The Christian Philosophy of the Bible

"No religion of this world, no ethics, culture or law can improve the fallen human spirit. Nothing from a man can return him to a spiritual state".                                                                                                                                   Watchman Nee, Chinese evangelist 

Humanity has made great strides forward in many areas of life but rarely, if ever, has it left the ground. It does not want to. Endlessly self-interested, the gifted minds throughout history have relied on their own ingenuity to resolve conflicts, cure diseases, make new technological and scientific advances and scale the numerous heights of philosophical branches. 

Philosophy, from the Greek 'philosophia' or 'love of wisdom', is central to the Bible but biblical philosophy is unloved by most people. It is wisdom from above. The Bible teaches that God created the universe - all that is and all that exists, visible and invisible - with wisdom. This wisdom is personified in the Book of Proverbs chapter 8 and is described as eternal. We are invited to live our lives in this wisdom with wisdom herself 'calling out' to us but her calls mostly go unheeded. She remains largely unloved.

Man's problem is sin and sin, as defined by Nee, is mankind deciding "what is good, wise and intellectual according to his own idea." On the other hand, biblical wisdom says this, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6). The genius of Jesus is that He did precisely this: He trusted in the Lord with all His heart and did not rely on His own insight. He acknowledged God in all His ways and let God direct His steps. 

People are shocked by the notion that God has any claim whatsoever on their lives even though we were created by Him. He gave us our lives to spend but we are responsible for how we spend them. We can squander our lives, invest them in temporary things and fleeting interests or we can invest them in God. One way or another, our lives will be spent and we would be wise to spend them on His terms. The great Scottish preacher of the 19th century, George MacDonald, articulated the Christian ethos perfectly by saying, "The one principle of hell is 'I am my own'". To be "not our own" and to be for God's glory is to truly live. Things go wrong when we live only for ourselves. 

So what is wrong with our world? G.K. Chesterton once answered that question by saying, "What's wrong with the world? I am".  After World War II, U.S. Army General Omar Bradley said, "We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom but have rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

As in Bradley's day, our politics are lowbrow. Our desires are self-serving. Our ethics are situational and often void of personal responsibility. We justify greed and envy by disguising our wants as entitlements. What passes for wisdom is often just indulgence. Despite all of man's efforts of good progress, there are still and always have been wars going on somewhere and people still die of sickness every day. Speculation aside, scientific knowledge is mostly confined to our planet. When our rockets blast off into outer space, who can even say what "up" is beyond Earth's gravitational pull? And who has ever really proven Plato's "forms" or Aristotle's "accidents"?

We need to get back to the Nazarene peasant who personified the wisdom from above, bringing it down to us. Wisdom is accepting Him and acknowledging that we cannot help ourselves by ourselves. The reverence of the Lord is the beginning of all true wisdom and it's a fact that while there are many counterfeits, there are no legitimate alternatives. 

Whose We Are

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is."                                                                                                                                                       1 John 3:2

In the mid 1940s following the Second World War and the horrors that came out it, in particular the Holocaust, the world was in a state of moral shock. In fact, it still is to some degree. Millions were killed in combat or were systematically murdered on such a grand scale that the world is still reeling from it today. In 1947, the United Nations was created to try and maintain world peace and for a season, large scale ethnic conflict has been suppressed.  

Also in 1947 the Cold War began between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It was so called because of the frigid relations between the superpowers which included the nuclear arms race, espionage and intense psychological warfare. This ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and very soon after, a bunch of new countries suddenly appeared on the map. Nations that were under Russian control suddenly weren't as eastern world communism disintegrated. This new found freedom brought back to life ethnic identities and, sadly, old ethnic rivalries. During the 1990s, the term "ethnic cleansing" was introduced. There was the conflict in Bosnia and Rwanda where certain ethnic groups sought to exterminate other ethnic groups.

The dysfunction between the world's people groups exists on many different levels and today the term "identity politics" is very common. Identity is hugely important to us as human beings. In his 1994 book Blood and Belonging, former Liberal Party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff wrote, "To belong is to understand the tacit codes of the people you live with; it is to know that you will be understood without having to explain yourself."

In recent years, the search for identity and meaning has gone off in many different and wild directions...and it's become intensely personal. Since social media has taken over the world these last 20 years, we've entered the age of the avatar. By definition, an avatar is "a graphical or electronic representation of a person on social media". The social media that is available today gives you the opportunity to show the world what you want to be, not necessarily who you actually are. It's a very narcissistic, or self-loving, age. It's nothing new, really. People have been inventing and inflating their identities for generations.

Some of you know the story of the 1960s Canadian folk singer Buffy Ste. Marie.

Buffy was born on the Piapot Cree Nation reserve in Saskatchewan and was taken from her family at the age of two or three under a Canadian government program known as "The Sixties Scoop" and given to a non-indigenous family in Massachusetts where she was raised. She was a very talented singer and it wasn't long before she began to make a name for herself on the music scene. She never forgot her roots, though. The more famous she got, the more she included her Canadian indigenous identity in her performances and music marketing, unashamed to wear Cree Nation clothing everywhere. This was her identity and it served her well.

During her career, she received many musical accolades including an Academy Award for co-writing the song "Up Where We Belong" (she's a gifted songwriter). In 1995, she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In 2008, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. She was given the Governor General's Award for Performing Arts in 2010. In 2018, she won a Juno Award for Indigenous Album of the Year. In addition to all that, she was awarded 15 honorary doctorates from Canadian universities, was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and later the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and she was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the most prestigious level of that Order. She was even on a Canadian postage stamp.

And then it all came undone. In 2023, the CBC investigative show The Fifth Estate exposed her as a fraud. She was a great singer, to be sure. However, she wasn't taken from her Saskatchewan family as a toddler and raised by an American family. She wasn't born in Canada at all. She was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts in 1941 and was raised by her natural biological family in Wakefield, Mass. So...she wasn't Canadian and nor was she Indigenous. She is Italian. She lied about it all. All the Canadian awards and medals she was given over the years were revoked just this year.   

When she was confronted with the truth, here is how she defended herself. She said, "Discrepancies are something that I've lived with since I was very little. I learned early on that what was 'absolutely true' was not necessarily true for me. Think of the creative process of songwriting. On Tuesday, the song doesn't exist. You cannot prove that it exists. But on Wednesday, all of a sudden, something exists that didn't exist yesterday. A lot of things that have happened to me are not true on Tuesday, but by Wednesday, the world is different." 

What is truth? That is what Pontius Pilate asked Jesus. What is truth? Is truth what you and I say it is? Is truth what the government says it is? Is it cultural construct? Does truth even matter?

Ask yourself, "Who am I?" What is your true identity? Do we create our own truth about life - how things are and who we are? Are you your own invention or were you created by another? Do we manufacture ourselves or do we discover ourselves? Sure, part of who we are has to do with our environment, our upbringing and our choices in life, but they aren't the only things that define us.

When I was a kid I had the same teacher for both grades four and five. For two school years I had the same teacher in the same classroom and maybe I even sat in the same desk. For grades four and five, I saw this inscription above the blackboard, "I am a person of worth created in the image of God to relate and to live." And I would add to that quote, "To reflect His glory." I never forgot that and I internalized it. It was not always top of mind through my years of growing up but still, I never forgot it. A couple of years ago I wondered if my teacher was quoting someone or if it was an original from her. So I googled it and found out that it came from a book called Being Me by Grady Nutt, a Baptist minister who sometimes starred on the 1970s-80s TV show called Hee-Haw. The whole book Being Me is an explanation of that quote. It is loaded with anecdotes about life with references to famous people and Bible stories but above all, it's about who we are in God, in Christ.

While I believe that identity is hugely important, the question of "Who am I?" is not as important as "Whose am I?" As human beings we have volition, intuition, reason and a conscience. We live by choice, not by instinct like all the other animals. This is because that is what God is like and we are like Him, made in His image. I believe that if we can settle the question of our identity on the fact that we are God's children, first and foremost, the recognition of who we are will come to us in due course. But the best we will get in this life is just a glimpse of what's in store for us in Heaven.

There's a great passage in Revelation chapter 2 where Jesus is describing the church in the city of Pergamum. He referred to Pergamum as the place "where Satan's throne is". He applauded the faithful in Pergamum for holding fast to the faith but He also mentioned some of the sins they were tolerating and called on them to repent. And then Jesus said something interesting: Revelation 2:17, "To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."

Further study on these verses tells me that the white stone can signify a lot of things. It means acquittal, i.e. legally not guilty of sin and thus free from the power and very presence of sin. It means purity, victory and acceptance by the very God of the universe. Your new name will define perfectly and completely who you truly are in Christ. Right now your life is hidden with Christ in God but later it will be revealed to you. You will know yourself as God knows you and meant you to be.

There will be no more lies or avatars about who we are, no more doubts, no false negative or grandiose self images, no nagging insecurities or besetting fears. No sickness - physical or otherwise - only perfection, only completeness in all ways in Christ. And we will know our true purpose and our proper place in God's kingdom and we will know exactly why we were created, which is to reflect His glory.

That is our inheritance...and it all starts now with trusting Jesus alone for our salvation as our Lord and Savior. And what have we done by trusting Jesus? According the classic book by Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, "A person exchanges the fickle fortunes of living life by sheer whimsy for the more productive and satisfying adventure of being guided by God."

1 Peter 1:18-19 says we were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ. As sinners, we are unworthy of salvation but 'unworthy' doesn't mean 'worthless'. God places great worth on us or He wouldn't have willed that His only begotten Son should die for us. When we understand that God values us more than we know, we can truly know that we are people of worth.                                                        

Canada Then and Now

                     "The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past"

                                                 Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, journalist and playwright, native son of Thamesville, Ontario

Given the events of the past six months, namely the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the phoenix-like resurgence of the Liberal Party of Canada, this particular Canada Day is a unique one. This year our flag-waving will be a little more impassioned because of the looming socio-economic threat we as Canadians are facing vis-a-vis the Trump Administration. 

On January 7, during the apparent winter of his discontent with northern geopolitics, Trump said he wanted to annex Canada through economic force and do the same with Greenland for military security. Since then Canada has new leadership with Mark Carney as Prime Minister and a governing Liberal Party that does not at all resemble what it was a mere six months ago. Here is what I mean. The government just passed Bill C-5. Most Canadians barely noticed because their government is still in honeymoon mode but the Indigenous peoples noticed as did the environmentalists and some others. Bill C-5, now the law of the land, empowers the government to leap over any existing law standing in the way of a project it wants done. For instance, if environmental and Indigenous laws are in the way of building a pipeline, too bad. These laws, many of them created by the last batch of Liberals, will be trumped by Bill C-5, created by this new batch of Liberals. Regardless of the opposition parties' views on this, most revealing was what Toronto Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith recently said of his own government's policy, "This bill would make even [Stephen] Harper blush. Liberals would rightly scream...if a federal Conservative government attempted the same." Serious Liberal voters must be aghast. For the record, the federal Conservatives supported the government in passing this legislation. This law is a federal version of the Ontario PC government's Bill 5 which also recently became law.

We can shake our heads at this and curse our politicians for their perceived heartlessness but the reality is, they don't have much of a choice. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has to deal with the Great Lakes states. Mark Carney has to deal with Donald Trump and his penchant for slapping tariffs on everything. Just last Friday, Canada said it would impose a retroactive digital services tax on American high tech firms. Trump was furious and the Americans walked away from trade negotiations. By this past Sunday, Carney rescinded this tax and everyone is back at the negotiating table. Trump's comments on this? "We hold all the cards." With utter glee, White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced to reporters that, "Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America!" Carney wants a trade deal with the U.S. in place by July 21, just three weeks from now. There is no telling what else we'll have to "cave" on to achieve that goal. 

It's not all bad news, though. Not by a long shot. Geography has conjoined Canada with the United States and we could have had far worse neighbours. The Ukrainians got Russia. Taiwan is constantly under threat from China. Israel is surrounded by countries that want to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth. Canada and the U.S. are more than just neighbours. We share a common language and a similar culture and, for the most part, our citizenries like each other. Our friends and relatives often straddle the border. There are Canadians in American government positions and vice-versa. I could go on but all that to say we share more than just a land mass. And Canada needs the U.S. We need their protection militarily from some covetous nations and we need their business to make our economy vibrant. Justin Trudeau admitted as much to Donald Trump in the waning days of his leadership. Canada has a Catch-22 existence. We feel threatened by the American vortex but without it, there is no Canada. The one-time leader of the federal Social Credit Party, Robert Thompson, once joked, "The Americans are our best friends whether we like it or not". The challenge for the Carney government is to negotiate a new relationship with our best friends while feeling the strain of being their best friends. 

Just Plain Jimmy

                   "And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start to mold a new reality closer to the heart"                                                                                                                                        Rush, Closer to the Heart, from A Farewell to Kings, 1977

The 39th U.S. president, James Earl Carter Jr., known the world over as "Jimmy", left this world on December 29. His century-long life was nothing short of extraordinary. From peanut farmer to naval officer to state politician to the Oval Office, Jimmy did it all. In fact, when he got voted out of the White House in 1980, he was a relatively young man at just 56 years old. With retirement age still a few years away, one can be forgiven for wondering what to do next. After occupying the world's most powerful office, how do you go up from there? I guess it all depends on how you define "up". Jimmy was about to experience God's meaning of "up" and as a life-long Christian who taught Sunday School at his church in Plains, Georgia (and in D.C.), he would've understood that in principle. Actually living it, though, is another story and this is where his extraordinary life's work went upwards.

I believe that God isn't all that impressed by our lofty positions, pomp or pageantry. Being King of the universe, the Creator of all things seen and unseen, why would He be awestruck by all the fuss we make over ourselves? While human institutions are important, powerful and much needed for maintaining peace, justice and good order, God has no problem in using them as mere stepping stones for His purposes in the world. Such was the presidency for Jimmy Carter. It was merely a spring board for something far greater in the eyes of God - peacemaking. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" and by answering the call, Jimmy showed the world just what noble and great things God can accomplish through those who say yes to Him. 

I learned just this week that in the 1980s, God began to use Jimmy's presidential fame to help eradicate the Guinea worm disease that was plaguing millions in over 20 African and Asian countries. There were only 14 known cases of this disease by 2023. Had Carter never been president, he likely wouldn't have been able to rally the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and other multinational agencies to get this done. With Rosalynn at his side, he swung a hammer to help Habitat for Humanity build homes for the needy, reminding everyone of our responsibility to the poor. He was used by his own country and others to bring order and harmony to many of the world's trouble spots and he drew attention to human suffering that the wealthier nations often just ignore. Between now and his funeral on January 9, we will hear many more reports of the good deeds he did to better mankind after his brief stint in the White House.

In three weeks, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president for the second time. I was pleasantly surprised to read the tribute he gave Carter and the comforting words he extended to the Carter family.  It is my hope that Trump will recognize and embrace the source of Carter's greatness instead of focusing on the political revenge that is quickly becoming the hallmark of his boomerang presidency. We'll see his choice soon enough. U.S. flags on federal buildings will still be at half-mast on Trump's Inauguration Day because of the 30-day mourning period for Carter. How Donald Trump deals with that will give us a pretty good indication of what we can expect over the next four years.

What Brian Mulroney Left Us

It was February 29, 1984 when then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced his pending resignation before the next federal election, a day after his much-vaunted "walk in the snow". The writing was on the wall for the Liberal government of the day and popularity for the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney was very high. Forty years to the day later, Mulroney passed away leaving a Canada that is much different today than it was before he became its leader. We are used to Canada as it is now - a generation has passed since Mulroney left office - but watching his visitation and funeral these past few days got me thinking about how much this country has changed from when I was a kid. 

Today's pundits have listed exhaustively the policies and accomplishments of Canada's last PC government from Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and the shift to more private enterprise to Free Trade to Meech Lake to opposing South African apartheid to the Charlottetown Accord and so on. But generally speaking, what Brian Mulroney and his government accomplished most was lifting Canada out of its timid insularity. He was neither timid nor insular and because of that he, perhaps unwittingly, declared war on Canada's prevalent, and oddly cherished, National Inferiority Complex. 

One of the first things he did after being elected Prime Minister was to go to New York City to announce that "Canada is open for business". It wasn't long before he scrapped both the highly nationalistic Foreign Investment Review Agency and the National Energy Policy. Over time, the economy under the Mulroney government became more north-south than east-west. Relations with the Reagan and Bush administrations were great, far beyond just cordial - and this made many Canadians uncomfortable, especially those in Canada's media establishment. The vitriol the media laid on him, his government and even his family was constant, unprecedented and often uncalled for. That's what a leader gets for taking the unwilling into new and unfamiliar territory. But that is the job of a leader.

Mulroney not only drastically altered the economy but he forced us to change how we view ourselves, a thankless and difficult task. While his policy changes have, by and large, remained with us long after he left office, he also set us on a path to maturity and in the long run, we are all the better for it. For example, prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada was the only country in the world to have not won a single gold medal at the Olympic Games as a host nation (Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988). But we were a different people by Vancouver 2010 and thanks to the momentum generated by the Canadian Olympic Committee's Own the Podium initiative, Canada broke the record for winning the most gold medals at any Olympic Winter Games. I believe this wouldn't have happened if we were still locked in our National Inferiority Complex.

Under Brian Mulroney, we shed our identity as a nation of solitudes. His became the natural governing party with a patchwork of Western, Central, Quebecois and Maritime representation. Despite all the scorn heaped on him during his years in power, Mulroney believed that history would judge him kindly and I think he was right. He tried to look past the negative criticism of those heady days (some of it deserved) to his ultimate place in the country's history and before his passing, I believe he was, for the most part, content. He lived long enough to enjoy the status of a respected elder statesman and to reflect wistfully on where he had failed as such. As in any career, there were things to be proud of and things to regret but whether people like him or not, we still have much to thank him for.

Anti-Semitism: The World's Shame

                                                       "The past is never dead. It is not even past."  - William Faulkner

On Friday, September 22, Canada's parliament had as an honored guest Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. Canada has been an unwavering supporter of Ukraine since that country was invaded by neighboring Russia in February 2022. Zelenskyy's address to the House of Commons was a perfectly choreographed event until Anthony Rota, Speaker of the House, went off-script. Unbeknownst to the prime minister and everyone else, Rota invited an elderly Ukrainian man from his constituency to sit in the gallery for the speech. Rota introduced Yaroslav Hunka as a World War II veteran who had fought the Russians thinking this would be a nice surprise addition to the event. Everyone applauded and even gave Hunka a standing ovation. Then later, it all blew up. It hadn't occurred to Rota or his staff, apparently, that fighting the Russians in Ukraine during the Second World War meant you were in Hitler's army. As it turns out, the unit Hunka was with was an indigenous SS unit that was responsible for the persecution and death of Jews.

The optics were horrible from a number of angles. First, Canadian lawmakers and President Zelenskyy and his delegation applauded an ex-Nazi. Second, Zelenskyy himself is Jewish. Third, the issue bubbled over the weekend and erupted globally the following Monday which just happened to be Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, the most solemn day in the Judaist calendar. Fourth, the Russians pounced on the incident as a propaganda tool to justify its invasion of Ukraine, a country Russia said at the beginning was a country of neo-Nazis. Fifth, this public relations disaster sullied the career of an otherwise stalwart (so we've been told) Canadian public servant, embarrassed Canadians and made Canada's elected leaders look like egregious fools. Rota resigned as Speaker the next day at the urging of his fellow parliamentarians.

Canada is home to more Ukrainians than any other country except Ukraine itself and Russia and this event has brought some unflattering attention to Ukraine's war time exploits. There are monuments in Canada commemorating Ukraine's military battles with the Russians who badly mistreated them before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 (Ukraine was part of Russia at the time). All these years later nobody, except Canadian Jewish groups, seems to care that these Ukrainian "freedom fighters" were homegrown Waffen-SS volunteers who committed many atrocities. Hunka himself didn't seem the least bit bothered by the accolades he received. In fact, he reveled in the adulation and considers himself a hero. The sad part is, Hunka is far from being alone in this delusion. Many former Nazis just moved on with their lives after the war as if nothing happened and rose to various levels of respectability. Here are some examples: 

The most infamous case (in my view) was that of Kurt Waldheim. Waldheim served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1972-1981. After that he was elected president of his native Austria in 1986 and remained in office until 1992. Throughout his diplomatic and political career there had been allegations about his war time activities in Greece and the former Yugoslavia. By 1987, the U.S. had enough hard evidence that showed Waldheim was a war criminal. The Office of Special Investigations proved that Waldheim had participated in condemning innocent civilians to slave labor and in deporting Jews to extermination camps. Thus Waldheim was deemed persona non grata by all nations, except Arab countries, during his presidency. 

There was also the story of Valerian (aka Viorel) Trifa, a Romanian Orthodox bishop in the United States who became a naturalized American citizen in 1951. During the war, however, Trifa was responsible for the murder of hundreds of Jews as a member of Romania's Iron Guard, a pro-Nazi group, from 1936-1942. In 1955 this man of the cloth was invited by then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon to recite the prayer at the opening of the United States Senate. Allegations of Trifa's war crimes fell on deaf ears for about 20 years before finally being addressed in 1975. In 1983, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and later moved to Portugal where he died of natural causes in 1987. He was later buried in Grass Lake, Michigan.

Scores of Nazis escaped justice by getting in touch with so-called "ratlines", escape routes that helped them reach various countries in North, Central and South America where they were welcomed by governments and began new lives. These ratlines were supported by Germany, Spain, the International Committee of the Red Cross, prominent clergymen in the Vatican and even by members of British and American intelligence services. Why? Mainly because the post-war enemy was communism and Nazis were anti-communist, therefore worthy of help regardless of what they had done. The U.S. in particular used ratlines to obtain the services of Nazi scientists and engineers some of whom ended up working at NASA. Google search "Operation Paperclip".

On September 25, Poland's ambassador to Canada, Witold Dzielski tweeted on X, "Poland is the best ally Ukraine has. We will never allow a situation in which such villains are being whitewashed." And yet, Poland itself is guilty of whitewashing. In 2018, the Polish government passed the Holocaust Law making it a crime to publicize information about Polish responsibility in persecuting Jews during the war as well as in the pre- and post-war years. Several Polish anti-Semitic groups carried out pogroms against Jews in the mid 1930s, groups like ONR-Falanga and The Camp of Great Poland. There was the massacre of Jews in the city of Kielce in 1946, the result of people panicking over conspiracy theories when Jews returned home after being liberated from the camps. This Holocaust Law is nothing but a gag order and is historical revisionism at its worst.

And so the nations of the world are disgusted with Canada. Shameful Canada. But hypocrisy runs deep and undetected. What Canada did unwittingly last week many nations and institutions have already done discreetly, clandestinely and on purpose time and time again. Perhaps before lashing out they should think about the famous Jew of antiquity who said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

The Myth of the Post-Christian World

On my Christmas list this year was the book Dominion by Tom Holland. It is subtitled, How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. When I first came across it online the title intrigued me as did the reviews, having received critical acclaim in both Christian and non-Christian circles. The prominent Christian author and pastor, Tim Keller, wrote, "It is hard to overstate the importance of Holland's book...". Ross Douthat of the New York Times called it "a galloping tour of Christianity's influence across the last 2,000 years" and captured the overall argument of the book by quoting from its pages calling the Christian faith, "the most influential framework for making sense of human existence that has ever existed."

Christianity's influence on the world is wide and deep. The other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, have their own calendar years (5783 for the Jews, 1444-1445 for the Muslims) but both would defer to AD (Anno Domini - the year of our Lord) 2023 very shortly. There are countless other examples in Holland's book. 

From my own experience, just last week my church pastor recalled his years of ministry in Muslim Kuwait. Christianity is legal there but proselytism isn't - and yet every Christmas season the malls put up big Christmas trees and Christian Christmas carols are played throughout the concourses. You can be arrested for giving someone a Christian Bible in Muslim Kuwait but no one seems bothered by "Joy to the World" or "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!" with their Christ-centered worship messages blaring from the speakers.

Moses led thousands of his enslaved countrymen out of Egypt to the edge of the Promised Land. King David slew his tens of thousands and Muhammad introduced Islam to the Arab world with the Qur'an and the sword. By contrast, Jesus shared His gospel with 12 apostles of low means with most of them deserting Him when He died a criminal's death on a Roman cross. Not the kind of script normally written for powerful revolutionaries. And yet, the Western world at least, instinctively patterns itself on His teachings and legacy. The thinking person must wonder why this is.

Holland cites many examples throughout history of people groups acting "Christianly" to advance their causes - in his words, "From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo". Many have employed the Christian ethos - some legitimately, others hypocritically - to achieve their ends and there are no signs of this stopping anytime soon. Many are the special interests that seek gain on the motifs of oppression and martyrdom and many are the counterfeits. Whatever the motivations, twisted though they may be, all pay homage to Jesus Christ through imitation, however subtle the approach. Hypocrisy is the compliment that vice pays to virtue, as they say.

It is assumed everywhere that we live in a post-Christian world, and Christians, fretting over depleted church memberships, tend to agree. According to a pre-Covid survey by Faith Communities Today (FACT) in the U.S., the median number of attendees of evangelical congregations has dropped to 65 from 137 in the year 2000. Interestingly, the culture is not entirely to blame; the Church herself is also at fault. A similar survey conducted in Canada found that 65% of Evangelical leaders don't make evangelism a priority. In fact, only 9% considered evangelism a high priority. 

Personal faith in Christ may not be in vogue these days (even in the Church) but the Western world isn't quite ready to quit Christendom (read: the Judeo-Christian ethic) in its many forms, according to Holland. The culture was formed over centuries and it won't be changed in a generation because of the rise of self-seeking special interest groups or "the Nones", meaning those who subscribe to no religious beliefs whatsoever.

Christians should be more concerned about widespread biblical illiteracy and the watering down of the faith among their own numbers, and not so much worried about the Judeo-Christian ethic's place in society. Sadly, many believers have forgotten the lesson from 2 Kings 6:15-17. God hasn't gone anywhere even if the Church, gripped by the fear of man, has a siege mentality. His help is near and His way is still the best thing for the human race on every level. Always has been. Always will be.