Articles
Christian Realism
I don’t know about you, but the world in which I live becomes more alien with every passing day. Not that I’ve ever felt very “at home” in this world, but certainly in earlier times I felt our culture reflected Biblical values far more than it does today. A song from a bygone era noted, “Times are a-changin’ …”, and never has this been truer than the present.
We have devolved into thinking that we can manufacture our own reality, that truth is pliable, not objective and fixed. A recent article told of a student who answered on a test: 1 divided by 0 = 0. The teacher marked the answer wrong; the student protested to his parents; the parents complained to the administration; the administration sided with the parents and insisted the teacher was wrong to affirm that 1 divided by 0 = 1.
I submit that true Christians – those who accept the inspired Scriptures as the revelation of the mind of God – are the most realistic people on the planet. They see things as they are, not as they want them to be, sometimes to their own pain or peril. Denial of unpleasant truths will only delay the inevitable, for reality will eventually assert itself. Let’s consider some Biblical truths as we attempt to navigate through the fog of subjectivism.
Ø God created humankind male and female. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them” (Gn 1:27). Genesis 2 records the special creation of Eve for Adam, thereby demonstrating His deliberate formation of distinct yet complimentary sexes. This is genetically substantiated via the identification of unique chromosomal constitution of male (xy) and female (xx).
While in a tiny percentage of cases aberrations may occur in the sexual development of children, the binary constitution of male and female is clear. By denying this fundamental reality, the Western world has tied itself in knots trying to categorize human sexuality according to feelings, hormonal therapy, surgery, etc. – all of which deny the basic xy/xx identification of true males and females.
The reality: The two Olympic male boxers who were allowed to fight in women’s categories predictably dominated their female opponents and won the gold medal. Idealism is naïve and foolish, and to have to debate this issue in view of the obvious consequences is mind-numbing.
Ø All sexual activity outside the bond of marriage is sinful. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Heb 13:4). Fornication is the generic term for casual sexual relations of every kind; adultery is breaking one’s marital vow by having relations with someone else. For many decades now Western culture has championed sex without legal limits, constraint of conscience or any other infringement wherever, whenever and with whomever one desires. This has been packaged as liberation, celebration and elation with no downsides whatsoever.
The reality: Casual sex without marital commitment opens a Pandora’s box of rampant sexual diseases, unwanted pregnancy (and resultant abortion), rape and abuse, lack of self-worth and self-respect, inability to establish long-term relationships, prostitution and sex-trafficking and other serious problems. One of Satan’s most ubiquitous lies is that the pleasures of sex can be extracted from the bond of marriage without any negative repercussions. And no matter how many ways the fallacy of this Hedonistic proposition is demonstrated, society refuses to debate or even realistically acknowledge the obvious problems of unfettered sexual liberty.
Ø Humanity will never be perfected by evolutionary, scientific or other human-based manipulations. “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me in to captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 7:21-8:2). With the advancement of computerization and the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence, academics, scientists and philosophers have begun turning to technology as the only hope for a utopian future for man. Cryogenics is passe; the new answer to human mortality is a brain transplant into a machine that doesn’t become injured or diseased and is unlimited by time or space.
The reality: Mankind’s main problem is in his soul, not his body. It is spiritual debilitation and alienation from God that is the source of our anxiety, insecurity and lack of meaning. We will not escape death, for so it has been decreed by God as a consequence of Adam’s fall, a fall we all replicate in our own lives: “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb 9:27). Man’s only hope for an idyllic future is to navigate that death by fellowship with God through Christ our Savior. Anything else – the colonization of Mars, robotics, one-world government – is a waste of time, money and focus upon what really matters.
Ø By and large, the world is too blind and stubborn to accept reality. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned … whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (1 Cor 2:14; 2 Cor 4:4). Christians do not rejoice over this, for they deeply feel not only the temporal evils spawned by the glorification of sin but the eternal ramifications as well. It is painful to watch helplessly as our neighbors commit spiritual suicide.
The reality: Hell is real; it is eternal; it is the destiny for all those “who do not know God and … who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power …” (2 Th 1:8-9). This is a horror that the majority of mankind may sense on some level but never soberly or diligently investigate. Christians accept the dual reality of heaven and hell, and they dedicate themselves to living for Christ so that in Him they have a lighted path of forgiveness from hell to heaven. Oh, that all would leave their fictions behind and walk with us along that path!
