Are There Three Ways to Live?

There are only two ways to live: one leads to death, the other to eternal life. However, Christians share with non-Christians a great desire to find a third way.

The non-Christians want to have a third way for a variety of reasons. They don’t want to follow the amoral Atheists in their godless meaninglessness. They want a bit of God and God’s way but they also want to live in rebellion against God. They do not understand sin as relational rebellion against God but think of it as doing something immoral. So they do not believe that they are sinners, deserving condemnation. Thus, the idea of living wholly for Christ sounds like ‘religious extremism’ – and in our culture ‘religious extremism’ is, by definition, wrong.

Our society refuses to differentiate between religions; all religions are to be tolerated; all religions are simply a matter of opinion. The Prince of Wales wants to change the title “Defender of the Faith” to “Defender of Faith”. We don’t want to be questioned about which religion is right or which one is wrong – they are all right or they are all wrong, or they are all matters of opinion – but there is not one that is true or any particular religion that is wrong.

So with this failure to differentiate between the religions, our society has accepted any religion, provided it is not really believed or taken seriously by its followers. Devotion, zeal, passion is most undesirable in religious life today. Thus ‘religious extremism’ is the unforgiveable sin. The religious extremists are assumed to be the brainwashed cult members gullibly accepting any superstition and going to war to defend their bizarre views of the world.

So non-Christians want a third way between the extremes of the New Atheists and the passionate evangelicals: some third way between rebellion against God and submission to the Lordship of Jesus.Read more