How to Make Your Christian Writing Anything But, part II
In my previous post, I took a peek at six of the twelve points that the Resurgence cites as ways to turn Christian writing into anti-Christian writing. Unfortunately, I’m guilty on some points. Let’s look at the final six.
Hell is real, but don’t let that concern you or your hearers and readers. It’s more important to have a good theology of evangelism than to actually tell others about Jesus, his cross, and his resurrection.
Actually, I think that it is more important to talk about the cross and the Resurrection than it is to mention hell. I don’t think that hell is really the best way to evangelize. It shouldn’t be avoided completely, but neither should it be over-stressed.
People just aren’t comfortable with a judging God. Most likely because people know, at the core, that they have sinned and are under condemnation. Instead of browbeating them with that, let’s focus on what God has done through Christ.
But we’d just be unkind if we didn’t talk about hell at all. People also need to understand the consequences of their choices.
Talk about technique a lot, because techniques are concrete. Miracles like regeneration, God turning haters into lovers, and the fruit of the Spirit are too abstract to be helpful.
Here we see Christianity capitulating to culture. Scientism seems to be creeping its way into the popular culture. People are believing the lie that they can only know what they can touch, taste, smell, or see.
Scientism is a philosophy, not a scientific conclusion. Since philosophies can’t be proven, only believed, scientism refutes itself. If you believe scientism, you’re already being inconsistent.
Everyone believes something on the basis of pragmatism alone, in the absence of empirical evidence. Everyone. Our minds are capable of knowing and understanding things in the abstract, without requiring evidence of their existence.
That means that speaking of love, hate, or the fruits of the Spirit are helpful. Speaking on technique is good, too, but sometimes it is necessary to speak of the abstract.
Guilt is a great motivator. Use it wisely.
I think we all know someone who falls into this category. I’ll move on.
In their sanctification, people should fake it till they make it. Tell them how.
Believing something on the basis of pragmatism is vital to constructing a coherent worldview. Obviously, you can’t see some of the abstractions that underlie your philosophies. If you hold to a theistic worldview, where the material plane is a battlefield for angels and demons influencing the minds and hearts of humans, you can’t see the immaterial beings nor can you see the deity, so pragmatism comes to the forefront in determining the rationality of your suppositions.
But pragmatism is not a good measure of the effectiveness of the gospel, nor is sanctification ever going to work if you fake it until you make it.
The New Testament consistently refers to the church as “the Bride of Christ.” In marriage, you are giving yourself wholly and completely to your spouse; that goes for husbands as well as wives. It is expected that you will put your bride first in all your considerations. Everything should change, and this is meant to be a permanent change.
So it should be in giving yourself to Christ. It should bring wholehearted change into your life. You won’t be the same person afterwords. The Bible declares the faithful a new creation. Just telling people to “fake it until you make it” doesn’t do justice to the gospel, and it trivializes Christ’s promises to make you whole.
Be condescending. Make sure your theology is un-gracious in content and tone.
Yeah, I know, this is my deepest sin in writing this blog. Anyone who wants to throw it in my face, go ahead. Search some past posts. I’m sure you can find plenty of examples of me being ungracious to commenters. But I’m going to really try to move past it, and give my apologetic answers with gentleness and reverence. No more sarcastic bite.
People really want Good Advice instead of Good News, so be a people-pleaser and only give lots of advice.
Yes, Joel Osteen, we are looking at you!
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Posted on October 12, 2010, in Apologetics, God, Heresy, Religion, Sin, Theology and tagged atheism, Bride of Christ, Christ, Christianity, Father, God, Good News, Holy Spirit, Jesus, New Testament, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Sin, Trinity. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
Josiah Concept Ministries 
“Here we see Christianity capitulating to culture. Scientism seems to be creeping its way into the popular culture. People are believing the lie that they can only know what they can touch, taste, smell, or see.”
Héhé…you make it sound like a disease…do you prefer the old days when everyone’s neighbor was a witch (visit Haiti sometime, see what happens when scientism hasn’t “creeped” into culture…the other day I listened to a family member tell my uncle (over the phone) to put 3 grains of salt in his left pocket pocket and a lemon in the right in order to get haste the conclusion of a transaction. We still live in the Middle Ages, héhé). Why is that a lie? How can you know something if you have absolutely no way of exploring it? If your only evidence for its existence are the writings of other people who probably couldn’t know it either? Would you like us to go back to the Middle Ages? Put people to the question, or test people’s culpability by awaiting a God’s intervention after burning someone hand? I actually think it’s scary when people believe they can feel the truth.
Time and time again, verifiable (this time) results have shown that our intuition is misleading. If we can’t make accurate conclusions about the physical world with our minds, how are we supposed to make conclusions about the spiritual world (if we pretend it even exists) by thinking about it? What if our belief that the spirits on the other side communicate with us is also wrong, a bias of our minds? What assures us that it isn’t? What even indicates to us (evidence) that it isn’t?
The Greek philosophers also thought that they could just sit in a comfortable chair and derive truths without experimentation…look how accurate their results were.
“Scientism is a philosophy, not a scientific conclusion. Since philosophies can’t be proven, only believed, scientism refutes itself. If you believe scientism, you’re already being inconsistent.”
Science never claims to prove quite anything; math does so to great extent, but not completely either, axioms are needed (parallel postulate). So why would science need to prove the effectiveness of the scientific principle and such, why would it need to make an exception for that?
You have 3 choices: a) pretend there is no order in nature, b) pretend there is sometimes/someplaces and sometimes/someplaces not, c) pretend there is no order at all. The only way you can do anything whatsoever is to assume the first, and, yes, that’s faith. The methods of science will probably, in my opinion, be changed in the future, they always have been. We’ll probably get stricter, even math changed, some proofs Euler built are no longer considered valid (though the results have been re-proven with modern methods). In the end, you are right that science is faith-based…but it’s justified faith, because unlike for religion, your faith is placed in something that works, or that at least has worked up to now. Religion’s predictions can’t be tested, and often can never be proven wrong (I only find out whether you’re right or wrong if you’re right -> I’d be dead and awaiting the painful torments that my loving father has reserved for those who didn’t blindly accept what they were told. If you’re wrong I’m dead and that’s it, I never find out -> or of course I’m in front of Allah, Zeus, Jehovah or another Being, but you’d still be right to some extent, about the existence of something else). The only reason you can write these things on the internet is thanks to science (the invention of the computer, of the internet, discovery of electricity and of ways to use it); when’s the last time you did anything (provably, I know you can say you breathe, at, were born) thanks to religion? Why should you place your faith in religion rather than in science?
I’m going to use science right away to post this comment. Science will then permit you to read it whenever you can.