Christianity for the Tough-Minded (part four)

Three baseball umpires go out to eat at a New York City restaurant after a baseball game. In conversation, one says, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way they are." Another responds, "There's balls and there's strikes and I call 'em the way I see 'em." To which the third says, "There's balls and there's strikes, and they ain't nothin' until I call 'em."

The first umpire above represents objective realism. In other words, there are non-negotiable things such as balls and strikes, good and bad, right and wrong. Their reality do not depend upon the observer, the environment, social conditions, cultural norms, political agendas, or anything else. They are what they are.

The second umpire is certainly more subjective in his outlook. It all depends on how the observer sees the world around him. Each person can use his own reasoning ability to come to different conclusions, but still there are such things as balls and strikes, but it just differs from person to person. We might call this position subjective realism, or modernism.

The third umpire takes the subjective angle to the extreme. How do we know anything at all? Is there anything we point to that is "real" beyond our judgments? There are no absolutes in life, just contrasting perspectives where we should bend over backwards to extend tolerance of all views of life. Nothing is anything until I say they are, and what I say may be different than what you say, and that's cool. This is postmodernism, the prevalent philosophical approach to life today, that can be witnessed in everything, from entertainment to politics to business to religion to architecture to literature to art, you name it. Postmodernism leaves no stone unturned.

Postmodernism is a new name, but it is as old as the last verse in the book of Judges: "every man did what was right in his own eyes." Man is the captain of his own ship, the maker of his own ship, the course for his own ship, the rules for his own ship. "There's balls and there's strikes, and they ain't nothin' until I call them." Man creates his own reality, he lives by his own definitions, and nobody can say that he is wrong, because there is no absolute wrong.

How well do we recall a former President's line, "It all depends on what the definition of 'is' is." Many of us shook our heads in disbelief, as we tried to figure out what he was saying. For those who are like umpire number one, that line made no sense. But for those who are like the third umpire, it resonated with them like nothing else in contemporary life at the time. Postmodernism had found its way in the office of the Presidency (along with many other things).

Right after the President's comments, reporters were sent out onto the streets with the question of the century. This part may have been forgotten by most of us, but the question was, "Do words have a fixed meaning (umpire number one), or may we give them any meaning we choose (the position of the third umpire)?" Of course, how could that question have any definite meaning if words have different meanings to people? The postmodern dog is chasing his postmodern tail.

With that aside, though, to the surprise of the surveyors, most people seemed to agree that words can sometimes mean different things to different people. That prompted a second question by the reporters: "Is morality an absolute or a private matter?" The overwhelming response came back that morality is a private matter.

These two questions became the lead-in on a CNN news report. First, words only have personal meaning. Second, that morality is a private matter. Ironically, the third item on the news that day was that the United States had just issued a stern warning to Saddam Hussein that if he did not stop playing word games with the nuclear inspection teams we would start bombing Iraq.

All of sudden, words did matter. Instantly, we did not want someone else to live by his own ethic or his own rules, and we did not want him to write his own dictionary. At the same time, we were going to make sure that our citizens could write their own dictionary, and live by their own ethics, and write their own rules. Perhaps the next most famous line of that day should have been, "It all depends on what the definition of "hypocrisy" is."

Before we look more closely at the differences between modernism and postmodernism, it may be a good thing for Christians, churches and church leaders to take a long, hard look at themselves. These articles are not just a critique or analysis of the way things are out there. Frances Schaeffer once said, "Find out what the world is doing today, and that will be what the church will be doing seven years from now." He may have been off five or six years, but the point is well made.

Many Christians who are appalled at the direction our culture is going seem to be content in the direction their own particular church is going, and they both may be heading down the same road of postmodernism. In Bible study groups or Sunday School classes, is the overarching concern and goal of teaching is "What does the text say, and what does it mean?", or is it, "What does this say or mean to you?" Does personal interpretation always seem to take center stage regardless what the text says, or is it of much more importance that the teacher brings out the true meaning of the text through disciplined study, and then only from that is there any genuine application made? Will umpire number one or umpire number three feel right at home in your Bible study class?

Is there a healthy emphasis at one's church with verse-by-verse (expository) preaching and doctrine, or is it a never-ending stream of topical sermon series with catchy titles over felt needs that people have and where doctrine is not that high on the list because it is too messy, too controversial and too confrontational? How many megachurches or megachurch wannabes have been built by men with strong entrepreneurial skills and weak exegetical skills?

Perhaps a person has not seen it in this light before, but postmodernism may have found a welcomed home at the neighborhood church. Truth has given way to the golden calf of "relevance." To be hip is more a factor than to be holy, and to speak tolerance is more a driving force than to speak truth. Anything that is new and flashy is to idolized at the expense of the ancient and true. Jesus' half-brother wrote that we should contend for THE faith, but has that been rewritten in postmodern jargon to mean that we should be comfortable with whatever faith each one of us perceives it to be?

(Come to think of it, after looking over again the above three paragraphs, maybe the church has been ahead of the postmodern curve for a very long time now.)

If one has heard of the Emergent Church Movement with such spokesmen as Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo and Doug Pagitt (and one has to wonder at Rick Warren and Bill Hybels), then one has already been acquainted with the this movement's marriage to postmodern philosophy. (I would strongly encourage all concerned Christians to find out where their church and church leaders stand in regards to the tenets of this movement. If a church is following this new wave of doing church, then my advice is to get out while the getting out is good.)

Listen to Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, as he spoke to a gathering of 1100 Emergent Church leaders (this is no fringe movement!) in 2004, "Preaching is broken. Why do I get to speak for 30 minutes and you don't?" (That is to say that each one of us are equally-qualified umpires.) He continued, "A sermon is a violent act. It's a violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it." (Why should I call balls and strikes? All joking aside, maybe it is The Ten Suggestions and not the Ten Commandments. Maybe it is "this is what God recommends for your consideration.")

Brian McLaren has called for a five-year moratorium on making any pronouncements about whether homosexuality is a sin or not. "In five years, if we have clarity, we'll speak. If not, we'll set another five years for ongoing reflection." In his book A New Kind of Christian, Mr. McLaren writes, "I drive my car and listen to the Christian radio station, something my wife always tells me I should stop doing ("because it only gets you upset.") There I hear preacher after preacher be so absolutely sure of his bombproof answers and his foolproof biblical interpretations. . .And the more sure he seems, the less I find myself wanting to be a Christian, because on this side of the microphone, antennas, and speaker, life isn't that simple, answers aren't that clear, and nothing is that sure."

Brian McLaren would add, "I don't believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts."

Many emergent-sytle congregations have done away with pastors altogether and have replaced them with "narrators." The sermon dinosaur is extinct in those places; a free-ranging dialogue where no one takes a leading role may be the norm. Authoritative pronouncements from Scripture have been swept aside, and in their place have been inserted non-threatening platitudes that could have easily come from Rev. Oprah.

Hopefully and prayerfully, the great majority of "conservative evangelical" churches have not ventured this far into the Emergent Church fold. Something tells me, though, that the numbers are more than we care to think, and there are much more churches flirting with this movement, even if they have not yet formally tied the knot. Departure from sound doctrine is hardly ever a wholesale abandonment over night; rather, it is a methodically slow, insidious, subtle baby step after baby step walk in the wrong direction.

We need to stop the baby steps before they become giant leaps. That postmodern plank needs to be taken out of the church's eye. The "tea parties" nationwide have rallied American citizens to say a common refrain, "We want our country back. We want our Constitution back." Maybe now is the time for peaceful church tea parties. "We want our Bible back. Away with all this postmodern craze and foolishness. Just give us the Word. Tell us, leaders, what we need to know from the holy Scriptures, and then tell us what we need to do based upon what the we know to be true."

Recently my wife alerted me to two different forms of communication that asserted we need to pray for Muslims around the world to come to know Christ. I'm all for that! In both forms of communication, though, it was stated that since Muslims pay special homage to visions and dreams, we need to pray that Jesus will reveal Himself to the Muslims in dreams and visions. My heart was broken, because maybe these people do not realize that what they are doing is undermining the objective reality of God's Word and playing right into the hands of postmodern subjectivism with things such as dreams and visions. The "Jesus" who reveals himself to one Muslim in a dream may be different than the "Jesus" who reveals himself to another Muslim in a dream, so who is to determine which "Jesus" is right? Or maybe each "Jesus" is right; we are right smack in the company of the third umpire again.

Will the shock and outrage by us over a former President's deconstruction of language carry over to the shock and outrage we should feel over the deconstruction of the sacred text that is done "in God's name" Sunday after Sunday, from Bible study group to Bible study group, from bestselling book to bestselling book, from church program to church program, from pulpit to pulpit?

Yours for the sake of truth,

Chris

Christianity for the Tough-Minded (part three)

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." -- C.S. Lewis

Sam Harris sees it his mission in life to eradicate every semblance of Christianity. In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris calls faith "nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail." That is one of the more milder attacks against Christianity and religion in general in his scathing diatribe. It is Richard Dawkins who piles it on by defining faith as "a kind of mental illness", and he describes Christianity as an attempt to make a virtue of believing "not only in the absence of evidence, but in the teeth of evidence." At least for Harris, Dawkins and their ilk, we don't have to wonder where they are coming from. There is not a pretentious bone in their bombastic bodies.

Do Christians believe in God, like some people believe that the earth is still flat, or that man really did not go to the moon but landed in the Arizona desert, or that the moon is made of cheese and if man really did go to the moon they should have come back to earth with mozzarella on the bottom of their boots?

Sam Harris frames it this way: "Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever."

Has science superseded Scripture? Maybe at one time man in his caveman days needed some superstitious ideas to make sense of the world, and so out pops of his kooky cranium a wide range of diverse explanations, chiefly among them a belief in gods and goddesses who control the universe and the destiny of mankind. Over time, one "god" emerges as supreme, and self-acclaimed sacred literature began to be developed to perpetrate this hoax on pre-Darwin man. But now since science has dispelled so many false notions and theories of how the world works (aren't you glad that your doctor does not practice bloodletting?), we can also dispose of all the myths and legends all under the umbrella of "religion." And since Christianity is the world's largest religion that holds more sway upon man, it is this particular myth that must be rigorously opposed and exterminated for the betterment of society and the full advancement of man.

What I have just described is the marching orders of intellectual atheism that finds many willing disciples in the field of academia, the very field that shapes the minds of impressionable, confused, and dumbed-down youth on our university campuses.

The engaging and bright college professor can use a convincing power point presentation in class that delineates on one side "faith" and on the other side "facts." He tells his class of freshmen that religion for example dwells on the side of faith, but education and their future careers depend upon the study of "facts", those things which are observable and verifiable. Faith is totally subjective and can not be proved, and what his class will learn in this higher institution of learning is totally objective and has facts and not myth on its side.

So what is a freshman who grew up as a church kid going to do? Will he melt under pressure, will he begin to doubt all he heard in his Sunday School classes, Vacation Bible School days, numerous church camps and mission trips, and youth group gatherings, will he come home one weekend to his parents a totally changed individual with cynicism and skepticism running through his veins to the shock of his parents, or will he be able to know how to stand his ground, defend the gospel and articulate his faith in a hostile environment?

It is not just college freshmen who need to sanctify the Lord God in their hearts, to give an answer or defense of the hope that is within them who asks them, and to do that with gentleness and grace. (1 Peter 3:15) The co-worker who says that all religions are the same and all believe in the same God, the cousin who dabbles in the occult, the new church down the road that says that preaching "thus saith the Lord" is archaic and demeaning and should be abandoned for a more conversational dialogue with no definitive doctrinal parameters, and the friend who has converted to Buddhism, are all prime examples of why if we don't know what we believe and how to express it rationally and passionately to an overly tolerant society, then we are blindly steering our ship to crash head on into the rocks of postmodernism.

This is why we need to have a Christianity for the Tough-Minded. And this is why we need to understand such things as modernism, postmodernism, world religions and intellectual atheism. We stand exactly in the same place as the apostle Paul when he entered Athens in Acts 17:16-34. The more things change, the more things remain the same. What we encounter today is not much different than what Paul witnessed on the campus of Athens University.

Our journey continues next time with a look at the challenges of modernism and postmodernism.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

Christianity for the Tough-Minded (part two)

"I have little doubt that the single greatest obstacle to the impact of the gospel has not been its inability to provide answers, but the failure on our part to live it out."

Ravi Zacharias

To have a tough mind, one must first have a mind.

The acknowledgement that we have a mind we must use for Christ is a necessary first step for anyone who will give a reasoned defense of the great truths of Scripture to a growing number of postmodern skeptics.

Let's use an analogy from the current debate over government-controlled health care. I have read lots of emotional appeals from evangelical pastors, no less, who think it is a compassionate thing that our government provide health care for all our citizens and non-citizens. Emergent Church pastor Brian McLaren has not come to the conclusion yet that homosexuality is a sin, but many in the Emergent camp are certain that it is scriptural that health care should be provided to all as a guaranteed right. That only goes to show that natural man will see things he wants to see and will not see things he does not want to see.

If it is compassionate to provide health care, then is it not also compassionate to provide cars to all citizens and non-citizens so that they can have a way to get to the health care they need? What good is it to have health care if one is stuck at home without transportation? Of course, the government could provide clunkers to all those who don't have cars, but alas, we got rid of all those recently so that many Americans could buy mostly foreign-made cars to help the sagging American automobile industry.

Four prominent questions come to mind when I think of the rush to let government be our savior in terms of health care:

(1) Can anyone show me anywhere in the world where government-run health care has been a raving success? United Kingdom? Canada? Cuba? France? Where? What is the ratio of people coming to our country for medical treatment compared to U.S. citizens leaving here to go to places like the U.K. or Canada or Cuba for medical purposes? When our high-priced politicians need medical help, where do they turn? Mayo Clinic or Castro's Clinic?

(2) Can anyone show here in this country of ours anything that our government has run that has been a raving success? Cash for clunkers program? Post office? Medicare? Social Security? The Great War against Poverty? Housing projects? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? All those programs are boondoggles. We are broke. Is it not revealing that the same people who push and promote pragmatism ("if it works, let's do it") in the church can be the same ones at times who will not evaluate government programs in terms of pragmatism? Instead, if it does not work, who cares, so long we have the best of intentions.

(3) Can anyone show me the number of elected officials in our nation's capital that would be willing to give up their current medical coverage for any sort of government-controlled health care system? Why not? Hmm. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Or maybe our politicians already know that what is bad for the goose is bad for the gander, and the debate is not really about health care primarily but about an ever-growing power grab by the federal government.

(4) Can anyone show me where in the U.S. Constitution it says the government has the right and power to provide health care to all its citizens? Here, to me, is the most important issue at stake. For all of us who were educated in our government-controlled schools, I need to explain what I mean by the U.S. Constitution. It is that marvelous document hammered out by many of our Founding Fathers on my birthday, September 17, but not in the same year. It is the Caesar we are to render unto. It is the document that informs us what the national government is allowed to do and what it is mostly forbidden to do.

We already had a constitution before the Constitution, but many figured the Articles of Confederation were simply unworkable, so a Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 was convened in Philadelphia so that the delegates from different states could form a lasting document to steer our country forward. Nearly all the delegates and all the states were scared to death of granting too much power to the central government, so they were meticulously careful to spell out only those things the federal government can do, which were very few in number (provide for the defense of the country, being a chief one). Anything not spelled out in the U.S. Constitution was off limits and reserved to the people or the states. Even then, the promise was made that a further Bill of Rights would be tacked on to the Constitution to make double sure that the federal government would be reigned in and kept in check. Without that Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Constitution would not have been ratified by the states.

Then how in Sam's hill (I still haven't found out where this hill is) have we arrived to the highly-bureaucratic, ballooning, sprawling, monstrous federal government today that has its hands in about every aspect of our lives? Because there were some people, most notably Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and some others, who interpreted the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution (Article 1 Section 8) to mean about anything under the sun. That is why the government welfare program is called welfare by the way.

Originally, if New York wanted to build a railroad or canal, then it was up to the people in that state to do it. It was not the prerogative of the federal government to ask the citizens of Georgia to subsidize by increased taxes the building of a railroad or canal in another state. But through the twisting of the words that the government should provide for the general welfare of the people, then lawmakers, or I should say lawbreakers, came up with the idea that the government could demand that the citizens of Georgia provide for the citizens of New York.

Is that what is meant by "general welfare" though? Not according to the Father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, who wrote in Federalist Papers #45,"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." (Notice how Bro. James put "federal" in small letters, whereas he capitalized "State" governments.) Elsewhere he wrote, "With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

What is never brought up in this round of health-care debate is this fourth question. I have yet heard any leading proponent of government-controlled health care talk about how a government-run health care system is constitutional. I have not heard too many opponents bring up this argument, and they should, if they knew the U.S. Constitution. Such things as the costs of the program, the payments for abortions, end-of-life counseling, the future rationing of health care, the demise of private insurance carriers, and other matters are all matters worthy of discussion, but behind it all stands the unconstitutionality of it all.

The reason why proponents will never bring up the constitutional angle is because they don't have a constitutional leg to stand on. They are just hoping that Americans never find out what the Constitution says, or that they do not care what the Constitution says. because the weekend ball game is more life-changing and who is going to win on Dancing with the Stars is more interesting. In other words, they hope many citizens will be just as uninformed as they the politicians are.

Now how does all this have anything to do with Christianity for the Tough-Minded? It sounds like it is Civics or History for the Tough-Minded instead. I began by saying this is an analogy, however imperfect it may be. The arguments above are examples of how to interact with anybody who has serious reservations or objections about Christianity.

We can kindly show the internal fallacies of other people's positions, once we know what they are. The first three questions do that above. We take what the other side holds dear and expose its weaknesses by asking thought-provoking questions that demand more than just a quick emotive response. I have always wondered what a college prof, who is deeply immersed in the postmodern philosophy that says there is no objective truth, that what is true for you may not be what is true or right for me, would say to a tough-minded student who is quick on his feet. When that prof hands out the results of the exams given the week before, and the student notices he missed five on the test, what would the prof say to the student when he asks the prof, "But, Dr. Hughes, what you might think is true is not true for me, and what you think is wrong may be right with me?"

Most importantly, though, we as Christians need to know really, really, really well our founding document, the Word of God. Most people out there have the wrong ideas of what the Bible says on this or that subject. They are either misinformed or have been indoctrinated with an anti-Christian bias somewhere along the way. "I don't believe in a God who all he wants or cares about is people's money." That guy got his cues about God from watching TBN and not from reading the Bible. You can lovingly say in response, "Well, I don't believe in that kind of God either. Here, let me show you from Scripture what the real God is all about."

More frustrating to me than talking to non-Christians about these issues is talking to some Christians, and even Christian leaders, about matters of eternal importance. In my lifetime I have met quite a few Christians who can say all sort of slanderous things against the likes of men I admire, such as R.C. Sproul, John Piper, Dr. Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, John MacArthur and others too many to mention, because of "where they are coming from doctrinally." I know what they mean by that and what issues irritate these Christians, but so far I don't think I have met very many who would be willing to go eyeball to eyeball with any gentle Christian mentioned above or someone like them they know more personally and have a scriptural/doctrinal discussion on matters they disagree with him about. They can talk "ill will" from a distance, in an email, on a blog, in a newsletter, in a sermon, but when it comes to having an honest friendly give-and-take of opposing ideas or doctrines, then they may end up heading "for the tall grass" (which may be somewhere over Sam's hill). Could it be they know deep down inside they don't have much of a scriptural leg to stand on?

It is appalling to read what some pastors and other Christian leaders write on their blogs, in their church newsletters, or in other forms of communication, and how little Scripture is used at all. Sometimes it is just a disjointed babbling of opinions or cute illustrations with no reference to God's Word. Have we come to the place where we really are "ashamed of the gospel"? (Romans 1:16-17)

While it is to be applauded that a person is an original intent constitutionalist, far better is it to be known as an original intent scripturalist.

We need to have a burning passion to know God's Word and to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. More than anything else that is what it takes to have a Christianity for the Tough-Minded.

"To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word,

it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20

Yours for the sake of truth,

Chris

Christianity for the Tough-Minded (part one)

Fat bodies, thin minds. That is how one author evaluates the current crop of Christians in our modern church culture. We are obese by stuffing ourselves on the junk food of "theotainment", and our minds are starving to death. One negative effect of this is that our young people who are brought up on such standard fare are simply not prepared to handle the onslaughts that will come their way when they enter the college classroom or the workforce.

Somehow or another all those pizza blasts, rock concerts, and video games in our church "activities centers" do not equip a young person to "give an answer, or make a defense, of the hope that is in him" (1 Peter 3:15) and to "contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints." (Jude 3) How surprised should we be that we are losing more youth today even before they get to college than we can ever gain through our increased frenzied attempt to get more by fattening the bodies while depriving the minds?

In many states the obesity of our youth has become such an alarming statistic that more and more school districts are removing vending machines from the schools. Since the church gets its M.O. often from following the trends in the world, when is the church today going to do something to address what is causing the spiritually flabby bodies and weakened minds on our bloated membership rolls? The vending machines in our small groups and behind the pulpits need to be removed.

It is not just the youth I am concerned about; fat bodies and thin minds know not age or gender barriers. In today's post-Christian postmodern American scene, the longer we go on ignoring the reality around us, the more insignificant will be our witness, and the number of our casualties will continue to increase. We need what we see in Jesus and in Paul--a Christianity for the Tough-Minded.

Picture this: a freshman in college, away from home for the first time, sitting under a flamboyant, very intelligent college professor, who in nearly every lecture presents another "reason" to shelve everything the Bible teaches. Since this naive freshman has lots of fun memories from his church youth days, but he does not have much biblical knowledge, a solid doctrinal foundation, or a consistent, comprehensive Christian worldview to sort through the difficult issues in life, then it is not hard to imagine that this freshman will be taken in by the persuasive logic of this professor who certainly knows more than his parents back home, his youth minister, his church friends, or his pastor.

If we as Christians disregard the mind now, we only leave the door wide open for Satan and the world working in tandem to capture the mind later.

How do we start developing a Christianity for the Tough-Minded? In the TV reality show, Biggest Losers, from what I can only speculate, two steps are taken if the fat is going to come off. Number one, the contestants need to stop doing what they have always been doing which has been the cause of their weight gain in the first place, and number two, they need to start doing what they have not been doing. The same holds true for the Christians with fat bodies and thin minds. We need to "exorcise" those things that have been contributing to the problem, and we need to "exercise" our minds to godliness. (1 Timothy 4:8) That may call for too much a radical surgery for some churches to take, and it may cause some Christians to stay satisfied with their fat bodies and thin minds. Nevertheless, the only option left for us is a Christianity for the Weak-Minded, which does nothing to advance the honor and glory of God. Our Lord is no dummy, and neither should we be.

Some identify what I am talking about as "apologetics", which comes from the Greek word, apologia (1 Peter 3:15, for example), which means "defense." The field of apologetics is giving a reasoned defense of why you believe what you do. I prefer to think of it along the lines of Christianity for the Tough-Minded, because while it does heavily involve apologetics, it goes beyond that. It is concerned about developing a lifestyle that will fully engage the mind in conversing confidently with those who have opposing ideas and worldviews. I need to add here that Christianity for the Tough-Minded is also a Christianity for the Gentle-Hearted. We are not out to win arguments, or to make the opposition look silly, or to show off our knowledge, but always, with gentleness, humility and patience, we seek to point people to Christ. (2 Timothy 2:24-26) All of our well-thought-out lines of reasoning can not by themselves change one person's heart, and Christ can use the stumbling and stuttering lips of a believer to bring the gospel to anyone lost in sin. But all that, at the same time, is no excuse for us not to make our minds sharper and our lips smoother. "If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength, but wisdom brings success." (Ecclesiastes 10:10)

We need not back down from what we believe, once we know what we should believe, and we need not be intimidated by others who may seem to know more than we do. Actually, in day to day experience, we will rarely have conversations with a person who has a PhD in astrophysics. Rather, we will have conversations with someone who heard something from someone who read something from someone who has an ax to grind against Christianity in general, or we will encounter one who has a lifestyle that wishes there was no God with whom he would be accountable. There are intellectual atheists, and there are moral atheists, and the latter group outnumbers the former group. Much of the time we will hear the same old arguments or cliches, and we can know how to answer them with straightforwardness and grace.

In future articles, I want to illustrate from random examples how we can tactfully speak the truth in love to those who have some erroneous, illogical ideas about God, the Bible, what it means to be a Christian, or anything else related to our belief system. Postmodernism is severely flawed internally, and we can help people see through the emptiness of believing that there is nothing worth believing. Evolution leaves us with more questions than answers, and we don't have to wave the white flag of surrender when a professor of biology begins lecturing about the "incontrovertible facts" of evolution. Respectable agnosticism or militant atheism may have its gullible disciples, but the evidences of an Intelligent, Personal Designer far outstrips the blind faith in which nothing times nothing equals everything. Other religions do not have the historical certainty and verification we find in God's revelation of Himself in Holy Scriptures.

For those who were present at my last Sunday's sermon, I ventured into this realm somewhat when I ended on the note on how do we know there is a heaven. (It was based on the text, "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.") The critics and skeptics say it is an infantile belief like the tooth fairy or the jolly fat guy in the red suit or Grimm's Fairy Tales. Just like we grew out of believing those make-believe figures, we need to grow up and grow out of believing there really is such a thing as heaven and hell. Another well-rehearsed argument is that the idea of heaven is only a psychological wish fulfillment on the part of losers in this life. Just because we wish something to be so, in this case heaven, does not mean it is so.

Others will say if they are willing to concede there is some sort of existence after this life, then why should we believe just what the Bible says on the subject? Are there not other religions and beliefs out there that will say something entirely different about the afterlife? Then how should a person know which one to believe, if any? I will pick up where I left off when I preach next on this text, but those are questions, objections and arguments that can be reasonably addressed and answered if we are willing to have a Christianity for the Tough-Minded. The same can be said about John 7, the chapter we are in now in our Bible study class, because in this chapter we find 2009 postmodern American culture highlighted like nowhere else, and Jesus provides us the clear direction we need to steer our way through the fog of muddled opinionated thinking.

I close on one more important note. The best way a truth can be personalized as one's own is to let that person come to understand the truth himself. Instead of spoon feeding everything to a doubter or inquirer, we give him enough food for thought and enough questions to chew on that he leaves mulling things over in his mind. That way when he comes to a right conclusion on his own hopefully over time (of course, we know that the Spirit of God illumines the mind), it becomes his, and we don't have to spend time then trying to help this type of person overcome his fat body and thin mind. He's already on the road of knowing what it is like to have a Christianity for the Tough-Minded.

Yours for the sake of the truth,
Chris