The religion of your choice

The Religion of Your Choice : Modernist Smorgasbord of Inclusive Spirituality


Saturday Morning Men’s Bible Study: Christian Apologetics

Paul Copan (Ukrainian Cyrillic: Павло Валерійович Копань) is a Ukrainian-American Christian theologian, analytic philosopher, apologist, and author.

Ph.D., Marquette University (Philosophy)M.Div., Trinity International University (Divinity)M.A., Trinity International University (Philosophy of Religion)B.A., Columbia International University (Biblical Studies)


Chapter 10.

“ You Can Chose

Whichever Religion You

Want . . .

.” (Pp. 62 – 66)


Quotes from Henry Ford:

“ People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it is black. “

“ History is more or less bunk.”

Is this or is this not a description of the modern Western rejection of all authority or tradition ?



Today, instead of following stale dogma or dusty tradition, you can:

“ Chose the beliefs that work best for you and the kind of reality you want to experience.” (p. 62)“ . . . Each pagan [to] build his or her own personal spiritual philosophy.” (Ibid.)


I. Modernists are “not into religion but into ‘spirituality.’

II. Characteristics of the Modernist Smorgasbord :

A. Generally reject all doctrine, creeds, or tradition. B. What authority do they prefer in its place ?

1. Personal Experience.2. An “inner voice” or the “God within.” 3. Religion is like a “menu” – “Preference –

based” over a “truth – based” approach to matters of faith. 4. Selective syncretism: E.g., Some like Jesus’ “moral

teachings” but His doctrines of hell and judgment.


Quote from George Barna Research Group:

Barna indicated that the passing on of a Christian heritage from one generation to the next appears to be rapidly dissipating in America. "Our continuing research among teenagers and adolescents shows that the trend away from adopting biblical theology in favor of syncretic, culture-based theology is advancing at full

gallop.“ 2

2“ Americans Draw Theological Beliefs From Diverse Points of View, ”

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=122(accessed 12/2/08 ).


III. The Idolatry of the Modernist Smorgasbord

Making God in our own image (“My Jesus”). E.g. #1: Feminism & the “Goddess” –

Rejection of God the Father (“ An oppressive male Deity!”)

E.g., #2 : God as “ Parent, Child, and Spirit” or a highly re-interpreted “ Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.”


IV. The Impersonal, & Tepid God of Pantheism

God as “the Force” (I.E., Star Wars, E.T., etc.)

The “God Within” or “Godself”

Eastern Religion’s Impersonal Reality (E.g., Brahmin

[Hinduism], the Tao [Chinese Mysticism], the Nothingness,” [Buddhism, Zen Buddhism], etc.

Modernist theologian John Cobb’s “Process God,” an evolving Cosmic deity (“Christian

progressivism”).3

3” Knowing How to Go On When You Do Not Know Where You Are,”

in Theology Today 51/4 ( January 1995): 567.


Quote from Professor Paul Copan (p. 63):

“ Rather than adjust to God’s revelation, people may shape God into this or that image or impose their own experience. Yes, men have abused women, but this is a deviation from true, divinely designed masculinity. And it’s precisely the fatherhood of God that must orient our understanding of

how human fathers can and should act toward their children (Ephesians 3:15; 6:4; Ps. 103:13). “


V. The Son as a Model Father and Husband:

As Professor Copan explains, “ the Son’s self-sacrificial love

for his bride, the church, serves as a model for human marriage (Ephesians 5:25-32).” Why is this not a form of “ Divine child-abuse” (contra the feminists!)

This expresses part of the truth of the relational triune God

who “suffers with his creatures, and the Father and Spirit shared in the Son’s suffering . . .” (Paul Copan, Ibid.)

How does 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 help us understand this

Trinitarian relationality and special authority and revelation of the person of Jesus Christ ?




V. The Call to Worthy Worship on God’s Terms:

C. S. Lewis’s marvelous’ description of Aslan, a Christ-figure, in The Chronicles of Narnia (cited by Paul Copan):

“ Safe ? . . . . Who said anything about safe ?

Of course, he isn’t safe, but

he’s good. He’s the the king, I tell you. ” 4

4 The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York: H Harper Trophy Books, 1994), pp. 79 -80.


Question 1: How should compare a temporal loss of any or our relationships or possessions to a loss of the true God ?

Question 2: Yet what is the cost of creating “our own God” and “our own religion” ?

Question 3: What did the Apostle Paul say about the cost of discovering and pursuing the truth of Christ ? (Cf. Philippians 3:7,8). Think about the cost of being a Christian in Communist Korea, Red China, the Muslim Middle East, or . . . even in San Francisco ?


2. We Are Not God !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only God can define true worship and, actually he

has ( Psalms 1; Micah 6:6-8; John 4:21-26; Romans 12:1,2; Ephesians 5:1-7; James 1:22-27; and I John 3:16 - 23). The main trouble with today’s Modernist Smorgasbord of “religions” is that it is assumed that experience and not truth is principal thing in knowing God. But this is a spiritual and epistemological confusion of the “subject” with the “Object.”


I. It is The Truth-Claims of God’s Revelation and Not the Worshipper’s Ritual and Journey

That is Central.

Question: Why do many moderns reject the Biblical

Jewish and Christian Creator and Redeemer ? Why is He so “offensive” to the modernist sense of “spirituality” ? (Cf. Paul Copan text, pp. 64 -65).




II. The Irony of the Pluralistic Modernist Religious

Spectrum is Their Extreme Inclusiveness for All Religions Except for Orthodox Christianity.

Question: Can you state Newton’s Third Law as it applies to Exclusivist belief claims/affirmations ? (Cf. p. 65, pg. 2).



III. The Place of Jesus? He is Supreme and, Incidentally This Universe is His Place !5

We cannot affirm conflicting belief systems as all true,

without committing mental torture and sheer logical contradiction. And Christianity is uniquely about God saving man, not about how man saved or kept God – it

is all about God’s grace, how Christ rescues man !

5Cf. Darrell Bock, Preface in Robert Bowman Jr. and Ed Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place (Grand Rapids, MI.: Kregel Publishing Company, 2007), p. 17.


IV. C. S. Lewis, a believing Christian apologist at Oxford University, many years ago warned

people about false religion and false ideas of faith. In his famous satire, The Screwtape Letters, he has an elderly and veteran demon

admonishing a younger rookie apprentice (i.e., Wormwood) about the most effective way

to destroy “religiously inclined” humans:

[ See the Next Slide >>>>>>>> ]


Quote from Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters:

“ Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false,” but as “academic” or “practical,” “outworn” or “contemporary,” “conventional” or “ruthless.” Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from

the Church.” 6

6The Screwtape Letters (New York and London: Macmillian, 1982), p. 8.

The Religion of Your Choice : Modernist Smorgasbord of Inclusive

Spirituality 3. Summary of Key Points:

1. Biblical Theism is not neutral about religion or other “gods” (Cf. [7] William Wainright, ed., God, Philosophy, and Academic Culture (Atlanta, GA.: Scholars Press, 1996 ). ( Copan, p. 65)

2. Building our own religion by preference ratherthan by truth/consistency puts us out of touch with reality. ( Copan, p. 65).

3. Truth-claims are commonly ignored in academia because they ”exclude” people who disagree.

[ Continued on the Next Slide ]: (pp. 65 -66)


3. [Continued]: The commonalities of religious experience are emphasized instead. (Paul Copan, pp. 66).

4. Finally, creating God in your own image may seem safe,

but in actuality, it is soul-destroying. By contrast, the God of the Bible, though [infinitely!] good, is not supposed to be safe. ( Paul Copan, Ibid.) [ But if you are joined with Him by faith, you are eternally safe – John 10:26-30 and Romans 8:31-39).

The Religion of Your Choice : Modernist Smorgasbord of Inclusive

Spirituality

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