Yapping Religious Terriers

The fundamental nature of the Fall is placing human reason in the executive role. God gave the intellect as the proper tool for organizing how one is to obey the Spirit. The intellect is the servant, not the master.

Western Civilization assumes man’s intellect is divine, assertively refusing to discuss it. Western Christianity pays lip service to the Fall, but subtly buys into the Western assumption. All matters of faith “must” be reasonable; theology has to make sense to the intellect. In other words, Western Christianity is fundamentally blasphemous by accepting the Pharisaical assumptions that make reason into a god. The Pharisees crucified Jesus in part because their Hellenized rational conceptions about God were sacrosanct. Not the contents so much as the frame of reference was the false god. In this the Judaizers managed to conquer the mainstream Christian religion of the first century.

On the one hand, the majority position of today’s mainstream evangelical churches asserts Decision Theology. This they share with a lot of non-Christian religions, including Islam. Both grow uncomfortable with someone daring to promote something contrary to their zealous beliefs. While I haven’t faced the dhimmitude of Islam, I’ve come pretty close to it with American Christians yapping about my comfort with folks who aren’t Christians.

Only a religion with a weak deity needs Truth Police. Our God is not confined within this fallen realm. Words of invocation have no real power; ever hear of the term “lip service”? Ritual objects have no real power. Demons do not infest places and objects. They are spirit beings just like angels and God tightly limits their authority. Legalism is a demonic tool, as is materialism. Jesus said His Father was a Spirit and could only be worshiped in spirit and truth, and it didn’t matter on which mountain you stood or whether it was inside a sacred structure. Does God require the works of human hands?

If we pronounce a blessing over some family or person, who gets to decide whether God honors that? God is not bound by anything man can say or do, and certainly not bound by any human logic. He defeated the enemies of Israel with a choir armed only with their voices in praise.

So when I deal with sinners, pagans, wiccans, magicians, Mormons, Catholics, Muslims, etc., don’t tell me I can’t pray for their welfare. Eternal salvation is not a human choice at all, but walking in righteousness is. Christianity is a religion; the relationship with God is an entirely separate matter. The main reason so many of these folks aren’t trying out Christianity is because so many Christians aren’t walking in the righteousness of the Bible. Western Christianity is both alien and hostile to what the Bible teaches.

Don’t try to sell me a cheap plastic disk with the name “Jesus” on it as somehow superior to the real Frisbee from Wham-o. Don’t try to tell me your reason and logic are up to the task of explaining much of anything when God bluntly said it could not, repeatedly throughout Scripture. Your cheap toy frisbee logic won’t fly as well as the symbolic logic of the Bible.