If asked if we are ready for the return of Christ, most of us Christians would say that we are.  But, how many of us are ready for the coming of the anti-christ?  You see, both Scripture and the teachings of the early church warn that the anti-christ will come before the real Christ. In other words, the false will come before the real. And, it will be up to us to know the difference.

As I was reading the summation of the first debate on the Alliance of Civilizations (AOC), I ran across some familiar words. On page 7 we read: 

In order to solve the problems of the present, public memory must be complete and vivid. For example, unlike in the case of Christian philosophy, the establishment of a link between religion and rationalist philosophy is being categorically denied to Islam. This imposed separation constitutes an intolerable limitation, and ignores the long rational Islamic tradition. By denying Muslims the ability to rational thinking, they are implicitly denied the ability to participate in public debate. People who build the present today have to understand that rationality belongs to everyone and not, as selective memory suggests, to the West only See AOC pdf here.

Where have we heard these words before? If you recall, the same concept being expressed in this AOC document (above) was at the very heart of Pope Benedict's recent speech that so inflamed the Islamic world. His speech, delivered to his old university, was titled, Faith, reason and the university: memories and reflections. Let's take another look at some of what Pope Benedict said.

The university [The University of Regensburg] was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole Pope's speech here.

From here Pope Benedict turns to the most urgent issue of our day -- the clash of civilizations and the so-called dialogue of civilizations -- between Christianity and Islam. The Pope uses a historic event. He says:

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Munster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.

It was while discussing this historic encounter between an early Christian emperor and a Persian leader that the Pope quoted the words that angered the Islamic world. But, examining what the Pope quoted is not the purpose of this commentary. There was something else that the Pope said in the following paragraphs that I think is revealing. We find basically the same type of thoughts being expressed by the Pope as those found in the AOC document. The only difference is, the Pope was speaking to a religious -- not a secular -- audience. The Pope said: 

I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the Word".

This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, [text unclear] with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis.

In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16. 6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

The Greek word "logos' does mean what Pope Benedict said. And, the Apostle John does say what Pope Benedict says. But, unfortunately, the Pope left something out. You see, there was something else that the Apostle John said.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14 New American Standard Bible).

You see, by going back to the book of Genesis, the Pope identified the logos that the Apostle John was talking about with only the revealed God of the O.T., not the revealed God of the N.T. -- Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Once Linda and I attended a dinner held by our local branch of one of the world's leading fraternal organizations. The dinner was by invitation only and, although they claim they have no recruitment, a movie showed made it obvious that recruitment was what the dinner was really all about.

The movie began by showing a half man half ape looking creature that was holding a crude tool of some kind in its hand. Then, whether spoken or written I don't recall, the organization's movie said," In the beginning was the word."

Friends, that's all I needed to know. The spirit that moved in this organization was not God's Spirit. The Apostle John warns us:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world (1 John 4:1-3).

Here's what I'm saying. Although it's true that we Christians are to combine reason and logic to our faith, our reason and logic must remain solidly planted on the Word -- Jesus, the true Logos of God. If, in the name of tolerance and earthly concerns, we allow our reason and logic to shift from Jesus to reason and logic itself, we have abandoned the true God of the Bible for the lie -- we have left the Logos for the anti-logos.

Still think you're ready?