The other night I listened to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee interview comedian/social commentator Bill Maher. The subject was Maher's movie "Religulous" and Maher's rejection of any religion whatsoever. My first inclination was to turn it off, mostly because of Maher, but I left it on. My "review" is that Huckabee did a generally good job of parrying with Maher, and he did it in a loving and open manner. That always wins points with me.
I was struck by Maher's generally uninformed comments about religion in general. You would think that a man who has just made a movie bashing religion would know more about his subject matter. He spouted the usual claptrap about religion being the cause of more deaths than anything else in history, conveniently forgetting, of course, the 40 million slaughtered by Stalin and the 10 million or so slaughtered by Hitler, all in the name of the state.
But one comment caught my attention more than any other. Maher said to Huckabee, "Just look at Western Europe, for a good example. Less than 5% of Europeans attend any church at all, showing us that Europe has grown up, dropped the 'myth' of religion and now does the right thing simply because it is the right thing." Dropped the "myth" of religion. Dropped the "myth" of Jesus Christ as the Savior of all who will believe in Him. Dropped the "myth" that there is such a thing as Truth, with a capital T.
Huckabee didn't ask Maher the obvious questions, probably because of time constraints. He didn't ask, "How do you know what 'the right thing' is without a standard such as Christ Jesus and God's Law from which to measure?" For that matter, "How does a society of 'rationalists' that you (Maher) promote, come to a set of standardized customs considered by all to be either 'right,' 'wrong,' 'good' or 'bad?'" Talk about a leap of faith!
But one thing I really felt was sadness; sadness for Maher and those like him, sadness for all who view Christ as myth. As a friend of mine wrote yesterday, "I would not want to be Bill Maher on Judgment Day. I would not want to be me without Jesus on the Judgment Day." To which I can only say "Amen." As much as I dislike Maher and all he stands for, I believe he is sincere in his beliefs. It is his prerogative to be "sincerely wrong," but my heart breaks for him when he finds out how wrong he is at the end of time.
A couple of weeks ago I watched on 60 Minutes (another "first" for me, as least in many years) as the son in law of a friend of mine was shot in Afghanistan. It so happened that a 60 Minutes crew was with his unit when he was shot by a lone jihadi/Talibani hidden in a corn field that Marcus' unit was clearing. I know Marcus because I had the pleasure and honor of baptizing his son a year and a half ago, or so. Marcus' injury was not fatal, nor even highly serious, as, by God's grace alone, he received a "through and through" that entered his bicep and exited his back with no major damage. As I write that sentence, I am aware of how easy it is for me to say "no major damage" because I was not the one shot, nor was I the family receiving news from the other side of the world.
The point is this: Marcus survived and, needless to say, the jihadi did not, after receiving a full magazine from Marcus and one each from the man on either side of him. And that saddened me. It saddened me NOT in that he should not have been killed; indeed, he got exactly what he was seeking, which was martyrdom. What saddened me was the idea of a man giving his very life for his "god," and then suddenly discovering how wrong he had been. Should we not weep over the lost, particularly in their death?
The famous story told of Charles Haddon Spurgeon is that one day he asked one of his pastoral students what the student had preached on the past Sunday at a small church in rural England. When the young man replied that his topic had been "Hell," Spurgeon asked, "Did you have tears in your eyes?" We should all have tears in our eyes for the lost, even as we oppose them with whatever they demand, whether it be words in a debate or bullets on a battlefield.
I thank God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, for His loving mercy in calling me to be his. I pray that He would call many, many more, and I weep for those he doesn't. I pray that we all weep together over the lost.
