“What's the big deal about Jesus?” Dirk Ficca asked at a meeting last year of the Center for Progressive Christianity.

Ficca, a Presbyterian preacher from Chicago, serves as his denomination’s point man for dialogue with world religions. His zeal for embracing Buddhist, Hindus, Muslims and Jews as fellow travelers heading to a common destination is widely shared in Liberal Protestantism.

While most would not be as bold as Ficca, his question has a logical consistency. If there are many, equally valid paths to God, what is the big deal about Jesus?

The Big Ship

Within the churches of Christ we have many who are headed down the same path.

One popular preacher has compared the different denominations with various crew assignments on a big ship. Catholics, Protestants, Charismatics and unimmersed all follow the same Lord and are going to the same eternal destiny.

Even more inclusive, the Bible faculty at major brotherhood school has floated the idea that Jews today still have a special place in God’s plan of salvation. These trends are leading to the same position Dirk Ficca proposes: abandoning all distinctives, even faith in Christ.

Selling Your Soul

Peace and unity are precious, but they are not worth abandoning the gospel. There needs to be unity based on a shared faith, not unity based on a mutual infidelity. “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 4:4-6)

Jesus is a big deal because salvation is in Jesus alone. If we deny the gospel to achieve a superficial unity with other religions, we stand in danger of eternal separation from God.

Under a new rule announced by the Bush administration, "unborn children" now qualify for government health benefits. In promoting prenatal care, federal policy now defines childhood as beginning at conception.

Thousands of poor families will benefit from this change, and the abortion debate has shifted ground. The issue is no longer merely a woman’s right to choose birth or abortion. Federal policy now explicitly considers the rights of unborn children. In recognizing an unborn child’s right to healthcare, the government has taken an important first step in restoring the unborn child’s more basic right to life.

God’s Gift

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,” our Declaration of Independence asserts, “that all men are created equal.” Not born equal, not aspire to be equal, and not declared equal by the courts or the legislature – all men are created equal.

If God gives us our human rights, we cannot claim life is just “our choice.” If God does not give us our rights, we cannot claim there is any basis for those rights beyond mere political expediency. The abortion debate cannot be considered outside of the broader issue of God’s role as author of human life and dignity.

A Loss of Humanity

The magnitude of this national horror is overwhelming. The most frequent surgical procedures in the United States, abortions nationally kill 1.3 million children a year.

Beyond this tragic loss of life, our very humanity is being destroyed as we ignore God’s role as Creator. “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5, ESV)

Hopefully, we will learn to cherish the gift of life and will learn to reverence the God who gave it.

by Greg Tidwell

Over the past three years I have had the opportunity to work with my twin sons in Cub Scouts.

Recently, at Scout Leaders’ training, I was reminded of the importance of a good knife for productive work. A sharp blade cuts clean and makes work straightforward, while a dull edge makes work awkward and cuts rough.

The quality of a knife depends both on the temper of the steel and on the form given the edge. As Benjamin Franklin observed in Poor Richard’s Almanac: “There was never a good knife made of bad steel.” If care is not taken in the formation of the blade, no amount of whetting will bring quality to the edge.

Character Matters

In the same way the work of the various programs of the Boy Scouts seeks to develop character as boys become men. Character is like the steel of the blade, the underlying feature that determines its quality.

Given good character, a young man becomes a useful part of society – his abilities honed to a keen edge of effectiveness because of the underlying strength of the stuff of which he is made.

An Investment for Eternity

As notable as the work of scouting is, the work of the church is even more important. We are responsible for teaching the gospel to the boys and girls God has placed in our care. This training is our task as parents, and as Christians. We owe our youths the opportunity to grow into the men and women they can be in Christ.

As the wise man counsels: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (ESV) The children we touch with the truth of Christ are a blessing now and forever, not merely effective citizens of a human republic but productive citizens of the eternal kingdom.

“Parents need to eat the diet they would like their child’s diet to become,” nutrition researcher Jennifer Fisher advises in the September issue of Prevention magazine. “By eating fruits and veggies themselves, parents can start a lifetime of cancer-fighting food habits without having to say a word,” the article continues. This common sense observation has profound applications.

Your Example

Parents, your children are watching you. What you eat, they will likely eat. As they see you read the Bible, they will learn to read the Bible. As they see you pray, they will learn to pray. Personal habits learned in childhood direct the course of a life.

Certainly, habits of good health and of good hygiene are important for parents to instill into children. We appropriately take care through instruction and through example to help children develop proper physical practice which will last a lifetime. How much more important, however, is the development of spiritual health which lasts beyond a lifetime into eternity?

Today, not Tomorrow

Procrastination is the death of many good intentions. How many diet and exercise programs have perished in an endless succession of tomorrows? Likewise with our spiritual health, we often delay doing what we know we ought to do. We delude ourselves into thinking that we have unlimited time to make the changes we know we ought to make.

While this thinking is wrong-headed in reference to ourselves, how much more is it mistaken in reference to our children. Lost opportunities to bless a child are, in one sense gone forever. Be what you ought to be today, so your children will see what they ought to see today. No material investment could bring the payoff of a life invested in the future of a child.

It has all happened before. And, if the Lord awaits His coming, it will all happen again. But it is happening now, the accommodation of God’s church with the agenda of the world. And to those of us resisting the current trend towards compromise with the world, it is unlike any conflict we have faced in our lifetime.

We sound this warning knowing full well that we will be misrepresented and knowing full well that our message will be misconstrued. Distortion of reality is always a defense when vested interests are challenged.

Remember, this tactic was used by Ahab against Elijah. The prophet’s answer serves our purposes well in the current conflict:

"When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, 'Is it you, you troubler of Israel?' And he answered, 'I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.'" 1 Kings 18:17-18 (ESV)

Ahab accused Elijah of being a troublemaker in Israel because he would not "get with the program," as the old saying goes. The prophet would not unite behind Ahab’s evil agenda of false religion.

Elijah, however, countered this misinformation by turning the accusation back on Ahab. The king, not the prophet, was the troubler of Israel. The fault of broken fellowship rests with those who abandon the Lord’s way to follow religion of their own design.