If the Christians teachings on the sovereignty of God and his personal, direct intervention in the lives of human beings is taken seriously it often results in followers of Jesus acting foolishly and irresponsibly. It often leads to fatalism.
The thinking goes something like this….God is in control. Nothing happens that is not a part of his purpose and plan for our lives. The Christian live fearlessly, knowing that God is controlling and directing their life. All they need to do is surrender their will to his, dying to self. (cue the song I Surrender All) God promises the Christian he will never leave them or forsake them. He promises to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He promises, promises, promises……..
Back in the real world, Christians fail, get sick, have accidents, lose their lobs, get divorced, end up in bankruptcy, and die just like the rest of us. For all the promises of God……….their lives are no different than the lives of godless atheists. They “think” their lives are different but any cursory examination proves otherwise.
A scene is a recent episode of the Showtime hit The Big C illustrates how Christians often deceive themselves.
The Big C is a comedy/drama about a woman who has terminal cancer. Cathy (Laura Linney) has cancer. Her son Adam (Gabriel Basso) has turned to Christianity as his Mom continues to struggle with the reality that she is dying….
The Christianity the show portrays is a mix of Lutheranism, Emergent church, and Evangelicalism. Adam starts attending a Bible study and he meets a girl. She is “saving” herself until she is married so she only will have anal sex with Adam. In her world anal sex and oral sex is not really “sex.”
One evening Adam is out with his girlfriend……and they come to the curb of a busy, traffic filled street:
Girlfriend: (starts praying) God help me to help Adam let him know your love and protection like I do let him give over his life to your loving hands.
Girlfriend: Ok, RUN! (and grabbing Adam’s hand they begin to run across the street dodging cars)
Adam: Oh shit!
Adam: (Upon safely reaching the other side of the street) I can’t believe, we could have died.
Girlfriend: But we didn’t because god protected us. Just like he protects all of his children.
This is EXACTLY the way many Christians think.
Never mind the fact that if this same scenario was played out numerous times it is likely they would have been killed. The Christians have an out for that too………If they were killed that means it was their “time” to die. God called their number, end of story! To God be the glory.
One of my acquaintances has just had surgery for cancer of the kidney. All his facebook friends are saying they will pray for him. I feel like saying “Your God must want you to have cancer and suffer, or why would he have given it to you. No use praying if God has already decided the outcome”. I won’t, because that would be unkind. Alternatively, I could say :Your chances of survival for 5 years are 60-70percent if you have stage 1 or 2 (confined to the kidney, which it was).
Yeah, it’s pointless bro. Had to hear all of this crap when my Dad was rotting away with Alzheimer’s & Cancer.
Really sucks.
Funerals bring this kind of thinking front and center. I hate going to Christian funerals, especially when I know the person was a Christian in name only.
I know a lot of Christians – not one of them has enough faith in their god to actually put their life in danger in this way. Makes me wonder if deep down inside they secretly know god doesn’t exist.
It’s a very hard thing to do, to stop being a Christian after believing for such a long time; I believed for the first 35 or so years of my life and come from a religious family that are ALL Christian so was surrounded by it and never questioned it.
Even now, a few years later I still wonder what if… however if god ever does turn up I’ll have more than a few choice words for him about his so called plan.
I was watching a documentary about the grand canyon and looking at the amount of erosion that has taken place and Christians believe the world is only a few thousand years old – they would say that god created it already partially eroded
I just recently admitted to myself that I no longer believe in god. That realization was five years in the making – diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2007. And, oh, how the sold out christians in my life loved to tell me that god never gives us more than we can handle. That’s the biggest lie of all. It was damn well more than I could handle, and since god wasn’t taking my crippling fear away, I turned to prescription meds to cope with the stress and the sorrow. Three years later I ended up in rehab. From my point of view, that AA business is so much BS, the ridiculous idea that you have to get god to get sober. The more they pushed prayer, the more I wondered why the hell I wound up dependent on drugs for a modicum of relief, when all my life I had been assured that god had my back. If this past five years is having my back, I wonder what a god who hates me would come up with.
None of those christians in my life were particularly supportive or kind in my hour of need. Some were actually quite callous and offensive. My husband and I went through the whole thing alone. No footprints in the sand, carrying us along. I was on my feet through every stinking day of that fight.
Everything I’ve ever read about cancer tells me that every single person’s cancer is different, and whether you survive is simply luck of the draw. I’ve been in remission 4+ years now. I have no idea why and neither does anyone else. If it does return, well, at least I know whom NOT to turn to.