Did you know that the concept of the earth being flat is still a thing that people believe here in America?
No, really, it is! If you go to YouTube, you will find hundreds, even thousands of videos (and that list is still growing) of people giving their reasoning for the idea of the earth being flat. Only in a first world culture could a crazy idea like this be brought back to life.
While the belief in a flat earth is absurd, as Christians it provides a unique opportunity to learn a little about the idea of faith and how the human belief system in general works. On the surface, from a worldview perspective, we share many similarities with these “flat-earthers”. We both believe things that science has (seemingly) disproved (think creation vs evolution and the age of the earth) and we are both despised in many ways by the “intellectuals” of our day.
Of course, the important difference is the ultimate truth between the two claims. No matter how much you believe that the earth is flat, you can’t get away from observable data. In stark contrast, the truth of Christianity can’t be disproved by science. In fact, the wealth of manuscripts and historical findings point us toward the Bible rather than away from it.
What I am going to dive into in this blog is the idea of faith. What is faith, and more importantly, how does compromise happen in our faith through an increasingly secular society.
The idea for this blog came about after I watched a documentary titled “beyond the curve” which followed a group of flat earth believers. These people are convinced that science is on their side and that everything to the contrary of their view is a giant conspiracy designed to hide the truth (that the earth is flat). I watched as person after person wove a web of intricate half-truths and blatant lies in order to prop up this illusion. As I thought about how absurd the whole concept was, it wasn’t the lunacy that intrigued me, instead, it was the blind faith these people had in an obscure ancient debunked idea that was most startling. It didn’t matter what facts or observations or explanations were brought to them, they had their conclusion and they simply adjusted their methods and explanations to integrate any attack in order to support their conclusion. I think the Christians who are trying to remain “relevant” in America do this as well, but with a twist.
For most Christians “faith” is an all too common word. We have “faith” in Jesus, and we have “faith” in the Bible, but what does that really mean in our daily lives? As Christians, we will never get past the necessary idea that we trust something we can’t fully see or experience with our senses. At least until we are in heaven. Beyond this, the idea of faith, in general, requires some bit of trusting the unknown. If we could physically walk and talk with Jesus it wouldn’t require much faith, but simply reading about Him and what he commands and then choosing to live our lives as he commands requires a lot of faith. Think of Jesus words to doubting Thomas:
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
The very aspect of not knowing when we head into something is what faith is all about, unfortunately, it is also what gets us into trouble. A good chunk of Christian doctrine and Church history requires faith. We are forced to interpret ideas, commands, and lessons using our limited human experiences and knowledge and this is where the trouble begins.
If we ignore the God aspect for the moment, we can say that everyone is a product of the decisions they make and the environment they are in. Add this to the fact that we are finite beings who don’t, and indeed can’t, know everything and it becomes impossible to interpret and implement Biblical teaching accurately. The main problem is; we think we can. As humans, we give ourselves much more credit than we deserve when it comes to our intelligence and our decision-making skills and our moral compasses. In a survey done last year 65% of Americans thought that they were more intelligent than the average person. Or for a more specific example, when 161 students were asked to compare their driving skills to other people, an average of about 81% of the drivers said they were in the top 50%. You don’t need a math degree to understand that 65% of people can’t be smarter than the average, or that 81% of a group can’t be in the top 50%.
But this is our mindset, we praise our understanding and latch onto a way of thinking that makes us out to be the good guy, the smart girl, or the righteous group…basically the hero of the story. This perfectly describes the flat earthers. In their minds, they have the answers and everyone else is wrong, even though a preponderance of evidence says otherwise. For Christians the reasoning is similar but the outcome is much more fatal. In the grand scheme of things thinking the earth is flat is silly and will get you laughed at, but when we force our moral compass and flawed interpretations onto the Bible the effects can have eternal consequences.
When we see ourselves as the moral arbiters of right and wrong, it forces us to bend everything else to match our viewpoint. This includes the Bible. Think of the compromises that are happening all over the world in the Church today. The truth is being exchanged for a lie because instead of God being at the center we have put our idea of who we think God should be. God clearly tells us who He is in the Bible, but instead of accepting the clear teaching in the Bible we feel the need to bring it in line with our “advanced knowledge” in the 21st century. So we make "necessary" changes interpretations in order to be more inclusive and loving. Since God is love we can do away with certain sins that a loving God wouldn’t’ frown on, and since humans are basically “good” we don’t really deserve “eternal” punishment, so we can do away with hell as well. Ideas like this may be crazy if you know your Bible, but to a culture that doesn't want to be accountable to anyone but themselves, they are eaten up with no questions asked. This choose-your-own adventure style "faith" is how we end up with both a flat earth and messages that tell us we should "find our own truth" or just "follow our hearts"! Unfortunately, just like observable facts that show us the earth is indeed round, the Bible has this covered as well. In fact, it tells us that when we follow our hearts we will end up in a big heap of trouble. The Bible puts it this way in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things…”
Culture will never stop pushing this agenda forward, doing everything it can to put us in control of our own destiny. Like any lie, one change to the truth, no matter how small, necessitates another and soon the slippery slope leads us to choices we would never have dreamed at the beginning. It’s a vicious cycle and it leads to an empty religion with nothing left but rituals and ornate buildings. Don’t be fooled, people aren’t drawn to rituals, they are drawn to life, hope and true love. Rituals may give a false sense of love and hope in the short term, but they can never free us from the never-ending quest to please others. The pathway to Hell is paved with good intentions and flooded with people who follow their hearts and meaningless rituals, truly the blind leading the blind.
In the absence of true religious faith, something will fill the void. That something will be different for everyone. For many its politics, for some its science for others its conspiracies (flat earthers) and for others it’s a self-glorifying religion (get what you can while you can, because that’s all you got, YOLO!). We see more and more of these pop up every day, but no matter the name or theme of the "new religion" of the day one thing is the same, they keep "me" at the center of the universe. The flat-earth idea may be down the list a-ways, but at the heart is still a belief that I know best, no matter what rational thinking tells me.
In the end, just like all the other compromises being made in the name of acceptance, love, and peace, it falls flat (pun intended ;) when compared to a faith in something that actually matters.
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