When Christianity Becomes Anti-Jesus - Part 1

When Christianity Becomes Anti-Jesus - Part 2

[Gary Petty] How do you decide what is good or moral behavior and what is bad or immoral behavior?

Traditionally, Christians have believed in a Creator God who defines what is good and evil for His creation. Now, secular humanism, on the other hand, defines goodness as actions that cause no harm. Listen to this view on these two different concepts of morality.

[TikTok video] Within a sin worldview, something is wrong if it goes against God's rules. And it places God as the ultimate victim. Not of actual harm, of course, but because you didn't obey Him. And I reject the idea that obedience is a moral good. See, my morality isn't about obedience. It's about harm done to other people around me. We'd probably both agree that killing is wrong. But see, I think it's wrong because it harms someone else, another human being on this horizontal scale. But you think it's wrong because God told us not to do it. And that's why I say I'm not a sinner. Because though I have done harm before, the victims were other humans. And my responsibility lay with making things right with them. God has never been a victim.

[Gary Petty] Now, it may come as a shock, but over the past decades, the humanist model of horizontal morality has become accepted by many Christians in what is commonly called woke Christianity.

Now, this simple chart explains the differences. The traditional Christian explanation of goodness, charted as vertical towards God, is defined by the goodness, wisdom, and authority of God. It is God who then defines the morality of human relationships.

Now, the humanist explanation of goodness, charted as horizontal morality, is defined by human ordained standards. These standards promote the acceptance of all religious beliefs, doing no harm, not judging, and sexual freedom.

Is the humanist concept of horizontal morality taught by Jesus, as many people believe? Now, you may be surprised, but Jesus addressed the concepts of vertical and horizontal morality. A man asked Jesus, what is the greatest of God's commandments? Jesus answered, and it's a quote from the Old Testament. He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment" (Matthew 22:37-38).

We'll come back and see how Jesus' instruction on vertical morality actually includes instructions on how we treat each other. But first, let's look at how He expanded vertical morality to apply to Himself. This is what Jesus did. See, at a different time in His ministry, a large crowd was drawn to Jesus and He said to them, "If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

Take a moment to process that. Jesus isn't saying that you should despise people. The Greek word translated hate in English is sometimes used as a comparison. In other words, our love and devotion for Jesus is to be more important than even our love and devotion towards our families. Now how could Jesus make this kind of statement?

Well, listen to another teaching of Jesus. He said, "'For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command—what I should say and what I should speak '" (John 12:49). He claims to be the spokesman of God. He also claimed throughout His ministry to be the Son of God. To believe and live by the teachings of Jesus is to accept that everything He taught is actually vertical morality and comes from God.

As a Christian, your first priority in determining goodness is your relationship with God the Father and Jesus as the Son of God. This relationship is based in accepting that God is the only one who knows the difference between good and evil and that God has authority over His creation as the Creator.

Now, I know a secular humanist will say at this point, this is why there may be some good to the teachings of Jesus, but He can't be accepted as a truly enlightened teacher or a divine person.

Unfortunately, woke Christianity takes the humanist teaching on horizontal morality and tries to cram that view into the teachings of Jesus.

So let's go back to where Jesus taught about our vertical relationship with God and see what He said about His followers and how they are to treat other people, because that's included in His teachings. He said, and this is the second of the great commandments of the Old Testament, is like the first one. He said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39-40) Jesus taught His disciples to care for the poor and the sick and to teach the gospel to the outcasts. May the parable of the Good Samaritan as one of the most well-known of Jesus' teachings. And His teachings spring from His vertical morality to love God first.

You're going to try to cram the humanist argument into the teachings of Jesus. You've come to a very important crossroad. Okay? So let's be honest. For many, the teachings of Jesus make them feel guilty, so they ignore Him. Or it causes anger because He forbids them to do behaviors that they like, so they reject Him. Or they hate His teachings to submit and worship God. They don't like His authority. God just doesn't meet their standards of love and fairness. At this crossroads, you must decide whether Jesus is really who He says He is as the spokesman and the Son of God or conclude, basically, He was a madman.

If you have wondered, what did Jesus really teach, just read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament. And to help you in your search to understand what vertical morality means, go to ucg.org/bt510. There you can download a study aid, Jesus Christ: The Real Story, and watch some important videos to help you understand what Jesus really taught. ucg.org/bt510.

The humanist view of goodness is based in a belief that human nature is basically good.

Pope Francis once said in an interview, "You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things. You see heroic mothers and heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. And he said that gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. People are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good."

There's a problem in what Pope Francis said. I mean, it is encouraging to see good in people, right? We are inspired by those who sacrifice their own comfort to care for the sick and impoverished. We find a sense of connection when we serve in a homeless shelter or reach out to those who are disabled. We admire the mothers who sacrifice their well-being to take care of their children, make their lives better. But the reality of a malicious violence of crime and hatred and prejudice and confusion and evil in the world around us proves that the human heart is tainted by, and at times driven by, evil. Once again, here's what Jesus said, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies" (Matthew 15:19).

Notice the first result of an evil heart is evil thoughts. Let's go back to the humanist belief that horizontal morality is acceptance of all religious beliefs, doing no harm, not judging others, and sexual freedom. Jesus here is explaining how loving God first, vertical morality, goes way beyond just not harming others. God just doesn't want us to do no harm to others. Now listen to this. He wants us not to do any harm to ourselves.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that it wasn't just wrong to commit adultery, but it's wrong to lust after someone who wasn't your marriage partner (Matthew 5:27-28). He said that it wasn't just wrong to kill someone, but it's wrong to hate someone, even if you didn't do them any harm (Matthew 5:22).

Let's read what Jesus said again. "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies". Evil thoughts, that's what produces violence, sexual immorality, which is on the list, stealing, lying, and hatred of God. The evil thought that no one else hears is still evil. The morality of Jesus requires a dramatic transformation of heart, soul, and mind. This transformation starts with the desire to seek the God of the Bible whom Jesus reveals.

Won't Christianity accept only a few teachings of Jesus while denying the Old Testament and the writings of Paul?

For the woke Christian, the Old Testament is primarily a book of fables. It misrepresents God because the biblical description of God, well, that's not how they define love. They believe that following the God of the Old Testament means to treat others with cruelty and prejudice and hatred. So they claim that the only one that they follow is Jesus.

But that's not true. The teachings of Jesus are rooted in the Old Testament. He accepted those Scriptures as inspired by the God of Abraham, the father of both the Jewish people and many of the Arab peoples.

The uniqueness of God revealed in the Bible is the bedrock of both Jesus' theology and moral precepts. He often used the book of Genesis as a background for His teachings. I mean, for Jesus, Adam and Eve and their sons Abel and Cain, Noah, King David, and the people of Sodom whom God killed are all historical facts. In His discussions with the Jewish people, He frequently spoke of Abraham. You see, you can't separate the teachings of Jesus from the Old Testament. Or you remove Him from the time in which He lived. You then miss the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus and you end up denying Him as the Son of God.

Now let's go back to the vertical and horizontal ideas of right and wrong. The traditional Christian explanation of goodness charted as vertical morality is defined by the goodness, wisdom, and authority of God. God then gives instructions on how to create healthy human relationships. The humanist explanation of goodness charted as horizontal morality is defined by human ordained standards. These standards promote the acceptance of all religious beliefs doing no harm, not judging and sexual freedom.

It is in the two great commandments that Jesus said, love towards neighbor is dependent upon first loving God. Christians who take the humanist view and apply it to Jesus, well, they actually become anti-Jesus. 

Now if you're seeking to understand who Jesus really is, go to ucg.org/bt510 and you can download your copy of Jesus Christ: The Real Story. Also, you can watch some in-depth videos of why His message is called the good news, the gospel. That's ucg.org/bt510.

And this leads us to the greatest spiritual danger of the humanist viewpoint of morality. And we'll cover this in part two of when Christianity becomes anti-Jesus.

Now if you're seeking to understand who Jesus really is, go to ucg.org/bt510 and you can download your copy of Jesus Christ: The Real Story. Also, you can watch some in-depth videos of why His message is called the good news, the gospel. That's ucg.org/bt510.