I experienced the most appalling thing today while in church. Tonight, we had a testimony given by a guy who had been counseled using the twelve step program. He explained his personal situation and then gave the twelve step "christian" process which led him back to Christ. The only problem is that his talk was filled with religious pluralism which was highlighted in the handout he gave. Here are some quotes from the handout...
"Step Three involves a decision to let God be in charge of our lives. Step - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Step Eleven involves the spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation. Step - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."
He proceeded to tell the people in the church that we should explain that this process works "no matter how you view God. Because people view God in different ways, like a higher power that controls everything" or a force.
The Christian view of God does not allow for truely different understandings of God apart from the Biblical teachings about God. We know that God is one God. He is creator and Lord. He is not a "force" which simply controls everything. The view of a controlling "force" is the view of fatalism and Star Wars, but not the God of the Bible. This is an impersonal force which controls all things apart from human participation. No matter what we do, things will turn out the way that "fate" has decided. The Christian view of God does hold that He is sovereign and in control, but the difference is that He is not an impersonal being, such as fatalism would have us to believe. He is a very personal God. We do not have the right to define God however we please. We as Christians must define Him in terms that he has given us in his Word.
It is an affront to God and Christianity to say that we can view God however we please. That is the god of our culture, but simply not the God of the Bible.
5 comments:
That's my boy! Well said...way to defend to the truth!
Hey Brandon, Nice Blog! Please contact me at Knieminen@MississippiPrayerWarriors.org .
Kevin
MississippiPrayerWarriors.org
Well written article.
Interesting comment. However, where is the objective data to support your hypothesis that God is a truly personal deity? It would appear that the strongest evidence to support your point are 2000+ year old stories initially transcribed from oral histories collected from a nomadic tribe, and a deeply personal feeling that this is the truth. Who is to say that God really isn't impartial, and that pluralism, particularly religious pluralism, is correct?
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