אִי כָבוֹד‎ - Ichabod, the Glory has Departed

As many of you know, I love photographing abandoned buildings. One of my favorite abandoned buildings to climb inside and photograph is an abandoned church. The hardwood floors buckled, pews warped or stolen, and the odor is of stagnant air mixed with aged wood all due to the human absence for so long. I like to stand where the pulpit was once mounted above the congregation and look to the dusty pews and imagine who sat in them.What were the sermons like? What hymns were sung? As the stillness becomes a present reality, the inevitable question remains: why does this building sit empty?

God blesses the local church which remains faithful. We disciples of Christ are called to be salt to a decaying world and light to the dark world (Matthew 5:13-16). This calls for open, bold, and unwavering preaching of the gospel. However, the gospel has been redefined by so many, intentionally as well as unintentionally. Focus has shifted to programs or simply having fun. Local churches across the West have abandoned the mission of Christ to make disciples everywhere with urgency and teaching them to obey the commands of our Lord Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20). Many local churches in the American landscape, both young and old, have abandoned the preaching of the gospel in favor of good advice for living, parenting, working, making friends, and social action in a more "relevant" (common ground) way.. In this effort, local churches have abdicated our King Jesus who commanded us to preach the gospel.
In I Samuel, the Philistines defeated an unfaithful Israel and took the ark of the covenant. When Eli heard this news, he fell backward breaking his neck which was fatal. Eli's daughter-in-law, whose husband died in battle, gave birth to a boy naming him Ichabod, for "the glory is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken." She mentions this naming twice to emphasize the point, as if naming her son Ichabod was not enough! Now, jump to the meaning for this article. When an unfaithful church abandons the mission of God in this dark world - which is the preaching of the gospel - that church ought not be surprised to find turmoil. Factions will rise, arguments ensues, financial offerings decrease, joy and life are sapped right from the congregation.
When I hear of financial offerings decreasing, or a worry about church attendance or new membership numbers, or churches in dispute over interior decoration or who heads what committee, I hear symptoms. When churches struggle keep their doors open, I hear symptoms. These are only symptoms to a disease. Many churches and pastors resort to treating the symptoms with the latest and greatest programs, or replace doctrine with pizzazz to sermons, or have a fun, exciting youth program minus doctrine, or replace Bible studies with ice cream socials (note to reader - I said replace, not "ice cream socials are sinful." This is an effort to answer e-mails in advance). Yet, biblical Christians know that there is a deeper issue in such churches. That issue is disobedience.
Disobedience leads to confusion in mission. This is a cancer that kills local congregations. Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18). This promise is for the true, global church body. If the local church wishes to be blessed, she must remain faithful to the mission of Christ. Otherwise, the local church will slowly suffocate, and voices will turn into haunting whispers and finally silenced. It is God who blesses the faithful local congregation; it is God who silences unfaithful local churches. When I photograph abandoned church structures, I sit silently and marvel at how God silences the unfaithful. When I see the entrance of an abandoned church building, I say "Ichabod - the glory has departed."

Worldviews Class I: Introduction to Worldviews

Paul told Timothy, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (II Timothy 3:16-17). Paul works out of an epistemic (epistemology is how we come to know reality, truth) platform that the inspired Scripture is sufficient; that is, the Bible is enough and all we need. Every good work is possible only from the discipline gained from Scripture. Think of it this way: Every good work is Kingdom work. Held in conjunction to Hebrews 11:6, only true faith by the disciplines from the Scripture can be considered good work. Goodness, then, has been defined by God as His work and what pleases Him.

Goodness
Listen to our culture and you will hear of many, and often times contradicting, definition to what is "good." It is good to stand up for what you believe in, it is good to try something new, it is good to fight for equality. However, in a post-modern (or, perhaps now a post-post-modern) epistemology, each value and category in a worldview is founded on each individual. Consider that truth is relative, stealing is not immoral. To the victim, stealing is wrong. To the thief, stealing is right and justified. Now, the thief may consider people stealing from him to be immoral, but his stealing is right and good. Remember, it is in this worldview that there are NO absolutes in truth (especially considering axiological truth). Simply because people call works or other people good does not make it so. God defines what is good because He is good. People are changing and do not agree with one another; therefore, we cannot define goodness or truth.

In the biblical worldview, truth is found revealed in Scripture. Truth is not simply the Christian's opinion, but revealed to the Christian by God through Scripture. Even truth discovered in nature (general revelation) was granted by God's revealing, and more specifically by faith is truth granted by God's revealing through His Word (special revelation). Stealing is wrong. God is good, and He works good, and those working in faith for God's glory is called good. How do I know this? The Bible tells me so.

Circular Reasoning
The biblical worldview is founded on the epistemology that says that the Scripture teaches that the Scripture is right. We read this here in II Timothy 3:16-17. We know God inspired all of Scripture because the Scripture teaches this. In philosophy, we call this a fallacy of circular reasoning. What would be compelling evidence from outside special revelation to validate special revelation? Let us consider opposing worldviews from the biblical worldview. Ask someone, why do you believe stealing is wrong? What is truth? How do you know this, who told you, and why do you trust them? Ultimately, the unbeliever must concede that it is he who is the judge of truth because he trusts himself. In other words, truth for him is truth because he says so. Fact is, all worldviews are circular in reasoning. The conflict between worldviews is between authors. For the unbeliever, the author and judge of truth is each individual. No one comes to a consensus on anything; thus, rendering truth relative and non-existent. Truth understood in the secular worldview is unwarranted belief; whereas, biblical truth is warranted belief (more on this in upcoming classes). What the Bible says about itself is sufficient evidence to its truthfulness. What evidence exists for those who do not believe in the Bible? None at all.

Evidence
Why have Christians in recent decades felt intimidated by secular worldviews? Why do we think we alone must come up with evidence and probability to our worldview? Our lack of confidence in the faith is revealed by our lack of evangelism and engaging of the culture as well as avoiding debates with unbelievers. We say stuff like, "Well, I don't want to get into arguments with them," or "I don't want to seem mean," or worse "I am not sure that I would say the right things." The first two deal with personal emotions and reputations. If we desire to save the lost, we would stand in confidence getting into caring and loving debates and conversations with unbelievers. We should not be ashamed of the scandal of the gospel. To reject the gospel out of fear of appearing mean is to be ashamed. Lastly, not knowing the right things to say is excusing yourself out of ignorance. Paul says that the Scripture is enough to teach us what we are ignorant of, to correct us of our errors, to discipline us for Christ-likeness to perform Kingdom work.

We should not build a biblical epistemology based on probability. This is what evidence brings us. The best scenario when debating based on evidence (i.e. cosmological argument for the existence of God, number of early manuscripts to "prove" the Bible, etc.) is one that contends that Christianity has a level of probability. Thus, the biblical worldview is probable just like other worldviews. This contention from evidence on the probability of Christianity is a religious view called agnosticism. This claims that truth is unknowable, and reduces all values in epistemology into categories of probability (enter David Hume). Evidence is great for strengthening and encouraging people with faith in the biblical worldview, and perhaps is good in an all out philosophical shoot out after describing the competing worldviews with unbelievers. Evidence is not a good place to start to make God appear probable. God is not in the defense chair of the court room answering to our charges, and we must not be ashamed to place the unbeliever as the defendant and God (YHWH of the Bible, not a generic deity) as the holy Judge.

Conclusion
The Bible equips the Christian for Kingdom work that we might be competent. This competency in the Scripture translates to competency to defend the faith (evangelism and apologetics). We can find our competency in no other worldview and by no other standard than Scripture. Let us not be ashamed, let us be confident in our faith in the biblical worldview and not relax this worldview for even a moment in our hearts and minds. This will lead us into the second part of this introduction to worldviews where will discuss faith seeking understanding, the resistance from post-modernism, and the most important task of the Christian.