I am not accustomed to hearing John Lennon's "Imagine" being played at church, but that is what happened one beautiful Sunday morning. As the song played the famous peace symbol made of flowers from New York City was projected onto the wall. The pastor began his sermon calling Imagine a "secular humanist anthem." It was recently sung in the streets of Paris just after the terrorist attacks; and apparently it is sung annually in Times Square in New York.
Imagine is a beautiful song and I am a fan of John Lennon, but unfortunately this 'secular humanist anthem' is an utopian dream naive to spiritual conditions; not the least of which is the existence of both heaven and hell. The latter was not originally intended for man, it was created for a third of the angels-- led by Lucifer-- who rebelled against God.
The pastor in this sermon explains that a broken world is trying to imagine the biblical idea of Shalom, or, Peace. But the God of the Bible's idea of peace will be to "put the entire world back together again", including nature and all of creation ("let heaven and nature sing, heaven and nature sing").
Pastor Paul went on to talk about the rhetoric going on between the two extremes-- pacifism on the left, patriotic war on the right. He went on to juxtapose this with the two extremes of faith-- "reacting to and separating from the culture, or, complete integration with the world" with no thought of being a 'set-apart' people. Pastor Paul said "it's easy to be exteme, and the rhetoric is damaging." Words are powerful and the Bible says "The power of life and death are in the tongue-- proverbs 18:21."
This sermon that utilized John Lennons masterpiece Imagine as its centerpiece, was part of a larger series of sermons on how people develop their 'worldviews': Here is a list of 'summary questions' to ask: 1) what is the prime reality in the universe. 2) what is our nature as human beings. 3) what is the basis of morality. 4) what is the meaning of human history. And 5) what happens to humans at death." These questions get to the heart of how belief shapes peoples perceptions and so their actions. For Christians, there is a clear delineation in the Bible that "God's thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways-- Isaiah 55:8."
