Dealing with Non-Belief and Non-Christians

Doing unto others as you would have them.....

After Jesus began preaching he saw two fishermen and said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." These two men left their nets at once and followed him. This gives the image of a smooth transition but the gospel portraits describe anything but that when dealing with Jesus.

Rejected by His own Family

Jesus' own family thought he had lost it at one point. They tried to seize him because they thought he was beside himself (Mark 3. If his parents thought his message was odd, how much harder is it for those of us who have never met, seen or heard this man speak? We speak a different language, many of us live across an ocean, exist 2,000 years after and live in a culture that is vastly different than the one Jesus proclaimed the good news in. There are cultural barriers separating parents from their children--let alone us and a Aramaic speaking Jew living in Palestine 2,000 years ago.

His Own Disciples Lacked Faith

The apostles were the recipients of being the first and closest followers of Jesus. They were the benefactors of hearing his sermons directly and witnessing his many miracles and healing powers. They watched as he stilled the sea, walked on water, healed the sick, fed the five thousand. They heard him preach repetitively about the good news.

If his own students could not understand his teachings, then how are we to be expected to easily grasp them or pick up on them? We have an incomplete record. They had Jesus himself teaching them as they followed and listened to him night and day for at least a full year if not several. Especially indicative is their failure to recognize not Jesus' teachings and parables, but his statements about his atoning death.

Being a Good Neighbor

Not everyone believes like everyone else. Sometimes a belief can be so strong and powerful to someone else and they might well wonder, "How could you not believe" but differences in opinion are real and non-belief does exist. These are sincere positions held by genuine people. But even the apostles, those Jesus chose to be the transmitters of the good news to future generations did not believe and lacked faith. We need to be a little more open and tolerant of those who do not share our doctrines. We need to do unto our neighbors as we would have them do unto us.

Misconception: The fool says in his heart there is no God

Most readers are familiar with the Psalmists declaration that, The fool says in his heart, "there is no God." But this is often simplistically applied to the modern world and the interpretation is an anachronism. At the time this was written thousands of years ago, in that worldview and culture, it was entirely foolish to deny a higher power such as God. Much was left to be explained by science and God was the explanation for all things. Traditional folk-lore and Biblical history was in no position to be denied or falsified. It was "convention" as was God.

Now belief in God is still convention but with the spread and mixing of cultures and beliefs we have to ask which God? Religious doctrines contradict one another and they all cannot be accepted as true or convention. Each must demonstrate its own merit as it is critically evaluated. Throughout our entire history there have been contradictory supernatural explanations for everything. Now we have science which has explained many things that were formerly believed to be supernatural interventions.

In today's world, with the advent of computers, and the spread of information (thanks Gutenburg!), our knowledge base doubles very frequently. We learn more every ten years than our ancestors ever dreamed possible. Many of our ancestors could embrace natural theism. For them there was no reason to doubt God or his intervention. Now with our ever increasing knowledge base, increasing scientific knowledge, awareness of alternative faiths and different cultures, we must be embrace conscious theism. To clarify this distinction we can see what it means if we apply the term to viewing the Bible. As Marcus Borg wrote, "In a state of natural literalism, the Bible is read and accepted literally without effort. Because someone in this state has no reason to think differently, a literal reading of the Bible poses no problems. (Borg)" But in today's world we have to be conscious literalists. There are known problems with things like the creation story, the Genesis flood, we have noted apparent contradictions between the Bible and outside evidence. In fact, the statement made by the Psalmist was made long before the second half of the Bible was even written.

Natural theism is effortless. Believing in God is normalcy and there is no reason to question such a position. Conscious theism requires effort. There is room for doubt and it requires work to be a theist and even more to embrace a specific theism.

Since the statement about the fool and non-belief was written in a different time to different people with different background assumptions and views, it should not be applied to nonbelievers today. Furthermore, under no circumstances should it be used disparagingly to belittle or insult those who do not share its belief. We must accept the reality of progressive revelation (e.g. the New Testament) and should not anachronistically apply statements stemming from natural theists to conscious theists living thousands of years later.

Misconception: Wickedness suppresses truth.

Paul says many things in the first chapter of Romans. Some exegetes have interpreted him to mean that the wickedness of men suppresses the truth about God and that is why they do not all share the same views. I agree that wickedness or love (e.g. a mother and an abusive son) can suppress the truth. This does not mean this is a universal thing, however. First we should notice the timing of Paul's statement. It was written early in the first century before the New Testament was composed and long before it was all canonized. Paul is not speaking of modern Christian doctrine or systematic theology being "plainly known" but of very general qualities about God discernible from the natural order of things. These of course coincided well with Jewish theology at the time. Paul uses it in the past tense which indicated a continual thing but he never says what these specific qualities are nor what it means to believe in them. Thus could one be a good neighbor, do unto others as we would have them do unto himself and be accredited as glorifying God---whether that person explicitly stated to be doing such or not? There is no scriptural mandate against such a position and Paul is unclear on what specifically he means so the issue is open.

Let's examine some of the specific comments Paul makes:

22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Non-theists rarely worship idols and by definition, do not believe in other Gods and images. It is difficult to view these passages as being applicable to the lot of them.

24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Not all non-theists and non-Christians have homosexual tendencies or practices. In fact, most non-Christians are not homosexuals, they are heterosexual just as most Christians are.

29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

This of course does not apply to all or even most non-theists. Most non-Christians and non-theists despise these activities as much as any born again Christian. So a person should not take Paul's comments and apply them to those who do not agree with them. Not only is this position unwarranted and prima facie false, it is rude and disrespectful to call people senseless, heartless, ruthless, evil, greedy, murderous and so on because they do not believe the same faith as you.

Paul's statements about non-belief in Romans 1:18-32 can also be partially attributed to natural theism while those in today's world must embrace conscious theism. At that time nature fully revealed God to many people. Today, "God's invisible qualities" can genuinely look invisible to a lot of observers. We now know that there are natural disasters and natural evils on the earth such as hurricanes and tornadoes. We know that these things are a built in part of nature and that they are no respector of persons. They will just as quickly take the lives of the obedient and the disobedient, the prayerful and the self-preoccupied, the pious pastor and village atheist. Modern understanding can paint a picture of nature that does not look egalitarian and sympathetic to humans, but uncaring, unfair and red in tooth and claw. This is not true for all people. Some people look at the world and say "there must be a reason for it" and think "how could you not believe". Others do not and ask themselves, "how could you believe?" while still there are others who ask, "how could you believe this over that?" That is the whole point of this essay.

Vincent Sapone