Faith or Presumption

I grew up in a small church that by any standard would have been considered fundamentalist. A dispensations chart (in full color) was permanently displayed on the sanctuary wall. You can’t get much more fundamentalist than that. Well, actually, we didn’t go to movies or dances either so maybe you can. That hardly suggests a deprived childhood; I only had to wait a couple years to see the movies I missed on TV and, given my natural lack of grace, attempting to dance would have opened me to ridicule.

I don’t think spending my youth in that church “messed me up,” like some with similar backgrounds claim. I don’t dwell on it, in any case. But lately I’ve recalled something my pastor used to say.

Stories about pastors and Christian business leaders ignoring warnings about COVID-19 remind me of my pastor saying, “There is a difference between faith and presumption.” Faith is trusting God to seek the good of his people, knowing the character of that “good” will be shaped by God’s purposes; presumption, on the other hand, attempts to coerce God into acting in a way we insist he must. My pastor pointed to one of the temptations of Christ (Luke 4:9-12), saying, “If Jesus had jumped from the temple that would have been presumption, not faith.” I suspect he would say the snake-handlers in nearby West Virginia and Kentucky are merely annoying the serpents, not modeling faith.

Calling your congregation together during a pandemic though men, women, and children may be infected or opening your store to sell essentials—like silk flowers and wall plaques--though it puts your customers and employees’ health at risk reveals indifference not care. Or, as my pastor would have said: presumption, not faith.