The Philosophy of Ayn Rand: Hatred of the authority of God

Years ago, I slogged through Atlas Shrugged out of the same sense of obligation to have read influential books that caused me to attempt, but choose to abandon, reading War and Peace.  Atlas Shrugged is not a well written novel, its plot is nonsensical, its protagonist is loathsome, and it contains extremely lengthy speeches given by various characters as a way of sharing Ayn Rand's philosophy.  The list of famous novels that don't deserve their accolades is not all that short, but Atlas Shrugged remains notable despite its fundamental flaws because of the impact of Rand's philosophy.  The 'rugged individualism' put forth by Rand is both a reaction to the authoritarianism of the 20th century, and a quintessential American idea, for few cultures have elevated the individual above the group as thoroughly and consistently.   As a teen the philosophy of Laissez-faire governance appealed to me, as it does to many a young person, but that appeal has soured over the years, in part because of a recognition that government has a crucial role to play in restraining human immorality, and also given my years of cooperation with our local government in anti-poverty and anti-homelessness efforts, in particular the county of Venango and the city of Franklin.  Whereas it is certainly possible for a Christian to take a libertarian view because of a mistrust of human governments (as they must be populated and run by sinful human beings and have a track record of misdeeds), there is no way for the hyper-libertarian views of Ayn Rand to be compatible with any sort of Christian worldview.  In fact, the moral philosophy advocated by Ayn Rand, ethical egoism, is a rejection of everything associated with Christian ethics, Rand's Jewish heritage, and religion in general.  To embrace ethical egoism is to reject, wholeheartedly, any obligation to God.



1.  Ethical egoism makes each individual the arbiter of right and wrong.
Historically speaking, it isn't a good idea to share philosophical/ethical space with Friedrich Nietzsche, but uncomfortable compatriots aside, ethical egoism's foundation is the belief that each individual should act in his/her own self-interest.  When ethical egoism is combined with Rand's libertarian political viewpoint, the result is a hoped-for false utopia in which no individual is required to do anything that isn't in their self interest.  It is a world free of compulsion.  In other words, I could help my neighbor, but only if I wanted to, to force me to pay a tax to support (or virtually any tax in Rand's view, for any purpose) a homeless shelter would be immoral.  It is only natural that human beings place themselves at the center of their own universe.  The word natural in that last sentence is used in the sense of 'expected', not in the sense of 'proper'.  As human beings who have a flawed human nature, one fully capable of doing evil, placing our own judgment and self-interest at the center of any ethical or governmental system cannot possibly produce a positive result.  It will merely make our own self-interested choices reality writ-large, enshrining in law and cultural practice the wants and desires of the selfish human heart.  Far from being an utopia, a fully realized Rand inspired society would be hell on earth, a danger eloquently expressed in William Golding's The Lord of the Flies.  Rand rightly abhorred the evil of the authoritarian systems of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, but replacing one egotistical maniac in the cases of Hitler or Stalin with millions of individual dictators running their own lives as they see fit will only disperse the moral evil, not eliminate it.  Whatever ethical, philosophical, or governmental system is created, if it is built upon human self-interest, it will fail, and fail spectacularly.  In the end, Ayn Rand's philosophy is simply the other side of the authoritarian coin, replacing one unaccountable dictator over society, with many unaccountable dictators over their own lives.

2.  If the individual is at the center, God must be displaced.
Atlas Shrugged, and Rand's philosophy in general, is extremely hostile toward religion.  Why?  Virtually all religion has this in common: it displaces the individual from the center and puts God(s) there instead.  In other words, the very concept of religion is based upon the premise that you and I are not the culmination of life in this universe, nor its final purpose.  To understand how we came to be, why we are here, and where we are going, human beings must look up, the answer does not lie within ourselves.  These are of course generalizations about religion, how Buddhism fits within this is of course a bit complicated, but the premise holds: religion is hostile to ethical egoism because religion recognizes that individual human beings do not belong at the center.
It is, of course, the Christian understanding that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob who came in the flesh as Jesus Christ deserves to be at the center, due to both power and holiness that God alone possesses.  What happens when Christianity is led astray by a belief that warps the Gospel and moves individuals back toward the center?  The Prosperity Gospel.  The Prosperity Gospel is a heresy precisely because it elevates the individual, making our health and wealth God's priority, rather than maintaining the age-old understanding of both our Jewish and Christian ancestors in the faith that they were servants in the house of the LORD.  Another more radical example of a Christian-based system that has been warped, in this case beyond recognition, by the removal of God as the center is Mormonism.  The goal of Mormonism is to become god-like, to advance to the point of possessing the power of a god able to create worlds of our own to rule. 

3.  Christianity requires that individuals bow the knee to the authority of God.
Neither an authoritarian dictator, nor a 'rugged individualist' like Rand would be willing to bend their will to obey God.  Both are in rebellion against that higher authority, that one of them seeks to dominate others and the other to 'liberate' them is a difference of degree, not of kind; both extremes place the individual at the center, both reject any obedience to God or any other external moral authority, and both are a dead end.
One cannot be a follower of Jesus Christ without acknowledging, and welcoming, the authority of God over one's life.  This attitude of obedience is infused throughout the teachings of Jesus, summed up in his endorsement of the greatest commandment:
Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)  36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Notice also that the 2nd commandment is our moral obligation to other people, one that will often come at significant expense to ourselves.)

Jesus also embraced the authority of the Father, even though he too was God, as an example for us all (see Philippians 2:5-11):
John 6:38 (NIV)  For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

For those of us who live in a free society, and Americans in the 21st century have freedoms our ancestors could scarcely comprehend, it is tempting to elevate ourselves to the position of being the arbiter of right and wrong, the determiner of purpose and meaning.  It is tempting, but it is a fool's errand, for that power and wisdom is beyond us, and pretending to possess it is the path of self-destruction.  The Church can ill afford to be infected with these notions, we have seen the results when it has been compromised in this way, from the support of millions of German Christians for the Nazi regime, to the hucksters on TV promising God's blessings to those who will send them money.  Ayn Rand believed that a truly 'free' society of individuals serving their own self-interests would be a paradise, she was wrong.

Sermon Video: The problem with fake Christians

Having warned about the danger of those denying Christ and using God's grace as an excuse for sin, Jude concludes that 'these people' (false teachers, divisive troublemakers, fanatics, and other fake Christians) are harmful within the Church because not only do they fail to produce the Fruit of the Spirit (nor could they, not having the Holy Spirit), they also confuse the Gospel message. Our response, as a Church, to fake Christians? (1) Don't let those without orthodox belief AND a demonstrated commitment to righteous living have any role in church leadership. (2) When necessary, remove from fellowship those who refuse to abandon heresy or renounce gross immorality. Lastly, and crucially, STOP believing the lie that a person can be a Christian without acting like Christ.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Mega Churches, Cults of Personality, and Longevity

As illustrated in a recent Christianity Today article, {Willow Creek and Harvest Struggle to Move On The departures of Bill Hybels and James MacDonald leave churches waiting for new leadership and hoping to rebuild trust. - by ABBY PERRY} the transition period for churches that have grown to prominence under a charismatic founder can be extremely dangerous, especially if that founder leaves suddenly under a cloud of moral failure.  Churches both large and small are in danger when their pastor(s) is guilty of gross immorality, whether that revolves around sexual sin, financial theft (or gross luxury; i.e. a private jet and a mansion, even if authorized by the church board such compensation is a theft of funds that should be used for the ministry of the church), or simply an ego run amok.  It stands to reason that a small church, one perhaps barely able to pay its bills, if that, with only a few dozen faithful members would have difficulty in finding a new pastor following a disastrous tenure of a minister who was, or became, unqualified to lead God's people.  Much of that difficulty revolves around the limited resources available, both financial and manpower, to conduct a search and find an effective replacement.  Such constraints would seem to be less of an issue at a mega church with attendance upwards of 10,000, multiple sites, a large paid staff, and a weekly million dollar budget capable of paying a well established and experienced minister to be their next senior pastor.  And yet, as the article by Abby Perry shows, the emotional scars and questions of repentance revolving around those who failed to act earlier, are a common problem for both the tiny church and its seemingly very different mega cousin.
Cults of personality are deadly to a church no matter how big it is.  This may seem obvious when that minister is leading the church down a path of unorthodox heresy, and/or displaying dangerous apocalyptic fanaticism (like, for example, David Koresh), but it is also true when the church simply depends upon the personal leadership of that pastor so much that it cannot function without him/her.  Some churches are able to transition relatively smoothly to a second generation of leadership, many struggle mightily, some don't make it at all.  Coincidentally, this same phenomenon exists when a business attempts to replace an iconic founder, and on a smaller scale is equally challenging when a much simpler family business attempts to move on to a second generation.
Which brings into focus the larger question of mega churches.  I myself am not the pastor of a mega church, although if I would have been this church's 12th pastor instead of its 31st, I would have been preaching regularly to a crowd of over 1,000; likely one of the largest congregations in America at the start of the 20th Century.  Franklin today, however, has less than half the people living here than it did then, and 1st Baptist of Franklin is a small church (in a big building) in a small town.  Venango County only has about 50k people, so we're not going to have a church in our area with weekly attendance of 5,000+ (500 seems to be about the height at this point, we have one church a mile away at that number and another a block away a bit under that).  Thus while the mega church explosion is not directly impacting Church ministry here in rural Pennsylvania, and not likely to directly impact most of the sparsely populated areas of the globe, they still have a tremendous indirect influence upon the Church as a whole, especially given their high-profile ministers and multi-media products (think Hillsong's music {songs sung by 50 million people worldwide each Sunday}, Joel Osteen's books and TV show {7 million weekly viewers}, or Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life {32 million copies sold}.  Personally I appreciated Rick Warren's book, am ambivalent about Hillsong's music (not a strong music opinion person anyway), and think that Joel Osteen's theology would be dangerous at a church of twenty, but whether or not a particular manifestation of the mega church trend is in itself an overall positive or negative for the Church as a whole is actually a secondary question, for the Church has always had to contend with examples of poor leadership, with heretical authors/theologians, and cults of personality.  What has changed, differentiating these mega churches from anything previous in Church history is their very size. 
The Early Church began with house churches, limited in size by their obvious location constraints, after the legalization of the Church by Constantine {The Edict of Milan}, the trend toward an organized system of parish churches began in earnest.  Churches were established where another church was needed, and they were spread out sufficiently so as to not overlap, given that they were not in competition with each other.  Local Christians, at Christendom's height that meant everybody in the village or town, excluding any Jews or other religious minority, were expected to attend their local parish, and instances of going further away (travel being limited to walking or riding a horse) to another parish must have been rare.  A church in such a system could grow, if it convinced an even higher percentage of the local population to attend, or if the local population itself was growing, but it couldn't become any type of 'mega' church.  The cathedrals in principle cities were large, but they too were constrained by the simple fact that a 10,000 seat church was not an architectural possibility. 
Things have changed.  Many (if not most) Christians don't attend the church that is closest to their home, they drive past several seeking the one that they're connected to, thus even large rural churches, let alone mega churches, are drawing from a wide geographic area, not simply a neighborhood.
The parish system, by and large, functioned well for more than a thousand years.  We know that mega churches will not replace the far more numerous smaller churches, nor will they drive out of business, as it were, small churches like Walmart did to the small retailers.  Assuming that the reality of mega churches isn't going anywhere, seemingly a safe assumption, what role will they play in the Church of the future?  How stable will they prove as they transition from the first generation of their leadership?  Without the charisma of the founder, will such a massive organization be able to bring in the people and money it needs to continue?  These are certainly questions with implications for the Church as a whole, and largely ones that seem beyond our ability to have more than anecdotal answers to at this juncture; time will tell.  If the struggles outlined in Christianity Today's article at both Willow Creek and Harvest are harbingers of things to come, individual mega churches may not have the longevity of the small local church.

Seeing the world through a father's eyes

For those of you who don't know, I came to fatherhood later in life than most of my peers.  My wife Nicole and I had already been married for nearly 15 years, I had been a teacher at Portland Adult and Community Education for ten years, concurrently a pastor at 1st Baptist of Palo for five years, and moved here to Franklin PA to be the pastor at First Baptist of Franklin just over three years prior to the birth of our beautiful Clara Marie.  As much life experience as I had: marriage, teaching, being a pastor, all of which had their own unique challenges and lessons to be learned, nothing changed my point-of-view as much as becoming a father.  Books that I had once read, and am now re-reading (I do that a lot), with a father-daughter relationship, or TV/Movies that hadn't struck me that way before, now touch at something in my heart and mind that is both real and powerful.  {For example: The girl in the red dress in Schindler's List, while always being a gut punch, would shake me much harder now}  I consider myself to be a person of empathy and compassion, by the grace of God, it is a characteristic one must have to be an effective pastor, but nothing reinforces these Christian virtues in our hearts quite like having had a similar experience; its just the way we work as human beings.

Clara on the day of her birth, holding dad's finger.

Clara on her way to her first day of pre-school this past August

Hebrews 4:15-16 (NIV)
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

You don't need me to tell you that our experiences powerfully affect us, both for the better and for the worse, but the words of Hebrews offer an insight into our relationship with God that is truly profound.  Jesus knows what it is like to struggle, to feel tired, to be in pain.  Jesus knows what it is like to wait patiently, to have to trust in your friends, and to be let down by them.  Jesus knows the sorrow of being at the graveside of a parent, the frustration of being rejected by people you're only trying to help, and the joy of helping a 'lost cause' find purpose in life again.  Jesus has been there, and his empathy for your life situations is real.  That alone would be a Truth to "cling to when the rain set in".  But Hebrews tells us something far more important: Jesus knows what is like to be you without the failure of sin.  One of the reasons why we have empathy for other people is that many of us recognize the wisdom of the phrase, "there but for the grace of God, go I".  In other shoes we might equally fail, or we might even do worse, than the person whom we now empathize with in their struggles.  That compassion compels us to act, but that weakness limits how much we can do to help.  Not so with Jesus.  Not only does Jesus know what it is like to be you, but he knows what is necessary to overcome and be victorious in your situation as well.  I, and others like me, can comfort you, maybe even assist you, Jesus can save you.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we can point out the way to hope, Jesus is the way.
What do we do with this knowledge?  Hebrews offers the answer there as well, approach the 'throne of grace with confidence', knowing that in our time of need, our compassionate AND victorious savior, who empathizes with our plight, is both willing and capable of giving us the mercy and grace we need to live righteously, no matter what. 

Sermon Video: Don't Mess with God - Jude 5-11

Jude utilizes six examples from the Hebrew Scriptures to warn his readers about the danger of being ungodly in relation to God {the example in vs. 1-4 was of a group that tried to utilize God's grace as an excuse for immorality}. In each case the story doesn't end well for the person(s) who sought to rebel against and defy the will of God. As a counter-example, Jude offers the humility of the archangel Michael who, according to the Assumption of Moses, did not even slander Satan himself but simply replied, "The Lord rebuke you!" In this vein, consider the arrogance of the Prosperity Gospel (and its many proponents: Paula White Cain, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, TD Jakes, Joel Osteen, Robert Schuller, etc.), with its tendency to claiming the power to 'bind Satan' and grant material blessings to those who either have enough faith and/or (likely and) send money to the already wealthy 'minister' in question. We are not 'little gods', we are not the epicenter of God's will as they would have us believe, we are instead servants in the Kingdom of God, here to sacrifice on behalf of the Gospel, not to prosper from it. It doesn't end well for those who defy the will of God, who warp the Gospel for their own benefit.

To watch the video, click on the link below: