Fanaticism Taken Too Far?
Israel Folau (an Australian Christian sporting personality) has been in the news lately for expressing unpopular views—for quoting an unpopular part of the Bible on his personal Instagram page. Is his belief in heaven and hell fanaticism taken too far? Is Australian Rugby Union right to censor his beliefs?
When does religious belief become religious fanaticism? And who decides?
I guess when you fly aeroplanes into towers and blow up people and shoot people in the name of God—when you’re willing strap a bomb to yourself and lay down your life for your beliefs. Or when you’re willing to lay down your sport for your beliefs.
As we come to Good Friday we consider a person willing to lay down his life for his beliefs. Jesus felt so committed to his cause that he was willing to give his life. It was a belief that all people sin. It was belief in heaven and hell and sin and condemnation. By today’s standards this makes Jesus intolerant and a religious fanatic.
Not everyone likes this. The Hillsong pastor, Brian Houston, is quoted in the paper as saying, “The world doesn’t need more judgemental Christians”.
Is that what irks people about religious fanatics, they look judgemental and feel condemning?
Jesus was accused of modern day religious fanaticism. In his own day he was accused of being out of his mind (Mk 3.21) and possessed by demons (Mk 3.22). Is this a person we want to follow? Is this why Good Friday has lost its popularity?
And then Jesus demands that we “hop on board” and follow him to the cross, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mk 8.34).
Is this religion taken too far?
So perhaps Christians overstate the importance of the death of Jesus.
If God were real there then surely everyone would know about it. And very conveniently, once God has be removed, sin has gone. For there can be no absolute morality against which we can measure right and wrong if there is no God. The death of God leads to immorality.
Therefore, what is normal, what is right, becomes the decision of the majority—like the plebiscite on gay marriage.
No God—no sin—no guilt.
And if there is no god and no sin—there is no divine condemnation. And therefore no need for saving and therefore no need for a Saviour. Jesus is reduced to a deluded, religious fanatic whose death saves no person. Although some will say that his death is a good moral example to others—an ultimate expression of sacrificial love which we all should strive to model.
So do Christians overstate the importance of the death of Jesus? Are the reasons for Jesus’ death exaggerated for the sake of his followers?
In answering these questions, I’d like to make three points. (1) People these days aren’t less religious, they’re more religious; (2) belief is not a dirty world; (3) the Bible explains why Jesus died on the cross.
People aren’t less religious, they’re more religious. Believe it or not, I got this point from an Australian non-Christian writer who is no friend of Christian thought. Contrary to what we often hear, we are living in a more religious society not a less religious society. The well-known social researcher, Hugh Mackay, makes this point.
He makes the point that religion goes marching on. He wrote a book about it called, “Beyond Belief”.
MacKay talks about, “the impenetrable mystery at the heart of our existence (which) explains our existential angst—a permanent underlying rumble of anxiety about the fact that we don’t seem to be able to answer the very questions which most intrigue us”.
He says that people’s response to lost-ness and emptiness is to create religion in the guise of myths and stories and witch doctors and priests and poets and philosophers. And while institutional religion is on the decline, people’s sense of emptiness and hopelessness is on the incline.
People aren’t less religious, they’re more religious. There is within each of us a desire to find meaning beyond ourselves. We look at the universe and ourselves desperate for a sense of belonging—a sense of purpose and a clear direction.
Our existential pain pushes us toward religious belief.
Belief is not a dirty word. We often hear the word “faith” used as a word that implies ignorance and lack of education. Like it’s dumb people who have “faith” and its smart people who are rational and have science.
I want to argue that belief is a legitimate means of acquiring knowledge about God and the world.
Imagine a car crash and it goes to court and the judge and jury listen to the evidence. The evidence is tested and cross-examined and subject to scrutiny. Only then can the evidence be trusted. Only then can witnesses be believed. The court acquires knowledge about the car crash by believing the testimony of others.
When facts are shown to be facts, trusting in them is a natural step. Children trust their parents when they show themselves to be good parents. We trust our GPs because they have a good track record. You trust the chair you’re sitting on because you believe the chair will hold you up.
Belief is not a dirty world if the object of our belief is credible. Like belief in good parents, competent GPs and strong chairs. We can believe everything Jesus said about his death if his resurrection is true. The linchpin of Christianity is the historic resurrection. What counts is a resurrection that happened in real time and real space.
A visible resurrection that was witnessed by many others and we can believe their testimony.
Everything we know about the cross is validated by the resurrection. The resurrection which is seen and attested to by others enables us to rationally accept the events of the cross which are largely unseen.
Even if I was there on the day, I could not see God’s anger poured out upon Jesus. I could not see the sin of the world resting on his shoulders. I could not see forgiveness. I would have seen Jesus dying a criminal’s death and witnessed the gore of a crucifixion.
Our belief in the cross is predicated by our belief in the resurrection.
So this morning I want to say that the Bible is the book of answers. I want you to know that belief in what Christ achieved on the cross rests upon the historical truth of the resurrection. And so to believe the refrain that “Jesus died for my sins” is a credible belief because belief in the resurrection is a credible belief.
The heavens declare the glory of God. Creation reflects it Maker.
My conscience, although not perfect, has an inbuilt sense of right and wrong. My feeling of existential angst pushes me toward God who can answer life’s big questions.
On Good Friday, the big question is “why did Jesus died on the cross”? The Bible explains why Jesus died on the cross and we can summarise the cross using three words: sin, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
Sin. A word that most people don’t understand but was very helpful in 2002 for selling magnum ice-creams—the limited edition 7 Deadly Sins series of magnums. But it’s to our peril to trivialise sin although it’s a word often misunderstood.
For sin is not really an action, it’s an attitude. A state of mind. Sin is constantly turning your back on God. It’s a rejection of God’s rightful place in the universe and his right to rule our lives. And when you turn your back on someone you severe your relationship with them. Sin is a deliberate choice to reject God and make ourselves god.
Sin is rebelling against God and choosing another direction. This makes us an enemy of God. When our rebellion toward God is active and open, we know it. But when our rebellion is a state of passive indifference we usually feel alright.
Suppose we are both soldiers in trench warfare. You have a single firing rifle. I have a sub-machine gun of the latest variety. The enemy charges us and we both blast off with maximum potential. There is no doubt that I will fire more shots than you will.
Suppose we are both captured. No one will ask, “Who fired the most shots?” We will both be treated like enemies because that is what we are.
The question is really one of whose side we are on. Some of us have demonstrated our rebellion by the sub-machine gun method. Others do it by the single firing method, and there are others who are back at the base boiling the billy for the rest. However, the Bible says we are all enemies. We have all rebelled.
God’s response to our rebellion against him is judgement. On the day of judgement all wrong will be seen for what it is, as all good will also be seen for what it is. There will be no confusion—right will triumph over wrong. But since we all sin, we all fall under God’s judgement which is death.
Our second word is reconciliation. Since we all sin we are enemies of God and without intervention there is no hope of reconciliation. So when we stand before God there is no hope of forgiveness. “Do the crime do the time”.
But the great message of the Bible is that God sent Jesus to enable reconciliation between us and him.
The cross is the greatest demonstration of God’s love.
God sent Jesus to lay down his life for us. At the very least this says that I matter to Him. I am not a nobody. God loves me and wants me be his friend despite my persistent and dark rebellion. God sent his Son to die so that I can be reconciled to him—so I can be at peace with him.
Not only does the death of Jesus show me how much God loves me, but it also shows me that my track record is very bad. So bad that only a death can fix the problem. If there had been some other way by which we could be made acceptable to God, then surely it would have been found.
The Gospel writers tell us about the deep agony that Jesus went through as he approached his sin-bearing death. In the garden of Gethsemane on the night before his death he prayed again and again, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me” (Matt 26:39).
He had already explained to his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (verse 38). Luke tells us that while he was at prayer, “… his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).
Only the death of a sinless man could be payment for our sin. Only the death of Jesus reconciles us to God. I’ve never been to a funeral where people take death lightly. Yet we are destined to die physically, spiritually and eternally unless a solution is found.
Jesus is our means of reconciliation. Jesus is the mediator between us and God. He died to deflect God’s anger and enable us to choose peace with God.
Forgiveness is possible because of that great transaction on the cross. Jesus absorbed God’s anger in my place so God no longer holds anything against me. He is in a position to forgive me.
Could you forgive the person who murdered your daughter? The mother of a man who stabbed a backpacker to death in August 2016, has reached out to one of the victim’s parents and the man himself.
In a victim statement read out in court she said to the murderer and his parents,
“I certainly do not wish that person pain, or horror, or anguish. I don’t want the person to rot in hell. I only wish that person and his family peace, as once this person comes to realise what they have done, their internal suffering will be worse than anything that is imposed upon them.”
(https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/courts-law/killers-mother-reaches-out-to-parent-of-mia-ayliffechung/news-story/c3a4ccf465ed4a04cc150939c1c1ce98)
Forgiveness is a very big thing.
Two boys ran away from home. One was ten years old and the other only seven. They had had a disagreement with their father and they decided to “run away”. They hid in a cave near a river at the back of their home and stayed there until it grew dark. They then decided to go back home, having taught their father a big enough lesson.
When he saw them coming around the corner of the house the father swept them up in his arms and said, “Hello, you two. Great to have you back home again. I thought you’d left, but I’m so glad you haven’t. Come and have some tea.”
Suppose I admit to God that I have rebelled against Him and I ask Him to forgive me. Then I thank him for dealing with my sin on the cross and I declare my intent to live a life that now pleases him.
Will he have me back?
God’s answer is, “Because my son, Jesus Christ, has died for you, I will forgive you and take you back as a true friend. You better believe it” (1 John 1.7–9). God sent Jesus into the world to live and die for us so that we can be forgiven. What more is God supposed to do?
Isn’t it time to admit you’ve rebelled against God and need forgiveness. Isn’t it time to thank Jesus for dying and rising again so that my sins can be forgiven. Isn’t it time to tell God you are willing to change your ways and live with Jesus as your King. Isn’t it time to ask Jesus to come and take full control of your life.
Good Friday could be the best Friday ever—the best day ever—to have your sins forgiven and start a new life with Jesus as your King. Far from being a mindless religious fanatic, Jesus is the best gift of all because he offers the best life of all. The opportunity of forgiveness is an opportunity to good to refuse.
