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Edited 8/21/07 I am not hoping to get a bunch of comments, but I expected to see some, so it occurs to me that people may not know how. Click the title “Are we ignorant?” above, and I think you can add a comment at the bottom if you like. Your comment will not show immediately, as it has to be approved by whoever is in charge of that.

 Are We Ignorant?

Where do I begin with this one. This one, I must admit, is motivated largely, by what I feel. I am sure that my personal biases, probably show through, but really, I try to have biases, which are based not upon feelings, but upon facts and reality. Why the hesitation? Why the reluctance to jump right in and speak my mind? The largest reason, is that I do not want to offend some of the fine people, who are not only my brothers and sisters at Worthy, they are also my friends. Make no mistake, some will be offended, and feel defensive. That might seem reason enough, to not go where I am going to go with this, but there are issues here, which perhaps, we all need to weigh carefully. If the system will allow you to weigh in on the topic, feel free to leave a comment, but let’s avoid accusative tones. Don’t suggest that another, is somehow less of a Christian, just because they disagree with you.

Before I get started, let me say a thank you to Smiles, who so graciously bumped my blog into second place position, and yet here I am again, taking the top rung. Sorry, I just don’t know when to shut up I guess. I want to show you a scripture passage, one that I am confident, you are familiar with. I want also, to consider it’s implications, and extend it’s principle further, and I want to tell you a related story, that happened in my own life.

1 Cor 8:8-13:

9 But take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11 For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 12 And thus, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, that I might not cause my brother to stumble.

Simple version is, than people are answerable to their own conscience, and we should not do anything to encourage them to violate that conscience. Taking that further, we also do not want to do things, that hinder the unbeliever from coming to Christ. As you know, the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S., is caught up in a big scandal, involving pedophile priests and the church’s protection of them. I am certain that other denominations, have experienced problems in the clergy from time to time. The Roman church, institutionally covered this up.

Now, I can accept, that they want to protect their reputation. That, I agree with, but the Roman Church exercised extremely poor judgement in this case. In my opinion, whenever a case like this is known, they should have immediately defrocked the priest, and cooperated with the police, instead of blocking investigations. That would have been the right thing, and it would have done much more to protect the reputation of the church, not to mention the innocent victims of the crimes.

This, is a great problem, because it reflects badly on the church in the minds of others. Unbelievers can look at this, and justifiably say: “I want nothing to do with these people”. Many of them, will not make any distinctions in denominations, they will apply it to the entire body of Christ, the church. You already know, that people hold the modern church responsible for the actions of the Catholic Church against early scientists (Galileo as one example). Similarly, they hold the witch hunts, the inquisition, and other atrocities, against the whole church. In a similar way, they can hold the actions of one person, claiming to be a Christian, who misbehaves, against every Christian. Keep this in the back of your mind as you read my actual topic, if I ever get there.

For now, I’d like to tell you a little story from my own life, about the issue of stumbling others. I am not sure I will make a point from it, other that to demonstrate how this stumbling issue could potentially work in real life, but it is a story I occasionally tell in chat, so I might as well put it here, so I never have to type it all out again. When my wife and I were newlyweds, we went on an excursion with some people from our church one summer evening. Here, in the Los Angeles area, we have the Hollywood Bowl, an outdoor amphitheater. On certain summer evenings, they have concerts of classical music. There is also a fireworks show at the end, choreographed to the 1812 overture. It is pretty cool. The admission is reasonable, and you can take a bus there, nonstop, from the city where we live. You are allowed to bring in food and beverages, it is really nice. That is what my wife and I did, took the bus and a picnic, along with perhaps 20 or 30 members of our local congregation. My wife and I got out our submarine sandwiches, our chips and salsa, and a couple of plastic champagne glasses, which we filled from our bottle. We had an enjoyable evening.

The next Sunday, the congregation got a dressing down from the pastor. I am not sure I would call it a sermon. It seems that a couple had come to him, upset, because another couple from the congregation, had the nerve to drink wine at the concert. This couple who had talked to the pastor, apparently believed that drinking alcohol, was a sin. The couple, was apparently very distraught over seeing Christians drinking alcohol. Our pastor said to the congregation: “How dare you!” He said it several times, and was apparently quite upset about it all. My wife and I thought, yeah, that is rather poor judgement. The pastor went on talking about stumbling of the brethren etc. It was not one of the happier sermons. Perhaps your are saying right now yourself: “How dare you Omegaman, you should know better than to do such a thing. What were you thinking?” The pastor went on to say, that not only would he not drink alcohol in public view, he would also not do it in the privacy of his own home, because he needs to be able to say, if asked: “No, I do not drink alcohol.” , lest he stumble a weaker brother. Notice, that the implication is, that he would not drink alcohol, for the stumbling issue, not that he said the actual drinking of the alcohol was a sin. I wondered if by not stating that, one might not conclude that he just implied drinking was o.k., as long as you don’t get caught. Such a statement itself, could be a stumbling block to some. I also have to point out, that the incident at Hollywood Bowl, does not exactly fit the stumbling block passage. Implied in the passage, is the idea that the weaker brother would be encouraged to violate their own conscience. The complaining couple, was apparently in no way tempted to do so, but the point is, that there could have been someone there who might have been tempted, and for THAT reason, a Christian should not do things in view of others, that may be considered a sin by them. How far do we take this? Does this mean that no Christian can go to war, or be a policeman, there are those that believe it is always wrong to kill. How about driving cars, some think it is irresponsible to our stewardship over creation. What about the Amish, do we who drive, stumble them? I do not know all the answers.

Now, at this juncture, I should probably point out something. It case you hadn’t picked up on it, my wife and I had not figured out, during the sermon, that the pastor was talking about us. It might seem obvious. It should have been obvious, because we didn’t recollect seeing another couple there who was drinking. Now, lest you judge me, for not only stumbling brothers, but for being dense, I should point out, that what my wife and I were drinking, was non-alcoholic, Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider. Martinelli’s comes in a bottle, which can be mistaken for a wine bottle. Pouring the bubbly juice, into Champagne glasses, made it look like - big surprise - Champagne! So, were we guilty of something, or totally innocent. We were guilty of failing to avoid the appearance of evil (1 Thess 5:22). The other couple, was guilty of judging falsely and tattling (Pro 17:9), the proper biblical response on their part, would have been to come to us (Matt 18:15) and confront us directly, not going to the pastor. The pastor, should have checked the fact himself, not relying on the misunderstanding of the couple, and he, had he found we had done something wrong, should have come to us directly, instead of making accusations in front of the whole church. Had any one of us, done the right thing in the first place, it all could have been resolved immediately. God, knowing how to make lemons out of lemonade (Rom 8), at least we got a good sermon out of the whole thing, and made me more aware of the broad implications of the stumbling block passage cited herein. If this story worked as I planned, you have probably jumped to the conclusion that my wife and I, had been drinking Champagne. If you did, then you know first hand, what it is to jump to unfounded conclusions.

My actual topic - ignorance.

Okay, I have avoided this long enough. Let me give a little background on what drove me to write about the topic, that I still have not revealed. As many or most of you reading this know, I am a Worthychat administrator, and am frequently present there. I also, occasionally fire a salvo on the forums. I have seen something in those places, that has begun to bug me a bit, I am not sure that it is increasing, but I am increasingly aware of it. I am going to call it willful Christian ignorance. I am all for faith, I think faith is a great thing. We could all use more of it. I do not think that faith means, however, that we do not need to embrace facts or know them.

One of our main missions, as Christians, is to evangelize unbelievers. When we are asked a question, asked to give an answer, for the hope we have, we are commanded to provide a reason (1 Pet 3:15). That word “reason” does not mean a simple answer, it means a well thought out “reasonable” response. In other words, it is supposed to make sense to the unbeliever. If you have been in chat or on the boards, you can find plenty examples of this, where relevant facts are brought to bear on the question. The question might be about creation as opposed to evolution, whether God exists at all, why Christianity in particular, etc, etc, you have seen this type of question. We, are supposed to know these things, sadly, most of us do not know. That is one kind of Christian ignorance, but it is not the kind that prompted me to write this.

What is bothering me, is the kind of ignorance, that let’s us appear to have an air of superiority or spirituality over others. I am not suggesting, that this is the motive, or even something the person is aware of, I am talking about how it appears to others. Okay, enough avoiding my issue, I am going to give some examples, this is where people will be offended, because many will find themselves in these categories.

1. Maintaining that the earth is 6000 years old, and asserting that it is taught in scripture. I am not saying you cannot believe the earth is that young, but stop claiming the bible teaches that, it does not. I agree that the Bible teaches that the earth is at least 6000 years old, but in never gives the age, gives a date of creation, or makes any assertion about it’s age unless one jumps to conclusions not born out by the texts themselves. Why do I care? I care because this is all the excuse some need to write Christians and the Bible off, as lacking credibility. People have a hard enough time accepting things which are taught in scripture, please, don’t add to their difficulties or to the difficulties of those trying to reach people outside of the fold, by adding your own opinions on issues of relative insignificance.

2. Maintaining that the King James Version is the only legitimate English bible. That claim is offensive to Christians who have made informed choices on their preferred version. The notion that the KJV is the one and only legitimate English version, is untenable, and cannot be maintained on the basis of any factual investigation. It, is a prejudice, nothing more. If you prefer the KJV, more power to you, you need no better reason. If you feel that you must attack other versions, then at least arm yourself with facts from people who do not hold the same position. Regardless of your sources, make sure that you are using facts, not assertions based on prejudice. This is important for you, for if you are wrong, then you accusations against the translators of modern versions, make you guilty of slander. Is that what you want?

3. I am really going to take heat for this one. People frequently say that Roman Catholics, are not Christians. This one I find mysterious. It seems to me, that anyone, who believes that salvation is through faith, not works, that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived sinlessly, died for their sins, was buried and after 3 days, rose again bodily etc. etc. and is trusting God for salvation by grace, through faith, is as Christian as you or I. I can guarantee by the declaration of scripture, that such Catholics are saved, just as I can declare by the authority of scripture, that not everyone sitting in the pews of protestant churches, are saved. Do Catholics believe and practice things, which are not in the Bible? Yes, of course most do. It is not about the denomination you attend, it is about your personal status before God. I have met Catholics that love the Lord, and it shows in their lives, I am not about to say that Christ died for them, in vain.

Those are a few examples, of what I consider to be Christian ignorance. None of those, however, were the catalyst for this blog, what was, probably seems so petty, it will surprise you.

As I write this, a movie has just made it’s rounds through the theaters. It was no block buster. It was not an epic movie, though it may be the most expensive comedy ever produced. I am speaking of Evan Almighty. For those of you who live in caves, or perhaps foreign (to me) countries, it is a light hearted comedy about a modern day Noah, a regular man, told by God, to build an ark. It was playing at our local $3 theater, and the little woman suggested we go see it. I agreed. Now, before I went, I looked into the Worthy Forums, to see the take on the movie from the citizens of Worthy. Well, as one might expect, the reviews were mixed. Some thought it was pretty good, some you could not make go see it. Therein, lies the problem again, willful, prejudicial, Christian ignorance.

The naysayers, generally, would say things like “it mocks God, the Bible, and Christians”. One wonders how they know so much about a movie they haven’t seen. The movie I saw, did none of those things. The movie I saw, will not win awards, but the plot was good and somewhat original, though many of it’s gags are overdone. Overall, it was funny, and was just a plain feel good movie.. Now, I cannot say, that it could not have been made more wholesome, it could have been. Let me put it this way, I was not exposed to anything that I would not be exposed to in real life or on prime-time TV, and I am frequently exposed to worse language in Worthychat, than I heard in the movie. I doubt anyone who went to see it, went there for a theology lesson, this is fiction, entertainment, not pretending to be anything else. Was it Glorifying to God? That is the standard some would apply. I assume that those people do not read newspapers or watch TV. To it’s credit, the movie does explore prayer, and answers to it, in a respectful way. It has a pro-family message: spend more time with the kids, even if work has to suffer some. It is about the struggles of faith, about being obedient, even when others mock you. It is about how everything God does, He does because He loves people. It is about persisting in what is right, to triumph over evil. It is about a lot of things. How many movies can you name, that treat faith and God so well, that run in regular theaters? It saddens me, that Christians whine about movies not being friendly to faith, or promoting good values, then when one comes along that does, we boycott it, well, some of us do. I wish I had not been a cheapskate, and had paid full price instead, to let the producers know that I like their attempt, to appeal to a broad audience, and not offend the faithful.

Well, you have the gist of my rant. Judge not the things you are willfully ignorant of, and by implication, those that choose to, in good conscience before God, do things that you would never consider. Besides my rant, you got a movie review as well. I give it 2.0 thumbs up. If I was all thumbs, I’d give it seven thumbs and one knuckle (7.5 for the slow among you)! By the way, there were 12 people in that theater! All of them, came out looking happy, not such bad thing in itself. The movie exceeded my expectations of it.

In sincere Christian love,

Omegaman 2.0

P.S. For those of you who were dead set against this movie, don’t go see it, you will find plenty to criticise, and I certainly do not want you to go against your conscience, but stop judging others who are responsibly enjoying their freedom in Christ, thanking God, Who gives us all things richly to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17). You would find plenty to criticise in the movie, and there is no need to prove yourself right. Your criticisms of this blog, are invited, and accepted.

The foregoing is the sole opinion of it’s author, and the views and opinions expressed, do not necessarily reflect those of Worthy Ministries or anyone connected with it.