Monday, July 24, 2017
558 - Expert Opinion
Spirituality
Column No. 558
July 25, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
July 25, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Expert Opinion
By
Bob Walters
Not
long ago I heard Ravi Zacharias describe the decline of Christian authority in
our American culture. And he did it in a
loving but effective way.
Perhaps the best-known and most
widely well-regarded Christian apologist of our age, Zacharias presented the
following scenario. Suppose a public policy
panel were convened to discuss the authority and trustworthiness of Christianity. And now suppose – to provide fair (politically
correct) and circumspect (“both sides”) dissection of the topic – the well-rounded
panel included a philosopher, a “religious studies” professor, a journalist, a
social scientist, an atheist, a feminist, a gay rights activist, a Rabbi, a
Muslim cleric, a Catholic priest and an evangelical Christian minister, the
last two with deep faith in Christ and thorough academic and preaching
knowledge of the Bible.
Among that group, which two “expert”
voices would be rejected out of hand by secular culture at large as inadequate
describers of Christianity because of their bigotry, sexism and their
scripturally sound but politically incorrect views on gender identity, right to
life and traditional marriage that come with true scriptural comprehension?
Of course, Zacharias surmised, it
would be the knowledgeable Christians.
Likely, even the Muslim cleric (think of that) and Rabbi would be more
trusted: a bleak notion.
This isn’t just to set up a “straw
man” – an unrealistic example presented to be easily knocked down. The historic and founding fact of our culture,
our United States government, and most of the Western world is the authority of
Christianity. Yet the dismantling and
disparaging of authority based on Jesus Christ is a reality in the contemporary
world. It has become not only culturally OK but generally revered to be
“expert” at anything so long, oxymoronically, as one rejects definitive Christian
truth.
And let’s assert right here that
claiming “Christian authority” is far different from saying, specifically, that
America is a “Christian nation.” I think
it is fair to describe America as a secular nation. Its founders were mostly Christian but the
Enlightenment era that so heavily promoted “the rights of man” also created in
the 18th century a sort of hybrid philosophical environment. It strengthened humanity’s view of personal
freedom and self-determination, but also depended vigorously and finally upon
Christian values of love, charity and service to others to make responsible
cultural freedom possible.
Those of us who understand Jesus
Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) understand that what
is most important is what Jesus has
already done for us, not what a “Christian” government is supposed to do
for us. Yes, we are compelled in love to
“do for others,” but Jesus on the cross freed us both from the slavery of our
sins and from the confining legalistic coercion of false, worldly, soul-stifling
masters.
In Christ, the new, eternal game in
town was and still is gracious,
selfless love.
I like Zacharias’s “panel” example
because it reveals the pervasive tyranny of secularism’s fresh slavery:
man-made morality and its attempt to overwrite humanity’s ultimate freedom won
through Christ’s expression on the cross of God’s infinite love.
Shall we trust the authority of
legalism’s whip … or of love’s grace?
I prefer to be expert on the latter.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com)
posits: gracious, selfless love is a one way street toward Jesus. The secular
world asks, “What’s in it for me?”