Faith Angles
“We believe that understanding the role of faith in today’s world isn’t optional or nice to know. It’s need to know.” This is how CNN explained why they came up with Belief Blog, where they will “cover the role that faith and belief play in the news - and in [their] readers’ lives… [They] will focus on the places where faith bumps up against the rest of the news and the rest of the world, from breaking news to entertainment, from business to politics, and from foreign affairs to sports.”
As far as CNN is concerned, these faith angles explain much of the news ranging from a young man’s failed plot to bomb New York’s Times Square (He is a Muslim who took a vow to defend Islam from “humiliation”) to Barrack Obama’s rise to the presidency. (As a young Columbia University graduate, Obama had quit his first finance job and tried his hand in community organizing sponsored by Christian churches in Chicago. Not only that this launched his political career, it was “an experience that led him to Christianity”.) According to CNN Belief Blog, “To understand any of this news, you need to know something about faith… In a shrinking world, knowing what it’s like to undergo an adult baptism or to pray to Mecca five times a day is essential to understanding the world’s most powerful leaders - and, perhaps, the person in the next cubicle… Faith isn’t incidental to these stories; it’s the driving force behind them.”
Yes, our faith does matter. It is essential in life. It is neither optional nor incidental. Someone wrote that to permanently change a person’s behavior, we have to radically change his belief. That’s also the point of James when he wrote, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (2:18, ESV) Our works show our faith. What we actually do (not what we say) reflects what we really believe. If we claim to believe in the Bible yet fail to read it, then that shows that we are not committed to what we just claimed. Yes, faith in Christ saves us, not our works. But that same faith compels us to work (Ephesians 2:8-10). Faith is the root while works are the fruit. No fruit, no root. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14) The faith that saves is the faith that works. Saving faith leads to working faith. John Calvin wrote, “While it is true that we are saved by faith alone, the faith that saves is never alone.”
Brethren, faith is our driving force.
As far as CNN is concerned, these faith angles explain much of the news ranging from a young man’s failed plot to bomb New York’s Times Square (He is a Muslim who took a vow to defend Islam from “humiliation”) to Barrack Obama’s rise to the presidency. (As a young Columbia University graduate, Obama had quit his first finance job and tried his hand in community organizing sponsored by Christian churches in Chicago. Not only that this launched his political career, it was “an experience that led him to Christianity”.) According to CNN Belief Blog, “To understand any of this news, you need to know something about faith… In a shrinking world, knowing what it’s like to undergo an adult baptism or to pray to Mecca five times a day is essential to understanding the world’s most powerful leaders - and, perhaps, the person in the next cubicle… Faith isn’t incidental to these stories; it’s the driving force behind them.”
Yes, our faith does matter. It is essential in life. It is neither optional nor incidental. Someone wrote that to permanently change a person’s behavior, we have to radically change his belief. That’s also the point of James when he wrote, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (2:18, ESV) Our works show our faith. What we actually do (not what we say) reflects what we really believe. If we claim to believe in the Bible yet fail to read it, then that shows that we are not committed to what we just claimed. Yes, faith in Christ saves us, not our works. But that same faith compels us to work (Ephesians 2:8-10). Faith is the root while works are the fruit. No fruit, no root. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14) The faith that saves is the faith that works. Saving faith leads to working faith. John Calvin wrote, “While it is true that we are saved by faith alone, the faith that saves is never alone.”
Brethren, faith is our driving force.
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