By Dr. James Spencer, D.L. Moody Center, for THE WESTERN JOURNAL –
What we point people to is just as important as what we point them away from.
As President Joe Biden uses biblical language (“image of God”) to justify his position on the trans movement and Disney goes woke, Christians can easily get caught up in opposing the crisis du jour. We may find ourselves pointing back to the Judeo-Christian ethic, the nuclear family or the Constitution rather than pointing to Christ.
As the world becomes increasingly proficient at creating and promoting stories that deny God, God’s people will likely be tempted to point others toward stories that seem to deny God just a little less.
Framed in terms of a better or worse choice, many of us would choose capitalism over socialism, democracy over communism, or rationalism over critical theory. However, I often find choices in this context to be similar to the “would you rather” game my kids used to play.
“Would you rather eat dirt or lick the bottom of someone’s shoe?” Even if those are my only options, there isn’t an upside to either. Being slightly less gross doesn’t make eating dirt particularly appealing. Similarly, being slightly less wrongheaded doesn’t make deism a better choice than atheism. From a biblical perspective, there isn’t a great deal of benefit in being “less lost.”
I wonder if pointing to stories that seem to deny God just a little less is another way we are in danger of being taken “captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). Christians too often have their attention drawn to something like critical race theory while philosophies, policies and laws that hinder our conformity to Christ in more subtle ways go unnoticed. By focusing our attention on one issue or another, we become inattentive to others.
