How NOT to Defend Your Faith

Sometimes those who attempt to defend Christianity end up doing more harm than good. Here are some suggestions about how you can avoid finding yourself in that situation.

Do not insult the intelligence of those who disagree with you.

Many Christians seem to have the attitude toward questioners, "If you weren't so ignorant, you'd see that Christianity is obviously true."

Do not say, "You just have to accept it by faith."

While faith is required, Christianity has answers to difficult questions. If you can't give a satisfactory answer, don't cover that up with an appeal to faith.

Do not try to prove Christianity by science or logic.

Christianity cannot be proven by science or logic. There is much to say in support of Christianity from the fields of science, logic and philosophy. But there are no proofs.

Do not act in any way inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.

Much harm is done to the cause of Christ by people who win arguments while acting like jerks.

Do not automatically accept the question as sincere.

Some questions are simply ways to avoid the real issues. There is a good answer to why the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs. But most people who ask that question are just trying to stump you. They will not be satisfied with any answer you might give them.

Do not pretend to be an expert.

If you are not a biologist, don't pretend to be an expert on evolution. Just because you've read a few books, you're not in a position to dismiss a whole body of professional literature that is unfriendly to Christianity. You don't have to be an expert to raise questions. But be cautious about pronouncing the other position illogical or self-refuting.

Do not try to defend too much.

Christians have gotten themselves into unnecessary quagmires by trying to defend positions that are not at the heart of the Christian faith. For example, the heart of the Christian position is that God created the universe. Don't try to defend a young earth. Even if this position were unambiguous teaching of the Bible (which it clearly is not), arguing about the age of the earth distracts from the core issue.

Similarly, don't put yourself in a position to defend all religion—or even everything done in the name of Christ.

Do not use the Bible as a club.

Those who do not accept the Bible as authoritative are not persuaded by biblical quotations. The Bible is not magical. The words of the Bible are powerful because of the truth they contain for those who acknowledge its divine origin. To use the Bible to prove the Bible is simply circular reasoning. The Bible is useful to explain the teaching of Christianity. But don't use it to prove the Christian faith.

So what do you think? Do you have some suggestions of your own?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be."

What Is Missional Church?

I see many people using the term missional in ways that have little or nothing to do with what I understand the word to mean.

For many it is little more than a synonym for hip or cool.

But I ran across this statement by Lesslie Newbigin in his Foolishness to the Greeks that seems to sum things up rather well:

The church is the bearer to all the nations of a gospel that announces the kingdom, the reign, and the sovereignty of God. It calls men and women to repent of their false loyalty to other powers, to become believers in the one true sovereignty, and so to become corporately a sign, instrument, and foretaste of that sovereignty of the one true and living God over all nature, all nations, and all human lives. It is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.

Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 124

Missional primarily refers to the mission that the church has been given.

This is not a mission just to get people signed up for heaven. It is mission to proclaim the gospel and to live as agents of God's kingship in the world.

• We are not calling for people to participate in a business transaction with Jesus that will provide them with a voucher to enter heaven when they die.
  
• We are not calling for people to hire Jesus as a life coach so that they can "live their best life now."
  
• We are not calling for people to vote for Jesus as their deity of choice.
  

We are calling for people to submit to the one who is Lord of the Universe, to acknowledge his rightful place in their lives and in the world.

We are calling for them to actively participate in his kingdom as his will becomes fulfilled "on earth as it is in heaven."

Ironically, it is in giving up our "pursuit of happiness" and in submitting to his sovereignty that we find the fulfillment that seems so elusive:

Human beings find fulfillment not in the attempt to develop themselves, not in the effort to better their own condition, not in the untrammeled exercise of unlimited covetousness, but in the experience of mutual relatedness and responsibility in serving a shared goal.

Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 122

Jesus said something like that

Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it (Luke 9:24).

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

How to Misunderstand Religion

The Archbishop of Canterbury has answered Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in a lecture given at Swansea University (HT: AKMA).

Here are a few important excerpts:

In Richard Dawkins' writings there is one very interesting factor affecting the whole discussion and that is the assumption that, loosely speaking, Darwinian Theory is a theory of everything.

In order to make a Darwinian scheme work, with religion and indeed with other cultural or intellectual phenomena, you have to assume some more rather questionable things. And the most dramatic example is the hypothesis originally advanced by Dawkins, almost 'off the cuff', (but taken rather seriously by some of his followers) that there actually is a measurable, identifiable process of the transmission of cultural ideas, that's like genetics. Dawkins and others have called it 'memetics'. The meme the unit of culture is like a gene in biology. The meme carries information from person to person and generation to generation, just as a gene encodes the information that allows replication to occur.

And as far as I'm concerned, one of the most abidingly difficult and problematic aspects of Richard Dawkins' approach to religion, remains this attempt to transfer biology into culture, to suppose that there is a science of cultural transmission exactly like genetics only with different material. I find this, I have to say, philosophically crass, undeveloped at best, simply contradictory and empty at worst.

Dawkins has confused the notion of a movement in time from the simple to the complex with the idea that there is a necessary logical priority to complex regularities and properties which ensure that when that simple organism begins to develop, it develops coherently, consistently, that cause and effect will operate from the beginning. And the question is not where that primitive organism or that physical reality comes from in terms of time. The question is about where the whole notion of explanation, regularity and intelligibility comes from.

It's not a question about bad scientific explanations and good scientific explanations. Scientific explanation always looks for specific causes inside the universe. That's what science is. Theological language, religious language asks if there is a ground for the very idea of a regular world of which you can make sense. And religious language perhaps appropriately therefore at the very least reminds the scientist that in every intelligible act there is an act of faith.

People who speak religiously have at least these in common, that they recognize the dependence of their own existence and that of the entire universe.

Bad religion is driven out by good [religion], not by no religion.

We have no obvious knock-down arguments.

But for the secularist, for the systematic critic of religion, moral integrity, self-inspection, fundamental trust must either be reduced to a personal option (I do this because I choose to do this) or it must be reduced to another form of survival strategy. And some of the problems with that, I've already touched upon. The religious believer says in contrast, that moral integrity, self-inspection, honesty, openness and trust are styles of living which communicate the character of an eternal and free agency, the agency that most religions call God. Agree or disagree, is what I would want to say to our contemporary critics, but at least grasp that that is what is being claimed and talked about. Don't distract us from the real arguments by assuming that religion is an eccentric survival strategy or an irrational form of explanation.

So what do you think? Does he expose any flaws in Dawkins' argument? Do you find his argument persuasive? Does he give up too much ground by arguing from the position of religion-in-general rather than from the position of Christianity?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Wisdom from Willard

I'm listening to an audio of a seminar by Dallas Willard. Here are a few quotations:

If you want to succeed in discipleship, it has to be the most important thing in your life. And you have to understand that what you are going to get is worth so much more than what it's going to cost you that you will absolutely not let anything get in your way.

You are a disciple of Jesus if you are with him learning to be like him.

As a disciple I am learning from him how to lead my life as he would lead my life if he were I.

The meaning of the cross is the end of your life. It's no longer important for you to have your way.

If you abandon the pursuit of your [own] way then you are in a position to really begin to live.

What happens to people is that they go dead. They are not living in the drama that God intended to live in. Drama is absolutely crucial to our lives.

Idolatry always takes the form of using God for my purposes. And that can happen among professing Christians, and often does.

God intends to exalt you, but not on your terms. On his terms. And that's much better, I can assure you.

Salvation is being caught up in the life that Jesus is now living on earth.

The gospel is "trust Jesus Christ and walk into the kingdom of heaven here and now." Heaven will take care of itself, if you take care of heaven now. And you do this by trusting Jesus, not something he said or something he did.

Most of our teaching has been that you can't do the commandments of Jesus. And you can't if all you do is try. But if you also train as his disciple, there's not a single one of them that you can't do.

The only cure for lust is love. If you love people, you won't lust them.

I need more influences like Dallas Willard in my life. The church needs more serious disciples like Dallas Willard. The world needs to experience the kingdom through Christians who are like Dallas Willard.

May I be one of those people.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

How can we know the truth?

In the modern world of "facts" we have the idea that we can obtain the truth simply by following the right method persistently.

We think of "facts" as treasure to be discovered that is buried in the dirt of data about the real world. When anything interesting is found, a community of experts determines its true intrinsic value.

Beliefs, on the other hand, are like objects that have only personal, sentimental value. No one else wants the plaster casting of your child's handprints. But to you, it is precious.

This seems so obvious that it is beyond dispute.

The only problem is that it is entirely wrong.

There is no "truth" without personal risk. We cannot avoid the vulnerability of faith.

We have on the one hand the ideal, or shall I call it the illusion, of a kind of objectivity which is not possible, of a kind of knowledge of what we call the "facts" which involves no personal commitment, no risk of being wrong, something which we have merely to accept without question; and on the other hand a range of beliefs which are purely subjective, which are, as we say, "true for me," are "what I feel," but which are a matter of personal and private choice.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 23

Yet many live in the illusion that they are "playing it safe." They think of themselves as people who operate purely by reason. They refuse to put their trust in anything that cannot be "proven" true.

Christians claim to know the truth.

This is not a private truth. It is true for all people in all times and in all places.

Unfortunately, Christians have tried to "prove" this truth by using the techniques of the "hard" sciences. There are several problems with this approach.

1. It assumes the false distinction between "facts" and "beliefs." This way of thinking is so deeply ingrained that it seems impossible to question it. In fact, most people would ask, "How else could we possibly prove anything?"
   
2. It requires the eternal truth to submit to the latest fashion of intellectual consensus, a consensus that is based upon the reigning system of unproven assumptions.
   
3. It confuses the existence of absolute truth with the perfect apprehension of that absolute truth.
   
4. It creates a false choice between absolute certainty and total ambiguity.
   
5. It tries to remove the personal commitment necessary to accept any truth, a commitment that is especially necessary to know the truth of the One who is himself Truth.
   

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been given a sacred trust.

Something radically new has been given, something which cannot be derived from rational reflection on the experiences available to all people. It is a new fact, to be received in faith as a gift of grace. And what is thus given claims to be the truth, not just a possible opinion. It is the rock which must either become the foundation of all knowing and doing, or else the stone on which one stumbles and falls to disaster. Those who, through no wit or wisdom or godliness of their own, have been entrusted with this message can in no way demonstrate its truth on the basis of some other alleged certainties: they can only live by it and announce it. It is something given, dogma, calling for the assent of faith.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 6

We cannot prove that this message is the truth. Any attempt to do so distorts the message itself.

If the congregation is to function effectively as a community of truth, its manner of speaking the truth must not be aligned to the techniques of modem propaganda, but must have the modesty, the sobriety, and the realism which are proper to a disciple of Jesus.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 229

We can "only" proclaim this truth in humility and vulnerability.

We can never claim that either our understanding or our action is absolutely right. We have no way of proving that we are right. That kind of proof belongs only to the end. As part of the community that shares in the struggle, we open ourselves continually to Scripture, always in company with our fellow disciples of this and former ages in the context of the struggle for obedience; and we constantly find in it fresh insights into the character and purpose of the one who is "rendered" for us in its pages.
Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 60

This is the mission of God: To proclaim and to live the truth of the Gospel.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Frost Explains Missional

Here are a couple of powerful videos of Michael Frost explaining what missional means and how that works out into the life of a congregation (HT: Rick Meigs). In case you don't have the time to watch these powerful videos, I have listed a few key concepts.

"It is not a new model, not a new approach, not a new style. Missional church thinking is a fundamental and prophetic call to the church to orient everything it is doing around the agenda of mission."

"I am anxious, my friends, that you not domesticate the idea of mission, that you not turn it into something that is palatable, which is not dangerous, which is simple and straightforward and you can just add missional language on to business as usual."

If you embrace missional thinking,

You will see God differently. "God is the sending and sent God."

You will see the church differently. "We participate in the work of Christ. We see where he is at work and step in to cooperate with him."

You will see the world differently. "All people share the image of God."

If you are serious about stepping into this missional paradigm,

You will be committed to building missional proximity with those who've not yet been set free. "Mission has to happen up close and personal." "Platforms [in church] are not where ministry happens. Ministry happens in the neighborhoods."

You will practice the presence of Jesus right under the noses of those who've not yet encountered him. "To the poor it would mean alleviating suffering." "To the rich it might actually mean bursting the bubble of consumerism." "You cannot know what it looks like to be Jesus in any context unless you are an absolutely obsessive student of the gospels."

You will embrace powerlessness. "We don't need our buildings, or our money. We don't need the accoutrements of some kinds of institutional power. We have spiritual power which transforms us from ordinary people into a movement of grace and love and power." "Imagine if we could prove to Americans that the following of Jesus is worth more to us than the stuff of religious institutionalism."

You will proclamation the person of Jesus. "You get close to people, you practice the presence of Jesus, you go empty-handed and naked just as our Lord did, [and] I defy you to not proclaim the person of Jesus."

"Being missional is not another cool strategy. Being missional is not another clever way of worshipping. Being missional is not just another thing you can add to your mission statement on the front of your church newsletter. Being missional mean moving into the neighborhood and it means looking like Jesus."

Take the time to watch the videos. Let me know what your reaction is.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional “in quotes”

Willingness to partake in corporate vision is the greatest compliment that a person can pay to leadership. It is holy ground and should be treated with reverence.
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, p. 188

Leadership within the Body of Christ is widely misunderstood. It is too often confused with the ability to get things done. But project management and leadership have little in common.

In our society, everyone wants to be a leader.

• Employees are encouraged to be "leaders" so they can move up the corporate ladder.
  
• All prospective college students are "outstanding leaders."
  
• Athletes try to be leaders on the field.
  

But leadership is not the glamorous privilege that many think.

People who want to get their own way should never seek to be leaders. True leadership is not selfish. A follower has a better chance of "getting his own way" than a leader does. And leaders who abuse their position for selfish ends are dangerous, to themselves and others.

True leadership is costly. And not in the way that most think. True leadership will often require the sacrifice of

• Personal preferences
  
• Security
  
• Popularity
  
• Self-esteem
  
• Confidence
  
• Success
  

We hear a lot of talk about servant leadership. But that doesn't go far enough. We must have sacrificial leaders in the church. People who are willing to seriously follow the example of Jesus Christ, not just pay lip service to caring for others.

Effective leadership cannot be done (well) without massive quantities of empathy. And empathy costs far more than most are willing to give. It's easier to bend others to your will. Most self-styled leaders can't even let other people voice their opinions in a conversation. Control is not leadership.

Leadership is a sacred charge and should never be abused.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Speaking for the Church

In North America we have canonized individual freedom. We have turned freedom of speech into a right to have all our opinions taken seriously. We have turned the freedom to worship God in our own way into our own private religion (or non-religion).

And this individualism has worked its way into our churches.

There has been considerable discussion of the dangers of an individualistic view of Christianity. We've turned our faith into another commodity to be exchanged in the marketplace.

But this problem isn't limited to individuals. This way of thinking has also infected our thinking about local congregations.

Each group sees itself as an autonomous voluntary association of Christians.

But Paul says, "We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). We usually interpret that in the context of the congregation. Paul seems to be saying something more.

Congregations should not be acting independently any more than individual Christians should be operating alone.

There is one Church with one Head.

The local congregation is not a branch of the universal Church, but it is the place where the universal Church is made visible. When the local congregation speaks and acts, its words and acts must claim to be the words and acts of the universal Church if they are to be authentic.
Lesslie Newbigin, Truth To Tell, p. 88

Yet we act as if we are independent contractors who "rent" the name Christian but run our own operations.

When we speak, we speak for the entire Church.

We are not just speaking for the group in our town who goes by our denominational label and who prefers our style of worship and shops at the same stores.

This means that we must be more careful about what we say (and what we don't say).

This means that we must be very careful about imposing rules and obligations upon the people in our congregation. We should follow the "categorical imperative" guideline. We should have no rules or obligations that we would not be willing to impose upon all Christians. No more of this, "It's our congregation (denomination), we can make whatever rules we want."

It's not our congregation (denomination). It is Christ's Church.

We don't get to operate it as a bunch of disconnected voluntary associations.

So what do you think? How does this change the way we think about ministry in the local church?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be."

Arrogant God

Here's an excerpt from an interview by Brad Pitt (HT: iMonk):

I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, "You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!" It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

I agree with Brad Pitt. I agree that

• Many people represent God as an egomaniac whose primary concern is that everyone tells him how great he is.
  
• Any God whose moral character is less than what he expects from his follower is not worthy of worship.
  
• If God has self-esteem issues, then he is not much of a God.
  

Yes, God said, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). Sounds a little arrogant, doesn't it?

But what if he is the only true God?

Is it arrogant for a parent to encourage obedience from a two-year-old child?

While exclusive claims seem arrogant in our pluralistic society, true claims are not arrogant in substance. They certainly can be made in an arrogant way. But there is nothing inherently arrogant in saying:

Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you (Jeremiah 7:23).

Unfortunately, many people (Christians included) have a distorted view of God. They see him as a petty, vengeful, insecure demagogue. He wants people to tell him how great he is. He gets jealous when people deny him the attention he desires. He punishes people who refuse to acknowledge him.

But this is a warped view of God.

The best information we have about God is what we know about Jesus Christ. "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (Colossians 1:19). John's gospel tells us that "the Word" was present before creation and was the active agent in creation. And this person, being God, became a human being (John 1:1–3, 14).

Jesus is the most complete revelation we have of God. "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only [the Word], who is at the Father's side, has made him known" (John 1:18).

Everything we think we know about God must be understood in light of what we know about Jesus Christ.

Jesus made exclusive claims:

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:35).

I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am [the one I claim to be], you will indeed die in your sins (John 8:24).

But there was nothing arrogant about his manner:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28–29).

In one of his last encounters with his disciples, Jesus shocked them by washing their feet, a menial task that no Rabbi could ask his students to perform for him. Then he explained:

You call me "Teacher" and "Lord," and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you (John 13:13–15).

Those are not the words and actions of an arrogant person.

So here's what I have to say to Brad Pitt and others who feel the same way:

Yes, many arrogant people have constructed a God after their own image. And they see God as a big bully who demands recognition and veneration. They worship a God who doesn't follow his own rules.

But that is not the God of the Bible, the God who became human in the person of Jesus Christ.

He is a God whose primary characteristic is love.

Yes, it is necessary to acknowledge him as God. Yes, it necessary to submit to him as Lord.

But these are not arbitrary conditions, hoops that he made for us to jump through.

A patient must take the medicine to receive the cure. But it is not because the doctor is arrogant. (He may well be, but that is a different issue.) The treatment is determined by the diagnosis.

A two-year-old might like a parent who always says "Yes." But that would not be a loving parent. And the two-year-old might never become a three-year-old.

We really don't need God to be a genie in the sky who grants us all our wishes. We've seen enough movies to know how that turns out. What we need is someone who can diagnose and cure what is broken on the inside of us.

Take the real medicine. Don't settle for that cheap, imitation medicine that I keep getting spam about.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Sound Familiar?

The words "liberal" and "fundamentalist" are used today not so much to identify oneself as to label the enemy. . . . There are terms of moral opprobrium that each side employs to attack the other: the fundamentalist is arrogant, blinkered, and culturally illiterate; the liberal is flabby, timid, and carried along by every new fashion of thought. From the point of view of the fundamentalist, doubt is sin; from the point of view the liberal, capacity for doubt is a measure of intellectual integrity and honesty.

Replace the word liberal with emergent and this sounds like a commentary on today's blogging world. But this observation was written in 1995 by Lesslie Newbigin in Proper Confidence.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional “in quotes”

True friendship is God's calling, in and of itself. If people find friendship with Jesus through our friendship with them, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, p. 99

If we cultivate relationships with non-believers solely for the purpose of converting them, then we are not doing the work of God. We are doing the work of God a disservice. We must care about people because they are important to God, whether they acknowledge him or not. True friends are not manipulative and scheming.

If God is at work in our lives, we don't need to orchestrate "opportunities" to "share Christ."

If we are living lives that require explanation, there will be plenty of opportunities.

If we are serious disciples of Jesus Christ, our lives will proclaim the gospel more powerfully than any prepackaged presentation.

Of course,

• if we don't really know God
  
• if we are not producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives
  
• if we aren't willing to deny ourselves, to take up our crosses every day, and to follow Jesus as serious disciples
  

then maybe we'd better work on our sales techniques.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"