Faith

Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son?

Student: Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in GOD?

Student: Absolutely, sir.

Professor: Is GOD good?

Student: Sure.

Professor: Is GOD all powerful?

Student: Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?

(Student was silent.)

Professor: You can’t answer, can you? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?

Student: Yes.

Professor: Is satan good?

Student: No.

Professor: Where does satan come from?

Student: From … GOD …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?

Student: Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it? And GOD did make everything. Correct?

Student: Yes.

Professor: So who created evil?

(Student did not answer.)

Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?

Student: Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them?

(Student had no answer.)

Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?

Student: No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?

Student: No, sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?

Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student: Yes.

Professor: According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student: No, sir. There isn’t.

(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?

Student: You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?

(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class was in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?

(The class broke out into laughter. )

Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student: That is it sir … Exactly! The link between man and GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.

The Bible's Importance in American Society

Just spotted this interesting article by Lamar Vest at FoxNews today (emphasis added) --

Does the Bible still matter in 2012?

After all the very visible fighting about public displays of religious symbols— from 10 Commandments plaques to graveyard crosses to faith-themed war memorials to holiday manger displays—you might have developed the impression that most Americans don’t think the Bible matters today and they like it that way.

You’d be wrong.

There is a lot of speculation about both the current role and the appropriate role of the Bible in America. But each year, American Bible Society puts the guessing aside and asks a sampling of Americans to tell us how they view and use the Bible and what they believe its role should be in America.  Recently, American Bible Society released this year’s results from that research in the 2012 State of the Bible report.

The State of the Bible in America in 2012 can be summed up in a two words: encouraging and unsettling.

The research, commissioned by American Bible Society and conducted by Barna Research, found that the majority of Americans (69%) believe the Bible provides answers on how to live a meaningful life. But while 79% believe they are knowledgeable about the Bible, 54% were unable to correctly identify the first five books of the Bible.  And approximately half of Americans surveyed didn’t know the fundamental differences between the teachings of the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon, with 46% percent saying they believe all three books teach the same spiritual truths.
 

While nearly half of Americans (47%) believe the Bible has too little influence in society—a far cry from the anti-faith picture often painted in culture—approximately half (46%) say they read the Bible no more than once or twice a year.

What The State of the Bible report also confirmed is that the lack of engagement with the Bible among Americans isn’t caused by a lack of access to it. Here in the United States, 85% of households own a Bible. Actually, most families own more than one, with a household average of 4.3 Bibles.

Looking more closely at the data, something really interesting emerges. When we examine responses to the question “Do you believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to live a meaningful life?”, we find that older respondents agreed at a much higher rate than did younger respondents. While 61% of those surveyed between ages 18-27 agreed, those 47 years and older agreed at a rate of 75%.

Before you assert that older people are just naturally more traditional, remember that the older group is made up of the Woodstock generation, free-love ‘70s kids and the MTV generation. The data seems to say that the older you are, the more likely you are to value the Bible. Maybe it’s that our own life experiences prove the value of the Bible’s wisdom?

There is no doubt that the findings in The State of the Bible lead to some obvious questions. For instance…

- If Americans believe in the value of reading and applying the Bible, why don’t more of us do so?

- If we believe that the Bible has the right amount of—or too little—influence in society, why is so much negative attention given to expressions of the faith in the God of the Bible?

When survey participants were asked what frustrated them most about reading the Bible, the most oft-cited response was that they “never had enough time to read it.” The busy-ness of our lives often make it difficult for us to follow through on what we say we value. Another reason I often hear from non-Bible readers is that they find the sheer size of the Bible to be overwhelming.

So where does someone start who wants to be a Bible reader but doesn’t have a lot of time? A good place to begin is with the “Essential 100.”  This list of 100 key verses and related stories do not contain everything the Bible has to say.  What it does provide is a concise way to understand the bigger arc of the Bible without getting bogged down. For all of those who wonder what the Bible is really all about, The Essential 100 (available at e100.americanbible.org) is a great starting point.

So is the Bible really relevant in 2012? You won’t know until you read it.
...

Some good advice there for those of us who find squeezing time into our day for Bible study tough.  Some other suggestions:

 

- Find yourself a good translation, and a Bible with notes throughout can not only help you understand, but will also offer insights and perspectives you might not have considered.  

 

- If you are already fairly familiar with the Bible, maybe choosing an unfamiliar translation might cause you to receive and digest the Word in a new way.  Familiarity can lead to boredom. 

 

- Luckily, for the techies there are a lot of useful websites, podcasts and tools to help us do just that.  I will be adding some info to the side margins.  In the meantime, check out Google for websites and iTunes for podcasts and apps.

 

But, let us not forget that PRIORITY is the ultimate "app" in helping us with the time issue.  We make time for what really matters.  I have been guilty of not prioritizing; but, of late I've been meeting with greater success since I started a "through-the-bible-in-a-year" initiative at the start of the New Year,.  I am still on track and have found the 20 minutes or so to be very beneficial -- I feel my "little flicker o' faith" starting to be more of a flame.  

Now, do NOT think you have to devote that much time.  We all know that new habits are hard to form, so be reasonable in any new routine you try to establish.  Even just a few minutes in focused contemplation with God's Word will help, and that is a far more manageable and attainable strategy than thinking you have to go for long stretches of time each day.

Moral Vocabulary: Threatened by Extinction?

What a powerful commentary I ran across a while back over at Commentary Magazine by Peter Wehner (emphasis added) ...

Our Lack of Moral Vocabulary

Earlier this week, David Brooks wrote a fascinating column on young people’s moral lives, basing it on hundreds of in-depth interviews with young adults across America conducted by the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and his team.

The results, according to Brooks, were “depressing” — not so much because of how they lived but because of “how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.” Asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life, what we find is “young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.” What Smith and his team found is an atmosphere of “extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism.” The reason, in part, is because they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to “cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading.”


This is part of a generations-long phenomenon. In his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom​ wrote, “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” And the university, Bloom argued, is unwilling to offer a distinctive visage to young people. The guiding philosophy of the academy is there are no first principles, no coherent ways to interpret the world in which we live.

But this is merely a pose. No one, not even a liberal academic, is a true relativist. Scratch below the surface and you’ll find them to be (morally) judgmental toward those who want to discriminate based on race, gender, or sexual orientation. They will likely have strong (moral) views on criminalizing abortion, restricting marriage to one man and one woman, anthropogenic global warming, water-boarding terrorists, rendition, Israeli settlements, profits for oil companies, and cutting taxes for the rich. The left is adamant: women have a “right” to an abortion and gays have a “right” to marry. These rights are viewed as a priori and inviolate. And no one, not even a progressive liberal arts professor, is morally indifferent to someone who wants to rape his wife, molest his children, and steal his iPad. It is fashionable to insist we don’t want to “impose our values” on others or “legislate morality.” But the reality is we do so all the time, on an endless number of issues, and no civilization could survive without doing so. The question, really, is which moral standards do we aspire to? What is the ethical code we use to judge ourselves and others?

In training our hearts and minds toward the good, there is quite a lot to work with. With the exception of a very few (like sociopaths), we all have a moral sense. We are all born with a conscience. We all believe (pace Richard Rorty​) that some actions are inherently inhuman. And no one believes that what is right simply depends on individual taste or cultural circumstances, on subjective values, and what emerges in the privacy of your own heart (especially if the heart in question belongs to Mao, Stalin, or Pol Pot). Most people, in fact, play by the rules. They work hard, love their families, and are loyal to their country. They think courage and compassion are better than cowardice and cruelty. They’re just not sure why. Hence Brooks’ point about our lack of moral categories and moral vocabulary.

This didn’t arise ex nihilo. In the 1970s, influential figures in education like Sydney Simon and Lawrence Kohlberg argued for “values clarification” and “cognitive moral development,” believing the traditional moral education was essentially indoctrination –“undemocratic and unconstitutional.” (See this excellent 1978 Public Interest essay by William J. Bennett and Edwin J. DeLattre for more.) This was utter nonsense, of course; but it was also corrosive and had profound human and social consequences. You can’t promote ethical agnosticism and embrace nonjudgmentalism without there being moral ramifications. Because at some point, we all have to take a moral stand and embrace a moral cause. We have to believe in, and abide by, rules and precepts. We don’t have the luxury of living a life of perpetual moral confusion. C.S. Lewis put it as well as anyone when he wrote in The Abolition of Man, “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

One final thought: what is often lost in this debate is that human fulfillment and happiness isn’t found in a world stripped of moral beliefs. Despair, not joy, is found among those who believe in nothing, who find purpose in nothing, who fight for nothing. Because of human anthropology – because we are moral creatures, made in the image of God – we are meant to delight in His ways, to live lives of high moral purpose. All of us fail more often than we should. But we cannot give up on the aspiration; nor can we allow our hearts to grow cold and indifferent, unmoved by the beauty of moral excellence.

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things,” St. Paul wrote. In our world, there is still excellence. There are still things worthy of praise. It’s time we once again dwell on them.

 

Can You Defend Your Faith? Apologetics and Biblical Literacy

Here's a sobering headline over at The Christian Post (emphasis added):

Most Christians Cannot Explain Their Faith, Apologist Says

The faith of most Christians, even that of many pastors, will not stand up to intellectual scrutiny, according to renowned apologist Josh McDowell.

This is a concern because pastors’ inability to present biblical truth comprehensibly and relevantly has led to children from Christian families leaving the church, research has shown.

In the United States, the age at which nearly all such children leave church has decreased to 18 years.

Not even the children of many successful ministers are spared.

Over the past 17 years, McDowell, famous author of such books as "Evidence That Demands A Verdict" and "More Than A Carpenter",  asked over 4,000 pastors, church leaders and parents why they believe what they believe.  Sadly, only six people came close to giving a decent answer.  The story continues (emphasis added):

“If anything is based upon truth, it’s the Christian faith,” he said. “Christians who do not know why they have faith or believe have a very difficult time expressing themselves to others."

Ninety-five percent of Christians gave disappointing responses when asked why they believe Jesus is the Son of God.

Asked why the Bible is true and historically reliable, Christians replied that it was what they had been taught by their church or parents.

A common response that most Christians gave to both questions was that it is “what I believe.”

McDowell responded: “That’s voodoo thinking. Where did we ever get that crazy idea that something is true just because we believe it?

“If that is true, then there will never be heresy. Everybody would be right.”

On one occasion, 13 youth pastors at a large convention were unable to reasonably answer the apologist’s question.

Finally one young person stood up, walked toward him and told him he knew the answer. The young man promptly held up his Bible and said, “Because I believe it.”

And to McDowell’s dismay, all the youth pastors applauded him.

McDowell said, “Young man, do you know the difference between you, me and the majority of Christians in the world?

“To you, it is true because you believe it. For me, I believe it because it is true.”

Another response the apologist received was: Because I have faith.

He commented, “Where did we ever get the crazy idea that faith makes something true? That’s idiotic. That’s so unbiblical you can call it heresy.

“God doesn’t use faith to create truth. He uses truth through the Holy Spirit to create faith.”

Christians, the apologist stressed, are called to explain their faith when asked. They are set free by the faith in the truth, he expressed, referring to John 8:32.

Yet others say Christianity is true because Jesus changed their lives.

Even this will not stand up to intellectual scrutiny, McDowell argued.

“Lies change lives; cults change lives,” he said.

To make such an appeal is “not the essence of Christianity,” the author emphasized.

McDowell said: “We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our children, we owe it to our neighbors, we owe it to the lost, to tell them not just what we believe but why do we believe it.”

I, too, am concerned about some churches ditching the instruction of apologetics, church history, and Bible literacy in its youth and adult "education" programs.   I have had conversations with a pastor who was not interested in nor saw the need for teaching apologetics, and my concern about the spiritual health of that church grew when, for a time, there were no Bibles in the pews.

In my opinion, the Church, in its present romance with the small groups trend, focuses more on "feel good books" rather than meat-and-potatoes education.  Church members are being fed "cotton candy", lacking in serious spiritual nutrition.  

In an age of growing hostility towards Christians bolstered by a new generation of aggressive atheists and a culture of moral relativism, Christianity and the Church are losing their grip on mainstream culture.  I see it in the work place on a regular basis and experienced it in my recent return to graduate school.

Perhaps that is why the pastor and I disagreed about the need for Biblical literacy -- clergy, in some respects, circulate mostly in an insulated world of like-thinking Christians.  "Civilians", such as myself, are swimming in a strong current of doubt, atheism, multi-culturalism and multi-faithism where "there are no absolutes" and "all religions lead to the same destination" are the mantras of the day.  If you express your Christian beliefs, you are quickly met with eye-rolling, at best.  But, if you couch it in Oprah-style spiritualism, you are warmly embraced in a "let's hold hands and sing Kumbayah" feel good blanket.

So, now that I have the luxury of being on vacation, I pledge to include in my summer reading list several books on apologetics.  Besides the McDowell books mentioned above, another good read I started a while ago (and, as is typical, never finished) is "Busted: Exposing Popular Myths about Christianity" by Fred von Kamecke.  It does a good job of addressing the typical criticisms you hear lobbed at Christianity. 

I want to be able to give a rational and well-reasoned argument for what and why I believe.

¹⁵But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,"    [1 Peter 3:15]