DECATUR AND LOCUST GROVE PART IV

In Locust Grove, when we ask the question, “Do you believe in moral absolutes, that is, definite standards of right and wrong or do you believe in moral relativism, that is, no absolute standards of right an wrong,” overwhelmingly the respondents answer, “moral absolutes.” That’s all to the good.

When we ask the same question to the Athenians in Decatur, the answer is more likely to be, “Moral relativism.” As the Athenian gives her answer, you sense that it doesn’t bother her at all. She sees no serious issues with it, no serious implications. We move on to the next question as she bats not an eye nor does she say, “I want to think about that for a moment.”

DECATUR, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

She hasn’t thought about her answer and what it means. Her belief that there is no right and wrong is a belief she can’t live with, a belief she can’t live out, but she may not realize it. The reason she can’t live it out is because of her DNA, the DNA of a human being.

Having the DNA of a human being means that she’s a moral person in the sense that she has a code by which she lives. This code is what Paul is talking about in Romans 2:15: “in that they [the gentile unbelievers] show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,”

This DNA means that the Decaturite has a conscience, one that accuses or defends her. At times she feels a true moral guilt because she’s really and truly guilty. At other times she may say, “My conscience is clear,” meaning she neither bears nor feels any guilt. But where does guilt come from, if all is relative?

This doesn’t mean that her conscience is an infallible guide because her conscience can be hardened, seared, and leading her astray. At other moments she may be rationalizing her sin to keep her conscience from accusing her.

CAUGHT BY LOGIC

If we were to talk to this relativist, about her relativism, we would bring out facts, dollars to donuts, she’s never thought of before. For example, I had a conversation with a relativist in which he accused me of wrong-doing, telling me, in a very angry voice, that I had neglected doing the right thing regarding him and two other people.

He had a problem, if all is relative and absolute right an absolute wrong don’t exist, how could he say that what I had done was “wrong?” If he denounces some action as “evil,” then he has to assume there is an absolute “good” by which to call something “evil.” He’s hung up.

Another case in point: our Decaturite friend may object to what he’s heard is about God, particularly in the Old Testament—God’s ordering the killing of the Canaanites. Most likely our friend doesn’t know about God’s giving them 400 years to change their minds and stop all their perversion of burning their babies and other perversions not to be mentioned in polite society.

But that aside, what’s our educated relativist doing? He’s stealing from God in order to condemn God, but he has no idea that he’s doing committing this robbery. To pronounce something as evil (even though in his case, his pronouncement is wrong) he must steal from the righteous standards of God, ironically to condemn God.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Unless there is some agreed upon standard for the true, the beautiful and the good, there can be no absolute standard by which we can condemn ‘evil’ behavior.

Our Decaturite will denounce the greedy capitalist, the corrupt politician, the wanton destruction of the environment as evil, but she can’t logically do that because, in her view, there’s no absolute good and one must have an absolute standard of what is good to say what is evil.

This problem invades everything for the relativist. We see this when she encounters the inequities of life in a fallen world. She gets all huffy and shouts, “That’s not fair!” But wait, from what source does she get her concept of “fair” and “unfair?”

GIVE IT THAT GOOD OLD COLLEGE TRY

The Decaturite may give it the old college try and say that it’s on the basis of a consensus that we can say that something is evil or unfair. Good luck with that. Getting a consensus in our pluralistic society? Are you kidding?

Larry Hall summarizes the problem of the Decaturite:

As long as our morality continues to be based in our humanistic pride, moral consistency will elude us. We will go on being bundles of self-contradiction, wildly judging each other while vehemently demanding that no one judge us. We can forget about arriving at a consensus ethic. There is virtually no consensus in a society as pluralistic as ours. About the most we can hope for is some sense of political correctness, and who in their right mind would hope for that? Even if true consensus were possible, history has proven repeatedly that such a consensus can be very immoral. When ethics are based on self and pride, all objectivity is lost. Things are no longer right or wrong. Instead, they are feasible or impractical, desirable or unappealing, agreeable or nonnegotiable…. Indeed, the very concepts of virtue and vice become meaningless.

A morality based on a consensus didn’t work well in Nazi Germany, where they burned books and then they burned people. The first leads to the second. It was a consensus morality that burned witches around the world in the 17^th century. Relativism's inevitable horror is a society in which “every man does what’s right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)

DECATUR AND LOCUST GROVE PART III

There’s a song from “The King and I” which begins, “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.” That’s the subject of our thinking today about the folks in Decatur to whom we’re given the opportunity to discuss spiritual issues in our Survey Evangelism. Let’s get to know them, to know all about them.

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL

First, we have to dispense with an idea that people have about these modern Athenians, an idea that comes from Calvinism. One of the five major points of Calvinism is Total Depravity (TD). The way the Calvinist defines the term is that the Decaturite is like a dead body in a mortuary when it comes to spiritual matters. They get this from an exaggerated definition of what it means to be “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2).

Since he’s spiritually dead, Calvinism says, he can’t respond to any gospel presentation or call to trust Christ. From their viewpoint, response is impossible, just as any response from a dead person is out of the question. They go so far as to say that you may as well be speaking to that dead body in the mortuary. He can’t hear; he can’t understand; he can’t respond.

TOXIC IDEA

This point in Calvinism has repercussions, one of which is that, according this idea, God must regenerate a person before he can trust Christ.  Wait. What? God must regenerate a lost person, then He gives him the faith to trust Christ? Yes, the Calvinist will agree with that statement. A well-known Calvinist, R. C. Sproul relates this experience:

One of the most dramatic moments in my life for the shaping of my theology took place in a seminary classroom. One of my professors went to the blackboard and wrote these words in bold letters: "Regeneration Precedes Faith."

These words were a shock to my system. I had entered seminary believing that the key work of man to effect rebirth was faith. I thought that we first had to believe in Christ in order to be born again. I use the words in order here for a reason. I was thinking in terms of steps that must be taken in a certain sequence. I had put faith at the beginning.

We note that Sproul calls faith a “work,” but the Bible never does and says outright that faith is not a work in Romans 4:4-5. By Calvinism’s definition of TD, he’s logically forced to agreeing with blackboard statement of the professor. But we see the illogical of it when we realize that if regeneration comes before faith, then for a split second, we have a born again unbeliever who rejects Christ.

Yet the biblical order is 1) hear the gospel 2) trust Christ then 3) regeneration. (Romans 10:14, 17).

MORE TOXICITY

Another repercussion of this can be illustrated by a Christian doctor in Dallas whose waiting room was filled with evangelistic Christian literature in the form of various tracts. Upon being convinced of the TD of man and therefore being convinced that his unsaved patients were unable to respond to any revelation from God, he removed all the literature. This isn’t an isolated case: entire churches who’ve bought into Calvinism have seen their missions giving and outreach dry up.

Is this Calvinistic definition of TD biblical? Is the Decaturite so completely dead that he can’t respond to God’s revelation?

The Calvinist is, as apologist Dr. Norman Geisler points out, exaggerating man’s TD; instead of seeing it as extensive (infecting every facet of his personhood), he sees as intensive from his misunderstanding of spiritual death. Spiritual death doesn’t mean the unbeliever is totally unable to respond to the gospel.

Spiritual death means separation from God, just as physical death means the separation of the soul and the spirit from the body. Though spiritually dead, the lost person can do things, for example, he can sin; he can choose life (Deut. 30:19-20; he can choose to serve God (Josh. 24:15; Is. 1:18-19); he can reject Christ’s words (Jn. 5:39-40); he can reject God’s revelation (Jn. 7:17, 37-39; Matt. 11:28; 22:3) The mortuary analogy doesn’t hold up under biblical/real life scrutiny.

REAL LIFE

Let’s look at real-life examples. In Genesis, we see God’s going to Adam and Eve, now lost and separated from Him, spiritually dead and He confronted them with their sin. The reason He went to them was to get a positive response, just as He went to Cain to get a positive response. He sent multitudinous prophets to Israel who confronted the nation with God’s revelation, expecting them to respond positively to it. Christ and the apostles confronted the lost and all of that activity assumes the possibility of a positive response.

In the Bible, we run into many unsaved who, in that unsaved state, without being regenerated, were responding to God in a positive way: John and Andrew upon hearing John the Baptist, went to meet Jesus; Nathaniel, upon hearing about Jesus went to see Him, as did Nicodemus. The Ethiopian official, unsaved, was reading Isaiah 53, wanting to know what it meant when he met Philip; Cornelius was praying and giving when he met Peter.

The Decaturite is expected to respond positively to natural revelation—what he sees in the night sky--and is without excuse if he doesn’t (Ps. 19:1; Rom. 1:18-20). The Decaturite has a God consciousness, yet he suppresses that knowledge (Romans 1). Every atheist has a God-consciousness—you have to be conscious of God’s existence to deny it.

In addition, the Decaturite has a God-given moral code, knowledge of what’s right and wrong; it’s stamped in his DNA (Rom. 2:15). That knowledge leads him into an insurmountable problem, but that will await next week.

We know a great deal about the Decaturite.

TO BE CONTINUED

DECATUR AND LOCUST GROVE II

When you talk to many folks in Decatur, GA, you’re talking to the erudite. Emory University is there with its 14,769 students who chase degrees at its undergraduate and graduate schools. Emory is pricey: tuition and fees for 2015-2016 came in at a tony $46,314. Of those who applied to enroll in the friendly confines of Emory in the fall of 2015, only 26% got in. That’s one persnickety university. By way of comparison, the University of Texas accepts “those who have graduated or are on track to graduate from high school or have received a GED. (However, the University of Texas has a better football team than Emory.)

But Emory isn’t the only kid on the block. Decatur is the county seat of DeKalb and within that small area, you’ll find Agnes Scott College as well as Oglethorpe University. More education per square mile than you can shake a stick at.

CAN WE TALK?

So, let’s talk to the erudite about spiritual matters, about the fact that God is love, just, holy, and sovereign (the #1 Ruler). Let’s talk to these modern Athenians about their problem—their sin which forms a barrier between them and God and how their good works can’t break that barrier. Let’s discuss with them that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for all their sins, that Jesus, rose from the dead and offers forgiveness and eternal life to them freely upon trusting Him alone.

HE’S GOT AN ISSUE

The Athenian presents us with a problem since we’ve been saying over and over again, “The Bible says,” “the Bible says,” and (again) “the Bible says.” The problem is that he doesn’t give any authority to the Book we’ve been quoting, and so, he asks us, “You say the Bible is the Word of God. How do you know that?”

He doesn’t buy into our Book because his education has blocked the Book and its Author from his worldview and this blockage hasn’t been an accident or inadvertent. It’s part of the system, but he doesn’t know that (II Cor. 4:4; I John 5:19). According to Romans 1, there’s been a great deal of suppression going on.

So, can we talk to him or when we try, are we talking past each other? What to do?

THE PROBLEM

We’re coming from a different starting point than the Athenian and that’s what’s causing the problem. We’re starting with the Bible as our authority and he isn’t. We place nothing above the Bible as our authority; he does. His authority is, just as we saw last week in Part I, is his three-pound unaided brain which is limited and infected.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR HIM AND US?

When we say that the Bible is our ultimate authority, what do we mean? We mean that we can go to no higher authority for truth. “Your Word is truth,” Jesus said. That settles the matter. Proverbs points out that, for the believer, the Word of God is his starting point: “The fear of the Lord (i. e. a positive response to the revelation of God) is the beginning of wisdom.”

Take the question, “How much is a gallon?” How do we know that when we pump gas, that the gallon we’re buying is really a gallon and not 3.9 quarts? We know because the gas pump is certified by an agency of the state government. That organization settles the matter. My gallon container isn’t the final authority; what the bureau says is a gallon IS a gallon. End of story.

The Athenian asks, “Why do you say the Bible is the Word of God?” How would you answer? To answer that question, we can only go to our highest authority, the Bible itself. Our answer is, “Because it says it is.”

WHOA!

Whoa! The Athenian calls, “Foul! You’re reasoning in a circle when you say that the Bible is the Word of God because the Bible says it’s the Word of God.” And he’d be right. But he doesn’t realize that’s exactly what he’s doing within his own system.

What’s his ultimate authority for truth and how does he know it is ultimate? His ultimate authority is his three pound unaided and infected brain. How does he know his brain is the ultimate authority? Because his brain says it is. Whoa! He’s reasoning in a circle. Ultimately everyone has to.  

For the vast majority of Athenians, they don’t realize that they’re reasoning in a circle; the Athenians only see us as doing it, but they do the same thing. He’s starting from his ultimate presupposition, “My mind, my reason, is my only tool for knowledge.” That’s why he and we can look at the same evidence and come to a radically different interpretation of it.

He may say, “Science tells us . . .” But in reality “science” doesn’t tell us anything. It can’t. What’s “telling us” isn’t science, but people interpreting with their minds what they’re seeing and hearing in the world around them.

TWO NAZI CHILDREN

A Jewish lawyer took the son of a Nazi, now grown old, to locations where his father committed atrocities against his Jewish grandparents and parents. He took Horst to the place where his father, as the appointed governor, had executed thousands of Jews, to the place where his father had locked his grandfather in a synagogue with other Jews and burned them alive. He took him to the place where his father forced the Jews as they walked single file, having each one in turn shot in the head and fall into a mass grave. He took him to walk on the land where they buried the bodies. He took him to the Nuremberg  courtroom where his father was tried, found guilty, and then to his cell and then to the place where he was executed for his crimes.

Confronted with all of his, the Nazi’s son said, “No, that’s not true. My father was a good man. I have letters from people who say, “Your father was a good man.”

The Jewish lawyer asked him, “Why do you say that he didn’t do these things, murder those thousands and thousands of Jews in the light of everything I’ve showed you?”

Horst answered, “Prove it. Show me a document with his name on it ordering such a thing to be done.”

The lawyer said, “I have such a document right here; here it is and there is your father’s name on it, dated in 1946 in which the Russians and the Poles are requesting the Americans turn him over to them for war crimes.”  He produced the document and handed it the Nazi’s son. He read it and said, “This is general, not specific; he didn’t do what you say he did.”

Then the Jewish lawyer produced a letter from Horst’s father to his wife in which he said that he had to get back to Poland and finish what he’d started and two weeks later, 75,000 Jews had been executed in the area under his authority.

Still, the document, the courtroom verdict, and the letter written by his own father made no dent in Horst. “My father was a good man,” he kept saying. No evidence could convince him otherwise because of that presupposition, “My father was a good man.”

In the same way, the modern day Athenian will suppress the facts.

TO BE CONTINUED

DECATUR AND LOCUST GROVE

Decatur, GA, is the home of the DBF (The Decatur Book Festival), and the home of the renowned Emory University. Emory University became famous, or as some hold, infamous, because of a radical professor named Thomas J. J. Altizer, who, with one simple proclamation, set religious scholarship on fire and gave Emory a name as a bastion of theological liberalism. He, leading a small group of like-minded theologians who called themselves, “Christian Atheists,” declared, “God is dead.”

In the 1960’s, Altizer, a descendent of the great Stonewall Jackson, sparked a national uproar, was on the cover of “Time Magazine,” received death threats, yet enjoyed the public support of the president of the university, a support which would shape the future of Emory. At that point, “Emory ceased to be a regional Methodist school and became a national institution known for serious religious scholarship.” (“Emory Magazine,” Autumn 2006)

We might argue over the term “serious religious scholarship” since it’s from Emory that we get the oxymoron, “Christian atheist,” but that’s for another day. (With that term, Romans 1:22 comes to mind.) Those fellows were educated way beyond their intelligence.

Decatur is 5.5 miles from Atlanta. In 2014, Atlanta had the distinction of being the No. 1 spot in the list of top the 10 U.S. cities for recent college graduates to live. Educated, affluent, low cost of living, that’s Decatur, GA.

LOCUST FROVE

Then there’s Locust Grove, GA. If you’re looking for a four-year university, there’s not one, the closest is in another county, 22 miles away. If you’re looking for a library, Locust Grove has one, with restricted hours (closed on Friday-Sunday, open 12-8 PM on Mondays and Thursdays, 10 AM -6 PM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). There are 22 libraries within a 19-mile radius of Decatur.

ATHENS AND JERUSALEM

For our purposes, let’s say that Decatur is Athens and Locust Grove is Jerusalem. Locust Grove is 35 miles from Decatur, but the spiritual distance between the two is like traveling the 3,172 miles by land from Jerusalem to Athens.

Decatur is educated-sophisticated-philosophical-new-idea-discussing-Athens (Acts 17). Locust Grove is the home of the “Mardi Growl,” (a community-wide dog day event), yard sales, and a celebration/ reception to mark the renaming of a road.  Locust Grove is God-fearing, church-respecting and church-going, a town with old-time Baptist bones and old-time Methodist roots, deep and strong; it is Jerusalem. Merle Haggard could have written “The Roots of My Raisin’ Run Deep” about Locust Grove.

Decatur, well, that’s another story. At the DBF you’ll meet Jews and gentiles, Muslims, Hindus, and a whole lot of whatevers. At the DBF there’s one who wants to argue your belief that Jesus is the only way. At the DBF, there’s the nice Jewish lady who says, “I don’t believe your Bible,” meaning “your New Testament.” If you talk to her about the Old Testament, if you call it that, she’ll correct you as quickly as she did me. At the DBF you’ll meet some (not all) who won’t buy into your Book as the Word of God. At the DBF, you’ll meet a man whose guidebook isn’t the Bible, but is, “The Gospel According to Thomas.”

So that brings us to the questions of the hour—how do you and I converse with such people about the gospel? And, another important question, “Just who are these modern-day Athenians?”

A RUSSIAN ATHEIST CAN HELP US  

The Russian-born atheist, Ayn Rand (1905-1982), gives us an insight into the Athenian of today, trained in a system which, in a through-going way, leaves God out. He’s not in the mindset of the educated. What’s the mindset of such a person? His worldview? Rand defines him. She said, “Reason is man’s only tool of knowledge.” By this, she means reason unaided by revelation from God.

There it is, man’s mind is the only tool he has to understand and interpret himself, others, the world around him, and the universe. Man’s mind is the only tool he has to figure out the big questions of life: Where did I come from? What’s my purpose? Where am I going?

A LOOK AT MAN’S MIND

The human brain is an amazing creation. Your brain is made up of billions of cells that send and receive information. It weighs 3 pounds and develops until it gets into its late 40’s. (For some, like those on the Jerry Springer Show, it ceases to develop much earlier.)

The Bible tells us the human brain is both limited and infected. It’s limited-- it can’t be omniscient. It’s infected by sin as a result of the Fall of man. (Of course the educated would disagree with the last statement, but would agree with the first.

JOE LOOKS UP

Joe, from Decatur, looks at night sky, sees the stars and planets with their form, order, and precision of movement and rotation and says, “Chance plus time plus the impersonal produced all that.” That’s an example of his limited knowledge and his infected brain which, all evidence to the contrary, suppresses the clear evidence of the existence, wisdom, and power of God (Romans 1).

JACK LOOKS UP

Jack, from Locust Grove, with the Bible, looks at the same heavens and says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.” The Athenian brain is making the first statement; the Jerusalem brain is making the second.  Both brains are looking at the same night sky, but interpreting it differently. One is aided by revelation, the other isn’t.

THE FILM IN ZAPRUDER’S CAMERA

That’s like the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. If Joe approaches the film believing the assassination was a conspiracy, he’ll see conspirators at work on the grassy knoll.  He’ll see “Badge Man” hidden in the bushes and on the sidewalk, he’ll note the actions of “Umbrella Man.” He will see them as conspirators, in on the plot.

Yet Jack believes the assassination to be the deed of one lone Marxist. He looks at the film and sees only one person firing one rifle. He can’t see Badge Man in the bushes. He will see Umbrella Man, but won’t see his action as conspiratorial. It’s the same film, yet two opposite conclusions.

What’s happening? Joe and Jack are bringing different presuppositions to the film, and because of their presuppositions, they interpret it differently.

That’s what’s happening in the case of the Athenian and the Jerusalemite: each is interpreting man, the world, and the universe using a different presupposition. Joe brings the presupposition Ayn Rand spoke of: “[Unaided] reason is man’s only tool of knowledge.” Jack brings the presupposition that the Bible is the Word of God by which he interprets the heavens.

THE ATHENIAN

Put yourself in the mindset of the Athenian in Decatur. The only tool he has for interpreting himself, others, and the universe is just as Ayn Rand says, his three- pound brain.

Our Decaturite will ask, “How do you know the Bible‘s the Word of God?” The typical Locust Grovite won’t ask that question. He’ll respect the very paper it’s written on.

So how do we Jerusalemites discuss spiritual matters with the Athenians?

To be continued.