"I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out."
Ravi Zacharias
To have a tough mind, one must first have a mind.
The acknowledgement that we have a mind we must use for Christ is a necessary first step for anyone who will give a reasoned defense of the great truths of Scripture to a growing number of postmodern skeptics.
Let's use an analogy from the current debate over government-controlled health care. I have read lots of emotional appeals from evangelical pastors, no less, who think it is a compassionate thing that our government provide health care for all our citizens and non-citizens. Emergent Church pastor Brian McLaren has not come to the conclusion yet that homosexuality is a sin, but many in the Emergent camp are certain that it is scriptural that health care should be provided to all as a guaranteed right. That only goes to show that natural man will see things he wants to see and will not see things he does not want to see.
If it is compassionate to provide health care, then is it not also compassionate to provide cars to all citizens and non-citizens so that they can have a way to get to the health care they need? What good is it to have health care if one is stuck at home without transportation? Of course, the government could provide clunkers to all those who don't have cars, but alas, we got rid of all those recently so that many Americans could buy mostly foreign-made cars to help the sagging American automobile industry.
Four prominent questions come to mind when I think of the rush to let government be our savior in terms of health care:
(1) Can anyone show me anywhere in the world where government-run health care has been a raving success? United Kingdom? Canada? Cuba? France? Where? What is the ratio of people coming to our country for medical treatment compared to U.S. citizens leaving here to go to places like the U.K. or Canada or Cuba for medical purposes? When our high-priced politicians need medical help, where do they turn? Mayo Clinic or Castro's Clinic?
(2) Can anyone show here in this country of ours anything that our government has run that has been a raving success? Cash for clunkers program? Post office? Medicare? Social Security? The Great War against Poverty? Housing projects? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? All those programs are boondoggles. We are broke. Is it not revealing that the same people who push and promote pragmatism ("if it works, let's do it") in the church can be the same ones at times who will not evaluate government programs in terms of pragmatism? Instead, if it does not work, who cares, so long we have the best of intentions.
(3) Can anyone show me the number of elected officials in our nation's capital that would be willing to give up their current medical coverage for any sort of government-controlled health care system? Why not? Hmm. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Or maybe our politicians already know that what is bad for the goose is bad for the gander, and the debate is not really about health care primarily but about an ever-growing power grab by the federal government.
(4) Can anyone show me where in the U.S. Constitution it says the government has the right and power to provide health care to all its citizens? Here, to me, is the most important issue at stake. For all of us who were educated in our government-controlled schools, I need to explain what I mean by the U.S. Constitution. It is that marvelous document hammered out by many of our Founding Fathers on my birthday, September 17, but not in the same year. It is the Caesar we are to render unto. It is the document that informs us what the national government is allowed to do and what it is mostly forbidden to do.
We already had a constitution before the Constitution, but many figured the Articles of Confederation were simply unworkable, so a Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 was convened in Philadelphia so that the delegates from different states could form a lasting document to steer our country forward. Nearly all the delegates and all the states were scared to death of granting too much power to the central government, so they were meticulously careful to spell out only those things the federal government can do, which were very few in number (provide for the defense of the country, being a chief one). Anything not spelled out in the U.S. Constitution was off limits and reserved to the people or the states. Even then, the promise was made that a further Bill of Rights would be tacked on to the Constitution to make double sure that the federal government would be reigned in and kept in check. Without that Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Constitution would not have been ratified by the states.
Then how in Sam's hill (I still haven't found out where this hill is) have we arrived to the highly-bureaucratic, ballooning, sprawling, monstrous federal government today that has its hands in about every aspect of our lives? Because there were some people, most notably Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and some others, who interpreted the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution (Article 1 Section 8) to mean about anything under the sun. That is why the government welfare program is called welfare by the way.
Originally, if New York wanted to build a railroad or canal, then it was up to the people in that state to do it. It was not the prerogative of the federal government to ask the citizens of Georgia to subsidize by increased taxes the building of a railroad or canal in another state. But through the twisting of the words that the government should provide for the general welfare of the people, then lawmakers, or I should say lawbreakers, came up with the idea that the government could demand that the citizens of Georgia provide for the citizens of New York.
Is that what is meant by "general welfare" though? Not according to the Father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, who wrote in Federalist Papers #45,"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." (Notice how Bro. James put "federal" in small letters, whereas he capitalized "State" governments.) Elsewhere he wrote, "With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
What is never brought up in this round of health-care debate is this fourth question. I have yet heard any leading proponent of government-controlled health care talk about how a government-run health care system is constitutional. I have not heard too many opponents bring up this argument, and they should, if they knew the U.S. Constitution. Such things as the costs of the program, the payments for abortions, end-of-life counseling, the future rationing of health care, the demise of private insurance carriers, and other matters are all matters worthy of discussion, but behind it all stands the unconstitutionality of it all.
The reason why proponents will never bring up the constitutional angle is because they don't have a constitutional leg to stand on. They are just hoping that Americans never find out what the Constitution says, or that they do not care what the Constitution says. because the weekend ball game is more life-changing and who is going to win on Dancing with the Stars is more interesting. In other words, they hope many citizens will be just as uninformed as they the politicians are.
Now how does all this have anything to do with Christianity for the Tough-Minded? It sounds like it is Civics or History for the Tough-Minded instead. I began by saying this is an analogy, however imperfect it may be. The arguments above are examples of how to interact with anybody who has serious reservations or objections about Christianity.
We can kindly show the internal fallacies of other people's positions, once we know what they are. The first three questions do that above. We take what the other side holds dear and expose its weaknesses by asking thought-provoking questions that demand more than just a quick emotive response. I have always wondered what a college prof, who is deeply immersed in the postmodern philosophy that says there is no objective truth, that what is true for you may not be what is true or right for me, would say to a tough-minded student who is quick on his feet. When that prof hands out the results of the exams given the week before, and the student notices he missed five on the test, what would the prof say to the student when he asks the prof, "But, Dr. Hughes, what you might think is true is not true for me, and what you think is wrong may be right with me?"
Most importantly, though, we as Christians need to know really, really, really well our founding document, the Word of God. Most people out there have the wrong ideas of what the Bible says on this or that subject. They are either misinformed or have been indoctrinated with an anti-Christian bias somewhere along the way. "I don't believe in a God who all he wants or cares about is people's money." That guy got his cues about God from watching TBN and not from reading the Bible. You can lovingly say in response, "Well, I don't believe in that kind of God either. Here, let me show you from Scripture what the real God is all about."
More frustrating to me than talking to non-Christians about these issues is talking to some Christians, and even Christian leaders, about matters of eternal importance. In my lifetime I have met quite a few Christians who can say all sort of slanderous things against the likes of men I admire, such as R.C. Sproul, John Piper, Dr. Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, John MacArthur and others too many to mention, because of "where they are coming from doctrinally." I know what they mean by that and what issues irritate these Christians, but so far I don't think I have met very many who would be willing to go eyeball to eyeball with any gentle Christian mentioned above or someone like them they know more personally and have a scriptural/doctrinal discussion on matters they disagree with him about. They can talk "ill will" from a distance, in an email, on a blog, in a newsletter, in a sermon, but when it comes to having an honest friendly give-and-take of opposing ideas or doctrines, then they may end up heading "for the tall grass" (which may be somewhere over Sam's hill). Could it be they know deep down inside they don't have much of a scriptural leg to stand on?
It is appalling to read what some pastors and other Christian leaders write on their blogs, in their church newsletters, or in other forms of communication, and how little Scripture is used at all. Sometimes it is just a disjointed babbling of opinions or cute illustrations with no reference to God's Word. Have we come to the place where we really are "ashamed of the gospel"? (Romans 1:16-17)
While it is to be applauded that a person is an original intent constitutionalist, far better is it to be known as an original intent scripturalist.
We need to have a burning passion to know God's Word and to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. More than anything else that is what it takes to have a Christianity for the Tough-Minded.
"To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word,
it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20
Yours for the sake of truth,
Chris
