Let me ask you a couple of questions.  Are you a Christian?  How many times have you seen drivers greet each other with only one finger, or have you saluted someone with that motion?  What about how nice people are while waiting in line; are you calm and pleasant?  Are people safe in their homes, work, or while they enjoy a day off?  How do you feel about your safety?  Or have you participated in some kind of crime?  But, I thought that America was a nation of faith?  We are far from being a lawless nation, but with our Judeo-Christian history, shouldn’t we have less crime and anger than we do? 

Let’s look at some numbers.  As a believer in Christ, I find it difficult to explain how America can sustain a pornographic industry to the tune of more than 10 billion dollars, a year!  If it is true, that 20% of Americans do not believe in God, then each of them must be wealthy and addicted to porn, right?  Of course, it is more than that.  Our crime statistics show, according to the Bureau of Justice, that 26% of crimes are violent.  That may sound low, but what it means is that of citizens 12 years of age and older, we experienced 8.1 million crimes of a violent nature.  Even worse, of the 31.1 million crimes committed in 1998, nearly 23 million were property crimes.  The cost is astounding due to that amount of loss, destruction and the overwhelming fear it puts into the population.  It isn’t just the criminal violations that expose our society; it is the civil lawsuits as well.  In 1996, the 75 largest counties in the US held 15,638 tort, contract and real property cases that were decided by juries.  Overall, plaintiffs won 52% of the jury cases and won about $3 million in compensatory and punitive damages.  This is millions of dollars and time spent because people are dishonest in their dealings, in one way or the other.  The numbers do not seem to be going down for any of these categories. 

So what about the faith in America, your faith?  Do we have statistics for this as well?  Indeed we do thanks to some groups that track these things for us.  According to HarrisInteractive, a poll conducted in September of 2003, showed that 79% of Americans believe in God.  That sounds pretty good for those of us who are counted among those believers; however, only 66% are absolutely certain. The way HarrisInteractive broke down the numbers; it seems that 63% of Catholics, 81% of Protestants and 24% of Jews who claimed to believe in a God, have a certain belief that there is a God.  The groups get real small when asked about weekly church service, that’s only 26% of respondents overall.  For those with faith, I would expect these numbers to be higher.  I mean, if you are going to believe in God, to actually have a stated faith, why not believe all the way.  As CS Lewis said, “Christianity if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.  The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”  

I have come to believe that this is a two-fold problem for Christians.  The first is how we define Christianity, and the second is how we see Almighty God.  To define Christianity, I used some of the questions that the Bana Research Group used to define what they call a biblical world view, as well as some of my own:

1. Is God an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator, who still rules the universe?
2. Is the bible accurate in all of its teachings?
3. Did Mary give birth to Jesus, still a virgin?
4. Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
5. Did Jesus die on the cross for all of our sins?
6. Did Jesus rise from the dead, in bodily form?
7. Is salvation a free gift?
8. Do you believe in the Trinity; God as one nature, yet having three persons in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
9. Is Satan a real, living entity?
10. Do you have a responsibility to share your Christian faith?
11. Are good works useless without faith?
12. Is Christianity the only way to obtain heaven?

If you answered “yes” to all these 12 questions, then you would have a Christian worldview.  If you answered no to any of these, than may I ask why?  Each one of these questions has an explicit relation to Scripture, and has been part of the Christian faith since its earliest days.  Even the Trinity, although the word is not found in Scripture, has been understood since shortly after our Lord’s resurrection.  It can be found in the bible as a reaching of Christ, just not using the word trinity. 

As to how we see God, we need to look at how God Himself describes himself.  Read chapter 38 of the book of Job.  See how God answers Job regarding his questions.  We see for ourselves in Psalms, “The Lord is enthroned as King forever.  The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.”  We see here that God is a sovereign king.  He is King of Kings, and Creator of all things seen and unseen.  For an American, who has neither had a chance to vote God into office, nor had their representative put in for a clause to the Ten Commandments, this idea of a King can be hard to swallow.  When we think of totalitarian kings in the human world, it always turns out bad, scary.  However, God’s ways are fat above our ways.  He is eternal, having no beginning, and will have no end.  How can we as humans, question God.  This is what you’ll read in Job.  As it is written, does the pot tell the potter how it should be used?

What would happen if 100% of believers agreed to the above questions and had a worldview such as this?  Can you imagine if we saw God as He truly is, and didn’t question His every decree?  The church would truly be universal once more, which would be a start.  But take a look at what is not asked in these questions.  No questions on drug use, adultery, homosexuality, or even one on baptism.  So how could twelve questions that don’t relate to our real world, make any difference?  Why is seeing the Lord as a Sovereign King truly important?  Because, my friends, in affirming these supreme issues, all of us would be under the True discipline of Christ.  We would accept the Ten Commandments as they are and we would live out the teachings of Christ to the best of our human ability.  We would be more concerned with our treasure in heaven, and less about our own wallets.  We would be, for lack of a better example, the Christian community found in the Acts of the Apostles.  That, my brothers and sisters in Christ, would change the world in ways unimaginable.  For now, it seems we will have to wait on His Glorious return.  Until then, we will go on sharing our faith and telling others of the Good News.  So, you’re a Christian?  Seriously?