A THING CALLED "SUNDAY GATHERING" AND A SCREAMING GENIUS ON A CAPE COD BEACH

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."  (Psalm 14:1)

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good."  (Psalm 53:1)

My title is one of the longest and most unusual titles I've ever come up with, but it expresses well how I felt inside after coming across a memorable telecast and a memorable radio broadcast over the past weekend.  They were ironically very different yet very similar:  

The telecast was on "public television".   I had never heard of something relatively new that's happening in the United Kingdom.  It's called "Sunday Gathering".  Believe it or not (and a pun was not intended here), "Sunday Gathering" is public gatherings of atheists in various locations and meeting places.  My understanding it that "Sunday Gathering" has also spread to several major cities on the western European continent.  In some respects, it looks a lot like a Christian worship service- especially a "contemporary" Christian worship service.  There's up-tempo secular music, and lots of singing to the music and just kind of enjoying it.   There's also the aspect of community - of people getting to know each other socially, and of taking on practical projects to make one's local community (as well as the whole world) a better place.  Honestly, there's a lot that looked enjoyable about "Sunday Gathering"; but there's the stark reality that Somebody's missing from it and Somebody's not welcome there.  (Now, considering the orthodox Christian theology which says, "God is everywhere", He certainly is there in a sense, but of course God is not acknowledged, prayed to, honored or anything remotely resembling any of those activities.)  Some of the "Sunday Gathering" meetings take place in former church buildings.  I was struck with the fact that the church in Britain is in great decline but that atheism in the U.K. is growing.  

The radio broadcast was also from a "public broadcasting" outlet.  There's an hour of people telling true stories (which I love listening to) that's featured every weekend on public radio.  This week's third story featured one of the world's most brilliant scientists who told a story of why he came to the final conclusion that God is just a product of "superstition" to be appropriately discarded and rejected by our twenty-first century world.  The guy was originally from Germany and raised as a "liberal Roman Catholic" (his term).  He spoke of struggling with the whole divided experience of worshiping God at the Catholic mass on Sundays and believing in a very humanistic and non-supernatural order of things during the rest of the week.  Finally, at a big social event on Cape Cod about fifteen years ago, after having had too much to drink, he walked out of the gathering and onto a beach.  It was late at night.  It was dark and breezy.  He began to yell at God in German, demanding a sign from God, demanding that if God is real that He show himself in a very dramatic way.  Suddenly, he saw a light and an apparition...the figure of a man.  The encounter was not what it first appeared to be, however.  The figure of a man was an angry camper who'd been disturbed by this guy yelling in German and disturbing the peace.  The camper yelled an obscenity at the German scientist;  he had his own demand, that the scientist shut up and get off the beach!  The scientist walked away from that experience a cynical and committed atheist.

The most important thing in my own life is my personal relationship with God.  I've written and spoken about my "born again" experience.  In fact, I became a "born again Christian" on the twenty-first of July back in 1970; forty-four years ago this week.  No, my life has not been all easy.  There has been a lot of pain.  There has been a lot of disappointment.  Honestly, there has been a lot of confusion at times.  Much as I hate to admit it, I've had my moments when I was very angry with God and I've had a few moments in which I doubted God.  Yet, I can tell you so many stories of amazing Divine intervention in my own life; stuff that would give you goosebumps and which has no natural explanation.  I honestly wish I'd experience more of that stuff!  During the past five years, there's been very little of it.  But, I can't deny the great things in God that I've experienced.   And, it's certainly not just me who has has such experiences.

I think the most interesting guest that Dan Rea has ever had on his Nightside radio program on Boston's WBZ 1030 A.M. is Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon.  In 1999, she drowned in a kayak accident in southern Chile.   She was dead for thirty minutes!  She saw and experienced Heaven!  This highly accomplished physician is surely a whole lot more intelligent than I am and has much more impressive credentials than I do.  But I know she would completely disagree with the conclusions of the scientist I wrote about here.  True science and academic study requires we hear all sides of an issue;  not just those that make us feel comfortable.   Dr. Neal's story is not unique, either.  There are literally millions of people who've had Divine encounters!

Someone may challenge me and ask, "If God is so great and so powerful, why didn't  God show up on that Cape Cod beach in dramatic fashion?"

I've given that some thought.  So, some hotshot scientist with a bunch of degrees who has had too much to drink gets out on a Cape Cod beach yelling for God to show Himself.  What arrogance!  Bluntly, what a jerk!  If some drunken genius showed up on my front yard yelling in German for me to come out and show myself to him, so you think I would?   Well, I wouldn't!   I wouldn't feel I had any reason to give such a person an audience.

Now, back to "Sunday Gathering".  Part of me is impressed with "Sunday Gathering".  I like the good works they're going, and I like the way they affirm and encourage people.  But when somebody's diagnosed with cancer, there's nobody to pray to.  When somebody's kid is killed in a car accident, there's nobody to pray to; and there are no Scriptures for comfort.  When a miracle is needed, well, there just ain't gonna be one!  When a person is tormented by their past or by one of a vast variety of addictions, there's no "balm in Gilead to make the sin sick whole"!  

I think a whole sermon could be preached or a whole article (or book) could be written examining whether some of our own Christian Sunday services have in fact just become "Sunday Gatherings" with very little difference from the atheistic ones!   There are indeed churches that have a name of being alive, yet are dead as far as the Lord is concerned (see God's message to the Church at Sardis in Revelation chapter three verses one through six).   We're living in a very serious hour.  I always seem to be about two or three years behind the rest of the evangelicals and charismatics in what I'm reading, and right now I'm reading Jonathan Cahn's book, The Harbinger.    We're living perilously close to the Second Coming of Christ, yet many Christians seemingly couldn't care less about this!  We're living in a day when we're called to love the Lord and walk in holiness and wisdom as never before!

Listen, I'm not for censorship.  I'm glad for the radio broadcast and the telecast I saw this past weekend, and for how they challenged me.   I'm more convinced than ever before of this Truth:  People Need the Lord!