July 31, 2011 by Dr. Mc.

About a month ago my wife and I went to a therapist in The Big City next door. We knew nothing about light therapy, but were willing to check out this “alternative medicine.” We are OK with exploring such things, realizing that thousands of years of experimenting with plants and exercises should produce some treatments of value, regardless of the explanations given to them by their providers. I, for one, have found an exercise similar to tai chi to relieve me from ever going back to an MD or chiropractor for back pain.
But back to my story: As we waited in her office-home, I first noticed the raw crystals on the shelves. (I’m a rock hound.) Then my wife pointed out the religious symbols on the walls and spiritual books and pictures, most having reference to crystals or Taoism. When I asked the therapist about her personal belief system, she replied, “Oh, I embrace all religions.” Funny, I didn’t see any crosses among the symbolism. She is a pantheist, which means “all-god,” or “all-the-gods,” or even “all-is-god.” No one, including pantheists who claim to, can embrace everyone else’s beliefs when some of those other beliefs say they are the only way. Even other religions that say they respect Christ as a great prophet (along with Mohammed) or among the appearances of god (along with Krishna) do not include the cross; because the cross has one meaning—There must be a substitutionary payment for each person’s short-fall before a perfect God.
That statement is huge. It includes that there is one and only one absolute and just God, who desires a relationship with us enough to pay a cost we cannot overcome any other way than His personal payment. Some religions say Christ is or was a god, but that does not distinguish them. Some say Christ made the first or major payment for sin, and then we must keep our end of the bargain or it’s all for naught; but that does not make them unique or distinct. There is one and only one “religion,” if we can even call it that, that says we are entirely incapable of earning any part of favor with God (OK, or a right relation to the universe). Why is that so distinct? It flies against human nature to not earn the ultimate prize. Why would any human make that up? They wouldn’t.

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July 8, 2011 by Dr. Mc.

A Muslim friend asked me that question after lunch together one day. It seems to wrangle Muslims that Christians should be so presumptuous as to refer to the One and Only God as a relative, as if there could be anyone near His equal. To suggest that the one true God has a partner is the unforgivable Islamic sin called “shirk,” and is denounced in no uncertain terms in many parts of the Qur’an (for instance, Surah 4:48 and 116).
To reply to my friend that the Bible tells us to refer to Him as Father in prayer (Matthew 6:9) would neither satisfactorily answer his question nor endear him to my source.
A better explanation is that the question is really backwards:
God is not my father in the sense of bloodline, and He is indeed without peer, predecessor, or sequel (Isaiah 43:10-11). God does not fall under our definition of father, because He existed before fathers were invented. On the contrary, He invented fathers to help us understand a little bit how He feels about us.
I should have said to my friend, “You are a father. How do you feel about your children? Do you love them? Do you want them to grow up healthy? to do well in life? Do you do for them what they ask or what they need? Do you discipline them for their own good? Would it hurt for your child to turn away from you? Can the positive response of one of my children make up for the turning away of another?”
God is not my father, but He says to use that word toward Him as the closest approximation from our experience to grasp the awesome way He feels about each of us (Psalm 103:13).
Christians do not commit shirk, because they do not consider themselves to be God’s equal; we don’t even consider ourselves worthy to be in His presence. The right to have any relationship at all with Him must be a pure, unmerited gift, only possible if He makes it available to us (John 1:12). To think that by my attitude or action I could earn any meager level of merit before God… That would be to put an upper limit on God’s greatness above us. To me, that would be shirk.

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