Biblical Freedom From Religious Oppression

What better time to address this subject than when we’re less than two weeks away from the debt ceiling deadline. Our hyper-polarized government is stuck in gridlock, nether side willing to budge on the promises they made to those who voted for them. Yet disaster is certain if they can’t come to some sort of compromise. It’s like having two co-captains of a ship, and one insists on going left to avoid the iceberg ahead and the other insists on going right, and neither will give in, so the ship is doomed unless someone finally does.

Some will say that the system is broken and must be dismantled. They are wrong. The system isn’t broken. The system was never fully functional in the first place.

Why?

Because it’s man-made. And anything man-made is going to have serious flaws, because every member of mankind has serious flaws. And one of those flaws is that we’re far from being all-knowing. Our minds can’t come close to handling all of the variables and psychologies that go into voting, economics, etc. Only God has perfect knowledge, and only He can design a perfect system.

Is there another system I think would be better? Sorry, I think democracy is the best system humans have ever devised. But that doesn’t mean it’s not flawed, nor should we give it the level of praise that only God deserves.

We Christians take great pride in the superiority of American democracy. It’s one of the main reasons that we hear Christian Americans repeatedly saying that America is the greatest country on earth. We tend to look down on other nations who have a different system, even to the point where we’re willing to take military action against them.

Yet, if our system are so much better than that of the other nations, why do we have such difficulties? Maybe it’s time for us American Christians to stop singing the praises of our system, and, in humility, admit that nothing we create is all that worthy of praise. Only God can create perfection, so let us transfer to Him the glory that we’ve been misdirecting toward our man-made systems and solutions.

Last week I wrote of a church service in which “You’re a Grand Old Flag” was sung as a worship song. The pastor’s message in that service was that America is a Christian nation. He spoke of monuments in Washington DC that had Christian inscriptions on them. He told us that this was God’s chosen country, much like Israel was, and that we had to ensure that our legislation forced all Americans to follow Christian morality.

In more recent times, I’ve seen Glenn Beck also insist that our nation is God’s chosen, but Beck takes the idea further to a dangerous level. He, as well as many of his Fox News colleagues, intertwines Christian values with American values, so that every value that conservatives consider to be American is now Christian because this is God’s country. Thanks to these teachings, many Americans see everything from capitalism to freedom to lowering taxes to patriotism as Christian, even though they are unbiblical.

The danger here is that when we allow ourselves to see our nation’s values as being one-in-the-same as God’s values, we unknowingly replace God’s biblical values with those of our nation, and then our nation becomes our god.

Beck may like to compare ideas he opposes to Nazi Germany, but Germany incited its religious folk to support its evil doings by getting them to think that God’s will was the same as the will of the nation, thus replacing their allegiance to God with allegiance to the nation. So ironically Beck’s approach is similar to Germany’s and just about every other nation in history that has used religion as a rallying point to gain support for evil.

Let’s not fall for scams like these. The first century Christians in the Bible weren’t worried about being good Romans first. They concerned themselves with being Christians first. They weren’t impressed with the fact that Rome was the world’s most powerful, most accomplished nation. They didn’t make it their god because it had founding fathers or because many soldiers sacrificed their lives for its sake. They placed God’s biblical will ahead of all else and only accepted Roman values that were consistent with those of the Bible. That’s the approach that God calls us to take as well.

(To learn more, go to www.biblicalfreedom.com and read studies that examine every Bible verse addressing various issues.)

On this day of celebration of our nation’s independence, I thought it would be the right moment to give a little reminder to Christians about how far we should take our love of country. Living just a few miles from Philadelphia, our nation’s birthplace, I’ve taken many an opportunity to relish in our nation’s place in history as one of the world’s most amazing success stories in both prosperity and quality of life for its people. But despite the great privilege God has given us to live in such a place, we must take care not to worship the gift, but rather the Giver, just as we must not worship created things like the sun, but rather the Creator.

I’ve been in more than one church service over the years which has included the singing of patriotic songs during the service. God Bless America is the only song that has not offended me, since the lyrics are directed toward God. It’s like a prayer. America the Beautiful, however,  is sung to America, so it’s inappropriate for a church service, but at least it calls for God to “shed His grace on thee”.

The most idolatrous song I’ve ever heard in a 4th of July church service is You’re a Grand Old Flag. The song is sung directly to a piece of material made with human hands. It’s the purest form of idolatry. Today churches often equate our love of things and entertainment with idolatry, but the idolatry that angers God over and over again throughout the Bible is that of making something with human hands and worshiping it.  In a church service, only God is to be praised. While we may thank God for our nation, we may never sing it’s praises in church. Our government, constitution, and flag are all made by humans, and nothing made by humans is ever to be placed on the same level as God, being worthy of worship.

Evolution/old universe theory comes from evil non-Christians.
The argument can be made that people who claim no allegiance to Christianity, or to any other religion, still have religious beliefs. Atheists place their faith in the idea that God does not exist, and Agnostics place their faith in the idea that God does not matter. So everybody has a religious belief.

Traditional Creation Enforcers recognize that non-Christians are, in a sense, members of different religions. They then tell Christians that the theory of evolution/old universe originated with non-Christians and is, therefore, a belief from a different religion; and to believe in such a theory is the same as adopting beliefs from another faith. This argument attacks the emotions of Christians in hopes that emotion will win out over logic. Unfortunately, this method is often effective.

In making this claim, Traditional Creation Enforcers are saying that any belief created by a non-Christian is false and should be rejected. We should then expect all non-Christian beliefs to be rejected by Traditional Creation Enforcers. Here are a few examples of how they fall short of their own teaching:

The earth is round, rotates, and revolves around the sun: The men to which these beliefs have been credited, Copernicus and Galileo, were Roman Catholic. However, most conservative Protestants see Roman Catholics as non-Christians, and they certainly see 16th century Roman Catholics as non-Christians. So we can say that, from a modern-day conservative Protestant viewpoint, this discovery came from non-Christians. With the exception of a handful of radical flat earth proponents, almost all Traditional Creation Enforcers believe in a round, rotating, and revolving earth. If Traditional Creation Enforcers were to consistently deny all beliefs that came from non-Christians, they would refuse to travel the oceans by ship for fear that they might fall off the edge of the earth.

Democracy: The first Democratic nation was ancient Greece. They instituted democratic city governments throughout their empire as early as approximately 500 B.C. Of course, the ancient Greeks worshipped such gods as Zeus, Hermes, Hades, and Apollo. They were one of the most homosexual nations in the history of the world, too. Their democracy was in sharp contrast to the Old Testament model for government in which a king or judge ruled over the people and received instructions directly from God, the written law, or a prophet. If Traditional Creation Enforcers were to be consistent in their rejection of ideas from other religions, then they would reject democracy and stay home on Election Day.

Shaving of the Face: The first permanent razor blades in history were used by the Egyptians and the Indians (from India) about 5,000 years ago. Egypt, a country fanatical about shaving, did not worship God (even the Bible confirms that), and India was Hindu. The Jews and early Christians, on the other hand, did not shave their faces or even trim their beards. Yet, in America today, most good, clean-cut, conservative Christians keep a smooth-shaven face. If Traditional Creation Enforcers were to reject all ideas that originate from Non-Christians, then every man who works at the Creation Museum should look like a member of ZZ Top.

I could continue with countless examples, but I’m sure that by the ones I just shared, you can see how silly it is to argue that all beliefs and practices originating from non-Christians are to be avoided.

In fact, the reason that most scientific discoveries came from non-Christians is that Bible-believing Christians never looked for answers. Why would they have dug in the ground or looked through a telescope to find answers when they believed that the first page of the Bible contained everything they could ever want to know? That would be like searching for your car keys when you already have them in your hand.

(To learn more, go to www.biblicalfreedom.com and read FREE Every-Verse Method studies)

The movie, “Expelled,” proves there’s a conspiracy among scientists against the Bible.
The movie, “Expelled—No Intelligence Allowed,” starring Ben Stein, interviews approximately half-a-dozen scientists who claim to have been fired for believing that God designed the universe. There’s no reason to doubt the testimonies of these scientists. But there’s also no reason to assume that such discrimination is widespread. The fired scientists in this movie are a minute sampling of all of the scientists in America who believe in Intelligent Design.

Around the time of this movie’s release, I saw a TV special about African-American life. In one segment, it interviewed African-American men who struggled to find employment. The producers used these interviews to promote the conclusion that racism is so out-of-control in modern America that it’s impossible for an African-American man to find a job. Yet, like many Americans, I know lots of employed African-American men, and many of them earn more than I do.

It’s easy for a movie producer to promote any point, no matter how untrue, by interviewing a small number of people whose experiences support such a point and by ignoring those with experiences to the contrary. That’s what the producers of “Expelled” did. Just like the Traditional Creation Enforcers’ approach to science, they accepted and promoted evidence that supported what they already believed and ignored evidence to the contrary.

Studying evolution will cause us to reject Christianity
While it’s bad enough that “Expelled” uses this movie interview technique to promote scientist conspiracy theories, it’s even worse that it uses it to convince us that studying evolution will make Christians reject Christianity. This argument is a classic example of fear mongering, because it attempts to elevate our fears to levels that exceed our logic and control our conduct.

In a sense, however, their argument hurts Christianity more than it helps it, because it tells us that we should avoid opening our minds to logical arguments, because an open-minded examination of them will cause us to fall away from Christ. In other words, the Christian faith can’t withstand logic. This is untrue. Christianity and biblical creationism withstand logic very well, because the Bible never conflicts with an old universe or the evolution of animals.

Evolution inspires genocide (and Darwin was a racist).
“Expelled” saves the best fear mongering for last as the climax of the movie takes us to the site of the Hitler’s Jewish Holocaust. Here, the producers make the case that belief in evolution caused the Holocaust and will lead to more racist-inspired genocide in the future.

How do Traditional Creation Enforcers reach such a conclusion? It all starts with people who have used the concept of evolution as a justification for racism. Racist evolutionists have stated that other races, such as blacks and Jews, are less-developed than whites and are not really people. Hitler used this belief to inspire a nation to develop a super-race in which the most advanced specimens bred with one another, while less advanced people were excluded.

What Traditional Creation Enforcers fail to mention is that racism and genocide have been around as long as civilization itself, and neither grew in prevalence since the Theory of Evolution came to be. By the time Darwin proposed the Theory of Evolution, the brutal African slave trade, which had existed for several hundred years, was practically over. So the inspiration for the racism of the slave trade could not have possibly been evolution. As for genocide, many regimes, from the empire of Genghis Khan to ancient Israel to early America, slaughtered entire people groups, and they all did so prior to the Theory of Evolution.

Yes, it’s true that once evolution gained acceptance, some racists used it as a scientific means of justifying their pre-existing beliefs that Africans and Native Americans were low-life savages. But let’s not forget that many other racists, including traditional creationist Christians in the southern United States, used the Bible to support their beliefs that Africans and Native Americans were low-life savages, because the Bible mentions slavery without opposing it. The reality of the 1800’s and early 1900’s is that nearly everyone was racist by today’s standards, and they used whatever evidence they could to justify their feelings and actions.

Fortunately, today, the Theory of Evolution can no longer be used to support racism by anyone who understands genetics, because genetic research has proven that there’s little genetic difference between races, that we are all fully human. No human is anywhere close to being an ape or any other animal.

Ultimately, “Expelled—No Intelligence Allowed” is intended to convince us that we must fully embrace Darwinian evolution, or we must fully embrace traditional creationism, but we cannot embrace parts of both simultaneously. This is classic, simple-minded, extremist thinking. Most important, it’s incorrect thinking, because both camps promote elements of truth and falsehood, so we’d be wrong to fully reject either one.

Even Darwin didn’t believe the Bible supported evolution.
Charles Darwin was an expert scientist, not a Bible expert. Like most Christians, he was taught the creation story long before he was old enough to read and consider it for himself. Therefore, he always saw it through tradition-colored glasses like most of us do growing up.

(To learn more, go to www.biblicalfreedom.com and read FREE Every-Verse Method studies)

Scientists are afraid creationism will destroy their careers.
I’ve witnessed Christians expressing their beliefs that scientists conspire together to promote fraudulent findings in order to defeat Christianity. They think scientists see the concept of a 6000-year-old universe as a huge threat to their careers.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The scientists I have known think of the Traditional Creation Enforcers as they would pesky flies—they can do no harm, but they can be annoying. In the minds of scientists, Traditional Creation Enforcers are lumped together with astrology enthusiasts and Nostradamus followers as silly, superstitious people who will believe what they want to believe, regardless of how much evidence exists to the contrary.
Indeed, they are correct in assuming that traditional creationists believe what they want to believe. What scientists do not realize, however, is that the Bible fully supports an old universe, not a young one. The only leg that traditional creationism has to stand on is that of traditional belief, and that leg is balanced on very thin ice, because even Jesus had no regard for traditional religious beliefs that are inconsistent with the Word of God.

(To learn more, go to www.biblicalfreedom.com and read FREE Every-Verse Method studies)

Young Earth Creationism strengthens Christians’ faith.
Traditional creation enforcement ministries are quick to share testimonies of Christians who claim to have been confused about creationism, had their faith shaken, but then had their faith reaffirmed by a traditional creation enforcement ministry that answered their questions. Of course, these testimonies are often used to make Christians think that such a ministry leads people to Christ (or keeps them from falling away) and is deserving of donated money. (Biblical Freedom from Traditional Creationism, the study you’re reading, will also answer Christians’ questions and strengthen their faith, and it will do so for free, requiring no donations.)

What they fail to mention are all of the people who are driven away from the faith by Traditional Creation Enforcers who insist that the Bible can only support a 6000 year-old universe. I still have an article that I saved from the Sunday, March 5, 2000 edition of the Allentown Morning Call newspaper that shared such a story. The article was about atheists. One of the atheists, a man by the name of Bob Puharic, a former seminary student, said he became an atheist when he saw a program about creationism. While he admitted to having other spiritual struggles as well, it was his understanding that Christianity required belief in a 6000 year-old universe that pushed his faith into the abyss. As a scientist (he had become a chemical engineer), he couldn’t believe in a 6000 year-old universe; so neither could he have faith in a God whom he thought insisted we believe in that very thing.

On a personal level, even I have been tempted to fall away as a result of the efforts of Traditional Creation Enforcers. The Christian radio station to which I listened when I lived near Allentown, PA featured a daily commercial from a well-known traditional creation enforcement ministry. One day, they made the claim that pastors who allowed their congregations to even consider that the universe might be millions or billions of years old were somehow doing the equivalent of worshipping other gods. I can’t remember exactly how they made their point, but I know it was an illogical argument. Nonetheless, they basically accused those of us who believe in an old universe of not being true Christians. It wasn’t the first time this ministry made this type of claim, but this time I turned off the radio and utter the words, “That’s it, I quit!”. I thought if Christians who insist we believe in a 6000 year-old universe were trying to cut off people such as myself by calling us non-Christians, then I would let them have their way; I would leave the Church and let Christians follow this ministry down its destructive path. Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize that their claims were anti-biblical, and that they had no right to accuse those of us who doubted their traditional beliefs. I didn’t fall away after all, but there are many Christians who have fallen away from Christ, because they’ve been convinced that they can’t be true Christians without believing in a 6000 year-old universe.

Thanks to the efforts of traditional creation enforcement ministries, non-Christian students of science are convinced that a 6000 year-old universe is a required fundamental belief for all Christians. As long as they believe that, there is no hope of bringing these people to faith in Christ. That’s why the efforts of the traditional creation enforcement ministries have proven to be anti-evangelical. Their dream of using science to convince science-minded non-Christians of a young universe, so they may then be open to Christianity, has been an enormous failure. I’ve never met a non-Christian scientist or student of science who has been convinced by non-biblical, natural evidence that the universe is approximately 6000 years old. These ministries have had only one effect on the non-Christian population – they have further convinced it that Christians believe in superstitious myths.

(To learn more, go to www.biblicalfreedom.com and read FREE Every-Verse Method studies)