My Goodness

I just read an article saying that an atheist organization is going to start putting billboards up around New York City promoting their belief system. They will say: "A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?" I have no real problem with this, as it is the way of the world and I’m not called to fight the world but to be an ambassador for Christ. The only issue I have is the underlying meaning of the statement and the quote that one of the leaders made, that individuals "don't need religion to be good people and productive members of society.” I think they're missing the point.

To me, it’s not about creating “good people” or being “productive members of society.” That’s not what drives me as a Christian. What I see is that we live in a society that is not good, that creation is groaning and that we are currently living under the weight of thousands of years of bad decisions, decisions made apart from God. We live under the weight of these as individuals in our old nature, and as a culture under a fallen nature.

I live as Christian because I believe that individually I need to be redeemed. My goodness is not the point. My productivity in this fallen culture is not the point. The fact of the matter is that in the beginning God called His creation “good” and since then it has fallen into a very not-good place. My call is to be an agent of redemption, not a proclaimer of my own goodness, as these billboards try to do. Who in the world can make that stunning claim? “I am good!”

I think that Atheists and Christians alike can see that things are not good right now. How can you live in world where there is constant war and famine and proclaim it good? How can you live in country that averages five (5!) child abuse–related deaths a day and proclaim it good? I live in a town that has at least one heroin overdose a week – I can’t stand up and make some broad claim of goodness. If we can’t feel this problem - taste it, smell it, see it - then we’ve purposely closed our eyes and shut down our senses.

That's why Christ came - to bring healing and redemption to a world that has gone bad. I can quote all the verses about the foolishness of the atheist, but that would be pointless. The atheist doesn't accept the Word. What isn't pointless is the obvious fact that things are not right. Our claims of 'goodness' are only relative claims, made against the lives of other people. I haven't been redeemed so that I can stand up and declare "My goodness." I've been redeemed so I can bring the goodness of God to a fallen world.

The question is - am I proclaiming my own righteousness or am I an ambassador of the righteousness of God? If the resources of the church are not used on both levels, personal and creation redemption, then we've proceeded to produce the most hypocritical waste of money in the history of the world.