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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Mix and Match

According to a recent Pew poll, Americans in large numbers are mixing and matching their religions. One third of the respondents, for instance, say they attend services at more than one place, with nearly a quarter of these attending services of a different faith. More often, you find Catholics attending a Protestant church (or vice versa) and the like, but it's still significant.

And the oddities just keep coming. Almost 30% of self-professed Christians claim to have been in touch with the dead. Nearly a quarter of self-professed Christians believe in astrology, spiritual energy in trees, and reincarnation. There is a popular mixing of faith and spiritualism, allowing various believers to mix their religion with Eastern religions to include yoga as a spiritual practice rather than merely a physical practice, for instance. It appears that Americans are taking advantage of the smorgasbord of religions available and mixing and matching whatever they like.

I am not, I suppose, particularly surprised. I already believe that people in general including Christians simply prefer not to think. "Give me a program or some steps or some rules and leave me alone. Don't ask me to analyze it." I say that because the concept, while heartwarming, is stupid (not to put too fine a point on it). Look, if religions claim exclusivity (and almost all religions do), then there are very few possible conclusions, and "pick and choose" is not one of them. One possibility is that all religions are false, in which case it doesn't matter what you choose ... you're wrong. Another possibility is that one of them is true, in which case all the others are false. In that case, picking and choosing from false religions is nonsense. But the possibility that all are true is simply impossible. Well, to be fair (and to avoid the fallacy of the false dichotomy), it is possible that most religions would carry some measure of truth. If this is the case, however, we can rule out Christianity entirely because Christianity alone claims that the only way to God is through Christ and if that's not true, Christianity can be ignored. So feel free to pick and choose from any other religion you want ... except Christianity.

It does highlight a real problem. People who call themselves Christians are too often not only unwilling to think things through, but also misinformed. In another survey a few years ago, for instance, 75% of Christians surveyed believed there was no such thing as absolute truth. Really? Then on what would you base your Christianity? They call themselves Christians (followers of Christ) and deny His Deity by relying on astrology. Really? In what sense are you a Christian? (Denying Christ is not following Christ.) Scripture is abundantly clear and not in the least ambiguous about reincarnation -- it doesn't happen. So on what would you base this belief? The problem, then, is that "self-professed Christians" are not, in far too many cases, Christians and obviously don't know it.

I'm not amazed that unbelievers are confused. Their eyes are blinded. I get that. I would like all those who classify themselves as Christians, however, to really question themselves if they are going to contend that they are followers of Christ while denying Christ's nature, followers of Christianity while denying its exclusivity. I'm afraid this group is in the most danger of all, being completely unaware of their perilous condition.

4 comments:

Danny Wright said...

"75% of Christians surveyed believed there was no such thing as absolute truth."

So what you are saying is that 75% of Christians are not Christians. Or maybe its 70%, depending on what point in the renewing the mind process this kind of "thinking" falls off.

For the purposes of their polling data, it sure would be interesting if one of the qualifying answers to determine Christians (or other religions too for that matter) was their veiw on the existence of absolute truth; with all "no" respondents simply being categorized with their like minded kin folk as secular humanists.

For decades now, the word Jesus, in many, if not most cases has been synonymous with any other arbitrarily selected symbolic religious figure within which one can put any content he chooses. Witness the "What Would Jesus Drive" drive by the now pantheistic environmentalist movement.

But still, I believe, based on my own pre-Christian days, that people are not fooled by the imitations; that is, unless they want to be.

Stan said...

I think that the largest number of people are what I term "practical atheists". Whatever they do or don't believe, they live as if there is no God.

Marshal Art said...

Aside from any claims of perfection, which I cannot make being blatantly imperfect, I do run into situations where the beliefs or actions of a "professed Christian" seems to me woefully unChristian. I could take some heat if any of them would stop and think about their belief/action and then eventually see the point. But when they cling to that belief/action, I can't hardly understand why they insist on claiming the title "Christian" at all!

As to borrowing from other religions, I often wonder about things like meditation. I don't see that it is necessarily a spiritual endeavor, but a physical one made to be spiritual. However, there are those who, through some forms of meditation, claim to make contact with the dead. I don't necessarily think it an impossibility since Scripture wouldn't likely warn us against it if it wasn't possible.

But some forms of meditation don't seem much more than simple exercises for relaxing one's self. We function more efficiently when we are relaxed, so I see it as a helpful practice as far as that goes.

I once had what I believe was a legitimate out of body experience. This experience preceded any serious interest I had in such things. Reading up on it confirmed somewhat my belief that I did indeed have such an experience. Some of my reading did speak of using techniques to provoke an out of body experience in order to contact the dead. Never had much interest in that as it seemed a dangerous proposition if it was possible to do that. I mean, how could we know we're talking to whom we think we're talking? But I did see practical uses for such a skill, though I never did develop the ability.

The irony is that because of my interest, I was lead back to Christ as a friend sought to warn me off of "astral projection" by pointing to Scripture that spoke against such things. The friend gave me a Bible and it was the first time I did a cover to cover since my pre-teen years. I lost interest and strengthened my faith, which I never really lost, but didn't much think about.

Now, I still have an interest in such things but don't see it as a spiritual thing (as I suggested earlier). I know where I put my trust and faith and have no desire to convert away from Christianity. Kinda makes me wonder where I'd be without having gone through that period.

Stan said...

I'm quite sure there are some things that can be either simple or complex. Yoga, for instance, is perfectly fine used in a simple form to exercise, relax, improve conditioning, etc. Used as a more complex spiritual exercise getting oneself in tune with the universe, it becomes a religious practice.

Meditation is one of those things. The Bible actually recommends meditation. "His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night" (Psa 1:2). So it is the object of meditation that is the point.