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One of the offshoots of blind faith is anti-intellectualism.  This is rampant in the message.
One of the offshoots of blind faith is anti-intellectualism.  This is rampant in the message.


If you ask a message believer why they believe the message, they are likely to respond with a simple, “Because I just believe it!”  
=Reasoning is bad=
 
If you ask a message believer why they believe the message, they are likely to respond with a simple, “''Because I just believe it!''” Message ministers have used even more overt reasoning on their followers.  The following is condensed from an email we recently received:
 
:''Opponents to the message will try to ''drag you into a mode of reasoning with God's vindicated word of the hour...  They hope to get ''you'' to try and defend the message.  THAT is what they want. See that subtility?  ...They want you to try to ''defend your revelation by reasoning...  Never think you can defend the message by quoting it.''
 
Message ministers DENY the clear teaching of scripture when they take this approach.  They reject the Apostle Peter's admonition in 1 Peter 3:15:
 
:''But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, '''always''' being prepared to make a '''defense''' to '''anyone who asks''' you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with '''gentleness and respect'''.<ref>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), 1 Pe 3:15.</ref>
 
These message ministers want you to ignore the questions.  They never want you to even try to make a defense of what you believe.  And they rarely treat people who have questions with gentleness and respect.


A Jehovah’s Witness believes the Watchtower Bible and a Scientologist believes in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, but that doesn’t make them true.  
A Jehovah’s Witness believes the Watchtower Bible and a Scientologist believes in the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, but that doesn’t make them true.  
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[[File:Brain in a Box-300x296.jpeg‎|250px|thumb|right|I know God gave you a brain, but it would be terrible if you actually used it.]]  
[[File:Brain in a Box-300x296.jpeg‎|250px|thumb|right|I know God gave you a brain, but it would be terrible if you actually used it.]]  
==You can't even prove you have a brain!==
Recently one well-known message minister stated that
:''...we can't prove God exists and we can't even prove that we have a brain.  We believe we have a brain by faith alone.
His comment would be funny if it wasn't so sad. 
BUT I will tell you that, having viewed an actual human brain myself, having seen countless scans of others brains, having read medical literature about the brain, and having seen evidence in my own thought, I am able to logically conclude that, yes, “I have a brain.”
If you seriously believe that there is no proof of God, I will tell you to watch a single debate between a knowledgeable Christian apologist and an atheist.  I do appreciate that empirical data cannot prove that God exists.  However, there are many pointers that lead to God's existence. Add to that the illumination of the Holy Spirit while seeking his nature through his Word, and accept Him at his Word… it’s called faith.
...And here is the final distinction between blind message faith and true Christian faith - Every scientific discovery brings more evidence of God's existence and strengthens our faith in God.  Every archaeological finding brings increased veracity to the providence of God in forming and protecting the canon of scripture for almost 2,000 years.
Meanwhile, every single discovery of fact in the life and ministry of William Branham does just the opposite, making the position of “message believer” an increasingly untenable position.
=The call to comprehend=
=The call to comprehend=


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Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity is guilty of a drippy sentimentality, or worse, of sensationalism. With the latter, preachers sound more like religious professional wrestlers hyping an audience. We seem more interested in trying to create emotional feeling than in providing an understanding of God and wisdom for living. As a result, many of the world say to Christians, ''“Your thinking is too superficial for the complexity of the world in which we live.”'' Christians have reacted against the extremes of this world without thinking through the implications of their choices. This needs to change. A church should be a place for analysis, reflection, and reasoned discussion about the significance of the gospel. Christians should have a reputation as people who think.<ref>Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 88–89.</ref>
Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity is guilty of a drippy sentimentality, or worse, of sensationalism. With the latter, preachers sound more like religious professional wrestlers hyping an audience. We seem more interested in trying to create emotional feeling than in providing an understanding of God and wisdom for living. As a result, many of the world say to Christians, ''“Your thinking is too superficial for the complexity of the world in which we live.”'' Christians have reacted against the extremes of this world without thinking through the implications of their choices. This needs to change. A church should be a place for analysis, reflection, and reasoned discussion about the significance of the gospel. Christians should have a reputation as people who think.<ref>Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 88–89.</ref>
=Anti-intellectualism in the message=
If you follow anti-intellectualism to its logical conclusion, if and when your faith is tested, you can’t defend it, because you have divorced your spirituality from any connection to logic or reason.  The only recourse is to throw out one shallow, emotional, logical fallacy after another, trying to cut the legs from under many things that a reasonable person believes to be true, in order to associate their beliefs with those “truisms”, scripture, science, etc.
Anti-intellectualists pride themselves on their blind faith, when in reality, it is an indicator of lack of faith!  Hypostasis, the word translated as “substance,” in Hebrews 11:1, means “that which underlies the apparent; that which is the basis of something, hence, assurance, guarantee and confidence.”  The English “substance” is built from a prefix and a root which together mean “that which stands under.”  The famous 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon said that faith consisted of three intertwined elements, a “triune faith” if you will: knowledge, assent, and trust. You can’t have faith in something you have no knowledge of.
Let’s take a plane flight as an example of the knowledge component:
If I am about to fly for the very first time, I might be very, very, nervous. Why? Because my faith in that plane to get me safely to my destination is very weak. If you are a frequent flyer, your faith is much higher, and you might share with me your experience, and to the extent that I accept that knowledge, my faith in the plane will rise. If the veteran pilot who was a former plane mechanic and an engineering enthusiast comes out pre-flight and spends 10 minutes sharing some of his intimate knowledge of the technology, the multiple levels of mechanical redundancy, the statistics of flight safety, and his absolute confidence in that plane, my faith may be increased substantially. Combine that with a few years of flying myself, and I may well be helping some other newbie get over their fear of flying.
What is the point of all of that? At no point did my faith in the plane go up simply by telling myself to “have faith” or chanting “planes are safe,.. planes are safe!!”. My KNOWLEDGE of the object of my faith increased. But knowledge is not the end all/be all of faith, otherwise the most intelligent folks in the world would be the most dedicated Christians. There has to be an ASSENT, an “amen” from the heart that accepts the validity of that knowledge. If my fear of flying reached phobic proportions, no amount of insight from the pilot, my friend, or any other source will increase my faith, because there is no assent, I have rejected the validity of the knowledge, however irrational that may be.
The trust factor is a byproduct of proportional and harmonious growth of knowledge + assent. The more I learn about the object of my faith, and the more I accept that knowledge, the more at peace I am with the expected outcome, though I cannot empirically know that it will be that way.. I have faith. And the higher the faith, the more assured I am, the less stressed I become, and I rest… in faith.
See the difference? Real faith is far from illogical. You can’t “defend the faith”, if your faith is some mystical notion that requires an emotional trigger for activation and an absence of resistance for survival. Paul didn’t walk around the Parthenon in Athens screaming “Jesus is Lord”.  No!  Paul was supremely gifted in logic, and is described by Luke nearly a dozen times, as “reasoning with his listeners”.
Recently one well known message minister stated that we can't prove God and we can't even prove that we have a brain.  We believe we have a brain by faith alone.
But if you seriously believe that I don’t have proof that I have a brain, I will tell you that, having viewed an actual human brain myself, having seen countless scans of others brains, read literature about the brain, and seen evidence in my own thought that leads me to accept this coherent set of clues to an inducted, non-empirical, conclusion that, yes “I have a brain.” If you seriously believe that there is no proof of God, I will tell you to watch a single debate between a knowledgeable Christian apologist and an atheist. Though, again, empirical data cannot prove in a deductive sense, that God exists, you cannot bat an eye or study any subject at all without being in contact with a million inductive pointers that lead to his existence. Add to that the illumination of the Holy Spirit while seeking his nature through his Word, and accept Him at his Word… it’s called faith.
...And here is the final distinction between blind message faith and true Christian faith - Every scientific discovery brings more evidence of His existence and strengthens our faith in God.  Every archaeological finding brings increased veracity to the providence of God in forming and protecting the canon of scripture for almost 2,000 years.
Meanwhile, every single discovery of fact in the life and ministry of William Branham does just the opposite, making the position of “message believer” an increasingly untenable position.


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