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Solas and ‘The Filling Station’

In this video-blog, Andy Bannister talks about Solas’ burgeoning partnership with The Filling Station network, who they are, what they do and two great events in Lossiemouth and Buchan. Listen out for the surprising story of one lady putting her faith in Jesus.

Scottish Filling Station Director Craig Mackay said,
“The thirst for solid and revelatory Bible teaching throughout the Filling Station network is being beautifully served by Andy and Solas, with hundreds of Christians and many non-Christians turning out at Filling Station meetings in Buchan and Lossiemouth over the past few weeks, to hear Andy speak. Andy has a great talent for being informative and respectful in describing current world views but always leaving our attendees better advised and more confident of their faith and clear about the unique nature of Jesus”.

Are There Two Contradictory Views of God in the Bible? | Jonny Somerville

“The God of the Old Testament is a god of wrath and judgement; the God of the New Testament is a god of love and forgiveness!” How should Christians respond to those who claim that there are two utterly irreconcilable pictures of God in the Bible? In this episode of SHORT/ANSWERS, special guest Jonny Somerville from NUA Film Series joins us to help us think about this very common question.

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Book Review: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.

Reviewed by Sarah Allen

9781784742324People slept on the streets outside bookshops the night before the launch of The Testaments this September. The day of the launch was marked by a programme live-streamed to cinemas across the globe containing an interview with the author and readings from the book. This was, The Guardian told us, ‘the literary event of the year’, with hype on a Harry Potter level.
The centre of attention wasn’t, however, a phenomenon of children’s publishing, but a sequel (and in some ways a prequel) which followed 34 years after Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. This first book is a well-respected dystopian feminist text, often set for A-level and known for its subtle exploration of fear, loss, longing through the story of Offred, one of the handmaid surrogates brought in to bear children for infertile elite couples in the republic of Gilead. In it we see the distortion of Old Testament narratives to support a totalitarian regime run through surveillance and violence and strict division of the sexes. The three 2017-19 TV series, which extended Atwood’s original and made the handmaid’s red cloak and white winged bonnet instantly recognisable, have remade (and arguably reduced) the story for the #MeToo generation, reshaping the handmaid as an icon for 21st century popular feminism.
So, we now have ‘handmaids’ marching against proposed abortion limits and even Kylie Jenner holding a handmaid-themed birthday party. The Handmaid’s Tale, we’re told, has “a new prescience in the era of Donald Trump”. Strangely (and this has been noted by others) those marching in Washington don’t seem to dwell on the clearer parallels between the countries under sharia law and the dystopia of Gilead. Nor does anyone seem to apply Atwood’s indictment of surrogacy and polygamy/amory to western culture today.
If Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale against the 80’s backdrop of soviet totalitarianism and the Iranian Revolution, adding a feminist interpretation of puritan New England, The Testaments has been written against our current background of increasingly mainstream feminism. It’s also, in a large part, a response to the Handmaid TV show. Atwood acknowledges to her fans that “everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in”. This means that the tone and content of the books are very different. Gone is nuance and fear, in is action and optimism.
The Handmaid’s Tale’s narrator was Offred, a mother and once a wife, now a handmaid. She is essentially a passive character, trapped physically by the regime and bound to her memories of the past. The Testaments has three narrators, whose separate stories become increasingly interwoven as the novel progresses. Of these three, Daisy and Agnes are young girls, one growing up in Gilead, one outside, and Lydia is an ‘Aunt’, a formidable manager of the handmaids and an architect of the system. This means that through Lydia we hear of how Gilead came into being and how complicit women become in their own oppression, scheming against each other for power. Lydia is the most interesting of these narrators, but still, the plot so drives the novel that she isn’t finely drawn. Like a slightly literary Hunger Games, the story bowls along through its 400+ pages until eventually the baddies (and they really are baddies) are dealt with through sisterly loyalty and a lot of female cunning, as well as some Shakespearean coincidence. Go girl power!
Underneath the action of the thriller-style plot, however, there remains some good Atwood subtlety. When Agnes doubts her faith, she says “you feel exiled. As if you are lost in a dark wood” but is reassured that the Bible tells a different story from Gilead’s doctrine. Still, the shocking Judges 19 -21 narrative of the Levite and his concubine referred to in The Handmaid’s Tale makes an appearance here, with, of course no mention of its subtext – that when each of us do “as [we] see fit”, disaster for women, and men as well, ensues.
Whilst some readers might see the book as a condemnation of Christianity, and of the danger of a doctrine of revelation which requires submission to an ancient text. We note that in both these books Jesus isn’t mentioned and Bibles are locked up. Gilead’s religion is all duty, law and power, with no grace and no questions. What Atwood condemns instead is the extremism possible in any thought system – even MeToo feminism, of which she recently said, “anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic, a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.” Her fans may not realise it, but they can be guilty of Gilead-like oppression as well. What should our response be? To open the Bible and point to the God-man who gave up power to set captives free.

Confident Christianity conference: Aberdeen

Solas has been on the road again with our Confident Christianity conferences, which are increasingly taking us all over the UK. This time, Andy Bannister and the team went northward, where Hebron Evangelical Church were our hosts in Aberdeen. The conference was a great collaboration between Hebron, Aberdeen Christian Fellowship, Gerrard Street Baptist, Gilcomston Church, and Deeside Christian Fellowship.
All Confident Christianity conferences have on thing in common; they are designed to excite and equip Christians in local churches for evangelism. That means both direct training in helpful ways to talk about Jesus in today’s world; but also some great ways in which to thoughtfully and respectfully engage with people’s objections and questions to Christian belief. Solas draws upon a range of expert speakers from across the UK and each conference features three or four of these speakers and no two Confident Christianity conferences are identical.
Aberdeen’s Confident Christianity conference kicked off with a short devotional message from Duncan Ryan from Hebron Evangelical. He welcomed delegates by reminding them that evangelism is primarily God’s role, and we enjoy the privilege of God inviting us to participate in His work of reaching people.
20190601_093215682_iOSAndy Bannister led the first session of the day which was a very practical look at wise (and biblical!) ways of handing the questions that our non-Christian friends and colleagues ask us about our faith. So many Christians tell us that they would love to be better at explaining their faith in Jesus to others, but are afraid to do so. Andy encouraged the folks in Aberdeen not to let fear of failure put them off evangelism, but to discover that fear isn’t anything to be afraid of! Andy also looked at the ways that Jesus in the gospels responded to the questions people asked him – some of which were pretty hostile. Jesus’ method, and approach is something we can all learn from, and something which is liberating and empowering: and it basically involves learning to ask really good questions.
20190601_090913900_iOSMark Stirling lead the second session of the day, entitled “Unmasking the hidden faith commitments of our sceptical friends”. In this talk, Mark drew on both his academic work, and his experience working in the NHS to show that secularists frequently try to exclude Christian views, by trying to position themselves as ‘neutral’, but Christians are trying to impose their belief-system or agenda. Mark demonstrated that behind such claims are beliefs which are every bit as much as exclusive as ours! He suggested that exposing these hidden agendas is a good way of showing that Christians too have valid contributions to make to conversations about values, and beliefs. Later in the day Mark talked about “How to disagree without being disagreeable”. In this insightful talk which explored contemporary culture, he examined why people find Christian beliefs so offensive today (or portray Christians as hateful or harmful), and how can respond. Drawing on his own personal experiences of sharing the gospel with many people, he talked about loving and relational ways of sharing hard truths with a sceptical world.
20190601_101505331_iOSOur third speaker, David Galloway, is a medical scientist who is convinced that universe we observe cannot be the result of blind chance alone. He is convinced that the physical evidence (as revealed by the tools of science) point powerfully to design and intention and that this in turn points us towards God. In his first talk, David explained some of his reasoning, and encouraged the folks in Aberdeen not to capitulate to the atheist claims that the claims of science nullify faith in God. Rather, he encouraged them to be confident in talking to friends, family and colleagues about the creator behind the creation. In his second talk, David explored the myths of “Scientism”, the idea that the scientific method is all that is required to understand, and explain the universe – and just as significantly teach us how we ought to act within it. Popular atheist assaults on theology and philosophy are grounded on the idea that science is the universal tool for explaining both what is and what ought to be; yet it actually fails adequately achieve either. (Our latest Short Answers video explored the same theme: “Has Science Explained Everything?” — check it out here).
20190601_104510121_iOSMax Baker-Hytch from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA), was our fourth speaker. His first topic was “What historians can tell us about Jesus”. From popular writing to internet bloggers and social media pundits, the world is full of people who decry the reliability of the gospels and the portrait of Christ that they contain. Max looked at the actual historical evidence, and showed that the New Testament documents are extraordinarily accurate about every fact which can be historically demonstrated, and were written far more soon after the events they depict than most popular critics suggest. A critic on Solas’s Facebook post recently claimed that Everyone knows that the gospels were written centuries after the events’. If only they had heard Max’s talk and realised just how weak a position that is! Later in his second talk, Max addressed the ‘Hiddenness of God’ and was able to take the folks in Aberdeen through some great material relating to Jesus, his uniqueness and the revelation of God.
20190601_093158221_iOSFinally, Andy Bannister wrapped up the formal sessions with a talk entitled, “Are We Matter or We Matter?” which examined the Christian claim that humanity is valuable and precious. While our atheist friends want to reduce humans to just atoms and particles and stuff, Andy showed the beauty of the uniquely biblical claim that humanity alone both bears the image of God, and is the main object of God’s redeeming love in Christ. As such, the claim that we are merely atoms and particles, is reductionist, tragic and rather bleak. The Christian gospel’s view of the dignity of humanity, and our worth to God is a profoundly hopeful apologetic in our increasingly cynical and hope-less world.
At the end of the conference, delegates had the opportunity to quiz the speakers in fascinating Q&A session which was chaired by Matthew Henderson, pastor of Gerrard Street Baptist Church. Questions were sent in by text and included everything from how Christians should respond to LGBTQI+ friends to the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
Mark Brown, Hebron Evangelical’s Community Worker said, “I think the talks were absolutely spot-on, and covered a wide spectrum of topics. What they had in common was to get us to be a bit more proactive and intentional about evangelism. The church needs to be engaging and build bridges from where we are to where our secular and atheistic friends are. I think the theme of ‘Confident Christianity’ is a really important one. It was also really encouraging to see Christians from across the churches in Aberdeen coming together to think about this. I hope that conference will have an overflow-effect so that this won’t be just a one-off fun event for a Saturday, but actually begins to change the way we engage with our colleagues in a day-to-day life.”

“We could not have put on an event like this without the help of Solas. Your team made everything very easy from start to finish. Significantly it felt like a partnership and collaboration between SOLAS and the local churches involved.” – Mark Brown, Hebron Evangelical Church, Aberdeen.

Our hope and prayer at Solas, is that with every Confident Christianity conference that we do, Christians in different parts of the country will be inspired to talk more naturally and persuasively about Jesus.
We could bring a Confident Christianity conference to your town or city. Please contact us to talk through how it works—it’s much easier than you think, and we’d love to help the churches in your town reach your community for Christ.

Andy Kind photo

PEP Talk Podcast With Andy Kind

Your hosts Andy Bannister and Kristi Mair are joined by Andy Kind for this, the second episode of the Persuasive Evangelism Podcast, recorded live at CreationFest 2019. Both Andys will be speaking this weekend at the Confident Christianity Conference in Salisbury. Mr Kind has a fantastic talk called Hidden in Plain Sight: Why Jesus is the best explanation of what you know about yourself. If you’re in the area, come along for the most comedy you’ll ever find in an evangelism conference!

With Andy Kind PEP Talk

Our Guest

Andy Kind is a preacher and stand-up comedian. As well as travelling the world telling jokes and talking about Jesus, he lives in Chesterfield and is on the staff of Redeemer King church. Find him @andykindcomedy or andykind.co.uk

PEP Talk Podcast – Pilot Episode With Jonny Somerville

Welcome to PEP Talk, the Persuasive Evangelism Podcast, where we bring you an interesting guest each episode to discuss how best to share your faith. From testimonies to techniques to resources, each guest brings real-world experience or expertise to get you inspired!

With Jonny Somerville PEP Talk

Our Guest

Jonny Somerville is a Dublin native who’s worked for more than ten years in Irish schools and churches across denominations. He’s passionate about faith development and the opportunity to supplement school curriculum that helps young people grapple with their faith. He currently leads the NUA Film Series for Alpha and Scripture Union Ireland. Find him on Twitter @jonnysomers

Book Review: Why? Looking at God, evil and personal suffering by Sharon Dirckx

It is all too easy to reduce suffering to an intellectual question, forgetting that the questioner is very often dealing with a deep personal hurt that is behind what they ask. An inspiring story about a baby with holoprosencephaly is the first of five personal stories that ensure this book is much more than an intellectual response to questions about suffering. A logical and clear approach looks at both questions of individual suffering, particularly around illness, and wider questions such as natural disasters. Dirckx’s scientific background comes across clearly, as does her experience of caring for her husband during illness.
I particularly liked the focus on our personal role (‘Am I responsible for anyone else’s suffering?’ is one chapter heading), and the constant pointers back to Jesus’ work on the cross (‘Can a broken story be fixed?’). Although accessible for non-Christians, I think this book will be of most help to Christians who struggle with their own questions about suffering.
Quotations draw heavily on others associated with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics where Dirckx is based, which may seem a little narrow to some. There is also a chapter looking at whether religion itself causes suffering, which addresses this common question of today. It is for its contemporary relevance and clear thought that I would primarily recommend this book; it may not replace The Problem of Pain on most bookshelves, but complements CS Lewis and others with its insight into questions being asked by many.

You can purchase Why? from our book partner – 10ofThose.com


Laurence Crutchlow,

8290e1d4d29deb24e492e0e4e391010789b4c137is a London GP and Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) Associate Head of Student Ministries. This review first appeared in the CMF Magazine, “Triple Helix“, and is republished here with their kind permission.

Powerpoint+

Powerpoint, billed as Scotland’s largest intercity youth event, has regular gatherings for secondary school age teenagers, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen throughout the year. These meetings bring hundreds and and hundreds of youth people together for evenings of worship, fun, fellowship. teaching and a good night out together Powerpoint+ was a whole day event, held on Saturday 15th of June at Errol Airfield, halfway between Perth and Dundee, bringing together the Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen folks.

Andy Bannister from Solas kicked off the afternoon session with a youth-version of his evangelism training session, “How to talk about Jesus without sounding like an idiot”, which focuses on how to engage in friendly, useful conversations about faith with people who aren’t Christians.
The main hall (which may have had previous life as an aircraft hanger or vast cattle shed!), had a stage and worship area, an exhibition area stuffed full of stands, activities and shops; and massive inflatables too. Outside on the grass, were loads of sporting activities, cafe’s and coffee shops.
Andy Bannister noted,  “It was great to work together with SU Scotland, Powerpoint,  and  speak to hundreds and hundreds of eager young people who want to go deeper with God and learn how to share the good news of Jesus with their friends.”

Reasons for God

When I was young, I thought faith had to be blind. I thought you couldn’t give reasons for God. I thought belief was something you simply had or you didn’t. It wasn’t until University that I became a Christian, and that was partly because, for the first time in my life, friends of mine were able to show me that their faith was not blind – that they had strong reasons for believing in God.
Now, admittedly Christianity asks us to believe some extraordinary things:
• The entire universe was created by an invisible, immaterial being.
• That being then intricately designed the universe so that human life would be possible.
• Then that being came and lived among us as a human person, he died, three days later he literally, physically rose from the grave, and then for weeks afterwards he appeared to hundreds of people.
Christianity makes some BIG claims. But here’s a phrase I want you to remember:

“CRITICISM without ALTERNATIVE is EMPTY…”

If someone wants to say your faith is stupid, you should ask them what they believe instead. You should ask them if they have a better suggestion – a better alternative – for how to make sense of the world. And then you can put the alternatives side-by-side and see which beliefs make more sense.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you four reasons why I believe in God, and then I’m going to place these reasons side-by-side with the alternative beliefs so that we can judge what is most reasonable.
We can see these reasons for God by looking back, looking up, looking down, and looking in.

1. Looking Back

First, let’s look back, all the way back to the beginning of the universe.
A hundred years ago most scientists assumed that the universe had no beginning – that it had just always existed. But one of the most significant developments in science in the last 100 years is that the majority of scientists have now come to believe that the universe had a beginning. Scientists are now able to detect that the universe is actually expanding in size in all directions. The picture that results from this if we trace back the expansion is a universe that began with an utterly dense point, and then, like a firework, exploded into the universe at the Big Bang.
The Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking says this:
‘All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted…’[1]
The universe had a beginning.

With more time we could look at many more reasons for God. For instance, what is the more reasonable alternative, that God is the standard of what is good and evil or that there is no such thing as good and evil? 

As a Christian, I think that beginning is explained when I open my Bible and read ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1).
But if you don’t believe in God, what is your alternative? The alternative is to say that the universe just popped into existence from nothing, for no reason whatsoever! This is a very weird claim. Here’s one depiction of it that I saw recently:

‘ATHEISM: The belief there was once absolutely nothing. And nothing happened to the nothing until the nothing magically exploded (for no reason), creating everything and everywhere. Then a bunch of the exploded everything magically rearranged itself (for no reason whatsoever), into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.’[2] 

That’s having a bit of fun. But it’s also making a reasonable point. Things don’t just pop into existence out of nothing and for no reason. If the universe began to exist, there must be an explanation for its existence.  And the best explanation on offer is that God created it.

2. Looking Up

For the second reason for God, let’s look UP. And what we find is that the universe is incredibly finely-tuned for life.
Imagine you take out a deck of cards and start playing poker with your best friend. And in the first twelve rounds, she gets twelve straight royal flushes. (If you’ve never played poker, that would be like winning the lottery twelve times in a row.) What should we think? That’s right, she’s cheating! Why? Because even if she’s a very honest woman, it’s so incredibly unlikely for someone to get twelve straight royal flushes just by chance that someone must be messing with the cards.
Over the last 35 years, the Fine-Tuning Argument has suggested that we should come to a similar conclusion with respect to God. The universe we live in could have taken many different forms, and scientists are in agreement – not just Christian scientists, but scientists in general – that there are dozens of features of the universe that needed to be precisely as they are for life to be possible…not just life on the planet Earth or life as we know it, but ANY form of life ANYWHERE in the universe.
To take just one example, the explosive force of the big bang had to be within 1 part in 10^60th of what it actually was. In other words, the percentage difference that you could have while still accommodating the possibility of life is a 0, followed by a decimal point, followed by 59 0s, followed by a 1. If the Big Bang had been even the slightest bit weaker, gravity would have made the universe collapse back in on itself almost immediately, far too quickly for any form of life to develop. If the Big Bang had been just the slightest bit stronger, particles would have dispersed into thin air. They would have dispersed so quickly and wound up so far from each other that all we could have got would have been cold, simple molecules, nothing like the sort of complex chemistry required for any embodied form of life.
That’s just ONE example, and there are dozens more.
How are we to explain this amazing ‘coincidence’? How are we to explain the royal flushes turning up hand after hand throughout the universe? We should come to the only rational conclusion:
The universe is not the result of randomness. Someone ordered the cards; someone designed the universe.
And this is just what the Bible claims:
‘For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse’ (Romans 1:20).

3. Looking Down

We’ve looked back to the beginning of the universe; we’ve looked up at the design of the universe. Now let’s look down.
And what I want you to see is an empty tomb – a tomb that’s empty because Jesus miraculously rose from the dead.
Before I was a Christian I just assumed that there was no way there could be evidence for such a thing, but when I finally looked into it, I couldn’t believe how strong the evidence was.
Richard Swinburne, one of my colleagues at Oxford University, is widely considered the best British philosopher of religion of the last generation. In his book The Resurrection of the God Incarnate, he concludes that on the historical evidence you could even argue it is 97% probable that Jesus truly and miraculously rose from the dead. Why can Swinburne claim that, and have it published by Oxford University Press? [3]
For a NUMBER of reasons, but let me focus on just one of them. Here is a passage written by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time (most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep). Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…’ (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

Experts have come to agree that this passage is the first known summary of Christian beliefs. Many scholars date the creed to within a couple of years of Jesus’ crucifixion, meaning that the beliefs contained within the creed must go back even further than this. Thus, almost immediately after Jesus’ execution, there were many people who were utterly convinced that they had spent time with Jesus after his death. And even the threat of torture and murder could not make them change their minds.
Pliny the Younger was a Roman governor in the first century who was persecuting Christians, and he wrote this:
‘I ask them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and a third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution.’[4] 
Those who walked this earth with Jesus went from mourning that their leader had been defeated and being too scared to even be present at his crucifixion, to accepting their own deaths by torture and execution rather than deny that Jesus is God. What can account for this? How could every one of them be so utterly convinced that this dead man on a cross – Jesus – was worth dying for? The Christian response is that there was a miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If someone doesn’t want to accept that explanation, what are the alternatives?
Could Jesus’ resurrection have developed as a legend over time?
No one takes this theory seriously anymore. Studies show that it takes about three generations for any significant legendary development to make its way into a text, but the passage from 1 Corinthians 15 shows that almost immediately after Jesus’ death his followers believed that he had risen from the dead and spent time with them.
Could it have been a hallucination?
No. Multiple people don’t see the same hallucination (let alone 500 people), and there were far too many appearances of Jesus in far too many places for this to be at all plausible.
Could it have been a big conspiracy, an elaborate lie?
Not a chance. People lie when they are getting something out of it. People don’t lie when they are being tortured and killed for it. The disciples saw something and it transformed their lives. What did they see? My answer is this: ‘God has provided confirmation for all by raising Jesus from the dead’ (Acts 17:11).
Have you had that moment, where faith becomes not blind but the amazing reality of what really happened?

4. Looking In

We’ve looked back to God’s creation of the universe; we’ve looked up at God’s design of the universe; we’ve looked down at the grave that Jesus rose from. Now let’s look IN.
A friend of mine once said to me, ‘Vince, do you think we can know God?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’But he wasn’t satisfied. He said, ‘NO, do you think we can really know God?’ What he was asking was, ‘Do you think we can know God personally? As a Father? As a friend? Do you think we can know not just about God, but God himself?’
There are many things in life that cannot be known from a distance. Some knowledge requires direct experience of the thing known. My wife Jo and I recently spent time in Florence, and we had the privilege of seeing Michelangelo’s famous statue of King David. We almost didn’t bother; it was pouring rain outside, there was a long queue, and we had already seen the statue countless time on postcards and documentaries.
But when we directly experienced the David—in person, up close—we were so grateful that we did. Only then did we know what all the fuss was about. We knew something by experiencing that piece of artwork firsthand that simply could not be known from a distance. I think this is also true of knowing God.
Let me tell you a story of someone I met recently who came to know God not just because of the evidence and the arguments, but because she realized that God was personally involved in the details of her life. She realized that God wanted her to give up her distance, and to live life together with him.
I was giving a talk at a University, and a Chinese girl showed up and introduced herself. One of my friends said, ‘You have an interesting name; what does it mean?’ And she said, ‘It means ‘by grace washed white as snow.’’
My friend’s eyes went wide, and he asked if she was a Christian. She said, ‘No, not at all.’ Then my friend said, ‘Do you realize that your name is basically the heart of the Christian message?’ And she had no idea. She had just chosen her English name because she liked the sound of it.
So my friend began to explain to her the Christian message – that Jesus loved her so much that he couldn’t bear to see her punished for the things she’s done wrong, and so on the cross where Jesus died, Jesus took our punishment for us, and as a result all of the bad things we’ve done are washed away; they are washed white as snow.
Then my talk started, and halfway through the talk I quoted a verse from the Bible, and I put it up on a PowerPoint slide. This was the verse:
‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow’ (Isaiah 1:18).
My friend tapped the girl on the shoulder, who looked astonished, and he said, ‘I told you; that’s your name!’ At the end of the talk, my friend continued to explain to her the love that God has for her and the sacrifice that he made for her. And that night, for the first time, she decided she wanted to know God. She wanted to be in a real relationship with him. And she prayed to become a Christian.
There’s one more detail to the story that I find so amazing. My talk for that night was already written and printed a week in advance, and the PowerPoint was done. But at lunchtime of that same day I had this strong sense that something was missing from the talk, and so I rushed home after lunch and added just one additional page to the talk, and just one additional PowerPoint slide. What did that slide read?
Isaiah 1:18: ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow.’
God beautifully crafted all the details of that day so that he could reach into the heart of that one specific girl.
Do you know the God who is not just the cause and designer of the universe, but the God who will do whatever it takes to reach into your life? Do you know the God who knows absolutely everything about you, and loves you more than you could possibly imagine? Do you know the God who wants nothing more right now than to be in relationship with you?
The Christian promise is that you can really know God, in the deepest possible way – not just about God, but God Himself.

Notes

  1. www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.htm
  2. Widely quoted internet meme of unknown origin
  3. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-resurrection-of-god-incarnate-9780199257461?cc=gb&lang=en&
  4. Pliny writing to Trajan, http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html

This article has been adapted from a talk given at the Reboot Conference.


Vince-Vitale-webVince Vitale

Dr Vince Vitale was educated at Princeton University and the University of Oxford, and he taught philosophy of religion and served as a faculty member at both of these universities. During his undergraduate studies in philosophy at Princeton he took an unexpected journey from sceptic to evangelist. He then completed masters and PhD studies at Oxford, receiving a Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Scholarship and a Clarendon Scholarship.

 

Are Christians Intolerant? | Andy Bannister

“Are Christians intolerant?” In the latest SHORT/ANSWERS film, Andy Bannister explains why he thinks ‘tolerance’ is a useless word — and why Christianity has a lot to say about how we can truly relate well to those we profoundly disagree with.

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Book: The Paradox of Happiness by René Breuel

41pdWYt-QlLRené Breuel’s little book, “The Paradox of Happiness” is a fascinating introduction to a hugely significant subject: human happiness. In a little over 80 short pages, he brings deeply incisive insights into the problem of unhappiness, and suggests a very distinct route out of it, into a genuine form of happiness. This is a pressing issue too, people everywhere are discussing happiness and wellbeing from politicians, to journalists and academics.  It’s a subject that comes up regularly at Solas too, when we take outreach events in coffee shops, pubs and restaurants. People are interested in happiness, and why it is both so alluring and yet sometimes so elusive.
Humans long to be happy Breuel observes, and he doesn’t suggest for one moment that that is a bad thing. Rather, he would agree with Jefferson et al who commended the ‘pursuit of happiness’. He does though suggest that the contemporary Western world has misunderstood what happiness really is, and mislead us about where it can be found.
Firstly Breuel takes aim at the way in which happiness is conceived today. His critique is two-fold, that we have both individualised it, and severed it from values. He writes, “we have reduced happiness to the individual realm – from the ideal for the collective life for the flourishing of humanity and loving social relationships, into a private self-serving pursuit.” (p13). Then, “we have also severed the ethical root of the notion of happiness. Instead of it being conceived as a result of virtue, happiness is now thought of as something smaller and trivial – as fragmentary moments of pleasure.” The problem then is that no one can live in a state of constant pleasure (however well marketed the means to pleasure are), and even if they could – it would not deliver genuine happiness.
Breuel then suggests that, while many people would instinctively agree with much of that, our usual responses are inadequate. He explores that way that people can become sceptics (cynically rejecting fake happiness), consumers (in flat-out pursuit of pleasure, products and experiences) or fantasists (my true happy-self will be realised when I achieve a desired goal). The problem with each of these is that they are driven by the same logic; they are all self-seeking, self-orientated approaches, which simply re-enforce the problem of misery, albeit in different ways. The problem, Breuel argues is that self-focus is actually the thing that destroys happiness, especially relationships with others, and also with God. “Our satisfactions are restricted by our incurved egos, our happiness is confined by our self-centred posture.” (p25) The classic example is the selfish person who feels threatened, or resentful of others successes, compared the selfless person who is genuinely glad when they see others thriving.
Finally, Breuel presents an alternative, rooted in the teaching of Jesus – especially what he calls Jesus’ most ignored instruction; that to gain life we must lose it, and we lose life if we hold onto it; and that we should in some way ‘carry the cross’ as He did. (Matthew 16:24-6). This is what he calls the “Paradox of Happiness”, this “truth dressed up as absurdity”, that “while happiness remains the goal, it can never be found”, because true happiness is actually the “by-product of a correct orientation to life”. The Bible, he notes, urges us to pursue goodness, not happiness – but it turns out that “goodness is deliciously happy!”.
The book ends with an invitation, not to a better technique for pursuing happiness, (let alone mere pleasure), but to a complete reorientation to life. That means not merely “stepping off the hedonic treadmill“, but actively dethroning the ‘self’, and orientating life towards God and others. Happiness, as an ‘indirect-good’, then seems to arrive by surprise. Breuel commends a form of self-denial, not as a repressed, life-denying form of misery; but as the discipline and cost of putting God and others first, the goodness which is so happy. This paradox, Breuel believes is deeply rooted in the structure of the universe itself, because it in turn was made by a God, who is both giving, generous, and profoundly happy. So, he ends the book focusing on Christ who is our example, is present with us, and in whom we live this kind of life.
This is a great little book, which is both helpful, and very countercultural. Yet it speaks directly to one of the great needs of our day. There seems to be something of an epidemic of misery in our society today, (and while some of this is no doubt due to illness), surely a great deal of it is also due to our deep misunderstanding of the nature of happiness and its location.
My only criticisms of the book relate to the things that Breuel left out, or couldn’t include in such a small book. These include some kind of comment about depressive illness, which can strike people who fully embrace the principles he espouses. Christians are not immune to illness, after all. Also, a little clarification about exactly what it means to live ‘in Christ’ might have been helpful, especially as the crippling misery of a guilty conscience is one of the things he saves us from. Finally, he could have talked about the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, that Christ gives to His people (the comforter, love, joy, peace) etc. but that might actually make a good follow-up book.
These mild negative comments aside, this is a really worthwhile read, it is culturally relevant and astute; and finally Jesus centred. It’s mere 80 pages can be easily absorbed in a couple of hours too.


41pdWYt-QlLThe Paradox of Happiness by Rene Breuel is available from bookshops and online.

A Parent’s Guide to the 5 Sceptics Who Want to Shame Your Kids for Being Christian

Having blogged for over six years now, I’ve received hundreds (and hundreds) of comments and emails from sceptics of Christianity. Once in a while, I receive one from a pleasant non-believer who is truly interested in discussing evidence, asking reasonable questions, and engaging in thoughtful discussion.
But that’s the exception.
Those who contact me typically wield the tool of shaming to make their point—something highly ironic given how much sceptics talk about the importance of evidence.
To be clear, none of the non-believers I personally know would use shaming tactics in person. But when people are behind their screens, it brings down the “barrier” of civility, and faith conversations often look very different. You can see it on social media (even with friends who wouldn’t say such things in person), comments on news articles, blog posts—everywhere.
Kids need to understand these emotion-laden shaming attempts they’ll encounter. Like so much else, this is something parents can and should prepare them for. Here are the five most common sceptics who want to shame your kids for being Christian.

1. The Science Thumper

Shame Tactic: Making the child believe they don’t have enough scientific expertise to understand that belief in God is unnecessary and silly.
The Science Thumper applies some notion of science to each and every conversation about Christianity, making it the final word on any given topic, and implying that science and Christianity are at irreconcilable odds.
For example, in response to one of my blog posts about the meaning of life in a theistic worldview, a sceptic commented:

You need to study the mechanisms of replication, mutation, natural selection if you want to understand why life exists and is the way it is. If life and existence are too amazing, astounding and astonishing to exist naturally…then how much more complex is god [sic] for having created it? … Did you invent superman as a panacea answer for everything you don’t understand?

Questions of faith and science are very important, but framing faith and science as a choice—one option for the unsophisticated and one for those in the know—is a cheap and false dichotomy.
Parent Solution: Thoroughly address faith and science topics so kids understand how shallow and unnuanced the Science Thumper’s claims are. See Talking with Your Kids about God for six chapters outlining the conversations parents need to have.

2. The Indoctrination Informer

Shame Tactic: Informing the child that the ONLY reason they believe in Jesus is that they’ve been “indoctrinated” by their parents.
Indoctrination is a word that both Christians and sceptics use wrong. Sceptics often think a kid has been indoctrinated any time they’ve been taught a given religion is true. Christians often think indoctrination means teaching kids Christian doctrine. These misunderstandings lead to conversations that unfortunately sound like this:
Sceptic to Christian parent: “You’re indoctrinating your kids [by raising them in a Christian home]! Let them think for themselves.”
Christian parent to sceptic: “You’re right! I’m teaching my kids Christian doctrine, and I’m proud of it!”
Both sceptics and Christians need to understand that indoctrination means teaching someone to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs. In other words, indoctrination is a problem with how you teach someone something. It is not inherently related to any particular belief system, though religion is one type of belief system where indoctrination is possible.
Parent Solution: Intentionally introduce your kids to sceptics’ challenges so they never feel the need to question whether you tried to shelter them from other beliefs. For more on the importance of this, see the post “If Your Kids are Someday Shocked by the Claims of Sceptics, You Didn’t Do Your Job.”

3. The Miracle Mocker

Shame Tactic: Making the child feel gullible for believing something that doesn’t happen according to natural laws.
Here’s a recent comment a sceptic left on my blog:

Just because some so-called holy book says something is true doesn’t make it true. Why do you believe outlandish claims about a god [sic] speaking things into existence, or about a man being swallowed by a fish for a few days and surviving, a worldwide flood [and ark] that fit all of the animals in it and eight people, or a story about a virgin getting pregnant? None of that makes sense, you don’t have any proof that it happened, but you still think it’s true. Why do you prefer to believe outlandish claims because they’re religious?

The logic here is what’s “outlandish” (no one believes all miraculous claims simply because they’re religious), but my point is not to critique the details of this particular comment. My point is to show how sceptics present miracles in a way that parades them as “obviously” absurd because (and by definition!), they don’t follow the course of nature.
Parent Solution: Teach kids the basic logic that if God exists, miracles are possible, and if God doesn’t exist, miracles are not possible (for more on this, see chapter 24 in Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side). This brings the question of miracles back to the underlying question of the evidence for God’s existence so kids understand that the person claiming miracles are silly is simply presupposing God doesn’t exist.

4. The Self-Sufficient Scoffer

Shame Tactic: Boasting that the sceptic doesn’t “need” God—and implying that anyone who does has an inferior need for an emotional crutch to get through life.
Oftentimes, when ex-Christians recount their deconversion story, they conclude with a glib comment of how they moved on because they no longer “needed” God. The subtly condescending implication, of course, is that those who believe in God do so because they don’t have the emotional resources to make it through life admitting that we live in a universe of pitiless indifference.
This is a strange conclusion that betrays a lack of deeper insight.
If God exists, we need Him. All things were created through and for Him; He is the Source and sustainer of everything by definition. Therefore, if God exists, it’s not a choice to need Him…it’s simply a fact that we do.
If God doesn’t exist, we don’t need Him. We cannot need Him. We cannot need something that doesn’t exist.
In other words, saying that you don’t need God anymore is a nonsensical conclusion. Of course you don’t need God if He doesn’t exist. And if He does exist, you can’t choose to not need Him.
What this kind of statement betrays, therefore, is that the sceptic originally believed in God based on felt needs (desires) rather than on the conviction that He truly exists. When they realised they didn’t need to believe in God to satisfy those felt needs, they simply eliminated Him from the picture and met those needs in other ways.
Parent Solution: Be mindful of helping kids build a faith based on the conviction of God’s existence and the truth of Christianity—not on felt needs for things like being happy, being a good person, or finding meaning in life. In other words, if anyone ever asks your child why they’re a Christian, you should want their response to be, “Because Christianity is true!” For more on escaping the felt need pattern, see the post “Do Your Kids Know Why They Need God?”

5. The Tolerance Enforcer

Shame Tactic: Making the child feel like they are unloving and hateful for taking a biblical stance that doesn’t approve of all choices as morally acceptable.
In a spectacular display of irony, the Tolerance Enforcer shames kids into believing that they must be horrible people for disagreeing with non-believers on the morality of various issues. By labelling kids hateful and unloving rather than thoughtfully discussing the evidence for the truth of the underlying worldviews that produce divergent moral conclusions, they rely on purely emotional attacks. Kids without an intellectual foundation for the Christian worldview are left feeling that they must be wrong about the truth of their faith.
Parent Solution: Help kids understand the irony of a person championing tolerance who won’t tolerate Christian beliefs without labelling disagreement hateful. Then demonstrate how Christians and non-Christians will necessarily disagree on moral issues because we have a different source of authority—the Bible. Here’s an example.
In all of these cases, remember that shame, by definition, is “a painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness or disgrace.” In other words, the root of shame is feeling inadequate.
In order for our kids to feel (more than) adequate when they encounter shaming attempts, they need to have the deep conviction that what they believe is really true. Only then will they be able to fully see these shame tactics for what they are—shallow and baseless emotional attacks—and be able to say confidently with the apostle Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).


Natasha Crain

Natasha Crainis a speaker, author, and blogger who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side and Talking with Your Kids about God. Her third book, Talking with Your Kids about Jesus, will be released in March 2020. She has an MBA from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, Natasha lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.
Reprinted with permission from www.natashacrain.com.

Why would a loving God send people to hell? | Andy Bannister

“How could a loving God send somebody to hell?” The latest SHORT/ANSWERS film tackles this common question—and in the process uncovers some surprising things about God, judgement, and love.

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