17 Ways Your Kids Will Encounter Challenges to Their Faith

By Natasha Crain

In conjunction with my new book, I’ll be doing several speaking events and seminars. In those events, I’ll be explaining to parents the key faith challenges that their kids will encounter, and what they need to do to equip their kids with a faith that’s ready for those challenges.

One of the event coordinators sent me a couple of questions that her prospective attendees had sent in response to the outline of my talk. The parents who had seen the outline wanted to be sure I included information on how kids will encounter challenges to their faith. In other words, it’s one thing to have a general understanding that challenges lurk in the world, but it’s another thing to be able to put your finger on what, specifically, we’re talking about.

Today I want to give you a bunch of very practical ways your own kids will encounter challenges to their faith. There are many others, but this is a list to just get you thinking. If you don’t believe your kids are being challenged on their faith (or will be soon), I pray this opens your eyes.

 

1. Your kids’ own thoughts.

Who has never had doubts about their faith simply based on their own life experiences? Even if you kept your kids in a tiny bubble for 18 years so they would never encounter an external challenge to their faith (something neither possible nor desirable), questions would still naturally arise. How do I know an “invisible” God is actually there? Why is there so much bad stuff in the world if God is good? Why am I trapped in this tiny bubble? The list goes on.

 

2. Other kids.

With fewer Christian adults in America, there are now fewer kids being raised as Christians as well. Just as we want to raise our kids with a belief in Jesus, most atheists want to raise their kids with a belief that God doesn’t exist. If your kids are in a public school, they will certainly hear conflicting comments from other kids about Christianity…and friends are powerful influencers.

What if you send your kids to a private Christian school? They’ll probably encounter fewer challenges from friends, but that doesn’t mean they won’t encounter challenges at all. My own kids go to a private Christian school and last year a Kindergartener told them that only her mom believes in God—she believes “in science,” like her dad.

Wherever you engage with other kids—school, extracurricular activities, and even church (see number 17)—your kids may very well encounter challenges to their faith.

 

3. School teachers.

While public school teachers are supposed to be objective, it should surprise no one that such objectivity doesn’t always play out in practice. I received an email from a parent a few weeks ago saying that her daughter mentioned something about her faith in class one day and the teacher replied, “You believe all that stuff?” The girl was embarrassed and the mom who emailed me wondered how to talk to her child about the issue of respecting authority figures (like teachers) while understanding they may also be wrong.

 

4. School subjects.

Evolutionary biology is an obvious subject where kids will be challenged by what they learn, given the apparent conflict with the biblical creation account. But issues of worldview arise in many other subjects as well: history (e.g., a teacher may present the historical actions of Christians very negatively), literature (e.g., in the messages/worldview presented), civics (e.g., how the relationship between “church and state” is presented), anthropology (e.g., how we should accept the values of other cultures as equally right), and any science (e.g., that the only things we can know are those things proven empirically through science).

 

5. Kids’ books.

Maybe you very carefully select books for your kids. That’s great. But don’t forget your kids also have access to books at their friends’ houses, the community library, the school library, and a number of other places. Last time we were at the public library, my 4-year-old at the time brought us a cute little book about penguins. I flipped through it to learn it was all about how families with two daddy penguins are the same as families with a mommy AND daddy penguin.

Aside from books with different values in general, there are plenty of books now being written for kids that directly attack religious beliefs. Check out The Belief Book by David McAfee, as one example (McAfee is a vocal atheist). I read this last night, and it’s all about how religious beliefs are holdovers from ancient people who didn’t know how else to explain the world…but today we have the scientific method. It’s written in a fun, kid-appropriate tone, as if explaining something as innocuous as what baby pandas eat for dinner. More of these books are surely on the way.

 

6. Magazines (for adults OR kids).

My twins love National Geographic—both the adult and kid versions. Even though they’re only 6, they love to look through it. This month’s cover features the face of an ape with the headline, “Almost Human.” The article talks about the newest member of the “human family tree.” Whether or not you’re a Christian who accepts evolution, that’s a magazine cover that warrants conversation. The sky’s the limit on what kids will find in magazines that challenges their worldview. My kids have asked a ton of questions just based on what they see in line at the grocery store.

 

7. Nonbelieving family members.

In recent months, as I’ve written more about atheism, I’ve received a lot of comments and emails from parents who either have a nonbelieving spouse, or nonbelieving family members with whom their kids regularly interact. For many families, this is the most difficult kind of challenge because it’s often more personal in nature. Depending on the relationship between your kids and a nonbelieving family member, the influence can be very strong.

 

8. Movies.

We all know that there are plenty of adult movies that outright attack religion or Christianity in particular. It’s pretty easy to either steer clear of those movies with your kids or intentionally watch them with the purpose of having a discussion afterward. What many parents don’t realize, however, is how often movies have more subtle messages that can really impact their kids’ worldview over time. The children’s movieHappy Feet, for example, looks adorable, but is a mockery of religion. Don’t be deceived…challenges often come in cute little packages.

 

9. Music.

Music is just like movies. While most parents are certainly aware there are musical artists they wouldn’t allow their kids to listen to, far less attention is given to the stealth secularism that creeps into mainstream lyrics. As one example, you can read my recent post about the pervasive lyrical message that “being true to yourself” is an ideal(something it shouldn’t be from a Christian perspective).

 

10. Commercials.

Even if you carefully pick TV shows for your kids to watch, you can’t control the commercials. Need an example of how commercials are increasingly becoming a challenge? Check out the Chobani Simply 100 commercial.

 

11. Freeway billboards.

Take a second and Google “atheist billboards.” Click on the results with images. There you will see the kinds of signs popping up all over the country. Here are a few:

  • “Are you good without God? Millions are.”
  • “There is no God. Don’t believe everything you hear.”
  • “You KNOW it’s a myth. This [Christmas] season, celebrate reason!”
  • “Please don’t indoctrinate me with religion. Teach me to think for myself.” (with a kid’s picture)
  • “God is an imaginary friend. Choose reality.”

These seeds of doubt may well be planted when your kids notice such signs from the back of your car…and, if they don’t comment, you won’t even know. (If you see a sign like these, talk about it!)

 

12. Results of purposeful internet searches.

Perhaps your kids have a question about Christianity that they don’t feel comfortable asking you (for any number of reasons). Type ANY question about Christianity into your search engine and you will bring up a massive database of anti-Christian responses. There will be Christian ones as well, but you can be sure those aren’t the only ones your kids will click on.

Don’t get me wrong: It’s important for kids to hear other answers. But the quality of those answers varies so much online that there’s no way of knowing where they’ll end up (that goes for the “Christian” sites as well). The internet is a bottomless pit of hostility toward Christianity.

 

13. Results of unrelated internet searches.

Your kids don’t even have to be searching for something related to religion (see number 12) to end up on sites opposed to Christianity. I was looking for something the other day and ended up at a site for pastors who are closet atheists. I wish I could remember what I was searching for as an example, but all I know is that it was something completely unrelated to religion.

 

14. Viral videos.

If your kids have access to social media, they will undoubtedly encounter viral videos that challenge their faith in any number of ways. And it’s not always as obvious as you think. Last month, a video called “I’m a Christian, But I’m Not…” went viral. It features a bunch of young people saying things like, “I’m a Christian, but I’m not homophobic”…”but I’m not close-minded”…”but I’m not uneducated”…”but I’m not judgmental”…” It’s a ridiculous video that promotes the idea that most other Christians are those things. Such a video could sound good to your kids while altering their perception of what they believe.

 

15. YouTube comments on videos.

This is related to number 14, but is worth calling out separately. Under every YouTube video, you’ll find comments. On the one I just described, there are over 13,000. If you want the opportunity to bang your head repeatedly on the table next to you out of spiritual frustration, please read some. The comment sections often take on a life of their own, where your kids will have the opportunity to read all kinds of additional challenges to their beliefs (be assured that nonbelievers often comment on Christian videos as well, so this isn’t a matter of somehow protecting your kids from secular media).

 

16. Social media conversations.

 Again, if your kids on social media, they’ll have front row seats to watch conversations between their friends about religion and current hot topics. In case you haven’t noticed, these conversations can come up in all kinds of ways. I think the most vicious I’ve seen in my own Facebook feed was when an atheist friend talked about how devastated she was over the killing of Cecil the Lion this summer. Someone else asked why she wasn’t as upset about babies being aborted. That spun into hundreds of comments between people over animal rights, abortion, the existence of God, where we get morality, and so on.

 

17. Church.

What? Church? Yes, church. And for all kinds of reasons. For example, just as we should expect, the church is full of hypocrites because the church is full of sinful humans. As kids notice the difference between what people say and what they do, it can be a natural challenge to their faith. Alternatively, I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about church leaders/teachers quietly acknowledging to kids that they don’t really believe, or that Christianity is just one way to God, or that what’s really important is that we save the Earth, etc. Don’t assume that church is free from the possibility of faith challenges.

 

So what should you do about all these challenges? Contrary to what may be your instinct, the goal shouldn’t be to simply minimize them. Your kids will be swimming amongst them someday, whether you teach them to swim now or not. If you avoid the pool while they’re at home, they’ll just drown later when there’s no choice but to swim. Instead, jump in with them now, be alert to where the challenges are, learn how to answer them yourself, and teach your kids how to swim through with confidence.

 

Which of these challenges have your own kids encountered? What challenges should be added to the list? I’d love to hear your experiences.

 

Visit Natasha’s Website: ChristianMomThoughts.com

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think

The Top Five Reasons Faith is Not What You Think It Is

By Richard Eng

The Bible’s definition of faith is simple, easy, and straightforward. But there are influences both inside and outside the church that confuse the biblical definition. Imagine the biblical definition as the ingredients to a fruit smoothie and the bad influences are chocolate, salt and pepper, and fish. When you blend it all together the once delicious drink is now a goopy mess, not exactly appetizing; a definition that the world laughs at. The sneaky part about the smoothie illustration is this: the false information that gets blended in with the definition of faith looks appealing, but it ultimately leads to a definition so unlike the original that it changes the meaning. Christians cannot allow false teachers and the world to define our terms. When we lose our definitions, we lose our control of the conversation. Atheistic professors, youtube personalities, and zealous social media commenters devour unsuspecting christians when they ask, “so you are saying that you believe in a god without evidence? And that’s what faith is? Why don’t you believe in somethingbased on evidence??”

But is faith a belief without evidence? Is it something else? Here are The Top Five Reasons Faith is Not What You Think It Is.

Faith is not Blind

I really believe that this misunderstanding comes from a bad interpretation of a familiar bible passage. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” (ESV) People then take this passage to mean that faith is sightless or blind. As if to be a christian is to walk around with your eyes closed. The best advice I’ve heard about reading the bible is this, never read a bible verse. Meaning, do not read only one verse- always check the context.

Even from just a quick glance of the context, the apostle Paul is talking about how this world is not our home. His point in 5:7 is for believers to not be so focused on this world that they forget that they are not in their true home. In other words, don’t get so caught up with this world that you forget about the next – the next one that we yet do not see.

Faith is not “Belief Without Evidence”

We at FreeThinking Ministries often quote atheists to see from the horse’s mouth what is being said about Christianity. Here is Richard Dawkins, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” (footnote 1) Surely that is the straw man that Dawkins would like to raise, and even Christians will take this definition and run with it! But is it really the definition of the Bible?

Alan Shlemon, a contributor for Stand to Reason, writes,

“But this definition is foreign to the Bible. The Greek word for faith, pistis, is derived from the verb pisteuo, which means “to convince by argument.” Hebrews 11:1 explains that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Some translations replace “conviction” with “evidence.” Faith, then, is being convinced that the things we can’t see (e.g. God, heaven, the resurrection, etc.) are real.” (Link to rest of article)

Shlemon points out that when the author of Hebrews says, “conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1) he means that we simply do not yet see those things! He does not mean that we cannot see them, or that the only way to know they are real is by seeing. It’s a rhetorical question, “Do you see Jesus in front of you? No? Then it’s a conviction in him who we can’t yet see.”

Faith is not a Leap

Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century philosopher, coined or is at least attributed the phrase, “the leap of faith.” This builds off our previous points, because Kierkegaard has shaped our understanding of faith in the west so substantially. Kierkegaard’s understanding of belief was much like ours; the belief must be justified and be true. But Kierkegaard divorced faith with evidence, and made faith out to be more experiential than a proposition about reality. He said that faith must be met with intense self-reflection, and the life of faith is ultimately submitting yourself to something that cannot be known in any real sense. To Kierkegaard, faith is closing your eyes and jumping out of a plane. Maybe Jesus will show up and give you a parachute halfway down? But it is not certain. But on Kierkegaard’s view, faith is a flip of a coin kind of leap – maybe you make it, and maybe you do not. But our faith is confident because Jesus is who he says he is, and he does what he says he does. 

Faith is not All or Nothing

Preachers and pastors either explicitly or imply that if you are not 100% all in than you do not believe at all. But the Bible teaches a different story.

Mark 9:23-25 

23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”24 Immediately the father of the child cried out[a] and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

If we are honest, all of us can identify with this man. “I believe; help my unbelief” is a perfect summary of the internal struggle that every Christian experiences. It’s like reaching for Jesus to pull you out of the water when you have a weight tied to your ankle. In that moment you are focused on the weights keeping you under, but your heart is yearning to look up! So look to Jesus! The point of this passage is this: even if you are only 51% sure that Jesus will do what he says, He can work with that. Here’s the thing, the only things that you know with 100% certainty is that you exist, because you are a thinking thing, and logical and mathematical laws like “1+1=2.” Other than that we need to be ok living in the tension of doubt and unanswered questions. Jesus never promises to answer all of our questions. Most of the time he says something like, “Trust me and let me work.” Do not be afraid of doubt or unanswered questions, because God meets you there. Our beliefs need to have reasons behind them, and they must best correspond to reality. But if your expectation is that Christianity will bring you to a place of 100% certainty, the flesh will do a lot of damage to you when you never get there.

Faith is not a Substance

This one will sting, because I see church-goers eating this stuff up. The sad thing is, I do not blame them! It is trendy, “spiritual,” and you find more of this false teaching in book stores than Bibles! This is the word-faith movement, or word-of-faith movement. I will write more about this later, but like a window-seat passenger on a flight home they can look out the window and notice some key landmarks.

The most effective false teachers in the church will use the same vocabulary but use a different dictionary. In other words, they use the same words to make it sound like they are preaching orthodox church doctrine when in fact they are sneaking in ideas that are bad philosophy.

Let me paint a picture:

Your son is sick in the hospital. You have been praying faithfully for months for a cure… you know that it is life threatening. Your prayers are fervent and continuous, but by his hospital bed you are at the end of your rope. Just then, you see your pastor walk in the room. He embraces you in the midst of hopelessness, and you begin to explain the situation. After he hears it all, he offers this advice, “Well it seems to me that God wants to heal your son through your prayers… but you don’t have enough faith. If you had enough faith God would heal him.”

Have you ever heard that? “You don’t have enough faith?” Have you even thought that? Let me be clear, nowhere in scripture is there even a hint of this idea. Faith is confidence! Assurance! Trust in a trustworthy person! Faith is not a substance or thing, it is the sure road to Jesus. Jesus says clearly, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) It’s not about the amount of your faith, it’s about the object of your faith. God created mountains, if he wants to move them he can!

So What Is Faith?

Faith, in it’s purist definition is near indistinguishable from the word belief, except for one key component: if faith is 51% or more, trust makes up the difference. Faith is confidence, assuredness, and sturdy, but knowledge can never bring us to 100% certainty. There is always a healthy dose of unanswered questions that every person deals with. The difference is that Christianity offers a person, Jesus Christ, in whom we place our trust in the unanswered questions. The God of Christianity is a maximally great being, he cannot lie, he cannot sin, he is faithful, he is good, he is just, he is loving, etc. The unanswered questions find rest in God’s character. Do not be afraid to doubt, but bring those doubts to the foot of the cross. May your faith be characterized by the man who in full and utter vulnerability from his heart cries, “I believe… help my unbelief!”

Richard Eng

Visit Richard’s site: Free Thinking Ministries

 

Footnotes:

1. A lecture by Richard Dawkins extracted from The Nullifidian (Dec 94),

2. http://www.str.org/articles/is-faith-blind#.VrTQzDYrJmA (accessed 2/5/16)

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4 Key Points Christian Kids Need to Understand About Evolution

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By Natasha Crain

The other day, I saw a post on Facebook from a mom who was concerned because her teenage daughter was turning away from God after learning about evolution. The mom was considering pulling her out of public school because she wasn’t sure what to do about it.

It breaks my heart when I see parents who feel unequipped to dialogue with their kids about evolution and age of the Earth issues. These questions are so crucial for parents to be able to discuss with their kids that I devoted 8 of the 40 questions in my book to explaining the scriptural and scientific considerations at stake.

Today I want to bring to light four key points I think Christian parents need to make sure their kids understand about evolution, but are often left unaddressed. This post could easily have been 101 things kids need to understand about evolution, but that would be another book! This is far from comprehensive, but I hope it will get the conversation going.

 

1. Evolution isn’t necessarily an anti-Christian concept.

A lot of Christian parents think of evolution as a dirty word. They immediately assume it’s the antithesis of Christianity and are quick to state their opposition to everything associated with it.

But the word evolution, in its most basic sense, simply means that a species has undergone genetic change over time (a species is a group of organisms capable of interbreeding—for example, humans are a species and dogs are a species). This basic concept of evolution isn’t controversial at all. Genetic change within species is a well-documented fact that scientists can observe within a human lifetime.

Christians of every viewpoint (young-Earth creationists, old-Earth creationists, and theistic evolutionists) all agree that evolution, in this sense, takes place (sometimes people refer to this as “microevolution”).

What is controversial is whether the same mechanism that drives change within a species is capable of changing one species into another (sometimes called “macroevolution”). Ultimately, evolutionists claim that all species on Earth today descend from a single species that lived 3.5 billion years ago. This is the claim most Christians object to.

When Christian parents negatively overreact to the mere idea of evolution, they can quickly lose credibility with their kids for not understanding and interacting with the issues more deeply. Our kids need us to understand what they are learning and how to process it scientifically and scripturally. If this is an area you don’t feel confident talking to your kids about, it’s important to get up to speed.

 

2. There is scientific evidence both consistent and inconsistent with evolutionary theory.

I didn’t hear much about evolution growing up, but I do clearly remember my youth group leader laughing it off one day: “Yeah, right, like we all really came from apes!” I chuckled along, because that thought did seem crazy.

But there were two problems with what he said. First, it wasn’t even a technically accurate representation of what evolutionists claim. Evolutionists do not claim that humans descend from modern apes, but that we share a common ancestor with them. That might sound like a fine detail, but it’s clear to me in retrospect that my leader didn’t understand evolutionary theory at all.

Second, it’s not good critical thinking to dismiss something because it sounds weird. It’s weird but true, for example, that we live on a big rock that jets around the sun and we don’t feel a thing.

Unfortunately, I have heard far too many Christians trivialize what evolution is in favor of caricatures like those of my youth pastor. When I eventually learned about the scientific evidence for evolution as an adult, my life-long faith was initially shaken in a matter of hours. No one had ever told me there was actually extensive scientific evidence that could be consistent with evolutionary claims. Based on the light-hearted handling I had seen from other Christians, I had assumed evolution was an idea that could easily be dismissed.

In reality, there is significant scientific evidence both consistent and inconsistent with evolutionary theory. Our kids need to 1) have an accurate understanding of what evolution is and 2) have a thorough understanding of the scientific evidence that is both consistent and inconsistent with it.

 

3. The age of the Earth and evolution are related but separate scientific subjects that Christians must grapple with.

A common misunderstanding many Christians have is that questions about the age of the Earth and evolution are all part of one issue. They’re related, but actually pose separate scientific (and theological) questions for Christians.

As a basic background, mainstream scientists estimate that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Young-Earth creationists estimate that the Earth is 6,000-10,000 years old, based on a timeline deduced from biblical data on historical events and genealogies. These young-Earth estimates are derived first and foremost from the biblical data, but there are young-Earth scientists who work to support those estimates with scientific evidence and models (called “creation science”). Conversely, to my knowledge, there are no mainstream scientists (Christian or non-Christian) who believe the Earth is 6,000-10,000 years old based on scientific evidence ALONE.

Here’s the bottom line.

  • Evolution requires billions of years in order to even possibly have the amount of time necessary for small genetic changes to amass into the diversity of species we see today. In that sense, evolution and an ancient Earth do go hand-in-hand.
  • However, the reverse is not true. An ancient Earth does not necessarily mean evolution took place. The scientific evidence for an old Earth is mostly independent from the evidence for evolution. For this reason, there are many Christians who are “old-Earth creationists”—accepting the scientific evidence for an old Earth, but rejecting evolution.

 

4. Theistic evolution (the belief that God used evolution to create life) has significant theological implications.

While some Christians are too fast to dismiss anything related to the word evolution (see point 1), others are too fast to embrace it without understanding the full implications. For example, I’ve heard many people say, “It doesn’t matter whether God used evolution or anything else to create the world!”

While it’s true that God could have used evolution, many people don’t realize the broadertheological implications of accepting evolution as His creative mechanism:

  • The Bible states that humans are made in God’s image—a very different, morally accountable, creature than animals. If all life evolved from one common ancestor, however, we are biologically no different than animals. (Theistic evolutionists believe that the properties related to God’s “image” are those of a person’s soul, and that God could have imprinted His image on humans at an unknown point in their evolutionary development.)
  • Most theistic evolutionists do not believe a literal Adam and Eve existed. If a literal first couple did not exist, the important question of how and when sin entered the world is left unanswered. Why is that so important? Well, the Bible overall is a story of the problem of sin and God’s “rescue plan” through Jesus. If you’re left without any biblical explanation of how the “big problem” arose, it can diminish the need for the “big solution” of Jesus. (Theistic evolutionists differ in how they address this.)

There are many other implications, but these are two of the most important to understand.

Biologos is the leading organization that promotes theistic evolution (they prefer the term evolutionary creation). Whether you agree with their viewpoint or not, they publish good resources for helping Christians better understand evolution.

Post edited to add: Based on multiple requests from readers of this post, I will follow up soon with a new post dedicated to providing resources for learning more about evolution and age of the Earth issues!

I’d love to hear about the experiences your kids have had with evolution in the classroom. Please share your thoughts in the comments! If there are specific subjects on this topic you’d like me to address in the future, please let me know how I can help.

Visit Natasha’s Site: ChristianMomThoughts.com

 

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why

Why Are You a Christian?

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By Tim Stratton

Why are you a Christian? As a full-time church youth pastor and a part-time adjunct professor at a Christian college, I like to ask this question to all of my students. In fact, I ask this question quite often to many active churchgoers these days. The answer I typically receive in response to my simple question is nothing but a blank stare. After a little coaxing, sometimes I get answers like, “because my parents were Christians,” or, “’cause I was born in ‘Merica!” With that I respond, “Oh, so if you were born in Afghanistan, then you would be a Muslim?” The blank stare typically returns.

What frightens me about the state of the church (including many pastors) today is that by and large, we do not know WHY we are Christians. I think that if pressed, many churchgoers today simply like the story of the gospel, but they don’t really think it’s true! Perhaps they like the “country club atmosphere” the church provides and the community they can find there, but they sure don’t think Christianity is really true!

This is evidenced by so many unchanged lives. We see this play out every week when we see churchgoers in the pews on Sunday mornings, singing praise songs, opening their Bibles, and whispering “amen” to the pastor’s message, but during the week you couldn’t tell a difference between the churchgoer and the atheist. In fact, it doesn’t surprise me to see the atheist living a more moral life than the churchgoer on Friday and Saturday nights. But as soon as Sunday morning comes around, they will put on their Sunday best and come back to the good ol’ country club (I mean church).

Speaking of atheists, it is these hypocritical churchgoers who are the greatest cause of atheism in the world today. Why do we find this dilemma in the modern church? Because people don’t think Christianity is really true! Sure, if you ask them they will tell you that they think it’s true, but deep down, they have been influenced by atheistic naturalism if they realize it or not. They really don’t think any of this supernatural stuff is true at all.

As a pastor, I believe the problem starts at the pulpit. When pastors themselves don’t really know why they believe what they say they believe, the people in the pews hear it loud and clear. The congregation will at  least have caught what was not intentionally meant to be taught. Many times pastors will say things like, “According to the Bible, Jesus was raised in Nazareth,” or “The Biblical truth is that Jesus was raised in Nazareth.” While these statements are true (and the intention is good), statements worded in this manner can often lead to postmodern views. People will have caught what was not meant to be taught. They will think, “Oh, there is Biblical truth, and there is also Islamic truth, there is Buddhist truth, and there is Star Wars truth. So you can have your Biblical truth, and I’ll have my Star Wars truth!”

Here’s the problem: Is it true that Luke Skywalker was raised on the planet Tatooine? Yes, that is a true statement. Within the Star Wars narrative, Luke Skywalker was raised on the planet Tatooine. Next question: Is it true that Jesus was raised in Nazareth? Yes, that is a true statement. Within the Biblical narrative, Jesus was raised in Nazareth. Both of these propositions are true within their narratives, but only one of these statements corresponds to reality. That is to say, only one of these statements is really true!

By definition, statements that are true correspond to reality. Reality is the way things are. If churchgoers simply attend on Sunday mornings because the Gospel story makes them feel good, or merely because they like the people in their small group, you will never see a radical transformation in their lives. This kind of transformation only occurs when one comes to understand Ultimate Reality (God)! Moreover, even if one kept all of the church’s/country club’s “rules,” and acted like Mother Theresa, but didn’t really think Christian theism was true, then, these individuals are not Christians.

Saving belief requires three essential components that can be remembered via the acronym, “K.A.T.” Let’s apply this to John 14:6 (one of my favorite Bible verses). In this verse, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The “K” stands for knowledge. This means, understanding the proposition that Jesus is the only way to the Father. The “A” stands for assent. This means, believing this proposition is really true. If you don’t really think it’s probably true, then you do not have saving belief.

It’s important to note that merely having the “K” and the “A” of K.A.T. is not enough for salvation as James 2:19 states that even “the demons believe and shudder.” One must possess knowledge and assent, but then they need the “T” to complete saving belief: trust! Have you put your trust (a.k.a. “faith”) in what you believe is probably true? If not, you have the same kind of belief the demons have. Let that sink in a bit!

There are many churchgoers today that only have the first two aspects of saving belief as they understand the Gospel and think it’s probably true; however, they have never put their trust/faith in Christ. With that said, I am starting to see that many today (including some pastors) at least struggle with the “A.” They do not really think Christianity is true. They might really like the story, and they can tell you what the Bible says, but they don’t really think it corresponds to reality.

Now, I’ve devoted my life to truth. In fact, I would say that I am more committed to truth that I am to Christianity. However, since I am devoted to truth, and I am fully convinced that Christianity is really true, I am willing to die for my faith! If I’m willing to die for my faith, you better believe I’m willing to live it out 24/7!

When churchgoers know what they believe, and why they believe it, radical transformation occurs (Romans 12:2)! When the churchgoer is transformed into someone who understands reality and knows that Christianity is true, the “compartmentalized” problems of the modern church come to an abrupt end. That is to say, churchgoers will do so much more than only act like a Christian on Sunday mornings and maybe Wednesday nights; rather, they will live for Jesus Christ all the time, even when no one else is watching!

I am committed to truth, and since I sincerely believe the Bible is true in all that it teaches, I think we should read it to see what Jesus thought about “truth.”

John 4:24

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 8:31-32

“… If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 14:6
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 18:37

“… For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Wow! The very reason the creator of the universe entered into the universe was to testify to the TRUTH! If Jesus has this attitude towards truth, I see nothing wrong with being devoted to truth our selves. In fact, if we are truly Christ followers, we ought to be committed to the same thing. If there is any confusion regarding Jesus’ attitude towards truth, Paul makes it clear:

Ephesians 4:15

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Ephesians 4:25

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Philippians 4:8

“Whatever is true…. think about these things.”

1 Timothy 2:4

(God) “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Let’s get back to the original question. I hope if someone inquires and asks, “Why are you a Christian?,” you can respond with more than just a blank stare. When someone asks me that simple question I respond with a simple answer:

“I’m a Christian because I believe it’s TRUE!”

Christianity is so much more than simply being true according to the narrative found in a book. The gospel message found in the Bible also corresponds to reality. That is to say, Christianity is really true!

Stay reasonable my friends (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

 

Visit Tim’s Site: Free Thinking Ministries

Visit the source site of this article.

Resources for Greater Impact:

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Teach Kids about Atheism

14 Ways for Christian Parents to Teach Kids about Atheism

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By Natasha Crain

I suppose this a funny title for a post on a Christian parenting blog! But, as I often explain, we can no longer teach our kids about Christianity in a silo and expect them to automatically stand spiritually strong. The challenges today are too great. As I discussed in my last post, the atheist worldview in particular is a threat to the faith of young people.

In today’s post, I want to give you some very practical ideas for teaching your kids about atheism. The first seven are appropriate for kids of all ages, while the second seven are appropriate for middle school and older kids.

I should note that the first several ideas on this list are not necessarily for teaching the specifics of the atheist worldview. They do, however, lay an important foundation for future learning on the topic (e.g., with the last seven ideas on the list).

Without further ado, here are 14 ways to teach your kids about atheism.

1. Be intentional in pointing out that not everyone believes in God.

Depending on where you live and your kids’ educational setting, they may or may not have this basic fact fully on their radar. When I was growing up, I was very aware of different religions, but was hardly aware that there were people who didn’t believe in God until I was in high school!

The fact that God is invisible often comes up in our Bible study time with the kids (ages 5 and 3). I use it as an opportunity to acknowledge that it takes effort to understand a God we can’t see or touch, and that some people decide God must not exist if we can’t see him. I emphasize that God doesn’t just make us guess that He’s there, however; He has left us much evidence in what we can see. (See this post for discussion pointers.)

2. Discuss reasons why some people don’t believe in God.

One night per week, instead of our planned Bible study time, we let the kids ask any questions they want about God. This week, my daughter asked, “Why doesn’t everyone believe in God if the Bible tells us all about Him?” I was so happy she asked that question, and it led to a great introductory conversation about why some people reject God. At an age-appropriate level, we discussed how some people just don’t want to believe in God because they want to live without any (moral) rules; how some people see all the bad stuff happening in the world and decide a good God can’t possibly exist; how some people think the world has just always existed without a creator; how some people think the world would be very different if God existed; and so on.

This can lead to a great conversation about how the decision to accept or reject God (and Jesus) is the most important decision people must make in life.

3. When talking about stories from Jesus’ life, talk about the reactions he received from non-believers.

One of the stories that baffles me the most from Jesus’ life is when he healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath and the Pharisees who were present immediately set out “to destroy Him” for violating their rules (Mark 3:6). If I just saw a withered hand miraculously restored in front of my eyes, I think I’d be convinced that this person had authority from God and I’d chill out on the Sabbath rule enforcement. But, despite this evidence, they still did not believe Jesus was God’s Son and set out to kill Him.

Events like these from Jesus’ life provide a good opportunity to talk about belief and non-belief – that even when Jesus was walking this earth and doing amazing miracles in front of people, there were those who would not believe. The Pharisees were not atheists, so this isn’t a conversation about atheism per se, but it is a conversation that helps kids start thinking about the nature of belief and unbelief.

4. Discuss Jesus’ miracles in the context of proving his identity.

When I was growing up, my sole understanding of miracles was that Jesus did a lot of cool stuff when He was on earth – stuff I had to color pictures about. It never occurred to me that there was a reason He did miracles until I was an adult. What a huge point I had missed: Jesus performed miracles in large part to prove He really was God’s Son.

The reason this point is so important to make with kids is that it solidifies an understanding that God never asked us to have a blind faith, where we just have to guess about His existence. Jesus didn’t walk around on earth merely claiming a heavenly authority. He demonstrated his power with visible evidence. When kids get a bit older, they will be ready to start learning the specifics of the evidence we have today (e.g., the cosmological argument, the design argument, the moral argument and historical evidence for the resurrection).

5. Acknowledge the uniqueness of the resurrection.

I always think it’s funny when atheists leave comments on my blog to tell me they don’t believe in Jesus because we know from science that dead people don’t come back to life. Do they think this has never occurred to Christians? Do they think I will say, “Wow, he’s right! Why did I think Jesus was resurrected all this time? I totally forgot dead people stay dead!” Yet, this “argument” is repeated over and over on the internet as if it’s proof that can falsify all of Christianity in 1-2 sentences.

Lest my kids ever feel shamed when encountering such a statement, we spend a lot of time talking about how unique and “crazy” it is that Jesus came back to life. A sample conversation when talking about the resurrection goes something like this:

“Now, do dead people ever come back to life normally?” (No, never.)

“Who is the only person that could come back to life?” (Jesus)

“Why?” (Because Jesus is God’s Son, and only God would be able to make that happen – we would never believe a “regular” person could come back to life.)

Of course, this conversation doesn’t get you all the way to why we believe the resurrection actually happened (see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus), but it plants the seeds that the resurrection is a totally unique event that we have reason to believe in – and not because we believe people naturally come back to life from the dead.

6. Ask what your kids have heard at school (or church!) from kids who don’t believe.

As I discussed in my last post, it’s likely that your kids are encountering peers and teachers who don’t believe in God and they’ve almost certainly heard things that you would want the opportunity to weigh in on. That said, it doesn’t mean they are automatically sharing all this with you. Ask them regularly what they hear about God from kids and teachers. This gives you the opportunity to address it head-on.

7. Read apologetics books for kids together.

Here is an excellent list of apologetics resources designed for kids of various ages.

For elementary-age kids, you’ll see there are very few apologetics resources available. There are two excellent books for this age group that are not on this list, however: How Do We Know God Is Really There? and How Do We Know God Created Life?, both by Melissa Cain Travis. These are the first two books in her “Young Defenders” series, and they teach the basic ideas of the cosmological and design arguments, respectively. Each book explains its subject through the telling of an entertaining story that captures children’s attention. They are appropriate for the 5- to 10-year-old range. Definitely check out these wonderful resources!

8. [Older Kids] Discuss relevant current events from newspaper articles.

If you get in the habit of periodically visiting Christian news sites like The Christian Post or Christianity Today, you’ll see all kinds of articles that are relevant to the discussion of Christianity and atheism (the Tim Lambesis story and the launch of Atheist TV are just two examples). Make it a point to print out one article a week to discuss with your kids. It’s an excellent opportunity to get them culturally savvy before they leave home.

9. [Older Kids] Introduce atheist memes for discussion.

Long before your kids encounter any kind of intellectually sophisticated atheist arguments, they’ll likely encounter bite-sized attacks on Christianity via social media (e.g., in memes). Now, to be fair, no side wants to be represented by their least sophisticated proponents. I’m sure any atheist that reads this would bristle at the notion of teaching your kids about atheism by using memes. But the unfortunate truth is that such memes have a lot of emotional impact and are likely to reach your kids before more sophisticated atheist arguments. Choose memes from a site like this one and discuss what is being said.

10. [Older Kids] Read stories of people who turned away from Christianity.

If you Google “ex-Christian stories,” you’ll find an array of sites where former Christians post their de-conversion stories. These can actually be great discussion starters. Having the opportunity to talk about these experiences before your kids leave home is ideal for minimizing the shock factor of hearing such stories later. Talk about the person’s rationale for leaving and ask your kids what they would say to that person. Ask if they’ve ever thought some of the same things, and encourage them to be open about any doubts – now is the time to address them!

Here is an example case study of a Christian-turned-theist.

11. [Older Kids] Challenge your kids with a role play.

Want to see how prepared your kids currently are to address challenges to their faith? Try a role play. You be the atheist. See how your kids respond. Here’s an example for you to say: “I don’t believe God exists. There’s no evidence! I believe in science. Why do you believe in a God you can’t prove exists?” This is the most basic of claims – see what your kids do with it. Keep pushing back on them after they respond. Use what happens as an opportunity to look for learning opportunities in the areas that come up.

12. [Older Kids] Watch debates between a Christian and an atheist.

There are many debates available to watch online (for free). Sit down as a family to watch one and encourage everyone to take notes on the points that were strongest and weakest for both sides. Use it as a springboard for discussion when the debate is done, and follow up with study on any new points. Here are a couple of examples to consider:

William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens – Does God Exist?

Mike Licona vs. Bart Ehrman – Can Historians Prove Jesus Rose from the Dead? (I should note Ehrman is an agnostic, not an atheist.)

13. [Older Kids] Read a book together by an atheist and then a rebuttal by a Christian (or vice versa).

I recommended before that parents read one or more books written by the influential “new atheists” – Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris or Daniel Dennett. Several parents emailed me and/or commented that they would be scared to introduce their kids to this material. While I understand it’s a challenge that forces us out of our comfort zones, it’s extraordinarily important to understand that your kids will hear the arguments of these writers  whether you introduce them or not. Why not take the opportunity you still have to discuss these challenges with your kids? You don’t have to have all the answers first. Study it together.

One example combination I would recommend is The God Delusion followed byAnswering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins’ Case Against God (a fantastic response).

14. [Older Kids] Check out atheist websites together.

I came across a website this week that graphs all the “errors and contradictions” in the Bible (check it out here). Visually impressive sites like this can be very impactful for kids and adults alike. Knowing your kids will see this kind of site eventually, why not take the time to sit down and look at one together? As in these other ideas, use it as an opportunity for questions to arise and then discuss your kids’ thoughts.

Have you proactively talked to your kids about atheism? Why or why not? If so, how have you done it?

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2W6gh89

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Scalia

Scalia Defended Democracy: Liberals Subvert It

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“I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy,” wrote Justice Scalia in his dissent from last year’s Supreme Court decision, where five unelected judges imposed same-sex marriage on all 320 million citizens.

“This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

Exactly.

“A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”

Right again.

In fact, Justice Scalia was nearly always right. And what he called “originalism” is the only judicial philosophy that protects the American ideal that the people have the right to govern themselves.

“Well, there are many legitimate philosophies of judicial review,” you say.

Not if you believe in democracy, or a representative republic. Only originalism, which insists on interpreting the Constitution by its original meaning, protects democratic rule. The people spoke when they originally passed the Constitution. And they can speak again through the amendment process.

But when justices take it upon themselves to amend the Constitution from the bench, then “we the people” no longer govern ourselves. We are, instead, governed by unelected justices who bypass democracy to impose their will on the rest of us.

“Oh, but the Constitution is a ‘living’ document!” say the liberals.

If it is, then we have no Constitution at all. Why have a written Constitution if justices can interpret it anyway they want? Why have red lights if drivers are free at anytime to interpret them as green lights?

Actually, in one sense the Constitution is a living document, but not in the sense liberals advocate. The Constitution is “living” through the amendment process built into the document itself. It is not living through the whims of liberal justices.

“Ah, but the amendment process is too arduous,” you say.

It’s supposed to be arduous because changing the highest law of the land can have serious negative consequences. When the court unilaterally changes the Constitution, it not only subverts democracy, but it often moves important fences without considering why they were placed there in the first place. Their cavalier changing of abortion and marriage laws, for example, is killing or hurting millions of innocent children.

Moreover, the separation of powers created by our Constitution recognizes the fact that power tends to corrupt — another reason why no one branch should be able to unilaterally alter the law.

As Justice Scalia put it, “If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That’s flexibility.”

“Oh Frank,” you say, “Scalia was so extreme. Why can’t we take a moderate interpretation of the text?”

Justice Scalia had a brilliant response to that as well: “What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?”

You want it to mean something else? You can change the meaning, as Justice Scalia observed, by convincing your fellow citizens at the ballot box!

In fact, that’s how it’s been for most of our country’s history. To show you how much our country long-believed what Justice Scalia championed — that the people, not judges, are the legislators — consider the fact that even moral no-brainers, such as the right not be enslaved, and the rights of blacks and women to vote, were enshrined in the Constitution by the amendment process, not by judges legislating from the bench.

A hundred years ago, no judges thought that the Fourteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. A Constitutional amendment had to be passed to recognize the right. Yet, today five justices think that the Fourteenth Amendment somehow grants a woman the right to marry another woman. (Newsflash: if the equal protection clause didn’t guarantee a woman the right to vote when it was passed, it certainly doesn’t guarantee her right to marry another woman today!)

If you’re for so-called same-sex marriage (really genderless marriage), you might like the result of that decision. But you should be very afraid of the process by which that result was achieved. For if justices can evolve the Constitution according to their own whims, one day they might declare that your rights have “evolved” in a direction you don’t like.

Consider the “right” to abortion invented in 1973. If you’re a liberal, is that “right” subject to “evolution”? What if a judge comes along one day and declares that the U.S. Constitution has “evolved” to guarantee the unborn a right to life. Would you accept that idea of constitutional evolution?

And what’s to stop liberal justices from unilaterally “evolving” the Bill of Rights, so your rights to free speech, religion, association, and to bear arms are diminished? The only way to stop them is to put more Justice Scalias on the court. Indeed, only originalist judges should be confirmed on the Court. After all, you don’t need to worry about losing your freedoms to a judge’s political preferences if he is an originalist because his political preferences have nothing to do with his job! On the other hand, liberals are not committed to the defending the Constitution; they are committed to inserting their own “reasoned judgment” into the Constitution. They don’t trust the people or the democratic process but subvert them through judicial activism.

A liberal Supreme Court is not only a threat to democracy; it’s a threat to stability. If we don’t respect the rule of law, we will slip further into a state of corruption and instability common in so many other countries, where people rule by intimidation and political paybacks rather than adherence to the law as written. To maintain America we must respect the process by which we make, interpret and apply law.

Antonin Scalia consistently did that, even ruling against his own policy preferences when the law demanded he do so. He was a witty, winsome, articulate and unwavering defender of the most American of ideals — that we have the right to govern ourselves.

Please pray for his family. And pray for our freedoms that have become less secure with his passing.

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Historical Method

Examining Jesus by the Historical Method (Part 8: Two Final Methods and Conclusion)

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By Brian Chilton

For the past several weeks, we have been investigating how the historical Jesus of Nazareth fares by being tested by the traditional historical method. Before wrapping up our investigation, NT scholar Michael Licona provides two additional tests that need to be considered. This article will investigate those two additional tests or methods and will offer some concluding thoughts on our quest.

Arguments to the Best Explanation.

Licona notes that the Arguments to the Best Explanation method “makes inferences and weighs hypotheses according to specific criteria.”[1] In other words, the data is compiled and examined according to a particular hypothesis made by the historian. The criteria include:

Explanatory scope: Examining the most relevant data according to the hypothesis.

Explanatory power: Looking at the “quality of the explanation of the facts.”[2]

Plausibility: How much confidence can the historian possess that a certain event took place? For the skeptic, if they are to be honest historically, they must suspend their skepticism and allow for the possibility of the miraculous if they are to become unbiased.

Less ad hoc: Covering only what the data suggests without going “beyond what is already known.”[3]

Illumination: Where one piece of data strengthens other areas of inquiry.

Speaking of this method, Licona goes on to say that “Arguments to the best explanation are guided by inference and can sometimes be superior to an eyewitness to an event. Testimony to the court does not provide truth but data.”[4]

Examining the data that we have presented already when using this method demonstrates that the best historical explanation is that Jesus of Nazareth existed and walked out of the grave the first Easter Sunday. Licona, in his work The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach , comes to the following conclusion in his over 600 page work:

“I am contending that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the best historical explanation of the relevant historical bedrock. Since it fulfills all five of the criteria for the best explanation and outdistances competing hypotheses by a significant margin in their ability to fulfill the same criteria, the historian is warranted in regarding Jesus’ resurrection as an event that occurred in the past.”[5]

Thus, from using this method, Jesus’ historicity as well as Jesus’ resurrection are confirmed.

Arguments from Statistical Inference.

The Arguments from Statistical Inference method evaluates all data in question and evaluates the probability that an event could have happened. If one eliminates the possibility of God’s existence and God’s involvement in an event, then the odds that a “miraculous” event occurred goes down dramatically. However, if one holds that a greater power was involved, the odds go up drastically. Licona gives the illustration of one evaluating whether his son could lift 200 lbs. over his head. While such may be improbable, if one is willing to add that a bodybuilder assisted him, the added datum allows for such an event to become much more probable.[6] If the historian is going to be unbiased, then one must allow for the possibility of God’s existence and the possibility that God may have an invested interest for raising Jesus from the dead.

While this method will always be somewhat subjective, the historian can make an educated synopsis of how historically certain an event is. McCullagh uses the following grades:

“Extremely probable: in 100-95% of cases

Very probable: in 95-80% of cases

Quite or fairly probable: in 80-65% of cases

More probable than not: in 65-50% of cases

Hardly or scarely probable: in 50-35% of cases

Fairly improbable: in 35-20% of cases

Very improbable: in 20-5% of cases

Extremely improbable: in 5-0% of cases.”[7]

 

While it must be admitted that in history one cannot hold 100% certainty that any event took place. One could argue that one cannot be 100% certain of what a person had for breakfast. However, one could say that it was extremely probable that a person had Cheerios® for breakfast if one sees a used bowl and spoon with bits of Cheerios® cereal, accompanied by used milk at the bottom of the bowl, with an empty Cheerios® box sitting beside the bowl.

So, what can we draw from our investigation?

Concluding Thoughts

So, does Jesus pass the historical method? I would say so. In fact, so much so that I think one can logically hold the following premises.

It is extremely probable that Jesus existed. One can say with over 95% certainty that Jesus existed. To claim otherwise is to hold a level of skepticism that will disallow one to know about anyone or anything in history.

It is extremely probable that Jesus rose from the dead. The strength of Jesus’ existence is coupled with the strength of his resurrection. In my estimation, I would say that one holds a very strong case for the resurrection of Christ being an actual event of history.

It is extremely probable that Jesus’ disciples saw him risen from the dead. Some may argue that this point deserves to hold the level “very probable.” However, I feel that given other data to consider that it is extremely probable that Jesus’ disciples encountered the risen Jesus.

It is very probable that we have good eyewitness testimony telling us about the life of Jesus. While we have fantastic eyewitness testimony for the life of Jesus, particular debates surrounding the Evangelists’ identity and the like take down the probability a notch. In my estimation the eyewitness testimony deserves to have the highest ranking, but to be fair to all the data involved, I give it a very probable ranking (95-80% certainty).

It is extremely improbable that the Jesus Mythicist campaign has any leg on which to stand. Even agnostic Bart Ehrman has confessed that the Jesus Mythicist campaign is erroneous. While the historical data does not prove Jesus to be the Messiah (that comes by faith), the data provides solid grounding for accepting such a belief. In stark contrast, one can claim that the idea that Jesus was a myth is extremely improbable (0-5%).

Therefore, one may deny Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, one may reject his claims as divine, and one may pass off his miracles as the work of a magician, however one cannot deny that Jesus of Nazareth existed and one will be hard-pressed to deny that this same Jesus walked out of the tomb the first Easter Sunday.

Jesus of Nazareth passes the historical test with a solid A+.

 

Visit Brian’s Website: Bellator Christi

Click here to see the source site of this article. 

© February 15, 2016. Brian Chilton.

 

 

Bibliography

Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. Downers Grove; Nottingham, UK: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010.

McGullagh, C. B. Justifying Historical Descriptions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

 

 

[1] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove; Nottingham, UK: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 108.

[2] Ibid., 109.

[3] Ibid., 110.

[4] Ibid., 114.

[5] Ibid., 610.

[6] See Licona, 114.

[7] C. B. McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 52.

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon

  1. THE GOOD LIFE “Another modern trend is a change in what we mean by “the good life.” From Old Testament times and ancient Greece until this century, the good life was widely understood to mean a life of intellectual and moral virtue. The good life is the life of ideal human functioning according to the nature that God Himself gave to us. According to this view, prior to Creation God had in mind an ideal blueprint of human nature from which He created each and every human being. Happiness (Greek: eudaimonia) was understood as a life of virtue, and the successful person was one who knew how to live life well according to what we are by nature due to the creative design of God.

When the Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to pursue happiness, it is referring to virtue and character. So understood, happiness involves suffering, endurance, and patience because these are important means to becoming a good person who lives the good life.”

Excerpt From: Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind.”

  1. STAR-SPANGLED IRONY “Americans today speak endlessly about sustainable growth, sustainable development, a sustainable future and the “conservation” or “ecology” of this, that and the other. And after the Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007, they talk of the threat of the decaying infrastructure that supports America’s aging roads and bridges. But amazingly few pay serious attention to notions such as sustainable freedom, the ecology and conservation of liberty, the infrastructure of America’s foundations of freedom—or to the idea that freedom itself requires a living system of immunity if it is to stay healthy. This carelessness may prove lethal.”

Excerpt From: Guinness, Os. “A Free People’s Suicide.”

  1. NO COMMON COLDS “Exercisers report fewer upper respiratory tract infections, such as colds. Also, regular walkers experience about half as many days of upper respiratory tract infections as sedentary groups. Furthermore, near-daily physical activities reduce the number of work days lost to sickness.

In contrast, competitive athletes who engage in vigorous but irregular athletic events, such as marathons, tend to have an increased risk of those upper respiratory infections if they exercise to the point of chronic fatigue. The keys to maximizing your immune response with exercise, then, appears to be moderation and regularity.”

Excerpt From: Kenneth Cooper, M.D., MPH & Tyler Cooper, M.D., MPH. “Start Strong, Finish Strong.”

  1. NO CHANGE “He is immutable , which means that He has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change He would need to go from better to worse or from worse to better. He cannot do either, for being perfect He cannot become more perfect, and if He were to become less perfect He would be less than God.”

Excerpt From: A. W. Tozer. “The Pursuit of God.”

  1. INCENTIVES “The difference between two otherwise comparable players, one hitting .299 and the other .300, can be as high as 2 percent of salary, or, given the average Major League salary, $130,000. (Note that though the average MLB salary is $3.4 million, it’s closer to $6.5 million for players batting in the .300 range.) All for .001 of a batter’s average, one extra hit in 1,000 at-bats.

Given the stakes, hitting .300 is, not surprisingly, a goal of paramount importance among players. How do we know this? Pope and Simonsohn looked at hitters batting .299 on the final day of each season from 1975 to 2009. One hit and the players could vault above the .300 mark. With a walk, however, they wouldn’t be credited with an at-bat or a hit, so their averages wouldn’t budge. What did these .299 hitters do? They swung away—wildly.”

Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”

  1. SECULARISM “It never ceases to amaze me how modern western secularists are doing all in their power to purge Christianity from the public life. They’re sawing off the branch they’re sitting on.” — Chuck Colson
  2. WISDOM “Wisdom is a particular attitude toward reality, a worldview. That worldview assumes that the one God embedded truth within all reality.”

— James L. Crenshaw

  1. POVERTY AND CRIME RELATED? “The very same people who most argue that poverty causes crime usually believe that the affluent are particularly greedy and corrupt. [But] crime was extremely low during the Great Depression, when a far larger percentage of Americans were unemployed and experiencing great poverty.

Until “Poverty causes crime” is regarded as a foolish and dangerous belief, there is no hope for the regeneration of American society. As long as prominent politicians, intellectuals, and media leaders continue to believe that economics determines whether people act decently, society will continue to ignore what most determines whether people will hurt other people: values.

It will take a long time for this lie to be rejected because the human desire to reject the primacy of values is deep. The reason? As soon as we hold values responsible for human conduct, we must hold people, ourselves included, responsible for the bad that we do.”

Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”

  1. MORAL TEACHING Commenting on a tragic school shooting in l998, Chuck Colson said:

“What’s happening to our children? The first thing we must understand is that only a biblical worldview of human nature can make sense of these murders. The Bible makes two things clear about humanity. First, we are created in the imago Dei, the image of God, and knowledge of right and wrong is implanted on the human heart. But we’re also warned that we live in a fallen world—and that the human heart is desperately wicked. These two facts require any civilized society to make the moral training of its young its number one priority. . . . The great criminologist James Q. Wilson says all of his studies have led to the same conclusion: Crime begins when children are not given adequate moral training, when they do not develop internal restraints on impulsive behavior.”

Excerpt From: Metaxas, Eric. “Seven Men.”

  1. JESUS LOVES US “Jesus loves us as we are, but He loves us too much to allow us to stay that way.” — C. Seidman

 

 

 

 

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An OUGHT From An IS

An OUGHT From An IS

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By Tim Stratton

Does objective truth apply to morality? This question has major ramifications depending on how you answer it, because it ultimately asks, “DOES GOD EXIST?” We can see this demonstrated through the use of logic in a deductive syllogism known as “The Moral Argument.”[1] Here it is:

1- If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2- Objective moral values and duties exist.

3- Therefore, God exists.

To avoid this theistic conclusion, those committed to their atheistic presuppositions desperately seek to find a way to refute at least one of these premises. Many wind up stating that objective moral values and duties do not exist. By making this move, however, they affirm that there is nothing reallywrong with Hitler’s Holocaust, the molestation of young boys in the Penn State locker room by Jerry Sandusky, or the murderous actions of ISIS. Since rejecting premise (2) tacitly affirms the atrocities of these evil men, they feel the pressure to either find another way to ground objective morality, or become theists. Some atheists, such as Sam Harris, have attempted to find a logical way to ground objective morality in the “science of human flourishing,”[2] stating: “Whatever advances the flourishing of humanity is objectively good and whatever hinders human flourishing is objectively bad.”

Harris has failed on several accounts. For instance, even if (and that’s a very big “IF”) moral values could be grounded via this “science of human flourishing,” it would be powerless to explain why the flourishing of humans is objectively good. After all, in the movie, “The Matrix,” Agent Smith referred to the flourishing of humanity as a “virus,” and a “cancer of the planet.”[3] Is Agent Smith objectively wrong, or do we simply have differing subjective opinions? It would be circular reasoning to argue that the flourishing of humanity is objectively good because one assumes it is objectively good when humanity flourishes.

I’ve also heard it said that human flourishing is objectively bad for the earth and all other forms of life. A fellow human actually argued, “If all insects on earth disappeared, within fifty years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within fifty years all (other) forms of life would flourish.”[4] So perhaps it is objectively bad for humans to flourish, at least from the perspective of “all other forms of life.” The question then becomes, why is it good for humanity to flourish, even if human flourishing hinders other forms of life?

Atheism cannot answer why the flourishing of humanity is objectively good. All the atheist can do is simply presuppose and assume it is. On the other hand, if God exists and created humanity on purpose and for the specific purpose to know, love, and enjoy a relationship with God for eternity, then it is objectively true (independent from human opinion) that it is objectively good (and right) for humanity to flourish.

Moreover, atheism is impotent to explain why we are obligated to fulfill or align our lives with any of these moral values that lead to human flourishing. If one were not to carry out any of these moral codes leading to human flourishing, and instead devoted their lives to kidnapping, rape, murder, etc., the worst they could be accused of is merely acting unfashionably, nothing more![5] The last time I checked, no one has made a case that it is objectively wrong to be considered “uncool,” or a “nerd” by the subjective opinion of the majority. Although it seems implausible that objective moral values can exist apart from God, it is logically impossible to ground objective moral duties if atheism is true.

On top of all of this, to make matters worse, this atheistic philosophy is ultimately self-refuting! Harris, as a naturalist (the view that only nature exists), holds to “scientific determinism,” which means he believes our thoughts and actions are causally determined by natural forces like physics, chemistry, and the initial conditions of the big bang. All of these things are outside of human control. Harris makes his view clear:

Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have. Free will is actually more than an illusion (or less), in that it cannot be made conceptually coherent. Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.[6]

Therefore, humans could never freely choose any action, including actions with supposed moral properties. Given these objections to the idea of a scientific foundation for an epistemology of objective morality, we must come to the conclusion that science cannot derive an ought from an is, and therefore, cannot tell us anything about how we must conduct our lives in any ethical or moral sense. If naturalistic atheism is true, we have no logical grounds of objective moral values, no logical grounds of objective duty to align our lives with any set of subjective code of ethics, and no ability to do otherwise since all would be determined by outside causal forces. Since ought implies can, and there is no ability to do otherwise in a cause and effect/determined universe (on atheistic naturalism), it follows that it is completely nonsensical for the naturalist to talk about how we ought to think, act, or behave.

Bottom line: If moral values and duties are objective, God must exist!

Stay reasonable my friends (Phil 4:5 ESV),

Tim Stratton

Visit Tim’s Website: Free Thinking Ministries

Click here to see the source site of this article

 

Notes:
[1] The Moral Argument: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral

[2] Sam Harris vs. William Lane Craig debate: https://youtu.be/yqaHXKLRKzg

[3] The Matrix, https://youtu.be/L5foZIKuEWQ

[4] This quote was attributed to Jonas Salk; however, I cannot find the source. Be that as it may, some people actually believe it is better for insects to flourish than it is for humans to flourish.

[5] William Lane Craig, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/navigating-sam-harris-the-moral-landscape

[6] Sam Harris, Free Will, (Free Press, New York, 2012), Page 5

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Kids

Why Your Kids Can Spend 600-Plus Hours in Church and Not Get Much Out of It

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By Natasha Crain

The other day I was reflecting on how much time I spent in Sunday school and youth groups growing up…and how little I understood about the Christian faith by the time I left home. For some reason, I decided to calculate roughly how much time that actually was.

I scratched out the following on a piece of paper:

  • Kindergarten through 12th grade = 13 years (I went to church from the time I was a baby, but I just wanted to include the core learning years in my calculation)
  • 52 Sundays per year
  • 90% attendance rate, to allow for illnesses or being out of town

13 years of Sunday school x 52 Sundays per year x .90 attendance rate = 608 hours

608 HOURS.

And that’s not even counting the corresponding worship services…that’s just the Christian education time!

I don’t know about you, but that number made my jaw drop.

I spent more than 600 hours in church growing up, but by the time I left home, here’s all I really understood about Christianity:

People go to heaven or hell depending on whether or not they believe in Jesus. Once you accept Jesus, you are saved. Christians need to be as good as possible and not sin just to be forgiven. It’s important to tell others about Jesus so they can be saved too.

The result is that I lived the next 12 years with an incredibly blah, shallow faith. I didn’t actually lose my faith—as do more than two-thirds of other kids who grow up going to church—but it was only hanging there by a thread.

Where did those 600+ hours of Christian education go? How can it be that so many kids spend this kind of time in church and don’t leave home with much more understanding of Christianity than could be taught in a week of church camp?

I think I know the answer.

 

The Problem of Unconnected Puzzle Pieces

This is a problem of unconnected puzzle pieces.

Over the years that a child attends Sunday school, teachers vary, curricula vary, and churches vary (as families move). Kids are handed various pieces of Christianity during that time, which they collect and store internally. But unless there is a consistent, focused, goal-oriented spiritual trainer in their life—a parent—those pieces will almost certainly lie around unconnected.

Here’s why.

 

1. Having a bunch of puzzle pieces doesn’t necessarily mean you know what the completed puzzle is supposed to look like.

Imagine that someone handed you all the pieces to complete a 5000-piece puzzle but didn’t give you the box top picture to see how they all fit together. You’d be able to connect a few pieces here and there, but you’d face a lot of difficulty because you wouldn’t know what picture you’re working toward.

Kids collect “puzzle pieces” of Christianity over the years in Sunday school, usually in the form of individual Bible stories. A piece might be the story of Moses at the burning bush, Joseph with his multi-colored coat, or any one of Jesus’ miracles. Most kids who have spent hundreds of hours at church can describe these individual puzzle pieces quite well.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is that they don’t know how those pieces fit together into a meaningful, complete picture of salvation history. In other words, why on Earth should they care to learn that God spoke to Moses in a burning bush? Could anything seem more disconnected from a kid’s reality in the 21st century? After my 600+ hours in Sunday school, I certainly couldn’t have explained the connection between this event and the Exodus, why the Exodus mattered, what that had to with Jesus, and why that’s relevant to my faith today.

It was just an isolated piece of the puzzle of Christianity.

And isolated pieces do not join themselves together to make a beautiful picture.

As parents, we can’t expect that the pieces our kids pick up at church will fall into obvious places, even after 600+ hours. It is our responsibility, and our responsibility only, to be the intentional hand that guides these pieces into place on a bigger picture over time.

 

2. Having a bunch of puzzle pieces doesn’t necessarily mean those pieces will create a picture with meaningful complexity.

When kids first start doing puzzles, those puzzles usually have just 12 giant pieces. They make a picture, but a very simple one–nothing like the artistic complexity of one with 1000 pieces or more.

In Sunday school, kids tend to be continually handed the same pieces over and over: individual Bible stories, help with building Godly character, and some basic life lessons.

If this is effectively the extent of a child’s spiritual training, skeptics will eventually point out that their faith is equivalent in complexity to a toddler’s 12-piece puzzle.  Sunday school tends to be focused on the basics, but kids need so much more than basics today given the challenges they are sure to encounter.

As parents, we are responsible for helping our kids develop a faith with a meaningful level of complexity. The 40 questions in my book are critical for kids to understand today, yet very few of those questions would even be touched on in a Sunday school class. The level of spiritual depth kids need to stand strong in a secular world simply won’t come from the typical Sunday school curriculum.

 

3. Having a bunch of puzzle pieces doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll know what to dowith the puzzle even if you finish it.

When my kids finish puzzles, they want to leave them out for a while to display their work. Their puzzles linger in the corner of the room until I can’t stand it anymore and tell them they’ve enjoyed the puzzles “long enough.” We don’t know what else to do with them other than put them away.

Similarly, when I left home with 600+ hours of church tucked safely under my belt, I truly didn’t know what to do with my faith, other than continue to wear the Christian label and bide my time as a good person until I was zapped up to heaven someday. Those hundreds of hours hadn’t taught me what it means to actually see all of life differently than someone who didn’t believe in Jesus; I had no idea what it meant to have a Christianworldview.

As parents, we are responsible for placing the picture into a real-world context for our kids. 600+ hours of Sunday school may never directly answer questions like, “How does the fact we are created in the image of God impact our view of the sanctity of life?” “Why is it sometimes the most loving action to tell people truth they don’t want to hear?” or “How can we make career decisions that glorify God?” Parents must be proactive in helping kids know what to do with their puzzle of faith. Otherwise, it will likely be pushed to the corner of their life, where it will eventually be dismantled and put away for good.

 

Don’t leave your kids “puzzled” by outsourcing their faith to church. Whether they spend 600 or 6,000 hours in Sunday school, there’s simply no replacement for you.

Visit Natasha’s Website: Christian Mom Thoughts

 

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