‘But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.’ (1 Corinthians 2:14)
‘Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ (Amos 5:23-24)
Recently we had a small gathering amongst ex-high school mates. One of them suddenly asked a tough question- why many English great authors like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens ‘attacked’ Christianity in their books? A close friend came to our rescue, explained that religion was a popular theme as it played a very significant part in the people’s lives then.
I think ‘attack’ is not an appropriate term to use, after all, these are just novels. If you are a book critic, you are not supposed to ‘judge’ the characters in the novel. In those days, authors often incorporated the prevailing religious experiences into their story plots. For example, ‘The Crucible’, is based on historical fact about the colony of Salem Massachusetts. It was governed by way of theocracy, a system combines state and religion, where those in authority claimed that they were ordained to do God’s work. The community developed a very strict, repressive system in order to ensure social and religious conformity. Most forms of enjoyment and celebration were condemned, and expression of individuality is not allowed. In a sense, it was a kind of religious ‘legalism’ which Jesus warned of, as it emphasizes strict adherence to the letter of God’s teachings rather than the spirit. There was hardly any presence of God’s mercy and grace in such society, only many religious rituals, rules and regulations to follow.
Christians believed that man consists of three component parts: body, soul and spirit. Body is easier to understand as it is connects us to our five senses, hence, the material world we are in. The soul is our gates or doors to things like conscience, memory, reason, affections, imagination etc. It is the seat of human affinity. It is in from our souls that fleshly desires, passions, lusts and appetites come. The spirit is the innermost of our being, which is related to spiritual things such as worship, faith, hope, prayer. Hence, in order to understand spiritual things, the ‘natural man’ needs to surrender his own human will, letting God’s Spirit to regenerate his human spirit to understand, and appreciate the divine things.
It is clear that no amount of religious activities and duties a person do can to change his un-generated spirit until his own spirit come into contact with God’s Spirit. So to allow people of worldly minds and wisdom to deal with God’s things is disastrous. Chances are that they would use religion to control, manipulate people for self-gains as witnessed by the ugly history of the ruin of Christendom. People with only head knowledge about the bible will live a life of sterile religiosity.
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