Tag Archive for: Repentance

Contradictions In The Life of a Christian

Contradictions In The Life of a Christian

By Luke Nix

Introduction

The Christian Church is no stranger to hypocrisy. The Church is comprised of sinners who do not always practice what they preach, and sometimes such practice is in stark contradiction to what we preach. Some of the most heinous acts have been committed by Christians while they speak truth. It seems that sexual misconduct within the Church is always on the radar. Ever since I can remember being able to comprehend it, I have been made aware of numerous sexual scandals within the Church. Like just about any person, some have hit close to home and others further away. The ones that are closer to home tend to be particularly devastating- not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually and intellectually.

It is important for those who are affected to hold to a worldview that can objectively condemn such actions and provide healing for the victims. In these emotionally trying situations it is easy to entertain doubts of the truth of Christianity. Today, I want to take a few moments to show how such hypocrisy actually reveals the truth of the Christian worldview and how the Christian worldview offers the only possible answer to hypocrisy.

The Objectivity of Evil

First, a sexual predator’s actions must be called out as objectively evil, not merely something that a group of people do not like or prefer. The claim that what they did was evil is not just an opinion that can be dismissed by those who do not see anything wrong with the actions. That such actions are objectively evil is a feature of reality that must be faced, explained, and answered by every worldview.

No worldview can escape this obligation. No worldview that is missing an anchor for objective morality can provide any meaningful judgment of “evil”- those who hold to these worldviews can only render opinions, which is no more valid or true than the person, who may also hold to the same worldview, who says the actions were “good.” Any worldview that is missing such an anchor is demonstrably defeated by any sexual predator’s actions (whether they are members of a church or not).

The Scars Sin Leaves and The Cost of Moral Agnosticism and Relativism

Every single victim of sexual misconduct, molestation, rape, etc. is created in the Image of God, thus they are intrinsically valuable. Their violation is objectively evil, and justice must be served. The devastation of violations like these take years and even decades for healing to take place, if it even does. These men, women, boys, and girls will bear the scars for the rest of their lives. These scars will stand as a testimony to the truth that objective evil exists.

Any worldview that remains agnostic or ambivalent about the moral status of these actions makes the victims victims over and over again. Worldviews without an anchor for objective morality objectively devalues the violations and raises them to moral equivalency with love, honesty, and integrity. Worldviews that cannot call evil “evil” in any meaningful sense of the word (or for that matter, cannot call good “good” either) encourages the creation of more victims and compounds the suffering of those who are already victims.

Such sins in the life of a Christian demonstrates conclusively that no morally relativistic or agnostic worldview deserves to have a place in a culture, government, or even at the table of intellectual inquiry because it perpetually violates reality by violating the victims time and time again.

What If God Does Not Exist? 

Sexual sin is detestable, despicable, and heinous, and we all know that intuitively. The person who commits evil is ultimately, eternally damnable because they have violated the intrinsic worth of a human being created in God’s Image, and by doing so, they have violated the eternal, morally perfect God. God is the only source for morality that is independent of any and all human beings. He alone is the anchor that allows anyone to objectively identify such actions as morally “evil.”

Simply put, if God does not exist, then nothing that these Christians did is evil. Nothing that they do is worth condemnation or even discussion since they are merely dancing to their DNA- the victims will continue to be victims because they are not really “victims” of anything good or evil. This is not to say that someone has to believe that God exists to condemn a Christian’s sexual violations; rather this is to say that it is only because God does exist that even an atheist can accurately condemn such actions as objectively evil. If God does not exist, not even the theist can condemn sexual abuse as objectively evil.

The Cognitive and Emotional Dissonance of Evil

When the stories of a perpetrator’s heinous acts are recounted, the moral law that is written on all our hearts will emotionally and powerfully rise to the surface. The emotions we feel are not there merely because we feel that these actions are evil, but because they objectively are evil, and our outrage is a most appropriate reaction to such violations. The head and the heart, logic and emotion, converge in perfect harmony to reveal the truth of reality and the truth of God’s existence. Unless God exists, a person’s “evil” deeds bring nothing but cognitive and emotional dissonance.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the grotesque moral failings of ministers of the Gospel are to serve any purpose, it is to attempt to shock our culture back from its moral and intellectual stupor and remind us of the contradiction in every Christian life. But in stark contrast to every Christian, in God there is no contradiction: not in His actions and not in His words. We all long for someone to be fully consistent with what they say and what they do. But this simply will not happen when we look to man, even Christian leaders. We should not be surprised when ministers of the Gospel morally fail. We should be surprised that despite the evidence all around us of humanity’s fallenness that we still try to look to humanity for perfect consistency.

Rather, we must look to the morally perfect Creator, against whom every human has sinned. This God loves us and desires an infinite, personal relationship with us so much that he became one of us to take upon Himself our sins and the wrath that we deserve because of our sin. Justice was served for every sin we could ever commit when Jesus Christ died on the cross. And in His bodily resurrection from the dead, we have forgiveness (1 Cor 15). The resurrection of Jesus provides us proof of the truth of His claim to be the Creator God of the universe- the Way, the Truth, the Life, without whom no one can come to the Father (John 14:6).

Conclusion- My Two Prayers

Sin, hypocrisy and betrayal in the life of any Christian minister does not demonstrate or even indicate that Christianity is false. Rather the opposite is the case: they provide severe tests of a worldview against reality, which Christianity alone passes. Christianity never makes the claim that Christians will be perfect; in fact, it makes the contradictory claim: that Christians can and still do heinously evil things. This is the reality that we live in, that we are a part of, and that Christianity uniquely, among all the worldviews of history, accurately describes. It is only through Christ that the sinner is healed, that the victim is healed, and that both can be reconciled to God.

It is my prayer that all victims will find understanding ears in today’s culture- people who recognize,  validate and anchor the objectivity of the evil and suffering they endure, people who recognize that full healing can only be found at the Cross.

It is also my prayer that as more revelations of moral failings within the Church come, that it will cause unbelievers to consider the foundations of their moral outrage, investigate the evidence, and realize that they too are in need of Christ’s atonement, forgiveness and Resurrection.

Finally, remember that it is not Christ who has failed us; it is members of His Church who have failed us. It is time that we stop misplacing our trust in people and start properly placing our trust where the evidence tells us it should have been in the first place: in Christ. I implore you to follow the moral, philosophical, historical, and scientific evidence where it leads: surrender your life fully and completely to Christ to find both healing and forgiveness.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

If God, Why Evil? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

Is Original Sin Unfair? (DVD Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (MP3 Set) by Dr. Frank Turek

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

 

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Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/Pm5hRad

 

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Desire and God Should I Always Do What I Feel

Desire and God: Should I Always Do What I Feel?

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By Robby Hall

The debate over homosexual behavior has taken many surprising turns. The national debate has involved a Fast Food franchise and a maker of Duck Calls.  It has involved extremes from Fred Phelps and his clan to groups like GLAAD comparing the whole thing to the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

What is missing from all of this is honest discourse. And what is missing from those who tell us that what they are doing is ok is “why it’s ok?”.

We hear arguments like:

  • “I was born this way.”
  • “My Love is real.”
  • “Why would I choose to be gay?”

So, for the Christian who believes that God teaches homosexual behavior is sin and that those who practice this need repentance and forgiveness, the message they give to LGBTQ people is very important.

Ultimately, the discussion boils down to desire.  It’s at this point that the discussion breaks down most often because neither side really understands their desires, their position as a human being in a fallen world, and how God views all of humanity.

So let’s take a look at desire.  Most homosexuals would say that they desire romantic/sexual relationships with those of the same sex and that they did not choose these desires any more than a heterosexual chooses their desires for opposite-sex relationships.  I believe this is true, but not for the reasons most homosexuals or Christians believe. [though, I believe these homosexual desires developed at an early age rather than a person being born with them “out of the box”]

I do not believe God created people with homosexual desires.  Homosexual desires are a result of the fallen, sinful state every person finds themselves in.  It’s no different than my desire to sleep with multiple women or someone’s desire to get as drunk as they can, etc.  Desire is not the benchmark for God’s holiness or His creation.  People desire many things – Money, Sex, Power.  All of our sinful actions can be traced back to a desire.  As a Christian, we must see ourselves before our salvation.  The bible says we were “enemies of God.”  Enemies.  At our hearts, we were evil.  So it should not be surprising that people have sinful desires.

A big question here is “how do I know my desires are sinful?”.  The only real answer to that is to put it up against God’s standards.  We know from Romans 1 that homosexual behavior is sinful.  Now, notice that I said homosexual behavior.  Having a desire and entertaining that desire are two different things.  Simply being attracted to the same sex is not sinful in itself [that is, that the desire exists] unless you were to dwell on such thoughts [as Jesus says, “if a man lusts in his heart…].  This is an important distinction for a Christian to make as he/she approaches those in the LGBTQ community in conversation about this issue.  It is no more sinful than being tempted.  Jesus was tempted in all things but did not sin.

Now, instantly, someone will say “well, Jesus never said homosexual behavior was a sin!”.  Well, what did Jesus say?  In Matthew 19, the Pharisees asked Jesus about the lawfulness of divorce.  His response tells us many things about the Old Testament:

“He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Here, Jesus not only affirms the OT, but He also tells us what God’s design for marriage is.  Held up against this standard, the only holy marital desire is that of a heterosexual nature.  We must ask ourselves if we should give in to any desire we have?  If I have a desire for lying, should I lie and not be held accountable because I was born that way?  What about theft?  We could list many more, but you understand the point.

So, when someone says they can’t help the way they feel, they are correct.  Only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a result of salvation through faith and repentance can change desires.  But, desire is not an excuse for sin.  And it may be that the desire itself does not change, so the Christian must then choose to remain pure and, perhaps, unmarried.

When we as Christians see our own selfish desires that are to be crucified daily, we can understand a homosexual’s position and can offer understanding. Truth with gentleness and respect.

And for those in the LGBTQ community, understand that God does love you just as you are.  But you are in no different a position than I or anyone else.  Salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.  And repentance leads to faith.

Be prepared to have honest conversations.  Discard bumper sticker slogans.  Let go of the Us vs. Them mentality.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2UUQ8bn

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