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PEP Talk with Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

by Solas

We have recently heard more stories of Christians “deconstructing” their faith before eventually leaving it. But today we speak with an academic and historian about how her atheism was “deconstructed” when she discovered its true implications for morality, value and equality.  She goes on to show how hospitality and relationship can be radical evangelistic tools in the context of our secular individualised culture.

With Sarah Irving-Stonebraker – PEP Talk

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Read more about Sarah’s testimony here: How Oxford and Peter Singer drove me from atheism to Jesus

Check out this extract from Rosaria Butterfield’s book “The Gospel Comes with a House Key” which Sarah and Andy mention: ‘The most effective tool for sharing the gospel is your home!’

Our Guest

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian-based academic, focusing on the history of Britain and the colonial world and especially the intersection of religion, science, and politics. She was awarded her PhD in History from Cambridge University and has lectured at Western Sydney University since 2012. Sarah and her husband, Johnathan, have three children. The family lives in the Hawkesbury region outside of Sydney where they are active members of a Sydney Anglican Church.

About PEP Talk

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.

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Keep a Thing Seven Years

by Editor

There’s a Gaelic saying which suggests that if you keep a thing for seven years, a use will be found for it. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t take that long.

This Sunday, I will have kept my grief for seven years. Like many new possessions, I carried it with me everywhere for the first while, moving it around as self-consciously as a child walking in stiff, leather shoes. When it was worn in a little, I started to forget for minutes at a time, only to be assailed by the reality of it when I least expected. In the last few days of Donnie’s life, I had been painfully aware that some time very soon I would no longer be a wife, but a widow.

I didn’t like the word and still less the idea that it represented.

Yet, in seven years, I have been taught to wear the mantle with something approaching acceptance. Instead of being allowed to push the garment from me, God has gently shown me that it IS mine to put on, every day. Traditionally, it also took seven years to train a piper, before they would be allowed to perform in front of an audience. There was no such apprenticeship for me, though – just straight in at the deep end.

I often think how this might all have been, had but one thing been different.

These seven years would have seen me grow bitter, perhaps, or reckless. I might have spent my time in wishing my husband back, or wishing I’d never met him – anything, in short, to remove the excruciating pain. The memory of his suffering could have tormented me to who knows what depths of anguish.

The one thing, though, which saved me from all of that was the hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t simply Christ saying, ‘I’m here, you can lean on me’. That would have been wonderful enough. In fact, his message was subtly different. He was actually telling me, ‘Remember I’m here. You know what to do’. This wasn’t the beginning of a wonderful new relationship, but a life-changing development of one that I hadn’t truly known I was in.

While I have carried – and will carry – Donnie in my heart, it is not loss which dominates my reflections over these seven years without him. It is gratitude. I had such a marriage that I didn’t think I could live without him. But God used that blessing to show me a much deeper and more enduring love. He has fulfilled me in the years of my widowhood, and shown me that, in Christ, all situations are an opportunity to know blessing.

I have profited from his teaching. It goes without saying that I have benefitted in more ways than I can count from his love and mercy. From the very beginning of this journey, though, God has laid it on my heart to share my providence with you. He did that, and then he made it possible.

Most miraculous of all, he took what might have destroyed me and blessed it to the extent that I can say that the Lord gives more than he takes away. Last Sunday, our minister used the sermon time to remind us of the glory and holiness of this God. And, right at the end, that devastatingly beautiful flourish of truth: ‘Remember, though, he is also your Father’.

Glorious, holy, perfect – of course; but tender and loving to the last. Not ‘also in our hard providences’ but especially. If you don’t believe it, I will take you to see a man who told me all things I ever did, and loved me just the same.

This article first appeared on Catriona Murray’s blog, “Post Tenebras Lux” here, and is used here with her kind permission.

At Tower Hamlets Community Church

by Editor

Andy was recently in London’s East End, speaking at Tower Hamlets Community Church (THCC) and catching up with their Pastor Tony Uddin who he knew over three decades ago. Tony describes himself as ‘half-Bengali, half-Scottish and 100% south London’ and leads a vibrant multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, all-age church in the heart of Tower Hamlets. Of all the local authorities in the country, Tower Hamlets is the most densely populated (16,237/Km2), has one of the fastest growing populations in the UK and is the heart of the country’s Bengali and Bangladeshi communities who make up over 30% of the population.

While it is sometimes the case that Christian churches have retreated from the inner cities, Tower Hamlets Community Church have deliberately sought to engage with their neighbours of all faiths and none and create a welcoming Christ-centred community for all.

The place they meet is part of a coffee-shop complex called “The Husk”, which provides a really welcoming space into which people feel welcome – and not as intimidated as they might be by a, traditional church building. The church provides a wealth of things for people to get involved with from youth and children’s work, to a night shelter and a Bengali Fellowship too!

When Andy went to THCC and chatted to folk there he was struck by the wide variety of faith-perspectives of people present. There were people who had been Christians for decades, some very new Christians – and several others who were exploring questions of faith and belief from a range of faith-backgrounds.

Andy had been invited to speak on the question, “Do all religions lead to God?” Many pluralists say “yes”, the implication being that no one need consider the truth claims of any faith at all in any depth; but assume that they are all different expressions of the same root.

Andy used a comparison of Christianity and Islam to show why this pluralistic view is massively problematic. Firstly that kind of pluralism is used to shut down real dialogue between people of different faiths and exclude them. Secondly, it arrogantly assumes that “If only every other religious person in the world was an enlightened as me, they would realise that they are wrong and I am right” but hiding that under a veneer of plurality. Thirdly it doesn’t do justice to the content of what different faiths actually teach – notable on the nature and character of God. in Christianity God is love, knowable, relational and willing to suffer for His creations; all of which are not claims that the Qur’an would ever make for Allah.

In John chapters 13 and 14, Jesus charts a different course, which Andy called “Open Exclusivity”. When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to The Father except through me” he makes a boldly exclusive claim. However, Jesus does this in an unexpected way because he also said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” in Matthew 11. So, while Jesus says he is exclusively the way – He also said that he would welcome all kinds of people! That is open exclusivity!

Andy reported that he had many great conversations with all kinds of people afterwards. One particularly significant one with a man who had left Islam but is still working out what he really believes. He had been attracted to the idea that all religions were essentially the same, but saw that this was an incoherent view and that he would need to actually think about Christian faith more deeply.

For Andy and all of us at Solas, we hope that this is only the start of a fruitful relationships with Tower Hamlets Community Church. There is already the possibility of some evangelism and training later in the year. Having conversations about faith can be hard to start in some parts of the UK, but as many people at THCC mentioned, “In Tower Hamlets there are people talking about faith, morning noon and night!”

The whole service is available online here , and Andy’s talk starts at 39:30.

 

Have You Ever Wondered Who You really Are?

by Editor

The story is told of a couple of lads who come out of a pub one night having had a bit too much to drink. As they staggered down the road trying to find their way home, they came across a very smart, uniformed, naval officer. Seeing his opportunity for some assistance, one of the lads asked, ‘Oi, mate, do you know where we are?’. Somewhat offended by their rather over-friendly approach, he looked down his nose at them and asked ‘Do you know who I am?’

At this the lad turned to his mate and exclaimed ‘Now we are really in trouble. We don’t know where we are, and he doesn’t know who he is!’

Have you ever wondered ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What makes me, me?’ The way we answer that question usually depends on the culture we live in.

Non-western cultures (and previous generations in the West as well) would have suggested that the answer to that question is external to ourselves. We need to look out and listen to who society tells us we are. In such a culture our identity is something given to us by our family and society.

A good example of this from my own country are the names that people have. Why are some people called ‘Cook’ or ‘Smith’ or ‘Baker’ and so on? Clearly, at some point these names were descriptive of the family profession. In such a society a certain set of expectations were placed upon you from birth. Your vocation and other life choices were given to you.

There are some benefits to such a way of doing things. Life was much simpler, and in some vocations, passing skills down through the generations can be highly beneficial. But it is also very restrictive. What if I don’t want to be who I have been told to be? What if my own personality, desires and natural abilities don’t fit the expectations laid upon me?

Today in the West most people would answer the question ‘Who am I?’ in a very different way. Instead of looking out to see what other people say, we are encouraged to look in and find the answer in our own desires and feelings. Our identity is not something given to us but something we can choose. We feel that we are free to create our own identity, and that no one else should be able to tell us who we are.

In some ways this is a very liberating mindset. We are no longer restricted by cultural expectations and stereotypes. For instance, when people first discover my wife works for an airline many assume she is cabin crew and are very surprised to discover she is actually a pilot. (Passengers have been known to ask her for drinks as she walks to the flight deck!). It is great that her career hasn’t been limited by those expectations and that she has been free to pursue and achieve her childhood dream.

However, is it really true that I can whoever I want to be? When I was a child, I discovered I was flat footed and needed special insoles in my shoes. The main result was that I wasn’t very good at running. Therefore, no matter how much I might have desired to be an Olympic 100 metre champion, that dream was never going to be realised. The limitations of our own physicality will at least in part determine who we are (and aren’t).

We also need to consider whether it is wise to not listen to others, and only consider our inner, subjective sense of self? Couldn’t others help us discover who are and what we are good at (or not)? Imagine for instance that I decide that I am going to be a great comedian. The only issue is that no one ever finds me funny? How do I respond? I could try ignoring them and pressing on with my career. I could try – but I’d probably be telling jokes only to myself before long. And this goes much farther than simply career choices. We are constantly refining our sense of identity based on the reaction of others.

We should also ask whether we are really as free as we think we are? We laugh at previous generations and their conformity to a set of societal expectations. But are we really free today or are we just conforming to a different set of expectations? Just look at what happens when people question some of those expectations on social media. We’re not as free as we think we are.

Both looking out to society and looking in to our desires can have some value in helping us find out who we really are. But what if our identity was not simply something given to us (from outside) or something we chose for ourselves (from within) but rather something to be discovered.

One ancient Hebrew poet expressed it this way when he wrote: ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’. The poet didn’t view himself simply as the result of biology and sociology, but as the creation of a loving God.

If this were true then it would mean that we have a value and significance inherent in who are, and not just because of what we do. We are after all human beings not human doings! In fact the Christian faith says that God loves and values us, but that love and value is not based on what we do, it’s actually in spite of what we do! He is a God who loves us in spite of our brokenness and failings and is willing to forgive us (at great cost).

If we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ it also would mean your uniqueness is not simply the result of chance but of design. Could it be that God has created you with a unique combination of abilities, desires and interests? If this is the case then maybe our identity is not something we chose but rather something to be discovered? The joy of the Christian life is that I don’t have to discover it by myself, or even just with the help of those around me. We can get to know in a personal way the God who created us. In relationship with him we can discover who he created us to be and how we can use that to make a difference in this world.

Solas and Riverside Church

by Editor

Our good friends at Riverside Church in Ayr invited Gavin Matthews from Solas to join them for a Sunday morning service recently. They are working through Luke’s gospel and asked him to take on Luke 12:1-12 – which is a tough passage of teaching from Jesus. He also was invited to give a short talk about the work and ministry of Solas. The video of the whole service is below. The Solas section is at 15:10 on the timer and Luke 12 at 32:47.

Riverside is great church that Solas love sharing with – and on October 1st we will be working together on a Confident Christianity conference in Ayrshire, with Riverside and several other churches who co-operate under the Keswick-in-Ayrshire banner. Look out for details of the conference in the autumn, or for updates on the Solas events page here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Andy Moore

by Solas 1 Comment

Andy Moore joins us this week to bring us insights from his unique background spanning full-time evangelism and corporate finance. Looking at the shifts happening in big business and the personal lives of his financial colleagues, how can we respond to the questions of purpose, moral responsibility and meaning that dominate these worlds?

With Andy Moore – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Andy Moore is a Director and Entrepreneur with experience across Corporate, Private Equity, Charitable and start-up sectors. Andy leads an Angel-investment network, with a sister-Venture Capital fund focussed on scaling for-profit businesses that solve social or environmental problems. Besides this, Andy serves on the Board for a Christian charity which focuses on human rights and religious freedom.

Andy is an experienced public speaker and holds associate positions with The OCCA, Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and Transform Work UK. Andy has spoken at some of the world’s largest corporates, including Facebook, UBS, Goldman Sachs, KPMG and Barclays among others. Andy is a Chartered Accountant in England and Wales and holds a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham. Andy is married to Rachel and enjoys the highs and lows of following Manchester United and the Irish rugby team!

About PEP Talk

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.

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Have You Ever Wondered Why Humans Are So Curious?

by Editor

My father loved cosmology. He often shared with me his wonder at the vastness and complexity of the universe. I remember how he particularly loved to share lunar and celestial events with me. Once, he woke me up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower from our back porch. He brought out two lounge chairs and some blankets, and we watched the bright, burning rocks soar through the night sky commenting on their brilliance. I asked him, “What all do you think is out there?” He replied, “I don’t know, but it’s fascinating isn’t it?”

We humans are curious creatures. From our earliest ability to speak, we ask the question, “why?” We want to know how and why things work. We investigate and discover the existence of things. We marvel at creation. This intellectual curiosity has driven us on to impressive discoveries about our world and has advanced our technologies in nearly every field.

And curiosity is not just something that happens inside our heads. It is also a social pursuit. We often share thoughts and ideas with others, testing out our knowledge and expanding our depth of understanding. Sharing our interests leads to friendships and relationships and further exploration of ideas, which, in turn, builds community.

But why are humans so curious? Is there anything we can say about the origin of this inquisitive nature? While there are many avenues to explore on this matter, let’s stick with exploring Christianity’s relationship with human wonder.

Made in the Image of God

In the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible 1:26-27, we read,

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

In God’s acts of creation, there was one being that He created to significantly reflect something of Himself: humans. We reflect God’s image, through our morality, our free agency, our emotions, but also through our rationality and self-awareness. These gifts have led us to ask the hard questions about the world in which we live, from God’s existence to our own existence and the existence of everything in-between. You may be familiar with the philosopher Rene Descartes’ renowned thought experiment, in which he wondered how we could even know our own existence with any sense of certainty. How can we know that we are not just deceived or hallucinating? This experiment led to his now famous conclusion, “I think, therefore I am.”

We don’t have to go to the level of scepticism of Descartes to understand that being rational is not the same thing as having all knowledge. There are some things that we do not know. And there are some things further that may be beyond our ability to know, such as “What is God?” and “How did God create?” The gaps in our knowledge and in our ability to know are major driving forces in our wonder at the universe in which we live. We are constantly aware that there is always more to discover. So we reach out and stretch ourselves to the limits of what we know, always pushing further.

The Transcendence of God

While we are made with critical reasoning skills, only God has perfect knowledge, or as The Bible puts it,, God’s mind is greater than ours:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The transcendence of God’s knowledge over ours is an important point. If humans could fully comprehend the mind of God, then I would argue that God is something of our own creation. However, if there is a God who created the universe, including humans, then I would expect Him to be greater than us in every way. It’s an argument from common sense, but it’s also so much more. God’s transcendence is a foundation for human wonder.

C.S. Lewis notably stated,

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

Reasonably, if there is a God who is immeasurably great, then we will have an immeasurably great desire to discover. There will always be something that we do not know. The intensity of this desire is matched, not by our closed universe with, ultimately, limitations to knowledge, but by an eternal Creator whose vastness is unfathomed…his “other worldliness.”

Standing in Awe

As I think back to those cherished childhood moments, of marveling at the universe surrounding us, I think of the Psalmist’s words: Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! (Psalm 33:8, ESV) There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. (Psalm 86:8-10 ESV)

We humans are curious because of our created nature but also because of our relationship to God and the vastness of His creation. It is right and proper for us to wonder. Curiosity is a mechanism through which we grow and mature in our Christian faith. It helps us to be ever inquisitive about ourselves and our world. It also helps to remind us of our intellectual position in the universe; not just of having knowledge, but also recognizing that we lack knowledge. And as we begin to understand the things that God has made, we begin to understand something about our Creator God.

My father helped to cultivate in me a lifelong love of discovery and learning. And that is what we humans were made to do: to seek out information about ourselves, our world, and our Creator. We were made for a relationship with the transcendent Creator God, who is eternally the source of remarkable things, including our insatiably curious minds.

Questions of God and Science at Glasgow University CU

by Editor

Andy reports back after a great day spent with students at Glasgow University, considering questions of faith and science – wonderfully hosted at the student union by Glasgow University Christian Union.

In the video, Andy refers to physicist Luke Barnes and his work on the ‘fine-tuning’ of the universe. For more on this, watch this interview with Barnes here.

Is the Bible a Tool of Oppression?

by Solas

Is the Bible a tool of oppression? Is it an ancient text that has caused more harm than good? Is it a book which holds us back from modern progress? Surely, we can navigate our way to liberation without the Bible. In this Short Answers video, Clare Williams explores how the Bible tells a compelling story of God’s liberating work in human history.

About Clare Williams: https://realquestions.co.uk/about

The “slave Bible” Clare mentions is described here: https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/theconveyor/the-slave-bible-of-1807/

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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.

Support

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 “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Summer Reading Guide

by Solas

It’s incredible to see how many books are released month by month – and it can be so hard to decide what to read next! As we get come into summer, and hopefully some restful holidays, it would be a great opportunity to pick up a good book that will encourage, inspire and challenge you in your faith.

Fool Moon Rising – Kristi Fluharty and T Lively Fluharty
Fool moon rising is a brilliant parable about the moon’s pride – forgetting that it’s light is only a reflection of something greater! Through a rhyming story, this is a brilliant imaginative way to think through humility with young children, showing them that everything they have is from God.

Genuine – CB Martin

Fakes are everywhere – and are hard to spot! But six teenagers throughout the Bible help us to learn how to be genuine. This book has short, punchy chapters and encourages teens to use their formative years to become genuine adults. It’s written for 13-19 year olds, and would be an ideal book for camps and youth groups!

God’s Secret Listener – John Butterworth

There’s something fascinating and encouraging about hearing someone else’s story, of hearing how God saved them, is using them and has kept them. If you would naturally reach for a fiction book over the summer time, why not pick up this story of Berti’s journey from Captain Dosti to Pastor Dosti – the story of the explosive growth of the church in Albania after years of repressive atheism.

God of All Things – Andrew Wilson

God expressed so much about Himself as illustrated by the physical world around. Throughout the Bible we are shown how to glimpse glory in the stars and see God’s image imprinted into dust. But often we don’t dwell on these images – and we miss out on being reminded of these truths as we go about our normal lives. This is a brilliant read that I hope will spring to mind often as I go about my normal routine – reminding me that this is God’s creation, and that he has a plan.

Seed of the Woman – Nana Dolce

If you want to get into the Bible over the summer – Nana Dolce traces through 30 narratives, the stories of the women from the Garden through to the birth of Christ. Through these women, we find our place in redemptive history as it unfolds to show us Jesus. This would be a brilliant gift to give away – but well worth reading before you pass it on!

Making Faith Magnetic – Dan Strange

As I think about sharing my faith, often my worry is whether Christianity seems irrelevant to my friends and neighbours. We know that it’s not – but it can be difficult to know how to share it relevantly with those around us. Dan Strange, building on the work of Bavinck, shows us five fundamental themes that help us to connect with those who aren’t religious. He helps us show others how Jesus is the fulfilment of what they’re seeking, whether that’s in seeking their destiny or a deep connection to others.

Things We All Have in Common – Pete Jackson

We all share in ‘the human condition’. We all have desires and faith, anxiety and shame. In this short book, Pete Jackson thoughtfully shows how Jesus Christ addresses what we are all like. This would be a great book to read and then plan to share with those who don’t know Jesus for themselves – as well as passing on to Christian friends to encourage them in the faith!

Surprised by Jesus – Dane Ortlund

As Christians, we are often in real danger of forgetting how surprising Jesus is in the gospels. Dane goes to each gospel in turn, and helpfully shows us the grace of God displayed in Jesus, and how Jesus took aim at the legalism in the hearts of his listeners. This is an incredibly helpful book to refresh us in our faith and our reading of the gospels.

What God has to Say About Our Bodies – Sam Allberry

Our eternal future is destined to be a physical existence in glorified bodies. Yet often as Christians we under-emphasise the significance of the body – and our culture has become increasingly gnostic in its outlook. Sam Alberry helpfully takes us back to the bible’s teaching – looking through creation, fall and redemption to see what God’s perspective is and how we should live in the light of that.

Are You 100% Sure You Want to Be An Agnostic? – Jonathan Gemmell and Andrew Sach

I confess that I may have saved my favourite for last! This short evangelistic book is well written, witty and winsome – and well researched too! So many of my neighbours and friends don’t know what they believe about God – and this written just for them! Gemmell and Sach walk with us through Biblical passages and logical arguments – illustrated with personal stories – which build a compelling case for Jesus. This is a book that’s well worth buying in quantity and giving away liberally!

Tim Foster works for 10ofThose.com from where all these titles can be purchased. Click on any cover image to go there!

Christianity and Islam, Andy at the ‘NE Fife Filling Station’

by Editor

The Filling Stations are a network of meetings across the country which meet in places like village halls and cafés. When Andy went to the North East Fife Filling Station, it was one of their first in –person meetings for a while. First, Covid had prevented them meeting, and then a lot of people had decided that they’d still rather meet online in the cold Winter months and delay their proper re-opening until the Spring! So Andy went to the village of Letham in Fife, to speak at the Village Hall to the 40 or so people who gathered there. The NE Fife Filling Station is led by Charles and Sarah Warren. Charles is well-known to a lot of people as he is Senior Lecturer in Geography at St Andrews University, where he specialises in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development.

Charles describes the Fillins Station as “A network of meetings across the UK and overseas which exist to support and encourage local Christians in their faith.  They are aimed especially at those who do not have regular access to worship, teaching and prayer ministry – but all are welcome!”

Andy has known Charles for many years, as they met at the ‘Refuel’ festival in the North of Scotland. During lockdown, Charles read Andy’s book, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?” and invited Andy to speak about that at the Filling Station.

Andy spoke about one particular key aspect of the book – that is ‘the character of God’. He looked at the way that God is relational, knowable, love and suffered with us in Christ. That obviously is in direct contrast with the Islamic vision of Allah, which rejects all four of those things. So Andy explored those differences and how Christians should respond to them.

As usual in meetings where Andy speaks, there was plenty of time for Q&A. He said, “Although this was ostensibly a meeting for Christians, a few of the questions came from people who were agnostic, or seeking, as they had a definite ‘bite’ to them!” Inevitably, these were the questions that he enjoyed engaging with the most!

Charles Warren added, “After some lively praise and worship, Andy gave a typically clear and engaging talk on the question ‘Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?’, drawing on his recent book.  This led into an extended Q&A session with wide-ranging questions, all of which Andy handled superbly.  It was a fascinating, encouraging and faith-building evening.”

PEP Talk Podcast With Carl Porter

by Solas

Andy’s just moved house and discovered a new neighbour sharing the gospel on his street! They meet up in a local cafe to discuss evangelism, spiritual MOTs, church planting and encouraging others to share their love of Christ. Eavesdrop on their conversation in this unique episode of PEP Talk.

With Carl Porter – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Carl Porter is married to Sarah and has two daughters. Carl became a Christian in 2014 and since then has been passionate about personal evangelism and trying to help others grow in their own evangelism. From October this year Carl will be leaving secular employment to allow him to go full-time into evangelistic ministry in both his local community and more widespread by providing practical evangelism training to other individuals, groups and churches.

About PEP Talk

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.

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The Lost Code, Part Four: Science and Technology

by Editor

‘The Bible, with its myths, miracles and fanciful descriptions of angels and demons, has been a major barrier to the emergence of modern science. Only when the Renaissance and the Enlightenment freed modern minds from the medieval superstition of this book could the Scientific Age really begin.’

This widely-accepted proposition may look reasonable and obvious on the surface. However, objective research and honest inquiry expose this perspective itself to be a modern myth.
Secular philosophers and scientists like A. N. Whitehead and J. R. Oppenheimer candidly admit that modern science was born out of the biblical worldview. While older civilisations like Greek, Hindu and Buddhist, and the later world of Islam, all had significant contributions to make to human knowledge, their belief systems undermined the development of scientific thinking as we understand it today.

The Greeks may have been the first to seek rational answers to questions of the existence and the nature of life and the cosmos, but their worldview denigrated the labour necessary to effect change. Chinese and Indian views of the physical world as illusory and unreal prevented the development of scientific understanding in the East, despite early discoveries like the printing press, the windmill, gunpowder and the concept of zero.

dna-1811955_1920

Muslims had access to many Greek manuscripts and to Aristotle long before the West, yet were inhibited by their deterministic religion from allowing scientific thought to flourish.
Was it simply coincidental that the explosion of scientific thinking and discoveries followed the Renaissance and the 16th century Reformation in Europe? Or can we discover a link between the recovery of biblical truths and the blossoming of science and technology? Why were the vast majority of scientific inventions since the early 17th century originated by Europeans and their ‘offspring’? Why did 97% of the Nobel Prize winners for natural science from 1901-1990 have Judaic-Christian backgrounds, as noted in research by American economist, John Hulley: 64% Protestant, 22% Jewish, 11% Catholic?

Could it be because the biblical worldview provided the cornerstone premises for modern science, as follows? One, the natural world is real. Two, the human mind is capable of knowing its true nature. Three, nature is unified and its components are related through cause and effect. And four (on which the previous three are based), there is a rational God who is distinct from the cosmos which he created and sustains.

The declaration by this intelligent, purposeful Creator that his creation was ‘very good’ assured that the physical universe operated under reliable laws which humans could discover. The spiritual world and the material world could therefore work together in harmony.

This was the mindset of the vast majority of the pioneers of modern science, including pre-Reformation scholars as early as the 13th century Franciscan monk Roger Bacon. He challenged the dominant Aristotelian thinking in his own Catholic church. Like fellow Catholics Copernicus and Galileo three centuries later, he was strongly opposed by his own religious leaders for proposing rational investigation through observation and experimentation of God’s creation, his Book of Works.

Pioneers in the many fields that developed rapidly after the above premises were laid, and who shared these biblical convictions, included:
• Anatomy: Andreas Vesalius
• Genetics: Gregor Mendel
• Astronomy: Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei
• Physics: Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Alessandro Volta, Georg Ohm, André Ampère, Michael Faraday and William Kelvin
• Chemistry: Robert Boyle, John Dalton (father of atomic theory) and Joseph Priestly
• Medicine: James Simpson (chloroform, gynaecology), Louis Pasteur (bacteriology), Joseph Lister (antiseptics).

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, founded in 1660, became a prestigious organisation promoting scientific advance. Inspired by Comenius, the Moravian bishop and educationalist, the society grew out of informal meetings at Gresham College, a Puritan institution, with seven Puritans among the ten original member scientists.

Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all times, actually wrote more about theology than about science (although his science was arguably better than his theology). Kepler, who studied for the Lutheran ministry, described his work as ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’. Pascal, who had a divine encounter in a ‘night of fire’ and wrote the classical devotional Pensées, is famous for his argument called ‘Pascal’s wager’: ‘If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything.’
Lord Kelvin, of the Kelvin scale which measures absolute zero, wrote: ‘If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God.’

If we ‘think strongly enough’, we are forced to concede that modern science was indeed born out of the biblical worldview. And that’s no myth.

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Jeff Fountain is director of the Netherlands-based Schuman Centre for European Studies. This article is adapted with permission from a chapter of his forthcoming illustrated coffee-table book about how the Bible has shaped western life

Why Should We Care About the Environment?

by Solas

Have you ever wondered why the environment matters? Daily we are told—by the media and politicians, by campaign groups and activists—that we should change our lifestyles in order to care for the natural world. But why? Purely out of selfishness (care for the earth so humans thrive)? Or is there a better reason, a better story into which calls for environmental care fit better?

For a deeper exploration of this topic, read this article on creation stewardship.

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