Dr Mark Harwood
It seems that on all sides the traditional values of evangelical Christians are being ruthlessly attacked. The opposition seems to have the upper hand and the sanctity of human life is a vanishing concept in western society. The normalisation of destructive social behaviour is rebellion against the perceived strictures of the Christian basis of our society. Abortion on demand at any stage of a pregnancy, euthanasia, divorce, same-sex marriage…the list goes on. Infanticide is now being seriously discussed by so-called ethicists and philosophers, many of whom seem to stand on the respectable foundation of modern science. What is the root of these issues?
In What’s wrong with the traditional Christian model, publ ished recent ly on the news.scotsman.com website, the author wrote, “Our problem is we want the fruits of Christianity, without the roots. But if we remove the roots, we shall eventually see the disappearance of the fruits.” In Matthew 8:17-18, Jesus pointed out to his disciples that “…every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” The nature of the fruit of a tree is a direct result of the health of the tree which, in turn, is a reflection of the quality of the soil in which its roots are embedded. Our increasingly secularised society has chosen to sink its roots deep into the soil of unbelief, deciding that there is no God. If there is no God, then man alone decides the truth since there cannot be any absolute truth or absolute moral law giver. And, of course, the universe could not have been made but must have made itself through unguided natural processes, which today we call ‘evolution’. So, the reasoning goes, if we are the results of millions of years of random unguided natural processes, then what intrinsic value is there in an unwanted child or a suffering terminally ill patient or a commitment to love in sickness and in health? Man alone decides what is morally acceptable, and there is no one to hold us to account. The society based on these premises produces bitter fruit indeed.
But what of the tree that has its roots deeply embedded in belief in God whose word is truth, as revealed to us in the Bible? “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” (Hebrew 11:3). The creation of the universe is recorded in the opening chapters of Genesis with the culmination of God’s creative activity being the creation of man in the image of God. No other creature in all the creation has such honour bestowed upon it. Human life is vitally precious to Almighty God, the Creator of all things. So the unborn child and the suffering patient are precious in his sight. The fruit of the tree rooted in godly soil includes the sanctity of human life, the value of marriage and the sense of belonging to one human family. The society based on the word of God produces the sweetest and most desirable of fruits.
Today there is an urgent call to the church to stand firm on the word of God and declare its truth to our secularised society. Yet so many Christians seek to marry the word of God with secular atheistic philosophy by trying to accommodate evolutionary ideas into the Bible. Are Christians intimidated by the pronouncements of secular
scientists about the unobserved events of our origins? There are many PhD scientists who are leaders in their fields who hold unswervingly to the historical record of the opening chapters of Genesis.
Visit www.creation.com to discover more about how to counter secular evolutionary ideology. It is only when our roots are deeply embedded in the word of God right from the very beginning that we can hope to effectively stem the tide of secularism and the associated devaluing of human life in our society.