed two teams competing head-to-head, trying to advance the ball down the field in a game they don’t fully understand. No Christian would be surprised by the actions and behaviors of contemporary society if we realized they are attempts to conceal the traffic signals by elevating mankind to the point of eliminating our reliance on God for grace and forgiveness…
- Position government and science as savior, the ultimate sources of funding and healing
- Defer to society’s values, not those taught by our fathers or our Father in heaven
- Break down “traditional” families by conflating genders and discounting biblical marriage
- Surrender to the authority and ideals of political parties and professors, not Scripture
- Subscribe to characterizations of historical Christian leaders as bad and today’s enlightened leaders as good
- Trust in the goodness of people to do the “right” thing:
- Individuals know their actual gender better than Obstetricians (or God)
- The Taliban won’t slaughter innocent people
- The unintentionally pregnant will do what’s best with “their” bodies (presuming the secular notion that we “own” our bodies)
- Crime won’t increase if police are removed
- Drugs and trafficking won’t cross an open border
- Criminals won’t commit more crimes if they are freed
- Everyone will make good decisions on how to spend government handouts
- Canceling the “intolerant” or feigning offense will demonstrate our “goodness”
Framing human nature as good “frees” wide receivers to run whatever routes make them happy, unaware they’re hurting themselves and their teammates, dragging them further from their Creator and toward dependence on those who don’t have their best interests at heart.
The Teams
This is certainly not a game, it’s not a competition, and it’s not about beating anyone else. Christians want to see all come to an intimate knowledge of our Father. Humanity’s universal fallen state should have put all players on the same team, looking in the mirror, not lining up to tackle individuals and groups with whom they disagree. But we’ve engaged in the game of defining who is good and who is bad. By labeling and vilifying the other “team”, both sides strap on helmets for a winner-take-all contest.
By appearing to think we’re “better” than “them”, a “Team World” has formed, sensing the self-righteousness and condemnation of “Team Jesus”. Over time, Christians and churches turned the ball over, making non-believers feel morally superior. Secularism is now on offense and Christians are back on their heels, watching “Team World” rapidly advance its agenda toward the endzone. Unfortunately, we’ve had the wrong offensive strategy for decades, following a playbook designed by offensive coordinators who didn’t recognize the common ground all humans share – our sinful nature. We made players on “Team World” feel judged, flagging them for committing penalties when they didn’t know our rules.
Ironically, Jesus was frequently accused of fraternizing with players (“sinners”) on the opposing team, showing compassion because he knew no one was truly “good”. Our head coach wasn’t about winning or losing, but sorrow and service to help “lost sheep” find their way to the Father. Yet many churches hold pep rallies, emphasizing “victory” and reassuring followers they “win” in the end. As a result, players run out on the field feeling pride and comfort in being on “Team Jesus”. Or recognizing we’re playing defense now, Christians became defensive. There’s no need to defend our faith – God is perfectly capable. Jesus turned the other cheek rather than defending Himself. The best defense is always a good offense, but we’ve been giving out directions to our churches, not to the Father.
Instead of making disciples and showing compassion, we threw into double coverage by reducing evangelism to pitching non-believers on our team’s way of life, rules or church (inviting friends and family to the “game” next Sunday morning). The COVID-19 pandemic exposed that churchgoers didn’t know the playbook. When the assistant coaches (pastors) weren’t there, the players didn’t know what to do. Choosing defense over offense, we defaulted to self-preservation instead of self-sacrifice, not serving as pastors of our neighborhoods, ready to give account for the hope that is in us.
The Playbook
Watching a football game, we believe we understand the coach’s strategies. On the surface it seems our team is going nowhere handing the ball off, refusing to open up the passing game. But frustrated fans don’t realize the patient, “ground and pound” approach is going to pay off in the 4th quarter. America and possibly mankind is in the 4th quarter and the world’s defense would be wearing down by now if Christians and churches had stuck with the running game of disciple-making and compassion, demonstrating the Father’s unconditional love. A “ground attack” engaging millions in loving acts of service would have weakened defenses by eliminating the anger Christians display toward non-believers and disarming those who revile Christians.
Our “air attack” has been overthrowing (verbal) bombs receivers could never catch. Christians often appear as though they only see non-believers as sinful, positioning “Team Jesus” as superior to “Team World”. We wouldn’t be responding with anger or surprise if we associated their behaviors with a distorted view of human nature. We would feel sorry for them and share the Gospel, realizing their actions are a byproduct of an identity crisis resulting from their detachment from our Father. So today non-believers find more acceptance and (a cheap imitation of) “love” by aligning with those who judge no one (because they don’t want to be judged). They don’t feel welcome on “Team Jesus” because we aren’t following the strategy of our head coach, demonstrating the Father’s love and humbly confessing our own depravity.
As long as Christians aren’t being discipled in churches, thoroughly studying their playbook – the Bible – we’ll continue making silly plays. Jesus’ strategy was not designed to “win” against “Team World” but to win “lost sheep” to Himself. But centering the practice of faith around buildings, weekend services and “church chores” encourages lining up on the other side of the ball from those unwilling to join our team. Conventional methods for steering non-believers toward the Father, like invitations to a Sunday service, are challenging in a culture increasingly distrustful of “Team Jesus” and institutions in general, including churches. The Great Commission in post-Christian America requires preparing individual believers to build intentional relationships and provide clear directions to our heavenly Father, not our church’s address. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we should work to get everyone on the same team by confessing our sinful nature, helping unchurched players buy into their own sinfulness.
It’s Your Turn…
How would our nation be different if everyone had a shared, accurate understanding of human nature? How would your church’s response to our culture change if the entire congregation knew the real reason America is heading in the wrong direction?
5 Responses
The reason that Christianity is in decline is because it serves no visible fruit that is different from that of secularism. Christians claim a monopoly on righteousness (regeneration) while acting with just the same amount of good evil as the rest of man kind, while claiming that others’ good actions don’t count since they aren’t among the chosen on the Narrow Way which Jesus narrowed toalk people on the Cross just as God narrowed Eve’s hips.
The orphans are looking for a father; they’re just not interested in one who violates the consciences that God has given them, one who devalues women as “separate but equal” in their roles in life (1 Timothy 2:12, Genesis 3:16, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Leviticus 12:1-8 Numbers 31:7-35,)
hates homosexuals but refuses to straighten them,
made humanity’s constitution sinful (Psalm 139:13; 51:5) ensuring that all sin, then restricting the evasion of the fate of eternal torture to believing in the witness of people who are just as evil as the secularists for a magic spell (the sinner’s prayer) for a ticket to heaven.
Nobody wants a father who tortures his children endlessly while calling it justice and love. Nobody wants a father who kills his children if they miss the deadline (once death, then judgement) instead of being a prodigal’s father.
Nobody wants a favoritist father who will prefer one child who is an unloving rapist over the loving mother because the rapist is a christian with his sins atoned for, and the mother an agnostic.
God made us (Psalm 139:13) sinful from birth (Psalm 51:5) without exception (Romans 3:23). God did not do so directly (James 1:13) but he gets around that by using proxies (Job 1:12, Genesis 3:1, 1 Kings 22:20) to tempt us, irresistably or often enough that we fall to it (Romans 7:15) but not enough that it’s technically impossible to avoid (1Cor 10:23), ensuring that we will fail.
Thus, God, by arranging our birth as sons of Adam, rigged the game so that we would all deserve infinite torment no matter what. Then he sends Jesus to catch a few of us who are debased enough to think this is fair, into groveling at his feet, for how wonderful his misshapen creation is.
The whole Gospel is summed up in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, not John 3:16.
Nobody wants a god like that, and nobody who actually reads the Bible will accept that and say it’s good. Atheists and Jews statistically know the Bible better than Christians do.
Christianity is a rotten tree that produces rotten fruit. It’s no different from any other religion, and has no impact to back up its claims of having your Holy Spirit who no longer talks to you except for echoing verses from the Bible, but tacitly approves of your church burning books, gassing Jews, and excommunicating scientists.
Christianity’s claims to make believers into good people increases the visibility of your weekly pastoral sex scandals five times as visible. You harbor pedophiles while outing homos.
Anne Frank is in hell; John Calvin is in heaven. That’s all I need to know about your God’s idea of ‘love.’
Gordon, you’ve obviously spent a lot of time researching and preparing your case for the prosecution. Not that God needs a defense attorney, but my opening statement would be that your arguments likely come across to the Lord as whiny, excuses blaming Him for all the stuff mankind does wrong. What I hear between your lines is, “The devil made me do it!”, “That’s not fair!”, “You tricked/framed me!”, “It’s his fault!” and “Who me?”. As a dad, those are comments I’d expect from a young child but not a mature adult. Parents are justified in telling children who use those lines to look in the mirror and accept responsibility for their actions. I intend no disrespect but feel it’s important to play back your own comments how they come across.
Our perfect, loving Father does what He has to do to protect, defend and discipline His children – just like you would do for yours. That’s not always pretty, but people can be horrific and the Lord occasionally took drastic actions to stop those who were hell-bent against Him in their intent and/or actions.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a world of Christianity you’ve apparently never been exposed to – millions walking away from self-interest to pay forward the love of Jesus to those in dire need of help and hope. Nearly all ministries serving the poor, abused and neglected throughout this nation’s history were founded by Christians, as were most of our hospitals and schools. They understand, unlike you, the love of our Father for His children and it’s that love that fuels Christ-centered compassion that far exceeds any other religion or motive in the world.
Yet around the world Christians suffer violence and other forms of persecution primarily for the “crime” of practicing the only faith that calls into question the “goodness” of mankind, thereby threatening to undermine the pursuit by (oppressive) leaders of absolute authority, bolstered by individuals like you who agree with them that God is bad by comparison to themselves.
“I intend no disrespect but feel it’s important to play back your own comments how they come across.” If you can dismantle the biblical proof I just layed out in front of you that we are deprived of total control of our actions because of what we are, but blamed for them anyways, go ahead and do so.
The way the Bible reveals how life is set up tells me it would be ‘whiny’ to blame my dad for dropping me on my head instead of to ‘look in the mirror’ and taking responsibility for obeying gravity, or like being born a snake and being called ‘whiny’ when I don’t like the idea of it being a death sentence to be a snake… administered by the very pet store that hatched me from my snake egg!
“to protect, defend and discipline His children”
torturing strangers’ children forever in hell in front of your own children is no sane form of protection or discipline, is it? Sure, yes, it might make your children never disobey you again, but will they love you for it? Will they ever trust you, knowing that whenever they peer into the back yard, they see the other children burning and hear their screams? Or will they start imitating you once they grow up?
If someone raped your daughter, would you rather kill her rapist, or would you rather have your daughter un-raped? God can do the latter, and burn the rape out of the rapist, leaving behind only a man. Why doesn’t he?
“the only faith that calls into question the “goodness” of mankind”
There is a big difference between ‘calling into question’ and ‘asserting it does not exist outside of our tribe.’ Now, yes, it is hard to prove the extent of non-Christian charity in history. Much of it was burned down by colonial powers, which were survived and replaced by Christian missionaries, and European Christianity has had much, much, much more opportunith than any other empire for good people to emerge from the woodwork and do God’s work. But in order to claim that the righteousness that comes from God, that is, the legitimate, saving-from-hell, faithful righteousness, that this righteousness ONLY comes through belief in the Christian message, and that Christ ONLY works true goodness through the baptized… you would have to claim that ALL non-Christian acts of altruism are from an utterly depraved and selfish motive. That’s a monopoly on righteousness. And the Bible teaches that (Romans 3), that there is no being a good person without the gnosis and acceptance of the gospel’s ultimatums of hell.
It looks and acts no different from the monopoly on righteousness that the jews held over the gentiles in Jesus’ day. Then the preachers of Jesus started asserting that God’s righteousness is available to non-Jews because of Jesus’s actions, to those who aren’t proselytes of Abraham. Now the message of a God loving humanity has been contained again, to a tribe, just bigger, and slightly racially homogenous. You still have to be a proselyte to be a good person that God loves.
I honestly think the churchfolk who obey Jesus and love their neighbors do so in spite of the Bible. Those who dive into it for too long will decide that belief in a creed saves you from God’s threats of hell, which makes love a side-effect. Those who ignore (sometimes deliberately) the Bible’s messages of hatred and damnation are too busy loving their neighbors to be Christians.
If Jesus were to walk the earth again, most of you preachers of the Bible would crucify him again, and you would do so for the exact same reasons.