Below is an e-mail I replied to that was sent out by my aunt. My cousin chimed in with his thoughts and so I had to do the same. (you know me)
Anyway, it was concerning the movie coming out called "The Golden Compass"
Enjoy!...
Hello from the USA!
You know, Randy, my mother forwarded this to me and I just could not help but throw my 2cents in here on this issue.
Let me start by saying that I went to the Internet Monk blog site; VERY GOOD by the way. (I have booked marked it)
In the article he makes the comment, “You see, I’m firmly in the camp of Chesterton on this one. The more the atheist talks, the more Christianity makes sense to me.”
While I like the comment and resonate with it personally, the problem lies in the fact that the average Christian in most American (& Canadian) homes does not have the intellectual where-with-all to refute and stand up to claims made by this “New Atheism” that is becoming part of pop-culture. In fact most cannot give an adequate defense for the infallibility of Scripture let alone for the existence of God Himself. This is a real dilemma for the Christian today. I say this because most believers do not even know who G.K. Chesterton is along with Dinesh D’Souza, Ravi Zacharias, Norman L. Geisler and C.S. Lewis. These men are great because of their rarity in the faith not their common place. These men are great because they did what Jesus asks of all of us when he says to love God with all our minds. This requires too much time, effort and energy. We are just too busy in this day and age to do what is required to love God mightily in this area. We are saved ourselves and that is satisfactory for us.
Thus, many Christians find themselves in a bit of a bind when faced with such a “threat” as the one this movie offers specifically and Atheism offers generally. Because of this lack of intellectual muscle, Christians find they only have two choices:
1. Admit they don’t have any real reason for believing what they do and embrace as truth the argument they cannot defeat.
2. Protest.
The only other option for the Christian is to just sit there and take the verbal ridicule from their assailant. While I would suggest this is the most Christ-like of the three, it does get quite wearisome after a while and puts the believer in a mindset of not wanting to engage at all. They would just rather be left alone. A “If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you; you live your life and I’ll live mine and we’ll both be fine” type of approach. This is a dangerous position to take as a believer. We have lived in our own ‘Christian subculture’ for too long and it is now coming back to bite us in the seat cushion. If we will not engage our world with the gospel of Jesus Christ then the cultural tide of godlessness will continue to roll in as a flood and drown the spiritually weak among us.
So what are we to do with this new movie coming out? Well my personal preference would be to go see it. I always enjoy getting new insight in how the modern world is thinking. However, given the strength of intellectual state of many in the church today, my advice to the masses would be this: if your faith is not strong enough to withstand such a thing STRENGTHEN IT!!
Blessings to all,
Matthew
You know, Randy, my mother forwarded this to me and I just could not help but throw my 2cents in here on this issue.
Let me start by saying that I went to the Internet Monk blog site; VERY GOOD by the way. (I have booked marked it)
In the article he makes the comment, “You see, I’m firmly in the camp of Chesterton on this one. The more the atheist talks, the more Christianity makes sense to me.”
While I like the comment and resonate with it personally, the problem lies in the fact that the average Christian in most American (& Canadian) homes does not have the intellectual where-with-all to refute and stand up to claims made by this “New Atheism” that is becoming part of pop-culture. In fact most cannot give an adequate defense for the infallibility of Scripture let alone for the existence of God Himself. This is a real dilemma for the Christian today. I say this because most believers do not even know who G.K. Chesterton is along with Dinesh D’Souza, Ravi Zacharias, Norman L. Geisler and C.S. Lewis. These men are great because of their rarity in the faith not their common place. These men are great because they did what Jesus asks of all of us when he says to love God with all our minds. This requires too much time, effort and energy. We are just too busy in this day and age to do what is required to love God mightily in this area. We are saved ourselves and that is satisfactory for us.
Thus, many Christians find themselves in a bit of a bind when faced with such a “threat” as the one this movie offers specifically and Atheism offers generally. Because of this lack of intellectual muscle, Christians find they only have two choices:
1. Admit they don’t have any real reason for believing what they do and embrace as truth the argument they cannot defeat.
2. Protest.
The only other option for the Christian is to just sit there and take the verbal ridicule from their assailant. While I would suggest this is the most Christ-like of the three, it does get quite wearisome after a while and puts the believer in a mindset of not wanting to engage at all. They would just rather be left alone. A “If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you; you live your life and I’ll live mine and we’ll both be fine” type of approach. This is a dangerous position to take as a believer. We have lived in our own ‘Christian subculture’ for too long and it is now coming back to bite us in the seat cushion. If we will not engage our world with the gospel of Jesus Christ then the cultural tide of godlessness will continue to roll in as a flood and drown the spiritually weak among us.
So what are we to do with this new movie coming out? Well my personal preference would be to go see it. I always enjoy getting new insight in how the modern world is thinking. However, given the strength of intellectual state of many in the church today, my advice to the masses would be this: if your faith is not strong enough to withstand such a thing STRENGTHEN IT!!
Blessings to all,
Matthew
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