Baal worship

I have a lot of sympathy for Elijah.

He was a prophet of God, not bothered at all about image or spin or what all the people might think. He simply loved the Lord and was appalled at the way the people had gone off the rails.

Sometimes he felt he was almost alone in maintaining the genuine worship of God.

He wasn't, of course. The Lord had to gently correct him on that. But it sure as nothing felt like some of the time.

The bulk of the people back then in the days of Elijah had gone off the rails and embraced to themselves, as the worship of God, a whole load of 'guff' from their neighbours out there in the 'world'.

Perhaps they were trying to be culturally cool. Contemporary. With it.

But Baal worship was a self-indulgent mockery of the great Creator God, a cheap, self-centred rejection of the humble, trembling worship of the holy God of Israel to which they all were summoned.

If it made you feel good, you could take it on board. Baal worship had a lot of attractions!

And most of the people back then were conned into thinking that this was entirely acceptable and jumped into bed with the Baals.

Figuratively.

And sort of literally too. Baal worship was highly sensual stuff and encouraged a free expression of the sensual side of folk.

It grieved and distressed, and disturbed and perturbed this prophet of God called Elijah. And, like I say, I have a lot of sympathy for the guy.

I feel exactly the same.

A contemporary version of 'Baal worship' is rife throughout our land. And rife, what's more - rife within the church.

Today I learned of the stuff that's being used in the training post-graduate students in one part of the country are receiving as they work towards their diploma in primary school teaching.

There's a course on religious and moral education and it starts with Christianity. One of the resources that the students are given is a DVD produced in conjunction with a well-known, prominent congregation of the Church of Scotland.

This is the sort of stuff the resource contains.

Is there life after death?

We believe that life continues after death in the memory of others whose lives have been touched by that individual. We are less certain about theconcept of a heaven. In a fundamental sense death gives rise to new life in the re-cycling of nature.

If you are a good person, but don't follow any specific religion, when you die, will you still go to heaven?

Basically we don't know - but we would like to think that people who have been kind and set a good example, even without any specific beliefs, would still go to heaven.

Is marriage necessary?

No - but desirable. Stable relationships are of the utmost importance, but we recognise that there are many of these outside marriage.

What are your views on pre-marital sex?

Depends whether it is promiscuous or part of a committed relationship.

This is no more than up-to-the-moment, cutting edge Baal worship.

And it's promulgated by the church. The (big)church to which I belong. And it bears no more resemblance to the good news of Jesus Christ than Baal worship ever did to the genuine worship of God.

To suggest that it might be is 'guff'. A lie of hell. It has nothing to do with what Scripture teaches at all.

"Elijah, where are you?!" I'm wanting to cry.

And then I hear the still small voice of the Lord suggesting, with a gentle cough, that I and my like might be called now to do his work.

You wonder why I'm struggling within the church to which I belong?

Well, this is why. Here's what a student who's doing that course has to say about this so-called 'resource' on the Christian faith from that well-known congregation.

I am deeply saddened, angry and offended by some of the statements of belief which appear in this resource. What upsets me more is that this is the only information on Christianity a lot of my peers on the course have ever and possibly will ever hear.

Exactly.

The person has every right to be sad, angry and deeply, deeply offended. And the person's not alone.

Elijah didn't mince his words. And I hope you can see why it's time for that sort of speaking today.

Today's pervasive Baal worship is a million miles from the good news of Jesus Christ.