IrContent

UPDATE: Don’t despair! IrContent lives on.   :)   See “I’m Back” above.

ORIGINAL POST:

I have decided to pursue the next leg of my educational career and to do so is going to require much more dedication and focus than I have displayed in the past. The simple fact is that I have too many interests and none of them ever develop to their fullest potential because I dabble too much in all of them. So the blogging is going to one of the first activities of this nature to go. I will leave IrContent up for awhile but I probably won’t add anything for a long time. Thanks to the readers and commenters that made this a fun project for the last year or so. Take care, and God bless.

With the proliferation of newsgroups, websites, and blogs, there are now thousands of what I like to call “cut-and-paste skeptics” out there wasting bandwidth trying to win their case through quantity instead of quality. This is especially prevalent among the Muslim community. Their M.O. is (often) to act as though they innocently stumbled upon a difficulty in the Bible and they would just like some help. When their question is answered they simply produce another from the list and so on until the apologist gives up. Once the apologist  is worn out from the dissertation they are being asked to write, the skeptic acts as though they have somehow proven the inability of Christianity to deal with “their” arguments. They can then trumpet their success in showing that “no one can answer all these difficulties!!!”

Another tactic is to troll around on blogs and newgroups and just paste in a list of “101 Bible Contradictions” and leave it there until some neophyte decides to dedicate the next year of their life to figuring each one out. What is actually going on is that the same lists of alleged Bible contradictions get re-circulated ad nauseum, allowing ignorant “apologists” to simply cut-and-paste “their” questions without having to really deal with the text. The first time an apologist deals with one of these folks it can be overwhelming, and they often turn to more seasoned apologists for help. The problem is that these apologists don’t generally have the required time either.  

Fortunately, enough work has been done and made available on the internet that reinventing the wheel every time one of these wannabe skeptics sends in their list is not necessary. Although doing your own study will help you grow, if you don’t have time to study out the answers for yourself then the next best thing would be to consult these already existing sources so that you can simply cut-and-paste replies (after all, why work any harder than the objectors?). Although it won’t do much good for those regurgitating this stuff, it may help the unwary reader who comes upon their blog post or website to see the answers on the same site. To that end, here are some of the best sources that I know of in this area:

• www.gotquestions.org
• www.tektonics.org/index2.html
• www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm
• www.rationalchristianity.net/apol_index.html
• http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm
• www.answering-islam.org/Bible/Contra/index.html
• www.christian-thinktank.com/hway.html

In each link above, I have tried to get you as close as possible to the site’s “Bible Answers” section; however, some of these sites may move these pages from time to time, so you may have to go to the site’s main page and follow its links.

I also recommend Tom Howe and Norm Geisler’s When Critics Ask, and Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

Take me - Raise me above.
Take me - This undying love.
You are the air in which I breathe.
You are the blood I drink and bleed.
These words beyond forever true.
My new religion is you.

I indulged in a guilty pleasure a few weeks ago with a buddy of mine from seminary. We went to see Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde’s solo project Black Label Society play live in Charlotte, NC. It was rather surreal – I’m standing in a hall with about 500 beer drinking Hell’s Angels looking guys, we’re all yelling our heads off as Zakk and the boys launch into a Black Sabbath cover tune, and I’m thinking “I’ve got to be in church in a few hours . . .” Anyway, I figure if I blog about the spiritual connotations of the show I can redeem myself.

It’s been many years since I went to a metal show (I think I saw the Scorpions in Sacramento, CA last time), but when I heard Zakk was going to be in town I just couldn’t resist. Zakk is one of the few remaining true metal heads (in the movie “Rock Star” he plays Steel Dragon’s lead guitarist in case you didn’t know). I was not a big BLS fan – more out of ignorance than choice – but I wanted to see the guy rock anyway. The show was pretty much what I expected at first, but as it progressed there were some notable exceptions.

First, Zakk comes across like the most loving guy in the world. Between virtually every song he’d talk about brotherhood, love, and the friendship he had with the local BLS fans. I don’t even know how many times he hugged his band mates – they even exchanged some manly pecks on the cheek if that can be imagined (of course, just about anything a monster guitar player like Zakk Wylde does looks manly).

Second, during some lead breaks Zakk would climb up on his monitor and go through a series of ritualistic-looking hand motions that combined beating his chest like a gorilla, kissing his fingers and then pointing toward the sky, and crossing himself like a catholic. What the heck was that all about???

Third, he devoted part of the show to a touching (yet manly) tribute to his pal Dimebag Darrell (ex-Pantera guitarist who was murdered on stage). He talked about their friendship for awhile, then brought out a life size cardboard cutout of Darrell and sang “In This River” for him. Everybody loved it.

OK, so what?

Well, it occurred to me that we had many of the usual elements of a church service going on here. There was emotional group singing, messages of love, some ritualistic hand motions, and a general feeling of devotion to the man bringing the message. It occurred to me as I looked around that for many of these folks this WAS church – that is to say, this Saturday night concert was fulfilling the same basic requirements as Sunday morning church. Scary.

I think that perhaps the reason why Zakk gets the kind of devotion that he does from his fans is that he has tapped into something that is missing from many lives - fellowship. All people want fellowship – the personal closeness that shared experiences, insider knowledge, and community brings. Some people get it from social clubs, some from sports, and some, apparently, from rock shows.

Many Christians today are reacting to this truth by trying to create a kind of community in church that makes Christianity attractive to non-believers. While the goal of this effort can be appreciated, the problem is that ANYONE can do this. Christians, cultists, and rock stars can each fabricate the kind of community that people desire. How then can one choose between the different communities? It seems to me that someone who comes to church simply because of the community, and not what the community stands for, is going to jump ship as soon as a more attractive community comes around.

The Church needs to remember that the gospel is offensive. It is judgmental, absolutist, narrow minded, and intolerant. This fact alone will make most secular communities more attractive to those who are not seeking God (which is everyone according to Paul). Churches that believe community to be humanity’s number one need will have to sacrifice the gospel to keep membership up. The gospel will have to be made non-judgmental, relativistic, open minded, and tolerant toward sin and falsehood. Otherwise the community won’t be fun anymore. This, of course, is a problem. I am all for community – but we need to understand that unity around falsehood is worse than disunity with regard to truth. Lost people longing for community should not be made comfortable in their sin. While we need to reach out and show love, the last thing we want unbelievers to feel is safe in their unbelief.

I think people appreciate the truth more than we give them credit for. The desire for community is a longing to belong to something true, and it is the ones who are bold enough to take a stand that lovers of the truth will seek. I don’t know who Zakk is singing to in his song “New Religion,” and I don’t know who the audience is referring to when they sing along. But if it is Zakk, or their spouses, or their friends – anyone but Jesus Christ - then they are in big trouble no matter how good they feel or how many people sing along with them.

Occasionally when I have told someone about my faith in Christ I’ve had them reply with something like this: “I am so glad you have found something that makes you happy. Good for you!” I don’t think people realize how insulting this is. When I say I am a Christian, I am communicating the fact that I have made an ultimate life commitment to follow Jesus Christ – not joined some club or engaged in a mere hobby. It trivializes my faith to act as though I just found something that pleases me and signed on the dotted line.

What this response implies is that Christianity is not true, or at least not believed to be true by the speaker, but that doesn’t matter because, hey, if it makes your life more fun who cares right? So basically, the responder is saying that if believing a fairy tale makes you happy then good for you (moron!). Whether or not it is explicitly thought or stated, that is often how the world sees faith. If it makes a positive difference in your life that is fine so long as you keep it to yourself and don’t hurt anybody. Thus, faith comes across as a simple choice to believe something, not for any good or objective reasons, but just because you like it.

This might be true for many religions, but Christians need to stand up to this preference-based-faith attitude when it raises its ugly head. Think about it – if all people chose their religious beliefs based on preference alone then how would Christianity fair as an option? Here’s one of the very few faiths that not only excludes all other faiths from its rewards, but promises punishment for those who do not believe. Why would anyone desire that to be the case? That’s just mean!

So if someone really thinks that you believe in Jesus Christ simply because of your preferences then you must be some kind of jerk! Why not choose a nice religion like Buddhism or New Age pantheism? They give people all the chances they need and we all get to be one in the end. How sweet! Given these options, for someone to choose an exclusivistic religion like Christianity based on their personal preferences they would have to be pretty awful people. At least it seems that way to most of the world.

Of course some Christians do not have good, objective reasons for their faith. But that is not the point. Christianity has good, objective reasons for making its truth claims whether or not particular followers of the faith know them. This is why apologetics is so important for believers as well as unbelievers.

• I am not Christian because I like Christianity best – as a finite human sinner I can certainly think of religions that sound much more fun.
• I am not a Christian because of any alleged perks in this life – not only are few promised, some degree of persecution is guaranteed.
• I am not a Christian because it makes me happy – I was quite happy before I came to believe, and Christianity has not always been a catalyst for enjoyment.

Rather, I am a Christian because Christianity is true.

How do I know? First, the universe gives evidence of a single, all-powerful, creator (Monotheism). This was discovered centuries before Christianity by the great philosophers and has been continually ratified by most of the best philosophers of all time. Given this, we can summarily dismiss any competing religion that denies this fact. Second, Christianity alone lays claim to the only kind of evidence that is sufficient to show it is from God - supernatural support. Of the competing monotheistic religions Islam has no miracles in its original scripture (the Quran), and Judaism has none greater than Christ’s historically verified resurrection.

So the next time someone tells you how nice it is that you found something to make you happy, maybe tell them that you would choose to believe in the truth one way or the other!