Secular Salvation

The stories from the Bible were so important for so long that they have permeated every part of western civilization in at least some way. Have you ever noticed, for example, that most of the fairy tales that have been read to children for centuries can be seen to be reflected in the Bible? So many of those stories are largely Bible stories with the religion taken out and new characters put in. It is fairly easy to see that the writers of those stories were raised on the Bible stories.

Likewise, the idea of salvation as presented in the Bible has been with us for so long that it will inevitably influence our patterns of thought and our way of seeing the world. It is easy to see that today, the biblical idea of salvation by the death of Jesus has been replaced by various secular forms of "salvation" following the same pattern.

The goal of people used to be to live a life pleasing to God so that they would spend eternity in heaven with him. Today, we have the same kind of feeling toward "striking it rich" in some way. All we have to do is win the lottery or emerge victorious on American Idol and we will be all set, we will have it made. Eternal salvation does not even enter the equation or does so in a very watered-down kind of way.

The truth is that we are not "all set". A person could obtain all of the money in the world, then get hit by a car or be killed by the next school or mall shooter, and spend eternity in hell. Even if that does not happen, when they face God, all of it will mean absolutely nothing. We need to pay much more attention to being "all set" for eternity instead of just for our brief lives.

Another form that secular salvation takes today is being "connected" with others, in other words, being popular. How often do we hear on the news "He was such a loner, and then one day he walked in with an assault rifle and killed everybody. If only he had been more connected this would not have happened".

First of all, this form of secular salvation is incorrect. Sir Isaac Newton was a loner who was definitely not connected and never seems to have had any real friends. Yet, he never killed anybody and spent his time establishing that there is a force called gravity that runs the universe, developing calculus, starting the modern science of physics by breaking down sunlight with a prism and explaining why and, making the science of astronomy that we have today possible by figuring out how to make a telescope with mirrors, instead of lenses, so that the instrument could me made much larger and more powerful. Altemio Sanchez, in contrast, was gregarious and popular everywhere he went and yet has been convicted of being the unknown serial killer that haunted Buffalo for over twenty years.

Maybe if the killer at Virginia Tech University had been connected with God, this would not have happened. When someone really internalizes the fact that there is an eternal judgement that everyone must face and their residence for all of eternity is at stake, they usually tend to modify their behavior accordingly.

Don't get me wrong, it is great to be connected and popular. I am absolutely stunned at how many readers I have. But as with money, this will be of no avail when facing God. It will only be the salvation offered by the sacrifice of Jesus that will be of benefit.