“Why Are Christians So Narrow-minded?”

John 14:1-7

Rev. John Crimmins

Message given Oct. 14, 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

            One of the little ironies of my life, having come to Christ as a young adult, is that I spent years asking this question in every conceivable context to anyone who would listen. And now having been a devoted follower of Christ for nearly thirty years, I have spent even more years answering the very same questions. It is a question that gets asked in so many contexts, by so many different people for so many different reasons. The half-hearted church goer looking for a little latitude for his own lukewarm heart wants to know why the “born-again types” in his church are so fanatical. The teenager whose girlfriend has just told him ‘no’ for the umpteenth time, “because I am a Christian”, wants to know why Christians are such prudes and so narrow-minded about the beauty of sexual self-expression outside of marriage. The cynic thinks Christians ought to just lighten up. And the post-modern world around us seriously wants to know how we propose to maintain the exclusive claims of Christianity to truth and redemption in the rainbow colored world of the twenty-first century.

 

            Last week in order to concretely address the question, can Christianity back up its claims, we were forced to narrow our focus to one claim in particular: the Christian claim for the divinity of Christ. This week in order to concretely address the question, why are Christians so narrow minded, we will also need to focus our attention to answering one aspect of the “narrow-mindedness” question: how can Christians possibly claim that Jesus is the only way to God?. The cynic and the pleasure-seeker and the half-hearted will have their answer in due course if the claims of Christianity have any validity at all. We will devote our short time this morning to offering a biblical answer to the earnest questioner – particularly that questioner who has been taught to suspect any claim to the absolute and to reject such claims absolutely.

 

I.          Because of the Nature of Absolute Truth

            The one absolute of post-modernism is the absolute denial of the existence of absolute truth. Human beings, we are told, defined by their cultures, constrained by their languages, limited by the finite range of their senses, and located on the edge of a second-rate galaxy, as part of a third-rate solar system orbiting a fourth-rate sun, cannot and ought not make claims to absolute knowledge of anything. Even if absolute truth existed out there somewhere, it could run right over us, and we wouldn’t know it. We wouldn’t have the capacity to recognize it or that we had been hit by it. We are part of a vast, impersonal universe, and the best we can do is perceive “truth” for ourselves. It may not be truth for you, but it is truth for me, and that is not only good enough it is ‘as good as it gets’.

 

            But before we board that train lets take a look for a moment at what absolute truth would look like if it existed. This will not be comprehensive or exhaustive but it will help flesh out the idea we have in mind when we talk about absolute truth. 

 

A.        Non-Contradictory

            First of all, for a thing to be true it cannot be self-contradictory. ‘A’ cannot be ‘non-A’, to use the fairly well known logician’s rule. An apple cannot be an orange and at the same time be an apple. A male cannot be a female and at the same time be a male. The lights in the room cannot be ‘on’ and at the same time be ‘off’. A book cannot exist and at the same time not exist. Yes, it is obvious, but it is also very important. Last week we looked at the biblical and historical evidence for Jesus’ claim to be divine. Once the validity of that claim is established, the law of non-contradiction says that it is impossible for Jesus to be divine and at the same time to not be divine. In other words, the apple is either an apple or it isn’t. The lights are either on or they are not. The book either exists or it does not. Jesus is either divine or He isn’t.

 

B.        Valid in Every Circumstance

            The second thing that I want to note about absolute truth is that if it existed it would be valid in every circumstance. A generation ago an Episcopal priest named Joseph Fletcher wrote a book that has probably done more to advance the notion of relativism than any other single publication in the history of the human race. He named his book Situation Ethics: The New Morality. In the book he poses a number of moral dilemmas designed to demonstrate the limitations of what he calls “the old morality” (essentially the principles of the ten commandments). He tells, for instance, the story of a German woman separated from her husband at the Battle of the Bulge, and imprisoned in the Ukraine. While in prison she learned that her husband, who was a prisoner of war, had been released from another camp and had located their two children in Berlin. There were two reasons the Russians would release a prisoner: (1) The need for serious medical treatment or (2) pregnancy. She persuaded a Russian soldier to impregnate her in order to be released. Following her pregnancy she was released and joyfully united with her family. All loved her and the child born out of adultery. Fletcher lauds this as a loving act, the law against adultery being superseded by the situation at hand.

 

            Through this process Fletcher undermines the confidence of the reader in the notion of absolute right and wrong and substitutes, in theory at least, a non-absolute, situationally relative notion of right and wrong. Interestingly, however, in order to bring some balance to his proposal Fletcher is compelled to offer an absolute of his own. All truly ethical decisions, he says, must be based on love. Intuitively one tends to agree that this is a nice idea, but once all other concepts of absolute truth and absolute authority are stripped away, who is to say that love should be the dominating notion for determining one’s choices. Why not choose instead Ayn Rand’s virtue of selfishness? Indeed, why, if there are no absolutes at all, should I be governed by any virtue? Why not be governed by vice? By whim? By caprice?

 

            Clearly, the idea of non-absolute morality and ethics is a path fraught with peril. It leaves the way open for another Hitler, or Stalin, or Osama Bin-Laden. Even Fletcher cannot conceive of morality apart from love and thus is forced to establish his own absolute truth: love must be served. Therefore, as much as we may want to resist the reality of it, absolutes are a necessary condition to human life. Bible-believing Christians hold to a number of absolutes. We believe that the ten commandments, for instance, are eternally binding moral principles. They are true absolutely and deserve our adherence. One may choose to lie in a given circumstance. It may seem expedient. That does not make it right. One may choose to commit adultery. It may seem pleasurable at the moment. That does not make it right. 

 

C.        Verifiable

            Finally, if absolute truth exists, it must be verifiable. That is, I must be able to test the claim to truth in some reasonable way. Last week we tested Christianity’s claim to the divinity of Jesus Christ and showed reasonable, credible evidence in support of that claim. In dealing with the notion of absolute truth, we should be able and willing to verify any claim to truth. Apologist Gordon Lewis put it this way, “The question of Christianity’s truth is not a psychological question calling for a biographical description of believers, but a philosophical question calling for a meaningful justification of beliefs...Apologetic argument may not create belief, but it creates the atmosphere in which belief can come to life.” As we have seen, Christianity makes a series of truth claims that can be and ought to be verified that they may all the more be believed. The true, apostolic church has never shrunk from announcing its truth and defending the truth of its claims. What has been true of our fathers must be true of us as well. As we boldly declare, not only the possibility of absolute truth in a world of relativism, but the actual existence of that truth, we offer the best and brightest possible future to our sons and daughters and our culture and the world at large.

 

            Therefore, Christians will often seem narrow-minded in a pluralistic, relativistic world precisely because they claim to have and hold absolute truth. Further, we are convinced that this truth is morally binding upon all men everywhere precisely because it is absolutely true. Failure to acknowledge such truth must carry the most dire consequences. Obedience to such truth will bring ultimate happiness and satisfaction.

 

II.        Because of Jesus’ Offer to His Followers

            Certainly, the chief and most serious form our question takes is over the exclusiveness of Christianity’s claims. We took a few minutes to talk about the nature and necessity of absolute truth in general in order to try to show some of our post-modernist friends, the limitations of any view that denies the possibility of absolute truth. But it is not absolute truth in principle that is generally in view when people object to the narrow-mindedness of Christianity. It is one claim in particular that offends and repels. That is the idea that Jesus is not merely one way to God among many but that He is in fact the only way to God and if you do not go that way you cannot get there. As exclusive and offensive as that claim is to modernist and post-modernist alike, that is the claim of the church and the bold announcement of every Bible-believing Christian. But it is important to note that this exclusivity comes not from some doctrinal formation by the church late in its history, nor even from the apostles. Rather the claim to exclusivity is rooted in the teachings of Jesus himself as recorded in the gospel of John, chapter 14. In this passage Jesus offers His followers a place, a partnership, and a person. Lets look at each in turn.

 

A.        Place

            “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you...”(John 14:2). I still prefer the language of the King James version, “In my Father’s house are many mansions...” The objection of course is that the Greek word used here by John is not the Greek word for ‘mansion’ or anything like it. But if the description is less than our idea of mansion (large, grandiose, ostentatious, built to impress), it is also more, much more than our typical idea of room. When we go home to visit my parents my mother always says, “Oh, I’ve fixed up your old room for you.” She doesn’t need to say ‘twin beds’ and ‘cowboy billy decor’, that goes without saying. Well, that is one idea of “room”. On the other hand, I knew friends in Florida that used to have a guest cottage on the grounds. It was a lovely place right by the pool, and their guests had complete access to the pool, the grounds and the main house. The Greek word literally means a “dwelling place”. In the context it implies a place of one’s own in the context of the gracious provision of the Father.

 

            Jesus offers His followers a place. That place is not on this earth. He tells them that He must go away to prepare it for them. It is a heavenly place. It is also a permanent place. There is something fixed and settled about the context of Jesus’ statement in these verses. This is no temporary guest cottage. It is a permanent location and the expectation is of permanent abiding.

 

B.        Partnership

            But if Jesus offers a place, He also offers a partnership. He says in verse 3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” This partnership becomes even more evident in the teaching that follows in 14:19-21. The world will no longer see Jesus, but the disciples will. Because Jesus lives, the disciples live. Jesus is in the Father. The disciples are ‘in’ Jesus. Jesus promises He will be ‘in’ them (through the agency of the Holy Spirit). This of course, is a limited partnership. Jesus takes certain duties and responsibilities upon Himself that we do not have and cannot assume, precisely because we are not qualified for them. He was sinless. We are riddled with sin. Being sinless He could offer Himself as a spotless sacrifice for sin. An eternity is insufficient for us to atone for our own sin let alone someone else’s. Being God in human form, Jesus could endure death and have the power to rise again. We have no such power. So the partnership Jesus offers is a very limited one in terms of our qualifications and very participatory in terms of the benefits we receive. Jesus has become our sin bearer. He has become the sacrifice needed to atone for them. He has risen from the dead to show that He has mastery even over the grave. He then extends these blessings of atonement and victory over death to those who choose to follow Him in faith. Through Him we receive forgiveness for the offenses we have committed against God. We receive friendship and acceptance instead of enmity and rejection. We receive the promise of an eternal dwelling place with God and the restoration of a perfect body in the resurrection to come.

 

C.        Person

            But most of all in this partnership we receive a friend. Jesus offers us Himself. Note verses 4-6, Jesus says first of all, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas responds, “Hold on there! We don’t even know where you are going. If we don’t know your destination, how in the world can you expect us to know which route to take.” Thomas’ response is eminently reasonable. Tell us first your destination. We don’t even know that at this point. If someone were to say to you, “Meet me tomorrow night. You know the way”, well, unless you have prior arrangements, you are clueless. Believe me, I know. Our son’s school does not have a football stadium at this point. Every game is at one of these multi-field stadiums around town. If he were to call and say, “We have a game tonight at 7pm, be there, you know the way.” We would be clueless. “Which field are you playing at tonight?” I can hear myself screaming at the answering machine now. Sure I know the way, but until you tell me the destination, I’m clueless.

 

            On top of that, once you tell me the destination, there may actually be more than one way to get there. Thomas understands this, too. He’s traveled with Jesus all over Judea and Galilee. I can hear him now, “Lord, just tell us where you are going. I can find my own way there. As a matter of fact, I’ve never liked the routes you take. I know some back trails that could cut hours off of some of our trips.” I had relatives like that when I grew up. My grandfather never traveled the same route twice to anywhere that I know of. I rode with him to Kentucky one time as a small boy. We took one route up there and another one coming home because he wanted to go another way. This is how most people want to approach the question of their eternal destiny. Tell me the goal, or better yet, tell me what you think the goal ought to be and then let me decide: a) if I think that is in fact the right goal and b) what route I want to take to get there. Let’s assume that we agree that getting in touch with God is ultimately the right goal for the journey. OK. Now let me decide how best to arrive at that destination. I might rather follow the Buddha Throughway or the Ayatollah Turnpike or the Mosaic or Hindu Expressways.

 

            Jesus says in response to Thomas and to all of us, “I am the way.” He says in effect, “I am going to the Father. Maintaining relationship with Me is your only means of attaining your goal of getting in touch with God. I know how to get where you claim to want to go. All you need to do is follow Me.” There is no doubt that the message of Christ riles the egos of men. It angered people in Jesus’ day, and it still enrages men today. The anger of men did not keep Jesus from making His exclusive claim in the first century and the anger of men cannot keep us from announcing His exclusive claim in the twenty-first century. 

 

III.       Because of the Implications for Today

 

            We continue to proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus and the exclusiveness of Jesus because of the implications of the claim itself. If He is right, He is the way, truth and life, then we ought not to ignore His claims. Even if we are not certain that He is right, the claims themselves are worthy of our consideration. But the positive dimensions of Jesus’ claims are not the most compelling. The negative dimension cuts off all other possibilities, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” You cannot get any more exclusive than that. As C. S. Lewis pointed out over half a century ago, Jesus is either a megalomaniac or He is telling the truth. Or as Josh McDowell put it, He is either ‘Liar, Lunatic, or Lord’.

 

            The men and women of the twenty-first century are in desperate need of the truth. Jesus said, “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Truth is being held hostage in the name of tolerance. No one who loves truth can possibly tolerate such a state of affairs. The message of Christ has claims that man has always found offensive. The church needs to present Jesus to the world in a way that is compelling and does not multiply the offense unnecessarily. On the other hand, however, we must present Jesus to the world and not an imposter. Only the crucified, resurrected and coming again Jesus of the Bible, with all of his exclusive and unique claims can fill the desperate void in the heart of twenty-first century man and bring him into the presence of God.