Why The World Hates Christianity II
The Root Cause
The root cause is the rebellion in human heart. With sin in Eden, the human heart became not only sinful and corrupt, but also rebellious against God. The basic preferences and inclinations of the human are always towards evil, never good. Since the Bible presents a clear analysis of this, and since it asks man to forsake his rebellion and return to God, people hate the Bible all the more. They simply do not wish to be called to accountability. They wish to indulge in sin, but do not wish their activities to be identified as sin, or themselves as sinners. We live in the ‘Do It’ and ‘If it feels good, it cannot be wrong’ culture. Thus the hatred for Christianity is basically a hatred against clear classification of sin and consequences. A hatred against the Bible’s call to human accountability.
Many so-called Christians try to solve the problem by embracing the Bible, but without embracing its essence. They do so by substituting or attributing meanings to statements of the Bible which are not there and which are totally contrary to what the Bible says. This has been going on for two millennia, but has become intense in the last two centuries because of a historical reason. About two centuries ago the German theological seminaries fell into Government hands, run by bureaucrats and flooded with government money. This created a situation where anyone from a high theological position in a University could make any proclamation against the Bible without fear. What is more, the abundant money available to them for publication ensured that their heretical views are published in most attractive volumes and distributed worldwide. This created a stream of people who claim to be Christians but who deep inside their hearts have no commitment at all to the fundamentals of the Christian faith. With the increasing relativism and inclusivism, the number of this kind of superficial Christians is unbelievably large in the Christendom of the 21st century.
Having understood that the rebellion of the human heart is the root cause for hatred against true Christianity, and having understood that true Christianity agrees with the stipulations of the Bible in practical life, it would be good to have an analytical look at the areas in which people dislike the stand taken by the Bible
Objectivity/Clarity: people want messages from the Divine. In fact they crave for divine messages, but only if the message is clear enough to appeal to them but is ambiguous enough to lend itself to a wide range of interpretation and manipulation. People can live with a semblance of religion and spirituality, but do whatever they please when the message is susceptible to manipulation.
What they need is something like the Oracle of Delphi which predicted things in such broad and non specific language that priest could tune it to the needs and expectations of every devotee. Even if two devotees came with exactly opposed and contrary expectations, the same message could still be “fitted” to the expectation of both. However, here is the difference. Instead of speaking in ambagious language and a wishy washy style, the Bible speaks in an objective manner and with such clarity that one has either to take it or leave it. There is no scope for Making it mean what people want it to mean. When it says that man is a sinner, it applies to all — to the hardened criminal as well as to the seemingly most saintly human. When it says that the wages of sin is death, it declares the end in a manner so as to leave no ambiguity. When it says that there is no other name under heaven or on earth other than that of the Lord Jesus by which people can be saved, it means precisely that — that there in no Saviour other than Lord Jesus. It also means that all the others who claim to save people are impostors. This hurts the false messiahs, who are many and who keep multiplying. This also hurts those who would rather trust one of the false messiahs than Jesus, the real Saviour. The world hates this aspect of the Bible — that it is too objective and precise for their flexible needs.
Rationality/Precision: most people, even religiously devoted ones, expect religion to by mystical. This in turn means that a lot of things will be subjective and irrational, not susceptible to rational and logical investigation or explanation. What is subjective and what does not yield itself to logical explanation automatically yields itself to all kind of funny and fancy interpretation. What is more, one and the same phenomenon can be interpreted differently by different people. Even a single person can make such an experience mean different things at different times.
A good example is the “baptism of the spirit” experience seen among the pentecostals and charismatic in India. While the Bible clearly describes things that happened on the day of Pentecost, those who claim today to seek the same phenomenon consider anything and everything out of normal as a replication of Pentecost. For example, if a devotee sees a flash of light, that is interpreted as the baptism of the Spirit. They overlook the fact that seeing flashes, hearing strange voices, having strange feelings, etc are a normal part of human life. Objective assessment demands that every experience by analyzed. But such analysis would immediately show these experiences to be normal human aberrations and not divine manifestations and therefore people hate objective analysis or rational thinking.
The Bible, however, emphasizes rationality and precision. So much so that the historical books have been used to reconstruct history and geography with great accuracy. Chronologies have been constructed with great precision. But such precision also prevents people from arbitrary interpretation. When it says that “it was evening and morning and it was the fifth day” we need to interpret it objectively as it says, not according to our fancy or mystic ideas. This is disliked by many who would prefer to see earth-history in terms of currently popular theories or in the light of their own fancies and prejudices. The Bible sets forth things in rational and precise language, leaving no scope for interpretation according to personal biases, and a good number of people dislike it for that.
Authority/Dominion: people are basically religious. They desire to have deities, stories of the little gods, and also messages from these gods — provided these messages do not interfere with human autonomy and authority. Here comes their conflict with the Bible.
The Bible not only communicates divine word, it does so with authority and demands total subjection from people. It claims total dominion over human life and thought. People hate this aspect of the Christian faith because this goes totally against their desire for religion to be subject to them and not vice versa.
Demarcation/Boundaries: demarcation always creates a divide and a boundary. If it is an ethical or legal subject, demarcation always creates a distinction between right and wrong, holy and unholy, divine and human, sacred and profane. The human society has a tendency to use these words, but it defines them in relative terms. There are no fixed or rigid boundaries for them. Nor do they like uncha
ngeable boundaries.
The Bible and the true Christian faith, however, not only set boundaries but also insist that these boundaries are essential, divinely ordained, and unchangeable. Obviously, the world hates this kind of firmness because it deprives them of the freedom to play with moral and ethical values.
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