The Tangent College
Allow me to satirically re-paraphrase Matthew 22:36–39 according to contemporary Christian religion –
“Pastor, which is the most popular commandment that we can all agree upon? ” And Jesus said to him, ‘you shall love everyone equally with all your heart and soul, and you shall never engage your mind in judgment of anyone or of any sin they may accidentally commit’ “this is the foremost commandment of the compliant church. “The second is like it, ‘you shall never offend anyone for any cause, lest your neighbor, in turn, should offend you’ “on these two commandments depend the continued security of the contemporary corporate church. It is the simple request of the world with which you are to live in harmony with.”
Think about it. Is this not what most contemporary religious churches teach? Let us compare it phrase by phrase with the actual Scripture which is a bit less flaccid.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Any statement made that dares direct confrontation with sin and the sinner is quickly followed by the apology “but I’m not judging anyone”. And it is followed by “we condemn only the sin but not the sinner”. But you are judging someone, (because all sin requires a sinner, and there is no sin in the absence of a sinner) and Jesus commands you to do so. His only requirement is that you judge righteously. “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” John 7:24.
This leads to the other phrase that we hear incessantly in the contemporary Christian church, which comes in three forms: “God is in control”, “God is still on the throne”, and “God is sovereign”. All of these statements are statements of the obvious. Of course God is all these things precisely because He Is God. If he wasn’t on the throne, in control or sovereign he would not be God. Understand that these phrases are really used as a false comfort that God will protect us from all harm and we don’t have to do anything on our own. But this is not what the Bible teaches.
Psalm 115:16 – “the heavens are the heavens of the Lord; but the earth he has given to the sons of men”. Yes, God is sovereign – because HE IS GOD – but he has chosen to deed sovereignty of the earth to the sons of men.
Again, what does the Bible say?
Genesis 1: 26-28 – Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
How can man subdue and rule if God did not grant him sovereignty? No one who is sovereign can rule without the ability to make judgments to some degree or another. This is what “to rule” means. To be made in the image of God brings with it a degree of God’s sovereignty. But like children, the contemporary Christian church will not stop running away from the responsibility of their sovereignty, which was granted by God at the time of man’s creation. And how much more sovereignty are you granted when you are born again and become a child of God?
Further ability to judge was brought about by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God recognized this increased ability when he said most clearly, “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;…” – Genesis 3:22. With this act of rebellion also came the knowledge of good and evil (making us even more like God) with the ability to be able to judge between good and evil. With this ability also comes new responsibility from which men hide. We cannot go back and undo this knowledge for we have all eaten from this tree. We are all thus judges whether we like it or not and the only way to deal with this knowledge is to do as Jesus said that when you judge, judge righteously.
We must judge between good and evil, praising the good and condemning the evil, or else we are no better than dumb sheep. It is one of the things that makes us men and not animals – being made in God’s image and sharing God’s ability to discern between good and evil.
Imagine David, when Israel was facing the Philistines and Goliath the giant came out daring a man to fight against him. If David followed the model of the contemporary Christian church he would be shouting “Don’t engage this poor Philistine”, “God is sovereign”, “God is in control”, and “God will fight for us”. But David did not do that, but he chose rather to fight for God and His honor rather than to wait for God to fight for them while they cowered in fear.
Listen to David’s words, “For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?” His older brother Eliab rebukes him and calls him “insolent” and “wicked”, for speaking out of place and in such bold terms. Furthermore, did David apologize for rightly judging the Philistine as uncircumcised? Was he concerned about hurting the feelings of Goliath when he judged him to be an enemy of God?
Rather, David was concerned about the honor of the people of God He was a man after God’s own heart. David recognized the sovereignty that God gave the armies of the living God over this uncircumcised Philistine. And he took action, courageous action, death-defying action, instead of waiting for God to do it for him, because, you know, “God is in control” and it’s not our place to judge this uncircumcised Philistine. How dare this puny boy called David judge this giant called Goliath. – Besides the church isn’t supposed to get involved in messy things like politics and war and defeating the enemies of God. Our only job is to follow the first commandment of the compliant contemporary Christian church, that is not to judge, not to offend and to show the love of Christ constantly.
Instead, David chose, by his own free will, to show Goliath a small but lethal stone to the forehead.
The disconnect between the religious church and the real world; and between the religious church and the Bible is getting harder and harder to endure.