“He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor, his life for love, knowing that contentment is the shadow not the light. The great yearning that sweeps eternity is a yearning to praise, a yearning to serve. And when the waves of that yearning swell in our souls all the barriers are pushed aside: the crust of callousness, the hysteria of vanity, the orgies of arrogance.”
– Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone
It’s a mistake to think that people choose their beliefs because of reason or revelation. Most people choose their beliefs for their own comfort.
B.F. Skinner remembers that his grandmother taught him about hell by showing him the glowing coals in the stove. He didn’t want to believe in a God like that, so he didn’t.
Mel White, who used to ghost-write for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, is now a pro-homosexual activist. But according to his memoirs, the first step to his new career was not a renewed study of the Bible. It was his first sexual experience with a man, condoned by a Christian counselor. After that, somehow his beliefs seemed to change.
Other “Fundamentalists Anonymous”-type memoirs have a similar plot. Girl gets saved, girl joins evangelistic ministry, girl loses virginity, girl loses her faith. It was no crisis of faith, but a crisis of conscience. And faith lost.
John Bunyan wrote that the tempter often spoke to him, ‘”What, will you preach this? This condemns yourself; of this your own soul is guilty; wherefore preach not of this at all, or if you do, yet so mince it as to make way for your own escape; lest, instead of awakening others, you lay that guilt upon your own soul that you will never get from under.” But, I thank the Lord, I have been kept from consenting to these so horrid suggestions, and have rather, as Samson, bowed myself with all my might to condemn sin and transgression wherever I found it; yea, though therein also I did bring guilt upon my own conscience. Let me die, thought I, with the Philistines, Judg. 16: 30, rather than deal corruptly with the blessed word of God.’
“Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter.”
Jolly Blogger makes several good points in his comments about Silent Spring, a book which helped to launch the environmental movement.
On a whim, I added a button to my sidebar. I have no right to – I was too young to have participated in Freedom Summer or the Freedom Rides. But I hope that I would have stood beside them if I could have. I’ve written about these people and their fruit before. I keep thinking that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was a kind of movement that we don’t see today.
We don’t see that in churches much today either.
Many of them cling to presuppositions such as these:
And so do many Muslims.
“God is of no importance unless He is of utmost importance.”
Missionaries to Muslims (few though they be) sometimes argue over whether “Allah” is different from God. However…
The problem is that Muslims talk about God in ways that we disagree with. But so do other Christians.
“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.”
Let’s call him Titus Sung. When I met him, he was a young student who had already spent a year in prison in his native China because of his Christian witness. Yet his face showed peace and joy that is rare among American Christians.
I’ve thought much about Titus’s background. Why was his faith stronger and more effective than almost anybody I’ve ever met in church? Did he attend a better Bible college? Had he seen better Christian videos? Listened to more anointed cassettes? Owned better worship CDs? Attended more conferences? Sat under a more gifted singles minister?
It caused me to formulate a principle I’ll call “Sung’s Razor,” a subset of Occam’s Razor.
Means of sanctification should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
That is, if the Chinese Church doesn’t need it to be like Jesus, why do you need it? If it doesn’t make the Chinese Church more like Jesus, is it possible that it doesn’t make us more like Jesus?
As William of Occam is supposed to have said, “It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less.”
