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"Christian Nonsense" Recently, I stumbled into a ring of websites dedicated to proving the notion that God does not exist, that Jesus is mythical person, that reason, when applied to Christianity, will expose the Christian religion as propaganda for emotional, uneducated, and vulnerable people. The debate against Christianity and religion in general appears to boil down to two main arguments. First, no one has seen God. And second, the Christian story doesn’t make logical sense. One site proposes this test. “Go into your living room. If God is all powerful, can part the sea, heal illness, raise people from the dead, and all that stuff, tell God to appear for five minutes in your living room for a chat. Then, if God does appear, email this site with your photo and account of what God was like.” There are many atheists and agnostics on the Internet who seem to be waiting for a sign. The second argument proposes reason as the test. “Christianity isn’t logical,” many of the sites proclaim. One site went to great length to argue against the resurrection accounts in the gospel using logic as a defense. “It isn’t plausible that a Roman governor would agree to hand the body of a convicted criminal over to a Jewish man, Joseph of Arimathea to be buried.” “It doesn’t make sense women would go on the first day of the week to anoint Jesus’ body when they witnessed his burial and saw the large stone put in front of the tomb.” “It doesn’t stand to reason that the Roman guards who reported the body missing would report to the Jewish authorities rather than their own governor.” Hundreds of sites like these. Crying out: “It doesn’t make sense.” and “There is no proof or sign.” Hmm. Sounds like the same things critics of Jesus’ followers have been saying since the very beginning. What did Paul write? “For Jews demand signs and Greeks demand wisdom...” Signs and wisdom. Proof and reason. Good ol’ Paul. He responds to the critics in essence by saying: “Signs and wisdom will not help you find God.” Have you heard of the “God of the gaps” theory? Briefly, it supposes that at one time there was much that pre-historic human beings did not know. They did not know the earth was round, that the Sun is fixed and the earth revolves around it, that the moon revolves around the earth. That the stars are enormous burning balls of fire and gas so far away that what we see in the sky is the way that particular star looked hundreds of years ago. So, for what they did not know, these prehistoric humans invented stories to explain them. They needed a God to help explain what they did not know. The God in the gaps theory suggests that over the course of history, humans and science have answered many of the questions, and have closed the gaps. With smaller gaps naturally would come a decreased need for religion, or the stories of a god. For example, the God in the gaps people will argue that since today we know how to carbon date fossils and have unearthed bones believed to be millions of years old, the gap has narrowed considerably from the time when humans believed that God made the world as we know it in a span of 6 days, just over a few thousand years ago. They reason, that as science begets proof about the existence and origin of our world and the universe, we are less reliant on the ancient myths of our religion. Ah. The old apostle Paul had never heard of the God in the gaps theory, but he was surrounded at times by critics who could have qualified for charter membership. “Some want signs. Some want wisdom.” But we who are called... “We who are called.” You know, he means the church. We who follow. We who commit our lives to being disciples of Jesus.....we proclaim....we proclaim...Christ crucified. I suppose people who subscribe to the God of the gaps theory can feel pretty smug in the wisdom of all the answers science can provide. It is true, science and the human quest for knowledge have filled in some pretty big gaps. Sure, science can answer many of the how questions. How the earth came to be. How the species develop. How the wonders of nature were formed. How it rains, snows, and how the comets make their way back into our night skies at regular intervals. But then...it seems to me anyway that there are some real canyons that science is pretty ill-prepared to fill. I’m talking about the questions of “why?” Why are we here on this earth, and is there a purpose for our lives? Why do some people suffer horribly while others have relatively little discomfort? What drives the human capacity to love....and hate? What is the source of evil, and what is the source of goodness? Mathematic formulas, test tubes, experiments and studies can’t ever fill all the gaps—certainly not the gaps of why and to whose purpose. Perhaps we need science and intellect to keep working on what they do best…the how questions. And look to faith for the why questions and the question of purpose. Faith--a trust...believing where we do not see. Hmm? That’s what Paul was driving at. He was preaching to people of faith. “We who proclaim Christ crucified, as the very saving power of God. Christ crucified, a stumbling block to those who want signs, and foolishness to those who want wisdom. But to those who are called, this Christ on a cross is Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Paul will grant that or those outside the community, it’s nonsense. Like those whose websites try so purposefully to disprove the existence of God. It doesn’t make sense, not on the outside looking in. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Stanley Hauerwaus, professor of Christian social ethics at Duke University had a student of the university approach him. “Dr. Hauerwaus,” he called out. “This thing called Christianity. I don’t get it.” Then, and over the course of several encounters, Hauerwaus tried to explain to him the Christian doctrines, the history of the church. Tried to tell the student who Jesus was. Still the student could not grasp the essence of what it meant to be a Christian. The cross was nothing more than an attractive symbol to hang from a chain around one’s neck. Finally one day, the student once again came to Hauerwaus with his questions concerning Christianity. This time, Hauerwaus tried a different approach. He said simply, “Christians recite the Lord’s prayer together. Let me teach it to you.” It was the first of the practices toward becoming a Disciple. The practices. Reading Scripture. Praying. Tithing. Gathering for worship. Eating and drinking at the Lord’s table. It was through the practices that the young man began to understand what he once could not. And it was through the practices that he himself was formed by the story of the cross. Hauerwaus quit defending and explaining Christianity. It made no sense until…until that person began to be shaped by the practices of the faith. That’s the urgent task, now isn’t it? Not to keep defending and explaining Christianity to those who find it “nonsense,” but to invite any who wish, any who seek, into the body of believers to begin, in simple ways, to participate in the practices of the Christian faith, and be shaped and transformed by them. Why spend so much time and energy debating whether it is our school’s job to teach principles that we take on faith…why not use that time and energy to invite, bring and help people learn what our faith is, from within the gathered body. It’s nonsense to try to create a school curriculum or a governmental policy that supports a faith view, for that faith view only makes sense from within the body of believers. “We who proclaim…” So…we have an evangelistic urgency: To offer our faith to all, with a willingness to form those who respond to our invitation in the practices of our faith. The church is where one learns about God’s creation of the world…not to answer the gap of HOW the world was created, but the gap of why, and to whose purpose. The church is where one learns about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, not as a logical event of history, but an event that forms us as followers of the Christ who died that we might live. The church is where one learns and puts into practice what it means to be a Christian. It’s time to lay down our call for others to do what only we can do…we are responsible. To invite others into the community, and form them through the faithful practices of Christianity. “We who are called,” Paul says, “we proclaim Christ crucified.” Not because it makes sense. But because it is how God chose to be revealed to humanity. The message of the cross, to we who are being saved, is the power of God.
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