In The News: The Ignorance of Bill Maher on the O'Reilly Factor

Bill Maher made some pretty strong anti-Christian comments on the O'Reilly factor of late, and that should not be surprising. He reduces most Americans who consider themselves Christians to fools for believing in the literal truth of the Bible, especially its supernatural narratives. O'Reilly does appear a bit Marcionite (ie God of wrath OT and God of love NT), and Maher did rightly make some sound points challenging Christians who do not take their faith seriously. He is right in that if you are going to take the faith seriously as it was intended that you either take all or none.

However, Maher's problem is that he fails to see the woven tapestry that is the Bible. He has a beef with the OT commands condemning the consequences for working on the Sabbath for example, but that was a theocracy that got set up for a specific place and time as foreshadow of the Kingdom of God fulfilled in Christ. Understanding why those things were in place helps one to understand their theocratic purpose that was fulfilled in Christ. When you take such commands out of their context, then exegetical disaster always results, and the tragedy is that many who have compromised God's Word cannot even give a reasoned response to such statements and questions.

The ironic thing is that Maher must steal from the Biblical worldview to make his worldview work. He must assume an ordered universe that God created whereby communication exists in reality, yet He obviously denies that to justify his own worldview. It is for this reason, that the Christian always has the upper hand, for all other worldviews (whether one admits it or not) must steal from the Biblical worldview to make even basic assumptions about logic, reason, etc. Apart from the Biblical worldview, even reason itself has no foundation. As Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand." What he meant is that we do not even have a foundation for knowledge, reason, etc. until we presuppose the truth of God's Holy Word.

Though I do cringe when I hear someone like Maher arrogantly denigrate Christians and God Himself, he too will die like everyone else then. Why then should he fight to advocate a worldview that will not even matter if we all just turn back to ash anyway? There is no point in that, and to create purpose within that worldview is futile and even self-deception. Maher has bought into self-deception so as to 'cope'. If he truly followed out his worldview he would end up insane (like the great philosopher Nietzsche) or commit suicide (like others). He rather lives an 'as-if' lifestyle whereby he worships an idol of his making in order to remove guilt (mostly by denying it when it comes to mind probably) and gain some kind of temporal satisfaction. The tragedy is that when the idol comes crashing down great is its fall. A man is then broken pieces, and he has no choice but follow his idol to insanity and destruction or erect another vain idol that will end up the same way, yet the angst becomes much worse after each fallen idol.

Let us therefore pray for the man. After all, I too once held many of his same worldview positions, yet, by God's grace, my eyes were opened to see the absurdity, stupidity, and utter foolishness of worshipping the various idols of this world.

To Him be the glory! Amen!