Ephesians 6:10-20 — Girded with Truth

Ephesians 6:10-20 — Girded with Truth

During the health crisis of 2021, the refrain of those who insisted that we must comply with the whims of self-serving bureaucrats was "Follow the Science." To coarse us into compliance, politicians, bureaucrats, and even weak Christian leaders would preface their statements, in a big ominous voice, with "SCIENCE SAYS . . . " But the idiocy of such declarations was obvious to any keen observer of science, politics, and human nature. Science does not say anything. Scientists do. Science is never finalized. By its nature, science is provisional. Richard Feynman, one of the most eminent physicists of the 20th Century, said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." So why has science been hijacked to deceive and manipulate people? Because the battle between good and evil, our spiritual warfare, is fought in the mind. The worldview behind the “Follow the Science” campaign is atheism, a secular humanistic philosophy. It ironically elevates reason and rationality as the only arbiter of reality while removing the basis, namely God, to even justify why reason and rationality can even be trusted.

Moreover, our public discourse has become increasingly incoherent. The same person who says, "follow the science", also says "follow your heart", a postmodernist mantra. If secular humanism, an atheistic worldview, elevates reason as the ultimate authority, postmodernism, a pantheistic worldview, elevates experience and feeling. Postmodernism rejects the idea that we can make a claim to absolute truth. It rejects that the world has been designed and ordered by God, and we need to figure out and work within it; the world is what we make it. If secular humanism centralizes human rationality and rejects the belief in God working in the world, postmodernism stresses intuition and experience over reason and knowledge. If secular humanism emphasized reason over revelation (Scripture), postmodernism emphasized the dominance of feelings over revelation. So why has people's desire to care for and empathize with others been manipulated to usher in wickedness into our culture? Because the battle between good and evil, our spiritual warfare, is fought in the heart.

So, what is the impact of this madness on the church in America? In 2022, 38% of U.S. Evangelical believed that "religious belief is a matter of personal opinion; it is not about objective truth" (TheStateOfTheology.com). The result has been that several serious and harmful heresies have crept into the church. This includes the "social gospel," the "prosperity gospel," the "kingdom now" teaching, the "just love" gospel, feminism, New Age spirituality, and Liberation theology to name a few. Although it may seem that these aberrations are taking hold in the church, Scripture says,

This is why the first thing we must do to take up the Armor of God is having our waist "girded with truth" (Ephesians 6:14a).