IrContent

It is not uncommon for Christians to have occasional doubts about their faith. To help I think it is a good idea to first discover the root cause. I believe that human persons are physical/spiritual beings that have at least three aspects to their spiritual natures: emotion, intellect, and will. Doubt can creep in from any of these facets, or a combination of them. How doubt is dealt with will be determined by which kind of doubt one is facing.

Willful Doubt is caused by sinful disbelief (Rom. 1:18-19). This is not merely a lack of belief but a choice to rebel against the truth. This kind of doubt manifests as a tenacious unwillingness to accept the truth regardless of evidence. This person is always looking for reasons to disbelieve rather than seeking the truth. This should never be the case with Christians of course. The only way this kind of doubt is overcome is through the work of God in the person’s life.

Intellectual Doubt is honest unbelief based on one’s understanding (or misunderstanding) of facts. The heart cannot believe what the head thinks is false. This kind of doubt simply requires evidence to be extinguished. If sufficient evidence is provided to overturn one’s doubt it should dissipate (if not, it was probably willful doubt masquerading as intellectual doubt). Intellectual doubt is often used as a smokescreen for willful or emotional doubt, but it can also be the result of a combination of these with honest factual issues. For example, a person struggling with the problem of evil might have purely intellectual issues with the existence of an all-powerful good God in a world with s much evil. In this case, quoting Romans 8:28 will probably not be sufficient. There are emotional and intellectual issues here as well.

Emotional Doubt is more of a feeling that something is false even if one has no good reasons to think so. This kind of doubt characterizes the believer who desires (or “wills”) to believe and has no factual problem with what they want to believe, but for some reason they just don’t “feel” like it is true. It is important here to realize that feelings are simply not indicators of truth. Emotions are reactions to physical stimuli or thoughts - they are effects, not causes - and they change too often to be reliable indicators of anything other than the subjects personal state of mind or body. Emotional doubt needs to be seen for what it is and denied. Phil. 4:6-9 asserts that this kind of doubt may be dealt with through praying, thanksgiving, occupying ourselves with non-anxious thoughts - those things which are true to reality, honorable, righteous, pure, loving, of good repute, and things which are excellent in virtue and deserve praise. This is not mere daydreaming - it is an effort to develop a habit of dwelling deeply on such things. As C. S. Lewis once said, there are times when it would be very convenient for Christianity to be false. It is at these times, when the will is weak, that we most need facts to fall back upon.

Finally, we need to realize that because humans are physical/spiritual beings that each aspect affects the other. We can have feelings and thoughts that are actually caused by our bodies. Backsliding into sin is the quickest way to allow doubt to creep in. Sin can cause us to doubt our salvation or relation to God. This can result in depression or further rebellion. Instead we ought to trust the fact that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), because “he who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Our physical states can also cause feelings - lack of sleep, hunger, etc. can actually make us feel things that are not connected to objective reality. Mental abilities can be short circuited by physical illness. While we do not necessarily want to go running to a doctor that sees all health issues in terms of the physical only, if our thought life becomes seriously aberrant or obsessive it might be time to see a specialist.

For an excellent treatment of the issue of doubt see Gary Habermas, Dealing With Doubt (Chicago: Moody Press, 1990). The entire book can be accessed free of charge here.

In the wake of “all the religious scandals” of late I thought I’d point out some even more depressing news from the Atheist front. Since any act committed by someone with religious affiliation is used by atheists to argue against religion it seems to me they won’t mind if the same logic is applied to them.

Vienna has the lowest percentage of religious conviction of any Austrian province, therefore anything bad that happens in Vienna can clearly be attributed to atheism (don’t think too hard, just keep reading). And what has Vienna been in the news for recently??? CNN reports that:

• An Austrian man (from Vienna!) has recently confessed to killing his parents, wife, and 7-year-old daughter with an ax. Vienna police said, “He is completely matter-of-fact … almost without emotion.”
• Josef Fritzl, 73, confessed last month to holding his daughter captive in a cellar below the family home (Just outside Vienna!) for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven children with her.
• Just two years ago in Strasshof (another Vienna suburb!) a young girl escaped from the basement of a house after being held there for eight years and being repeatedly abused by her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself by throwing himself under a train.

Hmmmm - need I say more?

OK, I hardly ever just point to other people’s stuff here, but this is too great to miss: www.tektonics.org/extremeapologetics.html

The movie Zeitgeist was shown at Southern Evangelical Seminary (along with many other schools) Saturday March 15th along with a panel of professors to discuss its theories (primarily pt. 1 - the attack on Christianity). As the website says: “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves . . .”

My thoughts are that atheists should be offended that such tripe is being ascribed to their position. I could have made a better attack on Christianity than this. “Sun God” = “Son of God”? (come on - English didn’t even exist back then!) . . . tired old falsehoods regarding non-existent myth parallels . . . December 25 being Jesus’ birthday . . . pathetic. If I did not know better I’d think a Christian made this film to make atheists look ignorant, as it is little more than a collection of known historical falsehoods. While these claims have been debunked for years in various venues, here are some that seem to be the first internet-based direct responses to the film (the last one is a 10 minute video):

• http://www.moriel.org/articles/discernment/church_issues/answering_zeitgeist.htm
• http://www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk/view_page.asp?page_id=203&section_id=1
• http://www.proofdirectory.com/videos/zeitgeist_response.htm

Please note that I have not reviewed these responses in full nor the websites on which they appear.

Ministry used to be a verb. Apparently now it’s a noun.

I’ve been out of seminary for a few years now and I’ve noticed a trend lately that I think represents a very poor way of thinking about ministry. Many of the students and alumni I see these days are forming “ministries” instead of just going out and doing ministry. I can’t tell you how many students I know right now whose goal for getting educated is to “have a speaking and writing ministry.” Where are the pastors? Where are the teachers? Where are the evangelists? Ephesians 4 does not list “speakers and writers” as gifted positions God gave for the establishment of the Church!

Now, what these people are doing is a good thing so far as it goes, but the problem is that instead of involving themselves with the local church or schools they put up a false front and then attempt to fund their “ministry” by requesting donations. The thinking seems to be that doing ministry involves these steps:

1. “Found” your ministry. (By “found” is meant “think up a title and make a website out of it.” The title should include words like National, International, Institute, Center, or Society.)
2. Give yourself the title of “founder,” “director,” “president,” or whatever. (Note that from this point on you must never refer to yourself in the first person, rather you should use “us,” “we,” and “The Ministry.”)
3. Get 501(c) 3 status for your “ministry” so you can accept tax exempt donations for your “ministry work.”
4. Hit the road doing “speaking engagements” and ask for money for “The Ministry” so you can speak more.

The question these “ministries” need to ask themselves is why they should be siphoning off funding for the local church when it is the local church that should be paying them to preach or teach in the first place. What are these donations for anyway? If they are speaking they should be getting paid. And if they aren’t making enough doing speaking engagements then they should either get better or get another job! In the good ole’ days seminaries fed the churches. Students came to seminary in order to get training in how to support the Church - not compete with it by creating their own little tax-exempt solo careers. We need less superheroes and more laborers.

Sure, there will always be the Billy Grahams and James Dobsons of the world whose ministries are making a huge difference and require support from churches. But many today think that they should instantly be paid full time speakers just because they have a few PowerPoint presentations made from their class notes. It’s like the debt problem Americans face today. Kids graduate High School with nicer cars than people who have been working for twenty years and think they should be in a 3,000 square foot home by the time they’re out of college. They see the results of a lifetime of labor and think that’s just what they should have; so they go into massive debt instead of earning the income. In the same way, these “ministry founders” seem to think that being a Ravi Zacharias or a William Lane Craig involves nothing more than being able to parrot real scholars’ material in a 45 minute seminar. Then they beg for money because “the world needs to hear this stuff!”

I agree that the world needs to hear many of these messages - but it needs to hear them from all believers. And that requires training all believers (which is what Church is supposed to do). And I am talking about real training - not just weekend seminars. Churches and schools are the best places to prepare people for that sort of ministry - but what if all they do is run out and “found speaking ministries”? Sure, if these “ministers” become so popular that they can do it full time, fine. But people should not think that this is just what ministry is and simply ask people to fund them.

I think what irritates me the most, though, is the image manipulation. What right does an average seminary student or graduate have to act as though they are heading up some huge ministry when it is really just them trying to get paid to speak here and there? This is not doing ministry, this is spin doctoring. Does Gary Habermas have “The International Center for Resurrection Studies”? Does Tom Howe have “The Institute for Classical Hermeneutical Training”? And why doesn’t Win Corduan host “The National Society for the Philosophy of World Religions”? Because these “ministries” don’t exist (even though these guys could legitimately get them going if they so desired!).

Worse, if the terms used in titles like these are taken in their natural sense then it might even be seen as lying. These are not “centers” or “institutes” and they are not “national” or “international.” They are just people with websites. And that is enough! Why act like there is more to it than that? That is why I have dougbeaumont.org - not because of vanity, but because that’s all my ministry is: me, and what I do at school, church, and the venues where I speak. I am not “international,” I have no “institute,” and as far as I know no “societies” have formed because of me (unless they are secret societies and I have not been invited!).

Having a catchy title for a ministry is fine. Asking for donations because someone really can’t work and do her ministry well at the same time might be appropriate if her church cannot support her. But let’s be honest people . . . fake storefronts are no way to begin a legitimate ministry.

The other day I was preparing to give a lecture on Jesus’ use of parables. If you have heard anything about Jesus you have probably heard that “Jesus taught in parables.” Most of the time when this statement is uttered it is in support of some teaching methodology or genre study issue. My purpose in the lesson was to show that this sentiment is misplaced and to deal with an apologetic issue that is raised by the real reason that Jesus sometimes taught in parables.

But I could not remember the verses that dealt with the question. So I turned to Google and found a web page (which shall remain nameless but whose title is extremely close to that of this article). There enough copyright warnings on it to scare me away from quoting any of it directly, but in summary the writer suggests several reasons why he thinks Jesus taught in parables. These include:

• Parables were the teaching style of the day (which makes me wonder what made the disciples curious about Jesus’ use of them in the first place).
• Parables allow teachers to get away with more (he says Jesus only got in trouble when he claimed to be the Son of God, but what about the Sabbath controversies or forgiving sins?).
• Parables can be used effectively after the fact (he says the apostles later explained Jesus’ parables to the crowds as they evangelized. I know of no instance of this in the New Testament, and in the only example he gives (from Acts 2) they certainly did no such thing.)
• The other reasons mostly revolve around the usefulness of story telling versus making direct statements, which he then applies to modern teaching and preaching methods.

It’s all very nice and sermonly but there is one [additional] problem: It’s not true.

Now, fasten your seat belts as I deliver my stunning process for discovering his mistake. Prepare yourself for a hermeneutical excursion worthy of the finest scholars of any age. If you can master the unbelievably powerful method of Bible interpretation that I am about to impart, you will elevate yourself to dizzying heights of academic excellence. The key to answering the question “Why did Jesus teach in parables?” is . . . IS . . . found in the second half of the sentence! Imagine that! Jesus was asked why He taught in parables and He actually answered. Unfortunately, the writer only partially quoted this sentence at the beginning of his article (even ending the partial quote with a period as if the sentence actually ended there - see example above).

Now, the writer of the article might have gotten confused because the sentence is broken up into separate verses, but this hardly excuses his misquote, or his non-biblical response. Just for fun let’s go crazy and read the whole sentence: The text of the NIV of Mark 4:10-12 reads:

“When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, . . .”

Wait a minute. “So that . . .” Hmmmmm. Might that phrase indicate a purpose about to be revealed??? OK, I can’t stand the suspense any longer - here’s the rest:

“But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

Sometimes it’s the little things.

When I teach Bible Study Methods one of the things I stress is that of the three standard steps in study (Observation, Interpretation, and Application) it is often during the (seemingly) simple observation of the text that mistakes are made. It is really somewhat shocking how many interpretation or application mistakes are caused by the failure to simply read the text. It does make for good sermon fodder though.

Now just so I won’t leave you hanging, let’s return to the apologetic issue I wanted to raise in class. Why would God bother to incarnate and spend over 30 years as a human being only to come to those He wished to teach and speak so as to obscure His teaching??? The answer is . . .

Ha! Caught you! Jesus already answered that question too (see above)! The unanswered question is why this was His response. And answering that question involves knowing things like:

• Who Jesus’ audience is here (which is clear from the context - start at verse 1).
• What other passages have to say about the event (i.e., Matthew 13:1-17).
• Why Jesus quotes Isaiah 6 here.
• When it happened. Specifically, knowing the timing of this event in relation to Jesus’ overall ministry. This can be confusing without a Gospel Harmony, but Matthew records this event in chapter 13 which comes right after chapter 12 . . . (hint hint!).

I won’t spoil the joy of discovery for you. But in the meantime I suggest the following:

1. Always look up Bible citations.
2. Don’t assume verses are being considered in context.
3. Look for answers in the text first!

When I was in college I practiced a martial art known as Aikido. Like many martial arts schools, one of the things we did was offer women’s self defense classes. These generally consisted of a single 2-3 hour class on a Saturday. Now the class was good as far as it goes - Aikido has some pretty cool techniques that do not require the ability to vertically kick an assailant in the face while he is standing behind you. But this class, like most others I have heard about, also had serious limitations, some of which concerned me.

My biggest worry was over these women attaining a false sense of security because they learned a few cool tricks in a safe, controlled environment (humorous example). There is a reason people train in the martial arts for years before they are considered proficient (historically, a black belt merely indicated that someone had trained long enough to no longer be considered a beginner!). You just can’t learn that much in 2-3 hours. The reality is that given the number of possible attacks and technical mistakes that can be made, these women might be worse off than if they had not come in the first place. We tried to stress this weakness in the classes in the hopes that we would get some full time students, but that rarely happened.

I think apologetic training is a lot like that. I have seen the material covered in a semester-long, grad-level course covered in a single day seminar. Even scarier, the semester-long course (which lasts about 40 hours total) is itself a summary overview of several topics. At best, the folks that go to the seminar will learn how to state a few arguments, but they probably won’t really understand them or have a decent response to any objections that might be raised. And, just as a woman who gets assaulted might blame her defeat on the martial art she “learned” at a one day seminar, an apologist might conclude that “apologetic arguments just don’t work.” Worse, he might conclude that Christianity is actually false.

I hope those that read a Lee Strobel book or listen to Hank Hanegraaff for a few months won’t get the mistaken impression that quips and quotes are all that apologetics is about. There is a massive, long term, tradition of study behind the answers given to various attacks against Christianity. Simply learning “How to answer someone who says ____???” does not make one an apologist. My advice to the women was to continue in their practice of the martial arts and not to simply rely on a few tricks. Likewise, my advice to those who wish to defend their faith is to start working through the major issues (e.g., Jesus’ resurrection, the existence of God, the problem of evil, etc.) until they can hold their own in a conversation on those topics without having to refer to books or notes. Then their confidence will be properly placed and they will really own the material instead of just being able to quote the quips!

“All men by nature desire to know.” So begins Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Unlike Pascal’s alleged “God-shaped-vacuum,” I think Aristotle’s dictum is an accurate statement concerning human nature. Nobody wants to be stupid, nobody seeks to be ignorant. Thus, the intellect is any easy target for people in disagreement with one another. If I can show that my position is “more rational,” I win. Whether or not “rationality” is sufficient to establish many kinds of facts is the subject for another blog, but besides this problematic issue, some groups simply label themselves as smarter than all others and leave it at that. For either side in this (or any other) debate this is an unrealistic and useless way of going about knowledge-seeking.

Before launching into today’s rant, let me begin by stating something that I think we can all agree upon: There a lot of stupid people out there. There are at least a lot of people who are stupid about certain things. The fact is that as much as we would like to think otherwise, smart people do (and believe) stupid things. Consider Nazi Germany. These people were obviously not stupid - you don’t nearly take over the entire world by throwing idiots at it. Yet the same culture that gave us Beethoven, Einstein, and the Volkswagen, cruelly murdered over 11,000,000 people. What the heck?

Many smart people are stupid when it comes to their beliefs. I am not just talking here about false beliefs - many false beliefs would not count as stupid until the believer should know better. For example, prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls it was false, but not stupid, to think that many books of the Old Testament were not recorded accurately throughout the centuries. Now, a generation later, it is simply ignorant to hold to such a view. This issue of believing while in ignorance of the facts is related to another stupidity issue - believing without good reason. It is one thing to be misinformed or ignorant of the facts, but to not even seek reasons for beliefs - especially important ones - is simply irresponsible. To take an example from my faith community (like the PC?), I once worked in a government office doing a job that required about four months of training before one would even be allowed to work without supervision. Pretty tough stuff apparently. Yet when the Benny Hinn show came to town all of a sudden there were about 20 of these folks who couldn’t wait to buy tickets. What, again, the heck?

On the other hand there are atheists and skeptics who can’t think their way out of a wet paper bag. I know a guy who was raised in a charismatic-fundamentalist-whacko type church who is a skeptic now. Not much of a shock there. The story would not even be interesting if it was not for the fact that he basically seems to follow his kid brother’s beliefs like a lemming, yet ends up with strong opinions on the issues. When his brother was into Christian apologetics, his MySpace page was filled with philosophy quotes and Christian apologists. Then his brother got into Universalism and all of a sudden he’s got universalist arguments cut-and-pasted into his blog. A few months later, when his brother converted to atheism, guess what? That’s right - his page is now filled with raunchy photos, pop-atheist “friends,” and blogs devoted to simplistic, outdated anti-Christian propaganda. Mind you, all these changes came about within a year or two. This does not seem to reflect a careful approach to belief. (I am tempted to send his brother a bunch of books on toilet repair and see if they both end up in janitorial service!).

On the other hand I had a wonderful talk over Thanksgiving with a family member who has migrated from “cultural Christianity” to Deism (yes, apparently there are still deists in the world!). In her words, Deism is Theism minus revealed religion. She therefore disagrees with much of biblical teaching. OK, so we obviously disagreed - but our talk was fantastic! We both found ourselves commenting on how nice it was to be able to intelligently discuss our beliefs and the reasons for them without anger or emotive appeal. It was one of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time. We also discovered that we both needed more information to correctly asses the other’s beliefs. She referred to Thomas Paine, who I had not read, but she did not act like I was an ignorant fool because I had not gotten around to reading Age of Reason yet. I asked what she had read concerning Jesus’ resurrection (because some of her arguments against it were based on false assumptions) - and she admitted that she had not read anything substantial yet. OK, so we both had some homework to do. But we’re not idiots. I don’t think she is stupid for arguing from flawed assumptions, and she does not think I am stupid for not having read more on Deism before rejecting it. But we also agree that it would be stupid for either of us to think we couldn’t learn more - and that gaining that knowledge might change our views.

I think we can all agree that there are stupid people everywhere. But, for the most part, they are not stupid per se. Most limit their ignorance to certain areas. Thus, to lump people into a given category, note that many of them are stupid about things related to that category, and conclude that everyone in that category are stupid, is fallacious reasoning. Yes, there are a lot of Christians who could not go head-to-head with Richard Dawkins, but there are a lot of atheists who could not even go head to head with Lee Strobel. To fairly compare the intellectual value of various belief systems their best representative thinkers should be compared, not simply their best-sellers nor even their best-bloggers. Dawkin’s sorry treatment of Thomas Aquinas, for example, can be attributed to his lack of philosophical sophistication. Antony Flew, however, would not have that excuse (perhaps a bad example since Flew is a theist now!). Should I base my opinion of atheism on the cut-and-paste blogs of a 23 year old kid with no training who thinks he’s out-thought Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, and Craig by reading books by the likes of Dawkins, Carrier, and Loftus? That seems unfair. Not because his [and by "his," I mean, "their" (and by "their," I mean whoever they quote)] arguments are not worth considering, but because they have already been answered by people who know a lot more than we do. What both he and I should do is read the best from both sides, understand them, and then make our decisions.Unfortunately that takes more time than virtually anyone has.

This, I think, is the real issue. There is a lot of bad information out there, and we can’t investigate everything. I don’t even know how many email alerts I’ve received that snopes.com debunked years ago. The more I dig into many areas of thought the more I realize that their pop versions are as flawed as they are ubiquitous. Slogan-beliefs such as “religion has caused more death than all wars combined,” or, “the church has always held back science,” or, “Captain Picard was better than Captain Kirk,” have been soundly refuted by those in the know. But who has had time to read the real scholars in every field? This lack of knowledge does not equate to stupidity, although it might show how bad education has become. The real problem arises when ignorant people think they are educated.

And this is also the case with beliefs of all stripes. There are ignorant Christians who do not have the first clue as to why what they believe is true, and yet are fervent in their faith. There are zealous. yet ignorant, atheists as well. What really annoys me is the fact that many people, again on both sides, simply label others as idiots for believing what they believe. Atheists have certainly taken this approach. Their message is simple: “Atheists are the smart ones.” Many of these guys really believe that they are the only rational people on the planet. Although their writings often reveal otherwise, they simply repeat the “we’re rational and you’re not” mantra regardless of the mass of academic criticism they face (see Brandon Dahm’s The God Delusion Series for a good critique of Richard Dawkins - a smart and popular atheist who has seriously overreached his abilities to the acclaim of neo-atheists everywhere). True, both Christians and Atheists are sometimes guilty of this, but while no one would take seriously a church that called itself “The Only Church of People Who Think for Themselves,” or, “The First Church of Smart People,” atheists have gotten away with referring to themselves as “Free Thinkers” and forming “Rational Response Squads” for some time.

Anyway, here’s the point of this blog: If Aristotle was right then no one truly desires ignorance of the truth (although many avoid it for emotional / volitional reasons), and there are both smart and stupid people on both sides of most intellectual debates. Regardless of which side we are on, rather than act like we are the sole possessors of rational belief and simply label all other beliefs as inherently stupid, let’s just agree to deal with the issues. Let’s also not embarrass ourselves, nor others who share our beliefs, by thinking that parroting pop writers (or even substantial writers, if we don’t understand them) gains us the right to claim intellectual superiority. Quips do not equal arguments, and quotes do not equate to knowledge.

Note: I am indebted to Ian Hegger for the title of this blog - I don’t remember its original context, but I just had to use it!

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.

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!