Necessary Roughness

I’m no grammar nazi, but it doesn’t take much of a cynic to figure that we are more easily misled and fooled when we don’t take our language seriously.

Consider the plethora of possibilities when a political candidate’s religion is questioned and he answers, “I believe in Jesus Christ.”

Don’t get me wrong. We say those words every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed. Yet we do not stop there in the confession of our beliefs, which include facts about the Christ: the only begotten Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and so forth.

Just the statement “I believe in Jesus” itself is entirely up to interpretation nowadays. Mormons believe in Jesus. Muslims believe in Jesus. Pagan historians such as Josephus believed in Jesus. They just don’t believe the same things about Jesus that most Christians do.

The recent debate between Albert Mohler, Jr., and Orson Scott Card about Mormonism and Christianity began something like this: Mohler laid out the common beliefs of “traditional orthodox Christianity”, and Card answers back, well, if you define it that way, we aren’t Christians, but who are you to define it that way?

Believing in Jesus has morphed from the concrete “whoever believes in me” in various parts of John to a postmodern trap where I can say I believe in Jesus and you can fill in the god of your choosing.

It is no longer sufficient for me to know what you are talking about when you say you believe in God, or Jesus. And so, if you really want me to know what you believe, you must come up with some statement that is succinct yet informative. When you do that, you have a creed. If it’s one or more of the ecumenical creeds, then you and I are on similar wavelengths.

The desire to get away from creeds and limiting oneself to talking about deeds has a detrimental effect. It plays into the sects who mumble the magic words, “we believe in Jesus,” but would fall short of actually believing in Him as He desires. It is a tool that evil uses to keep iron from sharpening iron.

Error is rarely as easily recognized as a New World Translation or a Koran. It poses as truth until it is accepted as truth and the real truth is kicked out.