Many of us Christians can only combat the supposed growth in the secular society if we genuinely begin to think as Jesus thinks.
Unfortunately, many churches and denominations and factions within denominations believe that the only way to deal with pluralism and secularism is to ‘go with the flow’.
Maybe they believe that by doing so, the well-organised and highly-vocal LGBTQ+ activists will ‘back off’ the Churches and let them get on with their cosy comfort zones.
Such Churches and clergy seem to have adopted the view that society should shape the Scriptures, rather than taking the evangelical approach that the Scriptures should be about shaping Church culture.
Then again, is the Christian Church suffering because it became too judgemental, ramming a ‘thou shalt not’ culture down people’s throats to the extent that society has rebelled, not against Biblical teaching, but against those people who like to wave the Bible over people’s heads like a modern-day Sword of Damocles.
The Scriptures warn that a society which abandons traditional Christian values will fall apart. The Old Testament Book of Psalms is very clear on the issue.
For example, verse one of Psalm 127 states (latest New International Version translation): “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”
Asked what would be the most attacked passages of the Bible, many evangelicals and fundamentalists would be forgiven for thinking it could be the Gospels detailing Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, or the end of days as told in the Book of Revelation, or even some of the Old Testament warnings on lifestyles.
However, the real target of those who are vehemently opposed to Christianity is the opening book of the Bible, Genesis from the Old Testament.
This twin-track attack is simple - Genesis deals with God creating the universe, and also the establishment of the family unit.
The opening verses of Genesis Chapter One must be a red flag to the evolutionist bull:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (NIV).
If evolutionists can debunk Genesis, they can convince people of the so-called Big Bang Theory (not the American sitcom!).
But the real target of those who wish to attack Christianity, is to debunk the concept of the family unit as outlined in Genesis Chapter Two.
In verse 18, we learn: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” This is God recognising the importance of the family unit.
So how is the traditional Biblical family unit formed? Verses 20 to 24 provide the solution. They say:
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man.’
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh.
For evangelicals and fundamentalists, this is Scriptural approval that the natural family unit is a man and woman, and the unity they talk of is Christian marriage between man and woman.
However, if secularists and pluralists can stress that there is more to the definition of both the family unit and the institution of marriage, they will have gone a long way to discrediting the Biblical definition of both as outlined in Genesis.
This is also the real challenge to Christian families. Put bluntly, are they teaching the Gospel to their children in the home given that Christian evangelicals claim that children spend as much as 83 per cent of their time in this family unit before finally leaving home?
If Christian parents or guardians can influence children at this early stage in their development, hopefully the teachings of a Christian family, Sunday school, Bible class and church will remain with them throughout their lives.
The danger is that many Christian families use the Gospel message, not as valuable teaching for life, but to impose a cult-like control over their children.
In my own upbringing as a Presbyterian minister’s son, I learned my catechism - not because of the lessons they taught me, but because on one occasion I failed a Sunday school exam and was the talk of the congregation simply because the preacher’s kid could not repeat his memory verses from the catechism.
I did learn a very valuable lesson from that episode. If I cannot repeat my catechism word for word, liberal elders will use this lack of knowledge on my part to have a go at my dad who was an evangelical. They will also make an example out of me as a preacher’s kid.
So the solution is simple. To keep these liberal elders from mouthing off at dad, and to get these same elders off my own back, Learn Your Catechism!
Just as I, as a primary school age minister’s son, had to learn to box clever with these liberal elders, so too, the Christian Church must box clever in defending the teachings in Genesis.
Our children should not be afraid to stand up for the teachings in Genesis on Creation and the family unit. They should have the right to express the Christian opinion rather than just simply accept liberal spoon-feeding.
If the Christian Churches find themselves at the bottom of the heap in terms of influence in society because they have not defended Genesis, they have only themselves to blame.
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to religious commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online at www.thisissunshine.com
Genesis 1 V 27 says there are loads of God's (at least several). Most if not all versions say "Let us make them in our likeness..."
ReplyDeleteHas to mean there are good God's. bad ones, gay ones, black ones, white ones,Christian, Jewish and Muslim too...get the picture. Personally who ever penned parts of the bible had to have smoked better weed than I have..And I am sure the book of Revelations was penned by someone on an acid trip..7 headed beasts and all the rest..
The problem is Genesis, like every other book in the Bible, calls for a belief in the supernatural. Once you believe in the supernatural, belief in anything is possible. However, as often happens, one part of the myth is used for guidance , i.e., Adam and Eve as the traditional family, while another part of the myth is conveniently ignored, i.e., that all humans owe their existence to incest between Adam or his sons engaging in incest with Adam's daughters and with incest as a family tradition for many generations after.
ReplyDeleteThat old God was fond of incest - Noah and his family also had to commit incest to repopulate their region (or possibly the Earth) after an all-loving, all-merciful God wiped out the entire human race in that region (or possibly the Earth) by the Flood.
The wrathful God of the Old Testament was one strange and mean character. Give me the Big Bang and evolution any day!
I was with a good friend today and he threw this one at me..he said "Frankie, what if man once lived on Mars and who knows because of greenhouse gases, cfc's,c02,s..a nuclear war, who knows..anyhow Mars became inhabitable and 65 million years ago a select few (Adam & Eve) left in a pod (Noah's Ark), crashed landed on earth and the dinosaurs got wiped out because of the pod and a meteor...and mankind stayed in the pod until the dust settled and it was safe to fcuk up smother planet..."
ReplyDelete