SECULAR & RELIGIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD & CHRISTIANITY As a secular citizen of this scientific and intellectual world, I was indifferent to prevailing thoughts prescribed about God and against Christianity. And as a cynic to the Christian faith, I thought and imagined believers as naive and brainwashed. Pathetically I alluded to my faulty thinking as though factual and rather mocked Christians as unreasonable and non-thinking beings. This is when I have yet embraced the Christian faith. Unkindly, I thought of Christians as religious zealots, irrational folks who knew not the God of whom they testify and worship. In self-deliberation, I questioned myself on their behalf: How dare a group of passionate and overzealous religious folks believe in a god nobody knows and with audacity place him above all other gods? What nerve they possessed to speculate other gods as false, yet claim their God as the Creator of all? As if by design, a neighbor has had the same cynical thoughts I held against Christians. One day he has said to me: “Christianity has no intellectual, scientific and reasonable evidence to validate the God it passionately advocates because it assumes him invisible and unknowable.” In a thoughtless and vain manner he cautioned me in his remarks: He claimed only naive, feeble-minded, brainwashed, uninformed individuals choose to become Christians. He also happened to scorn my difficult financial situation at that time; he looked down on me as a poor person. Really, I wasnt very much upset with him but was troubled by his remarks. I began gradually to realize that he had mistaken Christianity for a religion or rational belief, or had a superficial understanding about the Christian faith as expressed in the revealed Holy Scriptures. To share blame, I attribute his lack of true knowledge and understanding about Christianity largely to Christians. For far too long we have accepted Christianity as a religion or characterized it as a form of religion. Weve not separated it (Christianity) from religion as the Scripture distinctly does. Weve also discarded and abandoned our primary function: to preach and propagate the name and the revealed God-Man of the Holy Scriptures. Instead we concentrate on religious, socio-political philosophies and activities to the detriment of the person of the gospel, Jesus the Christ. Christ Jesus was not only revealed by massive biblical prophecies but appeared as the God-Man to fulfill and validate all that was prophesied about Him. The reason ignorant people scorn Christianity is because their core philosophy or understanding of religion and rational beliefs state that the God of Christianity is also a god whom nobody knows. They also imagine that salvation is by works and efforts of man. Thus, it is a fabricated human system to ease the conscience by doing good deeds and forsaking so-called bad deeds. However, Christianity is God’s human revelation on earth in the Trinity person, the Son of God, Christ Jesus. Christianity is the only faith that reveals God in a human or person form. In Christianity salvation is not by works but it’s God’s gracious new creation and new birth and imputation of His righteousness to justify sinful mankind as holy and perfect sons of God, thus permitting the re-establishment of an eternal relationship with his Maker, through the Lord Savior, Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17, 21; Jn. 3:3, 5-6 c.f. Gal. 2:21; 3:6; Rom. 3:20-24; 5:1-2, 16-17; Jn. 3:16). Ultimately, many believers have even conceded to imaginary characterization that assumes Christianity as a rational belief or religion with faith in a god nobody knows. If Christianity philosophically sides with these -ism beliefs then it is without the revealed God, Christ Jesus. Without the personal, holy, and limitless God of the Bible, Christianity is a baseless faith in an invisible and unknown god as portend by all rational and religious beliefs. In recent times, many incredible secular ideas, world views have crept into the Christian faith ultimately influencing its revelatory knowledge and understanding about God. Unfortunately, these intrusive thoughts seem to find solace not only in secular minds but many a Christian’s as well. Consequently, the world has come to embrace Christianity as speculation or gossip, steeped in religious ritual, ceremonial and mystic practices. In such misconstrued characterizations, Christianity is interpreted for the ignorant and uninformed, it’s assumed as a rational belief or religion, a blind faith. Presently we dwell in a scientific and an intellectual world yet religious and secular minds assume Christianity to defy any intellectual judgement and scientific analyses. Apparently even some Christians are caught in this prevailing web-thought; they believe or feel very comfortable with these unimaginable thoughts, conceding to them as a true faith. In a discussion with a young relative preacher from Maryland in the U.S. and with a secular intellectual friend who are both Christians, they said to me: “You have made Christianity so intellectual and scientific.” Well, I strongly do not believe God rejects or denounces intellectual and scientific understanding of the Scriptures and Christianity. The world is advancing scientifically and intellectually in a supersonic rate. In order to be effective with the gospel, first we need to understand and catch up with this generation; the way they behave, think and reason. Then, we’re meaningfully able to neutralize, confront and communicate the Good News in the language, thinking, and understanding of its citizens. However, if the intellectual and scientific mind should defy, denounce or be critical of God and Christianity then God denounces and rejects such minds outright. Anyway thanks to God that I am worldly schooled at all. I do not possess any intellectual foundation or scientific credentials from which knowledge they could accuse me of intrusion except the knowledge and wisdom God has given me. Judging the Holy Scripture which stems Christianity from this vantage point it becomes an archaic religious book which has long expired in contemporary usefulness. However, these invented thoughts perfectly feed into rational and religious philosophies normally prescribed by secular minds to God and against Christianity. Respectively, religious and rational knowledge are deduced in a spiritual context considered out of bounds for Christians. Christianity is the only knowledge that is not based on religious or rational induction or deduction but divinely revealed by God ultimately fulfilled and validated by the manifested Christ Jesus, and naturally through human beings. Many disciplines are defined by abstract theories, principles and governing laws. However, Christianity is the only discipline that is reasonably and sensibly revealed and fulfilled in theological, prophetical, historical and religious apprehension. Whichever way you choose to approach, seek and know God, it must find its beginning in the revealed Scriptures. With a clear minded-conscience, you are bound to meet God manifested in Christ Jesus in the focal confluence of truth in the Scriptures. Basically, there are three main God-informants or belief systems through which mankind claim to derive knowledge about his Creator God, namely: Christianity, religion/cult and rational belief. However, these ‘god-gurus or informants’ approach the Creator from very different directions and perspectives. Unfortunately, Christianity is wrongly classified together with the scheme of rational belief and religion as if they were all one and the same in thought or faith. To many minds, Christianity is not different with knowledge of God from religion and rational beliefs or-isms. Often, critical arguments professed against Christianity are based upon misconceptions or shallow-mindedness. Further, those arguments attract some elements of religion and rational belief because they all claim to inform knowledge about a god that cannot be observed and validated; he has never visited the planet earth. However, in exception, Christianity is based on revealed knowledge from God fulfilled and validated by no less than the revealed God-Man otherwise called Christ Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. We do hold and believe that those of other religions cling to and profess about gods they do not know and with whom they have no personal connection, sonship origins and relationship. The secular world and some Christian groups uphold the belief that we only assume faith in a god because humans long for an all-powerful divine figure. The individual who believes this has no truth, breached or encroached on a realm in which he has no qualifications. There are several reasons for his misconceptions: First, lack of knowledge and understanding about Christianity as a revealed and validated faith. Second, in belief people hardly separate Christianity from religious and rational philosophies. And third, Christians do not assume faith in the already revealed God-Man, Christ Jesus, because Christians have scriptural reasons, and validated facts, and evidence to believe the God of creation who manifested on earth (the Emmanuel, God with us). The Scripture contains abundant and sufficient fulfilled and validated revelatory history and prophecy to substantiate Christianity. Religion and rational beliefs invent their stories purely from fictitious creation narratives the existence of which obviously reveals a maker. From this introductory point, the spiritual-gurus and god-theorists invent their testimonial knowledge about the God of creation and the gods they portend. They devise their creation story, deduce a creator and fallaciously state testimonies about a god none knows or has ever seen before. Religion pathetically bases their claims about God without even a speck of natural, intellectual, reasonable and scientific proof about their asserted god and knowledge. And from the preamble story about the Creator in relation to creation, religion further approaches God on claims of secret hearings, visionary experiences, dreams or myths that have no provable validation. The fascinating thought about the claims is that they state knowledge about a god as its informant yet claim not to know or see that ‘informant-god.’ At certain crossroads rational belief diverges from its natural course and approaches knowledge about its god from a religious standpoint. Their God is an insipid, unknowable deity who may be a creator, but has since lost total interest in his creation. They declare a god, speaking boldly about him without his personal revelation and any sort of validation from what they speculate. With impossible to verify claims of rational belief and religion, we confront ourselves with mind-wrenching questions: Can we ever know the supposed god or gods they advocate? How do we see him or know them personally? And how do we reasonably, intellectually and scientifically prove, analyse or converse about a god who exists in such a huge, broad, abstract vacuum of knowledge? It is at this crucial crossroad that Christianity distances itself completely from vain religious and rational concepts. It distinguishes itself with a clear and concise revelation based not on religious or rational claims but declarations of a personal God, introduced with authentic history and prophecies culminating in a triune revelation and fulfillment in the divine person of the Father, through Christ Jesus, the Son of God and by means of the Holy Spirit. By Rev. Kwame Ankoma-Amoa.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 01:42:05 +0000
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