For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:21

Foolish Heart – Are you sitting down?  You might want to.  As we approach the end of this year (according to the pagan calendar), I see some connections between almost 2000 years of Christian teaching and the current condition of our world.  They aren’t connections that I want to see.  Perhaps you will be able to convince me that I am mistaken.  But like Paul, I am concerned.  Some time ago I stood at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and wept.  I went there to pray, but there were no words to speak.  I was simply crushed by the enormous despair in our world.  I don’t mean that I saw despair in those who were at the Wall.  They celebrated God.  What struck me was the awareness that the Church I know has contributed a great deal to this sense of hopelessness, in spite of all its words to the contrary.  It is simply not possible to continue to refuse to honor God as God, the way in which He reveals Himself, and expect to walk away unscathed.  So, here are some straight-line depreciation ideas to consider.  These things bother me.  Maybe I’m wrong about them, but if I’m not, what does that mean for you and me in the next year?

1. For centuries the Church taught that women were not equal with men.  Of course, theologians claimed ontological equality (they were created equal), but in practice they treated women as weaker, more easily seduced, less disciplined, less capable of leadership or other roles within the Body.  These men claimed God divinely relegated women to submission to their husbands as a result of the Fall.  It doesn’t really matter what theological manipulations were needed to promote such an idea.  The result has been a general disregard for the full humanity of women, encouraged by the culture and tacitly endorsed by the Church.  Recently a survey shows that violence toward women in the media is up more than 100%.  The world is filled with sex slavery, pornography, abuse, rape and gender bias.  I believe this is a straight-line result of a failure to honor God’s Word in Genesis and to give Him thanks for His good creation when it comes to women.  The Church refuses to acknowledge that God made women priests because they impose Greek thinking on the text.  This is a colossal failure to read the text with Hebrew eyes.  Today, this issue stands at the forefront of the Christian worldview as the greatest oppression since the Inquisition.  Until it is confronted as hypocrisy, arrogance and sin, the Church has nothing to say to women, and they should refuse to listen!
2. The early church fathers introduced the idea of the “new” Israel, a spiritual replacement of God’s elect people.  Political opportunity, theological hubris, anti-Semitism and other forces conspired to promote what is now the standard, unquestioned theological position of every Protestant denomination and the Catholic Church.  This declaration marginalized the people of Israel, obscured or denied their unique place in God’s government and shifted the outlook of the Church from a Hebraic to a Greek worldview.  The result has been more than one Holocaust.  Centuries of disregard for God’s people led to the systematic expunging of everything Jewish from Christian thinking.  There is a straight-line between this failure to honor God as He revealed Himself and the current collapse of any significant influence of the Church on culture.  Look around you.  Has the Church stood in solidarity with its Jewish brothers?  Has the Church done anything of real significance to stem the tide of immoral, heretical, apostate behavior even in its own ranks?  Is the Church anything more than a “religious” reflection of cultural values?  What can we say to the world when we are responsible for centuries of hatred, violence and rejection of God’s people and God’s word given to His people?  Why doesn’t the Church have the power of Acts coursing through its veins?  Maybe it’s because we are no longer grafted into Israel.
3. Christianity today is the syncretism of political, economic, social and epistemological views that are not based in the Word of God.  Replacement theology did more than promote the supremacy of the Church.  It broke the continuity of the culture of God’s people.  By the end of the second century, the beliefs and practices of Yeshua and his disciples had been eliminated from the newly invented religion of Christianity.  Perhaps the reason we read the book of Acts and wonder why our churches do not exhibit such power and  persuasion has more to do with our systematic denial of the Hebraic worldview than anything else.  We Christians are the apostates.  We left the God of Israel behind in our pursuit of power, programs and promises.  We converted Israel’s faith into a religion of our own making.  Of course, most Christian believers today have no idea of the heretical history behind their form of worship, but this much they do know:  Something is terribly wrong.  Something vital is missing.  There is a straight-line between the ignorance, denial and rejection of a Torah-based lifestyle and the insipid, vacuous, frantic romanticism of Christians.  A Jew without Torah is obsolete.  A Christian without Torah is a hypocrite.

It’s worth noting that Paul uses the singular “foolish heart” in this verse.  We would have expected “hearts,” one for each person.  But Paul tells us that they participated in one morally mistaken discernment.  They were as one in their vain attempt to replace the God of Scripture with their own invention.  I wonder if we Christians haven’t arrived at the same singular place.

Most people can’t remember more than three important things at the same time, so we will stop here.  Paul laid a challenge before the Roman followers of Yeshua in his proclamation of the deterioration of their culture.  That challenge was simple:  Will you follow the pathway of those who deny the God of Israel as He revealed Himself, who refuse to thank Him for His choice of one people to bring all the world to His feet, who pretend that their endless speculations are a substitute for His revealed truth OR will you acknowledge Him as He is, honor Him and thank Him by repenting of your hubris and returning to His revealed ways?

In the next few days before we mark one more pagan festival of a new year, perhaps these three straight-line consequences will cause you to reconsider how you will live.  Women, the Church and the Torah community – just these three.  It’s probably enough.

Topical Index:  women, church, Torah, foolish heart, Romans 1:21