Following his programs, a well-known commentator augments themes with observations of world beliefs and interests. His weekly focus for final comment is on the accent of the half hour that precedes during which he asks relevant questions, usually to several guests, and continues with probing questions that might clear up further the points he is investigating, and sometimes to press an evasive guest to address the point. He is noted for his honesty about searching for truth, principally in the political and governmental worlds, and sometimes the financial. On this day his interest, evident in the program, was to find the meaning and practice of the separation of church and state. He received several points of view, with an underlying agreement that there ought to be separation, but the guests found different applications for the concept, and noted the ranges of differences in application. In closing the program, the host offered his point of view that reflected his belief, not uncommon, especially among intellectuals, that there is something out there that is called God, but he did not know what that is. When he is faced with some one’s statement about God, his answer is: Perhaps. I feel sure he means what he says. What you believe in God may be the truth, but he does not know that, and so has nothing definitive to say in response. He then proceeds about his business, and leaves the theme to others. Whoever is God is all right with him, and he is willing to accept that with his own admission of the narrowness of mortality’s observations.
Here is another example of a leap, a leap in the dark that loses simply by not seeking. God’s children are recognized openly by God in their search for God and truth. The search does not assure finding, perhaps for the reason that the searcher is looking in the wrong places. Isaiah offers a magnificent statement: Come let us reason together, says the Lord. The search, the objectivity, is implied in the words. What am I searching for? I discover very soon in the exchange that it is not an Aristotelian syllogism so attractive to western logic, and vital to a scientific society, and usually trusted by the Catholic Church in history. The field of God’s reason is not on a plane of science or philosophy, although those fields are legitimate, vital to mortals. The field of God is in righteousness, from the nature of his own holiness. Persons can be dead wrong about some scientific matter, or philosophic truism, but they can’t be wrong about righteousness and become the accepted children of God. I am searching in the right places when I search for God in a context of faith that includes righteousness – that emanates from the holiness of God. I find meat to be useful for body fuel, but it is not fuel for the human soul. Soul food comes from the holiness of God. God is interested in clear thinking and will help me to think clearly, but he is not discovered there. I am looking for him when I address the matter of sin, not only in sin’s acts, but in the personal condition that needs radical repair to replacement. God’s argument for answer is with the sinful nature. He will leave us to our logics, our cultures, our ways of doing things – if they do not violate his righteousness for mankind. It is righteousness that he addresses in practical ways. Righteousness relates to a life standard that is not always easy to follow, because of our human natures and contexts, but he aids those who request his aid, and conduct themselves in a personal faith that he is at work in the Trinity of God. He needs nothing from mankind, but we need him. Satisfaction for the need is available – on his terms for acquisition.
So it is that the searching person can find Christ – informed by Scripture, aided by humble repentance which is to abandon what one is in unsatisfactory morality to redemption (spiritual birth) and the resolve to live life in the context of God’s righteousness. Tried by millions upon millions of Christian persons, the plan is found to work, and becomes the most important factor in life for them. No matter how stern the resistance to the experience may be for the skeptic, the fulfillment offered in the faith of Christ and his kingdom is effective for those embracing the faith. That faith meaning would likely hold for the Christian even if there appeared evidence for skepticism relative to a personal God. The Christian is partly fortified in awareness that the skeptic has nothing to offer. The faith of Christianity is stronger than the faith that there is no meaning to faith in God. So complete and meaningful is Christ to Christians that genuineness is found and felt even in a fulfilling earthly experience. It is understandable that faith is appealing to the masses of earth in that no other message is available than: The End. Christians claim the future. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020