There’s nothing like popsicles in the summer time. Hearing the magically joyful music of the icecream man’s truck as he raced down each road within surrounding neighborhoods, my buddies and I would run after him with his treasure chest of goodies that defeated the summer heat.
Sebastian Errazuriz, a Brooklyn-based artist, has employed art to protest against an array of controversial issues ranging from military suicide to New York’s death rate, and he has now set his sights on Christianity. Errazuriz, a practicing atheist and former Catholic, presented 100 popsicles at a party this past Saturday to kickoff New York’s Design Week. These popsicles featured a crucifix instead of the traditional tongue depressor, as well as, frozen communion wine as the flavored ice. They represented his stance against fanaticism and violence, according to an article by CNN’s Elliot McLaughlin. So, does Christianity promote violence and fanaticism?
We, no doubt, have all been witness to varying forms of fanaticism which worked themselves out in the form of violence. We may not have seen it first-hand, but we know of it. Some examples would be Hitler’s Holocaust, where he murdered roughly six million Jews, Stalin’s massacre of 23 million Ukrainians via starvation, or the Crusades. So, is our faith violent and are we fanatics?
Is Our Faith Violent?
Christianity is not violent. You might say, “Well, Matt, didn’t you just mention the Crusades a second ago? That seems pretty violent to me.” I hear what you’re saying, and I’d have to agree with you. The Crusades were violent and unnecessary. What you may not understand is that God commands us to love, not to be violent. The Crusades were the outworking of sinful men taking the Scriptures and perverting them to say what they wanted in order to justify their own sin – murdering Muslims. Well, what about the Old Testament, right? Didn’t God command the killing of the Canaanites? Yes, but here are some things you have to understand if you want to get the whole picture:
God’s Desires That No One Will Perish. Its impossible to read the Old Testament prophets and not sense God’s profound care and compassion for the poor, the oppressed, the down-trodden, the orphaned, etc. God demands just laws and just rulers, and He literally pleads with people to repent of their unjust ways that He might not judge them. “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ez. 33.11). He even sends a prophet to Nineveh to preach repentance so that the Ninevites would not be destroyed.
God is Just. God, being the only one who has the right to judge because He is both the moral law giver as well as the standard by which all is measured morally, has decreed what is good and what is evil. He cannot violate this law, not because he is constrained by it, but because His very essence is, what Plato called, The Good. This “implies is that God has the right to take the lives of the Canaanites when He sees fit. How long they live and when they die is up to Him. So the problem isn’t that God ended the Canaanites’ lives. The problem is that He commanded the Israeli soldiers to end them. Isn’t that like commanding someone to commit murder? No, it’s not. Rather, since our moral duties are determined by God’s commands, it is commanding someone to do something which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been murder. The act was morally obligatory for the Israeli soldiers in virtue of God’s command, even though, had they undertaken it on their on initiative, it would have been wrong. On divine command theory, then, God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.” For more on this, see the notes below.
God is Love. We worship a God who is described in the Bible as the embodiment of love (1 John 4). He is a God who is long-suffering and patient in our disobedience. Although He has the right to destroy us, He refrains and is patient with us, just as he refrained from punishing the Canaanites for 400 years. He does not flippantly dismiss us.
The existence of evil is not an argument against the existence of God. Many have used the existence of evil as an excuse for their atheistic worldview. Although this approach is popular, it’s simply unreasonable because the existence of evil is an argument for the existence of God. Here’s what I mean: If you have a category for evil, that implies that you have a category for good. If both evil and good exist, then there must be an objective moral law. If there is an objective moral law, then there must be a moral law giver, who we know as God. In fact, insofar as the atheist thinks that God did something morally wrong in commanding the extermination of the Canaanites, he affirms objective moral values. So what is the problem supposed to be according to an atheistic framework?
Is Christianity a Fanatic’s Religion?
Yes and No. A fanatic is defined as “a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.” Jesus has called us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. Having an extreme zeal for Christ is what we are called to as Christians, yet we are also called to love Him with our mind, which means healthy criticism is commanded of us. We are feeling as well as thinking Christians.
The difference between fanaticism from an atheistic perspective and a Christian one is vast. If one were to follow his worldview to its logical conclusion as an atheist, no morals would exist and the killing of weaker people, such as the Nazis brutally killing the Jews, would not merely be acceptable, it would be expected. Yet, if one were to follow his worldview to its logical conclusion as a Christian, then he or she would be the most loving, gentle, humble, grateful, confident, and honest person you know as God continuously transformed him or her by His grace.
Question: What has been your experience with Christianity?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
For more in-depth info on this topic, see William Lane Craig’s article here.
Recommended Resources: Can Man Live Without God by Ravi Zacharias
*If you have any questions you would like answered in a future post, please email me at mvwalker@anchorapologetics.com or drop a comment below.