Christianity stands in stark contrast to world views and religions which teach an ungodly, fatalistic merger with earth or time.
The biblical approach is driven by God’s social and cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28), and His strong prescription for life and against death after the Fall. Hands have to be put to the plough in toil; culture is to give shape to nature. The seeming finality of death is to be weakened by bearing children.
Scripture insists that men and women interfere with fallen nature and produce change for good against evil, for life against death, for reason against blind faith. Indeed, God Himself interferes through the written, spoken, and living Word. By His Word alone do we know that He is good, that there has been a terrible fall from wholeness, that we are made in His image, able to understand and apply His revelation.
The Bible calls us to active intervention, not resignation. It invites us to invent, to correct, and to critique. We are to dig and to delve, to vote and to veto, to discern and to discover. Life is our focus, death a temporary enemy resulting from sin.
Poverty, bad government, laughter at the misfortune of others is acceptable only in cultures where fate is assumed. No problem is recognized when all is seen as deserved or the result of destiny.
Western man and the biblical culture mandate of dominion are accused of interference. To this we gladly plead “Guilty!” In contrast, few outside the people influenced by biblical teaching ever stir to help the poor, intervene in catastrophes, work for better government and cleaner air. But God’s people do not lie low, do not accept a destiny; they not only describe, but also prescribe, and stand up to be heard and heeded.
-- Udo Middleman
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