God-In-A-Box

Thursday, May. 14, 2009 Posted: 12:19:04AM HKT

Perhaps the greatest challenge of Christianity in the modern world lies in its getting out of the box as it were.

What box? One may ask. The idea that God is one among many gods. The idea that some people are 'Christian' and others 'non-Christian'. The idea that religion is one of the spheres of public society. The idea that religion is a private concern.

These are some of the categories the secular worldview and its proponents have imposed on Christianity, including the very term 'Christianity' itself. It is interesting to note that it wasn't Jesus who called His followers 'Christians', nor did they call themselves that, but the Bible says that they were 'called' by others, first in Antioch.

A name is usually given by others. On a superficial level, it is meant as a means of reference. At a deeper level, however, it may be an instinct of fallen human beings to reaffirm their social identity at the expense of others by excluding and differentiating themselves from the 'other' and giving 'them' a name.

Notwithstanding that labelling by outsiders usually results in faulty categories or stereotypes, Christianity of all phenomena cannot be assigned any category.

In the first place, Christianity is not simply one religion among many others, just as the God of the Bible is not one among a pantheon of other 'gods'. No, God and the faith that comes from Him, through Him and for Him are categorically different from the whole array of 'gods' and 'religions' this world has to offer.

He is the Creator of both 'Christians' and 'non-Christians', regardless of whether they know it or not or whether they have accepted it, much in the same way that one plus one will always equal two whether a newborn infant understands it or not. Jehovah is the Creator of the greatest of Christian martyrs as well as the Creator of the most militant atheist or persecutor of the Church.

And if He is the Creator of all, the world is a fellowship of brothers and sisters in common under the sky blue banner of God, regardless of ethnicity, social class and morality. Because of their common link with the Creator, they are not to harm one another but rather value each other individually as the unique pleasure of God.

And if He is the Creator of all, no one differs from another with respect to how he or she has been created by, through and for the glory of God, which has been fully revealed through His One and Only Son Jesus Christ, regardless of whether they are called Buddhists, Christians, Muslims or Hindus.

The 2nd Century church father Tertullian had famously said: "All men are born Christians." They are all logikos waiting to be reunited in the Logos, in an essential sense.

Everything, including the whole of mankind ranging from the most able to the most disabled, the wealthiest to the poorest, the darkest to the palest, the biggest to the smallest, the purest to the impurest, exists because of Jehovah, through Jehovah and for Jehovah.

Any other understanding is not really understanding but rather misunderstanding, inspired by the arrogance and folly of Satan and his minions.

Jehovah is not a god whose existence may be called into question; Jehovah is the One True God and Sovereign of the whole universe. Christianity is not a religion or sphere of public society or private concern in such a way that it could 'interfere' with the affairs of mankind or whose 'involvement' in public society needs to be debated; Christianity is the way without which all human beings are lost, the truth without which all human beings are doomed to live in falsity and the life without which all human beings are really dead.

The great need of the Church today is to engage and transfigure the categories into which the world has placed her.

The Christian Post (Singapore)