Christian Living

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A lot has been written of late regarding the Episcopal Church. Earlier this year, the first openly homosexual bishop was ordained. Recently, an openly druidic rite was posted to their official website for use in regular worship. In the “Weblog” of Christianity Today, it is reported that the author of the rite, Reverend William Melnyk, has publicly repented and has gone so far as to renounce his membership in any form of Druidism. In that Weblog, there is a link to the Druid message board on which the resignation is published.

Being the nosy sort, I read through most of the posts from other members of the group responding to the resignation. What struck me was not any overt hostility toward Christianity, but rather a sadness that Christians cannot seem to understand that we are all really on the same path toward the “sacred divine” that dwells within all of us. While it looks great on paper and sounds even better in a thirty second sound byte, this particular philosophy cannot possibly be true.

A favorite saying in my Sunday School class is, “The truth exists whether we like it or not.” I would love to think that all people are wonderful and we’re all just spending our lives trudging up the same mountain of God, and one day we’ll all have a heavenly picnic and giggle about how selfish we were to believe that one religion could be right. Unfortunately, the truth testifies differently.

Jesus speaks about there being two roads, one narrow and one wide. There are not many roads as some say. There are only two, the right one and the wrong one. No matter what brand name you put on it, the wrong road is the wrong road.

It’s interesting how many people, including some Christians, are hesitant to state that Christianity is the only way to Heaven. One of my very favorite professors in college subscribed to the idea that “there are many roads up the Mountain of God.” Problem is, one road will get you to the top and the rest will lead you off a cliff.

The exclusive claims of Christianity are not an effort to monopolize spirituality. The Bible is not a consecrated list of stuff that you shouldn’t do because it’s too much fun. God doesn’t tell us to put nothing before him because he’s some histrionic deity with self-esteem issues. God, in his infinite mercy, has shown us the way of abundant life. He’s told us things to avoid that our lives may be rich and fulfilling. Sure, avoiding adultery may cramp your style a little in the short run, but in the long run, life will be much less complicated. The God of the Bible, who sees the end from the beginning, knows that the things he asks us not to do are things that will destroy us. Those things are much less than the good he has intended for our lives. Jesus is the way, the truth and life because his death was the only way to be reconciled to God. That reconciliation is open to every living human being, not just a select few. However, so many in our society have chosen to worship diversity instead of God.

Before we can even begin to evangelize the world, we as Christians must recommit ourselves to our own faith. We can’t communicate why our faith is superior, because, frankly we don’t know. We have become haphazard in our Bible study and we are patently ignorant about other religious philosophies. We take for granted that everyone thinks and believes like us. When we are asked questions to which we have no answers, our own faith is shaken and we question the veracity of our own faith. A pagan’s faith may be unfounded and patently false, but at least he knows what he believes.

It’s time for the people of God to take a stand for what we believe, and more importantly, to understand what it is that we believe. Before we can “go into all the world,” we have to get off the fence.

© Sandra Perry 2004

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