Tag: faith

Posted in sermons & addresses

Lights in the World (Philippians 2:12-18)

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

Note: I preached this sermon on January 4, 2026 at Beacon of Hope Community Church of the Nazarene (Moon Township, PA)

Read Philippians 2:12-18 in the New English Translation (NET)

(12) So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your own salvation with awe and reverence,

(13) for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort – for the sake of his good pleasure – is God.

(14) Do everything without grumbling or arguing,

(15) so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without blemish though you live in a crooked and perverse society, in which you shine as lights in the world

(16) by holding on to the word of life so that on the day of Christ I will have a reason to boast that I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.

(17) But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice together with all of you.

(18) And in the same way you also should be glad and rejoice together with me.”

prayer

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INTRODUCTION

Today is the first Sunday of 2026. Many of us have faced challenges in 2025, and 2026 promises to be another year with its own share of challenges, even hardships.

When we find ourselves in that place – facing real obstacles but still hopeful – Paul’s letter to the Philippians speaks to us.

Paul didn’t pen this epistle in a comfortable palace but in a dark and chilly prison cell. Four words found in Philippians 1:13 stand out:

“I am in prison.”

It’s important, though, to read further in verse 13. There, Paul doesn’t just say “I am in prison” but he adds: “I am in prison for the sake of Christ.”

Our sovereign God is able to take the worst of our circumstances and use them to advance divine purposes in our world. Our suffering has meaning as part of a larger story, the Story of God.

Just a minute ago, we read Philippians 2:12-18. In this passage, Paul’s hardship in prison is still there in the background, but he turns now to other themes. He refuses to make his letter a “Woe is me.” Instead, good pastor that he is, his thoughts and concern – to use his words in 1:1 – turn to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi.”

The very fact that the early Church chose to include Paul’s letter in what we now call the New Testament is a testimony to its usefulness and timeless themes. It spoke then, and it still speaks.

Let’s look today at 3 commands that Paul gives:

  1. Work out your salvation.
  2. Be blameless and pure.
  3. Celebrate together.

WORK OUT YOUR SALVATION

Let’s not forget that Paul is writing not to an individual but to a group. He’s saying:

“Hey all y’all, work out all y’all’s salvation.”

Reuben Welch had it right when he titled his book: “We really do need each other.” John Wesley often preached on this passage, and he entitled his sermon:

“On Working Out Our Own Salvation”

Christianity is a group endeavor. No, we can’t save ourselves, but when God saves us by his grace, it is also God who enables us by his grace to continue in the walk of faith.

Look again at v. 13: “for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort – for the sake of his good pleasure – is God.” The NIV is even clearer: “For it is God who works in you…”

There’s a proverb from Ghana that captures this idea of cooperation. Picture the marketplace where women are often walking with large trays of colorful goods balanced on their head. The proverb advises:

“Make up your tray then we’ll help you put it on your head.”

We do our part and God does God’s part. We work and at the same time God works inside us, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The New English Translation captures the ongoing nature of salvation. The end of Philippians 2:12 reads: “…continue working our your salvation with awe and reverence.”

A ten year old might speak of giving her heart to Jesus at a Vacation Bible School when she was five years old, and the church says “Amen!” But if that same girl – now a grown woman of 50 – shares just that testimony and nothing new from the 45 years afterward, everyone will wonder: What has God been up to in your life since then?”

The Disney film “Finding Dory” has good advice: “Keep swimming.”

God saved me; God is saving me; God will save me.

Past, present, and future – That’s relationship. It started at some point, it’s still deepening, and one day our faith will be sight.

Work out your salvation.

BE BLAMELESS AND PURE

After talking about salvation, Paul gets really practical. Let’s read v. 14 – “Do everything without grumbling or arguing.”

Why? See verse 15: “so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without blemish…”

Here we find the second command. Not only are we to work out our salvation, but we also are to be blameless and pure.

Don’t grumble. Don’t argue.

Some English words sound like what they are: “mur-mur” “back-biting”

Our children were pretty contented kids growing up, but occasionally like all children they would gripe about this-or-that. That’s when we’d jokingly say:

“Would you like some cheese with your WHINE?”

Or maybe if a young child falls at the playground and it’s apparent they’re not hurt but just tearfully seeking attention from their grown-ups, we ask:

“Should I call the WAM-bulance?”

We all laugh and they go back to playing with the other children, none worse for the wear.

There will be scrapes and bruises. After all, Paul never asks us to physically withdraw from this world, but he does admonish us to live clean lives despite the crooked and perverse influences around us.

In 1987, Tipper Gore entitled her book: “Raising PG kids in an X-rated society.”

Sometimes we glorify “the old days,” but that book is now almost 40 years old. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Being Christlike is a challenge in every generation. Christians are still called to be salt and light, to “change the world” as the saying would have it, but I wonder:

Instead of changing the world, has the world changed us?

Yes, the world can be dark, but Jesus, the Light of the World, turned to his listeners and said: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Perhaps Paul had the Lord’s words in-mind when he reminded the Philippians in v. 15 that “you shine as lights in the world.” And how is it that we shine? How is it that we, as followers of Jesus, stand out in the moral darkness around us? There it is in verse 16: “by holding on to the word of life…”

Let’s face it: To be blameless and pure in our day-and-age is to be counter-cultural. To do that, to really shine God’s light, a passing knowledge of the Bible won’t do. What’s more, we can’t just cherry-pick the promises of God and ignore the Bible’s tougher teachings, which include what F.F. Bruce used to call “the hard sayings of Jesus.”

Dietrick Bonhoeffer ministered as a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the Second World War. After he was involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the Nazis eventually marched the pastor to a scaffold. They hung him naked just a few days before the Allied forces liberated the prison camp where Bonhoeffer was captive. Earlier, Bonhoeffer famously wrote:

“When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

To be blameless and pure in any generation involves sacrifice. Paul said in v. 17 that he was being “poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith.”

That’s hardly a popular message in an age when we don’t want to know what we can do for God. We want to know what God can do for me. Nonetheless, sacrifice is a message we must hear again because it lies at the heart of our Cross-based faith.

CELEBRATE TOGETHER

Paul instructs us: Work out your salvation. Secondly, he calls us to be blameless and pure, holding on to the word of life. Finally, the apostle insists: Celebrate together.

In verse 17, Paul lightens the mood. From the somber image of sacrifice upon an altar, he pivots to celebration:

“I am glad and rejoice together with all of you,” he writes. “And in the same way you also should be glad and rejoice together with me.”

As a hospital chaplain, I quickly learned that there’s a lot of pain on the various wards. It’s the man who sits in the darkness, refusing to turn on his light as week-after-week he waits for a heart transplant. It’s the young parents tearfully processing the devastating news that their 6 month old baby boy has a terminal brain tumor. The pain goes on-and-on, and as a chaplain, I quickly learned to mostly just sit in silence with people who suffered, to “bear witness” as my chaplain mentor called it.

Yet I remember the day when sitting with someone in sadness became a lesson misapplied – good practice, wrong moment.

My mentor and I visited with a man in his early 20’s who had fought cancer for many months. On that day, however, he’d received positive news. The latest test showed that his cancer was in remission! And that’s where I went wrong. Instead of pausing in that moment and rejoicing with him, I pivoted back to the overall journey, back to the hard parts, back to the sadness. Later, my mentor corrected me in private:

“Greg, make sure to celebrate what there is to celebrate.”

Yes, wrote Paul, he was being poured out like a drink offering, yet even then, Paul says: “Rejoice with me!” He would not let the sadness consume the joy.

So I ask you: Despite the tough times, what do we have to celebrate today?

We lived to see 2026. Praise the Lord!

We have a roof over our heads and enough to live on today, to meet our needs. Celebrate!

We have people who love us and care for us, including this church family. Thank you, Jesus!

To celebrate is not to deny the reality of our hardships, but it is a joyful acknowledgment – lest we forget – of what is going well.

There’s an old saying: “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” Singer Billy Joel then added: “The sinners are much more fun.”

But the apostle Paul’s having none of it. He writes: “Rejoice together with me.” In 2026, let’s rediscover the joy of our salvation.

CONCLUSION

Our sermon title today is “Lights in the World.” Are you ready to shine in the new year? To shine, let’s…

  1. Work out our salvation together;
  2. Be blameless and pure, holding on to the word of life;
  3. Celebrate together.

-Transition to Holy Communion-

Posted in sermons & addresses

On Love, Fear and Hate

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

1 John 4:7-21 (Christian Standard Bible)

This sermon was first preached at Beacon of Hope Community Church (Moon Township, PA) on October 26, 2025.

INTRODUCTION

I was a little boy, maybe 6 years old. There was a bad thunderstorm one summer night, and I cowered under the bed covers. My mother heard me call out in fear; she came to my bedside to comfort me. “Don’t think of the loud thunder,” she advised. “Think of something you love, like ice cream cones.”

The “love” part was probably more the love embodied in my Mom coming to comfort me than it was in any sugary confection. Even if my mother borrowed a scene from “The Sound of Music,” the lesson endures. To drive out fear, I had to latch on to love.

TRANSITION TO SERMON

We’ve just read a passage from 1 John, the letter that John Wesley called “the deepest part of Holy Scripture” (Works 22:13, 352). Just like my mother made love tangible when she came to my bedside to console me during a storm, so Jesus made God the Father’s love tangible when he came and lived among us.

Let’s consider three truths drawn from the deep well that is 1 John:

  1.  God is the source of all love.
  2.  A loving God sent Christ to reconcile us.
  3.  Perfect love casts out fear.

GOD IS THE SOURCE OF ALL LOVE

Sometimes pop singers hit the nail on the head. Dionne Warwick made the lyrics of Burt Bacharach and Hal David memorable:

“What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love
No, not just for some, but for everyone.”

It’s an interesting song in-part because it’s actually a prayer addressed to the “Lord.” She sings: “Lord, we don’t need another mountain.” Then later, she adds: “Lord, we don’t need another meadow.” What do we need? We need love, and by saying “Lord,” Bacharach and David quietly acknowledge that God is the source of all love.

This comes across clearly in 1 John 4:7 – “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” John is echoing the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7 where he talks about false prophets. How can we know whether a prophet is genuine? Look at their fruit. If there’s good fruit, you know the tree is good. If there’s bad fruit, then the tree itself is bad.

The same principle is operating when it comes to love. Wherever we see love and its positive fruit, we can be sure that God is at-work. Rick Williamson in his commentary on 1 John insists: “Love flows from God through people, whether or not that person acknowledges God. Even atheists and agnostics are part of God’s work in the world when they act in love” (1, 2, & 3 John, New Beacon Bible Commentary [2010], 152). In theological terms, this is God’s prevenient grace, the grace of God that comes before our salvation. We don’t have to call what is good bad simply because it exists outside of a profession of Christian faith. If it’s good, it’s of God. God is the source of all love.

When Charlie Kirk was murdered, his widow, Erika, stood at her husband’s funeral and tearfully told the world about the assassin: “I forgive him.” It takes nothing away from the beauty of Mrs. Kirk’s statement for us to admit: Only God’s love could allow anyone to say that. On our own, we are powerless to love completely, yet even in the most excruciating circumstances, with time, we can tap into God’s reservoir. God is the source of all love.

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Posted in book reviews

In search of a new church home

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

What do you do when the church that once felt like home now feels strangely unfamiliar? When what seemed before a loving place now is hostile, petty and narrow, do you smile and bite your tongue, or – like Abraham, led by God – do you embark on a trek to an unknown land, leaving behind all you’ve ever known?

In Search for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Nelson, 2015), Held Evans chronicles her own personal story of disillusionment, quitting the Evangelical church tradition of her youth and setting off through a spiritual wilderness in search of a new church home. Raised in a Bible church in Dayton, Tennessee – site of the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial” – she presents snapshots of her upbringing, the certainty of faith instilled in her and other children through Sunday School, Bible camps, and youth groups. Only grown and married does she exit the church of her youth and begin deconstructing her faith, accompanied by her husband, Dan. While gaining an online audience as a rising faith blogger and author, creating a space where questions and doubt were welcome, her connection to any church weakened. She wryly observes:

“Having failed to locate the First Post-Evangelical Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Deconstruction, we settled into something of a church-hopping rhythm wherein we visited more liturgical churches on holy days and more familiar, evangelical churches the rest of the time…and by the rest of the time, I mean maybe once a month. We weren’t exactly regulars. It occurred to me one morning as we snuck out of yet another service to avoid yet another awkward coffee hour that somehow, after all those years on fire for God, I’d become a back-row girl. I’d become the type of person for whom I’d prayed for revival. Only now I wasn’t sure I believed in revival anymore (p. 88).”

Spoiler alert: Rachel and Dan eventually rekindle their faith and join the Episcopal Church (USA), finding what in their eyes was far from a perfect church yet a better one, rich in liturgy and inclusive of the marginalized. They had found a new church home.

Chapter 15 (“Epic Fail”) especially spoke to me. As a young pastor in the Kansas City area, every pastor stood one-by-one before the annual District Assembly and summarized how things had gone the year before. Delegates followed along in a book containing all the statistics for each local church. I viscerally recall the shame I felt that year standing before the Assembly, since we had nothing impressive to show and we’d paid only a small portion of our budget for the district and missionaries. (Note: Pastors are no longer required to give a verbal report, a less shame-based way of proceeding). With that in-mind, Held Evans’ recounting of the 2011 Epic Fail Pastors Conference resonated. I felt an odd sense of comfort as I read the stories of other pastors of varied denominations or none, who – by human standards – horribly bombed. Yet God doesn’t count success in the same way we do. God only demands faithfulness. Thanks, Rachel, for reminding me of that.

Searching for Sunday is not your book if you already have it all figured out. But if you’re questioning your faith and have soured on the church, pick it up. It may just be what the Lord uses to help you find a new beginning.

Posted in sermons & addresses

Faith for Anxious Times

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

Psalm 94:16-19

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (Zondervan, 2011).

This message was preached at Freedom Pine Run Church of the Nazarene (Freedom, PA) on 10/13/24.

Click on page number at bottom to advance to next page.

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INTRODUCTION

We live in fearful times. In less than a month, we’ll have an election that everyone agrees will be historic, no matter the outcome. Overseas, new wars are waging and we wonder how long before the fire spreads. Hurricanes and floods lay waste to places considered safe from such disasters. It can all seem so overwhelming; we just want to turn our head toward heaven and say: “Maranatha – come, Lord Jesus.” While we work, awaiting his return, in the middle of so much fear, how can we practice spiritual resiliency? How do we cultivate a faith for anxious times?

TRANSITION TO PSALM 94: VENGEANCE BELONGS TO GOD

Psalm 94 can help us. The psalmist certainly lived in anxious times of his own. In fact, the overall tone of the psalm is dark. It begins with a prayer for vengeance: “The LORD is a God who avenges. O God who avenges, shine forth” (v. 1).

Here we learn something about God’s character. God doesn’t wink at evil; the LORD is not morally neutral. In fact, beginning in v. 4, the psalmist paints a contrast between God and evildoers. Unlike our loving God, the wicked are arrogant, boastful, and oppressive. Rather than lifting up those who are most vulnerable, they target them with special cruelty. Who are these vulnerable individuals? Look at v.5 – it’s the widow, the foreigner, the fatherless. When shamed, it’s almost as if evildoers reply: “So what? Who cares?” In verse 7 they insist: “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.” But I ask you: Is God really an ally of those who abuse others? The answer is obvious: Not at all. On the other hand, the Psalmist calls out sinister rulers. These are powerful people, but they wield their power for unjust and selfish ends. Verse 20 asks the LORD: “Can a corrupt throne be allied with you – a throne that brings on misery by its decrees?” The answer is apparent: Not at all.

In the face of such evil, there are a couple courses of action possible. First, it’s important to notice what the psalmist does NOT do. He does not himself presume to play the role of avenger. That role belongs to God alone. In Romans 12:9 we read: “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the LORD.”

Yet it’s interesting to me that Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 32:35 when he could have quoted Jesus. In fact, Jesus takes it one step further than Paul when he calls us not only to avoid avenging ourselves on others, but to pray for them. Our Lord Christ teaches in Matthew 5:43-45:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” 

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Posted in reflections

A tale of two scientists

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

September, 1981: Prof. Keyes

Fresh off a gap year of honest but repetitive work in the produce department of a Rochester area supermarket, I drove 8 hours to Quincy, Massachusetts and waited in the freshman registration line at Eastern Nazarene College. “Principles of Biology” was the default choice for non-science majors. Chomping at the bit for an intellectual challenge, and even though I’d already declared my major as religion, I jauntily checked “Introduction to Zoology” instead, the entry course for biology and pre-med majors,

Little did I know what I’d let myself in for! Over the next semester, I painstakingly mastered the details of the Krebs cycle, encountered the Latin names of genera and species, and studied Prof. Glen Keyes’ carefully etched chalkboard drawings of cellular components and reproductive systems. Prof. came to class sporting a white lab coat, answering students’ questions, encouraging them as they diagrammed formulas or microscopic organisms in their lab books. Chapter 1 of the course textbook matter-of-factly presented Darwinian principles like natural selection and how life on earth had evolved and continued to do so. That chapter made me wonder about whether my Christian faith and evolution could be squared. I’ll always be thankful for a conversation with Dr. Alex Varughese in the religion department, an Old Testament specialist with an M.A. in Marine Biology. He sagely replied when I brought my quandary to him:

“Genesis 1-2 is not so much about how as it is about who.”

God is creator, and evolution is the mechanism God used and continues to use to create. The elegant solution of theistic evolution came clearly into view that day and has helpfully guided my thinking ever since.

After Christmas break, I registered for the new semester and headed to the bookstore to buy textbooks. Prof. Keyes walked in and spotted me, a look of concern on his face. “Greg, I just received the print-out for ‘Botany’ and your name was missing. That’s the next course for pre-med majors.” He looked surprised by my reply: “But Prof., I’m not a pre-med major. My major is religion.” He could have tried to convince me to drop religion and pursue pre-med, but he understood the value of both. His last words that day have lingered with me:

“I’m glad to know we’ll have another pastor behind the pulpit who understands that you can believe in both God and evolution.”

But back to 1981. Hard work in Zoology paid off. Going into the final exam, I stood near the top of the class of thirty plus students, down by around ten students who’d dropped the course along the way. When final grades were released, on my report card appeared a much-coveted “A.”

March 2022: Prof. Periodic Table

I drove to the memory care unit west of town. Things were going well with hospice Chaplaincy. Especially rewarding were patients’ stories, often told by their loved ones. Today would bring another story, by turns fascinating, frustrating, and tragic. This day, I would meet Prof. Periodic Table, or PT for short, a nickname the reader will soon understand.

PT was pushing a century old, but despite a faltering short-term memory, he recalled things that happened long ago. He could still recite many details related to science, especially biochemistry. On his wall he proudly displayed the Periodic Table of the Elements, a shout-out to his having taught biochemistry for nearly 4 decades at the collegiate level. At the end of each hospice visit, our tradition was for me to randomly choose one element on the chart. PT would take joy in telling me all about the chosen element and its uses in industry or space. One day, when I pointed on the chart to helium, he lamented that it’s now in short supply, and wondered how chemists would be able to do their work since it’s an element often used in the laboratory. Talking about the Periodic Table was a way to celebrate the hundreds of young scientific minds he had shaped through his expertise and fatherly guidance.

From the start, he was respectful to me, as he was to religion in general. Through his late wife, he maintained a nominal connection to a mainline Christian denomination, and sometimes donated to support their charitable causes. However, underneath the respect was a painful memory nearly 80 years old yet still fresh with emotion. PT grew up in a fundamentalist church, but he also loved chemistry. As a highschooler, his chemistry teacher let him stay after school and work in the laboratory, knowing he could trust the budding chemist not to blow it up with some ill-advised experiment. Soon, PT realized that science would be his life work. Unfortunately, his pastor took PT aside one Sunday at church and warned:

“You have to decide what it’s going to be, PT. You have to choose either science or God. You can’t believe in both.”

PT paused as he delivered the verdict: “I chose science.”

The next visit when PT told the story again, I found the right moment to tell my own story of Zoology, and the wise words of Prof. Keyes and Dr. Varughese to a young, eager college freshman. He listened carefully, and when I was done, he tearfully remarked: “You don’t know how much I wish I could have heard that many years ago.” That science and religion could be simultaneously affirmed was something that PT appears to have never heard clearly articulated. Instead, at a crucial moment, his pastor had tragically given him a false choice.

Later, taking an out-of-state job, I said goodbyes to PT and other hospice patients. Not long after moving, one day my phone pinged with a text message from a former coworker: “Mr. Periodic Table passed away today.” I grieved my friend’s passing and thanked the Lord that our paths had crossed. Whether PT adopted theistic evolution or rediscovered Christian faith, I’ll never know, but his openness to my prayers gives me hope that his earthly journey ended in a peaceful acceptance of God’s reality and gentle embrace.

False dilemmas

To the question, “Is it science or faith?” many answer YES. BioLogos.org exists to explore the nexus between scientific inquiry and faith, creating a space for scholars who understand that being forced to choose between the two is a false dilemma. From Gregor Mendel, the Catholic monk who bred peas and became the father of modern genetics, to John Polkinghorne, the British theoretical physicist turned theologian and Anglican minister, to Francis Collins, an American physician and geneticist who spear-headed the Human Genome Project and directed the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the history of science includes persons of faith who saw no conflict between science and religion.

When your Christian teenager comes to you and expresses their intent to pursue a career in ministry, I hope that you’ll find wise words like my Zoology professor did for me that day in the bookstore, words that encourage. Likewise, when your daughter or son excitedly tells you they want to pursue the sciences, I hope you’ll affirm them and not discourage them. Both are paths to God’s truth, and neither profession is an easy path. They’ll need all the support that they can get.

___________________

Image credits

test tubes and periodic table — Via Wikimedia, and the Creative Commons Licence, accessible here.

Posted in reflections

From conditioning to encounter: A response to Aldous Huxley

Posted on by Gregory Crofford

huxley2
Aldous Huxely (1894-1963)

The interface between theology and psychology has always intrigued me. Yesterday, I read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The 1932 classic from the British novelist and philosopher presents a vision of a far-off future where humans no longer fulfill the role of “father” and “mother.” Instead, reproduction is carefully engineered by the State, social classes predetermined from fertilization and gestation in closely-monitored bottles.

There are many themes to explore in the book, and the dystopian vision still resonates well at a time when The Hunger Games is all the rage. Allow me to focus this brief essay on a single topic, namely, whether we believe in God only because others have conditioned us to do so.

Conditioning is a psychological technique whereby humans are molded to think and act in ways determined by the person in control. Brave New World portrays a system whereby young children are spoon-fed ideas while they sleep, messages repeated over-and-over through tiny speakers hidden under their pillows. In this passive way, the various classes – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon – acquire their worldview, especially their prejudices toward members of other castes.

Though the novel never explains exactly how the rulers of the “brave new world” condition people’s thinking about God, the Divine Being comes up at the end of the book in a conversation between the Savage and Mustapha Mond, the Controller (p. 183):

The Savage interrupted him. “But isn’t it natural to feel there’s a God?” “You might as well ask if it’s natural to do up one’s trousers with zippers,” said the Controller sarcastically. “You remind me of another of those odd fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reasons for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons – that’s philosophy. People believe in God because they’re conditioned to believe in God.” (italics added)

There’s some truth in what Huxley says. Can there be any doubt that Christian education – what Huxley would no doubt consider a form of conditioning – affects a child’s worldview, like a hand imprint left in wet cement? Children who have not yet learned to reason are particularly open to whatever teaching is given, positive or negative, whether it is training to be an altar boy or a child soldier.

Yet Huxley’s critique leaves unaddressed other considerations, particularly the role of religious experience. This experience is both individual and corporate. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Scripture may be considered largely the experience of the divine as lived across time by persons and peoples. Further, it is not a mystical experience devoid of any historical reference, but experiences that transpired in real time. Isaiah saw the LORD lifted up, but it happened “in the year that King Uzziah died” (Isaiah 1:1). Likewise, The Apostles’ Creed assumes historical reality, portraying a Saviour who “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”

More than any other Christian tradition, evangelical faith has discerned the importance of moving past conditioning to encounter. John Wesley (1703-91) had been conditioned by his father and mother to believe that God existed, to pray and to read the Bible. Yet on May 24, 1738, Wesley recorded his personal experience of God’s grace, that his heart was “strangely warmed” while listening to someone read the introduction to Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans. Whether we call this his “evangelical conversion” or simply the moment of the assurance of faith matters little. The point is that – to use Wesley’s later term – he moved in his own self-perception from having the faith of a “servant” to that of a “son.”

Religious experience is always a slippery subject to discuss. Any faith – to be held as true by its adherents – must account for the religious experiences of those who espouse other faith traditions. Why should our community of faith’s experiences be considered more valid? Further, what one calls “God” the skeptic might call hallucination, but at least now we’re having a conversation not about “brainwashing” but something empirical, experiences that can to at least some degree be analyzed and evaluated.

The power of encounter should never be underestimated. Saul had been conditioned to believe certain strict tenets as a boy who grew up under Pharisaical teachings. It was only later, however, when conditioning met encounter in the person of the Living Christ on the road to Damascus that his vision was transformed. Through a radical experience of the transcendent, some of his conditioning was modified. No longer would he seek out Christians to imprison them as enemies of the Jewish faith. Instead, he now became one of their key leaders. Experience trumped conditioning.

Yet one must be careful. God exists independently of our experience of God. One might be tempted to conclude: “For you, God exists because you’ve experienced him, but for me God does not exist since I have never experienced God.” Yet the tree that falls in the forest still makes a sound, whether or not I am close enough to hear it. What matters is that the effects of encounter are measurable. Like a strong wind topples a tree, the fallen tree serves as evidence of an invisible reality. So it is in the spiritual realm. Lives transformed from drunkenness to sobriety, husbands who stop beating their wives, children who were before disobedient to parents who suddenly become more compliant and helpful, these effects and many more testify to a Cause, and that Cause is God. When it happens to enough people, we call it a religious awakening.

Brave New World is a fascinating book on many levels. Aldous Huxley has  done Christ followers a favor by forcing us to begin to think through our assumptions, including how we have come to believe what we do about God. But what do you think? Is Christian faith – or any faith – no more than the result of conditioning? Weigh-in below in the comment thread.

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