Questioning Christianity
We've just marked Easter -- or rather, we've just entered Easter season which culminates in Ascension Day on May 10th. Apologetics on the necessity of Christ's gruesome death and the certainty and reasonableness of His Resurrection are a regular this time of year. And so I would like to remark on the elegance and vigor of Christian apologetics.
Randy Newman spoke about evangelism and apologetics to our church a little while ago and my husband speedily bought his book, "Questioning Evangelism." Newman makes the case for a more Socratic approach to evangelism rather than the traditional Grab Them by the Collar and Give Them Hell, Buy Now! sales pitch.
I'm very adverse to the latter. For one thing, it's generally too wrote. For another, it would require a personality change and I think those are harder to come by than sex changes, even in this age of redefinition.
One hears over and over of atheists growing up in religious households where asking Why? was treated as irreverent or stupid. As if an adolescent could really poke holes in an infinite God. But such is human folly.
Christianity holds up under scrutiny. Honest questions will receive honest answers. Intellectually satisfying ones, too. The paradoxical beauty of the Trinity might be difficult to swallow but probably the biggest stumbling block is the unpleasant truth that humanity (including ourselves!) is weak and murderous. Reconciling with the doctrine of original sin hardly strains the mind. It the rest of us that requires exertion. And as one Christian put it, the mental gymnastics required to not believe in the Resurrection was much greater than accepting the eyewitness accounts of the Gospel writers.
I love the Psalms and Job because of the abundance of questions and doubts. They teach us that we must come asking only God and unsatisfied with any other source.
C.S. Lewis observed that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried. And it has been scrutinized -- all two millennia of its history. Those who find it difficult do not trouble me. It is difficult. It is those who hold to it for their own self-righteousness. They will necessarily find questions unpleasant because they have placed their faith in their brittle selves and not in a sturdy God. The questions expose them. So they snap at the questioner to shut up.
Doubting Thomas sometimes gets a bad rap from us but Jesus was kind to them. Unless I see I will not believe, he said. So Jesus came to him and said: See and believe. But then, of course, Jesus added: Blessed are those who do not see and believe. Perhaps that's why we talk about "blind faith." But just because we cannot see does not mean that there is nothing to see. So by all means, ask away. If someone shuts you up, ask someone else. If someone gives you smug feel-good platitudes, ask someone else. Ask someone who has wrestled and thought and asked. This Triune God is a glory of simplicity, depth, and difficulty.
Randy Newman spoke about evangelism and apologetics to our church a little while ago and my husband speedily bought his book, "Questioning Evangelism." Newman makes the case for a more Socratic approach to evangelism rather than the traditional Grab Them by the Collar and Give Them Hell, Buy Now! sales pitch.
I'm very adverse to the latter. For one thing, it's generally too wrote. For another, it would require a personality change and I think those are harder to come by than sex changes, even in this age of redefinition.
One hears over and over of atheists growing up in religious households where asking Why? was treated as irreverent or stupid. As if an adolescent could really poke holes in an infinite God. But such is human folly.
Christianity holds up under scrutiny. Honest questions will receive honest answers. Intellectually satisfying ones, too. The paradoxical beauty of the Trinity might be difficult to swallow but probably the biggest stumbling block is the unpleasant truth that humanity (including ourselves!) is weak and murderous. Reconciling with the doctrine of original sin hardly strains the mind. It the rest of us that requires exertion. And as one Christian put it, the mental gymnastics required to not believe in the Resurrection was much greater than accepting the eyewitness accounts of the Gospel writers.
I love the Psalms and Job because of the abundance of questions and doubts. They teach us that we must come asking only God and unsatisfied with any other source.
C.S. Lewis observed that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried. And it has been scrutinized -- all two millennia of its history. Those who find it difficult do not trouble me. It is difficult. It is those who hold to it for their own self-righteousness. They will necessarily find questions unpleasant because they have placed their faith in their brittle selves and not in a sturdy God. The questions expose them. So they snap at the questioner to shut up.
Doubting Thomas sometimes gets a bad rap from us but Jesus was kind to them. Unless I see I will not believe, he said. So Jesus came to him and said: See and believe. But then, of course, Jesus added: Blessed are those who do not see and believe. Perhaps that's why we talk about "blind faith." But just because we cannot see does not mean that there is nothing to see. So by all means, ask away. If someone shuts you up, ask someone else. If someone gives you smug feel-good platitudes, ask someone else. Ask someone who has wrestled and thought and asked. This Triune God is a glory of simplicity, depth, and difficulty.
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