That is a controversial view in a time when the gospel is under increasingly strident attack by organised skepticism, but it is in fact well warranted.
E.g., note the ill-advised, historically ignorant dismissive stridency of this sponsored banner:
Yet, while ever so many are indoctrinated (yes, indoctrinated under colour of education and through irresponsible books and media offerings) to dismiss the gospel using all too familiar talking-points, those very talking points are far more deeply questionable and dubious than those duped by them imagine.
For instance, as Strobel points out:
Case for Christ - L. Strobel from Rufino Magiting on Vimeo.
So, we see first and foremost, an issue of truth not mere religious affinity. Yes, a question of saying of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. Of accurate description of reality.
For, the basic historicity of Jesus is an extremely well-grounded, civilisation-shaping fact of history, and his resurrection from the dead is a fact authenticated by 500 witnesses and documented within 25 - 30 years. So, we must ask a pointed question: why do obviously powerful and well-funded movements in our civilisation -- including, increasingly, here in the Caribbean -- want to create a widespread, false perception that these things are myths?
There is an answer, an ugly one.
At one level, many have been alienated from the gospel, the church, its leaders and members. At another, a great many members and even leaders are ill-equipped to answer the sort of skeptical dismissiveness that the banner above and videotaped people are putting up. Thirdly, many young people from the churches are therefore ill-equipped to resist the confident manner and boldness of those presenting these talking points. But fourthly, we are seeing the playing out of The Great Western Apostasy as an increasingly (and foolishly) post-Christian civilisation seeks to de-Christianise its key institutions.
That is, the seven mountains of influence and the umbrella of worldviews and cultural agendas are at work in a suicidally destructive pattern of turning from truth to fashionable but ruinous falsities:
Why do I argue that this is ruinous?
First, because well-warranted (even if unfashionable) truth is important in its own right. As truth accurately describes reality, turning from truth is turning from reality to erect falsities that are out of synch with how the world really is. And, when the truth in question is truth about the root of reality, our Creator and our relationship with him as individuals, families, communities, nations and civilisations, wandering from truth is going to be extremely damaging. Particularly when God is the anchor for sound moral government and the one who provides a stable foundation for responsible, rational freedom and sound civilisation. Adapting Schaeffer:
Schaeffer, again (giving 2000 years of history of ideas background):
Also, when the gospel is a powerful, well-proved means of reconciliation, renewal and reformation:
So, yes, we are looking at warning-signs of our times and have to ask whether we can turn back before the cliff's edge crumbles and collapses underfoot:
I find, a useful point of contact is a c. 50 BC remark by the famous Roman Statesman and lawyer, Cicero:
—Marcus [in de Legibus, introductory remarks,. C1 BC]: . . . the subject of our present discussion . . . comprehends the universal principles of equity and law. In such a discussion therefore on the great moral law of nature, the practice of the civil law can occupy but an insignificant and subordinate station. For according to our idea, we shall have to explain the true nature of moral justice, which is congenial and correspondent [36]with the true nature of man.
We shall have to examine those principles of legislation by which all political states should be governed. And last of all, shall we have to speak of those laws and customs which are framed for the use and convenience of particular peoples, which regulate the civic and municipal affairs of the citizens, and which are known by the title of civil laws.
Quintus. —You take a noble view of the subject, my brother, and go to the fountain–head of moral truth, in order to throw light on the whole science of jurisprudence: while those who confine their legal studies to the civil law too often grow less familiar with the arts of justice than with those of litigation.
Marcus. —Your observation, my Quintus, is not quite correct. It is not so much the science of law that produces litigation, as the ignorance of it, (potius ignoratio juris litigiosa est quam scientia) . . . .
With respect to the true principle of justice, many learned men have maintained that it springs from Law. I hardly know if their opinion be not correct, at least, according to their own definition; for “Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.” This, they think, is apparent from the converse of the proposition; because this same reason, when it [37]is confirmed and established in men’s minds, is the law of all their actions. They therefore conceive that the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law, whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones. They think, too, that the Greek name for law (NOMOS), which is derived from NEMO, to distribute, implies the very nature of the thing, that is, to give every man his due. [--> this implies a definition of justice as the due balance of rights, freedoms and responsibilities]
For my part, I imagine that the moral essence of law is better expressed by its Latin name, (lex), which conveys the idea of selection or discrimination. According to the Greeks, therefore, the name of law implies an equitable distribution of goods: according to the Romans, an equitable discrimination between good and evil. The true definition of law should, however, include both these characteristics. And this being granted as an almost self–evident proposition, the origin of justice is to be sought in the divine law of eternal and immutable morality. This indeed is the true energy of nature, the very soul and essence of wisdom, the test of virtue and vice.In short, our civilisation is ignorantly and sometimes even smugly trifling with the roots of the civil peace of justice; not realising the hellishly ruinous fires we are playing with. Something, even the pagan Stoics recognised so long ago now.
And, such is highly relevant, once we ponder the inherent instability of democratic forms of government (just as being an upright biped depends on perpetual stabilising micro-adjustments) and how crucially they depend for stabilisation on a morally sound community:
The question for us, then, is: can we turn back as a region (and as a civilisation) before it is too late?
I don't know, but we had better try. For, the alternative is clearly ruinous. END
