Author: ourworldourfaith

This article is further clarifying the last, and another previous, post. Just as a reminder, my last post ended with this quote and comment:

John 3:18-21 (NASB) 18 He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

People remain unbelievers not because God has blocked them from Himself but because they themselves do not wish to “come to the Light”. Why? Because they do not wish to repent of their deeds. How on earth can Jesus’ words be read in any other way?

While I affirm the truth of my statement, I need to further clarify what I mean because as it stands alone, it could be misleading. My statement may have sounded as though I believe in works or deeds being the cause of our salvation. I do not. Only Jesus can save any of us through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. We can receive God’s full and free forgiveness and acceptance through putting our faith in Christ. With this theme in mind, I would like to clarify something else that I mentioned in an earlier post. Commenting on the tragic murder/assassination of Charlie Kirk, I named Dr Jordan Peterson as being light in a dark place, just as Charlie Kirk was, a university setting being that dark place. Firstly, I did not mean that universities are totally dark places. This is where you’ll get your degree and knowledge in your area of study. But universities, like too many workplaces, coerce people into the unquestioned acceptance of using gender-preferred pronouns among other coercions. No, it happens in multiple ways, these coercions. You might have to do an assignment that has you attending the Queer Centre for re-education. If you come up with the “wrong” answers in their quizzes, you’ll be given a lecture and you will be noted in their records. It’s true. It has happened. It happened to me. This, in my mind, turns universities into dark places for the sole reason that they are doing Satan’s bidding. If someone says, “I won’t comply”, that in my mind is light resisting the darkness. That does not mean that the person resisting evil is a Christian. I have not seen any affirmation of faith in Christ by Peterson online. The reason I compared Kirk and Peterson was not on the basis of both having faith in Jesus Christ but on the basis of the courage they have both displayed in resisting the culture and asserting other things instead. In Kirk’s case, he resisted pressure to water down the case for conservatism and he remained steadfastly unapologetic about his faith in Christ and related life practices such as observance of the Sabbath. In Peterson’s case, he resisted pressure to conform to something he found to be a flat out lie.

Now, my use of the word “light” may have been unwise because I use “light” and “darkness” on this site as referring to the domain of “God” and Satan”, respectively. All things, good or bad, truth or lies, are significant and bear meaning. In the case of Peterson’s integrity in the face of pressure, this was a commendable act because it came down on the side of truth. It served to shine a light on dark forces. It was an act of good.This, though, in and of itself does not mean that Jordan Peterson is a Christian. He is rather a commendable person of integrity. Nor do I mean to imply that everything Dr Peterson says is truth. Like all people, Christians or not, they can veer in and out of truth but in the case of Christians, we of all people should be in the zone of truth more often than not. That is why we study the Bible, the one source of all truth.

The one thing that marks out all Christians is faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Where a profession of faith is lacking in a person who nonetheless is a person of integrity, I do not believe their integrity will save them. But people are at various points along the way to saving faith. I thought that Richard Dawkins had moved his position when he called himself a “cultural Christian”. This was a welcome change from his prior assertion that 9/11 proved all religions to be dangerous. To have moved to the position of acknowledging difference between religions was movement in the right direction.. We can see from his debate with his now-Christian, longtime friend, Ayaan Hirsi Ali that he has quite a ways to go if he would like to become a true follower of Jesus Christ. In that debate, he found the existence of the supernatural a ridiculous proposition. But the supernatural was just what Ayaan asserted was true. Christians must believe in the supernatural because we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, bodily and forever. Who knows what lies ahead for Richard Dawkins or for any other atheist. To see progress towards truth is nonetheless progress. Not all non-believers follow a path like this. But then not all unbelievers experience sudden conversion, as Paul did, either. Different people, different journeys towards truth and towards God, as long as that God is Jesus Christ, the Lord of all that exists.