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God in the Attic

God in the Attic
 
Do you have an attic? I find attics and the stuff in them fascinating. One can discover things once useful to previous generations, items held in storage until they’re needed, and memorabilia you just want to hang onto because, although useless for your present day life, you have an emotional attachment to them.

Speaking of digging around in dusty places, I was reading an article about world-class archaeologists who admit archaeological evidence demonstrates that the historical record of the Bible is reliable1. Yet they add a disclaimer warning us not to draw religious conclusions from the accurate history in the Scriptures. They say we shouldn’t confuse facts and history with religion and faith.

The author says that this type of thinking is due to viewing the world in an oddly fractured way that sees life as lived on two different planes. Picture a two-storey house with no staircase connecting the attic with the lower story. The lower story consists of reality — facts, science, the laws of nature, rationality, and logic — basically the world around us. The attic is where values, meaning, religion, faith, God, and morality reside.

In thinking about this it occurred to me that those archeologists are not the only ones guilty of thinking like that. Many Christians have adopted the same perspective. They have their lower story world of everyday life and living where facts, science, the laws of nature, rationality, and logic are the stuff of life. Then, because there is no staircase they make a leap of faith to the attic where values, meaning, religion, faith, God, and morality reside. But the two realms are disconnected.

This disconnect shows itself among believers in a variety of ways. One way is that faith has little impact, if any, on how Christians who think this way live their lives or on the world in which they live. Private faith and public life are kept separate. “Business is business, faith is faith, and never the twain shall meet,” is their motto.

If we adopt this two-storied world view we abdicate the place and power of faith to govern our lives. We are saying in effect that faith in Christ makes no difference in daily life, a concept entirely at odds with the Bible. So Christianity becomes one more religion claiming to be true but ends up looking just as hollow as false religions. Though there is a form of godliness, there is no authenticity or power.

Another result of thinking this way is the belief by some Christians that facts, science, the laws of nature, rationality, and logic are unnecessary and even contrary to faith. Consequently these things are viewed suspiciously, ignored or held in disdain. Meaning becomes subjective, faith becomes irrational, and truth and morality become entirely centered in the individual. Meanwhile, the world looks on and brands all Christians as irrelevant, out of touch, and anti-intellectual.

God’s Word teaches us that our God is Lord of all — heaven and earth, the past, present, and future, and all things seen and unseen, material and spiritual. By adopting a two-storied view we relegate God to the attic of life like an antique useful to a previous generation, an item stored until needed, or a piece of memorabilia to which we feel somewhat attached. In effect, we dethrone Him as the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, and our lives.

Finally, a two-storied view with occasional leaps of faith ignores a core biblical truth — that the eternal God invaded time and space and that His mighty acts of redemption are rooted in history. The Bible is a history of salvation. There really was a Moses who encountered a burning bush in a real place called Horeb. David really was a king in Israel. Jesus really lived, was crucified, and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins. Paul said, “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins, ” (1 Corinthians 5:17). History really matters.

Taking a biblical perspective means believing that history is of eternal significance and that God has invaded history. It also means that we don’t keep Him in the attic, separated from everything else in our lives.

Isn’t it time we invited God to live in the whole house?


1 Koukl, Gregory, Archaeology, the Bible, and the Leap of Faith [article online]. Inplainsite.org archive, accessed May 2008; available from inplainsite.org/html/the_bible_and_history.html


Steve Johnson was ministry relations and resources co-ordinator at Insight for Living Canada, before becoming the Executive Director.
 

 

 


About the Author:  Steve Johnson
 

 
Steve Johnson