Nonesense and Faith

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” --Brennan Manning

I was around twelve or thirteen years old when I first heard this quote on the introduction to Dc Talk's song "What If I Stumble?". Manning's statement created a bit of a worldview shift for me; it was probably the first time that I began to truly see how detrimental Christians can be to their own faith.

It doesn't really make sense that a body of believers would sabotage the very thing that they claim to profess. Why would soldiers turn around in the midst of a battle and begin to kill their own comrade-in-arms while the opposing force watches with incredulity? The idea is ludicrous, and yet such actions are so common that many people don't even bat an eyelash when they encounter them in their daily lives.

In the U.S., the majority of my generation (20-30 somethings) has a post-modern worldview accompanied by a college education. I believe that post-modernism is doing the world a favor by expanding the melting pot of diversity in thought, race, and cultures. People are afraid of what they don't know, and post-modernism attempts to counteract unnecessary fear by promoting a respect for individuality. But here's the catch: While people with this worldview are remarkably open-minded, they are not very pro-active. Many of those in my generation (myself included) recognize and are upset by world injustices, but have not found a significant way to fight them. I have often pondered this strange phenomenon and wonder if the post-modernist idea that anything-goes-so-long-as-I-am-not-being-hurt has crippled the actions of a generation of great thinkers--thinkers who have recorded a lengthy list of observed injustices, but are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of that list that they choose to burrow under the bed-covers in the hopes of waking to a new world. I've witnessed such thought processes among many of my generation in regards to Christianity. The recognition of the sabotage of Christianity by Christians has made many young adults too ashamed to claim the title "Christian" because of all the negative baggage that is associated with the term. While their intentions might be noble, the reality is that disassociating oneself from a particular title hardly changes anything.

Isn't it a bit unsettling that many people think of Christians with a sense of disgust or indifference? Shouldn't Christianity at least inspire a sense of respectful awe? Instead, much of the world agrees with Mahatma Gandhi's statement: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Why has Christianity become so unlike the god it worships? Could it be that at its very core, Christianity has become faithless?

Modernity and education has done a lot to extinguish things like superstitions, old wives tales, and scientific misconceptions; on the other hand, it has also stifled the belief in the supernatural and promoted a largely skeptical worldview. Honestly, when in history has there been a time when the miraculous was as discredited as it is now? People no longer quake in the wake of signs and wonders. Could it be possible that this is one reason why it is no longer common for people to see God's presence in a pillar of fire or a flaming bush--because people wouldn't believe it even if they saw it?

This is the thing about faith: it doesn't make sense.

Pastor Calvin Roberson talks about this vital aspect of faith in a sermon he gave recently at the Restoration Praise Center. In his sermon, Roberson uses Hebrews 11:1 as his anchor verse: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (KJV). Roberson points out the fact that people rely heavily on their primary five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing. It is these five senses that people use to determine the reality of something. Let me try and explain. If you go to a buffet and you're very hungry, the first thing you'll do is look to see where the food is and most likely make a bee-line straight to it. But if you're blind, you will rely on your other senses to help you get to the food, find what you want, and make sure it's edible. Roberson uses the example of a chair. Most people don't think twice about sitting on a chair, mostly because they can see it, and if they can't see, then they can touch it, and if they can't do either of those things they can smell and taste it if necessary (mmmm...this chair is made of leather and wood. Yummy!). It doesn't take much for an individual to trust that the chair will hold them if they sit in it because they can use their senses to figure it out. Roberson sums this point up by saying:

"If faith perceives as real fact what is not revealed to the senses, as long as I can see it, touch it, feel it, then I'm not using faith...faith is not saying "only deal with what I can see". Faith is saying "remove everything that I can see, everything that I can hear, everything that I can perceive in my reality because as long as I have something to hold onto in my reality, I cannot trust God."...God says if you really want to have faith, get rid of everything that is real and then start to believe".

I suppose it all comes down to this. Faith is a spiritual, out-of-this-world act. It's not just acknowledging something like God's omnipotence, it's engaging with that omnipotence, without question, when all five of the primary senses are rendered useless. And in order to build that sort of trust, one must establish a personal, spiritual connection to God. By doing this, one will begin to live in a lifestyle of faith like Jesus did. When one uses the word "Christian" it should make people think of one who truly walks in Jesus' footsteps. Such a lifestyle of faith would be full of so much hope and love that it would bring people to their knees in awe.

The majority of the Christian church in America professes faith but does not walk in it (and I am certainly no exception). This is why Brennan Manning stated that Christians play such a large role in promoting Atheism. Who would give any credibility to "Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle"?

The thing that gets to me about this is that so many who profess to be Christian aren't even aware of how dead their faith is. Maybe this is partly due to the fact that modernism doesn't promote the miraculous or expect it to show up. How would people know they were missing out on something they've never been exposed to or taught?

Honestly, faith doesn't make sense...not in the way science or logic makes sense of things. How is there good common sense in using a staff to part a sea, shouting to bring the walls of a well fortified city down, using mud to bring sight to the blind, speaking in tongues, healing by the laying on of hands...

It's all nonsense...

Roberson says, "God has to get you in situations that don't make sense or else you will attribute it to coincidence or your own ingenuity".

To have the confident expectation of something miraculous requires one to throw out the five senses and trust against all odds. We are a race of people that is too grounded in the concrete--there are non-Christians all over the world that show the evidence of more faith than the majority of Christians in America, which, ironically is a country that God has blessed with prosperity. It doesn't make any sense that Christians who are so blessed by the hand of God could be so blind to it, defame His name so drastically, and turn seekers away because the Christian faith doesn't get past theory to a lifestyle.

Hebrews 11:6 says "It is impossible to please God without faith" (NLT). This makes sense because faith is the foundation a personal relationship with God. Such a relationship with God is evidenced in through the hope and pure love one offers to others. God's word declares that "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love" (1 Cor. 13:13 NLT).

It didn't really make sense to me before why Jesus would say that those who believe without seeing are blessed (John 20:29). Could it be that what He means is not so much that those with true faith will receive a future reward but that those who exercise faith will live a lifestyle that doesn't rely on the five senses, but instead exists in a state of the miraculous? Such an interaction with the spiritual realm of the miraculous will bless not only the participant but whomever comes into contact with that participant--Just like the blessings that God promised Abraham are accessible to us because of Abraham's faith and obedience.

The funny thing about Christianity is that even those outside of it know it doesn't make sense to claim a faith that throws out the five primary senses but then not live in that miraculous state of nonsense.