Becoming True People of "Faith" - Part II

PART II: Transcending a “Personal” Faith of “Personal” Choice

Using Christopher Columbus’ voyage as the baseline, Part I uncovered that people of true faith experience a tangible belief and trust in God and His promises that far transcends mere hope. But in Part II, I’d like to propose that what is experienced by the individual still is, to the outside world, nothing more than a “personal” faith and a “personal” choice—without external evidence.

Let’s go back to Columbus’ crew and that maiden voyage once again: Those having crossed the horizon line intact, with faith now transformed into fact, carried a “personal” kind of faith on their return. They “personally” knew they had traveled where they claimed. No doubt the crew would desire friends, family and others to take the long journey across the horizon line to the New Land. But it is possible and probable that their New Land sales pitch would be met with incredulity and cynicism. “How do we know,” the mainland dwellers might inquire, “that you have actually been where you claimed? What if you and the rest of the crew merely sailed near the edge of the horizon of the flat world, only to return unsuccessful and so fabricate this whole story to avoid embarrassment?” This is a very logical conclusion of those having only “heard” the crew’s tale of personal “faith.” Columbus’ crew might now be collectively aligned and emotionally emphatic, but perhaps they all simply drank the same Kool-Aid, so to speak, out at sea.

Yet in a single moment, the faithful held the means to silence every mainland naysayer. In one instant, they could shatter the bonds of cynicism and skepticism and change personal faith into mainland objective truth.

All they had to do was produce the items acquired in the New Land.

By presenting tangible evidence of their journey, the faithful no longer needed words as the crux of their New Land solicitation. Words would merely affirm a now visible truth. The mainland inhabitants would “see with their eyes” the spoils of the New Land, and then “hear with their ears” the ambassadors’ accounts and solicitations. But in order for these petitions to hold ultimate and universal merit, the appeal must remain in that order: seeing first and hearing second. Consider the following verse through that lens:

“… they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return…” Is. 6:10 (NASB)

The New Land ambassadors proved their faith solid, not by showing the New Land itself – but by divulging its products.

SO WHAT IS THE MAINLAND SEEING?

It should be obvious where this analogy has headed, but pressing the comparison further uncovers even more of the church’s misfortune.

Producing these new spoils and proving their faith accurate did not necessarily ensure others would also journey to the New Land. If the items brought back by these faithful New Land ambassadors were little different in importance and value than the items of the mainland, what reason would the mainlanders have to endure the long and arduous voyage? Or, suppose the New Land items were incredibly valuable, but still attainable on the mainland with greater effort. Would not most mainlanders merely work harder to achieve similar items as those having made the journey? What about the mainland citizens whose lives were the paragon of vitality, prosperity and contentment? Or those well adjusted to mainland living, having built networks of friends and business relationships and having learned to effectively capitalize on its systems? There was little this group needed that their current locale didn’t already provide. They’d had a steady and safe history of past mainland success. What possible incentives could the New Land ambassadors offer this group of successful and stalwart mainlanders to satisfy them to take the perilous trek across the sea?

For the New Land ambassadors to successfully recruit the collective mainland society to rejoin them on the long faith-based journey, the items from the New Land had to transcend monetary value. Money was a mainland concept, and harder, more effective work could produce its equal. So these treasures had to be both entirely unattainable and completely un-replicable on the mainland. They also had to surpass mere emotional happiness. Many mainland items and events were capable of generating positive emotional responses. So treasures with the similar emotion-producing qualities were not in themselves unique. And finally, they had to dazzle and attract in a way that transcended the items themselves. Otherwise the treasures were merely showpieces and of little tangible use.

In order for the mainland to collectively and universally embark on the New Land journey, the treasures from the New Land had to positively and holistically alter the state of existence on the mainland itself.

PERSONAL CHOICE/PERSONAL REASONS

Without treasures meeting these requirements, a journey to the New Land was merely a personal choice for personal reasons. Perhaps a mainland individual might deeply care for one of the faithful crew members and so joined his friend on the next journey. Conceivably, other mainlanders may have grown tired of their lackluster existence and thought the New Land might add new zest to their nondescript lives. Maybe others had failed miserably in business or experienced some other tragedy on the mainland, and contemplated that the New Land might afford a second—and hopefully easier—chance. Others may have never fit in socially with mainland citizens and figured their misunderstood persona and quirks might be more embraced in the New Land. Without tangible society-transforming treasures, all the faithful could attempt were emphatic and emboldened personal solicitations. But they could not expect the whole of society to join them on future journeys.

“Let those choosing to go to the New Land,” the mainlanders might say, “do so of their own personal choice and for their own personal reasons. But please don’t keep soliciting the rest of us if you can produce nothing invaluable and irreproducible we cannot gain on our own merit, through our own mainland systems. If the New Land is as glorious as you claim, then its treasures would be just as glorious, and if you cannot produce such treasures we will refute you and your New Land and stay where we can see and trust our surroundings. Keep your personal New Land faith and journey to yourself. Your declarations don’t match your product.”

BACK… TO THE CHURCH

Tragically this hypothetical/allegorical scenario aligns with the current state of the church in America. Apart from its message of salvation, its supposed emotional security and its other future personal promises, the church has offered little to mainland society that the mainland cannot produce on its own accord, and, if not at the present time – better. Because we as the church have had so little to offer, not merely to the world but even to our own “faithful” community, we have actually gravitated toward mainland activity and living. We consider ourselves saved while remaining on the mainland, never producing a shred of tangible evidence of having traveled to the New Land.

Our lack of evidence forces us either to refute the systems of the mainland while offering little in return, or to move back into what we don’t have the capacity to tangibly prove: salvation, and personal internal experience. We, once again, forget Jesus stated that eternal life starts at conversion, not death. As tragic and troublesome as the following quote appears, these are mainland comments from a society having heard ubiquitous New Land solicitations and moral reprimands while seeing little evidence of the New Land’s treasure:

“Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival.” Humanist Manifesto II (Preface)

Christianity has been relegated to the status of other religions because our daily message is little different than the other religions of the world. Except that we are elitist and most other religions embrace pluralism. Our brand of religion appears to produce little more tangible treasure than the religions it excludes, based on Christianity’s current lack of societal evidence. Because of this lack of New Land treasure, much of our current church message and literature has been retooled to give mainlanders the Biblical keys and techniques necessary to gain more of what they want on the mainland. We are no longer encouraging others to embark on the arduous but critical journey to the New Land and bring back its treasures. We are using the Bible to teach mainland success.

Telling people that to get to the New Land first requires a difficult, time-expending, and non-formulaic journey, doesn’t market well for church membership. It certainly smacks in the face of our microwave, plastic surgery, self-help, pharma-solution, insta-remedy mainland mindset. But it also receives so little credence because the true model of New Land solicitation is: “See treasures first, hear of the New Land second.” If the mainland society sees no evidence of New Land treasure in the lives of its ambassadors, naturally its ambassadors must then market their faith as the best accompaniment to successful mainland living, and bespeak future and unverifiable promises. Again, Jesus said eternal life begins at conversion, not death. And, when the mainland sees little difference in appearance, action and temperament among the supposed New Land converts and ambassadors, the mainland scoffs at the secularized “faith” of the Christian.

And it should.

Jesus declared that He came to bring life and life more abundantly, according to John 10:10. Yet the statistical evidence of the Christian life proves it has been anything but abundant, with divorce rates higher than the non-churched, addiction percentages on par with the “unfaithful,” and “brand equity” somewhere around that of Enron – all of our own making.

Notice what God says about it: “You (God) make us (His people) a byword among the nations, A laughingstock among the peoples.” Psalm 44:14 NASB (parentheses added)

It is to the shame of the faithful, the journey, and to the God not only having created the New Land ambassador, but every person content to stay permanently affixed on the mainland. For everyone on the mainland will unwittingly fall prey to its slow but inevitable destruction. While the majority of the church is stuck fast in the grip of the entropy-centric mainland, God’s true treasures lie on the other side of the horizon line – where few ultimately travel. Many may hear that there are treasures somewhere on the other side, but remain content to “keep the faith” on the hearing of that word instead of taking active steps to reach it. And so, most Christians live treasure-less, but supposedly, “saved” lives.

If you think this many/few comparison too extreme, notice what Jesus says: “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to (eternal) life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt. 7:14 NASB) Ask yourself this question: Does the way to eternal Life, as the church currently markets it, really appear narrow? Do we preach a narrow gate theology? Would it draw in the big crowds? Could it build megachurches? The only way to market a New Land or narrow gate theology is to produce the treasures of the slow and arduous journey first. Otherwise, we must widen the gate to make up for our lack of New Land evidence. Though we may be able to build successful ministries on the mainland, without New Land treasures, the results are tragic:

“… for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” Matt. 7:13 NASB

Notice that the verse doesn’t necessarily pinpoint who experiences that destruction. In other words, our wide-gate, successful mainland-living theology is actually responsible for a large portion of the destruction occurring outside our church walls. While we are so well known for pointing the finger at the atrocities of society, our fingers should actually be pointing back at us.

THE TREASURES OF THE TRULY FAITHFUL

But there is great hope. If we are people of true faith, having experienced and endured the trials and tribulations of the true New Land journey, we should be instantly attractive to the rest of society. We can receive from the New Land what the mainland world cannot produce; for true eternal life treasures are impossible to fabricate with money, education or self-will. And salvation—though the most emphatically solicited valuable of the Christian faith— is not Christianity’s greatest treasure. It is merely a future component of a now tangible reality. Eternal life begins at conversion, not at death. Salvation is simply the initial requirement to set sail in the boat to the New Land. But we have to sail to receive the treasures. If we have not provided invaluable treasure to the rest of the society, it is only because few have ever actually taken the true “faith” journey to the New Land, not that the treasures are not there. We have listened to the words of others, or sought our own personal mainland agendas, hearing that we could still “get in” without having to make the arduous journey. We’ve merely sailed on the safe side of the horizon line, if we’ve even gotten into the boat at all. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In the final essay, I will uncover a few of these New Land treasures, describe their impact on mainland society, and reveal God’s impassioned plea to his ambassadors to make the journey and acquire some of His greatest gifts – for the betterment of all mankind.

Part III to follow