As human beings, we have a strong desire to have things make sense. In keeping with this desire, we reach out to God because, for most of us, living and dying without a higher purpose makes no sense. God is many things, but the one thing we can be most assured of is that He is truth. Lies, deception, and falsehoods are repugnant to Him because these things are at cross purposes with his nature. Therefore, Christians of today are faced with a dilemma. The Bible has two parts; a New Testament governed by the New Covenant, which promises redemption and salvation, and an Old Testament, which is rife with contradictions, inconsistencies, and falsehoods. What is a truth-loving Christian supposed to do? Fundamentalists tell us the problem lies within our intellect and to reconcile the situation we should stop thinking, accept the Bible at face value as the holy word of God, and believe what we are told. They never stop to think that our intellect and free will are among God's greatest gifts and to ignore them to find Him is sacrilegious.
It is not God's intent for us to live with contradictions or falsehoods and this brings us to the two most intentionally ignored pieces of New Testament scripture. In Hebrews 9:13, the Apostle Paul says, "When He (God) said a new covenant, He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." In Matthew 26:27 & 28, Jesus is quoted as saying, "All of you drink this, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is being shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins". These two passages of the bible are significant and profound because they tell us Jesus Christ established a brand-new religion that will not only replace the Old, but will make it disappear. Therefore, there is nothing in the Old Testament that has any meaning or relevance for a Christian. How can it be otherwise when God has rendered the Old Covenant obsolete? From this, it follows that those who hang on to the Old Testament by believing there is something in its lessons and commandments that is relevant to Christians, have rejected the New Covenant, have rejected the reason Jesus Christ came into the world and by so doing, have rejected Jesus Christ. And in case you fail to see the implications of this, a person who rejects Jesus Christ is not a Christian.
The Old Covenant was simple. Obey God's laws and you will be blessed; disobey and you will be cursed. Noah and the flood is a perfect illustration of how this primitive type of religion works. The New Covenant, at first glance, also seems simple. Accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and you will be saved. However, things are far more complicated than they appear because accepting Jesus Christ means you will follow Him by making your life mirror His. Doing this requires intelligence. It doesn't take a great amount of thinking to abide by the Old Covenant because doing so is simply a matter of following a set of written laws. In contrast, to abide by the New Covenant you must know and understand Jesus, and apply this knowledge to situations which arise in your life.
Understanding all of the above, the dilemma between Christianity and science is resolved. For those who truly are Christian, the Old Covenant and Testament is obsolete and has disappeared. Therefore, there is no erroneous biblical history of the world to stand in the way of seeking and finding the one true God. God is truth and science is a disciplined way of finding the truth. Therefore, instead of disproving God and working against Him, science compliments God and works to reveal the majesty of His creation. Science will never prove or disprove God because its sole purpose is to tell us what, when, and how about the universe God made. The issues of who and why are the sole providence of religion and rather than being mutually exclusive, the purposes of science and religion fit together like hand and glove. The problem that Fundamentalist Christians have is that by holding on to the Old Testament, they have embraced a history of the world that is not only inaccurate, but absurd. Then they compound this error by rejecting science and wearing this rejection like a badge of honor, never realizing that the badge of honor they are so proud of is repugnant to Christianity.
Jesus Christ came into the world in fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy, to establish a New Covenant with all of mankind. This New Covenant established a brand-new religion that replaced the old religion in its entirety. Christianity, the new religion we are talking about, is comprised of three elements:
- The forgiveness of sins.
- A path to salvation.
- Freedom from the tyranny of religion as government.
This last element is lost upon Fundamentalist Christians because like the Pharisees of Old, they think that the nature of religion is to impose a set of written rules and laws upon people. Fortunately, our Founding Fathers knew better, but the irony of the situation is that the Founders really did create a Christian nation as Fundamentalist Christians would have us believe. However, they did so for a reason Fundamentalists are incapable of understanding. America is a Christian nation because the men who fathered it were Christians, but the real reason the United States is a Christian nation is because the Founders enshrined within our Constitution one of Christianity's most profound and important principles; the separation of church and state.
God does not want us to obey Him because of the law. Instead, He wants us to live good and moral
lives because we love Him. Written laws complicate
this equation and are at cross purposes to it.
When Jesus saved the adulteress from the mob, he didn't tell them to seize
and throw her in jail. Instead, he said
to her, go and sin no more. Jesus also
told us to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to render unto God
that which is God's. This being the
case, no human being or group of human beings has the authority to enforce
God's will through the power of the state.
Furthermore, to codify God's law into man's law is repugnant to God. This is what the New Covenant is about, this
is what the
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