One of many Christian salvation plans.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
Allegedly, the Bible is the very words of God. Thus, God says that he is not willing that any [man, woman, child] should perish but that all [men, women, and children] should come to repentance. If this is so, then why do the vast majority of humans past and present perish without repenting? Billions and billions of people have died without repenting. If God isn’t willing that anyone should perish, why do most people die in their sins, unrepentant, without faith in Jesus Christ?
According to Evangelicals, God makes himself known to us through three things:
- Creation
- Conscience
- Divine Revelation
These three things are problematic, to say the least. First, there’s nothing about creation that says to us that we need to repent and put our faith in Jesus. At best, one might conclude that there is a deity of some sort. But I have yet to have an Evangelical apologist connect the dots between the deistic God of creation and the God of the Protestant Christian Bible. Second, the same can be said of conscience. Evangelicals love to say that the law of God is written on our hearts. However, they can never explain, exactly what a “heart” is and what law is written on it. Let the ‘splaining begin. 🙂 Third, the Bible is God’s divine revelation to humanity. Yet, this very same book says that the natural man [those who are not Christians] cannot understand the Word of God. But Bruce, that’s why Christians are commanded to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. That doesn’t change the fact that the Bible says it is impossible for dead sinners to understand it. We are deaf and blind, unable to see or hear the truth.
Let’s suppose God uses human means [instrumentality] to reach us so we will not perish. Could he choose a worse method to get his word across to sinners? There are thousands of sects, hundreds of thousands of clerics, and billions of Christians, each with their own peculiar definition and understanding of salvation. How could any uninitiated person ever understand which plan of salvation is right?
It seems God could have figured out a better way to convey his message of salvation to sinners. Instead, we have a convoluted mess to dig through, hoping that we find the right path to life eternal. Could it be that the mess before us is evidence that Christianity is of human origin; that there is no such thing as Christianity; that Christianity is an ever-evolving religion?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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When I was a young teen, I had a huge problem with the notion that people who had never heard of Jesus, his death, resurrection, sacrifice, and the notion of salvation deserved to go to hell. It made no sense. I was told that creation shows the existence of God – fine, you coukd make that argument, but which God? And there’s certainly zero in nature that refers to Jesus and his salvation scheme. Then I was told that’s why we MUST evangelize, that WE were responsible for reaching these people and making sure they had a chance to accept Jesus.
The several times I was proselytized to by people who were of a different religion, I could see how unlikely it is to convince someone through one conversation. My reaction each time to hearing a religious pitch was, “That’s some batshit crazy story”. Maybe if you’re with someone for a protracted period of time – like, you’re friends for months or years, maybe? I don’t get it though. Maybe I’m just too analytical or literal, but stories with supernatural elements are NOT in any way convincing to me. Ghosts, spirits, superpowers – that’s all clearly fiction to me. I’m just not able to be budged on that. The only reason I was in evangelicalism was because my family was,and I was heavily indoctrinated as a child – and even then I asked a TON of “problematic” questions.
OC–That nature doesn’t prove the existence of any particular version of God, let alone in the person of Jesus, is indeed the very reason why the religion could spread only through evangelism–and why Christianity is so profoundly anti-nature and must emphasize its supernatural origins.
As someone who loves literature, I have to say that using “The Word” is possibly the worst way to spread the message. Words can be interpreted in many different ways, especially in times and places far removed from their origins. Oh, and most Christians read those words in translation, if they read them at all.