functional atheist
I enjoy the blogging world. There's a lot of insight, encouragement and knowledge to be gained.
I was just looking through my ever-growing bookmarks of blogs and I saw a title on Joshua Harris' blog that caught my attention: Do Not Be Wise In Your Own Eyes. It caught my attention because in Phase 2 (the High School ministry at OEFC) I have been preaching through Romans. We are now in Romans 12 and I just preached on Romans 12:3 which says, "For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." I also went to verse 16: "Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation." (NASB) . We talked about pride and not being wise in our own eyes, so I wanted to see what Josh had to say on this subject.
As I was reading through his post a term he used caught my attention. He said, "When my view of Him is clouded, when I’m a functional atheist, I will trust and applaud my own wisdom."
I don't think I've ever heard that term before but it makes complete sense. Am I a functional atheist? Are you a functional atheist?
A "functional" atheist wouldn't be a true atheist. A true atheist would deny the existence of any supernatural power whenever you asked him. But a "functional" atheist would acknowledge the existence of God and possibly even realize the need to submit to His will, but, by his lifestyle he would functionally be an atheist: you wouldn't be able to tell by his actions and attitudes that he believed in God and admitted the need to follow Him.
Are you a functional atheist? Do you believe in God and even confess that you should follow Him, but do not live this out in your daily life? Does your verbal assent have a noticeable effect on your moment by moment decisions, actions and attitudes?
I was just looking through my ever-growing bookmarks of blogs and I saw a title on Joshua Harris' blog that caught my attention: Do Not Be Wise In Your Own Eyes. It caught my attention because in Phase 2 (the High School ministry at OEFC) I have been preaching through Romans. We are now in Romans 12 and I just preached on Romans 12:3 which says, "For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith." I also went to verse 16: "Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation." (NASB) . We talked about pride and not being wise in our own eyes, so I wanted to see what Josh had to say on this subject.
As I was reading through his post a term he used caught my attention. He said, "When my view of Him is clouded, when I’m a functional atheist, I will trust and applaud my own wisdom."
I don't think I've ever heard that term before but it makes complete sense. Am I a functional atheist? Are you a functional atheist?
A "functional" atheist wouldn't be a true atheist. A true atheist would deny the existence of any supernatural power whenever you asked him. But a "functional" atheist would acknowledge the existence of God and possibly even realize the need to submit to His will, but, by his lifestyle he would functionally be an atheist: you wouldn't be able to tell by his actions and attitudes that he believed in God and admitted the need to follow Him.
Are you a functional atheist? Do you believe in God and even confess that you should follow Him, but do not live this out in your daily life? Does your verbal assent have a noticeable effect on your moment by moment decisions, actions and attitudes?
posted by Elias at 00:00
4 Comments:
uh!
Amen to the uh! Unfortunately I think that many (most?) "Christians" are "functional atheists" much of the time.
W....OW...... I do believe my world just got rocked even more than it has been over the last couple of weeks. Thanks E!
Huh????
I've never thought about it that way. Thank you for giving me even more to think about it.
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