Jamie Whyte's column in the Times on Tuesday was one to make any Christian sit up and think. Buried amongst the narrow minded vitriol and unimaginative sideswipes at Christian politicians was this remarkable prophetic gem:"Suppose you believed that Heaven exists and that only some of us will qualify to live in it for ever, as the vast majority of Christians claim to. How would this affect your behaviour? It would depend on what you thought were the admission criteria for Heaven. But whatever you took these virtues to be, they would utterly dominate your life. When everlasting bliss is on offer, nothing else matters at all. People who believed in Heaven would surely act quite unlike those who do not. Yet the expected behavioural difference is not to be observed. The vast majority of Christians display a remarkably blasé attitude toward their approaching day of judgment, leading lives almost indistinguishable from those of us open non-believers. Put simply, they fail the behavioural test for belief."
I could imagine Jesus saying the same thing (although he would have used shorter words). Though Whyte misses the rather important point that Christians don't believe eternal life can be 'earned' through behaviour, the rest of his observation is spot on.
The great shame is that Jamie Whyte has cleary never met an actual follower of Jesus close up. Having just got back from the 24-7 Prayer movement's annual gathering, I humbly suggest that it would have been a good place to start looking. And of course, if you feel that these guys are having a bit too much fun in the midst of personal sacrifice, a brief trip to the jails of China or North Korea should settle the point once and for all.
But I'm still going to use his article when I preach in church this Sunday.
