Now, the other way in which people identify themselves in a big way is through their religion. In some ways, religion is quite similar to racial identity. 99.99% of people who follow a religion follow it because they were born into it, because their parents were part of that religion and because they just accept what their peers round about them believe and which religion they follow.
If you’re born into a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or Jewish family, it’s likely you’re going to identify as a Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jewish person. So, your religion may not have anything to do with what you believe about God, it’s just the religious group which you were born into.
In the past, most people lived in areas and communities where one religion dominated and they belonged to that dominant religion. What they actually believed about God may have had little to do with it, but that was their identity.
Now things are slightly different because we live in this great multicultural/multifaith city of London where we have people of all different faiths living alongside each other and, increasingly, we are told that, in this multifaith society, we have to accept one another, which we do.
But we also have to accept that all faiths lead to God, that they’re all equal. In other words, that’s where a problem comes in as far as we, as Christians, are concerned because such a statement and belief are not true.
We also have a widespread influence of a secular society with atheism humanism many people have no faith and no allegiance to any religion we also have the growth of alternative religions like Cults New Age yoga alternative philosophies many of which have the idea that God is ‘within you as you‘ and that ‘you have to tap in and find the god within you‘.
Again, that conflicts with what we believe because we believe that God is outside of you and that you have to invite God into your life through faith in Jesus.
As I said earlier, if I look within myself, I find no good thing. I find the influence of power of the devil and evil spirits. We find also that all religions, in some way, conflict with Biblical truth, that is, that only repentance and faith in Jesus Christ can lead us to the One God who made us and redeems us through Jesus Christ.
Just to add to the problems, we find that in our society, Christianity has become confused and for the most part has veered very far from Biblical truth. We have Bishops who really don’t believe very much about the Gospel. Some even struggle to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And they have all kinds of ideas which are quite contrary to the scriptures.
If you hold the biblical view that Jesus meant it when He said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except by Me’ (John 14:6), you may find yourself being put down by the mainstream church. But it’s true that there is only One way to God through Jesus, and if it is true, then all other religions, including nominal Christianity do not lead to the true God revealed in the Bible. In which case, their basic premises are wrong.
In the modern identity movement, you mustn’t say that people are wrong. Have you noticed that? You mustn’t say things are ‘evil’, you can say they’re unacceptable, but you can’t say they’re evil.
We have done away with ‘good and evil’. We’ve done away with ‘right and wrong’. Everything merges in this soggy mess in the middle. But if you want to preach the Gospel, and you’re going to preach to people of other faiths, you have to tell them that, somewhere along the line, what they believe is wrong and that they should repent of what they believe and believe in what God says in the Bible, in Jesus Christ.
Evangelism is trying to change someone’s view of God. If you try and do that to a person who’s a Muslim, is Jewish or a nominal Christian, in the eyes of the identity movement, you’re doing something which is wrong.
The pope has said that ‘proselytism is not Christian’. What he means by ‘proselytism’ is trying to convert somebody from one faith to another. So, if you’re a Christian, what you have to do, apparently, is just be such a loving loving person that people are going to be attracted to you and they’re going to become Christians.
Well, it doesn’t work like that, does it? There are certain truths which you have to convey to people if you want to lead them to Christ. The fact that they’re sinners, that they need to repent, they need to believe the Gospel and all of those things will challenge their identity as it is.
You mustn’t do that in the modern identity movement. So, evangelism is not something which is terribly acceptable in the eyes of the world. Yet, the Bible tells us that the way to love God, to love your neighbour and yourself is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as our unique Saviour and Lord.
This faith puts us on a collision course with the identity movement. In my view, if you practice yoga, if you try and find God within yourself, you are deluded and what you’re trying to find is something which is harmful and will lead you into bondage with evil spirits.
Also, you mustn’t say that ‘my conclusion from reading the Bible and the Quran is that Muhammad is a false prophet‘. You definitely must not say that publicly because that is well, I am saying it publicly. I’m not playing by the rules, but, basically, if you say that, you’re being ‘Islamophobic’ and you’re offending a Muslim. So, you mustn’t say it, you must ‘paper over the cracks’ if you like, you’re insulting a Muslim’s identity. It may even be considered to be a ‘hate crime’. In Scotland, they’ve just passed a Hate Crimes Law and you could end up in trouble with the law if you say what I’ve just said.
I don’t hate Muslims. In fact, we should love Muslims on the basis that we should ‘love our neighbours as ourself’. But loving Muslims and loving people of any other faith means bringing to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, telling them to repent and believe the Gospel.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40
Therefore, again, we have a issue on this topic of people’s religious identity and it conflicts with what we believe about the Gospel.