This week I’m taking a break from writing something original, but I want to recommend to you three very interesting things I found on the web this week, two of which will enhance the recent “Why Believe?” series.  The first is a “blogalogue” debate between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman on the subject of pain and suffering.  N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, has taught at McGill, Oxford, and Cambridge, and has authored many books, including one that is relevant to this dialogue, Evil and the Justice of God.  Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of God’s Problem:  How the Bible fails to answer our most important answer – Why we suffer and Misquoting Jesus, among others. 
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This past Sunday, I finished up a five-week series called Why Believe?, where I tried to answer some of the major objections people have to the Christian faith and the God of the Bible.  I have found the series to be very strengthening for my faith, yet at the same time incredibly challenging as I spent a great deal of time reading and listening seriously to the objections that people have.  The general attitude of many of the new atheist books has been summed up as “God isn’t real, and frankly, I don’t like him very much either,” and believers in God are generally characterized as unsophisticated, pre-scientific, arrogant people who enjoy having someone tell them what to do and have serious wish-fulfillment issues.  While I have heard many fair criticisms that should motivate believers towards repentance and discipleship to the true gospel of Jesus, I obviously disagree with their main conclusion and much of the route by which they get there.

I wanted to end my interaction with the objections to the faith today by dealing with a challenge that Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything, throws out in his book and in most talks I have seen him give.  His challenge is meant to communicate the fundamental unnecessariness of religion, and goes something like this:

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“Advance warning of Katrina’s path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn’t have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina’s survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God… Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs.”

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Over the past three Sundays, I have been preaching on some of the major objections people have to faith in the God of the Bible – issues like Hell, the exclusivity of Christ, and the resurrection – in a series I’ve called Why Believe?.  One of the most meaningful aspects of these Sunday worship gatherings, however, has been giving individuals in our church the opportunity to share some of their story of why they believe.  Sharman Anderson, Danny Cordero, and Maggie Proulx have all shared about how they came to faith in Jesus and the difference He has made in their lives, and in the process have helped me (and hopefully others) to see God in new ways.  I have found that there is something about hearing a testimony of how God has worked in someone else’s life that can be incredibly strengthening for our own faith. 

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As I’ve been considering the question Why Go to Church?, one of the biggest struggles I (and many other pastors) have is how to encourage someone to go to church without reinforcing a consumer mentality.  Read more »