Solas supporters may have noticed that Andy Bannister was conspiciously absent for a few weeks. We’re pleased to report not only that he’s back safely; but that while he was away he wasn’t lying on a tropical beach or wiling his time away at Butlins – but was on an extensive preaching in Australia. Watch the video above to find out more about his exploits. It’s all about the challenges and opportunties of gospel ministry.
Why do so many people believe that death is not the end? (Even people who wouldn’t call themselves “religious”). Perhaps it’s because of the awful consequences for things we care about like justice, meaning, and purpose? If we are just worm food after we keel over, none of those matter any more. In this Short Answers film, Solas’s Andy Bannister explores some views about death—and whether our hunches about the hereafter offer us any clues as to what really happens after death.
Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.
Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!
The Solas team had a very early start as we went down to Galashiels for our first ever conference in the beautiful Scottish Borders. The half-day conference, was designed to help the church grow in its evangelistic confidence; both in terms of having confidence in the gospel, developing good practical tools for having fruitful conversations about faith, as well as learning about our culture today and the people we are seeking to reach for Jesus.
Euan Johnson has been the the pastor at Galashiels Baptist Church since 2021, and he was the driving force on bringing the Confident Christianity conference to the Borders. Euan is well known to many people around Scotland from his days studying theology in St Andrews, and his time in youth work in Perth. While the Baptist Church were the organisers, the event took place at the Church of Scotland, Trinity Parish Church on Galashiels High Street. Folks were on hand from the church to welcome us, and the people attending the conference with coffee and coissants!
Eaun kicked the conference off by welcoming everyone, and leading us in prayer and praise – pointing us first towards God, before we began to think about the practical business of evangelism.
It was a significant day for us at Solas too. Our new speaker, Steve Osmond was addressing a Confident Christianity confernce for the first time as a member of staff. (He had actually spoken at one before – when he was visiting is for an interview and Andy Bannister was losing his voice!). These events are always anchored around the idea of developing our ability to speak confidently and graciously about Jesus in everyday conversation. So Steve kicked off the morning with his version of this essential part of our training. Like Andy Bannister’s “How to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot” talk, Steve’s talk on conversational evangelism looked at the ways in which Jesus used questions to steer spiritual conversations.
Andy Bannister spoke next and looked at the growth of Islam in the UK, and how the church should respond. He suggested that fear, retreat or disengagement were poor responses to the presence of Muslims; but so is syncretism; the idea that we can merge our faiths together as if they were essentially the same thing. Andy compared four key characteristics of God (as described by the Bible) and Allah (as described by the Qur’an) and showed how different they are. This was furnished with the encouragement to welcome and befriend Muslim neighbours, friends and colleagues.
Our bookshop for the day was supplied by 10ofThose, who supplied a great range of books on the topics for the day, as well as a good selection of Biblical studies materials and biographies. Adam from 10ofThose brought us a lively presentation about some of the books, and an encouragement to use evangelistic literature, such as tracts, in our outreach efforts.
After a coffee break, during which more pastries and coissants were served by the local church – Steve Osmond took session three. He looked at the great question of God and Suffering, and the way that is a stumbling block to faith for so many people. As suffering is a universal human experience, Steve looked at the explanatory power of the Christian story (compared to that of other worldviews) and the way in which God can help us through the experience before He finally triumphs over it.
Andy brought the formal sessions to a close with session on contemporary culture. He examined the effect of technology on culture, and our current lonliness epidemic. While our innate longing to be fully known and fully loved is a profound apologetic for the Biblical understanding of humanity in itself, Andy challenged us to develop real relationships in the real world through which we can share Christ. That doesn’t mean being technological ‘Luddites’ though, new technology must be embraced and used for the gospel, but can’t be allowed to dominate us.
Q&A sessions are an essential part of our conferences – and it is always fascinating to see what comes up as it varies from location to location. At Galashiels, our speakers were asked to reflect on Artificial Intelligence, several aspects of Islam, more on suffering, the evidence for the resurrection especially the stories of the apostles martyrdom and Halloween.
Euan Johnson, the hosting pastor from Galashiels Baptist wrote afterwards:
“The conference went well! We were encouraged by the mix of denominations/churches present from across Gala and the Borders, with some travelling in for the day. There was a good buzz as people connected in fellowship with one another and engaged with the topics. People certainly felt encouraged and informed by the end of the day, so the talks were well-received. We are aware of a growing Muslim population in our area so I think that was the reason for the strong interest in that topic. I also particularly appreciated the pastoral sensitivity in the talks when dealing with some heavier subjects.”
All of us at Solas were hugely grateful to Euan and the team who welcomed us to Galashiels as well as the highly articulate and engaged audience who came rto wrestle with these issues with us. We pray that the church in Galashiels and the surrounding towns will be encouraged as they share the gospel across the The Borders.
If there’s a God, then why are there natural disasters and diseases? Andy Bannister interviews Sharon Dirckx about her latest book, Broken Planet. Read a chapter on the Solas website here.
Phill Brown is the pastor at Cowplain Evangelical Church in Hampshire. In this video he talks about the weekend that Solas did with them, which included evangelism, a Confident Christianity conference and a regional gathering for FIEC churches. Phill is an enthsiast for partnership with Solas and talks in the video about the ways it has helped the church. From Solas’s perspective we really enjoy working with Phill and Cowplain Evangelical Church – who are terrific hosts, share our commitment to Christ and his gospel and who have become our friends too!
Powerpoint slides from Andy’s talks.
Thanks for joining us at the latest Confident Christianity event. Below you’ll find downloadable slides from the conference talks, plus recommended resources relating to the topics raised in the Q&A session.
Sharing the gospel with the apathetic – webinar with Michael Ots
Bereavement – Tim Keller’s book Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering
Education – Pod of the Gaps episode on Schooling and Education
Science and Faith – Are Science And Faith Antithetical? Short Answers with Andy Bannister
The decline of New Atheism – Interview with Justin Brierley, author of “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God”
The gospel and tribalism – Interview with Tim Tarrants; “Consumed by Hate; Redeemed by Love”
Have you ever wondered why we find death unnatural? Why we don’t respond to death by saying “Great, this is nature’s way of clearing out the old” but instead we protest, grieve, and mourn. In this Short Answers video, Solas’s Andy Bannister explores some of the strange ideas we have about death—and helps us consider whether atheism or Christianity makes better sense of our instinctive reactions to death and dying.
Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.
Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!
Tsunami, Sri Lanka 2004: Morning
Rosi, a tourist recalls:
“We were on holiday and just finishing breakfast when somebody looked out of the window and commented that the sea was doing something rather strange. People started gathering to look for themselves. The sea was unusually high and seemed to be coming in closer. At first it was just a curious sight and we went over to watch as well.
All of a sudden, the sea was coming up the beach, over a wall and across the grass, and began to surround our building. Then the water level seemed to be rising. I registered how fast this was happening when I saw a lamp post knocked over directly under the restaurant. At that point, the atmosphere moved from one of curiosity to one of urgency and panic. We had no idea what was happening.
We were urged to move up some external stairs that led to the roof and so we picked up the children and swiftly made our way upwards along with some of the other guests. We stood at the top of the staircase and watched as the water rose to the level of the restaurant and ripped off parts of the balcony. All I could think of was the children. How can we hold on to them and save them? What will we do if the water gets any higher?
At this point, I prayed out loud to Jesus, asking him to save us. I tried to think about Jesus calming the storm, but this storm somehow felt too big. It was terrifying. I like to think my prayer was said in faith, but it was a desperate cry. I was really, really frightened, and couldn’t imagine God intervening.
Then the water stopped rising and started to recede. At its peak, the water had reached to where we had been eating breakfast. As we looked out, we saw muddy water everywhere. You could not make out the swimming pool from the sea. People were clinging on to palm trees for their lives. The beach where our children had played happily the day before was now an empty shell. The sea had receded, exposing the whole bay as a barren crater. We didn’t know that we had only twenty minutes before the second wave would hit.
There was a sense of urgency to get to higher ground. We moved as fast as we could, following whoever was in front, and wading past boats, fire extinguishers and other debris. No-one was talking.
When we got to the main road, it was total chaos. Every- thing seemed upside down. A car was standing upright on its nose. I saw a woman being carried towards us and felt sick with fear. We didn’t feel nearly high or safe enough and began to panic. A Sri Lankan man appeared and showed us a track into the bushes which went uphill. I remember thinking, this is what it feels like to be running for my life and the lives of my children.
We eventually reached a clearing, where there were a couple of houses. The owners were amazing, serving bananas, tea and even curry later on in the day. Most of the people from the hotel congregated there and gradually more villagers started to arrive. Everyone was in shock and mobile phones were being passed around as people tried to make contact with the outside world. Slowly the bigger picture started to emerge.
Those who returned to the hotel came back with stories of mass looting in the time between waves. Many villagers had lost loved ones. I met a lady who had two boys at her side. One of them, about ten years old, had played with my daughter on the beach. Just two days earlier, he had seemed a cheeky little boy, full of life, but now he was drenched and confused. I hardly recognized him. The woman gestured to me that she had lost a third child. I hugged her and cried with her and prayed for her. There were repeated screams of grief from one of the houses. Other people cried silently. Many did not know if their families were OK.
We were in a remote corner of Sri Lanka, with just the clothes on our back and no idea of the full scale of the disaster. I did have a sense that rescue would come, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to speed this up. We were totally dependent on the kindness of those around us, and of course God.”
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On 26 December 2004 millions watched their TV screens in disbelief as a wall of water surged onto beaches in Thailand, Indonesia and southern India, destroying homes, entire families and livelihoods. Up to 230,000 people were killed and 1.74 million displaced, and many thousands were injured or missing. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated parts of New Orleans, and many other cities and neighbourhoods in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, leaving as many as 1,833 dead1 and more than a million displaced in the Gulf Coast region.2 We could also call to mind the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the devastation in Haiti in 2010, and the havoc wreaked across the Caribbean in 2018.
It is impossible to go more than a couple of months without hearing of a new disaster of some kind. And yet a large-scale natural disaster of another kind has also swept across the globe in recent years. At the time of writing, the coronavirus has infected almost 580 million people and has claimed nearly 6.5 million lives. During March and April 2020, up to a third of the world’s population was in lockdown, with huge implications for households, families and communities, not to mention educational and economic spheres. We have all been brought face to face with the global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus.
How do we make sense of natural disasters? One of the strongest objections to the Christian faith is the question of suffering. Suffering is one of the biggest barriers to belief in God. When Christians respond, a key part of their argument is to give what is known as a free will defence and highlight that humans can make choices for ill that can bring about suffering in the lives of others. Yet, a free will defence is helpful only in accounting for what philosophers call moral evil – evil relating to how humans behave. A very different kind of response is needed to make sense of natural evil – evil that impacts the natural world itself, either through geophysics in the case of natural disasters, or through our biology in the case of disease and sickness.
Questions about natural disasters are expressed in many ways. The premise behind each question is that events such as earthquakes, tsunami and pandemics seem to happen regardless of our choices, not because of them. Even if people are responsible for their actions, we are surely not responsible for natural disasters? They are caused by forces much bigger than us. Our insurance policies protect us against ‘Acts of God’. If God exists, then why does he let them happen? Is the profound suffering and loss caused by natural disasters yet more evidence that God does not exist? (I will refer to God as ‘he’ throughout this book because the Bible consistently uses the male pronoun. This is not to infer that God is male, but rather that he is a person rather than an ‘it’.)
Broken Planet will take a closer look at some of the questions that we ask about natural disasters.
But answers and arguments that appeal to the intellect will only get us so far. We also need to hear from those with first-hand experience of earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, drought, locust infestations and pandemics, as well as from those who have experienced war, famine and refugee crises. In researching my book “Broken Planet” I spoke to many people who have experienced natural disasters around the world, humanitarian aid workers, chaplains, doctors, tourists and local residents. Some were working for NGOs to bring emergency relief in the aftermath of a disaster. Others survived the disaster itself, which yields a suffering of its own: not just flashbacks of their trauma, but also survivor’s guilt – why they survived when so many others didn’t. I included their stories in my book not simply as a supplment to the material on philosophy and science to make the book more readable; but as arguments in themselves.
In the process of taking the interviews, I was shocked to repeatedly hear that this was the first time anyone had ever asked about their experiences, and of how hard it can be to relay the trauma they have seen on the front lines of life’s worst situations to friends and family back home. For some, their stories have never been told before, and so I count it a privilege to have been able to sit with each person and listen. Some said that if their story could help someone else, then it was a story worth sharing.
However, each person featured in the book has a lived experience of faith in God and shares his or her story from this point of view. You may not share those beliefs, but my hope is that you will be able to take their perspectives on board as you think through your own questions. Even though there is much we don’t understand, each person would say that they had seen God, whom they call Jesus, at work in very real ways, even amid widespread catastrophe.
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This extract has been taken from Sharon Dirckx’s book, “Broken Planet” published by IVP, 2023 and available here.
Dr Sharon Dirckx is a freelance speaker and author and an adjunct lecturer at OCCA, The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. Originally from a scientific background, she has a PhD in brain imaging from the University of Cambridge and held research positions in the UK and USA before moving into the area of apologetics. Sharon speaks and lectures regularly and has appeared on several BBC programmes in the UK, including Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday and Radio 4’s Beyond Belief. She is author of the award-winning book, Why?: Looking at God, evil and personal suffering, as well as Am I Just My Brain? Sharon lives in Oxford with her husband and two children.
It was great that Dr Sharon Dirckx was able to join us in Hampshire for the Confident Christianity conference at Cowplain Evangelical Church. Both her career as a brain-imaging scientist and her Christian faith persuade her that humanity is something unique, precious; part of and yet distinct from the animal kingdom; and possessing a particular dignity as part of God’s design. Watch Sharon’s talk from Cowplain the link above.
When it comes to sharing our faith, we are blessed with a wealth of books and writings available from articulate Christians defending and presenting the gospel. Today on PEP Talk we have a great testimony from someone whose reading quest helped immensely in moving him from atheism to Christ. He now works for a Christian book distributor and gives us some great recommendations for books and evangelistic tracts we might find helpful.
Adam White became a Christian in 2020 after reading book after book on the evidence for Christianity. He now travels around Scotland recommending books that point people to Jesus in his role with 10ofthose.com, the Christian book ministry. Adam loves reading and has a keen interest in apologetics, spending his free time giving seminars on how to talk to atheists and engaging people in 1-2-1 evangelism.
The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.
Voicing fears about the direction in which technology might be taking society can seem regressive. It might even earn someone the label ‘Luddite’. That term alludes to a protest group who sabotaged textile-making machines at the turn of the nineteenth century in frustration at the far-reaching changes that those machines were set to usher in. But while it remains somewhat unfashionable to be overtly critical of the direction in which emerging technologies may be taking us, science fiction has often been the medium of choice for those wanting to explore humanity’s complicated relationship to our increasingly powerful creations.
Widely acclaimed by critics, the Netflix anthology series Black Mirror is the brainchild of the British comedian Charlie Brooker. The show opens up a number of fascinating windows on the human condition and our relationship with technology. Its name is intriguing: it alludes to the way that the screen of an electronic device is like a black mirror, perhaps hinting that the technology we are building reflects our own hopes, fears, and desires, including the darker ones.
Black Mirror’s episodes are often dystopian, occasionally comical, and at times mind-bendingly disturbing, but consistent throughout is their fiendishly clever plot twists. Each episode stands alone and is unconnected to any other episode save for some occasional and rather subtle cross-references (so-called ‘Easter eggs’), meaning that there’s no need to watch them in any particular order. Many episodes are set in the future, though usually it’s a future that isn’t too far off and isn’t too difficult to imagine being reality.
Here’s a flavour of what the series has to offer (spoiler alert!). Series 6 Episode 1 Joan is Awful features an ordinary woman, Joan, who has a bad day at work and flops down in front of the TV with her boyfriend to unwind, only to find that the new show they decide to watch is about the life of a character who looks uncannily like Joan and has a day eerily similar to hers, even down to her secret rendezvous with a previous boyfriend. The show turns Joan’s life upside down and drives her to find a way to bring down the streaming company that she learns has been using an advanced AI (the ‘Quamputer’) to generate the show based on the data Joan has been unwittingly handing over via the ever-watching cameras and microphones on her electronic devices. S2 E3 The Waldo Moment is especially prescient given that it was made in 2012 and depicts a digital character named Waldo who ends up being elected in real life as the nation’s leader after running a campaign characterised by crude, inflammatory rhetoric and obscenities directed at his opponents. S4 E2 Arkangel depicts the tragedy that eventually unfolds after a well-meaning mother decides to install a system that tracks her daughter’s every move and prevents her from ever seeing or hearing anything distressing. One of the most chilling episodes, S3 E5 Men Against Fire, introduces us to a young soldier whose unit is tasked with tracking down and executing ‘roaches’, apparently a type of monster that poses a grave threat to humanity. We learn with horror, however, that ‘roaches’ are in fact human beings who have been deemed genetically undesirable by the powers that be, and that their appearance as monsters is a digital illusion overlaid onto the unwitting soldiers’ visual fields.
In a world in which technology is increasingly heralded as holding out the promise of solving all humanity’s problems – the popular science writer and futurist Yuval Noah-Harari even claims that death is a mere technical glitch to be solved in the coming decades [i] – Black Mirror offers a refreshingly candid take on the human condition and our complicated relationship with technology. The show’s creator Charlie Brooker has been clear that the point of the show is not to bash technology per se, but rather, to take a long hard look at the people using the tech. ‘Humans are weak is the story, rather than technology is evil, because I love tech’, he explained in a recent interview.[ii] Three recurring themes in the series’ commentary on human nature particularly stand out.
Perhaps the most poignant, and one that deeply resonates with a Biblical picture of the human condition, is the thought that enhancing our capabilities – be it through gaining the ability to rewind our memories like a literal video (S1 E3 The Entire History of You), having an android duplicate body so that we can be in two places at once (S6 E3 Beyond the Sea), or even uploading our minds into the cloud (S4 E6 Black Museum) – won’t necessarily make us any more virtuous as people. In fact, if anything, giving more power to flawed beings serves only to amplify our flaws and makes us more liable to damage one another and the world around us. Or in other words, the problem of the human condition is not principally one of limited capabilities but rather of misdirected desires.
Another theme that permeates the series is a sense of estrangement and alienation. Black Mirror gives voice to a feeling that many of the technologies that are supposed to be making the world ever more interconnected are actually leaving us lonely and empty. One of the saddest moments in the show occurs during S5 E2 Smithereens in which a rideshare driver kidnaps at gunpoint an intern working at the headquarters of a social media giant, and eventually reveals that his desperation is the result of losing his fiancée in a car accident he inadvertently caused while scrolling his social media feed. Black Mirror gives voice to our profound longing for connection and the way in which our relationships with one another have been marred and distorted.
A third theme is that of powerlessness in the face of seemingly unstoppable forces that we have unleashed. Many of the episodes revolve around the unforeseen consequences of technological innovations that were supposed to make life easier, but end up being twisted towards darker ends. There is even a sense that technology is gaining an agency of its own, and that its aims might not line up with our wellbeing. As the robotic killer dogs in S4 E5 Metalhead roam the post-apocalyptic landscape in search of any last remaining humans, the ominous thought lurks: at our peril do we trust in technology for salvation.
Technology per se isn’t malevolent; it is a tool and outworking of our hopes, fears, and dreams. Insofar as it is a reflection of its maker, however, we can’t expect technology to save us from ourselves. But might there be a surer foundation for hope? A source of salvation from outside the system? That, at any rate, is what Christianity claims. Our endless fascination with the human condition and the future that shows such as Black Mirror give voice suggests that it might at least be worth a look at what Christianity has to say about these themes.[iii]
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[i] https://openthemagazine.com/essay/the-last-days-of-death/
[ii] https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a44197628/charlie-brooker-black-mirror-interview/
[iii] See, for example, Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense (Faber & Faber, 2012)
At the Solas Confident Christianity conference at Cowplain, Justin Brierley joined us to talk about the subject of his latest book, the Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. Here he charts the disintegration of New Atheism, and the way in which in search for stories which make sense of life, many people are looking again at Christianity. This includes some influential academics and thinkers who Justin has interviewed on his radio show over the last few years.
There’s more about the book and where to get a copy here.
It’s often suggested that faith in God and science are contradictory – pick one, you can’t have both! But this is a popular myth. In this Short Answers video, Andy Bannister highlights how modern scientific discoveries point to the fact that the universe has been finely tuned, and points to a designer.
Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.
Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!
A team from Solas had the privilege of working with Cowplain Evangelical Church in Hampshire recently. Pastor Phill Brown and his amazing team at the church hosted us wonderfully, and it was great to be back amongst friends. Andy Bannister from Solas spoke several times over the weekend, and this talk is taken from the Confident Christianity conference we ran on the Saturday of our visit.
Andy’s subject here is how Christians can engage the apathetic in helpful spiritual conversations. Much of the Christian ‘apologetics’ developed in the era of the New Atheism seemed to assume that all non-Christian people were deeply opposed to our faith, and would be interested in vigorously debating it. That’s even less true now than it was then and there are many people who seem simply disinterested in questions of faith and meaning. In this talk, Andy shares some ways of opening dialogues with people like this’ who are often more interested in these questions than they at first seem.
