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
- PLEASE FAIL “Failure comes to us all. The willingness to fail, and then to move on with no loss of enthusiasm, is a mark of character. The opposite of fragility, is the willingness to fail. When kids are secure in the unconditional acceptance of their parents, they can find the courage to venture and to fail. When kids value the good regard of their peers or their own self-concept above the good regard of their parents, they lose the willingness to fail. They become fragile.” Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”
- BOTTOM LINE “Running track gives you a fierce respect for numbers, because you are what your numbers say you are, nothing more, nothing less. If I posted a bad time in a race, there might have been reasons—injury, fatigue, broken heart—but no one cared. My numbers, in the end, were all that anyone would remember.”
Excerpt From: Knight, Phil. “Shoe Dog.”
- SUFFERING IMMUNITY? “Why shouldn’t good people suffer?” I responded by paraphrasing a question I first heard asked by Harold Kushner: “Should a pious person be able to go out on a freezing night without a jacket and not get sick?”
I had never realized how widespread deal making with God is. I have come to realize that many religious people, of all faiths, believe that they should be able to avoid the calamities that afflict the less pious. They believe, in effect, that they can make a deal with God—”I’ll do what You want so that You do what I want.”
If this is true, it helps to explain why the problem of unjust suffering can be so devastating to people’s faith. The problem is not merely that of reconciling the terrible injustices of this world with a just Creator—a problem that I and many others have. For countless religious people, this issue is compounded by their belief that God has reneged on a deal with them.
While I don’t expect religious people to be immune to childish images of God, the fact that many religious people seem to be religious in part, or even entirely, because of having made a deal with God—”I’ll be religious, You keep me safe”—is surprising.”
Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”
- THE NEW PRIVATE “In a transparent, overpopulated world where we spill our inner lives online, more than ever the concept of “privacy” and “exclusivity” has become the greatest luxury of all.
Why do most of us when we’re on our cell phones walk around in a circle as we’re speaking, as if somehow to create a moat, or wall, of privacy?”
Excerpt From: Lindstrom, Martin. “Small Data.”
- DEGREE BUBBLE “This is how bubbles work: We all think tulips are valuable until we don’t. Buying stock in the South Sea Company or the dot-coms is a sure thing—until it isn’t anymore. We think housing prices will continue rising forever until we realize that they won’t. Bubbles burst when buyers realize that the value of the asset is not worth the inflated price.
The education bubble bursts when puffery is confronted by reality. Increasingly, the economic model of higher education no longer works for many students, who realize belatedly that they have placed themselves in a financial stranglehold for unmarketable degrees. Charles Murray notes that the bachelor’s degree still confers a wage premium on its average recipient. But, he says, “there is no good reason that it should.” In other words, we have decided that the degrees are valuable when there is no objective reason to do so, and there will come a moment when the market catches up.
Student loans are harder to get out of than mortgages, because they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.” Excerpt From: Charles J. Sykes. “Fail U.”
- DON’T WIDEN THE PLATE!”
In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.
While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”
Who, is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who in the world is this guy?
After speaking for twenty five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage. Then, finally …
“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”
Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”
After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?” more of a question than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.
“Seventeen inches?” came a guess from another reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear.
“How wide is home plate in high school baseball?
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide is home plate in the Major Leagues?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.
“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”
Pause.
“Coaches …”
Pause.
” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him. Do we widen home plate?
The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We simply, widen the plate!”
Pause.
Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.
“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”
Silence.
He replaced the flag with a Cross.
“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”
“And the same is true with our government. Our so called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate and we see our country falling into a dark abyss while we watch.”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that, which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside. “… dark days ahead.”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.
His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.”
- GOD AND POLITICS “A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right,
but a fool’s heart to the left.” (Eccl. 10:2, ESV)
- SAFETY ISSUE On an employee bulletin board: “In case of fire, flee the building with the same reckless abandon that occurs each day at quitting time.”
- ENEMIES “Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.” -Chuck Swindoll
- EPITAPH “I am told that an Indiana cemetery has a tombstone over one hundred years old that bears the following epitaph: “Pause Stranger, when you pass me by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So prepare for death and follow me.” An unknown passerby read those words and underneath scratched this reply: “To follow you I’m not content, Until I know which way you went.” -J.M. Kennedy
Atheism and the burden of proof.
AtheismBy Richard Playford
When someone makes a claim about the world, if they want to convince others, they are required to provide justification for that claim. This is not a contentious or strange idea, but what does this mean for atheism? Is atheism a belief and does it require justification? In this article I will show that atheism is a belief about the world and that it does require a justification in the same way that theism does.
When exploring this topic the most important thing to do is to define our terms clearly. Traditionally theism, agnosticism and atheism were seen as the three positions that one could hold towards the existence of God. Consider the claim “God exists.” We have three options that we could take toward this claim. We can endorse it and agree that God exists. We can deny it and say that God does not exist. Or we can neither endorse it nor deny it and claim not to know (or care). These, in theory, are the only three options (although I will come back to this later). The affirmation that God exists is called theism. The denial of God’s existence (the claim that he does not exist) is what is traditionally called atheism. We find this definition confirmed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.”[1] Not knowing whether God exists is traditionally called agnosticism; again, we find this definition confirmed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “‘Agnostic’ is more contextual than is ‘atheist’, as it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it”[2]. Not caring whether God exists is traditionally called apatheism.
If we accept these definitions, then it seems clear that both the theist and the atheist have a burden of proof. Someone cannot simply assert that because there is no evidence for something it must therefore not exist. This does not follow because it suggests that an absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This is not true. Pluto was discovered in 1930.[3] Prior to then, there was no hard evidence that it existed. Did this mean that it did not exist? No! If somebody wants to say that something does not exist then they must provide a justification for that. They cannot conclude that simply because none of the arguments or evidences for a proposition fail, that the proposition is therefore false. The atheist philosopher Kai Nielson agrees and says, “[t]o show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show that the conclusion of the argument is false”.[4] This means that, in philosophy, even if all the arguments for a proposition fail, it does not follow that the proposition is false.
One criticism that is often voiced is that proving a negative is impossible; this is not true. I can prove that Santa does not live at the North Pole by going and looking, I can prove that a 30 cm piece of string is not 40 cm by measuring it, and I can show that there are no married bachelors by showing that it is a logically incoherent concept. The same applies for God. If somebody can show that God is an internally inconsistent concept or that it is incompatible with an aspect of the physical world, then this would prove that God does not exist.
Another criticism that is often voiced is that in the case of God an absence of evidence does entail evidence of absence. This criticism is similar to the argument from hiddenness (which is a formal argument against the existence of God to which there are various responses). As such, because this is an actual argument against the existence of God, this criticism does not detract from my argument.
It should be noted that people rarely fit neatly into the categories that I outlined above. Very few atheists claim to know for certain that God does not exist (many theists also would not claim to know for certain that he does). I suspect that it is views like this which lead people to adopt the title “agnostic atheist.” This has been defined in a number of different ways but one definition is “one who does not know for sure if any gods exist or not but who also does not believe in any gods.”[5]The problem with this definition is that it does not give us a complete account of what the person believes. This fails to tell us whether they believe in God’s non-existence (the belief that he does not exist). This is because lacking belief in God is not the same as believing that God does not exist. In general, people who label themselves like this tend to believe that, although we do not know for certain whether God exists, his existence is unlikely. As a result, they must justify the claim that God probably does not exist with a reasonable inductive argument. The lesson, however, is that people must be clear about what they believe and define their terms carefully before entering a conversation, and if they are making a claim about the world, they must justify that claim. We can see that atheism does require justification in the same way that theism does.
Please visit the CAA website:
Resources for Greater Impact:
STEALING FROM GOD
[1] Smart, J. J. C., “Atheism and Agnosticism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Available athttp://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/atheism-agnosticism/. [Accessed on 21/05/2013].
[2] IBID.
[3] NASA, “Pluto: Overview”. Available at:http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Pluto. [Accessed on 21/05/2013].
[4] Nielsen Kai (1971) Reason and Practice. New York: Harper & Row.
[5] Austin Cline, Agnostic Atheist – Dictionary Definition. Available at:http://atheism.about.com/od/Agnostic-Dictionary/g/Agnostic-Atheist-Dictionary-Definition.htm. [Accessed on 21/05/2013].
The Wisdom Chronicle
Wisdom ChronicleThe 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
Excerpt From: Knight, Phil. “Shoe Dog.”
I had never realized how widespread deal making with God is. I have come to realize that many religious people, of all faiths, believe that they should be able to avoid the calamities that afflict the less pious. They believe, in effect, that they can make a deal with God—”I’ll do what You want so that You do what I want.”
If this is true, it helps to explain why the problem of unjust suffering can be so devastating to people’s faith. The problem is not merely that of reconciling the terrible injustices of this world with a just Creator—a problem that I and many others have. For countless religious people, this issue is compounded by their belief that God has reneged on a deal with them.
While I don’t expect religious people to be immune to childish images of God, the fact that many religious people seem to be religious in part, or even entirely, because of having made a deal with God—”I’ll be religious, You keep me safe”—is surprising.”
Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”
Why do most of us when we’re on our cell phones walk around in a circle as we’re speaking, as if somehow to create a moat, or wall, of privacy?”
Excerpt From: Lindstrom, Martin. “Small Data.”
The education bubble bursts when puffery is confronted by reality. Increasingly, the economic model of higher education no longer works for many students, who realize belatedly that they have placed themselves in a financial stranglehold for unmarketable degrees. Charles Murray notes that the bachelor’s degree still confers a wage premium on its average recipient. But, he says, “there is no good reason that it should.” In other words, we have decided that the degrees are valuable when there is no objective reason to do so, and there will come a moment when the market catches up.
Student loans are harder to get out of than mortgages, because they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.” Excerpt From: Charles J. Sykes. “Fail U.”
In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.
While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”
Who, is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who in the world is this guy?
After speaking for twenty five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage. Then, finally …
“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”
Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”
After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?” more of a question than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.
“Seventeen inches?” came a guess from another reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear.
“How wide is home plate in high school baseball?
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide is home plate in the Major Leagues?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.
“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”
Pause.
“Coaches …”
Pause.
” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him. Do we widen home plate?
The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We simply, widen the plate!”
Pause.
Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.
“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”
Silence.
He replaced the flag with a Cross.
“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”
“And the same is true with our government. Our so called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate and we see our country falling into a dark abyss while we watch.”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that, which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside. “… dark days ahead.”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.
His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.”
but a fool’s heart to the left.” (Eccl. 10:2, ESV)
3 Reasons Your Kids May Eventually Think Christianity is Worthless
Apologetics for Parents, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Natasha Crain
During Vacation Bible School this summer, our church collected an offering to help an orphanage in Mexico. The kids were all encouraged to bring what they could to contribute toward the cause.
My daughter, age 7, has always been very generous with her allowance and came running down the stairs with a Ziploc bag of piggy bank money the morning after the collection was announced. I smiled with appreciation for her giving heart and told her, “I’m so proud of you. You always want to share your allowance with others. That’s wonderful, sweetheart.”
She looked at me, gave a slight shrug, and replied, “It’s JUST money I had in my piggy bank. It doesn’t really matter.”
My blood immediately went to a rolling boil. I have worked really hard to teach my kids the value of money and emphasize how grateful we need to be for every small thing we have. I couldn’t believe her cavalier attitude that morning.
I unsuccessfully tried to cover my deep annoyance and disappointment.
“You have got to be kidding me. I seriously can’t believe you just said that when we have talkedso much about gratitude and generosity. That’s several dollars you have in that bag! How can you say it ‘doesn’t matter’?”
She looked down at the bag, which held two dollar bills and a bunch of coins. Then she looked at me in confusion and said, “MOMMY. This is not ‘several dollars.’ This is two dollars and a bunch of change that doesn’t matter.”
I took the bag and dumped everything out on our floor, then made piles of four quarters. I counted it all up and told her that she had $8.36.
She was shocked.
She scooped it all up, promptly put it back in the bag and announced there was “no way” she was giving away $8.36. Before I could launch into a sermon on generosity, she was halfway up the stairs looking for her piggy bank so she could deposit her newly found riches.
I’ve reflected several times on that experience, but not as much on the subject of generosity as on the subject of what it means to accurately value something.
There was $8.36 in that bag before and after our conversation. But something happened that drastically changed the value my daughter assigned to it—to the point that I couldn’t pry it out of her little hands just a few minutes later!
Similarly, Christianity is objectively true regardless of the value a person assigns to it. But something happens to many kids that fundamentally changes the value they place on it. Ultimately, the statistics show that at least 60% of kids reject faith by their early 20s…they decide it no longer has value. It literally becomes worthless.
Why the change? I think it boils down to three things.
1. They never understood how to value it.
My daughter ultimately didn’t know how to add up all the spare change in the bag. She could plainly see it all but didn’t know how to add all those different coins together. She just looked at the two dollar bills and assumed that’s all there was to the total value.
In a culture where people chalk religious belief up to nothing more than a person’s opinion about what may or may not exist beyond our natural world, most kids never learn how to appropriately value their religious beliefs. They don’t, by default, come to understand that:
2. They never had time to value it.
I’m guessing that if I had put my daughter in a room without distraction and plenty of time, she could have come close to totaling up the coins on her own. But between school, homework, piano lessons, soccer and chores, there’s no way such an exercise was going to get priority. She just didn’t have the time to appropriately value what was in the bag.
It’s really easy to play the victim when it comes to the perceived predator of time. I’m hugely guilty of this myself. “I have no time!” “I just wish there was more time!” “Where did the time go?” Those are things we all say. But the fact is, we all have the same number of hours in the day. It’s a matter of how we choose to use them. If your family’s spiritual life is crowded out by the constant shuttling between extracurricular activities, it’s time to really consider that. It might not be comfortable to look at it this way, but if we’re too busy to set aside family spiritual time at least once a week (for Bible study, faith conversations, prayer, etc.), we are quite literally choosing other activities over our kids’ spiritual growth.
It’s up to us to make time for them to learn to value their faith.
3. They forgot how to value it.
Last year, I actually had taught my kids how to add up coins of different values; there was a point in time when my daughter probably wouldn’t have been so cavalier with the money because she did know how to value it. But she forgot.
It’s easy to take for granted that whatever we taught our kids last month, last year, or three years ago is still part of their working knowledge. But planting seeds isn’t enough. We have to continually water them, tend to the growing soul, and plant more seeds. Otherwise, those earlier seedlings can easily be lost, and our kids can simply forget how to value what they may have know how to value in the past.
May we all help our kids develop a faith that they clutch like that Ziploc, realizing the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:8).
Visit Natasha’s website at www.ChristianMomThoughts.com
Resources for Greater Impact:
Book Review: No God But One: Allah or Jesus? by Nabeel Qureshi
IslamBy Timothy Fox
Are Christianity and Islam different paths to the same God? Is Jesus really divine or just another prophet? Which is the true word of God, the Koran or the Bible? In No God But One: Allah or Jesus? (NGBO), Nabeel Qureshi explores many of the most common questions involving Islam and Christianity to show “the differences between Islam and Christianity have great implications, and that the evidence of history strongly supports the Christian claims” (11).
But this book is not merely academic; it’s personal. Nabeel calls NGBO a “summary of fifteen years of research that wrenched my heart and transformed my life.” The content and tone will be familiar to anyone who read his first book,Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (SAFJ), which chronicles his journey from a devout Muslim to follower of Christ. While Nabeel says that book is “the heart of my story, detailing the relationships, emotions, and spiritual struggles in my search for God,” NGBO is “the mind of my story, examining the religions and their claims” (11).
Another similarity with SAFJ is the use of personal experiences to frame deep theological issues, making NGBO both engaging and easy to read. As I read his previous book, Answering Jihad (read my review here), I was amazed at how Nabeel approached such a difficult topic with great sensitivity, clarity, and brevity. The same goes for his latest. A lesser writer could have used four times the amount pages to convey the same information but Nabeel makes his points simply and with ease, moving briskly from one topic to the next while still providing a thorough response.
Content
NGBO is divided into two main sections, each framed around a key question. The first is “Are Islam and Christianity Really All That Different?” Nabeel discusses five points of contention between the religions: sharia vs. the gospel, Allah’s unity vs. the Trinity, Jesus vs. Muhammad, the Koran vs. the Bible, and Jihad vs. the Crusades. But again, this is not just scoring points in a religious sparring match; it’s the result of a lifetime of careful study: “A decade of experiences as a Christian contrasted with my first twenty-two years of life as a Muslim leaves me no alternative conclusion: Christianity is very different from Islam” (169).
After establishing the vast differences between the religions, the second question is “Can We Know Whether Islam or Christianity Is True?” The case for Christianity rests on three facts: Jesus’ death, resurrection, and deity. Nabeel states “If all three are true, we have good reason to accept the Christian message” (173). To establish the truthfulness of Islam, he focuses on its holy book and prophet: “If we can determine that the Koran is the word of God, or if we can determine that Muhammad is a messenger of God, then we have good reason to accept Islam” (175). Nabeel explores these five points by using the historical method and interacting with the works of leading scholars.
But what if you are already a committed Christian and have no interest in Islam? This book is still important for you as the objections to Christianity that Nabeel answers are not unique to Muslims. Many a skeptic has questioned the reliability of the New Testament or accused the concept of the Trinity of being incoherent. And don’t forget that Nabeel began as a critic of Christianity and raised all of these objections himself.
Conclusion
NBGO ends with a third, deeply personal question: “Is it worth sacrificing everything for the truth?” Because accepting the truth comes with a price. Here in America, we think changing religions is as simple as switching political parties. However, “Leaving Islam can cost you everything: family, friends, job, everything you have ever known and maybe even life itself” (349). Nabeel learned this firsthand, as did Fatima, a young Saudi woman whose courageous and heartbreaking story sets the tone for the entire book.
No, Christianity and Islam are not two paths to the same God. They present radically different views of God and salvation and only one can be true. So who is God, Allah or Jesus? Nabeel concludes:
“There is no God but one, and He is Father, Spirit, and Son. There is no God but one, and He is Jesus” (349).
Resources for Greater Impact:
Why Andy Stanley is Right About the Foundation of Christianity and How to Defend It
4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian ApologeticsIs Christianity based on an argument from ignorance?
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Ryan Pauly
I received a lot of responses after last week’s blog, “Is atheism a ‘lack of belief’ in God?” Most of the responses came from atheists which I expected. I also expected an immediate request for proof of the Christian God which is what happened. Over the last year I have had to reduce the amount that I interact with followers on Twitter, but when I do respond to this type of request I always ask the same question. If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? I learned this from Dr. Frank Turek, and the reason this question is important is that it lets you know whether the person you are talking with really wants the evidence. They may ask you for it, or demand that you show it, but they might not really be looking for it. So, if they respond with a long explanation or flat out say “NO!” to your question, then it isn’t evidence they are looking for because evidence wouldn’t change their mind. However, if they say “Yes!” then you might present some evidence.
When it comes to presenting evidence, there are a lot of different topics that could be discussed. You could discuss the cosmological, teleological, or moral arguments. You could also bring up the complexity of biochemical systems. Or, you could go with my response this last week and talk about the existence of the mind. Each of these topics clearly points to a creator, but we need to be careful how we present the information. There are two ways that we can go, and if we aren’t careful, our point may be mistaken for an argument from ignorance or a god of the gaps argument.
Probability Argument
The first way to present evidence for God is by using the probability argument. It is absolutely remarkable seeing the discoveries that scientists have made over the years when it comes to complexity of life, origin of the universe, and origin of life. We can talk about the probability of these things coming into existence without God and how it is practically impossible. However, simply pointing out the probability can be insufficient because someone can always appeal to chance. The quote from Dumb and Dumber comes to mind. When Lloyd talks to Mary about the chances of them dating, she says he has a 1 in a million chance. Lloyd quickly responds, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” Some may always say that if given enough time it is possible with natural processes, and students are quick to point this out.
It is also common to hear a response like this, “Just because you don’t know how it happened doesn’t mean it was God.” Skeptics claim that this is an argument from ignorance. God must have done it because there is no scientific explanation. They might also say that this is a god of the gaps argument. Christians simply have a gap in their knowledge and so they plug it up with God. This was done in ancient times to give a reason for the rain or thunder. The gods were sad or angry.
The reason for these responses is that the probability argument is a negative argument. It states that the probability of this complex system is very low and so it must be designed. I think that the probabilities can be very useful, but we need to use them along with our main argument.
Argument from Analogies
We can more effectively making a case for design using the complexity of life’s chemistry and universe by using analogies. Instead of an argument from ignorance or appealing to probabilities, we are able to make a positive case for design based on specific features of the object. We can look at the complexity of the bacterial flagellum and show that it functions better than any motor that has been intelligently designed by humans. DNA is similar to a message written in a book except it would fill millions of books. We only see motors and books coming into existence from intelligent minds because they contain information, so therefore it is reasonable to conclude that a mind created the complexity of life and DNA.
We can also make a positive argument by looking at characteristics of the thing we are discussing. The beginning of the universe points to an immaterial, uncaused, purposeful, intelligent, powerful cause that is outside the universe. Christians are not ignorant of how it happened so it must be God, but there are certain characteristics that point to a creator outside the universe.
I chose to discuss the existence of consciousness and the mind this week. I was quickly met with a response like, “No one knows how consciousness came to exist, so saying God did it is an argument from ignorance.” But, I am not arguing from probabilities or a lack of knowledge. Instead, I am making a positive argument based on characteristics of consciousness. It is undeniable that we are conscious beings, and consciousness is not physical. It cannot be produced through physical processes. This information makes a positive case that it is created by a non-physical mind.
In conclusion, is Christianity an argument from ignorance? No, it is not. Christians are able to make a positive case for Christianity based on scientific and philosophical data. It isn’t filling a gap in our knowledge with God, but God is the best explanation given the evidence.
Check out these additional resources if you are looking for more evidence for God. I hope these help.
Who created God?
Do objective moral laws point to God?
Is free will an illusion?
Is our mind the same as the brain?
Has our universe been designed?
What best explains the origin of life?
Has our universe been fine-tuned for life?
What best explains the beginning of our universe?
Is belief in God a rational position?
Visit Ryan’s website at CoffeeHouseQuestions.com
Resources for Greater Impact:
What Christian Parents Need to Know About New Age and Occult Beliefs
Culture CrossExaminedBy Natasha Crain
I’m excited to share an interview with Marcia Montenegro!
Marcia was involved for many years in Eastern and New Age beliefs, and was a licensed professional astrologer. She became a Christian in 1990 and today has a ministry called Christian Answers for the New Age. Her ministry exists to 1) educate Christians about the New Age and occult so they can be more discerning and equipped to witness, and 2) reach people in the New Age and the occult with the love and truth of the Gospel. Marcia has a Masters in Religion from Southern Evangelical Seminary and is a missionary with Fellowship International Mission. She has spoken in 30 states, is a frequent radio guest, and has published articles in several Christian publications. She is the mother of an adult son, and is the author of SpellBound: The Paranormal Seduction of Today’s Kids.
I had the opportunity to ask Marcia several questions on what Christian parents need to know about New Age and occult beliefs. This is an area I personally knew very little about before doing this interview. I learned a lot, and I know you will too! As Marcia explains, your kids are probably exposed to these beliefs more than you realize.
1. Marcia, can you start by telling us a little about your own journey from being a professional astrologer to becoming a Christian?
I was deeply involved in the New Age and followed Eastern spiritual teachings (Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist) for many years. I also practiced and taught astrology. I was very hostile to what I viewed as narrow-minded Christianity. In the year I ended my term as President of the Astrological Society in Atlanta, I suddenly experienced a compulsion to go to church. This led me to attend a (very open-minded) church several months later, where I amazingly experienced the feeling of God’s love pouring down on me (from a personal God I didn’t even believe in!). I then gave up astrology. I eventually encountered and began trusting in Jesus while reading the Gospel of Matthew. All of this took place over just 8 or 9 months!
2. Can you help parents understand exactly what “New Age” means, and why New Age ideas are so appealing to young people?
The term “New Age” covers a broad ground and can be difficult to define. The New Age itself doesn’t even use the term “New Age!” The more popular term is “spirituality” – someone forming their own spiritual path. That type of path is usually New Age or partly New Age.
But here is how I define New Age: It is a network of beliefs whose roots are Gnostic, Eastern, and New Thought.
The Gnostic part values spiritual above the material/physical; the material is merely a manifestation of the spiritual, so everything is spiritual. In New Age views, the body is a manifestation of the spiritual state.
The Eastern beliefs of Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism contribute several ideas to the New Age: principles of reincarnation, an impersonal source that we all come from and go back to, the view that this world is not ultimately real, the claim that there are no absolutes (all spirituality is subjective), and the need for Eastern-based meditation to achieve spiritual understanding or awakening.
Finally, the New Age draws heavily from New Thought, which includes the belief that Jesus came to correct wrong thinking and model how to achieve Christ Consciousness, the awareness of our innate divinity. New Thought also teaches that one’s thoughts and words can bring one’s desires into reality via certain techniques. The bestselling book, The Secret, is a classic example of New Thought. New Thought claims to be Christian and often sounds like it. It is very deceptive.
You can find people in the New Age anywhere along this spectrum from Gnostic to Eastern to New Thought, as well as many who combine these beliefs. Additionally, the New Age adopts some occult views and practices (see my response to the next question.)
The New Age can appeal to young people for several reasons. One is because it is very different from the Judeo-Christian worldview, which makes it intriguing. Another is that it seems to offer ancient wisdom, since Eastern and pagan beliefs were established before Christianity. Some areas of the New Age emphasize the power or divinity of the female, and draw women in that way.
One of the chief appeals is that the New Age is experiential in nature, so what a person experiences and feels is highly valued over objective truth. This allows you to have a customized spirituality, which is especially appealing to young people.
3. Could you also define the occult and explain how occult ideas relate to New Age ideas?
The occult is a set of practices based on Deuteronomy 18:10-12, where God lists and denounces all of them. They are divination (often called fortunetelling), spirit contact, and sorcery.
Divination is the practice of gaining information by reading hidden meanings in nature or patterns (for example, astrology, tarot cards, numerology or palm reading) or via supernatural means (for example, psychic powers).
Spirit contact is seeking information or guidance from disembodied beings, who are believed to be ghosts (dead people), aliens, ascended masters, angels or deities from non-Christian religions.
Sorcery (today usually called ritual or ceremonial magic) involves using the will to bring about a desired end through incantations, rituals, magical tools, contact with spirit beings, and/or the manipulation of powers or energies.
Although many New Agers use occult practices or consult those in the occult, the New Age and occult worldviews differ. The New Age is transcendent and future-oriented; the person is always seen as evolving toward a goal, learning lessons, and eventually being liberated from this life and reality.
The occult is more here-and-now oriented, is more pragmatic in nature, and focuses on the practical use of one’s energy and/or nature’s energy to manifest happiness and results.
As a general disclaimer, New Agers and occultists disagree amongst themselves on their beliefs, and certainly some would likely disagree with my descriptions as well.
4. In your experience, what are the dangers of kids getting interested in these ideas?
My two main concerns are desensitization and glamorization. I believe that the massive amounts of books, TV shows, and movies that promote occultism and heroes/heroines who have occult powers have desensitized the culture as a whole. No longer is it seen as a bad thing for a child to pretend to cast spells, for example; now that is viewed almost endearingly. It is easy to become desensitized to the fact that these activities are evil.
Ultimately, being desensitized can lead to acceptance of New Age or occult beliefs, which in turn can lead to disinterest in or rejection of what God has to say about false beliefs. That acceptance can lead to active participation in New Age or occult practices.
5. Most parents probably aren’t aware of how New Age or occult ideas might touch their kids. Can you give us examples of where kids might encounter New Age or occult ideas in popular culture today?
One of the most popular ways is the Ouija Board, made by Parker Brothers and sold in toy stores. It was originally designed by a Spiritualist as a tool for contacting the dead. The dead cannot respond to us, but fallen angels can and do. They don’t care if you are using the Board as a game. A well-known series of books, the Seth series, came about from the author’s initial contact with an entity calling itself Seth via the Ouija Board. Seth eventually began to speak directly through the author, Jane Roberts, while she was in a deep trance state, and these messages formed the book series (the first one influenced me deeply as a New Ager). There are other cases of people who channeled teachings after using a Ouija Board. It’s not simply a game.
Probably the biggest purveyor of occult concepts is the media: television, video games, and movies which emphasize stories where the hero or heroine wields supernatural powers. Some of these abilities are harmless fantasy (e.g., X-ray vision), while others involve casting spells, using psychic powers, or even contacting spirits. It is common for books and movies to mix fantasy with the occult, further confusing the problem.
Parents often want a list of media to avoid, but it is impossible to maintain such a list. Ideally, parents need to understand Deuteronomy 18:10-12 so they can recognize occult ideas and teach their children to be discerning.
I offer parents a resource for this in my book, SpellBound: The Paranormal Seduction of Today’s Kids (2006), which is now on Kindle and is an e-book on sites such as Barnes & Noble and Christianbook.com. This is a guide for parents (and others) that offers suggestions on how to talk to children about these areas and how to answer objections.
6. What do you feel is the best way to handle New Age/occult exposure with your kids? What should parents say?
My concern is not so much that a TV program or book contains New Age/occult ideas as it is that a program or book glamorizes or promotes them.
A lot depends on the age and maturity of the child. I would say that kids under age 12 should have no exposure to books or media that promote occult ideas, no matter how mildly. At this age, children don’t yet have critical thinking skills and they emotionally identify with the heroes.
For early teens, be very selective and discuss any questionable material that pops up. I would completely avoid books or programs that have a focus on occult themes or have heroes who blatantly practice occultism.
For older teens, there is less control, of course, but if you discover they are reading or have watched something that promotes occult or New Age ideas, have a discussion with them. Ask them what they think of it, show them Scripture, and help them understand it is a fallen world that is under the sway of the evil one (1 John 5:19). Evil things will be accepted and even admired by the world, but that doesn’t make them harmless.
In my book for parents on the occult, I give suggestions at the end of each chapter on how to talk to your children about that chapter’s particular topic.
7. If there are parents reading this whose kids are already involved somehow in New Age/occult ideas, what resources do you recommend to help them?
I have articles on the occult on my website at www.christiananswersforthenewage.org. Also, aside from my book, there is Jeff Harshbarger’s From Darkness to Light: How to Rescue Someone You Love From the Occult.
For older teens and parents, a resource explaining biblical miracles versus occult paranormal activities is Norman Geisler’s book, Signs and Wonders: Healings, Miracles, and Unusual Events: Which Are Real? Which Are Supernormal? Which Are Counterfeit?
If your child is getting interested or involved in the occult, it is imperative to have a talk with him or her. Don’t postpone it or hope it goes away. At the same time, don’t show fear of it. Ask questions, use Scripture to show why these areas should be avoided, and make it clear you will not allow occult materials in the home. Be low-key about it, but firm. It is your home and your responsibility to guide your child in the wisdom of the Lord.
Visit Natasha’s website at ChristianMomThoughts.com
Resources for Greater Impact:
The Wisdom Chronicle
Wisdom ChronicleThe 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
1031. THE ACORN “Consider an acorn. Its strong shell prevents it from growing until the time is right. If you break open the shell too early, you don’t stimulate the growth of a new tree. You just have a dead acorn. As with the acorn, the key to healthy child development is to do the right thing at the right time. Neufeld makes a strong case that the wrong attachment style in childhood and adolescence results in the wrong attachment style in early adulthood. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the primary attachment of a child should be to the parent. If a child has a strong primary attachment to a parent from infancy through adolescence, then when the child becomes an adult, that bond will break naturally, as an acorn breaks open naturally at the right time so that a new tree can grow. Such a child, once she becomes an adult, is ready to head out confidently into the world as an independent young adult. But increasingly, Neufeld and others have found, young people across North America just are not ready to step into the adult world. The same girl who refused to talk with her mom at 13 years of age 13 years of age is now texting her mom 5 times a day at age 22, asking for basic guidance about adolescent concerns. The acorn, having broken open too early, does not have the strength to become a tree.
Parents have to regain the central place in the lives of their children, displacing same-age peers. Same-age friends are great for your child. But your child’s first allegiance must be to you, not to her best friend. The contemporary culture of texting, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and online video games has concealed this fundamental reality, promoting and accelerating the premature transfer of allegiance to same-age peers.”
Excerpt From: Sax, Leonard. “The Collapse of Parenting.”
1032. COMPETITION “People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that’s only true of people who can forget the competition. The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past. You must forget that internal voice screaming, begging, “Not one more step!” And when it’s not possible to forget it, you must negotiate with it. I thought over all the races in which my mind wanted one thing, and my body wanted another, those laps in which I’d had to tell my body, “Yes, you raise some excellent points, but let’s keep going anyway . . .”
Excerpt From: Knight, Phil. “Shoe Dog.”
1033. HEAVENLY FATHER “A widely accepted figure is that 70 percent of the violent criminals in American prisons did not grow up with a father.
If the father figure/rule giver that boys need is not on earth, a loving and morally authoritative Father in heaven can often serve as an effective substitute.
But the last thing that a boy growing up without a father needs is a female figure to worship. He already has one—his mother—and to develop healthfully, he needs to separate from her, not bond with another mother figure. Otherwise, he will spend his life expressing his masculinity in ways that are destructive to women and men.
It is ironic that some women, in the name of feminism, are attempting to emasculate the God of Western religious morality. For if their goal is achieved, it is women who will suffer most from lawless males.
We have too many absent fathers on earth to begin to even entertain the thought of having no Father in heaven.”
Excerpt From: Prager, Dennis. “Think a Second Time.”
1034. WORK & PRAY “When we work; we work. When we pray, God works.” — Max Lucado
1035. BIG DATA “If data fostered better emotional decisions, then accountants, not poets, would be the cultural prototype for great lovers.”
Excerpt from “Small Data.”
1036. TO THE END; FRIENDS, PATRIOTS “President Thomas Jefferson spent his retirement at his beloved home in Monticello, where both his wife and daughter Polly were buried. With his health declining, he was bedridden in the late spring and early summer of 1826. Seized by a severe fever on July 3, Jefferson realized that his death was imminent but was determined to hold on until the following day—the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. With his family gathered around, he prepared for the end. Later that night, Jefferson awoke and asked his doctor, “Is it the fourth yet?” They were among his final words.
The following day, Jefferson died in his sleep at 1:10 p.m. Five hours later and nearly six hundred miles away, at 6:20 p.m. at Braintree Farm, Massachusetts, President John Adams also breathed his last. Adams, noting the significance of the date, remarked, “It is a great day. It is a good day.” Unaware of Jefferson’s passing, Adams’s final words were “Jefferson still lives.” The two men, longtime friends and rivals, passed from life within hours of each other on the 50th birthday of the country to whose service they had dedicated their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Not only did they see America through her tumultuous infancy, but also nurtured her growth into a respected global presence to carry her into the future.”
Excerpt From: Brian Kilmeade & Don Yaeger. “Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates.”
1037. ART, NOT SCIENCE “A university alumnus, shown a list of examination questions by his old economics professor, exclaimed, “Why, those are the same questions you asked when I was in school twenty years ago!” “Yes,” said the professor, “we ask the same questions every year.” The alumnus said, “But surely you know that students pass along the questions from one year to the next.” “Of course,” said the professor, “but in economics, we change the answers.
Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”
1038. NEEDS VS WANTS
“In 1890, a survey asked what are your basic needs?
The list had 16 items on it.
In 1990, the same survey was conducted.
That list had 98 items of it.” — R. Rainey
1039. COME ALIVE “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself, ‘What makes me come alive?’ Because what the world needs is men who have come alive.” -John Eldridge
1040. FAIL U “With striking parallels to the housing bubble of the last decade, the cost of a college degree has soared by 1,125 percent since 1978—four times the rate of inflation.
For some families, sending a child to a private university now is like buying a BMW every year—and driving it off a cliff. If the education is financed through student loans, paying for college is like buying a Lamborghini on credit. By 2012, the total cost of a four-year education at a private college had exploded to $267,308; the cost of public college had risen to $122,638.
The average student now graduates with around $30,000 in student loans, while the portion of students with $100,000 or more has doubled. Millions of students carry debt burdens without getting any degree at all. Student loan debt now exceeds both the nation’s total credit card and auto loan debt. The delinquency rate on student loans is higher than the delinquency rate on credit cards, auto loans, and home mortgages.
While the average student debt load rose 24 percent in the last decade, average wages for graduates aged twenty-five to thirty-four fell by 15 percent. In 2011, 53 percent of college graduates under twenty-five were unemployed or underemployed.
A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that in 2012 roughly 44 percent of recent college graduates were working in jobs that did not require degrees—the majority of them in low-wage jobs.”
Excerpt From: Charles J. Sykes. “Fail U”
4 Ways to become a better listener and a better Apologist
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Michael Sherrard
Step one in apologetics is to understand someone’s position. Many skip this step and merely vomit rehearsed arguments as soon as they hear a trigger word like “evolution” or “unreliable”. We like to give textbook answers, but people don’t hold textbook beliefs. Answers are only meaningful when given to relevant questions. So you must know the beliefs of the person across from you as they hold them before you start quoting J. Warner Wallace, Frank Turek, or Ravi. And you will only know their beliefs by listening.
Many things work against us when we defend our faith. We do not need misunderstanding to be one of them. If you want to defend your faith well, become a good listener. Be patient and hear what others are saying so that you can respond appropriately. Do not dominate conversations. This is not easy. It takes practice. But you need to do it. Let me offer four practical ways to improve your listening.
1. Focus on their words and not your response. Nearly everyone devises clever retorts or responses while the other person is talking, and it is no different in conversations of faith. This isn’t actually a conversation. It’s two people lecturing an audience that isn’t paying attention, and it’s not effective.
You need to practice not thinking about your response when someone else is talking. This is hard. It is a discipline that you can learn, though. When you notice you’re forming a response before they are done speaking, stop and refocus. Witnessing to skeptics is usually a marathon. You must pace yourself. Don’t try to sprint to the end. Don’t worry about jumping in and rebutting everything they say as soon as they say it. Rather, slow down, trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to remind you of the truth, and do not worry about winning.
2. Ask questions. If the person you are talking with is long-winded and hard to follow, ask them to restate their belief or position slowly and concisely. Remember, it is vital that you understand what they believe before you respond, so ask a question if you didn’t catch it the first time.
You can do this by asking them to summarize what they just said. What I find effective is to summarize what I think they just said and say it back to them. Typically when someone has finished talking I will say something like, “So let me make sure I understood you. You believe that…” This is effective because it ensures that I understand them. I often find that when I do these people see how their position is flawed, which is just a bonus.
3. Write down their points. Stopping conversations to jot down others’ points of contention is so simple and practical and will revolutionize your apologetic efforts. This practice is valuable in several ways. It keeps conversations calm and focused. It gives you time to think. It ensures that you heard correctly. It gives you their points to study later without relying on your memory. And it lets others see their position laid out neatly for perhaps the first time.
You will find many people have not thought through their beliefs; it isn’t only Christians who have not contemplated their religion. The goal of listening is hearing, and by hearing, I mean comprehending. Seeing beliefs ordered on paper allows everyone to clearly understand the position. Many times, this process does the work for the apologist by showing skeptics the inconsistency or inherent contradictions in their beliefs.
4. Pray. One of the things I do when talking with a skeptic is to pray short prayers throughout the conversation. In just a couple of words I ask God for wisdom, control of my emotions, and the ability to hear what the other person is saying. I also ask God to help me understand why they think like they do. It is good to ask God to give you eyes that can see past arguments into motives. Clever words are often a smoke screen for a deeper issue. Arguments that appear logical may be covering some emotional or volitional problem. People’s default position is to believe in God (Rom. 1:19–32). In their attempt to hide from Him, people devise wise-sounding arguments to convince themselves that they are right in their rebellion. Ask God for wisdom to see why they are rebelling.
Praying throughout the conversation is an act of faith whereby you understand that it is the Lord who draws people to Himself, and you are but a tool in the process. It will keep you humble and calm. It will keep you focused on the well-being of the other person and keep you from becoming consumed with winning. All of this helps you listen. And beyond the benefit of listening, it keeps you relying on the Lord and not your wisdom, and this is right where you want to be in dealing with a skeptic. So pray, pray, pray.
(This article is adapted from chapter 5 in my book “Relational Apologetics”. Order it here)
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Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.
Resources for Greater Impact:
WHY I STILL DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FAITH TO BE AN ATHEIST – COMPLETE DVD SERIES
DEFENDING THE FAITH ON CAMPUS
“People Do Not Come to Faith from Arguments!” 4 Objections to Apologetics
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Brian Chilton
Some time ago, I was in a meeting with pastors and other church leaders from various backgrounds discussing a potential ministry opportunity. I noted the importance that apologetics plays in the realm of collegiate ministries, especially with the mainstream attacks on Christianity from ultra-liberal voices. For instance, the collegiate ministry known as Ratio Christi has held a profound positive influence on the intellectual and spiritual lives of college students across the nation. To my surprise, one particular ministry leader said, “It’s my experience that people are not brought to faith by arguments.” The statement was shocking enough. However, I was even more bewildered by some who seemed to agree with him. I replied, “What do you say of Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and J. Warner Wallace who were former atheists and became believers because of the evidence for the Christian faith?” The conversation quickly moved to a different topic.
I do not tell this story to demonize or demoralize anyone. The person who voiced opposition to apologetics was a good, caring individual who loves the Lord and the people he serves. However, we must engage the question he presented. Do logic and argumentation bring people to faith or are such disciplines useless endeavors? The mission statement of Bellator Christi is that it exists to take up the sword of Christian theology and the shield of classical apologetics in order to take Christian truth into the arena of ideas. But if people are not argued into the faith, this ministry would seem a bit futile, at least in the latter portion of the mission statement. So, are apologetic argumentations necessary? This article will review 4 common objections given to apologetics by the modern church. Each objection will contain an explanation and an appropriate reply.
Objection #1: Arguments do not bring people to faith.
The ministry leader I mentioned posed the first objection against the use of Christian apologetics. This objection claims that arguments do not really bring people into faith. Faith is a matter of the heart, not of the mind.
Reply:
One could provide several replies to the first objection. To keep the post brief, I will present only two. First, objection 1 is in reality a self-defeating statement. How so? Well, the objector is presenting an argument to persuade others that arguments do not persuade. The objection is much like someone claiming to be a married bachelor or saying “I cannot speak a word of English” in English.
Second, the Bible presents several examples where people came to faith or were persuaded to faith by various argumentations. For instance, the miracles and teachings of Jesus provided a case for His claim to be Messiah. The miracles served as a sign. Why were such signs offered? Signs were provided to present an argument for the Messianic claims of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus argues that “the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36). In addition, Jesus challenged His adversaries to “search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39). Other examples could be offered such as Paul’s defense of the faith before various groups of people, including the Athenians. Consider Philip’s argumentation to the Ethiopian that Isaiah 53 referred to Jesus of Nazareth. All such arguments were used to bring people to faith.
Objection #2: The Holy Spirit brings people to faith, so argumentation is useless.
Some people have objected to the use of Christian intellectual arguments due to the assumption that the Holy Spirit leads people to faith. If the Holy Spirit leads people to faith, then why should one worry about intellectual argumentation.
Reply:
Let me first say, I wholeheartedly agree that the Holy Spirit leads people to faith. Jesus noted that when the Holy Spirit comes that He would “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because you do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16:8-11). While the Holy Spirit convicts, we are told that we have a part to play in the evangelism process. Jesus also told the disciples before His ascension, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). One could argue; If the Holy Spirit brings people to faith, then why evangelize? Christians evangelize because God commanded us to do so. Through the preaching of the Word, people are convicted by the Holy Spirit to come to faith. The Holy Spirit uses our evangelistic efforts to save people. The same is true for apologetics. Intellectual argumentation is often used by the Holy Spirit to bring people to faith. While the majority of Athens did not follow Christ after hearing Paul’s intellectual defense of the faith, the Book of Acts states that “some men joined him and believed, among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17:34).
Another problem I have with this statement stems from the spirit of laziness that exists in some Christians today. I heard a person tell a pastor, “You don’t have to study to preach. Just follow the Holy Spirit.” While I wholeheartedly agree that a person should follow the Holy Spirit, I also accept that the Scripture tells us the “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1). How does a person test a spirit? One tests a spirit against the Word of God. Testing spirits require study. I truly believe that it is the increased biblical illiteracy and lack of study that has led the modern church into many great heresies.
Objection #3: No one has ever come to faith through argumentation.
Anti-apologetic apologists argue that no one comes to faith through intellectual argumentation. Why bother if no one comes to faith through argumentation?
Reply:
This is an easy objection to answer. The claim is false. Many have come to faith through intellectual argumentation for the faith. Among such converts include: C. S. Lewis (famed English professor and writer), Josh McDowell (author of countless Christian books), Lee Strobel (former legal editor of theChicago Tribune, atheist turned Christian pastor and writer), Fazale Rana (Christian biologist), and J. Warner Wallace (former Los Angeles cold-case homicide detective turned Christian apologist). These individuals only scratch the surface of those who have come to Christ because of the evidence for Christianity.
Objection #4: If someone is argued into faith, then someone could be argued out of faith.
Lastly, objectors to Christian apologetics often claim that if it is by evidential argumentation that one comes to faith, then one could be easily led astray by some other persuasive argumentation.
Reply:
This objection holds two problems in my estimation. 1) The objector does not understand the power of the Holy Spirit. If Christianity is true and a person comes to faith in Christ, then the Scripture states that the Holy Spirit will abide with the repentant person (John 14:15-16). Jesus notes that the Holy Spirit would lead a believer in truth (John 15:26-27). Thus, it would appear that the objector places less value on the power of the Holy Spirit than the advocate of Christian apologetics.
2) In addition, the objector must consider the following point. If Christianity is true, then it will always remain true. The truthfulness of Christianity will never change. Truth is unchangeable. Thus, if a person is truly convicted of the claims of Christianity and truth does not change, then the person (although doubts may come) will not leave the faith due to the truth claims.
Conclusion:
While I respect the objections made and the people who make them, it cannot be said that such objections hold any merit or value. Christianity is true. Period. If Christianity is true, then it is worth defending. If Christianity is true, eternity is at stake. Some people do come to faith when they are met with the evidences for Christianity. It may be true that some people do not require the same level of evidence that other people require. But, refusing apologetics to the one who needs it is like refusing insulin to a diabetic because not everyone needs insulin. It is, to a degree, a categorical mistake. Remember, Peter tells us, as has been noted several times before, that we must “honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
Check out this video by Brett Kunkle of Stand to Reason as he engages this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cS2xGUj5KQ
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture comes from theEnglish Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).
Visit Brian’s website at BellatorChristi.com © August 30, 2016. Brian Chilton.
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