A while back, my good friend Tony Vance sent me an article and asked for my feedback. After reading only the title, “Why Are You Still A Christian, After Reading This? (Thorough)”, I answered: because Jesus. With a little prodding, (and some late night facepalming), I worked through Ben Alonzo’s piece, and jotted down some responses to his work.
Shake Your Faith: The Truth
In this section, Ben points out he was a hardcore Christian “until I started questioning what was actually in the Bible.” My first response to Mr. Alonzo, “Just how ‘hardcore’ were you if Bible study wasn’t even a part of your Christianity?” Choosing Jesus was a hard decision for me. In fact, just yesterday I shared with some close friends that I believe being a faithful Christian is the hardest job in the world. Bill Hybels in his book, “Courageous Leadership”, recounts a speech he gave to a group of Harvard business students. One student asked how church leadership had anything to do with secular success.
“You are the best and brightest this world has to offer. You are going to do great things and make the best widgets and gizmos ever known. But the church is charged with changing the world.”
Mr. Alonzo, taking the time to study the Bible is admirable and I hope this letter will encourage you to do so again; but basing your arguments against the Bible with those of a shaky understanding (at best) is a good way to an insufficient response. Here are a few other (bad) reasons to defect from Christianity:
- Basing Christianity on Christians
- Interpreting easy Bible passages with difficult ones
- Misapplying scientific *claims*
- Asserting knowledge where only opinion exists
- Finding more truth in comedic memes than historic documents
God and Mass Abortions
This section is a compilation of about 10 verses in the Bible where God apparently condones abortion. The problem with this section is, quite simply, they are all snippets of a bigger story.
One of my favorite movies is C. S. Lewis’ “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”. Lewis was quite clear that he was creating a fantasy world to help folks understand the Christian worldview, particularly at a time when the whole world was at war (1950). In his book, he uses a lion named Aslan to depict Jesus. Before we are introduced to Aslan, all we have are stories offered by those who have met him. One such story comes from the Beavers. As the Beavers talk of his power and his strength, their listeners began to assess Aslan’s worth. At one point they even wonder if they want to meet this strange king who might kill them….