PARTICULARITIES OF CHRISTIANITY #1/3

#1 · September 22, 2002, 5:55 pm

Quote from Forum Archives on September 22, 2002, 5:55 pm
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

PARTICULARITIES OF CHRISTIANITY #1/3
THE WAY TO LIFE
September 22, 2002

Text: Romans 5:1-11

As we are all aware, the tragedy of 9-11-2001 was commemorated across our
land on September 11th. On a day that looked like it would be like any
other day, the attacks that occurred took the lives of thousands of our
fellow citizens, changed the lives of their surviving family members
forever, and re-directed the focus of our national leadership. We have
seen an obstinate government in one nation, sympathetic to and protective
of the terrorist leaders who planned the attacks on 9-11, forcibly
removed from power. Our nation continues to be on guard against other
possible sources of attack. Our nation and, consequently, each of us
continue to receive threats from those who are still planning murderous
attacks against innocent people trying to go about their everyday
business.

All of this is troubling. It is troubling because we know all too well
the seriousness of these threats. It is troubling because we now know
that we are not invulnerable even on our own soil. It is troubling
because we now know that the malicious, murderous intents of our
self-declared enemies is to do damage to as many Americans and our
property as possible. It is troubling because we now know that they will
allow no one or nothing to stand in their path.

Yet, as troubling as all of these facts are, there is one thing even more
troubling. Even more troubling is the response that several high profile,
mainline Christian leaders and organizations have made in regard to the
relative merits of the two religions, Christianity and Islam, which are
now meeting head on in all this calamity. Instead of using these
troubling times as an opportunity to teach the very real, significant,
and particular differences between Christianity and other religions,
leaders of organizations such as the liberal National Council of the
Churches of Christ (NCCC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) are
stumbling over one another in their efforts to demonstrate solidarity
with our peace-loving Muslim brothers and sisters in America and around
the world. The NCCC encourages Christian churches, for instance, not only
to increase their knowledge of Islam history and religion, but also to
cooperate with them in interfaith services. The NCCC website promoting
an Interfaith Open House reads, We invite you to open the doors of
your church and extend an Open House welcome to neighboring Muslims at
a time you designate in early September this year, as a way to
commemorate September 11, 2001. In the days following the tragic events
of last September, the doors of many of our houses of worship were
opened, as people who were looking for comfort and meaning sought out
places to reflect and to gather with others to pray. During those days,
responsible leaders reminded us that it was a group of Islamist
terrorists, and not Islam nor ordinary American Muslims, that had
attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Interfaith services and
public programs were held in mosques and Islamic centers around the
country held Open Houses, inviting the wider community to come to know
them. It is fitting for Christians to commemorate September 11th by once
again opening places of faith for worship and hospitality. This simple
act, extended to Muslims living in or near our communities can begin
building understanding and peace, which is a strong Christian response to
terrorist acts designed to sow fear and division.
(www.ncccusa.org/interfaith/open house-intro.html, August 7, 2002)
By definition, such services must ignore the life-and-death differences
between Christianity and Islam. Furthermore, the resources offered for
planning these Open Houses avoided the most basic, primary, and
unavoidable element of the Christian faith: that Jesus is the Christ -
the Messiah - who is the way and the truth and the life. (John 14:6)

Sadly, even our own denomination, American Baptist Churches USA, has
engaged in some of this equalizing between the faiths. At least, this
has occurred among some of our national leadership. The Christian
Citizen, a publication of National Ministries, American Baptist Churches
USA, printed an article after September 11, 2001, entitled Understanding
Islam. Actually, the article was a reprint from another American Baptist
publication from 1997. The author is Father Theodore Pulcini, a priest of
the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America and
Assistant Professor of Religion at Dickinson College, Carlisle,
Pennsylvania. The thrust of the article was not really about
understanding Islam, but understanding the reasons for animosity
between Islam and Christianity. Amazingly, this well-educated Christian,
no doubt well-versed in the doctrines of the Christian faith, hardly
mentioned the primary distinction between the faiths; that is, the
particularity of Jesus as Savior. When he did mention it in his article,
he downplayed it significantly, writing, that Islamic doctrine
challenges us to embrace anew those facets of Christian theology which
differentiate us from Muslims - especially the mystery of the Trinity and
the divine Sonship of Christ - and then to find new and ever more
insightful ways of articulating these dogmas. Simple repetition of
traditional formulas usually does not suffice to foster greater
understanding of Christianity among Muslims (Theodore Pulcini,
Understanding Islam, The Christian Citizen, volume 2, 2001, p. 13). For
Pulcini, the creeds forged in the fires of theological and Christological
debate by our early Church Fathers at Church councils meeting at Nicaea
and other places have no meaning. I invite you to refresh yourself on
these historic observations of Christian orthodoxy by turning to reading
#112 in our hymnal and reading along with me (Nicene Creed).

Instead of the our difference marked by belief or disbelief in Jesus as
our personal Lord and Savior, Pulcini postulates that the reason
antagonism exists between Christian and Muslim is because we Christians
are jealous of and, therefore, threatened by the dedication of the Muslim
to his or her faith! I quote, Moreover, I think many recognize, even if
only reluctantly, that in dismantling the traditional shape of our
religious life, in many ways our religious communities have been
debilitated. Islams vitality and self-confidence remind us of what we
have lost. In short, the growing strength of Islamic identity and the
resurgence in Islamic practice only serve to underscore the progressive
weakening of Christian identity and the steady diminishment of Christian
practice in secularized Western societies. We resent Islams newly found
vitality because it draws attention to our present malaise. (Theodore
Pulcini, Understanding Islam, The Christian Citizen, volume 2, 2001, p.
12).

Well, what I have spoken so far is the bad news. The good news is that
many, many churches throughout our denomination and our nation know very
well the source of antagonism that Islam, and every other religion, has
with Christianity, and we preach that truth this Sunday and every Sunday,
and we testify to it every day of the week. That truth is, of course, is
that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life, and that no
one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). Turn with me to
1 Corinthians 1:20-25. Let us read what Paul has to say about the
difference between Christianity and religion. Where is the wise man?
Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the
world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the
foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand
miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to
those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

You see, Christianity is a very particular religion. We cannot add to it
other elements of religion and philosophy, nor can we remove from it the
central figure. God has worked to redeem and save and reconcile the
world. He has worked to remove from us our sinfulness in order that we
may endure His holiness. He has worked to show us how to live in faith
and in peace. That work has been finished in its totality in Jesus. It is
through Jesus, fully human and fully divine, that the work of God is
perfected and completed, and it is through Jesus that we come to the
Father. This is the truth that is a scandal to Islam. Our founder of the
faith and savior is God; the founder of the Islamic faith, and not a
savior, was a man.

This is the particular truth that sets us apart from every other
religion. This is the truth testified to by Scripture over and over. As
Paul wrote in the mornings text from Romans 5 beginning with verse 6:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,
though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how
much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

Believing in Jesus for our personal salvation is not an option for
Christians; it is a requirement in order to be Christian. There is no
work that can be accomplished on our part which will substitute for
Christs work on the cross and in the resurrection. Personal works
righteousness will not work, which is why Christianity is scandalous to
Islam and the other religions that rest upon the accomplishment of works
as the source of righteousness. Paul emphasizes this in Romans 5, While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath
through him! As the early Church Fathers debated about variant doctrines
that emerged concerning the person and work of Christ, they concluded
with documents that are Biblically correct and true. Jesus is the
Messiah, born with the nature of God and man. Jesus is the recipient of
our worship. Jesus is the giver of our salvation.

This is what I want to impress upon you this morning: that Christianity
is a particular faith. It is through the Son that we have relationship
with the Father. There is no substitute for this. There is no alternative
doctrine, faith, or religion that can substitute. We cannot be saved,
Paul uses the term justified here, by anything or anyone other than the
Lamb of God, Jesus. This is the truth being preached in countless
churches throughout our land this day.

Now I am a person of peace. I pray for peace, and I try to work for
peace. I am quite happy to try to live in peace with those around me,
even those who have not come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I recognize
fully that we live in a land that allows religious pluralism; that is, a
variety of beliefs. I am glad that we can do so in relative peace. At
least, we are typically more peaceful than some other parts of the world
that are torn apart by religious differences.

But living in peace does not mean to me denying the particular truth of
Christianity. Neither does it mean trying to hide that truth in order to
gain a false peace. I, like many of you, share the Gospel of Christ with
others as opportunities arise. I am not held back by fears of offending
anothers belief, because any other belief outside of Jesus is false. I
would like to at least offer others an opportunity to hear and believe
truth.

This is where folks like you and me and numerous Christian churches
around the world differ from those who are trying to be quiet about the
particularity of Jesus the Messiah - the Savior and Lord. I can
appreciate their desire to be peaceful and peaceable Christians. But I
cannot appreciate their desire to try to yolk themselves with
non-Christian believers in interfaith services and other attempts to lift
up our commonality at the expense of our peculiar truth about Christ.
This is not a time for Christians, regardless of some doctrinal
differences, to neglect to proclaim the truth of faith that makes us
unique and gives us the way to life. This is not the time to implicitly
deny the salvation that comes through Christ alone for the sole purpose
of demonstrating how well we can get along with one another. This is not
the time to withdraw from the world the very truth - and the only truth -
that can bring the healing peace of God which we all so desperately long
for and need.

In the next two Sundays, I will bring messages that teach us how to
accomplish this while remaining faithful to the Gospel message of a
particular, uncompromising faith in Jesus the Christ. For now, though, I
want everyone here to be absolutely certain that salvation comes only
through the perfect work of Jesus. In this, and this alone, do we find
our peace and the strength to endure these troubling times. In this, and
this alone, do we find the way to life. Since we have now been justified
by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through
him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him
through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN

________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

PARTICULARITIES OF CHRISTIANITY #1/3
THE WAY TO LIFE
September 22, 2002

Text: Romans 5:1-11

As we are all aware, the tragedy of 9-11-2001 was commemorated across our
land on September 11th. On a day that looked like it would be like any
other day, the attacks that occurred took the lives of thousands of our
fellow citizens, changed the lives of their surviving family members
forever, and re-directed the focus of our national leadership. We have
seen an obstinate government in one nation, sympathetic to and protective
of the terrorist leaders who planned the attacks on 9-11, forcibly
removed from power. Our nation continues to be on guard against other
possible sources of attack. Our nation and, consequently, each of us
continue to receive threats from those who are still planning murderous
attacks against innocent people trying to go about their everyday
business.

All of this is troubling. It is troubling because we know all too well
the seriousness of these threats. It is troubling because we now know
that we are not invulnerable even on our own soil. It is troubling
because we now know that the malicious, murderous intents of our
self-declared enemies is to do damage to as many Americans and our
property as possible. It is troubling because we now know that they will
allow no one or nothing to stand in their path.

Yet, as troubling as all of these facts are, there is one thing even more
troubling. Even more troubling is the response that several high profile,
mainline Christian leaders and organizations have made in regard to the
relative merits of the two religions, Christianity and Islam, which are
now meeting head on in all this calamity. Instead of using these
troubling times as an opportunity to teach the very real, significant,
and particular differences between Christianity and other religions,
leaders of organizations such as the liberal National Council of the
Churches of Christ (NCCC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) are
stumbling over one another in their efforts to demonstrate solidarity
with our peace-loving Muslim brothers and sisters in America and around
the world. The NCCC encourages Christian churches, for instance, not only
to increase their knowledge of Islam history and religion, but also to
cooperate with them in interfaith services. The NCCC website promoting
an Interfaith Open House reads, We invite you to open the doors of
your church and extend an Open House welcome to neighboring Muslims at
a time you designate in early September this year, as a way to
commemorate September 11, 2001. In the days following the tragic events
of last September, the doors of many of our houses of worship were
opened, as people who were looking for comfort and meaning sought out
places to reflect and to gather with others to pray. During those days,
responsible leaders reminded us that it was a group of Islamist
terrorists, and not Islam nor ordinary American Muslims, that had
attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Interfaith services and
public programs were held in mosques and Islamic centers around the
country held Open Houses, inviting the wider community to come to know
them. It is fitting for Christians to commemorate September 11th by once
again opening places of faith for worship and hospitality. This simple
act, extended to Muslims living in or near our communities can begin
building understanding and peace, which is a strong Christian response to
terrorist acts designed to sow fear and division.
(http://www.ncccusa.org/interfaith/open house-intro.html, August 7, 2002)
By definition, such services must ignore the life-and-death differences
between Christianity and Islam. Furthermore, the resources offered for
planning these Open Houses avoided the most basic, primary, and
unavoidable element of the Christian faith: that Jesus is the Christ -
the Messiah - who is the way and the truth and the life. (John 14:6)

Sadly, even our own denomination, American Baptist Churches USA, has
engaged in some of this equalizing between the faiths. At least, this
has occurred among some of our national leadership. The Christian
Citizen, a publication of National Ministries, American Baptist Churches
USA, printed an article after September 11, 2001, entitled Understanding
Islam. Actually, the article was a reprint from another American Baptist
publication from 1997. The author is Father Theodore Pulcini, a priest of
the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America and
Assistant Professor of Religion at Dickinson College, Carlisle,
Pennsylvania. The thrust of the article was not really about
understanding Islam, but understanding the reasons for animosity
between Islam and Christianity. Amazingly, this well-educated Christian,
no doubt well-versed in the doctrines of the Christian faith, hardly
mentioned the primary distinction between the faiths; that is, the
particularity of Jesus as Savior. When he did mention it in his article,
he downplayed it significantly, writing, that Islamic doctrine
challenges us to embrace anew those facets of Christian theology which
differentiate us from Muslims - especially the mystery of the Trinity and
the divine Sonship of Christ - and then to find new and ever more
insightful ways of articulating these dogmas. Simple repetition of
traditional formulas usually does not suffice to foster greater
understanding of Christianity among Muslims (Theodore Pulcini,
Understanding Islam, The Christian Citizen, volume 2, 2001, p. 13). For
Pulcini, the creeds forged in the fires of theological and Christological
debate by our early Church Fathers at Church councils meeting at Nicaea
and other places have no meaning. I invite you to refresh yourself on
these historic observations of Christian orthodoxy by turning to reading
#112 in our hymnal and reading along with me (Nicene Creed).

Instead of the our difference marked by belief or disbelief in Jesus as
our personal Lord and Savior, Pulcini postulates that the reason
antagonism exists between Christian and Muslim is because we Christians
are jealous of and, therefore, threatened by the dedication of the Muslim
to his or her faith! I quote, Moreover, I think many recognize, even if
only reluctantly, that in dismantling the traditional shape of our
religious life, in many ways our religious communities have been
debilitated. Islams vitality and self-confidence remind us of what we
have lost. In short, the growing strength of Islamic identity and the
resurgence in Islamic practice only serve to underscore the progressive
weakening of Christian identity and the steady diminishment of Christian
practice in secularized Western societies. We resent Islams newly found
vitality because it draws attention to our present malaise. (Theodore
Pulcini, Understanding Islam, The Christian Citizen, volume 2, 2001, p.
12).

Well, what I have spoken so far is the bad news. The good news is that
many, many churches throughout our denomination and our nation know very
well the source of antagonism that Islam, and every other religion, has
with Christianity, and we preach that truth this Sunday and every Sunday,
and we testify to it every day of the week. That truth is, of course, is
that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life, and that no
one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). Turn with me to
1 Corinthians 1:20-25. Let us read what Paul has to say about the
difference between Christianity and religion. Where is the wise man?
Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God
made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the
world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the
foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand
miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to
those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

You see, Christianity is a very particular religion. We cannot add to it
other elements of religion and philosophy, nor can we remove from it the
central figure. God has worked to redeem and save and reconcile the
world. He has worked to remove from us our sinfulness in order that we
may endure His holiness. He has worked to show us how to live in faith
and in peace. That work has been finished in its totality in Jesus. It is
through Jesus, fully human and fully divine, that the work of God is
perfected and completed, and it is through Jesus that we come to the
Father. This is the truth that is a scandal to Islam. Our founder of the
faith and savior is God; the founder of the Islamic faith, and not a
savior, was a man.

This is the particular truth that sets us apart from every other
religion. This is the truth testified to by Scripture over and over. As
Paul wrote in the mornings text from Romans 5 beginning with verse 6:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,
though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how
much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

Believing in Jesus for our personal salvation is not an option for
Christians; it is a requirement in order to be Christian. There is no
work that can be accomplished on our part which will substitute for
Christs work on the cross and in the resurrection. Personal works
righteousness will not work, which is why Christianity is scandalous to
Islam and the other religions that rest upon the accomplishment of works
as the source of righteousness. Paul emphasizes this in Romans 5, While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath
through him! As the early Church Fathers debated about variant doctrines
that emerged concerning the person and work of Christ, they concluded
with documents that are Biblically correct and true. Jesus is the
Messiah, born with the nature of God and man. Jesus is the recipient of
our worship. Jesus is the giver of our salvation.

This is what I want to impress upon you this morning: that Christianity
is a particular faith. It is through the Son that we have relationship
with the Father. There is no substitute for this. There is no alternative
doctrine, faith, or religion that can substitute. We cannot be saved,
Paul uses the term justified here, by anything or anyone other than the
Lamb of God, Jesus. This is the truth being preached in countless
churches throughout our land this day.

Now I am a person of peace. I pray for peace, and I try to work for
peace. I am quite happy to try to live in peace with those around me,
even those who have not come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I recognize
fully that we live in a land that allows religious pluralism; that is, a
variety of beliefs. I am glad that we can do so in relative peace. At
least, we are typically more peaceful than some other parts of the world
that are torn apart by religious differences.

But living in peace does not mean to me denying the particular truth of
Christianity. Neither does it mean trying to hide that truth in order to
gain a false peace. I, like many of you, share the Gospel of Christ with
others as opportunities arise. I am not held back by fears of offending
anothers belief, because any other belief outside of Jesus is false. I
would like to at least offer others an opportunity to hear and believe
truth.

This is where folks like you and me and numerous Christian churches
around the world differ from those who are trying to be quiet about the
particularity of Jesus the Messiah - the Savior and Lord. I can
appreciate their desire to be peaceful and peaceable Christians. But I
cannot appreciate their desire to try to yolk themselves with
non-Christian believers in interfaith services and other attempts to lift
up our commonality at the expense of our peculiar truth about Christ.
This is not a time for Christians, regardless of some doctrinal
differences, to neglect to proclaim the truth of faith that makes us
unique and gives us the way to life. This is not the time to implicitly
deny the salvation that comes through Christ alone for the sole purpose
of demonstrating how well we can get along with one another. This is not
the time to withdraw from the world the very truth - and the only truth -
that can bring the healing peace of God which we all so desperately long
for and need.

In the next two Sundays, I will bring messages that teach us how to
accomplish this while remaining faithful to the Gospel message of a
particular, uncompromising faith in Jesus the Christ. For now, though, I
want everyone here to be absolutely certain that salvation comes only
through the perfect work of Jesus. In this, and this alone, do we find
our peace and the strength to endure these troubling times. In this, and
this alone, do we find the way to life. Since we have now been justified
by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through
him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him
through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.

Rev. Charles A. Layne, pastor, First Baptist Church, Bunker Hill, IN

________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.