Dead End?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. (Mark 16:15-20)

Are we there yet or is this a dead end? That question can be asked in a variety of circumstances.  It’s a question that comes to mind as I watch the current doings taking place in our country, modern America. There is serious confrontation taking place seemingly everywhere. In some places it’s more acute than others, but it seems to be exhibited everywhere to some extent. What is the problem? We’ve always argued about politics; that goes back to the constitutional convention when we determined how we should be governed in the first place. But the people who engaged that discussion were informed by a Christian worldview for the most part; and their thoughts regarding the structure of government were influenced by a “Western” history extending back to the early Roman Republic. But in these days the discussion seems to be engaged by people who know little to nothing about our history or the basic principles associated with the structure of our government. Uninformed people cannot function well in a democracy, they just can’t, and although the gospel has been informing our culture from the very beginning, these days the influence of the Lord is waning as well!

The word “democracy” means “people power” but that power needs to be wielded by people who understand what government is and the various ways in which that government can, and should, function. Limited knowledge may be tolerated on a small scale, but not in a circumstance that involves hundreds of millions of people—such as the United States! We need to know what we’re doing in order to have effective government and the people who choose to run for office need to have more than just a particular agenda in mind, they need to understand the nature of our government; understand the features of our government; and understand the place that the office they seek contributes to the governance of this country. I don’t see that being exhibited much in the current political debate. And without the biblical principles to guide our behavior, the collaboration that is required for our government to work is also sorely lacking. I know that I’ve touched on some of this in previous posts, but I want to reemphasize here some of the basic features of our government. The United States is a democracy of sorts, but it is more than that; it’s also a republic in which the powers of government are distributed in three dimensions: an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. These branches are populated by various means in such a way that the power of individual citizens does have a role to play in the process, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. It’s also necessary to understand that governance of the country as a whole is balanced by the governance of individual states. And this is where much of the political conflict exhibited today stems from. States are resisting the exercise of national power within their borders and it’s up to the judiciary to determine how to maintain that balance of power.

What does that have to do with the focus of this blog: which is the furtherance of the gospel within this country? First of all we have to make up our minds as to what’s important. Human existence is compromised by sin. Our hope is not found in “good” government that provides ease of living. Our hope is in “nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”  It’s easy to forget this as Americans, because we do enjoy great privileges as citizens of this country. And political dissension is considered essential in the progress of a democratic republic such as ours. But these days that dissention is being radicalized due, in part, to the diversification of the citizenry of modern America. It is true that there has been an increase in the number of people coming to the United States from other countries, either legally or illegally. These folks prompt greater diversity in the influence of religion within the nation. Our Christian roots are being challenged by alternative views of God and the human condition by Muslims, communists, and agnostics; but it can also be said that our religious and Christian roots are also being impacted by a decidedly secular understanding of human existence promoted by the pervasive technology that engages everyone today! We’ve got “power” at our fingertips, power that’s been gained by the exercise of our minds without the help of our God or any other deity. We can find out anything we want to know with just a few clicks of our phone; how things work, who invented what and when, current events, the temperature at the South Pole; the information is all there. But is it true? It must be or someone would tell us; right? Of course they will and that results in competing ideas about just about everything. And this is at the root of a significant discussion regarding the accuracy of the news we’re presented with these days. The questions are there if we want to ask them. Did something really happen? It must have because a variety of sources are saying that it did; there’s even pictures presented to prove it. But did it happen the way they say that it did? And are the pictures real or manufactured? Did anything get left out? Those are questions that have to be asked because the sources are not always consistent with each other. Who was involved? Did it happen in the order that it was presented? And the grand question is: why did it happen? What’s the cause? Even in the realm of “legitimate” news it’s becoming increasingly evident that there are agendas impacting the information we’re receiving. News is no longer just information made available for the viewer to decide its relevance. Nowadays editorializing is intertwined with information such that the presenters assume that their take on the information is the only way to properly understand it. You don’t just get information; you get an opinion that’s presumed to be accurate. I don’t mind someone telling me what they think, but to assume that their view is the only right one is presumptuous in the extreme. And, unfortunately that is the way much of the news is being presented these days.

However, I’m not going to delve any further into that discussion. I’ve pointed it out in order to establish the severity of the situation so that every last citizen in this country would be prompted to get off the couch and educate themselves regarding the way our government works, and to take on their responsibility to be “informed” citizens in this moment in time. This democratic republic is a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” And the people are YOU… and me, and everyone else who is of age. We don’t get to coast here…letting everyone else handle it while we go on our way, arguing about who’s right or wrong and basing our views on what people are saying on TikTok! We’ve got to exam our sources and evaluate the validity of what’s presented. Just because somebody’s on TV, or has a blog, doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about! In order to be well informed we need to access multiple sources and make comparisons; and we need to determine what is being used to substantiate the presentation. We can’t just accept what is being agreed upon by a particular crowd of people, we have to access the views of diverse communities and exam the basis for competing views. It takes work to be well-informed! This is true of anything that we depend on for information, and important information needs to be assessed closely to determine what is true and what is false. Case in point and something that is more relevant for this blog, is our knowledge of the Bible. If we only rely on one source to help us understand and apply what the Bible says, it’s very likely that the impact of Scripture upon our lives will be limited in some way. We need to ask questions when we read Scripture and access various resources to validate our understanding of it. This is something that every believer needs to do. It’s part of how we find our way in our walk with God, and good pastors will encourage it. I’m not saying that we rely on our own judgment exclusively when we study the Bible or any other resource that influences our lives, but we do need to take a posture that involves investigation. Something isn’t necessarily true just because it appears on a blog that has thousands of followers. It isn’t even true if it appears in the Bible! I know that sounds strange, but what I’m saying is that the Bible, just as any other resource, needs to be evaluated in order for its truth to become apparent. Without that evaluation we can’t really know what is true and what is false. That’s the predicament that we’re in today. We’re inundated with information and being prompted to accept it without evaluating it. Currently, it’s thought that if there are enough people affirming something it must be true.

Supporting this situation is an effort to purposely deceive us…all of us. The people who are presenting information through various means aren’t necessarily lying to us. They often believe what they’re saying. That’s true for politicians, reporters…and pastors. There may not be an effort to deceive being attempted by the presenters. The question is how did they come to their conclusions? Why do they believe what they’re saying? When we receive information we need to evaluate it even if there’s a reliable resource behind it. That’s because there is always an effort to deceive in the course of human affairs. The whole world is subject to deception by a power whose agenda is to deceive. Whether the venue is government, the Church, or someone’s crew in the neighborhood, there’s always an element of deception at work in human affairs. The agenda is to rob, kill, and destroy; and, in our modern Western environment, the effort is to deceive without being detected at all. Current Western thought largely denies the existence of the supernatural. Even in the Church the supernatural may only be given a brief nod as to its reality. But personified deception is repeatedly presented in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. We’ve got an enemy who’s out to get us because it’s the substance of who he is. And that is the reality of what we’re up against as we navigate this weird, increasingly technical, and pervasive culture that transcends the traditional boundaries of our “worldwide” existence. My goal here is to prompt us all to watch what we’re doing in this ever-expanding world culture that is being unified and informed by the continuous development of new technologies. It’s humanism run amok. The conviction is that we can figure out for ourselves what is best for us and there is no such thing as spiritual power, There’s only us and the capacities we’ve achieved through natural processes that we us to explore ourselves and the world around us.

Having made this argument, I want to end the discussion with some thoughts regarding a particular section of Scripture found in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians. The Church in Thessalonica had been told that the second coming of Jesus had already occurred and they had missed it. The Apostle Paul sought to relieve their fears by saying:

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

There’s more here to be considered but I’m not going to try and unpack it. The reason I’m bring it up is the current acceleration of technology and its use. Everybody on earth is being unified after a fashion through technology. The internet in general, and now AI as a force within that environment, suggests a possible unification of sorts that could impact world culture as a whole. And while I’m not trying to speak with authority here, I’m suggesting that these technical developments could be considered as representative of the “man of lawlessness” who garners a version of global worship. It’s something to think about as we continue to make our way as devoted Christian believers in an increasingly chaotic environment; an environment in which technology is regarded as a solution for what is wrong with the world.

Thank you Lord! Your “lovingkindness (really) is better than life.”