What's In Your Head

You have beliefs in your head that you live by.  Most people have no idea where these beliefs came from, and precious few have any idea that these ideas they live by have roots in philosophy.  Just lost most of you!  No, please stick with me.  I want to tell you some very important things.

People believe and live by the craziest ideas.  Saw a real-life story on TV last week about a family who lost a teen daughter to homicide.  At the graveside the father saw a Cardinal  (song bird) and chose to believe that his departed daughter somehow inhabited that animal,  and he was comforted.  OK.  A couple weeks ago a nice lady was at our house to transact a little business with my wife.  As they shared how they enjoyed collecting,  this woman proceeded  to tell us her life story.  She had had a near-death experience, and decided that from that point on she would get the antiques stuff she wanted, and "let nobody stand in my way."  She was quite intense and serious.   I was reading a well-known Progressive Christian author this week who was laboring to make the point that Jesus never commanded anybody to do anything, He just "invited" them. . .  Please.  That idea is just plain silly.  Ideas like that can only be floated in a population that doesn't read what Jesus really taught (the Bible).  We could go on with this forever, because the world is full of wrong ideas. 

BUT!  And listen to this carefully.  (This is the kind of moment when, if you were a little kid, I would grab you  by your shoulders and say "Look at my eyes, and listen to me!")  Into this world of zillions of wrong ideas, God has revealed some Truth.  Some things that are absolutely and always True.  Ideas we can plant our feet on.  Sink our teeth into.  That never change.  As Christian philosopher Francis Shaeffer said, "God is there and He is not silent."

Jesus taught about what He called being "born again into the kingdom of God."  (John 3:3)  

So that happens to you.  Here you are, standing on this earth, and God had done a big work of grace in you, and you know you will never be the same.  He begins to change what you believe about virtually everything (2Cor. 5:17).  You begin to understand Truths.  And the more you understand Truth, the more you recognize the falsehoods all around you in the world.  This is normal for the believer in Jesus.  In fact, God calls us to purposely cooperate in this process of renewing our minds (Rom. 12:2). 

To someone who has thought a lot about this subject, any and all of those old beliefs you held could be traced back to some wrong system of thought.  These systems have names.  Much of the ideas in the minds of people around you are rooted in hedonism, humanism, materialism (not the love of money, but philosophical materialism), transcendentalism, and utilitarianism.  Now, few people can even state what they believe, much less know how those beliefs fit in to any system.  However, if you are a believer in Jesus, and serious about your faith (let me throw in that if you are not serious about it, don't be feeling comfortable about your relationship to God), you need to be serious also about knowing truths, and being able to discern what is true, and recognize what is false. 

Now here is the point I have been aiming at.  The most dangerous falsehoods, the most ingenious counterfeit ideas threatening our generation, are coming out of the philosophical system called Postmodernism.  You and I need to know it when we see it.  And we must be willing to call it what it is.  In Christendom it is called Progressive Christianity.  It is, simply, unbelief.

Next time I get a chance to write for Libby, I hope to explain further just what beliefs I am concerned with: that is, how Postmodernism has yielded the pet teachings of Progressive Christianity.  Also, just what teachers are we talking about?

Guest post by David Nitz