The Insecurity of Atheism (Redux)

A while back I wrote an entry on the insecurity of atheists, and now I’m wondering if this just needs to be an ongoing series as examples keep coming in. The most recent illustration is the protest atheists kicked up over the “Seven in Heaven” road sign put in place to honor seven fallen firefighters who died on 9/11. If you’re unfamiliar with the issue, you can read a quick article about it here.

It’s always been curious to me why atheists don’t rail against other things they consider to not match up with reality. They don’t protest against Santa Claus, Indiana or sue over the Valhalla golf course in my city. Why just religious things, and in particular, why Christianity? I’m still waiting for a brave atheist contingent to publicly state they think Mohammad was a fraud.

What caught my eye in the article above are a couple of the statements made by Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. The first was, “We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell.” Second, referring to the street sign, Bronstein says, “It implies that heaven actually exists”.

So he’s concluded there is no heaven or hell? May I ask at how he empirically arrived at his conclusion? Since the naturalistic atheist has no other means at his/her disposal to arrive at truth and frame their epistemology, how did Burstein prove there’s no heaven or hell?

Answer: he didn’t.

Intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove that God doesn’t exist (and then, by extension, that Heaven doesn’t exist). Much as I dislike the swagger and acid tongue of Richard Dawkins, at least he admits as much.

Why? Because, as Dr. Mortimer Adler points out in his book Truth in Religion, “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition – one that denies the existence of some thing – cannot be proved.” Oh, I’ve seen some atheists try and twist out of this reality, but in the end, they just end up looking bad.

No, the fact is Mr. Bronstein can’t prove there’s no Heaven. That being true, and with the possibility of such a place being real, it’s perfectly OK for the New York firefighters to keep their street sign.

One other thing: To all the atheists, whose fear and insecurity drive them to such rage and hate toward anything Christian, if you really believe God doesn’t exist then don’t be mad at us, pity us. The Apostle Paul sums up our position if Christ isn’t the Son of God and wasn’t raised from the dead this way: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:16–19).

So instead of lawsuits and anger, why not feel sorry for us and let us keep our sign?

And again, let me know when you go on the aggressive attack against Islam.

Cisco Systems Act of ‘Tolerance’

Dr. Frank Turek is an alumnus of the seminary where I received my Master’s degree, Southern Theological Seminary. Frank has authored many Christian books, including one of my all time favorites I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, with Dr. Norman Geisler.

In addition to running a successful ministry, Frank also has a secular career that involves corporate motivational speaking and training. Cisco Systems employed Frank in such a capacity up until a short time ago when they fired him for holding a belief that homosexuality is a sin and writing about it in public.

That’s right, Frank wasn’t fired from Cisco because of poor job performance or because he openly talked about his beliefs on homosexuality at work, but he was fired for holding a private belief that homosexuality is morally wrong and daring to express that view in public. You can read the account in his own words and also read a series of articles written by Mike Adams.

Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has talked many times about the fact that America has swiftly moved from a predominantly Christian culture to one that has become pluralized with many different worldviews. Pluralism short-circuited people’s ability to use logic and courage to determine that one belief is right and another wrong, and so the next step became secularization, where religious beliefs were heavily marginalized in the public square. And now we have moved to privatization where you cannot express your religious viewpoints anywhere in public without possible retribution occurring.

Frank’s experience is (sadly) hardly unique. I have wondered for a long time if the number one persecutor of the Christian Church is not the hardened atheist, but the homosexual movement. Cloaking their agenda with ‘tolerance and diversity’ claims, they use their platform to practice intolerance and swift vengeance on anyone who dares to disagree with their moral behavior. As G. K. Chesterton said, “Those with a double standard normally have a single hidden agenda.”

Why does the homosexual movement act in the way they do? J. Budziszewski, writing in his book The Revenge of Conscience, provides a succinct answer: “those who rationalize their sins find it to be so much work that they require other people to support them in it.”

Take the time to send an email/letter to Cisco telling them about their hypocritical stance and pray for our nation whose moral fiber is, as one preacher recently put it, “unraveling like an old sweater.”

Mr. John Chambers

Office of the President

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Mail Stop SJC10/5/4

300 East Tasman Drive

San Jose, California 95134

Who Cares about Congressman Weiner’s Actions? I Do and so Should You.

I normally enjoy listening to Bill Lamb’s comments on my local Fox41 News’ Point-of-View TV clip, but I have to say I was very disappointed in his analysis of the Congressman Weiner scandal. In his opinion piece that aired on June 16, 2011, Lamb stated:

“Congressman Weiner developed a dialog with a few women on the internet and sent them some suggestive pictures. So what? That stuff is really none of our concern. Does it show questionable judgment? Maybe, but in the big scheme of things who cares? He wasn't elected because his constituents thought they had finally found a moral beacon. No, he was washed out of Congress and will be forgotten not because he sent some questionable pictures but because he lied about it.”

Lamb seems to suggest that it’s fine from a cultural/political standpoint for our elected leaders to behave immorally behind closed doors as long as they don’t exhibit bad moral behavior in their interactions with their constituents. You and I hear this all the time: “What they do in their private life is their own business and not ours.”

But such thinking is quite flawed in my opinion.

Why? Simply because a person who behaves immorally in private will behave the same way (sooner or later) in public. The fact is Weiner’s private deception and lies towards his wife and his public lies toward the people of New York are connected to the same moral character.

Ask yourself: what is something we desperately want from our elected officials? Answer: to keep the promises they made to the people who elected them when they arrive in office. In short, we want them to keep their word, don’t we? Now ask yourself this: if a person can’t keep the most important promise they’ll ever make (their marriage vow of fidelity) to the most important person they’ll ever meet (their spouse), how can we expect them to keep the political promises they make to us, most of whom they’ll never meet?

Lamb’s belief that somehow immoral behavior exhibited in private won’t eventually manifest in public is the worst kind of wishful thinking.

Some have tried to argue that Weiner’s actions really don’t constitute a breakage in marital fidelity, but it only takes a brief review of the transcript that covers his interactions with the woman in Las Vegas to see he was planning on traveling soon to consummate their online affair. Wendy Walsh, a behavioral and family therapist, was interviewed on CNN about the Weiner incident and asked “Is sexting adultery and cheating?” Her response was, “absolutely!”

So Mr. Lamb, I respectfully disagree with your bifurcation of private vs. public morality and the thinking that such things don’t matter. We need to have trust that our elected officials will keep their word. And when a leader like Weiner shows a continued pattern of deception and lies in their private life, it’s only a matter of time before it rears its head in the public workplace and negatively impacts many people. Who a person is in private is who they are, period.

Or, as A. W. Tozer put it, “Character is who you are when no one is looking.”

The Best Argument Against Christianity - Part 2

For Part I of this post, click HERE.

Some Recent Examples from Personal Experience

This issue of Christians not mirroring Christ's teachings/Scripture in general of has confronted me time and again throughout my Christian walk, both in big and small ways, and where I’ve either been the offender or when I’ve been on the ugly receiving end of professing believers. Let me shared just a few recent examples.

A short time back, I was contacted out-of-the-blue by the founder of a Christian ministry who asked me to take over the organization he had run for decades. I was very honored (and honestly quite scared) by the request, and felt this had to be what I had been preparing for the past five years to do. When I pushed him as to why he picked me, he said, “Well, you’re the one God laid on my heart.” Hard to argue with that, eh?

After a unanimous vote of the ministry’s board, I was called to be the ministry’s successor. My wife and I put our house up for sale and made the emotional and financial plans to make the move.

But after a few months of waiting for the house to sell, I got a strange email from the founder accusing me of a variety of things. When I tried to correct him on some of the items (e.g. showing email interactions as proof, etc.), he became irate, went to the ministry’s board, and without even giving me the chance to speak on my behalf, I was unceremoniously dismissed before I even started. All of this happened within a matter of one week and with just a few email exchanges.

I did a little digging after the event and found out by talking to a few people who have been associated with this organization for some time that this type of behavior was not uncommon for this particular ministry head.

Now, I’ve been in the corporate world for over 20 years and have been part of many different organizations, both large and small. In none of them have I had a superior or board of directors that were Christian, and yet I can say I have never been treated in the manner I was by that ministry’s founder and board. Even though I have worked in one of the most cutthroat industries in the business world, the worst type of office politics I’ve experienced hasn’t come close to how I was dealt with by that group of professing Christians.

What do you do with something like that? When the world has a historical track record of being a better/safer place to work than a Christian organization?

Another example: I had lunch recently with the CEO of one of the largest Microsoft software consulting groups in my part of the country. The guy is an industry veteran and a solid believer. Somehow, we got onto this subject and he surprised me by saying, “I won’t do business with any professing Christian company.” When I asked him why that was, he told me that once the other business finds out he’s a Christian, they take what he called “extensions of grace”. He explained that it could take the form of not paying on time, not delivering work when promised, or asking for fee or labor reductions without cause.

While listening to R. C. Sproul the other day, I heard him say the exact same thing in a message on Christian ethics. Sproul was talking about a business man he knew who didn’t want to do business with Christians, and Sproul startled me by saying, “I have to say, I don’t like doing business with Christians.” He went on to state that it amazed him how many believers order tapes from his Ligonier ministries and never pay for them. 

How sad.

Such a thing makes me think back to some friends we have who had a house built some years ago by a homebuilder that went to our church. In fact, the guy played guitar in the worship band; I can still picture him in my mind singing worship hymns in front of the entire congregation, his eyes closed, etc. The fact was, he was ripping people off by building faulty homes, one of which my friends had contracted him to build. The job was so bad that the local housing authority wouldn’t allow them to live in it. They took this guy to our church elders who didn’t resolve the situation, and they finally had to take him to the real estate commission who forced the homebuilder to make the home at least livable so my friends could sell it. But not before they lost a ton of money in the process. And the ‘Christian’ homebuilder? He ended up fleeing the state. I wonder if he’s playing in another worship band somewhere?

I’ve unfortunately experienced some of this myself, although not as extreme as what my friends went through with their house. We have a local business directory called The Shepherd’s Guide that lists Christian run businesses. Without exception (and sadly I mean without exception) every time I have tried to call one of those businesses to do some work, they have either failed to show up when they said they would or failed to deliver what was promised.

Take my word for it, even the smallest things can add up to give the Church a black eye. Last summer, I had an experience with a landscape company that advertised on our local Christian radio station and prominently stated their faith position in the commercial. I called them to come out and fertilize my lawn, which they said they would take care of immediately. But after several weeks, they still had not done the job. Emails and phone calls went unreturned. I finally got a call from the owner apologizing and promising again to do the job. But I told him “thanks but no thanks”, called another local landscape business (not Christian run), and they had my yard fertilized the very next day.

Again, an experience like that may seem like a very small thing, but both Christians and non-Christians alike remember them; they do have a lasting impact. How much greater impression do studies have that show the divorce rate is nearly the same inside and outside the Church; that church-going teens get pregnant almost as much as non-church attenders; and that alcohol abuse occurs just about as much among professing Christians as unbelievers.

The Fifth Gospel

Mark Gauthier, national director in the United States for Campus Crusade for Christ, argues that today’s unbeliever oftentimes decides whether to accept a teaching not on propositional arguments and proof, but rather on seeing “success” in the lives of those who have submitted themselves to the teaching. In the college-aged unbelievers he worked with, Gauthier asked them if they would become Christians if he presented iron-clad evidence that the gospel was true and found that their responses started out as ‘yes’, but then went to ‘no, not really’ as they admitted to him that their real deciding factor for believing was an evidentially pragmatic proof: “show me how this can change my life; let me see someone else who has found that it works for them.” In other words, let’s see just how authentic these Christians are, and if they walk the talk, then I’ll actually consider the faith.

To this point, Ravi Zacharias says, "How do you communicate with a generation that listens with its eyes and things with its feelings? You will need an apologetic that is not merely heard, but is also seen. If my Christian life is not visible to my neighbor, no amount of prophetic utterance is going to convince that neighbor that Christianity is true. Is your life in private that which you claim in public?"

In essence, then, the Christian becomes the only gospel some unbelievers will ever “read”. When the non-Christian sees a mismatch between what they have heard piecemeal about the teachings and life of Jesus and His professing followers, they naturally get confused at first and then without even realizing it (if their experience persists with other supposed believers), they give Christianity an “F” in the test of existential relevancy and walk away.

This is what the Apostle Paul drives home to his readers in the second chapter of Romans. He asks his audience if they boast in God and if they think they’re a shining example to others who just don’t seem to measure up to them, then they need to do a quick self-exam. Do they break the very things they say others should follow? Are their lives an antithesis of what God’s Word says? If so, Paul says, “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom. 2:24). In other words, the Roman Christians poor behavior reflected back on the Creator in a very negative way, and this intimates Paul, is a very damning thing.

But when believers adhere to Christ’s defining mark of “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35), then the unbelieving world is impacted in a positive way. In the early Church, Tertullian noted that the Romans would oftentimes exclaim, “See how they love one another!”

Perhaps the most graphic example of this selfless love happened during the terrible plague of Galen that occurred between AD 165 and 180. Whereas Christians selflessly stayed behind and helped the dying (oftentimes becoming infected themselves), the early Church bishop Dionysus wrote: “The heathen [non-Christians] behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.”

What is the Cure?

So what is the way to defeat what I believe is the best argument against Christianity? I think there are a number of things that must be addressed before this issue can be put to rest.

First, I’m convinced that the modern day Church is pregnant with unbelievers. What’s wrong with that, you ask? There’s nothing wrong with unbelievers coming to church, but there’s a very real problem when they stay unbelievers. In our seeker friendly church programs, unbelievers aren’t being confronted with their fallenness, need for repentance, and requirement to show fruit as proof of their conversion. Stanley High describes today’s church like this:

“The church has failed to tell me that I am a sinner. The church has failed to deal with me as a lost individual. The church has failed to offer me salvation in Jesus Christ alone. The church has failed to tell me of the horrible consequences of sin, the certainty of hell, and the fact that Jesus Christ alone can save. We need more of the last judgment . . . more of the living God and the living devil as well, more of a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. The church must bring me not a message of cultivation but of rebirth. I might fail that kind of church, but that kind of church will not fail me.”

In other words, says Stanley High, the Church has stopped telling people the truth about their lostness. Until that changes, and pastors/teachers become less like motivational speakers and more like real prophets of God, the Church will continue to be a place where unbelievers come and leave with no transformation having taken place, with the end result being lives lived out that stand in stark contrast to Biblical principles.

Second, true believers need to take seriously the spiritual warfare in which they are engaged. Instead of letting the flesh, the world, and Satan win round after round to the extent that their life appears no different than an unbeliever, Christians need to get aggressive with their spiritual opponents and start living like overcomers instead of being overcome. The writer of Hebrews urges us: “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us [great saints who serve as godly examples], let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).

Third, we all need to re-read Romans 2 and ask ourselves if we’re guilty of preaching things we don’t live out. If so, we need to repent and start being obedient in our actions to what God’s Word says.

Lastly, Christians need to feed the new creature in Christ that is inside them such that new desires spring forth and fruit is born that is in keeping with Jesus’ statement of, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

This equates to a holy lifestyle; one that is in the world but separate from it. In the same way a boat can be in the water and exist just fine, but not be of the water and sink, we need to live lives that mirror what James speaks about: “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world" (James 1:27).

James also points out a faith that does not act is no real faith at all: “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?" (James 2:15–16). Faith in action is what defeats the argument of Christianity failing the existential relevancy test. This is not just a New Testament concept, but is something found everywhere in Scripture. Isaiah echoes James almost verbatim with God’s command to His people: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1:16–17).

Put more simply, just follow Christ’s law of love: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).

Conclusions

One of my favorite Christian speakers/teachers is Michael Ramsden who heads up the European arm of the Ravi Zacharias ministry. He has a great message entitled “Conversational Apologetics” that covers a number of areas on how Christians should interact with unbelievers.

In the message, Ramsden talks about how one of the most effective techniques Jesus used in His ministry was asking his audience pertinent questions to draw out their presuppositions and real beliefs. He also talks about Christians being given an opportunity to speak about their faith when they are asked questions by non-Christians. However, he says typically the only way this happens is when unbelievers notice that the Christian is ‘different’ than either they are or the world in general.

Then Ramsden asks, “When was the last time someone asked you why you’re different? If you’re not getting asked questions by non-Christians, then perhaps it’s because your life doesn’t show anything new, attractive, or different than the world.”

Tough question to consider, eh?

So when was the last time someone noticed you were different? Does the way you conduct yourself in the world showcase your faith, or do you pretty much blend right in?

The best argument against Christianity is oftentimes us. Let’s start changing that right now. We we all be able to truthfully say with Paul, "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor 11:1).

The Best Argument Against Christianity - Part 1

This may be the riskiest article I've ever written. It's risky because it can be taken the wrong way; as a disillusioned rant against Christianity or something worse. It's not. Instead, it's just something I've been thinking about and experiencing for a long time. And everyone I've talked to about it has nodded their head in agreement so I think I'm not alone in my thinking. With that said, here goes...

***

Strange as it may sound, one of my seminary professors makes a habit out of reading atheist literature during his devotional times. That might seem a little odd, but actually it’s a very smart practice. “The good ones keep us honest,” he used to tell us.

What he means is that, occasionally, we Christians can offer explanations for our beliefs that actually aren’t very good arguments at all. And sometimes no one can see through a faulty argument better than a person who opposes that particular position.

Because the only valid reason to believe something is because that particular ‘something’ is true, it’s important to adhere to some solid guidelines that act as both a litmus test and protective barrier as to what constitutes a rationally acceptable belief and what does not.

The Tests of a Valid Belief System

Although many theologians have articulated these principles, John Edward Carnell seems to be the theologian credited with originating the following three standards for an acceptable belief and/or worldview:

1. Logical consistency
2. Empirical adequacy
3. Existential (or experiential) relevancy

The first guideline, logical consistency says that the belief must contain teachings or doctrines that logically cohere with one another and do not contradict each other. For example, Buddhism says that the ultimate act required to reach Nirvana is to rid oneself of desire. Yet, mustn’t one have a desire to rid oneself of desire?

Now I should quickly point out that a belief could be untrue even if its doctrines don’t contradict in any way. A legal team can present a case where their position is logically consistent, but it is certainly possible that the overall conclusion could be flawed and wrong. Logical consistency is only the first test of an acceptable belief system and shouldn’t be used as the be all/end all guiding principle.

The second test of empirical adequacy states that the belief must have evidence supporting it, whether that substantiation comes in the form of scientific or legal (i.e. forensic) proof. Without such a thing, the belief lacks what is called “falsify-ability”, which means that since you have no way of falsifying the claim, you have no way of truly validating the claim.

The Apostle Paul gives us just such a test for Christianity in his famous defense of Christ’s resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. The former persecuting of Christianity says that if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is vain (literally “empty” or “devoid of value”). He then goes on to say that we are among the most of all humankind to be pitied. Strong words for sure, but ones that are much needed. Paul’s statement serves as a wake-up call to all of us that consequences exist for believing in something that is not true.

The last test of a valid worldview or belief is existential (sometimes called experiential), relevancy. This requirement says that the belief must match what we see or experience around us, in a relevant or meaningful way. If it does not, then we have reason to question the belief.

For example, both Hinduism and Christian Science say that evil and sickness are just illusions; they are not real. Such a claim may be argued philosophically, but it is impossible to defend practically in the real world.

By way of illustration, Christian Science’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, suffered from illnesses and wore false teeth. One would think that her followers would find it difficult to reconcile Eddy’s position of evil and sickness being merely illusory with the existential reality of what their leader practically experienced.

This test of existential relevancy is the one most often used against Christianity, with the primary argument being the one of “theodicy” - reconciling the Bible’s teaching of an all-good and all-powerful God with the very real fact that evil is present in the world. If the God of the Bible exists, the argument goes, then we shouldn’t experience the evil that is all around us (one could contend this is a violation of logical consistency as well). Secular philosophers such as David Hume and J. S. Mill have offered the most-often articulated arguments in this area.

However, the truth is, the Bible never denies the existence of evil and says that God actually uses it to accomplish His divine purpose. The writer of Proverbs says: “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Proverbs 16:4).

Many Christian theologians and philosophers have put forward very sound arguments that defeat both Hume’s and Mill’s positions on the issue of theodicy and demonstrate no violation of either the logical consistency or existential relevancy guideline.

However, if I were asked to present the best case possible against Christianity, I admit that I would still go to this last principle of experiential/existential relevancy and attack from there. My case would have nothing to do with the existence of evil per se, but would rather zero in on one very sad observation that I’ve made over a number of years:

The best argument against Christianity is the lives lived out by professing Christians.

And I’m not alone in my position.

Some Depressing Statistics

There are those that argue that Christianity has an image problem where today’s Postmodernist culture is concerned. Whether the perceived image problem is justified or not is a separate matter; if the negative impression of Christianity truly exists, it becomes very important especially in the Postmodernist era because, in Postmodernism, what people think, speak, and write become their reality.

David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group (a research organization focusing on religious trends and information), asserts that the primary issue that Postmodernism has with Christianity is that it views the Christian faith as no longer representing what its founder had in mind. The primary complaint appears to be that it has lost the compassion and caring preached by Christ and instead it has turned into a juggernaut of fearmongering and restrictor of freedom.

In his book Unchristian, Kinnaman studied the Mosaic (born between 1984 and 2002) and Busters (born between 1965 and 1983) generations of the United States, which currently comprise approximately 77% of America’s population. Kinnaman found that spirituality is something that ranks as important to his studied demographic, yet fewer than one out of ten states that faith is their top priority.

Also somewhat alarming, Kinnaman found that both Mosaics and Busters view life in a nonlinear and chaotic way, and are perfectly at home with apparent contradictions and ambiguity in religious life. This means they nonchalantly discard the tests of logical consistency and empirically adequacy when evaluating competing worldviews and embrace a pluralistic stance (where no one faith can be deemed ‘true’).

With respect to Christianity, Kinnaman notes a growing tide of hostility and resentment – a statistic which is trending downward from a positive study that was done by his Barna group only one decade before. He discovered that of the non-believers surveyed that were aware of the term “evangelical” (as it relates to Christianity), nearly half had a bad impression, 47% had a neutral impression, and only 3% had a good impression.

Why such a dismal rating?

There were two things that Kinnaman’s study uncovered, and neither had anything to do with the theological teachings or doctrinal standards of the Church. First, unbelieving postmodernists signaled negativity to what they termed the Christian “swagger” – how Christians go about things in the world, along with the bark and bite that unbelievers stated that they see in Christians’ demeanor and actions.

Second, as previously stated, respondents said that the charity and compassion of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels have been dismissed by Christians in favor of combative actions against what they believe to be threats against their moral positions. In other words, Christians have become famous for what they oppose and stand against rather than for what they are in favor of and champion.

With respect to what the current and upcoming generations specifically cite as the things they see Christianity being known for, an anti-homosexual stance ranks first (91%), followed by a judgmental attitude (87%). In a way, this isn’t surprising as Christians – in keeping with Scripture – do indeed oppose homosexuality, with few others (outside of perhaps Islam) raising an objection to the lifestyle.

In regard to being judgmental, while “Church Lady’ personas certainly do exist in Christendom and damage the faith’s image, it should be noted that history has shown that the world and humanity’s fallen nature will never take kindly to Biblical pronouncements against the sin it cherishes and wants to practice. The one Scripture verse every unbeliever can quote is “Judge not less ye be judged”, but they fail to understand (1) that statement itself is a judgment; (2) Jesus commanded His followers to judge with a righteous judgment, but first make sure their own house is in order before they go about instructing others.

The third most cited characteristic of Christianity in Unchristian is the one that supports my position that Christians are the faith’s biggest anti-apologetic. A full eighty-five percent (85%) of Kinnaman’s surveyed group said that Christians are best known for a hypocritical lifestyle.

How depressing is that? Such a thing echoes Gandhi’s famous statement, “I like your Christ, but I don’t like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

An Acknowledged Problem

While there is much debate in the Church on a variety of topics such as how the second coming of Christ will actually occur, on this matter, there seems to be universal agreement. Both Emerging Church leaders and conservative Christian scholars (who normally differ on many doctrinal subjects) both say that the Church needs to reflect the story found throughout Scripture in its everyday practices. Non-believers do not want a religious version of what they can already get at the mall, but instead they are searching for the mysterious practices of the ancient gospel, which means that the Church’s storytelling should be supported by its story living.

In addition to being unified in the cry for more personal and Biblical authenticity, conservative theologians also agree that while evangelism needs to be truth-centered, it must also be person-sensitive and culturally active. Evangelical leaders point out that God does not merely speak truth to isolated, autonomous individuals, but rather to a redeemed people who form a vibrant and attractive community.

This means that mere apologetic and evangelistic propositions are not enough. Instead, Christian leaders say that the Church should enter into a covenantal relation of truth: one where words, thoughts, and deeds conform to the image of the One who is the truth incarnate. Only then will the Church have a practical, transformative, and relational truth, which ultimately results in what theology professor Kevin Vanhoozer calls a “hermeneutic of activation”.

Without such a thing, Christianity will be consistently judged with failing the test of existential relevancy. Unfortunately, such a verdict is rendered all the time and in many ways. Famed Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias says the one question that has haunted him the most throughout his ministry was asked by a Hindu acquaintance: “If this conversion you speak about is truly supernatural, then why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians that I know?” In other words, a God who is said to transform should produce people with transformed lives.

This apparently very visible missing element in the Church today has been pointed out by famous atheists such as Frederick Nietzsche who once remarked, “I’ll believe in the Redeemer when the Christians look a little more redeemed” and Karl Marx who turned away from religion when he saw his Jewish father abandon their faith in favor of joining the Lutheran church simply to help his business grow.

In Part II, I'll discuss some of my own personal experiences and what I believe to be the cure is for the problem.

Response to Stephen Hawking's Comments on an Afterlife

In late 2010, the physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking released his book The Grand Design, which was written to explain where our universe came from. Hawking does not believe in God and states in the book: “Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. . . . We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings.”

How does Hawking propose the universe began? He says, “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” The problem with his statement is that gravity is not “nothing”; as Aristotle said, “nothing is what rocks dream about”. Hawking fails to answer the question he wishes to address, which is why we have something rather than nothing at all.

In mid 2011, Hawking surfaced again to explicitly state there was no Heaven and that anyone believing different “believes in fairy tales”. Likening the human brain to a computer, Hawking says, "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark".

Is Stephen Hawking right – is this life all that there is? Is the hope of an afterlife only wishful thinking? Sigmund Freud thought so and accused anyone holding to a religion that teaches a life beyond this one guilty of believing in “illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind”.

The book of Job asks the question about an afterlife very simply: “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). Asking the question is easy, but the difficult part is finding someone to answer the question with authority and experience.

The Great Equalizer

“Death and taxes” have said to be the two universals that everyone living can expect to deal with. But while everyone is handled somewhat differently by government taxation, death is the great equalizer that treats everyone the same.

Because of this, it’s not uncommon for people to be afraid of death. The ancient philosopher Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC) recognized that the fear of death was present in everybody and therefore he sought a way to remove that fear. Epicurus taught that humanity not need fear death because human beings are nothing more than a composition of atoms, which at death simply disperse and that is the end of things. Epicurus didn’t believe there were any gods to fear or anything to face once a person breathed their last. His teaching of maximum pleasure in this life with minimum pain and suffering dictated that everything ends when death occurred.

One of the groups the Apostle Paul encountered in his trip to Athens were the Epicureans, who listened to Paul’s Mars Hill address up until he mentioned the resurrection of Jesus and then abruptly ended the discussion (cf. Acts 17:32). They had been bathed in their teacher’s philosophy and likely knew well the statement made by Apollos the Epicurean who said during the founding of the Areopagus where Paul was speaking, “When the dust has soaked up a person’s blood, once he is dead, there is no resurrection."

But after thousands of years since that time, the fear of death remains fixed in many people. The book of Job describes death as the “king of terrors” (Job 18:14). This fact is visible in the movie The Bucket List where the character played by Jack Nicholson, trying to come to grips with dying, says: “We all want to go on forever, don’t we? We fear the unknown. Everybody goes to that wall, yet nobody knows what’s on the other side. That’s why we fear death.”

But one person has gone to that wall, gone through to the other side, and come back to tell us what to expect. He alone possesses the authority and knowledge to tell everyone the truth about the idea of an afterlife.

The Expert on Life after Death

From a historical perspective, no historical scholar – either Christian or non-Christian – disputes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. There is no debate about His teachings, the fact that He reportedly did miraculous things, and there is universal agreement that He was put to death by crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Jesus went to Nicholson’s wall of death and through to the other side.

There is also no disputing the historical evidence that says three days after His death, Jesus’ body went missing and remains missing to this day. His disciples claimed to see Him alive and went to their deaths unwilling to recant their testimony.

The strong evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that when all the philosophical and historical evidence is examined, the easiest explanation for the above is that God raised Christ from the dead. The famous barrister, Sir Edward Clark, says the following about Jesus’ resurrection: “As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter day. For me, the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the high court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. Inference follows on evidence, and a truthful witness is always artless and disdains effect; the gospel evidence for the resurrection is of this class, and as a lawyer I accept it unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate."

The resurrection puts Jesus in a place of being the sole authority and witness able to answer the question, “Is there an afterlife?” And what does He have to say? Christ makes three basic statements about the subject of life after death:

1. There is an afterlife

2. When a person dies, there are two different eternities to which he/she will go

3. There is a way to ensure a positive experience occurs after death

First, Christ most certainly affirms there is an afterlife in a number of Biblical passages. For example, in an encounter with the Sadducees who denied the teaching of resurrection, Christ rebuked them by saying, “Regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken" (Mark 12:26–27). Jesus clearly tells them that those who have died centuries before are very much alive with God at that moment.

In another passage, Jesus comforts His disciples (and us) by telling them specifically that they can look forward to being with Him in Heaven: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going” (John 14:1-4).

Two Eternal Destinies

Jesus also speaks authoritatively about what types of destinies await every person that dies: one with God and one without God. In Luke’s account of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus says, “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom" (Luke 16:22–23). One aspect of the story worth noting is that there is no intermediate state for those who die; they go directly to their eternal destiny. As the writer of Hebrews says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

Jesus speaks about the two final destinies when he is again confronted by the religious leaders in John: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment” (John 5:25–29). Christ restates the matter very plainly in Matthew when He say, “These [unbelievers] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

What Determines Our Eternal Destination?

Jesus also is clear on what determines each person’s eternal destination: whether they have faith in God and what they do with respect to Christ. The book of John contains many statements made by Jesus on this subject, with perhaps the most famous being these: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:14–18).

For those who repent and receive Christ as their Savior and Lord, the afterlife will consist of an eternity spent with God. But for those who reject Christ, their destiny will be spent away from God’s presence. Jesus contrasts these two destinies in the end of the Sermon on the Mount: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13–14).

Conclusions

Speaking about life after death, G. B. Hardy, a Canadian Scientist, once said, "I have only two questions to ask. One, has anyone ever defeated death? Two, did he make a way for me to do it also?"

The answer to both of Hardy’s questions is “yes”. One Person has both defeated death and provided a way for everyone who puts their trust in Him to overcome it as well. Epicurus may have believed that everyone fears death, but the truth is, no one who trusts in Christ needs to be afraid. Rejoicing in this fact, the Apostle Paul wrote, “But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" (1 Corinthians 15:54–55).

Stephen Hawking may say that an afterlife is the stuff of fairy tales, but he doesn’t have the experience or authority to speak on such important matters. If we must decide between his conclusions and the teaching of the only Man who has died, come back from the grave, and stayed alive, it would seem that the best decision would be to listen to the Person whose tomb still remains vacant.