On July 28, 1982, Keith Green, a Christian songwriter, was killed at the age of 28 in a small plane crash. Two of his children were with him and also died in the crash. Keith Green was from a Jewish background, but grew up reading the New Testament. He walked with Christ for seven years, and his style was passionate and his lyrics were very strong. And although he is gone, he is still making a huge impact through his songs. In one song titled Asleep in the Light, he wrote:
The world is sleeping in the dark
That the church just can’t fight
‘Cause it’s asleep in the light
How can you be so dead
When you’ve been so well fed
Jesus rose from the grave
And you, you can’t even get out of bed.
Green’s description of the church being asleep in the light is an appropriate image for much of the church today. I was stunned recently to read a report by the Barna Research Group. Barna surveyed Americans and found that only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision making. Barna states: “If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think — our attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions. Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We’re often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance.” That is a devastating analysis.
A biblical worldview is a way of viewing life and the world from the perspective of the Bible’s point of view. That is, agreeing that the Word of God is true and a reliable guide for life. Everyone has a worldview, because everyone has ideas concerning what is real in life and how to get by. Everyone operates according to their worldview. But very few people actually have a biblical worldview — even among Christians. Listen carefully to how the research defined a biblical worldview, because they used less than 10 very basic beliefs that should be easily adhered to by anyone who knows the Bible. There were no trick questions or murky concepts which were hard to understand. The reports sates: “For the purposes of research, a biblical worldview was defined as believing that absolute moral truths exist; that such truth is defined by the Bible; and firm belief in six specific religious views. Those views were that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life; God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today; salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned; Satan is real; a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people; and the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.”
Even among Christians the statistics were tragically low. Among independent Evangelical churches 13 % had a biblical worldview, and then it went downhill from there. Among adults attending mainline churches such as United Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal only 2% had a biblical worldview. On the average, among those defining themselves as “born again” Christians, only 9% held to a biblical worldview.
What does all this mean? It is saying that instead of Christianity influencing the culture around it, American Christianity is conforming to the dominant secular culture. We have been brainwashed by the culture in which we live and have accepted its way of seeing life. We have been conquered. Television and movies have taken more of our time than reading the Word of God and Christian literature, and therefore they have had more of an impact on our thinking than the Bible. We have come to think of the truths and teachings of the Bible as optional. We have come to believe that everyone has a right to their own opinion, even when someone is a Christian, regarding the basic, fundamental teachings of Scripture. We know how to question things, but we do not understand how to have faith in the truth.
Let me suggest three things that we need to commit ourselves to if we are going to regain our biblical worldview. They are three basic and obvious things, but evidently things we need to review. The first commitment must be: Reading the Word of God. You cannot say that you believe in the Bible if you have not read the Bible. And I am not talking about flipping it open and reading a few random verses. If I were you, I would put away my devotional book and just read the Bible. You don’t have to read for hours every day. You may be only able to read a chapter, but read it slowly and think about what you read. Write down the insights you get. Keep a devotional diary and write down what you think God is saying to you as you read. You will learn more than if you used a devotional book, and it will be your own insights. It will be what God showed you, not what he showed someone else.
We have had Bible reading guides in the bulletin, and there are extra copies at the information booth. Read the entire New Testament through the first time. Then next year read the entire Bible through. You can read the entire Bible through if you just give God 15 minutes a day. It will take some commitment, but you will have an overview of the Bible’s stories and its central message, which is God’s search for his creation and the redemption of the world. You will understand things you never understood before. You will see the missing pieces that you never saw before in some of the Bible stories with which you thought you were most familiar. You will read familiar passages in their context and see them in a whole new way.
Reading the Bible is important because Christians by and large are obviously not doing it. And because we have not, Satan has been able to put a veil over our hearts and lull us into a spiritual stupor. When we live in the vacuum of spiritual ignorance, we are open to the misconceptions and deceptions of the world. Many have been very willing to believe anything the world has to say, while questioning everything the Bible has to say. We have been hypnotized and are walking around in the world like spiritual zombies. Only the truth of the Word of God can awaken us from Satan’s spell. Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
But it is not enough to read the Word of God. The second commitment must be: Believing the Word of God. There are a lot of great stories and beautiful prose in the Bible, but if it is just literature then it has no power. If it is just interesting myth, then it has no power to change lives. Many people I know read the Bible and want to argue abut it. It is more a document for debate than a source of faith. Some have more faith in their questions than they do the assertions of the Bible. We all have questions, and there is room on the non-essential items for interpretation, but when it comes to the essentials, it is time to exercise faith. You see, at some point you need to make a decision. Are you going to wander in the land of uncertainty forever, or are you going to make a decision to believe? Faith doesn’t just run you down, it is a decision.
Billy Graham tells the story of when he was a young man considering going into full time evangelism. In his studies he was presented with some of the ideas of those who questioned the reliability of Scripture. He considered the arguments seriously and thought through them intellectually, and he struggled with those issues until one day he went alone into the woods with his Bible. He placed his hands upon it and turned over all his doubts, and in prayer dedicated himself to a faith without reservations. He placed his whole confidence and faith on the truth found in the Word of God, and it has been the driving force behind the supernatural power of his ministry. And if it had not been for Graham’s decision, I would not be standing here today, because in 1959 I found Christ in a Billy Graham crusade in Indianapolis, Indiana, and experienced a call to ministry that same night. And I, like Graham, had to come to the place where I had to decide whether I was going to place my whole confidence and trust in the Bible or go about always walking in the murky shadows of doubt. Was I going to be always in quest, or was I going to complete my quest and find the confidence of faith? John wrote in his gospel: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). We’re not just talking about faith, we’re talking about life itself.
When you are ignorant of the wisdom of the Word of God you are open to almost any foolishness. It amazes me what absurdities some people believe who would never consider placing their trust in the truth of the Bible. I see many people who think nothing of incorporating Native American spirituality with Christianity. So we have people worshiping the earth and listening to trees and birds as though it did not interfere with their Christian beliefs at all.
I will never forget one Sunday morning, early in my ministry, when a women’s quartet got up to sing. The Beatles had just released their new song My Sweet Lord. It had the word “lord” in the title, so what could be wrong? They seemed to be unaware that the Beatles were into Eastern Mysticism and that the “lord” they were singing about was a Hindu god. So there they were in church singing with all their hearts:
My sweet Lord
I really want to see you
Really want to be with you
Really want to see you lord
But it takes so long, my lord
Hm, my lord (hallelujah)
My, my, my lord (hare krishna)
My sweet lord (hare krishna)
My sweet lord (krishna krishna)
I was so stunned that I said nothing. I despaired that anything I said would do no good. It seems that the main doctrine of many in our culture is the doctrine of tolerance. We are supposed to tolerate all ideas as though they are equal. The danger is that we can be so open minded that our brains fall out. G. K. Chesterton once said, “Tolerance is a virtue to those who have no convictions.” We have to remember the scripture that says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The message of Christianity is an exclusive message.
The third commitment we must make is: Applying the Word of God. You can know the Word of God and believe the Word of God, but you have to apply the truths found in the Word of God if it is going to do any good. Read the Word, believe the word, but don’t apply the Word and you invite dysfunction into your life. Without applying the Word of God, we have no ability to influence the world for Christ.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article by Dave Shiflett states: “Secularists, liberals, and Muslims do not need to fear conservative Christians. Christians are not all that interested in converting the heathen. They don’t really believe that there is such a thing as the heathen, tending to believe instead that every religion is equally valid. Even the most feared of Christians—the dread ‘born-agains’ who have cost the high priests at People for the American Way so much sleep—often embrace the modern orthodoxies of tolerance and inclusion over the traditional teachings of their faith.”
How are we going to impact the culture if we fail to embrace the undiluted teachings of our faith? Another writer Alan Wolfe says in his book The Transformation of American Religion, that “evangelical churches are part of mainstream American culture, not dissenters from it.” In response to this, Chuck Colson says, “God forbid that we should ever become part of the mainstream. By our very character, living in a sinful world, we’re called to be countercultural, a force for moral change.” He goes on to say, “This can only lead to passivity and despair. As one friend of mine noted, being a peculiar people needs ‘to be set against the fact that we are called to be ambassadors to the world, fully engaged with it, and followers of a faith in which the Incarnation is central . . . retreating to a Christian cul-de-sac is not the proper outworking of what we believe.’”
If our Christian faith is to mean anything it means that we are going to have to believe what the Bible clearly teaches and apply it so that it makes a difference in our lives and impacts the world around us. We have to stop being afraid that we will be rejected or misunderstood. We have to stop being afraid of being persecuted by those who disagree with us. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples” (John 8:31).
Several years ago, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks did a comedy skit called “The 2013 Year Old Man.” In the skit, Reiner interviews Brooks, who is the old man. Reiner begins by asking the old man, “Did you always believe in the Lord?”
Brooks replied: “No. We had a guy in our village named Phil, and for a time we worshiped him.”
Reiner: You worshiped a guy named Phil? Why?
Brooks: Because he was big, and mean, and he could break you in two with his bare hands
Reiner: Did you have prayers?
Brooks: Yes, would you like to hear one? ‘O Phil, please don’t be mean, and hurt us, or break us in two with your bare hands.’
Reiner: So when did you start worshiping the Lord?
Brooks: Well, one day a big thunderstorm came up, and a lightning bolt hit Phil. We gathered around and saw that he was dead. Then we said to one another, ‘There’s somthin’ bigger than Phil ’”
Wisdom will come when we realize that there is something bigger than Phil, bigger than all the pretend gods and failed religions and philosophies of the world. There is a God who is the embodiment of reality and truth. And he alone is worthy of our worship and service.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 18, 2004
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Questions for January 18, 2004
1. What would you say are the core doctrines of the Christian faith?
2. Are there doctrines that are so important as to be above debate?
3. Is there absolute truth? Defend your answer.
4. Why is truth important?
5. How can we find the balance between being uncompromising on the core doctrines of the faith and being close-minded and rigid?
6. How can we be open-minded without being taken in by every new idea that comes along?
7. Why are many Christians so ignorant of the basic beliefs of the Christian faith? How can this situation be corrected?
8. Why are we so influenced by the culture and exerting so little influence on the culture as the people of God? How can we turn this around?
9. Barna says that we do not act like Jesus because we do not think like Jesus. What makes him say this? On what is he basing his conclusion?
10. How do you explain the apparent disconnect in some people between their Christian beliefs and their moral conduct?
