PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Losing our Creed has led to our Chaos!”
By: Ron Woodrum
Dorothy Sayers, the British Theologian and novelist, spoke to how we have ended up in the chaos of culture we are currently living in today. She affirmed it is because we have abandoned the Creed of our Faith. Listen to her explaination:
“It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma, (beliefs) do not matter; they matter enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ…. …Theologically this country is at present is in a state of utter chaos established in the name of religious toleration and rapidly degenerating into flight from reason and the death of hope.” ― (Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos?: Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma or Disaster).
Journalist Steve Turner updated Sayers quote in his satirical poem Creed, explaining how our modern mind evolved, or more accurately de-volved! He writes:
We believe in Marx, Freud and Darwin. We believe everything is OK. As long as you don’t hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy’s OK. We believe that taboos are taboo! We believe that everything’s getting better-despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated. You can prove anything with evidence. We believe there’s something in horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons; Jesus was a good man, just like Buddha Mohammed and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher, although we think his good morals were bad. We believe in Masters and Johnson. What’s selected is average. What’s average is normal. What’s normal is good. We believe that all religions are basically the same, at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on matters of creation, sin ,heaven, hell, God, and salvation. We believe that after death comes Nothing- because when you ask the dead what happens- they say Nothing. If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it’s compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan. We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. Americans should beat their guns into tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow. We believe that man is essentially good. It’s only his behaviour that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust. History will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in the rejection of creeds. (Then he adds this footnote/postscript he calls Chance)
If chance be the father of all flesh disaster is his rainbow in the sky
When you hear State of Emergency! Sniper Kills Ten! Troops On Rampage!
Mobs Go Looting! Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker! (from his perspective himself of course!)- parenthesis mine.
If our culture is right-there is no need of the Cross of Jesus Christ! It is sheer foolishness. Modern society can no longer believe what the Bible, The Church, and most Christians say about the Cross. It is to this point that the Cross speaks the loudest. The writer of the Book of Hebrews tells his generation, and ours, that the Cross of Christ is God’s Final Word concerning man’s dilemna and greatest need. Today’s message on the cross speaks to this issue.