The Core of the Christian Message
The Core of the Christian Message
“Truth is stranger than fiction because we have made fiction to suit ourselves.”1 So said G. K. Chesterton. He went on to say, “What we need is not a religion that is right where we are right, but one that is right where we are wrong.”2 Those two cautions will stand us in good stead as we try to understand why we really search for spiritual answers.
In Psalm 8:4, David asks, “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (NIV). What is mankind? That question lies beneath all of our pursuits and hungers. If we do not have the answer to the question of what man is, we do not have the right to an answer to any other question. Are we at our core divine or nothing? Are these the only two options? There is a very moving Indian song that literally translates as: “I am not a God, nor am I Satan… I am but a human.”
Isn’t it fascinating how songs rip reality from the shroud of the sophistry we have tried to bury ourselves in? I want to take a look at how the issues of pain and pleasure point to the uniqueness of the Christian faith to the New Spirituality.