1. Being Careless with the Truth in our "Edifying Anecdotes"
Many of you have doubtless heard the story about the church in a persecuted part of the world where one day masked men broke in brandishing guns and demanded that anyone who wasn't a true believer and ready to meet their God should leave. Once a large portion of the worshippers had fled in panic, the leader removed his mask and said to the preacher something along the lines of "Ok, all the fakers are gone, you can keep going," and he and his team of not-actual-terrorists then joined the worship service.
This very well may be based on an original true story. (If you know the source, feel free to share) The problem is that I've heard it told as a true story many times, and the location seems to wander around. Africa, China, Russia, etc. Did anyone bother to verify the origins of the story before sharing it as true? "Oh, don't be such a stickler," you might think. "the important thing is that it's making a point."
But the same thing happens with miraculous stories...
Recently it has been in the news that a boy who told an amazing story about a trip to heaven while in a coma, having grown up a bit, recanted the story and chided Christians for believing his account which does not adhere to scripture. Lifeway has since pulled the book from its shelves. But these "trip to heaven," "trip to hell" stories which so many people marvel over and find edifying can usually be dismissed offhand early on, not because heaven or hell aren't real places, but because the stories in question describe a creative take on the pop culture version of heaven or hell. That's usually quite different from what we find in scripture, which is that upon dying one goes either into the presence of God or away from His presence to Sheol (Hebrew, "the grave"), and that the fiery place of torment of Matt 25 and pearl-gated golden city of Rev 21 are both descriptions of post-final-judgment destinations, not the immediate destinations of the departed.
(Another common mistake: while we don't know much about Sheol -the waiting place until judgment for those who die without Christ- from scripture, we do know the lake of fire was created for the punishment of satan and his fallen angelic allies (Matt 25:41), and they will suffer there too. Satan is not the ruler of hell, hell was created as his punishment. According to the book of Job, he is not enthroned in some fiery realm like Surt in the Muspelheim of Norse mythology, but apparently roams around the earth itself, which I find in some ways to be a more unnerving image.)
And speaking of angels, fallen or otherwise, there are innumerable stories about angels out there. Some are doubtless true. I've seen a weird thing or two myself. But note that the Bible is not very talkative about angels, at least not in the systematic way that would satisfy our curiosity (and lead to idolatry...). Angels are not the point- God is, and they are God's messengers. Scripture also describes angels as guarding us, though not to the extent that the "guardian angel" idea has been developed in popular thinking. (Psalm 91:11 is very general, Matt 18:10 is very interesting statement by Jesus but leaves us with more questions than answers, and it is unclear whether Hebrews 13:2's "some" is talking about people among his readership or referring to Old Testament accounts like Lot's angelic guests)
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| How angels feel when you share questionable anecdotes about them... ("DespondentAngelMetCemHead" by Infrogmation - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.) |
I say "may not" because the writers at Snopes dot com (urban legend debunking site) are quite obviously antagonistic towards Christianity (even for faith-inspired stories they had to verify as true due to factual evidence, they feel necessary to interject that they don't think anything supernatural occurred). At the bottom of that article, for example, they include stories of missionaries receiving help just as someone far away felt led to pray for them as supposedly obvious fabrications. I don't know about those particular incidents, but I happen to know that does sometimes happen, because it's happened to me before. On the other hand, they raise some reasonable doubts about the details of the story as presented in print, based on multiple printed versions. My guess would be that the earlier Billy Graham book account is closer to whatever true event inspired the story. Of course it's possible the story is entirely made up, but these things definitely do happen on the mission field, and my guess would be it was in someone's prayer letter and unfortunately things proceeded loosely from there.
However, just because "these things happen" doesn't mean that particular story is true, or should be repeated as a true story, details being altered as time goes on. The snopes article itself ends like this:
Moreover, it's sadly ironic that so many tales contrived to display a particular belief system as The One True Way include fabrications tossed in to better carry the message.
While their sarcasm is unwarranted, there is an important point we can take from it- our willingness to accept and pass along any story because we live in a world where supernatural events can occur is not a good witness, making faith seem like mere credulity. And it's dangerous for us too, a little like building our faith not on the solid rock of God's faithfulness and work in our lives but on the shifting sand of anecdotes that "seem likely."
So should we be finding inspiration in unverifiable stories just because the content is beautiful or motivational? Should we be scared to share any story at all? At least, let's treat them as just that: inspirational but unverifiable stories, and be very, very careful what we pass along as "true." Truth should hold special value to those who believe in the Truth of God's word.
Supernatural events do occur in this world (I have fun stories), and we have real evidence for what we take on faith, but assuming every story, whether miracles, angels, trips to heaven, etc., you hear is true (or not bothering to consider whether it is or not) and passing it along, slowly but surely weakens our habit of testing what we hear. We have to be neither cynical nor naive, like the Bereans who were praised by Paul for not taking his words for granted, but searching the scriptures before accepting them.
2. Confusing Apologetics with Evangelism
(Yes, I know apologetics can be used in an evangelistic way, first hear me out:)A. Evangelism is not arguing until the other side admits you're right
I think we all know this already, and I'm reminding myself as much as any of you reading this, but we can't debate anyone into the kingdom. So as a method of evangelism, a good debate, beloved by so many educated believers in the Western tradition (me too), serves at best either as a transition for sharing the gospel directly/sharing one's testimony, or to remove the false facades which people claim prevent them from believing, which are really smokescreens and excuses. Having removed those, someone will typically say something like "well I still just don't think God exists." Now they're being honest- all that other stuff was not the basis for their unbelief, it was the other way around. The assumption is "no God," and all the other stuff proceeds from that assumption. Which is why...
B. It is typically not helpful to argue with scientists about evolution
It pains me to say that, having been raised in the proud homeschooled evangelical tradition of "creationism vs. evolution" debates, and have years of experience doing so online and occasionally in person. Sometimes I've "won" the discussion and sometimes I've "lost" (at least, I did my best to learn from each discussion, so they were profitable in that sense), but what I would say is that unless you have a pretty good grasp of the scientific principles involved and some basic understanding of what the modern set of theories collectively described as evolution are in 2015, you may actually do more harm than good in trying to jump into the fray. One thing you have to realize is that the average non-believing scientist (or worse, 'science groupie') considers questioning evolution to be about as viable as proposing the earth really is flat. It doesn't matter if that's an unfair comparison, that's what it's going to sound like to them.
You may quickly discover you are at a home field disadvantage, because for decades most scientists have taken evolution as a given and worked from that basis. So if you do something like claim there is no evidence for evolution, they can just laugh and bury you under decades of scientific papers that all assume evolution. No one not coming from a religious background is going to question evolution at this point except real experts in those fields where it becomes obvious that evolution lacks some basic mechanisms to explain very specific phenomena they are qualified to speak up about.
In short, if you really can't help yourself, realize that you're going both against popular trends and against more or less the entire scientific community. Also recognize this is typically someone who has "there is no God" as their premise. You'd better have a pretty airtight logical case, be familiar with the normal counterarguments (the Socratic method of asking more and more difficult questions is a good way to learn these, and doesn't put you in the position of being the antagonist) and be prepared to explain exactly why you feel you can challenge the underlying theoretical assumptions of entire fields of research. And hopefully, you are praying for them and that the conversation will be edifying, not a triumph of your finely honed reasoning skills. As an INTP I face a frequent temptation to bring the logical smackdown on those who are clearly out of their league, forgetting that we are called first to be evangelists of Christ, not knights of reason.
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| Most actual arguments for evolution go like this: [In the chart above, let's say that "Some birds can't fly" = "God did it." Therefore, since "that's crazy" or "highly unlikely" (claims entirely outside the realm of science) all birds -must- be able to fly. Therefore, since Science can demonstrate with total confidence that penguins are birds, penguins -must- be able to fly, and you are just another naive believer in outdated superstitions who doesn't understand logic.] Ignoring the insults and countering this valid structure but invalid premise means you have to show them that their underlying assumption of "no God" is baseless. Therefore the rigorous science which demonstrates that penguins are birds is great and no problem for us either, but it has no bearing on the assumption that there are no birds that can't fly. But we believe, and have quite a bit of evidence that points to the fact that there are birds that can't fly. (That "God did it") The argument then rests on whether you can demonstrate that convincingly. |
Note: You can challenge their premises, with the method I outlined in the picture caption there. But I pick that kind of battle carefully these days. Only a few will be fruitful, and a good conversation about the gospel is so much better than lots of arguing which half the time ends up being over how you're using the same word in two different ways. I usually try to get the discussion over to my testimony, if I can.
A sad excuse for preparation:
(I rarely rant on this blog, so please excuse me while I do so for just a moment.) Back when I was in high school, we were taught as Christian students to challenge future college professors with "unanswerable questions" that would stump them. Personally I studied engineering which didn't require biology at my school, so topics like evolution only came up once or twice in chemistry class, and I didn't have any of those antagonistic sort of professors I read about.
But I submit that part of the reason so many students raised in the church get disillusioned and their faith shaken while in college is that some people are doing them the disservice of sending them into college thinking a) they will encounter Richard Dawkins-like antagonists who rant against God and use logical-fallacy-riddled arguments to promote evolution and other anti-scriptural ideas, and b) that their duty was to publicly call out these educated, experienced authority figures who could wipe the floor with them rhetorically, with the idea that this is "defending the faith" and their responsibility.
Instead they find that a) often their professors are of the shrugging agnostic or "I grew up in church but decided religion wasn't for me" variety, are sometimes even charismatic and dignified, and can make a student feel not that the gospel is false, but simply that they've lived their entire life in a broom closet, and the gospel might apply in there, but this is the big, wide world, and they're being invited to grow up and join it. Or, b) they do run into one of those antagonistic atheist professors, and trying to be a good witness, stand up to him/her in class, are then subjected to a good drubbing and public humiliation by the professor who has years of education and life experience to his advantage, and has perhaps polished his craft on the few unfortunate students who do this from time to time. At that point a crisis in confidence is almost certain, and without the right support a student will start to question what seemed so certain and straightforward "back in church."
And that "back in church" is where a lot of the trouble starts anyway. Getting plugged in both to a good local church and to a Christian fellowship at school can go very far to mitigate both of these dangers. Far from being bowled over and questioning their faith, students can come out of college strengthened in their faith and with some valuable ministry experience if they are active in a (good) Christian campus fellowship of some kind. (Be aware that there are one or two cult-ish groups that operate under this disguise)
So hopefully we can avoid the problem of setting students up for possible failure by making sure they'll have good spiritual fellowship and growth opportunities during their time at school, and not teaching them a vastly oversimplified version of what they're likely to encounter out in the world. Which leads me to my third plea, which is to please stop...
3. Simplistically Stereotyping other Belief Systems
I sometimes wondered, as a young Christian, how anyone could not be a Christian. It made so much sense, and none of the other religions I'd heard of seemed to make any sense at all. How could those people keep believing something so weird and nonsensical and obviously false?
But I found, around the time I started doing mission trips, that the beliefs of people I encountered overseas seemed fully developed too. Of course, many adherents of Chinese religion here in Taiwan don't even claim to believe the various major and minor gods to be real in the way we believe God to be real (more like "they might be out there, and if so it's better to be on their good side"), but developed in the sense that they had a worldview which explained things around them to a degree they found to be satisfactory. If a gap does occur, if a time comes when their religious system becomes unsatisfactory to them or their worldview can no longer adequately explain the reality they live in, then there is an increasing openness to new worldviews and metanarratives (which are something I'll discuss in my next post), and often a special spiritual hunger and the potential for gospel movements as well, like what happened in China during the turbulent years of communism when it was closed to outside missionaries and is happening in some other places as we speak.
But when reading about those other religions, in non-academic Christian materials, I have often found a strictly polemic attitude. That is to say, the main purpose was not to explain what other people believe, but to demonstrate the flaws and weaknesses in those belief systems, and perhaps reassure readers/listeners that only our own faith makes any sense at all. On the other hand, some explanations are not antagonistic but are simply such a watered-down, simplified version of those beliefs that one is left wondering how any adult could really believe that. Yes, some localized religions have degraded to more or less that point, and any contact with outside religions results in the locals hastening to drop their "old ways" and embrace what is clearly a more impressive belief system. But any major world religion has survived long enough that it's got to have some qualities which people find attractive, especially if it's spreading, like Buddhism or Islam. Prior to encountering the Perspectives course materials and then attending seminary with some great books on the required reading lists, the resources regarding other religions never mentioned what those might be.
Let me be blunt. That's bowling with the lane guards up. If we truly have faith, and if we are grown-ups, or even teenagers bumping into classmates with other belief systems, we need to recognize that people have reasons for what they believe, and if they're going to stop believing that and accept Christ, they're going to need reasons for doing that. That could be as simple as someone having grown up in a non-religious family and being curious about what you believe and asking you to explain, or as challenging as a need for deliverance from demonic oppression which only the power of Christ can effect through the prayer and fasting of His saints. But either way, if we're afraid that merely reading or hearing accurate depictions of earthly religions is going to tempt us away from the Living God, the effects of whose Incarnation changed not only our lives and the destiny of our souls but all of modern world history, then the problem lies not in those descriptions but in our own lack of faith.
Now obviously, I'm not suggesting you send a bunch of grade schoolers to Buddhist summer camp. And in the States, when teaching younger students about world religions I have always pointed out the differences between those and God's revelation to us. Anyone who feels their faith is weakened by exposure to other beliefs should pray for their faith to be strengthened, and take heart from the evidence that abounds, showing that though not seeing, we have believed, yet our faith is not blind.
But students who are mature enough, and certainly adults who are mature in their faith, should have a basic understanding of what other people in this world believe, especially if they intend to witness to them.
For example: Paul was upset by all the idols in Athens, but he observed them carefully and when sharing the gospel before the Areopagus he used the example of one idol dedicated to an unknown god, and also quoted a Greek poet. He was not respectful of their beliefs (he got very quickly to attacking the idea of idolatry itself), but he made careful observations and tried to share the gospel in a way that had some connections to their worldview. He wanted to share the gospel in a way that would make sense, and used what he knew about Greek culture and had observed about their religion to do so.
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| A Taiwanese altar to an unknown god |
Why does it matter?
It matters not only because if you don't understand what someone else believes, you will have more difficult sharing the gospel with them, but because when we are always surrounded by other believers it's easy to fall into the idea that the gospel is inherently reasonable or self-evidently true. Don't forget what Paul said:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)The gospel is not going to sound inherently reasonable either to people of other religions, or to people who think that a modern education puts them above "organized religion." But understanding that following another religion or belief system doesn't make them stupid or naive, but merely in need of the gospel that will sound a little strange to them, we can speak God's truth into their own context in an effective way. Some will never accept it, but "to those who are called," of all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages, it will be the saving message of Christ, the power and wisdom of God.
That's it for today. I hope by understanding these issues a little better, we can be a stronger Church and more effective disciples of Christ.
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