Please Stop Hating on Muslims

Before I begin:

1. I am grieved by what the ISIS is doing to Christians. This post is not talking about them.

2. I believe ‘Chrislam’ is utter heresy. I’m sure there are many Muslims who would agree.

Speaking nothing but hatred for Muslims seems to be a fashionable thing to do in conservative circles. But my siblings in Christ, please don’t participate. It does nothing to advance the gospel, nothing to help the victims, and nothing to change the hearts of Muslims. If anything, it is the sort of response the devil is trying to provoke, as it builds a wall between followers of Christ and the unsaved, and it distracts us from living out what Jesus commanded us: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.

“But are the Muslims really my neighbors?” you may wonder. Maybe not phrased as bluntly as that.

Let me tell you a story.

A homeless man was trying to find food and shelter when winter came. The rains made his clothes damp, the evening chill seeped into his bones, and the bitter north wind beat his face, leaving him thoroughly cold and half dead along the road. A priest happened to be driving down the same road, and when he saw the man, he avoided eye contact and accelerated past. So too, a church elder, when he came to the place and saw him, crossed the street and passed by on the other side. But a Muslim, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He got out of his car, went to him, and gave him balm for his chapped face. Then he brought the man into his warm car, took him to get some hot food, and after that went looking for a shelter where the homeless man could find the assistance he needed.

Which of these three was neighbor to the homeless man?

“Hey, all she did was tell the parable of the good Samaritan, except she changed everything to be modern.”

Yes, that’s exactly what I did.

“But there are no good Muslims,” say the intended audience. Maybe they don’t say it so bluntly, but the sentiment is still there. Funny, the Jewish society that Jesus lived in would’ve felt the same way about Samaritans, who were the descendants of Jews who intermarried with Gentiles. In Jesus’ parable, the priest and the Levite avoided the potentially dead victim because contact with a corpse would defile them, to great inconvenience and personal cost. However, the Samaritan investigates (he’s under the same defilement taboos as the Jews, BTW) at his inconvenience and personal risk (traveling with an injured person would’ve been slow-going, leaving them at risk of bandit attacks) in order to show some mercy to this battered body next to the road.

Not all Samaritans would be like that example, obviously. Some were quite violent against the Jews. However, Christians aren’t always loving and even-tempered, or even true followers of Christ; in any large group of people you will find a wide spectrum of character. There’s been great good done in Christ’s name, such as the casting out of demons, the caring for of orphans, and many, many meals cooked up for a sick friend. But there’s also been some extremely evil acts done in the name of our good Lord. The Catholic Church of the Renaissance era was extremely corrupt, and the Spanish Inquisition was a part of that. For a modern-day example, just look at Westboro Baptist Church. Not only do they not resemble Christendom in general, they aren’t even similar to other Baptists!

When someone devotes themselves to a cause that is apart from Christ, they will inevitably go down a destructive path, whether it’s Islam, atheism, environmentalism, activism, food, movies, or gaming. Just like everyone else, Muslims desperately need the love of Christ, and hateful talk will not help them see it.

Oops, I Broke It...

Well, four posts in and I already broke the blog.

"Crazy girl, what is she talking about?" you mutter.

I had been thinking about writing a blog for months. Perhaps even over a year. Writing comes naturally to me, and I have copious amounts of ideas to share. Spreading biblical truth is especially important to me, since there seems to be such a lack of it in our confused society.

Eventually, I did start this blog, with the intent of ironing out wrinkles in the fabric of mainstream Christian thinking. The spark that started this engine was a worldview class I started teaching in January for my church's youth group. We meet only twice a month, so I decided my first series of posts would be geared towards supplementing the teachings presented in our discussion group.

While I think this is an excellent idea, it also proved to be the blog-breaker. I tried too hard to write what I thought was necessary for my youth group, rather than writing on issues that weighed heavily on my heart. The post I promised on divine revelation remains unfinished, because I don't think it's what God would have me write, at least for the time being. Far better to address questions being posed to us in everyday life.

So what is weighing on my heart right now? I'll share some of it with you. I recently went on a church retreat where the topic of study was that of being part of the chain of Christian faith that has persisted for the last 2000 years, and passing truth on to the next generation. I don't want to see fair-weather faith and irresponsibility in my generation. I don't want to see the glory of Christ traded for some feel-good teachings attributed to Jesus. I don't want to see bold truth traded for trendy buzzwords and a hip Sunday morning atmosphere. I want to encourage the current generation of believers to be genuine followers of Christ.

There are other issues, not quite as monumental as this. Nonetheless, they must be addressed. What is a proper Christian response to homosexuality? What is church anyway? How do we serve God if we're not pastors or missionaries? What is good worship? And what is with this essential oils trend I see among 'biblical homemakers' (a term which deserves its own post)?

So here's an apology to you, readers; I promised a new post this week and totally didn't deliver. What I will promise is that from now on, I'll be writing about the questions God places on my heart, rather than what I think is 'supposed' to come next.

The Seven Worldviews

It's been a busy weekend, so I'll keep this short.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the foundational questions of worldview is “What is God?” There are seven different answers to that question, as presented by Norm Geisler in When Skeptics Ask; a few have their own subtypes. Here they are:

1. Theism: God exists.

               -Polytheism: many gods exist.

2. Deism: God exists, but isn’t involved in the world.

3. Pantheism: God is everything, and everything is God.

4. Panentheism: God is developing/evolving with the rest of the world.

5. Finite Godism: God exists, but is limited or imperfect.

               -Open Theism: God doesn’t know the future.

6. Agnosticism: we can’t know if God exists.

7. Atheism: God does not exist.

Knowing these concepts of God can help you identify them in the culture around you. Can you think of a popular science fiction franchise that is steeped in pantheism? (Hint: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us…it binds the galaxy together.”) What reasons might a panentheist have for supporting humanitarian projects? Do you know of any worldviews that are a mix of two or more of these?

What's Your Worldview?

We've established that worldview is a person's beliefs and assumptions about reality. Your worldview affects your values, which affect your behavior, which affects your culture.

Have you thought about your worldview? Do you think you make assumptions or do you think that you consciously choose to believe in what you do? Do you even know what your worldview is? Here are some questions to help you think about that:

-Who, or what, is God?

-What is a human being?

-What is "nature"?

-Where did life come from?

-How do we know what is really true?

-What is morality, and how is it determined?

-What determines the value of children?

-What role do parents play in raising children?

-What is religion? How does it fit into everyday life and business?

-What is sacred, and what is secular?

-What is the purpose of man? Why does he exist?

Your answers to these questions will reflect your worldview, whether or not you're aware of what it is.

Greek Philosophy and Hebrew Theology

Are you a Greek or a Hebrew?

“What kind of question is that?” you may ask. Maybe you’re looking at the title of this post and thinking, “I’m neither a philosopher nor a theologian. Is this post for me?” Yes, it is.

I’m talking about worldview.

The Greeks worshiped a pantheon of gods, but these gods were too human. Instead of awe-inspiring deities, it was more like soap opera characters with superpowers. So the Greeks started to reject the idea that a higher power existed. Instead, impersonal Nature was the driving force in the universe.

Because of this, the Greeks had no cause to believe that divine revelation existed. Instead, they tried to determine absolute truth based solely on human reason. The problem was (and still is) is that in such a situation, truth becomes muddled. Black and white merge into grey, and virtues are subjective. The Greeks pursued philosophy because they had no answer to the question, “What is truth?”

On the other hand, no one remembers the Hebrews for their philosophers, because they didn’t have any. They had no use for them. See, the Hebrews did not believe the power of human reason was sufficient to find truth; it’s too subjective. In order to find truth, divine revelation is necessary, as it came from God our Creator, definer of the universe, and is therefore objective.

Such a society produces theologians, people who study God, and all their philosophy (that is, way of thinking) is concerned more with the practical application of the truth revealed to them. The Halakha (part of the Talmud) is full of various rabbis’ teachings on how to apply principles found in the Torah to everyday life (“halakha” literally means “the way of walking”). The Hebrew question wasn’t, “What is truth?” but rather, “How do we live the truth?”

Thousands of years later, western civilization still reflects the Greek view. Even those who are Christians still subscribe to Greek ways of thinking, and quite often teaching in contemporary churches does not reflect the view that all Scripture is God-breathed. Living the truth has been traded for feel-good, self-improvement type of teachings, which leave many of us grappling with the idea of ‘dying to self,’ among other Biblical concepts.

So: do you use your reason to find the truth, or do you use it to figure out how to live the truth?

Are you a Greek, or are you a Hebrew?

Worldview: Why is it Important?

Worldview: a person’s beliefs and assumptions about reality. It’s the lens through which they look at everyday life. It informs their daily choices – perhaps not what cereal they choose to eat in the mornings (though it’s possible, since paleo relies on an evolutionary worldview), but rather things like voting on social matters, what they choose to volunteer for, what they spend money on, or what hobbies they pursue.

The foundations of worldview are found in these questions:

-What is God?

-What is man?

-What is reality?

A society’s worldview affects personal values, which affect behavior, which affect culture.

Supposing a society’s worldview included a belief that demon’s whispered evil things into the left ear. That society might believe that the left ear heard only evil things, so they might cut it off, and you get a society of people with only their right ear intact. Or, instead they might only take advice if the person giving it to them was standing on their right. Or they might walk around with a cork in their left ear. An insult aimed at a person who made poor choices might go something like, “You must have been listening through your left ear!”

Laugh at my superstitious example if you want. Such a result is fairly inconsequential – though if demons really did do such a thing, it would be an entirely different matter. Let’s compare something more relevant: man being made in the image of God vs. man being an accident of nature.

If mankind is made in the image of God, as the book of Genesis informs us, then what does that say about the value of a human being?

No other creature in heaven or on earth is made in the likeness of God, and no other beings are loved so much by their Creator. Did you realize that not even the angels are as special? There’s no plan of salvation for them. In speaking of the prophets and of the gospel, Peter mentions that “even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:12). God didn’t die to save the fallen angels; he came to save us. He took the punishment that his justice required so that we wouldn’t have to. Being made in the likeness of God has a number of implications beyond this.

If mankind is not created, but randomly appeared through natural processes, then what does that say about the value of a human being?

In such an instance, a person’s value would be determined, perhaps, by their contribution to the gene pool, or by their contribution to whatever is valuable to their society. Maybe it’s strength, as in ancient Sparta, or maybe it’s art and philosophy, as it was in ancient Athens. Whatever it is, we eventually realize that if there’s no higher authority than ourselves, we can do whatever we want to other people. Or maybe we end our existence prematurely, falsely believing that life has no meaning or purpose.

These two basic worldviews are reflective of the mindsets of the Hebrews and the Greeks. In my next post, we’ll explore the mindset of those two civilizations and how they still affect us today.