Do "People Need Jesus Now More Than Ever"

A Southern Baptist Convention spokesperson said, "People need Jesus now more than ever," when asked about falling Southern Baptist numbers. His view, apparently, is people will return to church when they recognize the "need."

Sometimes atheists are chided for seeing themselves as intellectually superior to believers. That may happen from time to time. Christians defeat atheists in looking down on others.

The Christian message is quite consistent, "We have a superior view of reality. There is something wrong with people who do not believe there is an invisible god, an invisible life after death and rules that came from unknown sources." They believe, as the Baptist official above, everyone will come to realize what they see in real time is not reality but all the invisible stuff is reality. To paraphrase him, "People need a divorce from reality now more than ever. They need to believe in invisible beings and places."

Instead of believing we need more in fantasy we need more reality. We need to believe there is global warming and that we are large contributors to it. We need to believe in international trade, international relations and science. None of this will be helped by believing in Jesus.

One of the techniques used by Christians since the beginning is that, regardless of the moment in time, we always face eminent moral collapse. Gay marriage was a recent one. There has been a steady drum beat of reasons people need to return to religion.

Now, with a President deep in what used to be call immoral behavior and embraced by a segment of the faith, some of the public may be wondering if perhaps faith is not relevant at all in the moral behavior of people.