Why doesn't anyone care about Truth?

Why don't people think? Why are people content to just go through life without really considering the world around them? I ruffled more than a few feathers this year within my family by suggesting that perhaps we shouldn't celebrate Christmas. I didn't say we shouldn't, but I did say that we should examine the question rather than just "go with the flow." If Calvin, Spurgeon, the Puritans, and others had a problem with it to the point that they forbade the observance of Christmas, I thought it at least warranted another look.

When I would bring this up to people, the most common reactions were, "Of course Christmas is OK… Jesus is the Reason for the Season… How could it be wrong to celebrate the birth of Christ…" and so on. Trite little responses that don't really justify anything. Beyond that, most people seemed offended that I would even ask the question. They felt, I believe, that I was denying their beliefs by calling them to examine them.

Christianity gets a bad rap for asking its followers to accept things "on blind faith" and not ask too many questions. Some even go as far as to say that faith is "believing what doesn't make sense." Even worse, we've earned this reputation for ourselves. Too many of the "faithful" have no idea why the believe what they do, or what they even believe in the first place. This mental negligence leads to "Christians" who walk around saying, "Jesus loves you!" without knowing what any of those three words really mean. Who is "Jesus", what did he teach, and why did he live on earth for a time? What is "love", how does God express it toward his creation? Who are "you" fundamentally, does God "love" everybody (including "you"), and if not what are the implications? By taking things on "blind faith," we end up with fragmented and conflicting beliefs that bear no resemblance to Truth.

Most Christians simply choose to abstain from thinking. They go through the motions of whatever tradition they follow, and punch the time clock at the end of the pew on their way in and out on Sunday morning. If, by chance, they are exposed to some doctrinal Truth from the pulpit, from the Bible, or from a Christian friend, they shrug it off as irrelevant or unnecessary to their Jesus-n-Me theology. "Why bother with doctrine, just gimme Jesus. I accepted him into my heart to be my personal savior, and I don't need to be distracted with all of that other stuff."

This is disgraceful in view of the watching world. We tell people to believe in Jesus, but we can't explain why or what that even means. We go to church and Bible studies, and then neglect the truths we're exposed to in our Monday through Saturday lives. If a neighbor or a co-worker knocked on the door and asked us to tell them about God, most would refer them to their pastor or an elder at their church.

We need to start to think like Christians, exposing every thought and philosophy to the lordship of Christ. We need to search the Bible for truth and, by God's grace, apply it to our lives, even when it is in direct opposition to our culture, our traditions, or our personal preferences. We need to figure out what we believe and why we believe it. And, we need to be ready to explain our beliefs and the evidence for them to the watching world.