When I started answering Hemant Mehta's questions for Christians, I knew I wouldn't get to all of them. This is my last post in this series and I have managed to answer more than I thought I would. These last few questions kind of deal with general theology but they're a little more random than the questions included in each previous post so this will seem to jump around a little.
51)
What are the minimum requirements for being a Christian?
52)
And who falls under that definition?
If
I had to strip away everything but the bare minimum, I would say
there are 2 non-negotiable items that identify someone as a
Christians:
First,
he must understand who Jesus is. Jesus is the eternal Son, the
second Person of the Trinity, the God who became flesh, who lived,
died, and rose again. Next, a person must repent of his sins and
accept Jesus as his Lord. Either one of these alone is not
sufficient; a person must believe both to be saved.
The
Bible attests in many places that demons understand who Jesus is.
James 2:19 says, “Thou
believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also
believe, and tremble.”
The demons, of course, do not worship Jesus as their Lord. There
are also certain cults, like Jehovah's Witnesses that say Jesus is
their Lord, but they have a wrong understanding of who Jesus is. To
them, He is a created being not equal to the Father. So anyone who
believes one or the other cannot be saved unless he believes both.
Who
is a Christian, then? Only God knows for certain. Jesus did tell us
many times that we can identify them by their fruit. Just like in
the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30), the workers
did not know that some of the plants were tares until the wheat began
to show its fruit (v. 26). We can ask a person what he believes
about Jesus. We can examine his life for fruits. But Jesus knows
for certain and at the end of this age, when the harvest comes, the
wheat will be gathered into barns and the tares will be burned.
60)
If you could go back into time to when Jesus was being crucified,
would you try to save Him or would you stand back and do nothing
since your entire faith depends on Him being crucified?
Let's
be clear about something: Jesus didn't need to be “saved.” At
His arrest, when Peter tried to fight off the guards, Jesus said to
him, “Put
up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to
my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of
angels?”
(Matthew 26:52-53). Nobody took Jesus' life from Him. He laid it
down willingly and nothing I might have done could have stopped Him.
My
question to Mehta is, will you admit your part in Jesus' crucifixion?
Is there any guilt, regret, or remorse for any of the sins you
committed for which He died to atone?
70)
Can you pause the video right now and tell me what the 10
Commandments are?
71)
And if you know them, and good for you if you do, why do so many
Christians believe that the first four of them belong on government
property and in the classrooms?
Hosea
4:6 says, “My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
It has always been a pet peeve of mine that too many Christians will
not invest the time nor effort into learning God's word. Having said
that, I'm not sure what the point of this question is except to
embarrass Christians for not knowing the commandments given by the
God they claim to worship. 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us we should, “Study
to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed.”
I suppose the opposite is also true – if we don't study, God
doesn't approve and we should be ashamed!
Richard
Dawkins tried to make this same point. When self-identified
Christians couldn't answer basic questions about the Bible, he
doubted their Christianity. One
radio host turned the tables on him by asking if Dawkins knew the
full title of Darwin's book. Dawkins hemmed and hawed. So do I
conclude that anyone who doesn't know the full title of Darwin's book
really doesn't believe in evolution? What does this say about the
truth of the theory? So you can see that questions like this really
don't prove atheism is correct or that Christianity is false. It's
nothing more than a gotcha!
Mehta
asked if the first four commandments “belong on government property
and in the classrooms?” I'm a big proponent of the First Amendment
and I hate the popular paraphrase: the separation of church and
state. The 10 Commandments belong anywhere people want to exercise
their religion. In other words, people do not give up their rights
when they step onto government owned property. I'm reminded of
Brittany
McComb, the valedictorian at Foothill High School who had her mic
turned off during her speech because she was talking about the
influence God had in her life. I guess if she had thanked Oprah or
Tony Robbins, that would have been OK.
I
can agree that the state should not display the 10 Commandments and
exclude any other view. I cannot agree that anything religious
should be banned from government property. That type of “neutrality”
actually makes the state hostile toward religion.
57)
Do you really believe Mary was impregnated without having sex?
58)
If someone came up to you and said she was pregnant but she was
totally a virgin, would you believe her?
I
would start by pointing out that Joseph did not believe Mary, either,
and sought to divorce her (make a legal ending to their formal
engagement). Sometimes, people of ancient cultures are maligned with
the accusation that they were unlearned and unscientific. In this
case, Joseph understood how women become pregnant and so assumed Mary
had been with another man. You could also say even Mary didn't
believe at first. She too understood how women become pregnant and
asked the angel, “How
shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”
(Luke 1:34). My incredulity at the claim of a virgin being pregnant
would likely have been the same as Mary, Joseph, and Mehta. Perhaps
it would take an angel appearing to me before I believed.
What
was truly of the virgin birth is also true of every miracle. Even
ancient people understood certain things about the world and when
Jesus performed a miracle, they knew it had to be a miracle because
the world doesn't operate that way. It is by performing miracles, we
know Jesus has the ability to keep His promises. Jesus told Martha,
“Jesus
said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”
(John 11:25). He then raised Lazarus who had been dead 4 days.
Jesus
spoke the universe in existence. He walked on water, calmed the
storm, healed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, turned water into
wine, and performed a host of other miracles. Do you really think He
couldn't split an egg in a virgin?
2 comments:
My question to Mehta is, will you admit your part in Jesus' crucifixion? Is there any guilt, regret, or remorse for any of the sins you committed for which He died to atone?
Would you expect him to? Did you not argue, earlier, that since he does not believe in God, he cannot believe in sin (if we define "sin" as a "violation of God's laws")? It is very unlikely that he believes that one person (or even one Person) can do anything to atone for the wrongdoing of another, or that anyone alive today can be guilty for anything done in 33 AD.
Your answer to his actual question seems both biblically and (given your assumptions) logically sound.
So do I conclude that anyone who doesn't know the full title of Darwin's book really doesn't believe in evolution?
That's not quite analogous; evolutionary theory neither rests on Darwin's authority, nor is limited to the ideas he expressed in his own writings, and in any case the full title of Origin of Species is not really part even of Darwin's original theory. But I've watched a number of Star Trek episodes that led me to believe that the show's writers "believed in" something they called "evolution" but was not much like the modern neo-Darwinian synthesis.
By the same token, your own citation of Hosea 4:6 suggests that a lot of people calling themselves "Christians" believe in something they call Christianity -- but that Christ might not. On the other hand, historically millions of Christians have been literally illiterate, and couldn't have afforded a Bible if they'd been able to read one. How much does saving faith depend on knowledge of what scripture says?
Perhaps it would take an angel appearing to me before I believed.
If you'd seen an angel who told you about the virgin birth, that would have been imposing. But you don't have an angel; you have a story about an angel -- yet you seem to regard that as equally imposing.
Steven J,
You said, “Would you expect him to? Did you not argue, earlier, that since he does not believe in God, he cannot believe in sin (if we define "sin" as a "violation of God's laws")? It is very unlikely that he believes that one person (or even one Person) can do anything to atone for the wrongdoing of another, or that anyone alive today can be guilty for anything done in 33 AD.”
Romans 2:14 says, “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:” In other words, unbelievers may not have the Law but they instinctively seem to know what is right and wrong. Does Mehta think it's wrong to lie? I'll bet if I asked him, he would say yes. Yet I'm sure he still tells lies. Mehta, just like every other unbeliever, continues to do things he knows is wrong. I want these people to stop and ask themselves if there is any consequence for their transgressions.
You said, “That's not quite analogous; evolutionary theory neither rests on Darwin's authority, nor is limited to the ideas he expressed in his own writings, and in any case the full title of Origin of Species is not really part even of Darwin's original theory.”
That's sort of my point. I'm not saying evolution is isn't true because Dawkins can't remember the full title of Darwin's book. I'm saying that Dawkins inability to answer should be completely irrelevant to the truth of evolution just like a Christian's inability to cite the 10 commandments from memory is completely irrelevant to the truth of the Bible.
You said, “If you'd seen an angel who told you about the virgin birth, that would have been imposing. But you don't have an angel; you have a story about an angel -- yet you seem to regard that as equally imposing.”
Yes. I think the miracles of Jesus are imposing. I think the Resurrection is imposing. It's not a question of whether or not I say them; it's a matter of whether or not I believe them. I didn't see most of history. I'm not a scientist and haven't studied many of the things about science that I believe to be true. I believe many things that I've not witnessed first hand and so do you. If Jesus lived, died, then rose from the dead, what He said about eternal life becomes very relevant.
God bless!!
RKBentley
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