The First Baptist Church of Granada Hills

At around this time of year Christians often focus on Christ’s self-disclousure to the world, His entering into the public square.  But Christ’s ministry only really makes sense in the context of a much larger system of religious, philosophical, and historical thought–both in His own time and, now, in our own.  And so I give you “The Context”…

1. The universe came into existence roughly 14 billion years ago. This beginning indicates that the universe is not self-existent and must therefore have been caused by something outside of the universe.  What’s more, the very nature of the universe, the physical laws, are set with extreme specificity.  It is only this specificity that has allowed for the development of material complexity, a complexity that includes—at its maximal limit—life.  These observations imply that a creative intelligence that transcends the universe has produced the universe with specific aims in mind.  What’s more, this creative act and its apparent purposefulness indicate that the Creator has a will and can thus be described as “personal”.

2. At least some of the life in the universe (specifically, humans) exhibit mental phenomena that cannot be readily explained with reference to strict materialism: qualia, freewill, consciousness, and likely morality and aesthetics.  This indicates that at least humans possess a non-material component which again transcends mere nature.  And since these phenomena seem to exist only in conjunction with the most complex forms of life (itself the most complex form of nature, complexity again being apparently the whole reason for creation) one may reasonably concluded these mental abilities are not merely accidental but purposely derive from the Creator.  This is simply to say that the Creator wants humans to possess these qualities and therefore presumably has a special interest in humanity.

3. Now while the scientific and psychological evidence for the creatureliness of the universe as a whole and of humanity specifically (and, by implication, for the reality of a Creator) can only be rationally adduced through advanced philosophical speculation and, in some cases, advanced technology, humanity has possessed an intuitive sense of these truths from its beginnings.  This implies that, in some sense, human spirituality is innate.  Of course this correspondence between the way things are and the way humanity has believed things to be could just be a mind-boggling coincidence (one of literally “cosmic” proportions) but it seems more likely that this is no happy accident.  Rather, we may reasonably assume that human spirituality again derives intentionally from the Creator, possibly belonging to the class of non-material mental phenomena described above.  So not only does the Creator have some special interest in humanity, humanity was intended to have some special interest in the Creator—a relationship of sorts, however minimal.

4. Despite this though, while all human cultures (and even proto-cultures) have evidenced an innate spirituality, the manifestations of this sense have been widely divergent—contradictory even—and generally inadequate in their attempts to describe the Creator.  But against this backdrop a particular culture (and a rather barbaric one at that), ancient Israel, claimed it had been contacted by a god (the most common human referent to the Creator) from outside of the general religious milieu of its time and place.  As Israel expanded and refined its understanding of this god (ostensibly in response to progressive communications from the god itself) the picture thus developed came by degrees to resemble something very different from the barbaric deity one might imagine a barbaric culture would postulate.  Instead it came to resemble the sort of Reality, the sort of big-“G” God that created the universe: it was claimed to be utterly transcendent[1], radically “other”[2], providentially concerned with all things[3] (including the culture’s mortal enemies!)[4], not at all dependant on Israel’s religious cult[5], responsible for the universe’s existence[6], categorically different from the other human conceptions of “God”[7], and so on.  Furthermore, this culture (which occupied a small sliver of land and knew of its relative powerlessness in comparison to larger contemporary empires) claimed that its particular spirituality would ultimately be of benefit to the entire world, indeed that such was the entire reason for its existence[8], that people from around the world would ultimately worship Israel’s God[9], and that such a development was the will of the God itself[10].

5. From within this culture something rather dramatic happened. Despite the prophetic claims that Israel’s spirituality would eventual spread throughout the world, the Jewish people became ever more insular and unwilling to even interact with outside groups.  Then, during the governorship of the Roman proconsul Pontius Pilate (circa AD 30), an individual Israelite emerged who gathered a following and embarked on a program of religious proclamation within the Jewish community.  This man, Jesus of Nazareth, whose life has been recorded for posterity by numerous authors—each of whom were dependant on various independent traditions rooted in multiple eyewitness accounts—was the focal point of much seemingly supernatural phenomena[11].  Furthermore, this man made shocking claims regarding his connection to Israel’s God[12], claimed authority to reinterpret and even abrogate the religious texts of the community[13] (further refining and expanding the culture’s understanding of God), accused the nation of forsaking its distinctive altruistic destiny in favor of a self-satisfied xenophobia, promised that this destiny would be transferred to another group[14], prophesied that Israel would be punished for its disobedience through, among other things, the destruction of its religious cult within a single generation[15], spoke of his own impending violent death as an act with spiritual implications which would serve as the foundation of a non-localized replacement of Israel’s cult[16], and claimed that he would somehow rise from death after a short period[17] as vindication of his claims.  Jesus subsequently did die a violent death; he was seen to have risen somehow from death after a few days; the Jewish temple was destroyed in AD 70 along with most of the Jewish capital city; a new frenetically extroverted community did come into being, focused on Jesus’ death, which would eclipse Israel and indeed bring the worship of Israel’s God to every part of the inhabited world, thus displacing and replacing the less accurate conceptions of the Creator.  And as it stands, this spirituality is the single most numerous, most geographically diffuse, and ethnically diverse religion on the planet.