The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy's Plot to Undermine the Church by Os Guinness

Author:Os Guinness
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Christian Fiction
ISBN: 9780801017698
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2010-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

MEMORANDUM 8

Damage to Enemy Ideas

FROM: DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTRAL SECURITY COUNCIL

TO: DIRECTOR DESIGNATE, LOS ANGELES BUREAU

CLASSIFICATION: ULTRA SECRET

President Ford was once reported to have said, “Whenever I can I always watch the Detroit Tigers on radio.” Faux pas apart, radio would be a tame way to tune in to the Electronic Church for the first time. I wish I could have seen your first reactions to some of the more exotic species of Ecclesia Electronica. As you say, even The Harvard Lampoon in its prime could not have scripted some of that stuff. Truth here is indeed stranger than fiction. Even satire must humbly bow to reality. The last time I visited your new post I watched one of their talk shows while changing for dinner. The customary parade of celebrities was passing across the screen, quick-tongued as ever, each one endorsing the Christian gospel with all the sincerity of a toothpaste commercial.

The mood suddenly changed, however, when an African-American singer sang an old spiritual in a way that threatened to inject reality into the proceedings. I must have actually stopped dressing for a moment, instinctively alerted to something that might be serious. I need not have worried. The show’s hostess clapped her dainty, bejeweled hands, rolled her eyes heavenward and cooed: “Fantastic, brother! Fantastic! Christianity is so fantastic, who cares whether or not it’s true!”

These little inanities signify nothing, you say. Perhaps not if judged by your academic criteria. But forget for a moment your fastidious preoccupation with intellectual things and what qualifies as proven knowledge. We are dealing with people where they are, and where most people are, what passes for knowledge is all that matters. Besides, in a day when common religion and cultured religion have parted company, the average talk-show host has immeasurably more influence than the average theologian.

Empty-headed religion is hardly new or unique to the Christian faith. (As one EST—Erhard Seminar Training—graduate said once, “I don’t care how much of this is crap. It changed my life.”1) But what is new in the talk-show-hostess’s remark is the degree to which the Christian faith has lost its intrinsic value and taken on an almost purely instrumental value. It is prized for what it does rather than what it is. No longer does it work because it’s true; it’s not even true because it works. It works and that’s all there is to it.

Such faith is little better than magic, the fine art of manipulating God. I heard a guest on a Christian radio program asked whether he felt there was a lesson to be learned from the life of Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. “Certainly,” he replied. “Blessed are the pure in consciousness for they shall win.”

These are excellent illustrations of what modernization has done, not only to Christian institutions but also to Christian ideas. I would not, of course, deny that the major damage to Christian ideas has come from other ideas. This is manifestly obvious, and I do not need to dwell on it to a counter-apologist like yourself.

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