When Christians Keep People From Christ

by Tommy Karlas

       Recently a friend of mine, who is not a Christian, told me he grew up very involved in church and church activities with his family.  He said he was listening to the preacher when he was around 11 or 12 and remembers thinking how much he wished what he was hearing was true.  But when he looked at how the adults in the church really behaved and spoke outside of the Sunday morning service, he decided it was all BS.  In the sermons he would hear about a loving God who wanted us to love and be compassionate towards others, and not to judge lest we be judged.  But an hour later the same people sitting in those pews, listening to the same sermon he just heard, would suddenly become incredibly petty and judgmental.  Once he became old enough to make his own choice, he understandably stopped going and wrote the whole thing off for good.

       Have you, or someone you know, experienced something similar to this?  In our culture we hear people call Christians hypocrites all the time.  And it’s examples like this which can perpetuate such sentiments and turn people off to Christianity.  How many times have we heard someone say “I believe in God but not organized religion?”(something I used to say)  Which by organized religion, we really meant institutionalized Christianity.  Or how about some of the people you sometimes see on street corners protesting in the name of Jesus who clearly have nothing but hate and condemnation in their hearts?  If this is many people’s only exposure to Christianity, then it’s no wonder they don’t want anything to do with it.  And sure, there are many reasons why someone may or may not believe in Christ that are not purely rational.

      But as St Augustine pointed out over 1600 years ago, we should never judge any philosophy by it’s abuse.  And if you’ve had almost any exposure to Jesus and his words whatsoever, then it’s easy to see people like this are not following Him.  Not that anyone does perfectly, but it does seem too often to be religious people who look down on others and have more a spirit of self-righteousness and veiled-contempt than a spirit of love.  What’s ironic about when it’s Christians is they are still believing in a merit system type of salvation; they still think they are saved by all their good deeds and not by Christ alone.  And believing this can not only lead to believing God is in your debt, but also into becoming very narrow-minded, legalistic, and judgmental.

       The truth is none of us live up to our own standards that we hold others to, and all human beings are hypocrites to a certain extent.  And the impulse to judge others is something we all have to fight all over again everyday.  But if we are going to call Jesus Christ our Lord, then we have to take seriously what he says.  We have to try our very best to follow His teachings and example, while at the same time knowing we are not saved by our own actions.    And we should never assume to know the true state of another person’s heart because, for all we know, someone who has never stepped foot into a church might be closer to the spirit of God than someone who sits in a pew every Sunday morning (though I believe church is important).  C.S. Lewis said “true humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”  And that kind of humility leads to compassion and forgiveness towards others because that is exactly what Christ has given to us on the cross.  

       There are all sorts of ways people come to trust in Jesus Christ.  And God will work in a person’s heart as He sees fit.  So we don’t want to be too overbearing with our beliefs because that can turn folks off from Him too.  But the most persuasive thing we could ever do to bring someone to Christ is to be Christ-like.  What I mean is our willingness to obey Him—by forgiving, loving, praying for, suffering-long, and keeping a soft heart towards not only our friends, but our enemies—will do more to show the love of Christ and bring someone to Him than anything else.  What is more, it will bring us closer to Him.   

Genesis & Evolution

by Tommy Karlas

       In the past couple of decades there has been a division not only among Christians, but also between some believers and unbelievers, about evolution and the age of our universe.  I know these are probably taboo issues for some, but I think it’s important because there can be radically inaccurate ideas about both.  First, let’s look at the age of the universe.  There is something like one third of American Christians that believe the universe is only 6000 years old.  I think some Christians feel they have to believe and defend that because their faith hinges on a very literal reading of the first creation story in Genesis 1 (God creating everything in six days).  

       But just as St Augustine said all the way back in the fourth century AD, we must be very careful about that which we hang the hat of our faith on.  Because even Augustine back then believed that the first creation story was not meant to be interpreted as literally happening in six days.  In fact, the hebrew word for “day” was mostly used to describe a period of time not 24 hours.

       The Bible is a massive and diverse piece of literature and each book and verse must be read in context and in the way the authors intended it to be.  To me, that is the most literal way anything can be read.  The first creation story in the book of Genesis is not to be read as scientific but as allegorical.  That doesn’t mean God didn’t really create everything.  After all, allegory is an abstraction, but it still points to a concrete reality.  Once they start with the first man, Adam in the second creation story, they are then intended to be read as history.  Just like when you read the Psalms and Proverbs, they are intended to be read as a wisdom genre.  And other parts of scripture are prophetic and law.  

       For instance, in the first creation story there was light before God created the sun on the fourth day.  When looked at as allegorical it makes perfect sense because most people worshipped the sun and other natural things as gods before Judaism (monotheism-belief in one God).  This is a way for the author to show the sun is not a god but merely a part of the naturally created order.  So because we as Christians do not want to exclude and disregard other forms of knowledge like science, geology, archeology (which often support the Christian faith and the Bible), we should take Augustine’s advice as to be careful what our faith is hinged on.

    Next let’s look at evolution.  Today there are many scientists whose faith is only strengthened by evolution, not weakened, like Francis Collins (who mapped the human genome) and John Polkinghorne (who discovered quarks inside of atoms).  To them it makes more sense that the patient God they believe in would bring life about through natural processes as opposed to an arbitrary snap of the fingers.  There are three points as far as Darwinian evolution goes.  1)  Natural selection only explains what happens after you already have life (the first single cell organism) and how it evolves from there.  It has nothing to say about how the first single cell came to be.  And the single cell is the most basic and essential building block of life.  It’s where DNA resides, which is the most wondrous and complicated aspect of life.

       2)  Darwin’s atheism was not because of his theory, it was because his daughter died at a very young age.  This terrible tragedy made him lose his faith in a creator for some time.  But he himself would have told you that nothing about his theory refutes God.  In fact, a young seminary student wrote him a letter thanking him because she’d wondered for so long how God created humans and his explanation was very informative.  Darwin was so proud of this letter that he printed it in subsequent editions of “The Origin of Species.”

    And 3) even with the probability that we humans evolved from apes, there’s more questions this raises than answers from a naturalistic viewpoint.  Because for most of us, it’s easy to step back and look at the difference between an ape and a person.  Namely our consciousness, or our awareness of our awareness.  Or how about our ability to know we will die someday or even just draw a picture?  Has there ever been one animal or ape that can draw a picture, let alone create art or science or do math or reflect on life, beauty, and love?  No. Because that’s what it means to be created in the image of God.  

       There are many things we share with the beasts which are a part of being a biological creature, but being made in the image of God is not one of them.  And though none of these issues are anything worth dividing over (though some do), they are important because we do not want to seem overly dogmatic to the true seeker who may believe in these things, as I do.