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When Atheists Believe | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

10/23/2009

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A great article that ties into what we are doing (or about to do) with the Truth Project. Stay tuned for more information about how to get involved in a small group examining what it means to have a Biblical worldview... we will start them after the first of the year.
When Atheists Believe Christianity Today A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
When Atheists Believe
The confounding attraction of the Christian worldview.
Chuck Colson with Catherine Larson
In recent years Great Britain's chief export to the U.S. has been a payload of books by atheist authors such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and literary critic Christopher Hitchens. They contend that faith is irrational in the face of modern science. Other prominent British atheists seem to be having second thoughts. Is there some revival sweeping England? No; they are examining the rationality of Christianity, the very beliefs Dawkins and others are so profitably engaging, but are coming to opposite conclusions.
Well-known scholar Antony Flew was the first, saying he had to go "where the evidence [led]." Evolutionary theory, he concluded, has no reasonable explanation for the origin of life. When I met with Flew in Oxford, he told me that while he had not come to believe in the biblical God, he had concluded that atheism is not logically sustainable.
More recently, A. N. Wilson, once thought to be the next C. S. Lewis who then renounced his faith and spent years mocking Christianity, returned to faith. The reason, he said in an interview with New Statesman, was that atheists "are missing out on some very basic experiences of life." Listening to Bach and reading the works of religious authors, he realized that their worldview or "perception of life was deeper, wiser, and more rounded than my own."
He noticed that the people who insist we are "simply anthropoid apes" cannot account for things as basic as language, love, and music. That, along with the "even stronger argument" of how the "Christian faith transforms individual lives," convinced Wilson that "the religion of the incarnation … is simply true."
Likewise, Matthew Parris, another well-known British atheist, made the mistake of visiting Christian aid workers in Malawi, where he saw the power of the gospel transforming them and others. Concerned with what he saw, he wrote that it "confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my worldview, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God." While Parris is unwilling to follow where his observations lead, he is obviously wrestling with how Christianity makes better sense of the world than other worldviews.
While we can't reason our way to God, I've long believed that Christianity is the most rational explanation of reality. Could this signal a trend? Well, not yet. But it does illustrate something I have been teaching for years: Faith and reason are not enemies. We are given reason as a gift. And while we can't reason our way to God (only the power of God can transform fallen men—I've seen that in prisons for over 32 years),I have long believed that Christianity is the most rational explanation of reality. And that fact, winsomely explained, can powerfully influence thinking people to consider Christ's claims.
A strong empirical case can be made to show that Christianity is the only rational explanation of life. For the past six years, I've been teaching students in the Centurions Program to draw a grid listing the four basic questions that most people ask about life: Where did I come from? What's my purpose? Why is there sin and suffering? Is redemption possible? Then, on the other side of the matrix, we list the various philosophies and prominent world religions. By examining how each view answers the four questions, we can determine which worldviews conform to the way things really are. This is the correspondence theory of truth—a thoroughly rational test.
Students quickly see that only Christianity teaches that humans are created in the image of God, thus protecting their dignity. It's no coincidence that Christians have waged most of the great human rights campaigns.
Or take the question of sin. If people are good, as French political philosopher Rousseau argued, problems can be solved by creating a utopian state. Yet all of history's utopian schemes have ended in tyranny. Meanwhile, Eastern religions see life as an endless cycle of suffering. There's no way for sin to be forgiven. And grace is an unknown concept in Islam.
This is nothing particularly novel. A long history of prominent atheists, interestingly concentrated in Britain, have traveled back to faith. These doubters began to examine the rationality of Christianity's claims. Whether in the Victorian era, with Thomas Cooper, George Sexton, and Joseph Barker, or in the 20th century, with T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and C. S. Lewis,all of them concluded that the Bible speaks most accurately to the human condition—the very definition of a rational choice. It is rational to choose the worldview that provides the best choice for living, consistent with the way life works.
What does this tell us? People today have a caricatured view of Christians, seeing us as followers, often hypocritical and judgmental, of an outdated book of mere illusions. But if we can explain why Christianity is so reasonable, our faith becomes a very winsome proposition, which will at least open the mind, if not the heart, of many a doubter.
Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
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Hello to the World

10/15/2009

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I have a search function on my blogspot that allows me to see where people are from who are reading my blog. It's fun to see that I have people from Nigeria, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Germany, the UK.... as well as Houston, Katy, San Francisco, Lawrence KS, Olathe KS, Denver and so on. So I just thought I'd say... hello! Thanks for checking on me and I will pray for all of you today.
May God bless you all!
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Fall, Football and Forgiveness

10/15/2009

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​These are three things I love, not necessarily in that order. Who doesn't love fall, even in Houston! One more day of heat and humidity and then cool weather. While we don't enjoy the leaves turning colors, the benefit is in the beautiful winter that we will have.
 

And football. I especially like football when my team wins... but it seems that athletics can be a wonderful metaphor for life. Preparing, dealing with whatever gifts God has given us, doing your best, listening to the Coach, and then either winning or learning from a defeat. Like life, I love to win, but there's always something to learn, whether or not you win or lose.
 

And forgiveness. We live in a broken world. Life is full of hurts and hurting people. Sometimes we cause the hurts and sometimes we get hurt. But ultimately we realize that we, like everyone else, are broken. When we can step into that hurt and offer and receive forgiveness, the world becomes a little better place. The fruits of the Spirit are available for all believers and so often we realize them when we either forgive or accept forgiveness from others.
 

So this is what I'm doing this weekend: enjoying fall, football and forgiveness!
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A thoughtful and helpful reflection

10/15/2009

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This is from Del Tackett, the teacher for the Truth Project:
 
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Luke 9:23-24
Most of last week was spent in Wenatchee, Washington, site of a joint Lutheran Pastor’s Conference. (Sorry about being absent from the blog—we had some technical difficulties.)
Now, I am neither Lutheran, nor a pastor. Why was I there?
Good question!
I was their speaker for the week—asked to provide them with the training to lead Truth Project small groups. It was a delightful time.
Nothing thrills me more than a humble pastor whose heart is dedicated to the Lord and to see his flock healthy and strong. We had some lively interaction… open and honest… and I was sad to leave them.
When I returned, I then had the privilege of participating in an Invocation Service for one of my former Seminary students, Jim Alexander, who was being installed as the senior pastor of a local church. I could not have been more proud of him. During the sermon, Dr. Dominic Aquila listed all of the “tasks” and “duties” of a pastor and what people expected of them. As he went through the list, I briefly wondered if my friend would raise his hand and say, “I may have to rethink this!” Of course, he didn’t, but the responsibilities of a pastor are enormous.
Most of them involve the dying to oneself. That was the heart of the sermon.
Next Sunday, take the time to look your pastor in the eye and thank him… not for his sermon… but for his service.
By the way, the trees were just turning in Washington. I had to stop over and over again on my 3-hour drive from Wenatchee to the Seattle airport.
Isn’t it amazing how the Lord has given us such beauty in the midst of death?
–Leaves that are about to die and drop to the ground give us their greatest testimony at the end of their life;
–The dying rays of a sunset;
–The sedimentary layers of the flood—the beauty of the mountains or in the Grand Canyon.
Jesus did the same. The ugliness of the trial and the scourging and the cross become a beautiful testimony of the love of God.
We don’t seek death, but neither do we fear it…for it is possible that our greatest testimony will come at our death, either our physical death or when we daily die to ourselves.
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Reformed Theology and the Nicene Creed

10/14/2009

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The more I study and read the more I feel like my theology is "reformed." What is that? What does it mean about my theology? Read this thought provoking article to get a sense of what I mean:
The Nicene Creed is Calvinistic
At the heart of Calvinist and Reformed theology is an assertion that God is responsible for and sovereign over everything. That would include our creation, election, justification, sanctification, resurrection and life everlasting.
If we can accept that premise, then let's also admit that other theological systems allow for powers apart from the sovereignty of God; things which God cannot or will not control. Such powers would include the will of man, the operations of science, the communication between this world and worlds beyond the grave, and the 'laws' of nature and of probability.
So let's look at what the Nicene Creed teaches:
God is described as "maker... of all things visible and invisible" That is to say, He has created not only the "seen and unseen" (as it falsely declares in some versions of the Nicene Creed) but also that which we cannot ever see.
The plan of salvation in Jesus Christ is established "... before all worlds..." He is not merely at the beginning of time, but His existence is actually before the beginning. Notably, the Nicene should not be rendered to say that Jesus Christ is "eternally begotten". This would render Him subject in part to the constraints of time. We are taught in the real Nicene Creed that the purpose of salvation was established by God before time itself existed, that events in time have no bearing on God's plan of salvation.
The Nicene's salvation storyline is very simple: He died... He rose... He sitteth (on the throne)... He shall come again. There is no intervening dependency upon the will of man, the intervention of saints (or of Mary), or operations of nature that are independent of God's sovereignty. God is plainly and simply the author of salvation.
God is the maker of "the Life of the world to come." We are not the makers of heaven. Its design God's alone, and should we be privileged to be with him in heaven, it will not be because we deserved it.
This completes the picture that the Nicene Creed paints for us. God is the maker of that which was before our world, of that which is our world, and of that which comes after our world. He is the alpha and omega, and apart from Him nothing is... and nothing happens.
Because Anglicanism purports to agree with the NIcene Creed, authentic Anglican theology must therefore be understood to agree with it and to support the principles on which it is founded. In the following five points, the reader will see that the principles drawn from the Nicene Creed are also to be found in Calvinism and in the theology of the 39 Articles, namely that:
Man's situation is such that he is in no position to save himself. Calvinists call this man's "total depravity."
God established His plan of salvation apart from the influence of His creation, that it was complete before time began. The plan of salvation is not conditioned upon things beyond His control. At the end of time the world is precisely as he elected. Calvinists call this "unconditional election."
The resurrection whether to heaven or to eternal damnation, is precisely as He wished it to be before time began. The targets of atonement are all His choosing. They do not choose themselves. He established a separation between the saved and the lost and does not allow His mind to be changed by attitudes or deeds or events of which He himself is not the author. Calvinists call this "limited atonement."
The completion of God's plan of salvation is a sure thing. The Grace of God is irresistible, and His Power is unlimited. Calvinists call this "irresistible grace."
God will let none perish from his hand, nor save more than He chose to save. His plan and sovereign Will were complete from "before all worlds" such that the "life of the world to come" which we anticipate is what He made for us before we even knew him. Calvinists call this "perseverance of the saints."
The Nicene Creed preceded the Reformation by 1200 years. It preceded Augustine, who is often claimed to be the precursor of the Reformation, by 200 years. As much like Calvinism as the Nicene Creed seems to be, it is the theology of the early church and of the Apostles.
What is astounding is that modern Anglicanism, or what I call "Neo-Anglicanism", ridicules the reformed (Calvinistic) formula (the five points), stands back from the reformed Anglican confession (39 Articles), and re-establishes many of the heresies condemned by the Council of Nicaea.
Authentic Anglican theology can be found only by returning to the 39 Articles, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the authentic Creeds. Modern Anglo-Catholics, Anglican Evangelicals and Anglican Charismatics all take exception in one way or another to the principles of the English Reformation. They are all "Neo-Anglicans."
Now me again: I am not sure we need to return to the 1662 prayer book but I do think this has a lot to say about our preaching and teaching. If you want to learn more about this, stay tuned, for we are about to launch into the Truth Project that will unpack all of this and help us to see what a Biblical world view really is.
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Church of the Holy Apostles
1225 West Grand Parkway South
Katy, TX 77494
info@cotha.org • 281-392-3310

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