{"id":7764,"date":"2020-07-27T20:20:25","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T20:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=7764"},"modified":"2022-02-16T15:55:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T15:55:56","slug":"cafeteria-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=7764","title":{"rendered":"Cafeteria Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 1<\/p><p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">[<strong>Note:\u00a0 <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our <strong>Brief Articles 1<\/strong>\u00a0 page.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Does God operate a theological cafeteria? Are all of the world\u2019s religions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, et al.) on His \u201csteam table\u201d? Is Christianity on the menu as merely one among many choices of access leading to God and salvation? Does He allow men to choose which of these is most appealing to them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Those who believe the Bible is the only revelation from God must answer \u201cNo\u201d to all but the last of the foregoing questions. God has granted men free will, <strong>allowing us to choose <\/strong>our religious diet, even if it poisons and kills us. The religious smorgasbord described above is not God\u2019s. It belongs to men, though God allows men to operate it and dine to their own destruction. He has never coerced obedience to His will.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The philosophy of Postmodernism has modern man in its grip. It gives \u201cmoral equivalency\u201d to all philosophies, political systems, ethical systems, and religions. In this diabolical and irrational scheme of relativism, all truth claims are counted equal. There is no such thing as objective, immutable, absolute truth. Whatever one believes or thinks is one\u2019s \u201ctruth,\u201d but directly contradictory beliefs and thoughts are no less \u201ctruth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Evidence\u2014by which truth is established and by which hoaxes, lies, and errors are exposed\u2014is of no consequence to the Postmodernist. The assertions of the \u201cglobal warming\u201d and \u201cman-made climate change\u201d champions continue in spite of the mounds of evidence that such claims are a manufactured hoax, well illustrating the modern disdain for evidence\u2014and for truth. Their attitude is, \u201cWe don\u2019t care what the evidence demands, this is our story, and we\u2019re sticking to it.\u201d Thus <em>truth<\/em>, once generally respected and sought above all else, has thereby been cast on history\u2019s ash heap by very many of those born since the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Postmodern philosophy produces cafeteria theology when applied to religion. It denies the existence of one true and living God, one alone Who is man\u2019s Savior, and an exclusive God- revealed infallible way by which men might be reconciled to God. Clearly, the Jews five centuries before Christ were Postmodernists, exalting the idols of their pagan neighbors to \u201cmoral equivalency\u201d with their Creator and Benefactor. He commissioned Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and lead His people into exile. They learned God\u2019s attitude toward this vile and damnable philosophy \u201cthe hard way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The Bible declares <strong>one <\/strong>God, <strong>one <\/strong>Savior, and <strong>one <\/strong>way\u2014exclusively:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">God\u2019s Word is <strong>Truth <\/strong>(John 17:17).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Jesus is God\u2019s beloved Son; we must <strong>hear Him <\/strong>(Mat. 17:5).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">We <strong>must <\/strong>believe Jesus is His Son or die in\u2014and because of\u2014sin (John 8:24; Rom. 6:23).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Jesus is <strong>the <\/strong>way, truth, and life; <strong>the only <\/strong>way to God (John 14:6).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Jesus\u2019 way <strong>alone <\/strong>leads to eternal life; all other paths (composing the \u201cbroad way\u201d) end in\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">spiritual, eternal death (Mat. 7:13\u201314).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Men can be saved <strong>only <\/strong>through Jesus (Acts. 4:12).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">God will <strong>uproot all <\/strong>of the religious institutions men have founded (Mat. 15:13).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">These and a host of other statements exclude Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism, Baha\u2019ism, Judaism, and all other \u201cworld religions.\u201d These statements also exclude those thousands of religious institutions that <strong>profess <\/strong>belief in the Bible, while denying some of its plainest declarations (e.g., the plan of salvation, authorized worship, et al.). Postmodernism has captured practically all of the educational institutions operated by brethren. It explains the plague of liberalism and apostasy that has stolen hundreds of congregations of the Lord\u2019s church over the last few decades. No philosophy is more anti-Biblical or anti-Christian than Postmodernism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0[<strong>Note: <\/strong>I wrote this article for and it was published in <em>The Lighthouse, <\/em>weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, February 8, 2015, of which I was editor.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Attribution<\/strong>: From <em>thescripturecache.com<\/em>; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 1[Note:\u00a0 This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 1\u00a0 page.] Does God operate a theological cafeteria? Are all of the world\u2019s religions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, et al.) on His \u201csteam table\u201d? Is Christianity on the menu as merely&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"easywp-readmore\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=7764\">Continue Reading&#8230;<span class=\"easywp-sr-only\">  Cafeteria Theology<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,310,331,73,115,23,33,179,332,72,112,333,334],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aplostasy","category-bible-2","category-cafeteria-theology","category-blood-of-christ","category-god","category-liberalism","category-moral-issues","category-postmodernism","category-relativism","category-salvation","category-truth","category-world-religions","category-worship-2","wpcat-47-id","wpcat-310-id","wpcat-331-id","wpcat-73-id","wpcat-115-id","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-33-id","wpcat-179-id","wpcat-332-id","wpcat-72-id","wpcat-112-id","wpcat-333-id","wpcat-334-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7764"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18782,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764\/revisions\/18782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}