TRUTHFILTER

  WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WHAT IS IT NOT ! THE CONFUSION “Christian faith is something from the past!” That is the opinion of many people today. But… is that really true? This article shows why we cannot do without it. The idea that the Christian faith belongs to the past is usually based on an incomplete and incorrect understanding of what the Christian faith actually is. After all the centuries since Christ walked the earth, the image of what it is has become so blurred that today, in almost every conversation about it, it is first necessary to clearly define what we are actually talking about. And also: what are we not talking about? Because being mistaken about this is not an option! Enjoy reading!

  CULTURE The image people have of the Christian faith is, of course, almost entirely shaped by the culture they live in. Northern Europe tends to think of Protestant churches. Southern Europe thinks of the Catholic Church. When you bring up this topic, you can almost literally see church towers appearing in someone’s mind. But the Christian faith is not the product of a culture; nor is it the same as a culture. It has influenced culture in some parts of the world, but the faith itself stands apart from it. IT IS NOT “WESTERN” As a result, the Christian faith is often seen as something Western. Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists shouldn’t be bothered with it, people say—they have their own truths. IT IS NOT “UNSCIENTIFIC” The modern generation tends to view faith as something unscientific. Religion, values, and opinions are, according to many young people, not part of the scientific realm but of the emotional one—something that might provide a bit of meaning if you feel you need it....

  The Christian faith is the understanding that God exists and that He has spoken. He has done so in the Bible, which He had written down by fallible people, yet over which He Himself has maintained complete control—right up to this day. The Christian faith is the belief that starts from the complete truth of the Bible, precisely because it speaks about and from the only possible source of truth and absolutes. All systems of thought that do not start from the fact that God exists as the sole source of truth and absolutes—and that He has made this known to us—whether they are atheistic views or non-biblical religious traditions, are subjective, changeable, and unprovable. A simple example of this is the widespread idea that “if you live a good enough life, you have a chance at eternal life.” This idea is found in many religions—from Catholicism and Islam to numerous animistic belief systems. The Bible does not teach this idea at all, and Christians therefore reject it. Read here wh...

  We have already seen that the Christian worldview can be summarized as: God exists, and He has spoken. And that alone forms the basis for being able to know and understand our reality—no matter where in the world we are born or live. If God, as the only possible source of Truth and Absolutes, has not spoken, then we as human beings cannot know anything—not even whether we can know anything. If we take human beings as our starting point, then we have nothing absolute—only subjective, changeable, and incomplete opinions. That cannot provide a foundation for truth, logic, morality, knowledge, and science—things that everyone, whether religious or not, uses every day. Those who think that we no longer need God or the Christian faith today, and that we now live independently of such things, are mistaken. Everything we do is based on His existence and the fact that He has spoken. The Christian faith and worldview is the only worldview that can account for reality as we know it. All ot...

  The Christian message has nothing to do with human ideas about God or with spirituality. In short, this is what the Bible tells us: God is God. He has no beginning but is eternal. God is the Creator of everything that exists. God made man—not the other way around. God has made it known to every person that He exists. God has revealed Himself as a Trinity in the Bible Everything we need to know about God, the reason for our lives and eternity has been recorded in the Bible.  Apart from Him, no other gods exist. God has nothing to do with human ideas about Him. God created humanity in His own image and gave people the responsibility to live for Him and with Him. Man refused this and chose his own way. Man replaced God with man-made religions, idols, and self-made philosophical systems. In modern society, human beings have placed themselves in the position of God. The consequences are catastrophic—too many to list here. We see them daily on the news and in our own lives. Man ca...

  If the Bible does not come from God, but is simply a piece of religious heritage—made up and written down long ago by some religious people—then truth does not exist. The visible reality we live in offers us no truth at all. Everything here is temporary; everything dies and disappears. There is nothing absolute here on which we can build our understanding of reality. And yet, we do operate on the basis of absolutes and truth—and rightly so. But for that, we must always “borrow” from God, the only source of absolutes and truth—and the One whom every person knows exists. Whoever comes to that realization can no longer treat it as something optional or merely philosophical. They must, as quickly as possible, abandon their impossible non-Christian worldview and acknowledge the God of the Bible. The Bible itself calls this “repentance.” Because if someone tells you that your house stands on a foundation full of holes and cracks—and that there is a real chance the roof could collapse o...

We are people from different churches who accept the Bible as the only source of Truth. Therefore, we do not belong to Catholicism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or any other group that accepts additional sources of truth alongside the Bible. Most of us belong to evangelical churches in Flanders and the Netherlands.