My friend told me how excited he was when his daughter learned about Satan. Dad puffed up like a proud peacock because his sweet little girl got it. She was able to say it out loud; Satan was the enemy. The Sunday School had done well. I must say I was rather shocked at his enthusiastic display of delight. I thought, "Thank God, his daughter now understands, at 4 years old, the horrific battle, which would confront her for the rest of her life." I wondered how a person who found such joy in celebrating salvation in Jesus could be so equally delighted in something so seemingly negative. Wasn't the word gospel synonymous with good news? I forced a smile and chuckle in response as I internally squirmed with discomfort. My 1+1=3 kicked into full gear when I shifted the conversation toward the solution. What about employing the resurrection power of God to thwart Satan and create good? My friend, a brilliant and successful financier, would have nothing of it. The world, according to him and the Bible, was destined to grow exponentially worse and worse because Satan had full reign over it. The only thing that would save the world was the second coming of Jesus. Until then, there was no hope that anything would get better.
Wow.
It was at that moment when I realized that my friend and I had irreconcilable world views. Mine rooted in the gospel of, "Can beat can't," and his, rooted in the gospel of, "The world is f***ed." He could drink, use the f bomb frequently, live a rich and lavish lifestyle, (all with which I have no problem) and go to church. He could raise his daughter in the company of Evil because, after all, she was saved, and he could blame all of the world's devastation and societal deterioration on the omnipotence of Satan, which the all loving God had relinquished to him...for a time. Being saved was the ticket, sheltering his family from the devastation, assuring the good life, and imposing no obligation toward the betterment of the other or the society in which he lived. Satan would destroy the world. That was that. Nietzsche's nihilism had taken a new twist. No longer was God dead, but the world was dead, or at least it was on a fast track toward death.
Memorized verses from the Christian Scriptures raced through my mind. "The kingdom of God is in your midst." "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you shall live." "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me." "Share the good news." "I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly." And there was that nagging story in the Torah, which charges the people to be good stewards of creation.
I had known for years that there was a small fraction of Christians who advocated for the quickening of the return of Jesus, which could only happen after the total destruction of the world, and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, but I did not realize how deeply infected those same Christians (which now seem more than a small fraction - at least in the U.S.) had now become with an irresponsible nihilism, and fatalism that to me is truly Evil, or ...Satanic. Furthermore, this nihilism and fatalism, according to them, is Biblical, Godly, and predestined. It would be logical, therefore, to conclude that anyone who does not subscribe to this ideology is not in accordance with God or the Bible. Should I dare say, that one is not saved? Am I not saved (and from what I might need saving I will discuss in later posts) because I believe that, "Can beat can't?" The consequences of this infectious ideology are dangerously catastrophic to this world; and may well be captured by the mathematical equation, 1+1=0, or the antithesis to grandma's wisdom, "Can't beat can."
It brings me back to my friend's little girl. For the sheer joy of it, let's call my friend's little girl, Hope. Hope has now been educated from birth by a family and church to know and understand that the exponentially increasing world horrors and societal deterioration she will experience are caused by Satan, that she can do nothing about them, that those who suffer as a result of them do because the Bible tells her so, that these horrors and the societal deterioration are good because they are signs that Jesus is coming back soon, and that she has no power to change things. The words, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so" seem ironically sadistic against this backdrop.
Against this backdrop, why wouldn't one cheer at the escalation of violence, war and death in the Middle East in heightened anticipation that the Dome of the Rock might be destroyed so that the Temple might be rebuilt, freeing Jesus to return on his white horse; or delight at the thought of the earth's temperature rising exponentially, ushering in its final destruction by fire? Why would one do anything responsible to stop these things from happening? After all that would slow down the return of Jesus. Unless, of course, one's world view is centered in the words attributed to Jesus, such as, "The kingdom of God is in your midst." "Love God, and love your
neighbor as yourself. Do this and you shall live." "Whatever you do to
the least of these, you do to me." "Share the good news." "I have
come that they might have life, and have it abundantly."
And on the third day he rose...."Can beat can't" because God said it was good...and here begins the true story of what it means to save...
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