Post-Christian, Non-Christian, and Jedi Knights

The apostle Paul used a phrase in Acts 20 that can give us a reason to reflect:
27 For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. Pay attention to that 4-word phrase:  the "whole counsel of God".  In a culture where there is a great variety of religious streams of thought, and even variations on a theme of Biblical Christianity, we have to make sure that we are digesting and following the "whole counsel of God", i.e. determining that our personal faith and our practice line up with the principles of Scripture.  We cannot pick and choose what we want to believe and what we want to discard.   Careful study of the Word of God can help us to focus our faith on the timeless principles of Biblical truth.  In 2nd Timothy 4, the apostle Paul gives an exhortation to Timothy that can apply to each of us as we view ourselves as ambassadors of Christ.2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.   I think that perhaps that time is here!!  

The census is in from Great Britain, and there's a good news/bad news scenario about Christianity there, according to Christianity Today, reporting on the 2011 Census.  The number of residents of England and Wales identifying as Christians dropped 13% since 2001. However, Christians still make up 59 percent of the total population.   That translates to 33.2 million people.  
 
But with nearly 14.1 million people—a quarter of the population and 6.4 million more people than before—professing no religion at all, some analyses suggest that Christians could fall below majority status to a plurality by 2018.  This confirms what we have believed about Europe, and even the U.K. - this is a post-Christian culture in many ways.   Also, 2.7 million were identified as Muslim.

Over 240,000 people highlighted an 'other religion' on their census form - including 176,632 Jedi Knights, patterned after the ways of the force in "Star Wars".  According to Patheos.com, the Jedi Church's website says: “The Jedi Church believes that there is one all powerful force that binds all things in the universe together.  The Jedi religion is something innate inside everyone [sic] of us, the Jedi Church believes that our sense of morality is innate.  So quiet your mind and listen to the force within you!”

There is no shortage of religious ideas in the philosophical marketplace - some resemble Biblical Christianity, but might skimp a bit on matters such as the deity of Christ or the exclusivity of Jesus as the Way, the truth, and the life.   Or, there may be some God-type being at the head of some religion, but He's not really requiring a whole lot in the way of personal holiness or devotion.   And, as in the Jedi Church, there's no God at all, just a nebulous "force".

This is in sharp contrast to the 500-member St. George's Tron church in Glasgow, Scotland, which recently held its final service in its sanctuary. 

You see, the church which will be heretofore known as the Tron Church is the first full congregation to split from the Church of Scotland in protest at its moves towards allowing the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers.  "These things shall vanish all; the City of God remaineth," were the words that echoed as their last Sunday service ended.

According to the HeraldScotland website, minister Dr. William Philip, in his final sermon, said this:
"The heart of the matter is what it means to follow Jesus. It means struggling against sin, taking up your cross and leaving behind the material desires of this world," he said. "It's not a call to asceticism, but Jesus must come first."

And, a departure from the central truths of loving and revering God and His Word above all and applying His principles in our lives results in faith that might make you feel good, but doesn't resemble the complete teachings of Jesus, the whole counsel of God.   We must make sure that our decisions and actions line up with what God has set forth in His Word.