Why CJ Werleman's Blowtorch Can't Scorch the Gospel

          CJ Werleman recently wrote a piece picked up by Salon.com in which he claims America needs to get over its belief that religion is necessary for moral values.  Mr. Werleman is an atheist who, according to his website “applies a blowtorch to ancient beliefs written by men who believed the shovel to be emergent technology, and a wife the monetary value of two goats.”  Presumably, this is meant to be funny.  Mr. Werleman spends most of his piece excoriating Southerners, and misusing statistics as if correlation always, and necessarily means causation.  Thus, he blames all form of social ill found in the Southern United States on religious Southerners.  Being a religious Southerner, my first reading of his article got me a bit irritated.  However, upon further review it appears his blowtorch may be out of acetylene. 

            A simple example will suffice to explain why.  Mr. Werleman claims the Northeastern United States has more atheists than religious people (this is undoubtedly correct).  He claims life is so much better in the Northeastern United States (this is debatable - how many people move North to retire?).  However, every summer the sale of ice cream and drownings both go up in the Northeastern United States.  Therefore, drownings must be related to the sale of ice cream and if all those silly atheist Northeasterners would stop buying ice cream in the summertime, the world would be a better place, since there would be less drownings.  Therefore, it must be the atheism that is causing those drownings since most people in the Northeast are atheists.  Absurd?  Of course it is.  However, this is precisely the so-called “blowtorch” Mr. Werleman applies in “analyzing” religion in the South and its alleged correlation to social ills in some Southern states.  He assumes correlation equals causation without really asking significant questions about his thesis because his assumptions fit the narrative he wants to proclaim: religion equals simple-minded and, therefore, social problems arise.  Gospel foolishness explains all.

            Does the Gospel message sound like foolishness?  Yup.  Does that make believers simple-minded?  Nope.  Anyone who has read Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Schaeffer, or Mohler can say many things about them, but the word simple-minded unequivocally does not apply.

            So how are Christians to respond to folks like Mr. Werleman?  First, we can’t get angry at the CJ Werleman’s of the world.  The apostle Paul talked about the foolishness of the gospel among those of the world.  Anger is misplaced because Mr. Werleman is just doing what comes naturally to any sinner – he treats God as nonsense, says mean and sarcastic things about believers, and generally denigrates religion, particularly Christianity, as almost sub-human.  No, rather than anger, we should feel sorry for Mr. Werleman.  He’s only going to end up burning himself with his own blowtorch.

            Second, we must maintain our steadfast conviction that the Gospel message can save anyone.  My experience in engaging many atheists is that they automatically assume Christians are non-intellectual and incapable of understanding rationality and logic.  While it can be helpful to show such is not the case, logical argumentation and rational discourse will never save anyone.  No one has ever been argued into believing the Gospel.  Matt Chandler of the Village Church in the Dallas, Texas area puts it something like this (not a direct quote): so you believe that some guy claimed he was God’s son? – yup – that he healed people of all kinds of disease without any medicine or medical know­-how? – yup – that he had a bunch of followers who all deserted him when he needed them? – yup –  he was killed by crucifixion, he was buried in a tomb,  but he came alive on his own after three days? – yup – and after that he floated up into heaven while his followers watched? – yup – and that he’ll be coming back on a white horse with some kind of writing on his leg and a sword in one hand to judge the entire earth? – yup.  And you really believe all this stuff?  Yup!

            To our naturalistic and allegedly scientific oriented minds in the 21^st century, the supernatural explanation of Jesus Christ, the God-Man sounds silly, outdated, and so ancient.  Yet, I have seen with my own eyes  and heard with my own ears the stories of too many sound, sane, smart people who believe exactly what Matt Chandler described.

            Here’s the thing.  As a litigation attorney of many years experience, I told many juries my client’s stories.  It wasn’t my job to make the decision for the jury, only to lay the raw, naked truth in front of them and then let the jury come to its own conclusions.  In the same way, I can only lay the Gospel out in front of folks – the beauty that despite our sin, despite our depravity, God, in his infinite holiness, sent Jesus to bear on the cross the punishment for the sins you and I have committed so that by repenting and believing that Jesus died, was buried, and came alive on the third day we are forgiven and have everlasting life.  Fortunately, it's up to the Holy Spirit to convict people of their need for Christ.  I just have to tell the story. 

          
          It’s only foolishness if it’s a lie.

            If you are reading this and you haven’t repented and believed, ask yourself this question: why would this guy lie to me?  I don’t gain anything the world loves if you become a believer.  I do gain a brother or sister in Christ with whom I will revel forever before the throne of the almighty God of the universe.  Foolishness? – perhaps in the eyes and ears of the world.  But not in the eyes and ears of the God of the universe – who matters more?