P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

NO MORE DANCING

It was a breakup right up there with Hollywood’s biggest. Back in February, 2001, after more than 10 years together, one of Tinseltown’s most glamorous poster couple, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, were breaking up. They’ve since moved on, and these days the headlines focus on Tom’s giddy, head-over-heels new romance with actress Katie Holmes. But back when Tom and Nicole split up, people were shocked.

And one question immediately hit the tabloids: was it Cruise’s religion — Scientology — that had caused the split? Was Kidman just not able to go along with the teachings of her husband’s rather unorthodox church organization? In a statement reported by People magazine, Cruise’s wife denied that Scientology was any problem in the marriage. “Well, what do YOU believe?” the reporters wanted to know. And Kidman described her own faith journey rather colorfully as a “mishmash of beliefs.” In fact, here’s the direct quote:

“A little bit of Buddhism, a little Scientology.” Then she adds: “I was raised Catholic and a big part of me is still a Catholic girl.”

And the question that has to be asked is this: can a person live by both Scientology and Catholicism? Are those two religious philosophies compatible enough that you can be both simultaneously? Maybe you saw a cute TV commercial just recently where basketball coach Phil Jackson poked fun at his own dabbling in Buddhist practices; a Christian magazine article not so long ago used Jackson as an example of how many people, actually, who are Christians — and consider themselves to still be Christians — are “trying out” Buddhism at the same time. Can you be both a Buddhist and a Baptist? A Mormon and a Methodist?

The dictionary calls this “syncretism,” where you try to marry or bring into union two opposing philosophies or religions. Political watchers wonder how Hong Kong can continue as a Western-thinking cell-phone democracy, while the rest of mainland China continues to be Communist. Can such a dual system survive? And in a person’s spiritual journey, is it possible to serve the God of Christianity and also be devoted to the teachings of one Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction author of Battlefield Earth and founder of the Church of Scientology?

The brilliant Christian cartoonist, Rob Portlock, recently had one in Leadership magazine, that showed the typical tourist who has stickers plastered all over his suitcase. Except that his, instead of having them from Mount Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower, had one reading: Christ the King Lutheran Church. Maple Street Assembly of God. Such-and-Such Baptist. The Immaculate Saint Joan Catholic Church. Etc. And a friend says to him accusingly: “You’ve been church-hopping again!”

Well, we smile at that one, but let me tell you something, friend, there’s nothing amusing at all about the “syncretism” and the one-foot-in-both-camps attitude of the Children of Israel here in this great showdown saga on the top of Mount Carmel. You remember that God’s people in this story — which you can find in I Kings 17 — had lapsed into almost total apostasy, worshiping the false god Baal. There were priests of Baal, altars set up to Baal, “groves” where devotees of Baal could worship the so-called “rain god,” this pagan deity “riding the thunderstorm as its divine chariot,” as scholars put it. And yet it appears that many of these Israelite worshipers still were holding onto a vestige of their former faith in the God of heaven. They knelt down to Baal, but they wanted to keep a picture of Jehovah in their purse, so to speak. In other words, they wanted to have both at the same time. We mentioned in our study last week that the worship of Baal was sensual, high-energy, exciting. There certainly weren’t any temple prostitutes in the house of the living God, but over at Baal’s temple . . . well, it was quite a time. And so people thought: “I’ll keep one hand on the back doorknob of God’s tabernacle, but for a good time I’ll call 923-BAAL. I’ll have the best of both worlds.”

When we last left off, we were standing in a field with Elijah the prophet and Ahab the king. I’ve always liked the line Ahab greeted his adversary with — remember this is the first time the king has seen his old enemy for three years. But he says to Elijah:

“Art thou he that troubleth Israel?”

That’s great King James, isn’t it? And of course, in a true sense, the Lord was indeed using Elijah to trouble this slumbering, secular nation. You’ve heard the recent line: “God calls us to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That’s what Elijah was doing, for sure. But the prophet of God comes right back and fires at the king:

“I have not made trouble for Israel. But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals.”

And now comes the great confrontation we’ve been building up to for a week-and-a-half now. Verse 19:

“Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

It’s kind of interesting that this whole “Gunfight at the OK Corral” scene takes place on Carmel. The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary describes the mountain this way:

“A range of hills about 15 miles long, with its northwestern promontory jutting out into the Mediterranean. The hills are about 550 feet high at the promontory and about 1,700 feet high at the southeast. The height affords a beautiful view of the Mediterranean, the plains of Esraelon and Sharon, and of much of Samaria.”

Apparently it was also possible, from the lower foothills, to clearly see what was happening up at the summit, so this was an ideal place for all of Israel to gather for the great moral conflict. And the NIV’s biblical scholars point out that this high ridge of mountains was much less ravaged by the three-year drought than the rest of the nation.

“The power of Baal to nurture life,” they write, “would seem to be strongest [here].”

In other words, God was willing for Baal’s followers to have any possible advantage in the showdown. Heaven didn’t pick a spot to suit its own cause, but allowed the big moment to happen on Baal’s turf. Still, we noticed this descriptive paragraph from the 19th-century commentary book, Prophets and Kings, by E. G. White. Listen to this:

“Before the drought, Mount Carmel had been a place of beauty, its streams fed from never-failing springs, and its fertile slopes covered with fair flowers and flourishing streams. But now its beauty languished under a withering curse. The altars erected to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth stood now in leafless groves.”

So the people of Israel, knowing how badly they’ve strayed from the path of righteousness, hike up Carmel, seeing all around them the failure of their honeymoon with Baal. The wonderful rain god has completely dried up on them; for three years their prayers have gone unanswered. And remember, they still have that picture of Jehovah in their back pockets. They’ve tried, in their own clumsy, stupid way to have their cake and eat it too, to keep both sides happy. And it hasn’t worked. What’s going to happen now?
Well, when they all get to the bleachers and find their seats, the prophet Elijah gets right down to brass tacks. Verse 21 of chapter 18 is one of the great clarion calls, the flinging down of the gauntlet, you can find anywhere in the Word of God. Here it is in its King James majesty:

“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”

In the New International Version, it goes this way:
“How long will you WAVER between two opinions?”

And the Hebrew word for “waver,” the scholars inform us, means the same as “dance.” Essentially Elijah is saying, “How long are you folks going to dance right on the line, try to have it both ways, play both sides of the chess game simultaneously? Enough’s enough! Either fish or cut bait here. If Baal is God, then let’s worship him all-out. If he’s not God, if the Lord God Jehovah is really Ruler of heaven and earth after all, then let’s stop fooling around . . . and once and for all, worship Him.”

Well, friend, we have to leave it right there, but let me say this closing word about “dancing.” You cannot truly be a Christian — and a Scientologist. You can’t be a Baptist or Presbyterian or Seventh-day Adventist — and also a Buddhist at the same time. Just one verse in the Bible tells us that, and it’s said by Jesus Himself in John chapter 14, verse 6.

“I am the Way,” He says, “and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

So if one faith system says, “Oh, there are many paths to God. God has spoken through many Messiahs, Jesus Christ of Nazareth being just one of them,” and if another system says: “No, Jesus Christ is THE Way, and THE Truth, and THE Life” . . . then those two systems are alien systems; they’re mutually exclusive.

And when you realize that, the band stops playing and the dance needs to come to an end.