I sat down with a young lady a couple of weeks ago and had a conversation. This was a conversation about faith—her faith. Better put, this was a conversation about a faith that once was and is no more. She was a very interesting and bright lady—inquisitive, well-read, and suspicious. She began by telling me that she was a Christian (past tense) and had since left the faith. Christ was once a part of her confession, but, as she recounted to me, after a long voyage of not finding sufficient answers for her doubts, she believes that she had no choice but to follow her own integrity and renounce Christ all together. I asked her what her problems were and she became very emotional. It was like I represented Christianity and she was ready to take it all out on me.

Ignorance. Pity. Shame. These are all good descriptions of what she thought of Christianity. But the primary description that I felt coming from here was “betrayal.” She had been betrayed by the Church because they duped her into a belief not unlike that of the tooth fairy. When she discovered this betrayal, no one had a valid answer or excuse. So she left. She is now an unbeliever—a soon-to-be evangelistic unbeliever.

One fascination, obsession, and focus (neurotic pulse?) I have in my life and ministry is with regard to those, like this young lady, who leave the faith. You may have noticed this. I have over a dozen books giving  autobiographical sketches of those who once proclaimed to be Christian and are now evangelistic atheists, agnostics, or skeptics, with their goal to convert or, rather, unconvert others. I have been in contact with many people who either have already left or are on the verge of leaving. I get emails, phone calls, and visits from the same.

No, it is not a neurotic pulse. I believe that it is the recognition of an extremely serious issue that we are facing today. We are facing an epidemic in Christianity—an epidemic of unbelief among our own. Crowding our churches are those who are somewhere in the process of leaving. No, I am not talking about leaving a denomination. I am not talking about abandoning some institutionalized expression of Christianity. I am not talking about leaving the church (though related). And I am not even talking about renouncing religion. I am talking about those who are leaving Christ.

Over 31 million Americans are saying “check please” to the church, and are off to find answers elsewhere. Jeff Schadt, coordinator of Youth Transition Network, says thousands of youth fall away from the church when transitioning from high school to college. He and other youth leaders estimate that 65 to 94 percent of high school students stop attending church after graduating. From my studies and experience I find that leaving church is many times the first visible step in one’s pilgrimage away from Christ.

The question that we must ask is a very simple one: Why? Why are people leaving the faith at this epidemic and alarming rate? In my studies, I have found that the two primary reasons people leave the faith are 1) intellectual challenges and 2) bad theology or misplaced beliefs.

First, I want to explain this transition process, focusing on the first: intellectual challenges. You might even find yourself somewhere on this journey.

Step one: Doubt
Step two: Discouragement
Step three: Disillusionment
Step four: Apathy
Step five: Departure

Step One: Doubt

Here is where the person begins to examine his or her faith more critically by asking questions, expressing concerns, and becoming transparent with their doubt. Continue Reading »

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I think we have a great audience on Parchment and Pen. It is varied and representative of a diversity of Christian thought. I appreciate this. I need this. Thank you all for being a part of the serious thought.

I have a question for you. I am sitting here thinking through a class I am teaching tonight on essentials and non-essentials. It is very windy. There is a large oak tree outside that is catching the wind. Its strength amazes me. How does it withstand so much wind? It brought to mind a very familiar passage of Scripture: Continue Reading »

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Yes, I am alone once again. No worries, join me as I talk about the difficulties of representing Christ in a postmodern world.

 

 My Postmodern Sympathies [26:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2285)

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In the last blog in this series, I talked about how to engage in theological conversation or controversy, especially on the internet. In this blog post I want to take this one step further in talking about our attitude. In my opinion, one cannot underestimate the importance of having the right attitude. Chuck Swindoll says that life is about one-percent what happens to you and ninety-nine percent how we respond.

I often talk about the importance of having an irenic approach to doing theology. It would seem that this term, “irenic” is suffering because of its overuse and misidentification with those who would choose to abuse it. To be irenic means that we are peaceful in our approach to issues. This does not involve compromise, but a willingness to engage issues fairly.

Here are some of the characteristics to being irenic in theological conversation and controversy:

• You accurately represent all theological positions, even when you strongly oppose them.
• Your tone of engagement comes from a humble respectful attitude.
• Your primary goal is not to win an argument, but to contribute to understanding.
• Your defense of your position recognizes that strengths of the opposing side.
• You are gentle.

Here are two important Scripture references concerning how we are to engage in theological discussion irenically:

2 Timothy 2:24 “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

Notice the key phrases: Continue Reading »

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John Newton shows us how controversy must be seasoned with a tender heart. Rarely do I see this, but how I long for it in myself and others.

Every apologetics student and polemicist should be a student of Newton’s advice here. It is proverbial. What a timely word for all of us today as we strive for the truth.

Read this carefully. Pay special attention to the second and the last paragraph.

Would be that the emergers and anti-emergers alike would follow this advice.

Do you find people following this irenic method today? Continue Reading »

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Phil Johnson of TeamPyro started a series on contextualization of the Gospel and Act 17 (Part 1, Part 2). He is combating what he believes to be a compromise of the Gospel shrouded in the name “contextualization .”

In his words, some in the “postmodern missional ministry” (i.e. emerging/Emergent church) believe that Paul, in Acts 17, “adopted the worldview and communications style of his hearers. He observed their religion and listened to their beliefs and learned from them before he tried to teach them. And he didn’t step on their toes by refuting what they believed. Instead, he took their idea of the unknown god, embraced that, and used it as the starting point for his message about Christ.”

This is the caricature, right or wrong, that is set up.

He says that in contrast to the compromised message of the postmodern Christian, Paul was not scared of offending people because he does not set his standard by how many people respond positively to the message. In fact, as Phil points out, Paul did not win many by his ”contextualized approach.” Phil says, ”That is the biblical approach to ministry. You don’t measure its success or failure by how pleased the crowd is at the end of the meeting.”

Let me interact with this a bit. Continue Reading »

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In his book The God Delusion, the new atheist Richard Dawkins asserts that Yahweh is truly a moral monster: “What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such an appalling role model as Yahweh—and even worse, that they should bossily try to force the same evil monster (whether fact or fiction) on the rest of us.”

In this particular blog, I would like to address a glaring inconsistency, which I mentioned in passing in an earlier blog. How can Dawkins launch any moral accusation at all? This is utterly inconsistent with his total denial of evil and goodness elsewhere: Continue Reading »

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I found this on another blog. It was a response to a post concerning defining “orthodoxy.” I found it interesting.  Continue Reading »

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Conversation involve questions. The asking of questions is either meant to illicit and answer or to provoke thought that provides an answer, even if the answer is a tentative “I don’t know.” I often tell my students that it is better to have an informed “I don’t know” than a forced make-ready answer.

When it comes to Christ, when it comes to following Christ, when it comes to who Christ is and what he did, there are some questions that need to be asked. The answers to these questions will and do divide. The division regards differences in beliefs, convictions, or knowledge concerning the object.

Christ asked Peter a very divisive question: “Who do you say that I am?” Others had differing opinions. Some said Elijah. Others John the Baptist. The contrastive de tells us that Christ was asking what Peter thought in contrast to what the others thought. “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” he answered (Matt. 16:16). With this answer Peter contrasted his beliefs about Christ with all the others who gave different options. Peter believed he was right and the others wrong.

This was an early confession, a creed, a statement of faith that was in response to a question. It was not from the lips of Christ, but one of his followers. Peter was the first to put his theology into a creed. This creed not only separated him from other contemporaries, but has separated Christianity as a confession of faith from all other alternatives since. “Who do you say that I am?”

But this was not the end. As I will attempt to demonstrate, there was a progressive development of a creedal belief in the New Testament that distinguished Christianity as a distinct system of belief. Continue Reading »

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Millard Erickson has a book called Postmodernizing the Faith where he summarizes the different approaches that the Christian community is taking in response to the postmodern plight. I blogged on this last year, but thought I would advance some of my thoughts. I think it is a great and valuable study that helps us approach a sensitive issue in an understanding, irenic, and profitable way.

The question is How do we as Christians engage a postmodern way of thinking? More specifically, how do we change the postmodern—or do we? Continue Reading »

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The most valuable lesson that I had in graduate studies was when a professor of mine had me defend Arminianism. The reason why this was so valuable centered on the fact that I was not an Arminian and the professor knew it. He set up a debate where I was assigned to research the best arguments for conditional election (the primary distinguishing mark of Arminianism) while others were to defend unconditional election (the primary distinguishing mark of Calvinism). Grading was done on how well each party defended the best elements of their assigned position.

I took this challenge very seriously and for weeks studied the arguments for Arminianism, responded to the challenges of Calvinism, and shaped my presentation in such a way that I thought contributed most persuasively in debate form. Once the assignment was complete, my professor said that I lost the debate, but every student, including those on the opposing side, conceded that I undoubtedly won. It was a bitter-sweet victory! Continue Reading »

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Considering the conflict that is brought about with regards to the issue of faith and science, I thought I would write a primer on the philosophical approaches that people adopt. Questions such as Do faith and science conflict? What do we do when faith and science seem to be at odds? What has ultimate authority, faith or science? Can there be a Christian scientist? are all important here.

Let me start with some prolegomena with regards to terminology.

First, the very label of this issue, ”faith and science,” can be misleading. Faith should not be defined as a set of beliefs that is held to without regards to or contradictory to the evidence. This is especially the situation with regards to the historic Christian faith. This is the subject of a different blog, but suffice it to say that Christians do not believe that their faith is a blind leap into the dark that disregards evidence as a suitable guide to the truth. The Christian faith is a faith that his held to, from a human perspective, because of the evidence.

Second, science is not immune to the label of faith. Continue Reading »

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Ken Samples did a great job on Converse with Scholars. We interviewed him about the subject of worldviews. We spent much time speaking about need for logical reasoning and consistency in our worldview. I end by asking Ken, “Why do you believe that Christianity presents the best option?” Ken is a great guy and handles himself very well. His passion for truth is evident, but I especially appreciated what he had to say about being intellectually honest in all our apologetics.

You can listen to the broadcast here or download it. Visit Ken’s site and take a look at his book.

brought to you by Converse with Scholars . Visit the site to see all our scholars.

 

 Ken Samples on Worldviews - Converse with Scholars [1:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1694)

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I am a Calvinist, others are Arminian. I believe in a premillenial eschatology, others are amillinial. I am a traducianist with regards to the creation of the soul, others are creationists. I believe in reasoned inerrancy, others believe that this is an archaic naive doctrine. There are many points of doctrinal division that I am going to have with people, some of which are much more important than others.

Why doesn’t everyone agree with me? Who is causing this disunity in the body of Christ, them or me?

There are a few different ways that I could answer this. Continue Reading »

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My sister Angie and her son Drew in 2002

I often tell the story during my Introduction to Theology class of an experience that I had that deeply implicated me and has affected the way that I “listen” to God’s movements in my life. It concerns an event that happened in the summer of 2003 with my sister Angie. It has to do with how experience can seem to say one thing, but be very misleading. Continue Reading »

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