Was It Our Fault?

Perhaps, if we had responded as Jesus Christ would have done, things would have gone differently, and the movements would have remained trickles. Perhaps, instead of treating them as "enemies" we should have thought carefully, prayerfully and humbly about the root issues that led them into existence - some of which we ourselves are guilty.

This page looks at some of these movements and, by exposing their roots and causes, examines to what extent Christ's people have played a part in giving them momentum.

Contents:

• Islam

• Anti-clericalism and the French Revolution

• Communism

• Atheism

• Evolutionism

• Secularism

• Postmodernism

• Homosexualism

• WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

This page is written for Christians of an evangelical or charismatic persuasion. It should still make sense to other readers, but they might miss or misinterpret some of the implications, idioms, jargon terms that inhabit the evangelical lifeworld.

Islam

Was it our fault that Islam came to birth?

But then the reaction of the Christian church to Mohammed's movement left much to be desired. Instead of trying to think through the issues, take warning, and repent, the Christian church fought, and so Islam became strong.

Was it our fault that Islam became strong?

Anti-clericalism and the French Revolution

Was it our fault that the French Revolution occurred, and all since then?

It has been suggested that it was the work of God through the Wesleys and others that prevented a French Revolution in England, Scotland and Wales.

Communism

Was it our fault that Communism arose?

Once Communism arose, we did not "examine ourselves" nor did we repent of our siding with injustice.

Is it our fault that Communism became strong for a century?

Atheism

Is it our fault that Atheism arose?

Luke Muelhauser believes that a materially peaceful, healthy, happy society tends towards Atheism, as Denmark and Sweden have done. There is both historical and Biblical evidence that material shalom comes from a right relationship with God, especially of the Protestant sort that previously imbued Denmark and Sweden. Is it because the Christian church, in focusing on the sacred, has not given those in such societies a 'narrative' about the material shalom that is believable - no godly way of dealing with the secular?

Is it our fault that Atheism arose?

Our reaction has been to focus our efforts on countering Atheism, rather than doing God's work of justice in the world. We enjoy it when an atheist is found to lose an argument. We have tried to prove scientific findings wrong. and/or to seek proofs of God's existence. Yet the Christian philosopher Dooyeweerd argues that it is impossible to prove God's existence. Because of our reaction, Atheism has grown strong.

Is it our fault that Atheism has grown strong?

Evolutionism

Was it partly our fault that momentum built up for evolution?

Some atheists pushed it because they thought it gets God out of the equation. At the Monkey Trials the evolutionists won and Christian opponents were vilified and humiliated. Since then Christian opponents of evolution have been smarting and trying to get their own back. This is not what God wanted. But since some Christians make a fuss over evolution its supporters made more of a fuss too. Gradually, the Western population at large has increasingly accepted evolution as a 'fact'.

Is it our fault that most of the population believes evolution?

Secularism

Though, in God's creation all spheres of life are important in His eyes, we treated them as less important than the religious and moral spheres. During the mediaeval period we had the upper hand, and what we did with that hand was unwise and against God's intention. We drove secular apart from sacred?

So when the inevitable reaction occurred, people turned away from sacred toward what we call secular, rather than maintaining a balance. That is, secularism. We did not see this as a signal to question whether we had got our mindset wrong and repent of misusing our upper hand. We, the people who are supposed to have the "mind of Christ", chose to retain an ungodly dualism of sacred versus secular, so it is no wonder that the people also adopted this dualism, but from the opposite end. We continued to see the secular as nothing to do with the sacred, or the enemy of the sacred, and something to be battled.

Was it our fault that secularist mindset has the upper hand today?

In the United States of America, revivals occurred before, during and after the 1800s, for example during the Civil War (on both sides), and subsequently, such that USA Christianity still seeks revivalist-style large phenomena. [Is that a correct picture? Do let me know. Assuming it is ...] But such revivals focused too much on the 'sacred' side of life and too little on the 'mundane'. Secularism filled the gap of understanding the mundane, because we offered no Biblical positive understanding of it, and it became 'secular'. Yet, being part of God's creation that 'secular' side of life (economics, jurisprudence, media, entertainment, academia, etc.) works powerfully - and yet there is very little Biblical narrative or understanding of it.

Mark Surey has studied the revivals of the Civil War and found that not enough attention was given to such things as justice on one hand and PTSD on the other, and so when one side became 'victor' its revivalist tendency was ill-prepared to cope with peace and victory, and then secularism filled that gap.

Was it our fault that secularist mindset has the upper hand today?

Christians have too long side with war and military, despite Jesus being Prince of Peace and Yahweh as a whole being "God of Peace". It has been largely left to the secularists of the left-wing, and a few Christian groups that are seen as 'fringe' to question our siding with war. Secularism has an answer (not a very good one); do we?

Was it our fault that secularist mindset has the upper hand today?

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a reaction against modernism, which is the doctrine that reason can lead us into all truth. Modernism tends to see reality, including human beings, as machine, and acted the bully for a century. Postmodernism, reacting against the bully, allows for human freedom of opinion and interpretation. Modernism loves neat hierarchies; postmodernism loves flexible networks. Postmodernist writers tried to make their point by shocking people. We have treated the shock statements as the nub of their beliefs and have reacted by retreating back into modernism - even though modernism is that which denies that there is a God.

We did not try to understand postmodern concerns, so we reacted against it. Are we partly to blane for the rise of postmodernism?

Homosexualism

Homosexuality seems to be condemned in both Old and New Testaments. The church for centuries has treated it as a sin worse than the sin of adultery - strangely since the OT penalties for both were similar. Some Christians argue that today's homosexuality is not that of the ancient Greeks or Canaanites, and that it is 'OK' before God if it is a committed loving relationship. (I am not here declaring my own beliefs on the matter; I criticise the debate about it.)

The Church as a whole has refused to listen to those of a homosexual disposition. Partly this is because of the antagonism of militant homosexuals down through the decades, but mostly is it because we have scared to try to understand? Has it been too easy and forced-upon-us to take sides rather than think?

Did our refusal to listen and think drive some people struggling with a homosexual disposition into hiding and into a clique of homosexuals where they felt accepted?

Is it our fault that homosexuality has become an issue and that homosexualism has arisen as a cause celebre of the secular liberal elite?

• Was it our fault, that we refused to consider other possible interpretations about what the Bible says about homosexuality?

• Was it our fault, that we gave sexuality too much importance in our against-ness? That we gave sexuality too much importance?

• Was it our fault, that we were unnecessarily cruel and unjust to those with homosexual tendencies?

• Was it our fault, that we refused to seriously try to understand those with homosexual tendencies?

• Have we (wilfully or not?) misunderstood what God wants His people to do in society? Not to build a Christian society, so much as be salt and light within non-Christian society? And academic life, philosophy, the sciences, the media, educational life, etc.

• Have we ignored secular side like the media and arts so long that we have left those grounds open to be taken over by homosexuals and homosexualists?

• Have we mis-handled praise to great people who happen to be homosexuals, such as Benjamin Britten and Alan Turing?

• If someone comes to Christ from a non-Christian culture (whether homosexual or Islamic, etc.), should we not emphasise Luke 9:23-25 and then trust the Holy Spirit to work in them in His own way, rather than trying to force them into our way of thinking?

Is it our fault that homosexuality has become an issue and that homosexualism has arisen as a cause celebre of the secular liberal elite?

WHAT CAN WE LEARN?

• Have we prioritised sacred over secular, and thus set up the scene for the advent of atheism?

• Have we treated our theorizations as truth? Our theorizations from Scripture ('doctrine') might help us understand something of God and His ways, but it is always a theorization and never the full truth. It is what Jesus criticised the Jewish intellectuals of his time for: teaching human rules as though from God.

• Have we misused Scripture? Have we thus driven people away from the Word of Life? Have we used Scripture as ammunition to help us win arguments? Did we want to win arguments as though they were battles, that was our primary desire, and we harnessed Scripture to fight our battles? Winning arguments should not have been our primary desire. Instead, our primary desire should have been to learn of Christ, to love whom and what the Father loves, to do good work for it as the Father works, to have His name honoured, His kingdom come, His will done on earth as in heaven. And Scripture was designed and given specifically for such purposes (II Tim 3:16). Those should have been our primary desire, but instead, our primary desire was to win arguments. (Of course, argument is part of our life, but it should not be primary desire, and we should hold others views as much as our own.) As a result of using Scripture to support our arguments, the world distrusts Scripture, it even rejects it, the word of God that could have given them life. We ourselves had put up a barrier, an offence, in front of those who might want to come in. Just like Jesus castigated the Teachers of Law for doing. Just like Paul told us not to do.

• Were we often away from the heart of God. We stressed the laws of God, the morals of God, the doctrines that we thought were of God (but were theorized), but ignored the heart of God. We might have rejoiced in the hand of God and might have sought the face of God - but did we share the heart of God?

• Fundamentalist attitude. Danie Strauss [2009,112] points out "Perhaps the extreme fundamentalistic views advanced by the 'Bible Science Assocation' and other biblicist creationists contributed to the equally fundamentalistic attitude amongst the atheistic evolutionists of our day."

• Turned Christ Upside Down. Did we turn the Good News about Christ into Bad News? - A set of oppressive religions, full of 'ought' with the threat of hell or punishment. Partly because we thought along only one dimension of salvation, partly because we were pharisees at heart?

• Have we treated questioners as enemies? Some question genuinely, but have we treated those as those who question in order to resist? Have we turned cautious seekers into enemies?

• Lukewarmness. Have we valued comforts, conveniences and even pleasures too highly? Have the 'thorns and thistles' choked the growing sprouts so that, though still alive, they were never fruitful for the Kingdom of God?

• Have we let the mindset of the world direct our deepest direction, without being transformed by having our mindset renewed by the Spirit of God (Romans 12)?

• Have we misrepresented God. Representating God involves showing, telling and acting.
  • Have we shown self-interest, arrogance, affluence, unconcern (Ezekiel 16:49)?

  • Pride: Have we refused to listen when criticized, assuming that criticism is 'attack by the enemy'?

  • Have we told a partial or biased message, have we told more of our own beliefs and theorizations about God than being witnesses of what God has been doing?

  • Have we failed or refused to join with God in working in His world? Have we worked on our own agendas, either selfishly, or unquestioningly assuming they were God's agenda? Worse, have be claimed that God is on our side in our own agenda?

• Have we taken a harsh doctrinal stance that has refused to listen, understand and think?

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About This Page

Copyright (c) Andrew Basden at all the dates below. But you may use this material subject to certain conditions.

Written on the Amiga with Protext.

Created: 16 October 2013. Last updated: 21 July 2014 Scripture, atheism. 25 March 2016 Intro and headings added; counter removed; simplified comment box. 27 January 2017 French anti-c and American secularism and homosexualism. Rewrote What We Learn, all from paper notes. 20 February 2017 request dashes. 12 April 2019 roots in intro. Added contents; made the isms h3 not h2.