IrContent

I was just listening to NPR the other day and heard this little bit of oft-repeated tripe: “Religion has been responsible for more violence and wars than any other . . . blah, blah, blah.” Does this standard humanistic motto have any credibility? I saw a very good article on this issue that I have forgotten but it basically laid out facts of history for consideration. Let’s have a look shall we?

Ancient World Empires

Which of these world empires ever fought against, or conquered another nation, due to religious beliefs? Egypt - not over religion
Assyria - not over religion
Babylon - not over religion
Persia - not over religion
Greece - not over religion
Rome - not over religion

While the religious beliefs of the conquering nation were often imposed once it took power, this was a method of indoctrination to crush future rebellion (like assimilation through intermarriage, languages, cultural syncretism, etc.) - plus it showed the “superiority” of the conqueror when they placed their “gods” on display. This also allowed these empires to use religion as a test for loyalty - but the wars they fought were for power and wealth, not religion.

Ancient and Modern War Leaders

What about the leaders of the most violent people groups? How many of them fought wars to further their own religion?

Nebuchadnezzar - did not fight over religion
Egyptian Pharoahs - did not fight over religion
Alexander the Great - did not fight over religion
Roman Caesars - did not fight over religion
Attila the Hun - did not fight over religion
Genghis Khan - did not fight over religion
Napoleon - did not fight over religion
Hitler - did not fight over religion
Mao - did not fight over religion
Stalin - did not fight over religion (in fact, he fought for non-religion!)
Saddam Hussein - did not fight over religion (in fact he killed others of his own religion!)

None of them fought wars for their religion, and none of them attempted to impose their faith on other nations. While each held to strong philosophies and world views - the motivation for their wars was not religious dispute.

18th-19th Century America

Since 1776, America has fought ten major conflicts - and none of these centered on religion. In fact, prior to the Cold War against Communism (which was political and economic - also not religious), we fought all of America’s wars against nations that held to some form of Christianity! This would even include fighting against ourselves in the Civil War.

20th Century World

Is there any evidence that before the advent of the world’s great religions human beings behaved in a less warlike or murderous manner? Hardly. The opposite is the case. Man has never needed religious excuses to make war, and the 20th Century was no exception:

World War I - not over religion
World War II- not over religion
The Cold War - not over religion
The Korean War - not over religion
The Vietnam War - not over religion
The Gulf War - not over religion
The Iraq War - not over religion

How many “religious” wars would have to be fought to even approach the bloodshed so far recorded? Where does this “religious violence” idea come from? There do not seem to be many possibilities left, but let’s look at some current “religious wars.”

But What About The Middle East or Ireland?

Many wars, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the continuous fighting in Northern Ireland, may have some religious elements - but so does politics and mountain climbing. This is because people are generally religious and people do all these things. What is common to all cannot be a useful cause. The fact that people who are religious fight each other does not mean that religion caused the fighting. Further, the lines drawn among these warring people are predicated on a territorial base, with the religions of those particular regions being used as convenient labels (for example, there are Palestinian-Jews, and Jewish-Arabs). Further, the Irish and English have been warring with one another since the 14th century - that’s 200 years prior to the Reformation!

What About The Crusades and the Inquisition?

This does not mean that one cannot find violence committed in the name of God. The Crusades are obvious examples. Crusaders massacred Muslims, Jews and, in fact, other Christians. This fact alone demonstrates that while the Crusades might have been labeled as “religious wars,” they certainly did not attain to their evil acts by following those religion’s guidelines (although Islam does permit violence for the sake of promulgating itself). Besides this, all three of the Crusades together pale in comparison with the death toll of any one of the above empires or their leaders. The Inquisition was not really a war, but it was certainly violent and religious in nature. Moreover, both of these atrocities stand out all the more because they were committed by “Christians.” However, there is no biblical basis for either of these acts, and one really can’t blame Christianity for what “Christians” do unless it taught them to do so in the first place. These are obvious exceptions to how Christians are expected to act. In all honesty - if you were to come upon a gang of people in a dark alley late one night while walking home all alone, would you be more or less fearful if you discovered that they were coming from a Bible study?

Conclusion

I have not even begun to list all the good religion has done for the world, but consider how it would be different without religion. Christian idealism is responsible for the rise of natural science, world hospitals, and relief efforts and charities everywhere . . . how can non-Christian actions (done in the name of Christianity of course) negate all this? How many other evils have been held in check by the positive beliefs of others? Blaming religion for the “most violence in the world” is patently ignorant, and rather blatantly overlooks the tremendous good that it has done for the world, and the potential violence it has stopped.

If I hear one more person whine about someone being “judgmental” and then quote Matthew 7:1 I might go insane. This is one of the most common misinterpretations I hear regarding Christ’s words in the whole of the gospels and it’s a mistake being made by believers and unbelievers alike. Please pay attention - this is important. When someone accuses someone of “judging” they are, in fact, judging that it is wrong to judge. Read that again if you missed it! Yes, it’s self defeating. If we are not to make judgments then how could we ever discover that someone was doing it? You see, when we proclaim something to be true or false or right or wrong, we are judging that thing. The issue is not whether or not we are to judge (for to even say it is wrong to judge is itself a judgment), the issue is how we are to judge.If we judge others self righteously then we are guilty of sinful “judgment” - this is confirmed by the very next verse (i.e. Mt. 7:2 plus Rom. 2:1; ch. 14; James 4:11-12). Only only God is truly “Self Righteous” and therefore in a position to judge according to His own thoughts.

But stating facts is not this type of judgment. For example, if I state that homosexual behavior is sinful I am stating a fact (for God has stated that this is the case). If I say that a homosexual is going to hell I am judging wrongly - because I just don’t know. With only that information I cannot make an accurate judgment. If I am told that a homosexual has received Christ but continues to live in sin I can only state that he is living in sin - I STILL don’t know if he is really saved or not. But if that homosexual comes to me and says, “I have rejected God and do not believe in Christ,” then I can make this accurate statement: “If what you have said is true, you will go to hell if you die right now.” I am not “making the call” here - this is simply what is true based on what Scripture records.

Further, we cannot avoid judging even in a “good” sense. When we say that a thing is “good” that is in itself a judgment! We can judge things to be good as well as bad, but no one ever complains when we say something is good. But in order to know that something is good we need to know that it is not not-good (i.e. bad). So once again we are judging between good and bad. There is simply no way to avoid this (in fact, to even think that we should avoid making judgments would require a judgment!).

If the philosophical problems with this erroneous view are not enough then let’s look at Scripture. We are actually commanded to judge in many places. Jn. 7:24 says to judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Wisdom is judging situations (Prov. 1:2), “testing the spirits” is judging messages (1 John 4:1), confronting sinning believers is judging actions (Mt. 18:15; 1 Cor. 5:3-13, 6:2-4, ), “correcting those in opposition” is judging doctrine (2 Tim. 2:25), etc. Anytime we differentiate between one thing or another we have judged. How could we even tell the difference between right and wrong without judging? (see Lk. 7:43, 12:57; Jn. 7:51; Acts 4:19, 16:15).

So the next time someone accuses you of being judgmental do this: Ask yourself if the statement you made was a statement of fact or just your own ideas. If it is just your opinion, apologize and restate what you said. If not, simply ask them, “Is it your judgment that I am wrong for judging?”

This isn’t being clever, it’s being consistent.

It seems to me that the only qualifications for a Christian to be “spiritual” these days is the ability to quote a few Bible verses (no points for appropriateness) and get real excited when someone mentions Jesus. (If the first criterion is too much - after all, we wouldn’t want to get legalistic about Bible memorization - then any number of “Christian” slogans will do just fine as substitutes). When discussing issues today we begin with, “I feel that . . .” Rarely, if ever, does one hear, “I think that . . .” Now this is cultural, not just Christian of course but when Christian testimonies are filled with “I felt God say . . .” or “I sensed His leading . . . ” I think we have a problem.

Mormons, too, have a strong “testimony” that always includes a feeling of God speaking or confirming something to them. All religions, in fact, have experiences of one kind or another attached to them. The problem with all of this subjectivism is that when we are dealing with issues of truth we are often left with only our own feelings on the matter. And these really add nothing to the discussion.Our walk with God will certainly include elements of experience - the question is, is the object of those feelings true or false? When we evaluate the truthfulness of a teaching by how it makes us feel we are only saying something about the SUBJECT (i.e. - ourselves) not the OBJECT (that which causes the experience). That is what “subjective” and “objective” mean . . . the former tells us about the one having the experience, the latter tells us something about the cause of the experience. For example, if I say that chocolate ice cream tastes good am I really saying anything about the ice cream? No. I’m sharing about how ice cream makes me feel - how it affects my taste buds. We can’t really argue about it, because it is a SUBJECTive truth - only true with regard to the subject making the statement. It cannot be OBJECTively verified. (This does not make truth subjective by the way, it makes certain statements subjective - their truth is always objective.) The problem is that there is no such thing as a “false” experience. An experience is simply something that occurs in reality that we are involved in. Howwe feel about the experience does not tell us much about it - only about ourselves, our reaction to it. What follows from this is that subjective experiences, no matter how intense, cannot be used to verify the truth value of its object.Many times when I deal with followers of false teachers the responses I get indicate that the feelings this teacher produces in the person are seen as verification of the message’s truth. Take the Word Faith movement . . . read their statements on the nature of God and they are laughable. Listen to their presentation of those statements, however, and a whole new picture emerges. They are dynamic, charismatic, dramatic . . . it becomes a very “powerful” message. But it’s still false. So when you are communicating truth, evaluating a teaching, or judging an action - don’t discuss how you “feel” about it unless you just want to tell someone about yourself. Remember that emotions have both mental and physical counterparts . . . and each can be manipulated. The object must be studied to discover its truth value - not how it makes you feel.

I think I figured something out the other day at Bible Study. I think that in many churches no matter how long you’ve been there you’re only allowed to learn three, maybe four things. Let me explain.

I was sitting in on a local church’s adult Bible study a few Sunday mornings ago and they were going through the Gospel of John (my favorite). They were on chapter 2 looking at the wedding at Cana (vss. 1-10). The teacher structured the class around the characters in the story and what we thought they were thinking. So for 40 minutes we went around the room discussing questions like “What do you think Mary was thinking when she said this?” or “What would you have thought if Jesus asked you to do this?” and so forth.The grand finale was when the lesson concluded with: “If we do what Jesus tells us to do, we will get a blessing.” Everyone smiled and nodded and off we went to church. I am pleased to announce that my tongue was not injured after 40 minutes of biting. Following this logic I wanted to ask, Are we to obey Mary too? Why not make this a story about how we need to listen to Mary so that when Jesus acts we receive a blessing?

We might have looked at the odd time phrase at the beginning of the chapter: “And the third day . . . ” Look at verses 1:29, 35, and 43. According to these verses it seems like it should have been the fourth day. But John wants us to know that it was the third day following these events - it was the sixth. Why, do you suppose, after listing all the other days one after another that he would point this out? Well, it may be that after presenting Jesus as God and pointing to the fact of creation (1:3) that this is a creation analogy. What happened on the 6th day of creation? A WEDDING! How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things. Or why, do you suppose Jesus answered Mary by saying, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” We know Jesus was not being rude, this is a Hebrew idiom more like “ma’am.” Nor, does it seem, was He not willing to do something about the wine since He immediately did it. But He let the WOMAN know that He would do nothing before its time. What else happened in creation history like this? “The WOMAN who You gave me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.” (Gen. 3:12). So the LAST ADAM did not heed the WOMAN.How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things.

What about the water being turned into wine? Was this just a handy parlor trick? Obviously Jesus did not need water to turn it into wine - He could have just created wine ex nihilo in the jars. But Jesus never did parlor tricks - He always had a larger reason. Note that John points out that these jars were used for Jewish cleansing ceremonies. It may be the case that the water they put in them was indeed the very water used to clean all the wedding guests - yuck! But more important, I think, is this - Jesus took a symbol of the Old Testament cleansing ceremony and turned it into the symbol of the New Covenant cleansing - wine! Not only that, but God made the water and the fruit on the third day (see above)! Not only that, but this is reminiscent of God turning the water to blood to set Israel free from Egypt! How cool! But . . . that’s not one of the four things.

There is so much here to ponder, and to reduce this amazing story down to a child’s Sunday School lesson (for adults) is to rob the church of the depths of God’s word. Yes, “Jesus cares about the little things,” and, “If we do what Jesus tells us to do, we will get a blessing [someday - and not necessarily in this life].” But don’t we know those things from passages specifically written to teach us those things? Are we to suppose that God set this whole wedding and miracle up, and that John recorded it in the way that he did, just to tell us that obedience brings blessings? (It often does not, by the way, at least not in this life).

The problem, I think, is that of Hebrews 5:12 - the church today lives on milk when it should have moved on to meat. It’s as if the church thinks that God needed a thousand pages to get a handful of messages across and anything beyond the “4 Spiritual Laws” is just too much information. So we boil every passage, no matter how rich, down to Sunday School platitiudes like “Jesus loves you,” “Be good,” “Share the Gospel,” etc., and in the process miss the treasures buried in the very words of God.

It is true the the main things are the plain things, but like the earth itself, God did not leave every gem on the surface. The world and the Bible would be a lot less interesting if He had. And it is those rare jewels, the ones we have to struggle to find, that we treasure all the more.

Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” You are most likely to hear this verse quoted in connection with marriage counseling, viz. “If you and your spouse are fighting, make sure to settle it before you go to bed.” That’s great advice, but I think that this is not the meaning of this verse. In this case the misunderstanding is not necessarily going to lead us astray (it is certainly a good idea to make up before you go to bed), but in missing the true point we could be missing out on an amazing idea . . .First we need to recognize that this verse cannot be regarding sinful anger because it is a positive command! If the marriage counseling version is correct Paul would be commanding people to “be angry with your spouse - but get over it before bedtime.” This is clearly absurd. Whatever this anger is it must be something good or else the command would be to sin.Second, although some translations render the phrase something like “If you are angry, do not sin” this is unlikely (the NET Bible states that the Greek term for anger used here is used almost exclusively referring to the source of anger rather than the results - to an external cause or provocation rather than an internal reaction).

The question is, what is the cause of this anger that we are to have?

In context we see that verse 26 comes right after Paul’s discussion of the difference between the saved and the unsaved (i.e. “Gentiles”). Look at v.17-19: “So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” The issue with these pagans seems to be that due to their attitude they engage in sin. What are believers to do about this? Verses 22-24 tell us: “lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires . . . be renewed in the spirit of your mind . . . righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.” Then we are to speak the truth and be angry . . . the only thing I can see in this passage to be angry about is sin itself (or the lies that might make us think sin is OK).

Further, the first part of verse 26 is a quotation from Ps 4:4 which says, “Tremble with fear and do not sin!” The psalmist is warning that men need to tremble with fear before God and turn from their sinful ways. The next verse of the couplet adds some interesting context: “Meditate as you lie in bed, and repent of your ways!” The verb “repent” could mean “wail, lament in sorrow.” So we see again that this is a command to do something good. Its parallel in Ephesians, then, should have the same function. In other words - this being angry seems to have something to do with repentance over sin, or over one’s callous thoughts about sin.

Therefore I think that the verse is actually commanding us to be angry - to have a righteous anger concerning sin. Unlike the pagans who are hard hearted and callous when it comes to evil, we need to be angry. It is not enough to simply wish to be good, or shake our heads sadly at evil. To have God’s mind we must be wrathful . . . furious at sin.

And we must not let the sun go down on that anger.

I thought I’d start this month off right with some deep inner searching
. . . a quest, if you will, for the true Doug. Naturally, I began with internet quizzes. I took several from QuizFarm.com just to be safe . . .

Fortunately, I found that I was, indeed, a Christian! (Although not 100% apparently.)

And it seems that I am more Atheist than Arminian! (I think that the creator of this quiz just might have some issues with Calvinism though . . .)

Theologically I am Anselm. Barth was a close second though. What could that possibly mean???

Philosophically I am . . . now just a dang minute . . . Neitzsche??? Are you kidding? (And how can there only be a 10 point spread between Neitzsche and Aquinas???)

Or maybe not Neitzsche. Something just ain’t right at the Quiz Farm.

Ah, this is more like it!

As you can see, these quizzes turned out to be less than reliable. Well, so much for inner reflection based on online Q&A. It seems I must look elsewhere to find myself.