Credentials are everything, wouldn’t you say? The notoriety of a name. The number of initials you can put before and after a name. The association of institutions, names of certain locations that might ring a bell more often than others. The association of words, ascribed meanings, values, and the subsequent siphoning of money, attention, and opinion.

To illustrate this topic, here are a few randomly-selected names (can you figure out what they pertain to?):

• Shelby
• Dom Perignon
• Glenlivet
• Hershey
• Sotheby
• Saks
• Tiffany
• Newman
• Da Vinci

Answers:

• cars
• Champagne
• scotch
• chocolate
• art auctions
• retail
• glass
• salad dressing
• best-selling fiction lampooning Christianity (?!)

Yes… names are so very important. As the old adage goes, “It’s all who you know.”

So… uh, have you ever heard of this guy, maybe you haven’t- I mean… he’s not too popular or anything- named Jesus Christ? Well… he said and did a few things that have had people in an uproar for a few thousand years. And the latest bombshell his critics have detonated goes by the name of The Blasphemy Challenge.

Utilizing a vague quote from the Los Angeles Times, “provocative… to say the least.”, as well as endorsement from the likes of Richard Dawkins, this site challenges young people to blaspheme the Holy Spirit (called the ‘unpardonable sin’). If said young person renounces their faith, effectively damning their eternal soul to hell (so the site claims), they will be rewarded with the material possession of a DVD documentary explaining that God doesn’t exist. Otherwise… if they’re ‘chicken’, they can order the DVD for $25.

I read this, and I laughed out loud a lot. And then I calmed down, and re-read the site and realized that these people are serious. Serious in the kind of way that a lunatic might be serious, declaring that he can turn people into powdered milk just by staring at them long enough. Apparently… these people think that they’re promoting ‘rational thought’. 21,000 ‘activists’ now belong to this group.

[taking a break to yawn, stretch, and consult Bible]

“‘He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.
And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come.’”

Matthew 12:30-32 (NAS)

The Greek words for blasphemy and Spirit are of major importance (as always) here. First, you have BLASPH?ME?, basically denoting the very worst type of slander against the Holy Spirit (next, PNEUMA), used in the form TO PNEUMA TO AGION (the Spirit, the Holy One). But the context for why Jesus is even bringing this up is highly important, too. The Pharisees had been upset with Jesus ministry healing some people, therefore, they thought it would be wise to incite the people against Jesus by making ridiculous claims that He was casting out demons by the power of Satan.

Jesus rounds on them and asks them how they’ve reached this conclusion, because a “kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” Basically, He’s saying that if He’s casting out demons by the power of Satan, well, then he’s using Satan to cast out Satan. And if this is true… then Satan is divided against himself. And if Beelzebul is the power by which demons are cast out… well, then by whose power do the sons of the Pharisees cast them out?

All of this seems pretty straightforward, when Jesus is speaking it, but then he leaps altogether away from the concept of casting demons out and binding the power of Satan to directly laying bare the horrible truth about what the Pharisees have implied. The horrible truth, not about what they’ve been saying… but about what the implications are for them, in particular. Basically… the passages above are a wake-up call to any men who shall commit the willful act of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, not by just saying, “Oh yeah, and by the way, I’d like to go ahead and say that I blaspheme the Holy Spirit now… hee hee.”, but by truly, honestly, ardently refusing to acknowledge the truth that has been revealed full well to them, and instead, to openly ridicule and disown it. “Oh.” God says, “You have spoken a word against The Helper… the Holy Spirit which I have given to you and you have experienced and used and been aware of experiencing and using. I can no longer hold you, you have strayed beyond me.” That is the best way that I can artfully paraphrase what I imagine God saying. The basic gist of the idea is that (warning: Armenians and Calvinists), since God is sovereign and omnipotent, and since He has granted us free will, and since He holds all life within His hands; to utterly, completely, ardently, passionately, knowingly, willfully, with a satin handkerchief to your face as you walk away from the One eternal light, the Source, the Healer, the Helper, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, DENY Him… well… you’ve just denied everything. Consequently, you have chosen your purpose to be for nothing, and your life to be nothing, and your existence to be nothing. And so you shall be granted that choice… because you were free to make it by His design.
Do you want to hear what some atheists think of the challenge?

Debunking Christianity

Well, though the tone of the blog is kind of self-affirmingly arrogant, and intellectually punched up with numerous quotes and references, I think the authors have waaaaay missed the mark. They’ve got it down that there isn’t merely an act of speech involved in blaspheming the Holy Spirit… it takes much more.

Edward T. Babinski’s guest blogger seems to think that reactions to the Blasphemy Challenge are entirely comprised of Christians who just want to give the benefit of the doubt to everybody… and therefore argue that nobody is really blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Oh no, Mr. Babs’ blogger person, I would have to say that I believe there are a number of people who are certifiable apostates. But to just video-record yourself saying that you “blaspheme” the Holy Spirit… uhm… I just don’t think that is what Jesus was talking about. She also writes everything from the “Geez… why don’t these friggin’ idiots get me? I’m so far superior and graduated to a new level of thought and understanding that it makes me groan loudly to have to think about dealing with so many retarded excuses for human beings on the internet.” thought pattern.

At the risk of sounding like one of those arrogant atheist bloggers who have all the answers… we Christians need to do battle with the stupidity of our age by heaping hot coals on the heads of our enemies. We cannot control whether or not people choose to mock God. But God is not mocked. We can just do our best to piss off the arrogant more-grown-up-than-thou crowd by loving the living bejeezus out of them. “So, you’re an atheist? Want to go get some ice cream with the youth group?” Nothing burns so much like the sting of being made wrong in front of yourself and that God you don’t believe in. Of course there are Christians to go and pick a bone with, to go and get hilarious quotes that prove to their atheist friends how stupid all religion is. But we accept them as humans, however insufferable or cool they may be, and look them in the eye and shrug and laugh when they “blaspheme” and speak lovingly of the things they want to hate… that’s when it hurts them. God is not mocked. Satan can be.

If there were no atheists, then there’d be no God.