(Editor’s note: read part 1 here.)

I believe that Christians are, can be, and should be the greatest force for good in our country. Yet they have done very little to slow, stop, or otherwise avert the gradual, steady, relentless decline of our country.

I have identified 8 common Biblical, theological, social, and political beliefs that I believe are keeping Christians from being that important necessary good for our country.

The second belief is a separation of the secular and the spiritual. This is based on a saying of Jesus: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Mark 12:13–17 (NASB95)

13 Then they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him [Jesus] in order to trap Him in a statement. 14 They came and said to Him, “Teacher, . . . Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? 15 “Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius [a certain coin] to look at.” 16 They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” 17 And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

For many if not most Christians, this divides the world in half. There is a secular world, and there is a spiritual world. They will pay their taxes and vote, and that can pretty much sum up their obligations to Caesar or the government.

But, again, as in point 1, in the United States, the government is not a separate entity from the people. We are the government. Not to get involved is like leaving your house doors open, your cars unlocked, and your savings in a shoe box under your bed.

But the world is separated into a spiritual life and a secular life. And the spiritual is infinitely more important than the secular. There are spiritual activities that require enormous amounts of whatever free time a person has.

First of all, every Christian needs to spend time every day in personal devotions. The more, the better. This includes personal Bible study, worship, and prayer.

More and more churches are also insisting that everyone belong to a small group, where the same activities are repeated but with an added social dynamic. Together, the group studies the Bible or another book that is read during the week and discussed. The group often will meet at other times for projects or fun things just to build relationships. But every person is strongly encouraged, or pressed, to be actively related to a number of other people to share their personal lives and struggles.

Many Christians will also be a part of another Bible study group during the week because you simply can’t get enough Bible. And I am not being facetious here. These are generally of greater depth than a small group study and require a considerable amount of homework.

Then, of course, there is church itself. Most conservative churches used to have three different services a week that the more faithful would never miss under penalty of not being considered a really committed Christian. Now, many only have the Sunday morning or weekend service that one needs to attend to be in good standing.

But there are many, many other ways to be involved; and this is a sign of your spiritual maturity. Every person is encouraged or expected to do something or be a part of another group in the church, whether it is helping out in the nursery, the youth, the nursing home, the soup kitchen, the men’s group, the women’s group, committees, or cleanup.

Not only is every available bit of free time away from your prioritized personal family time accounted for, but also all your available money. Conservative churches generally teach the tithe, with many of them practically making it a requirement or sign of real commitment to the church and God. The tithe, of course, is giving ten percent of your (gross) income to God, often meaning the local church. And there are many, many other Christian organizations doing great things that need your contributions.

The Christian life is a very full one, in every way. They are exhorted to reach the world for Christ; but often, they don’t really have much contact with anyone who is not a Christian outside of work.

But anything outside of strictly religious activities and personal acts of charity is secular and of a much lower value in the scheme of things. And even if the case is made for their importance, who has the time for one more thing?

The Christian life and culture has become a separate, co-existing culture parallel to a secular culture. Christians often will mimic some aspect of secular culture to prove its relevance to the world. They will attend the same movies and listen to music that sounds much the same, though with spiritual words; but they live in a parallel universe. They need to stay closely engaged with other Christians so they don’t become worldly.

But this division between the secular and the spiritual has taken many Christians out of the rest of life in order to live the life they want to live.

They have often been criticized by the world as being judgmental and hypocritical, but I have been amazed constantly by their generosity and acts of compassion to those in need. But these are personal acts of generosity and personal acts of compassion. Someone I know is giving her car to a single mom.

But life outside of the local church, one’s immediate family, and organizations devoted to evangelism or personal charity is deemed pretty much to be secular and markedly less important than that inside.

Photo Credit: John H. Wright (Creative Commons)

[Disclaimer: In real life, people can hold any number of views that are inconsistent with their other views; and most people fall along a long continuum of political, religious, and moral beliefs. So, yes, this is dealing with stereotypes, though my son says they exist for a reason.]

Conservatives believe you should be kind and generous to the poor and needy. Liberals believe the same thing, but they take other people’s money to do it and then claim credit for their compassion.

Conservatives believe that, just as you receive a booklet from the manufacturer with most new purchases telling you how the thing works, so our Manufacturer has given us a Manual to tell us how life works and how it is supposed to work. Liberals believe that human knowledge is progressing such that we can figure all this out on our own.

Conservatives believe there are rules in life given to us by God and reflected in many of our traditions. Liberals believe you can pretty much make your own rules apart from the cardinal rules of letting others do what they want (tolerance) and life should be fair (everybody should have the same things as everyone else.).

Conservatives believe that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Liberals believe you should tolerate your neighbor, which is just another way of saying “ignore him.”

Conservatives will write a check or give what they have to someone in need. Liberals will point them to the appropriate government agency that will help them.

Conservatives believe that God gave us laws so we can live a happy, fulfilling life. Liberals believe you should go your whole life not really knowing the best way to live your life, and hopefully you will die suddenly so you won’t lie on your deathbed thinking of all the regrets about what you should have done differently.

Conservatives believe that children are a blessing, a gift from God, a privilege (in raising the next generation), and the thing we will prize most in our lives. Liberals believe that children are one of many options but often a hindrance keeping women from achieving the same things as men.

Conservatives believe that individuals, through their faith and knowledge of God, hard work, and community, can and should provide for the general welfare of our society. Liberals believe that government can and should solve every problem. Usually, it will take money and a new government program and agency to do this.

Conservatives believe sex is sacred, a gift from God to create the next generation but also to unite a husband and wife in a way you wouldn’t have imagined. Liberals believe sex is just a form of recreation, like a massage or a tennis match, or a bodily function like eating, sleeping, or eliminating.

Conservatives believe that our rights come from God, from what He has made us as human beings. Liberals believe that the government can and should expand those rights and force other people to secure those rights. E.g. a right to a living wage means that someone else has to pay them more than they want to to perform a particular job.

Conservatives believe that you can’t do everything you want in life, no matter how good or noble. You have to make choices, set priorities, and do what you can. Liberals believe that everything good can and should be done regardless of the cost, and the government should probably do it because they can do it better and make sure it gets done in ways that protect the health and safety of every living and non-living thing in the world.

Conservatives believe that life has risks, and people are generally capable of assessing risks and making good choices. Liberals believe that the government has a responsibility to protect everyone from all danger, loss, risk, or failure at any cost.

These differences basically describe the two very different views of the world and the role of government that exist in our country, and people wonder why they compromise on solutions for the betterment of our country. They can’t decide what is better.

Imagine you were going to a book signing for the 700-page bestselling historical mystery thriller novel you were reading and found that the person signing the books was a 7 year old second grader. You would leave without getting an autograph. Why? You would not believe that a seven year old child, no matter how precocious, could write what you are reading. Because the effect (a 700-page bestselling historical mystery thriller novel) was not commensurate with the cause (a 7 year old child).

This is what evolution is: a series of effects so much greater than the causes that if we were to see them in real life, we would immediately reject them.

We are expected to believe that random mutations over millions of years could and would produce complex living systems that have eyes, brains, hearts, intelligence, and self-awareness. There is nothing in our experience that would suggest that anything like this is possible. In fact, all known laws of science, like entropy and thermodynamics, tell us that things decay or deteriorate when left to themselves. Houses don’t build themselves, and tools left outside for years will rust or become unusable.

But why is all this so important? What difference does it make if you think aliens left organic compounds here, or a God created all this, or if everything just happened all by itself?

The first and obvious reason is that it answers the question: is there a God? Those who say that all this could have and did happen all by itself essentially dismiss the concept of a Supreme Being. They see no reason to believe in anything beyond what they can see, feel, taste, or, in scientific talk, what they can observe and measure.

If life was/is just a chance occurrence of chemical compounds that ends with physical death, then life has no meaning beyond what we choose to give it. And everyone is free to choose what meaning that is, if any. Life ends at death, and there are no prizes or rewards to the winners.

Science can analyze a human being and tell you how much carbon, water, hydrogen, etc. exists in a body; but it cannot tell you if that life has meaning or purpose.

Scientists are often quick to dismiss the idea of God because they deem it unnecessary and unprovable, yet they resort to a faith in natural processes to create things beyond what they with all their intelligence cannot.

If there is a God, I would certainly expect that He would be beyond human comprehension and measurement. Scientists look for proof of something that by definition would be greater than everything that exists. They feel justified in rejecting the concept because they can’t fit Him to their experiments or see Him with their eyes. I submit they need look no further than themselves to see the work of Someone who is vastly more intelligent than all our accumulated knowledge.

Acknowledging that there is a God changes everything. On the other hand, rejecting the idea also changes everything. This is the pivotal concept that shapes our lives.

If life (our lives) is just the result of random chemical interactions, human life just isn’t that important anymore. Nations that have rejected the idea of God were instrumental in killing millions of their own citizens because they didn’t fit into the plans of those who were in power.
The survival of the fittest becomes the law of the land, and everyone has to look out for themselves first.

If there is a God, then life, our life, was intentional. Life is valuable and has meaning and purpose. What meaning and purpose?

This leads to the second reason why the question of evolution is so important. If life is intentional, if we were made and not chance occurrences, then we would expect that there are certain laws to our existence.

Science recognizes natural laws, laws of physics and chemistry, laws that tell us how things work in the physical realm. But are there laws that tell us how life is supposed to work?

You can’t buy so much as a toaster without getting a long booklet from the manufacturer telling us how the thing works, how it is meant to work, what the inherent dangers are, and how to get the most use out of it.

But what about life? Are there rules that we ignore to our detriment? Did our Manufacturer give us an instruction manual to tell us how this is supposed to work? Or do we spend our whole life trying to figure out what is best, only to realize on our death beds how we could have done things better?

This is what a religion is. It purports to tell us what life is all about. You don’t study a religion long, however, before you see how vastly different its conclusions are about a lot of things. Religions are close on some things, but most have mutually exclusive teachings on many important issues.

Does this mean that truth is unattainable (and all religions are essentially equally valid) because we don’t know enough to be able to decide between them? No. It just means that like everything else in life worth having, you might have to put a little effort into searching it out.

One last reason I would like to submit here why the issue of evolution and God is important is that, if God did indeed create the world and life, it is very possible, as more religions teach, that we are in some way accountable to God for our lives. The details vary from religion to religion, but the first place to start is that the idea that what we do with our lives is important in ways we can little imagine should wake us to the pursuit of what things in life really matter.

I know some people will think I have tried to make too much of this issue of evolution and God and that I reach conclusions that don’t have enough ‘proof’ behind them. The fact is life is not like a job where you have orientation and are given the company handbook with all the rules inside.

Our lives are pretty open-ended. We can do pretty much what we want in how we live our lives. We eat what we want when we want, choose a spouse or not, and make all kinds of choices everyday without somebody looking over our shoulder and telling us what to do.

Life is also short, and there is no rehearsal. This is it. We are not going to get the absolute certainty of everything before we have to make choices on how we will live our lives. In this short article, I hope I have clarified some of the questions we need to ask.

Photo credit: atheism (Creative Commons)

Evolution: Why it’s wrong and why it matters (Part 1a)

Last time I wrote about why evolution is wrong, and I was planning here to show why this matters. Some readers, however, were kind enough to take the time to write lengthy comments to my article, so I thought it important here to respond to their comments. Perhaps the fact that I said evolution was wrong without qualifying that statement with such mitigating phrases as, “why I believe evolution is wrong,” or, “in my opinion, ….” had something to do with the content of their comments.

One reader was thoughtful enough to include a scientific flowchart to show how science works. My article simply mentioned such things as observing, measuring, and repeatable experiments.

Science is certainly very good at what it is made to do; but after reading all the comments, I still believe it is safe to say that evolution does not fit with the scientific method.

What kind of repeatable experiment would we conduct? Fill a Petri dish half full with amino acids, top it off with water, place it on the ground where it can get adequate sunlight, and then check it in a million years or so for signs of life?

I think it is safe to say that evolution does not meet the requirement of repeatable experiment. Nor that of observation. Science can’t give an experiment of evolution. By this I mean, either the origin of life or the transition from one species to another. And even if it could, that wouldn’t prove anything, because the whole point of evolution is that all this was supposed to have happened by itself, without any intelligent help. If a scientist did think that he proved evolution by his experiment, it would actually be more of a support for the existence of God, because it would show that these things needed intelligence to put it all together, not blindless, random mutations.

And since no intelligence is involved in the process, evolution should have been going on continuously ever since it started. It wouldn’t have noted that now that we have human beings, its work is done. There is nobody to do the thinking.

And the fact that we still have all these intermediate species, like birds and fishes and reptiles, would suggest that this evolutionary process is still at work. Yet all these species appear to be finished products. If evolution were true, as I said before, every living thing now would be in some transitional state, a work in progress. Now it looks like everything is complete in its own kind.

One reader had a question about the origin of the earth. Did God create it or did it come about through entirely natural means? Neither alternative is easy. Either would require an act of faith. However, I have read too much about the wonders of the world to think that everything just came about by chance. Why would water expand when it freezes, unlike everything else that contracts, thus permitting life below the water’s surface to survive in winter?

I read that the earth possesses something like 27 properties that are essential to life. It has been described like the earth was made specifically to support life. It’s not so much a question of whether there is life on other planets, but why is there any life at all?

It was suggested that life is simply the mixing of the right ingredients. I understand that the molecules that form our DNA are constructed in ways that do not occur naturally. That is, you can get these atoms and amino acids to combine in a laboratory or elsewhere, but they won’t combine in the way that DNA is built.

Several readers use the words ‘scientific fact’ to describe the results that science purports to have. That’s not quite accurate. Science can establish facts, and it has done so quite well. But evolution is entirely out of that realm. There are no observations, no measuring, no repeatable experiments. And it precludes the possibility of God having done anything right from the start. That’s not only not fair; it’s unscientific, in the better sense of the term. Science, as I would like to think of the term, would be the search for the truth, wherever it leads, not just to naturalistic explanations for everything.

The pursuit for truth should take someone wherever the evidence leads, not make up some story to avoid the obvious conclusions. The world, everything in it, and especially human beings, is a truly wonderful place. I use the word ‘wonderful’ here in its etymological sense, full of wonder. Nothing in our experience would even suggest that order, intelligence, complexity, and design can originate apart from previous intelligence.

We use the word God for that intelligence. If you have problems with the understanding of God that you were taught when you were younger, that still should not dissuade anyone that such a thing as a God put all this together. To ascribe all this to chance is more than a typical leap of faith. A religious person feels there is evidence to push him in a certain direction. The non-religious scientist has to leap to something that is contrary to human experience and known laws of nature.

One last reader speaks of “libraries of empirical testing.” Our point here is with evolution, which cannot be tested. Human involvement would contaminate the experiment, it is unobservable, and there is no evidence that it has actually occurred.

Fact and truth are held up as the epitome of human existence. The fact is that there is much of life and existence that science cannot talk about. The meaning of life, its purpose, and, of course, whether there is a God.

There are no questions bigger than these, but science has nothing to say about them. It reduces life down to a combination of protein, carbohydrates, and fats brought together by chance. And someday it will all separate.

Is that all what life is about? Life is short. I think our first duty as human beings is to find out if there is a God. If there is, we need to find out anything and everything we can about Him. If not, then we can breathe a sigh of relief and try to make the most of what little time we have.

Photo credit: atheism (Creative Commons)