G.K. Chesterton, a large man with an even larger wit, had the rare gift of saying much with little. His few words on a matter were often poignant, sharp, and provocative. He did not need a paragraph. He just needed a sentence. One hundred years ago he advised his contemporaries, “Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
Today, it is wise to watch where you step; for brains seem to be all over the floor. Brains have fallen out on a host of matters. The obvious ones are aplenty. There are more than two sexes. Gender is fluid. Masks work. Five-to-eleven-year-olds getting an experimental shot for a disease that doesn’t impact them. Herd immunity is no longer a “thing.” A governor can declare an unending emergency and act like a third world despot. Police not permitted to chase bad guys. Racism is everywhere, everywhere I tell you! The most powerful man in the country and world has dementia. Greta Thunberg is an expert on global warming. A baby in the womb can be killed because it is not a baby in the womb. Man evolved from apes.
I better stop. I am getting in a dither again and froth is beginning to form at the corners of my mouth. O, but I must mention those low-volume flush toilets that are supposed to save water; the ones you have to flush three times. Saving water, are we? That one has been on my mind for a while. Brains on the floor, I am telling you.
But where man refuses to be open-minded concerns the existence of God and any responsibility that we may have toward him. This is a head-scratcher. The Bible says man is without excuse regarding the matter. He knows, and instinctively so. Being made in the image of God can’t be wished or washed away. It is who we are.
Given that fact, it makes sense the Designer and Creator has expectations for His designed and created. And He does.
Christians have been accused of being closeminded on a number of cultural issues. That is because when God has spoken in Scripture concerning a matter being closeminded is actually obedience.
Chesterton said something else that is good for the hour, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
The Christian finds himself doing a lot of fighting these days. We do so not because we are combative or onery; nor is it because we love to hate. We do so because we love God and we love our fellow man. And when we fight our fellow man, though it may be hard to grasp, we do so because we love him, too. We don’t always get it right. But we try.
There are brains galore on the floor. Some open-minded have become mindless. We will continue to fight in hopes the truth will set people free.
Pastor Rich Hamlin
November 4, 2021