I’m thinking of renaming this blog something like:
Wickedness Exists
That’s not super-fun and bouncy.
So, I guess I’ll leave the title alone.
But lately, a theme has developed in the posts.
If I expressed the theme in a couple of words it would be:
Wickedness Exists
Some people celebrate evil.
What’s that?
You don’t believe me?!!
Forgive me…but that’s part of our problem.
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. – John 3:19
Did you think lovers of evil disappeared during the Enlightenment?
They didn’t.
The villains are still around.
Proudly proclaiming their wickedness:
Christianity teaches that the spirit of God indwells those who believe.
(The particulars require their own separate post.)
The spirit of God changes people:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. – Galatians 5:22
So, a “dwindling” belief in Christianity means:
- Dwindling kindness
- Diminished patience
- Less self-control
- Fewer instances of peace
- Reduced joy
- Ever decreasing love
This is what “heartens” the wicked.
Wicked people think the fruits of spirit can be obtained from other sources.
They are wrong.
Gleefully anticipating the end of Christianity is hoping for hopelessness.
In absence of the spirit of God, there is darkness and despair.
The word for that is “hell”.
What should we call someone who looks forward to hell?
Personally, I think “wicked” is appropriate.
You’re welcome to suggest something else.
In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. 13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:12
22 Responses
The word that comes to mind is “lost”.
What should we call someone who looks forward to hell?
I don’t know. Wicked assumes intelligence and coherent. Based on the list, stupid and confused comes to mind.
Yes, but stupid and confused seems to indicate they can’t help it… Which would imply they are being punished for something outside their control.
I think they had a choice at some point, and they chose to reject God. Maybe it’s BOTH stupid and wicked? :/
I think the core of their thinking is pride. They view God from their self imposed morally superior position. Although as John stated in his next blog it is hard to tell me that God’s ruler isn’t straight when you can’t define what straight even means. Their argument seems to be “I personally find that decision by God to be morally wrong, so God doesn’t exist”..Huh? That is a ridiculous jump in thought. So it’s not stupidity it is pride and ego I think.
Wickedness is stupid.
You may be right. I think prolonged wickedness leads to stupidity. The arrogance that you’re smarter and morally superior to God will eventually warp your brain if you don’t repent of it.
Well, that comment from Ron is hogwash. What is going away is not 61 million who believe; it may be 61 million who don’t feel like they have to pretend to be Christians anymore. The day of the “cultural Christian,” may, in fact, be waning. Now all those folks who were just pretending can fun off and revel in the evil with the others and nobody judges them. This is actually bad news for the rabid atheists, as the ones who remain are probably a bit more battle-hardened and firm in their faith.
The enthusiastic endorsers of evil fail to realize that people who renounce Christianity don’t automatically become atheists. Religion is deeply ingrained in humanity and even atheism (despite the protests of its fundamentalists) is a religion.
Yeah, some of those guys have more doctrinal points than my tribe, and that’s a bunch!
They also fail to realize that is usually Christian values that grant them the freedom to be atheists in the first place. Muslims tend to just execute you, communists hang you. Makes sense to me, if merciful, patient, kind Christians find you annoying as all heck, pretty much everyone else will just toss you off the planet at first glance.
I’ve actually THANKED some of the Atheist “decoverts” before, for no longer calling themselves Christians. It’s clear they aren’t good thinkers or even nice people, so why would I want them to keep representing the faith? (I realize Jesus invites everyone, but when they don’t have a relationship with Logic and they don’t dispaly any of the fruits of the spirit, it’s hard to believe they ever actually met Him.)
Since most Atheists are used to having their posteriors kissed by Christians, they’re not really sure what to do with someone who thinks their absense at church is actually a GOOD thing.
I think you are on to something there, Amanda, I really do. Hard word, but has some merit
Excellent, John, as usual! Here’s an explanation of what’s up and coming generation, a bit frighteneing… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-beall/8-key-differences-between_b_12814200.html
The Gen Z’s must be listening to Brian MacLaren, (and his ilk)…oops, did I say that out loud?
I checked out the link you posted. What in particular is your concern with Gen z?
The sad fact is all while enjoying the presence of God in their lives the Atheists shake their fist at God not realizing what a life without His presence really means. You are right when you call it hell. The sadness and pain that will be is beyond my understanding.
Good post. Evil, wickedness really does exist. We people can be a bit like children closing our eyes and pretending there is no monster in the closet. No big pink elephant in the living room.
First off, I can’t find the study that Ron was talking about. The closest I could find was as follows: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
and it doesn’t have any semblance of the projection that Ron cited.
2ndly Extrapolation is such bad science. What does it even mean that “Christianity” is going to lose adherents, anyway (The question that first popped in my head that spurred me to look up the study)? Clearly, Church attendance is down – but I know a lot of young adults who don’t see going to an 503c organization’s building to finish out the weekend as being important to following Jesus. Also, people are abandoning the term Christian (especially Evangelical) – but are typically functionally as Christian as your average self-identifying Christian 10-15 years ago.
I guess this is not entirely on topic, but it’s just goofy things like this that frustrate me sometimes.
I’m happy to hear that you get frustrated! Your patience in your responses made me think you were a monk.
Haha, part of the patience you hear must enter subconsciously from the green moose avatar I use – he’s just so serene you can’t help be relax when you see him and subsequently become more receptive to whatever you read. ^_^
I’m not sure of your view on the rapture, but I am a “pretribber”. That being said, I wonder how much they will celebrate once all of the Christians (Christ’s body on earth embodying the fruit of the Spirit) are gone and they experience hell on earth for 7 years? And then for eternity. There will be those who convert after that, but as unfathomable as it is, there will still be those who refuse the Truth and celebrate wickedness. 🙁
Unfortunately John you’re right. Atheists have no reason to be patient or kind or follow any moral code. They’re simply animals doing their best to survive. I’m not saying that people without God can’t be moral, instead I’m saying they have no foundation for those morals, they simply borrow them from the Christians.
Good word. Although it may not have the desired effect in New England…