Two Dangerous Shifts

I remember three of the first cars I owned. The first one was a red 1962 Corvette convertible when I was stationed in Hawaii in the early 1970’s. It had a manual shift. The second was a red 1971 AMC Gremlin, also when I was on the island of Oahu – a much different car that most have never seen with a manual shift. The third was a yellow VW Super Beetle. It was difficult to shift that bug into second gear, but my wife learned how to drive a manual transmission in that car even with all of its quirks. Shifting in those cars was fun and shifting wasn’t dangerous. In fact, to drive those cars successfully you had to shift.

My beautiful picture – notice I had hair!

There are two areas of life where I see shifting as an undesirable behavior. One has to do with investing and the second, more importantly, with hope.

Investing Shifts

As people get older, many shift to “safe” investments. These fall under a number of different costumes, but they all have one thing in common. They generally ignore the reality of inflation and the tend to think that what is happening this year will happen for the next ten or twenty years.

So, for example, FDIC-insured accounts, U.S. Treasuries, high-quality bond funds, high-yield savings accounts, and certificates of deposit are considered safe investment types. Annuities are also in that “safe” category. There are even funds that shift you automatically from the “not safe” investments to the “safe” ones. Many brokers offer these “Freedom” or “Target Date” funds.

Here is what Fidelity Investments declares: “Choose a Fidelity Freedom Fund based on the year you expect to retire. You don’t need to adjust your asset allocation over time because Fidelity Freedom Funds become more conservative the closer you get to retirement.” Fidelity Investments

Being “more conservative” sounds prudent. However, if you really understand what this means you won’t want this kind of “freedom.” There is another kind of enticing “freedom” that many pursue. The freedom from God.

Shifting Hope: God or No god?

Some claim to have a brand of religion and might even be well-versed in their brand. Take for example, Dan Barker. “Few atheists know the Bible as intimately as Dan Barker. Few, after all, can profess to have begun their careers as fundamentalist Christian preachers. Currently co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, an American non-profit organization, Barker was a self-proclaimed ‘extremist’ for 19 years, until he renounced the faith.” – New Humanist

Some would say Dan Barker shifted. The Bible would suggest something quite different. They were never who they claimed to be. He did not have true faith.

The Apostle Paul often proclaimed that shifting from the hope and truth of the gospel was a really bad shift if you understand the story of the Bible. It saddens me when I hear of “christians” who once proclaimed they were followers of Jesus who transform into atheism. They shifted from a human perspective. However, from God’s perspective they never were true believers. Even in his day some of Jesus “followers” left him. Peter did not. He knew there was no other person where hope could be found. See John 6:67-69.

“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Colossians 1:21-23

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:6-9

Dan Barker turned to his own “gospel.” His gospel is one many accept because it feels good and gives a certain sense of “liberation.” Sadly, it is just slavery. You can only choose one master.

Five Minute Friday

This post is part of the weekly Five-Minute Friday link-up.

All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version except as otherwise noted.