Supermarket or Antidote?

Hi friends,

I pray that you are all well rested after the summer or winter break. I had a lot of free time to ponder on things and if you like it or not I will share with you from a book that I have been reading. It is called Christian Apologetics by Doug Powell. At this place, I would like those who don't like a lot of reading to stop here. For the others, please bear with me as it is quite long ...

Picture yourself in a vast supermarket that is fully stocked. Yet instead of selling food, this supermarket sells religions. The departments are all the same but have taken on symbolic meaning. For example, the meat department sells Judaism, representing the animal sacrifice needed for blood atonement. The cereal aisle is where Hinduism is found since cereal boxes often feature characters. "A different God in each box! Collect all 330, 000,000!" In the baking goods aisle Islam is for sale since all the other foods started with this stuff but became corrupted when it was baked. New Age religion is found in the candy section since the power behind both is how appealing they are. Dead religions, beliefs no one holds anymore like Greek mythology, Molech worship, and golden calves, are found in the frozen food section. Christianity, with all its scenes in gardens and agricultural parables, is in the produce department. Mind sciences are available in the magazine aisle. There is a person sitting in an empty shopping cart pushing himself around the store - a Buddhist, of course. There is another person who can't find anything in the store at all - an atheist. Some shoppers are strictly vegetarian, some eat only meat, but all the diets are of equal value. They all basically do the same thing - feed you. In charge of the checkout counter is death itself. After your selection is made, you pay with your life. Whether there is anything outside the exit door and what happens there is the big question.

Is religion really like this, an act of preference where different elements can be mixed and matched at will? Or is religion something entirely different, like an antidote?

Instead of a supermarket, picture yourself in an emergency room with a serious illness. The doctor explains that the illness is 100% fatal unless one particular antidote is administered. He then goes on to say that recovery from the illness after taking the antidote has a 100% success rate. By this, the doctor is proclaiming that your preferences do not matter at all; they are not a part of the conversation. Whether or not you like to get shots or take pills is irrelevant. This particular ailment has a particular remedy that needs to be administered in a particular way. Do it or die. Given this illness and the necessary treatment, a misdiagnosis is very dangerous. No one having a heart attack wants to go to a doctor who thinks the proper response is to put a leg in a cast. Proper treatment is necessary no matter how distasteful, inconvenient, painful, or even offensive. There is no going shopping for the treatment you like best. The remedy is the remedy - period. The patient must conform his thinking to accept the remedy or face the alternative.

Christianity properly understood is an antidote, not a lifestyle choice or part of a well-balanced religious view. Like the antidote, it can be painful and inconvenient. It can be socially unacceptable. But most of all, it can be offensive. Most of us would much rather take the supermarket approach where we always ended up with a religion tailored to our lifestyles and preferences and could change as we change.

Jesus Christ is not just a cherry flavoured cough syrup that works just as well as the lemon flavoured Buddha. Belief in Jesus is an extremely invasive heart procedure that brings people to life. And it is the only procedure that will work.