In Aberdeen the Christian Union organised a public dialogue between me and a lovely sceptical academic. Professor William Naphy billed himself as a sceptic rather than an atheist, and we asked to address the subject: “What does the good society look like, and how do we get there?” It was an amazing event actually. The CU had organised it to promote their mission week, and get some momentum behind that and they were hugely encouraged by the large turnout on the night. Professor Naphy noted that it was the largest audience he had seen at a student society meeting.
I was initially a bit nervous because Professor Naphy is a historian whose specialisms are sex, gender, witchcraft and Calvinism! He spoke first, and his presentation was really interesting. His premise was that religion has caused damage and his particular example was Calvin’s Geneva, which was quite brutal to opponents of Calvinism. Then I got up and argued that to create a good society we need to make good people; which gets right to the heart of the gospel – because we are not inherently good people; we need something that can transform the human heart. So I gently segued into a gospel presentation, by showing that when utopian ideas for a good society have been tried (based on politics or science) they have always failed.
I used a quotation about the wonders of technology and the way in which it will open up a future of peace on earth and universal harmony. Then I revealed that it was written in 1915 by Nikolai Tesla! I spoke about the difference the gospel makes; but I landed on a piece by Matthew Parris from the Times. entitled, “Why as an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God“.
The Q&A was amazing. I had basically agreed with Professor Naphy that when religion gets into power it is always bad. However, I went on to explain that Christianity is not about changing society by grabbing the leavers of power from above, but about transforming us from below. Christians are called to be “salt and light”, not to wield the instruments of the state to try and bring about some utopian ideal and every time that has tried it has gone wrong. So when I mapped out that position, Professor Naphy just sort of melted! He basically agreed with me, and even quoted the Bible, about Jesus and the Pharisees! The Pharisees were a powerful ultra-religious sect, who were confronted by Jesus. I was amazed, because the hostility I was anticipating was entirely absent! It’s a shame he had to dash away afterwards because I’d loved to have spent some more time with him.
Professor Naphy saw these issues through an academic lens. He argued from the perspective of a historian who had seen the damage the church has done when it has tried to manipulate society to enact the vision of some strange kind of theocracy. Understandably he recoiled from it.
I have encountered this objection before. Usually however, it doesn’t come from someone looking objectively at wider history, but from people who have had a bad experience of church personally. I often say, “Yes the church has at times gone very badly wrong”. However if we can strip away the baggage and see what Jesus really intended, there is something deeply attractive about him. That’s the central theme of the film that CPX in Australia have made about the church through history, which is so helpful.
Sarah McLean, the CU’s Relay Worker for Aberdeen commented, “The dialogue went very well and the discussion from both Andy and Naphy was very gracious and interesting. There was over 100 people there and I think we reached a group of students that we wouldn’t normally see at events. The response from those there was really positive. It seemed to spark interest and questions in folks that will hopefully lead to them returning to events week talks that interest them.”
In the preface to this short and accessible book, Pete Williams, warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, states that his aim is to “present a case for the reliability of the Gospels to those who are thinking about the subject for the first time”. Has he managed to do so? It would be a very short review simply to answer in the affirmative, but I want to do exactly that before saying a little more. I want to commend Williams’ book and persuade you of its worth. Then I want to suggest who might be most helped by it.
The book proceeds through a number of arguments for the reliability of the Gospels, many of which will be familiar to anyone who has dipped their toe in these waters. The added value in this book is threefold. First, the issues are explained with a commendable clarity and simplicity. Secondly, it is obvious to any reader that there is a weight of scholarship behind every sentence in the book. Footnotes are kept to a minimum, but there are enough to give the reader confidence that Williams’ arguments are based on careful (and lifelong) engagement with these issues at an academic level. Thirdly, there are a number of lines of evidence adduced in this book that will be new to many readers and reflect some more recent scholarly findings. For example, Williams draws upon Bauckham’s work on the Gospels as eyewitness testimony and develops it further with his own work on naming conventions in 1st century Palestine and accuracy of geographical knowledge. For many, therefore, the chapter “Did the Gospel writers know their stuff?” is on its own worth the cost of the book, containing much fascinating information and pointers towards further reading for those particularly interested.
The cumulative case presented is compelling. Williams is careful to point out that he is not trying to “prove” the trustworthiness of the Gospels so much as trying to show that it is entirely rational to trust them as reliable accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching. In this aim, I would certainly judge him successful. However, this leads to a last reflection on Williams’ book. Who will benefit from it?
Is this the sort of book that could be given to an interested sceptic? Certainly – although I don’t meet many interested sceptics who are asking the particular questions being answered by this book. Does that mean that it’s not a useful book? Far from it! It’s just that we need to be clear that a book like this isn’t designed to compel someone into the Kingdom by sheer force of logic and weight of evidence – Williams is careful to avoid such a modernist construal of faith. Rather, I suspect that this book is going to be most helpful in giving confidence to young Christians. It is essential reading for Christians who have (or are faced with) questions about the reliability and authority of the Gospels and need to know that their questions or doubts can be answered so that they can engage in conversation with their non-believing friends without the fear that somehow their faith will be shown to be in vain. It would be an excellent resource for, for example, undergraduate theology students.
In conclusion, then, this is a great little book and should form part of an armoury of resources that will give Christians greater confidence in the reasonableness of their faith. If it then causes those Christians both to live in line with the Gospels and to share more confidently and winsomely the Good News of their subject, then the job will be well done.
Can we trust the Gospels? by Peter J Williams, Crossway, 2018.
ISBN 9781433552953 £8.99 . Purchase here.
Reviewed by Dr Mark Stirling. Mark is the Director of The Chalmers Institute in St Andrews. The Chalmers Institute exists for the renewal of Church leadership in Europe by developing Biblically mature leaders who will equip God’s people for lives of discipleship and evangelism.
Andy Bannister writes:
From Edmonton I went a few hundred miles southwards to Calgary, where the university mission was also really well attended. At the first lunch bar on the Wednesday (which was about the resurrection of Jesus), there was standing room only, we must have had 200 hundred students in the room. They asked really great questions too! It was great to see people really taking the gospel seriously and thinking about what was being shared.
Then I did another dialogue with a Muslim scholar, and again there were dozens of Muslims as part of the audience. And the same subjects came up as at Edmonton: sin and salvation. One of the most poignant moments for me was when the Muslim Imam I was engaging with actually said, “In Islam there is no salvation: there is no salvation in Islam. You are responsible for your own sin, and responsible for working your way out of it, there is no salvation”. What a profound contrast with Christianity: in Islam and Christianity, we really do have two very different gods—one who leaves us to get on with it, and the other who says, “No, you need my help, and I will help you.” So again this topic of sin, how bad it is, what God’s solution to it is and what God’s solution isn’t; is at the heart of the difference between Christianity and Islam.
On the last night of the mission I spoke on the subject, “Why Did Jesus Die For Me?” It’s a hugely important topic, because as Christians we talk about the cross, we talk about salvation; but the question people often have is, “Why did Jesus have die for me?”
In the talk, I took on two objections. The first is the response by some people: ‘I don’t need a saviour thank you very much, I’m a good person.’ So we addressed that challenge. Then I addressed a second question, ‘Why did Jesus have to die for me? Why couldn’t God just forgive me?’ I explained that forgiveness is always costly; there’s no such thing as free forgiveness. There’s always a price to forgiveness. If you damage someone else’s car, and you can’t afford to pay, you’re not insured, but the other driver whose car you damaged forgives you and let’s you off the debt, well that forgiveness isn’t free, it has cost them money! Or if someone hurts you personally, someone stabs you in the back, betrays you, insults you, and then later asks for your forgiveness, and you forgive them—well, there is a cost to that forgiveness. You have to carry the cost of that forgiveness within yourself without reminding them of the hurt that they have done to you. Therefore it should come as no surprise that given how badly we have wronged God, that God’s forgiveness wasn’t free but cost God a great deal. Of course the rest of the story is that His love is so great for us that He was willing to do it.
It was great to see responses during the mission—some people giving their lives to Christ for the first time and about 40 people signed up for the Alpha Course. Alpha is a ten week programme which lets people explore the Christian faith and the claims of Jesus at their own speed.
Solas: You’re coming to Scotland soon, speaking on behalf of an organisation called “LivingOut”. So, who are LivingOut, and what’s your role?
ES: I’m one of the co-founders of Living Out, with Sam Allberry and Sean Doherty. We started it together back in 2013. It came out of a group of same-sex attracted church leaders who realised that our alternative stories of living with same-sex attraction under the lordship of Christ weren’t being told. We wanted to get our stories out there, so our website was launched. We then discovered that there was a need to equip churches, and train church leaders, so our leadership training “LOCAL Course” was developed. Various other things like books being written and published, short films being shot, us becoming a charity, all happened too. I now serve as our chair of trustees and travel and speak on behalf of Living Out around the UK (and elsewhere). This includes leading “LOCAL Course” leaders training courses all over the place, and speaking at other events too. Last summer included appearing alongside Solas’ Andy Banister at Creationfest; the trendiest Christian festival ever. It was all hipsters and surf-dudes in Cornwall. I felt very lost!!
Solas: All put together, that’s quite a workload!
ES: The other thing is that as well as Living Out, we are all involved in local churches and other ministry! So we are all addressing these issues not just from the perspective of people experiencing same-sex attraction; but also from experience of local church leadership. We’re all engaged, not just in the theology, and ethics of this, but also about caring for people better and teaching on this subject in a local context too. I am a pastor – I do this in my free time!
Solas: That must be quite a juggling act to sustain. Our mutual friend David Robertson spent a long time as full-time pastor and running Solas as well – doing three men’s work! Pastoral ministry can be all-consuming; both in terms of time and brain-space! How do you keep going? What’s your heart-motivation?
ES: I think that when it comes to the controversy surrounding sexuality, gender and identity, God is being good to us by making us think hard about these issues at the moment. We have lost contact with a lot of what the Bible teaches about each of those areas; and all the culture changes are making us really think and re-articulate biblical truths which we have rather ignored and not particularly lived out. So, I’m really stirred by the thought that this is a chance for a bit of a Reformation – a returning to The Bible in an area in which we haven’t been thinking biblically for a while; ideas of gender, sexuality and identity in particular.
Solas: Is that symptomatic of a wider biblical-illiteracy, and disconnection from what God wants us to do, in the church in this country?
ES: Well, yes – and also suggests a form of idolatry towards marriage and family that’s blinded us to the fact that lots of people live their lives as single people, and that some people are same-sex attracted and that not everybody gets married and settles down with 2.4 children. However, we are encouraged by the number of people who recognise that the church could do better. There are nightmare stories which the media often tell us, but our experience is that there are lots of positive stories, but that most churches also recognise that they have a lot to learn.
Solas: So, how did you end up in the work you are now involved in?
ES: Well, with both pastoral ministry and LivingOut, I was dragged kicking and screaming into them!! My Grandfather and father were both Vicars! And the very last thing I was going to do was work for a church! And the other LAST thing I was going to do was talk to people about my sexuality! So I am doing the two last things I thought I would do, which is God’s sense of humour – and a good challenge for me. I never say I’m never going to do anything now, because the things I’ve said I will never do are things I’ve ended up doing. On the calling to pastor a church it came from a lot of people telling me that this is what I ought to be doing; God calling through his people. On the LivingOut side of things it was just a strong sense that something needed to be said and done that wasn’t being said or done. So I felt I should step up, and speak out because the need was great – and I was able to speak into the situation.
Solas: And where is LivingOut at as an organisation at the moment, is it growing, are you reaching more people?
ES: Well we’re up to well over 1,000 church leaders who have done our leaders training (LOCAL Course) both here and in the USA. We keep doing them and people keep coming. We are encouraged by that and want to see those numbers continue to grow. We’re also wanting to improve the resources available on the website both for Christians who experience same-sex attraction like myself; and also for other church leaders. So we’ve got plans to make sure that the website is increasingly the place that church pastors go to when they’ve got questions surrounding issues of gender, sexuality and identity.
Solas: And do you ever get any hostility to your work?
ES: Sadly, the people who are most offensive are other Christians, usually in the United States who think that we are “liberal”. We don’t get much grief from secular campaigners. Sadly it is usually from Christians.
Solas: Around terminology issues again?
ES: Around terminology, yes – and around pushing back on the fact that we are not investing in some of the methods and thinking of the past in terms of reparative therapy; or thinking that to be godly you have to be heterosexual; and that healing, in the here and now, must mean getting married and having 2.4 children. But overt hostility actually comes from very few people, really.
Solas: Are you encouraged in your work?
Ed Shaw
ES: Yes, and what I am most encouraged by is that in most big evangelical churches (which we are always told are horrible places for LGBT people to be), there are Christians who are same-sex attracted who are living for Jesus. I’ve been really encouraged to find that to be a reality, in evangelical churches all over the UK. It’s really important to also understand that there are people becoming Christians from the LGBT community, today. Now, some people think that that is an impossibility, but it is happening across the UK, and that is actually what encourages me most. What’s more, God is using same-sex attracted people to make the church increasingly friendly to all kinds of single people.
Solas: You’ve mentioned “The LOCAL Course”, a few times, tell us more about what that’s about?
ES: So our LOCAL Course is a one-day course, suitable for church leaders, leadership teams including para-church organisations, helping them to see how they can become ‘biblically inclusive’ of sexual minority groups. With language here we have to be careful because you win some people and antagonise others with it. We want to stress and re-embrace the inclusive language, but define it in a biblical way. And the aim of the course is to help churches to be inclusive of LGBT people in that biblical way, a distinctively Christian way. This course is designed to help churches and church leaders to see how they could be educated and equipped to do better.
Solas: And do you lead the course yourself, or is there a team of people?
ES: It sounds pretentious to say, but I’ll be leading a team of people from LivingOut. We all speak from our own experience of same-sex Attraction so, we all address these issues with some knowledge and empathy. We use a mixture of interviews, videos, talks and Q&A. The great thing about Q&A is that people come with whatever is on their minds. We have questions which range from, “should Christians go to gay-weddings?” to, “What does LGBT stand for?” to, “What do we say to a gay couple who have become Christians?”; questions around transgender, basically every imaginable question comes up! On the day, the first session is on ‘Understanding the Culture’, (what’s changed and why it’s changed). The second is on “How do we better communicate what the Bible teaches, in a way that that culture will understand – and connect with?” The third session is “How can our churches be more welcoming, and pastorally sensitive to people from an LGBT background?”. Then it’s on to the Q&A, inevitably – which every Christian conference needs!!
Solas: I assume that at an event like this you mostly face reasonably friendly questions, will it attract people who won’t agree with you too?
ES: Well, one of the things we do is, we ask people who are coming to sign up to the Evangelical Alliance’s Affirmations on Human Sexuality. That’s not because we don’t like debating the morality of the issues with people who disagree with us, we do that in plenty of other contexts. However, the “LOCALCourse” is specifically focused on training up people to be biblically inclusive within the traditional biblical understanding of sex and marriage. So we ask people to signup to those affirmations, so that we are all working together from the same biblical viewpoint. We are not anti-debate, but this particular event is focused on those who are coming the same perspective.
Solas: And you do this course all over the place?
ES: Edinburgh is in the diary, and dates keep being added. We are taking a break in the summer till the autumn, then we’re heading way down south to Southampton. Basically filling in the gaps in the UK. In the last year we’ve done Cardiff and Belfast, so Edinburgh was the obvious next one. So to begin to reach Scotland we paid Edinburgh the compliment of going there first.
SOLAS: Just to upset the Glaswegians!
ES: That, exactly! And my sister and brother-in-law live in Edinburgh too, so I’m very happy to go there!
SOLAS: Thanks for your time, Ed. It’s been great to speak to you; and all the best for Edinburgh!
ES: Thanks for the opportunity to talk about the work, Solas!
“The issue of sexuality is unavoidable in contemporary Britain. Specifically, the issues around same sex attraction need to be handled with a combination of warm sensitivity anchored to clear biblical values. The LOCAL course provides skills, wisdom and insight for leaders as they try to care for their congregations and communities. I thoroughly recommend it as a much needed resource for local churches and Christian agencies.” -Stephen Gaukroger, Director, Clarion Trust International
I worked for six years in Canada before I came to Scotland, and was back there recently to do two university missions in the ‘frozen North’! If you think it’s cold here in the UK, try going to Canada and experiencing -30’!
I started my time in Canada at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, at a big student mission week. It was great to see the students really engaged, the lunch-bars full; and people coming to Christ – all the things we get really excited about.
My first talk was on “Jesus and the Failures of the Church”. Many people are disillusioned with the Christian faith because of bad experiences with the Church. That’s either at a personal level, or when the Church has tried to seize power and change society from the top-down, and made a mess of things. This, of course, is in contrast to the message of Jesus, which is still hugely attractive today. My talk drew heavily on the CPX film from Australia, For the Love of God. That documentary takes a very honest look at both the successes and failures of the church through history; and doesn’t shy away from the times the Church has betrayed Christ. However, there have also been some critical moments in history when the Church has reflected something of the beauty of Christ. The point is that Jesus is the measure of everything, and that he offers forgiveness and salvation when we fail to live up to his standards.
The highlights from Edmonton were the two public-dialogue events that I increasingly specialise in. On the first night of the mission I did one with Imam Sherif Ayoup a very well-known local Muslim leader. It was a ‘moderated-dialogue’, so the moderator put questions to both of us and the result was a conversation that really brought out the huge differences between Christianity and Islam, not least, on the issue of “sin and salvation”. In Islam, sin is quite a mild thing: God gives you commandments, and if you break them, you keep a few more to balance the equation. It’s basically an economic relationship. However, in Christianity we understand that sin is a fundamental rupture in our relationship with God which is so drastic that we can’t fix ourselves and thus we need a saviour. That profound difference between Islam and Christianity came out time and time again in the dialogue. It was really, really exciting to be able to share Christ with the many Muslims who came along.
Nathan Betts said, “Andy’s dialogue with an Imam was the highlight of the week for me. The audience that evening was engaged from beginning to end. When each speaker spoke, there was pin drop silence. The beauty and credibility of the Christian faith shone through Andy’s presentation that evening, and in his interaction with the Imam.”
I also had a dialogue with Karen Lumley Kerr, the head of the local humanist association, around the question, “Do human rights make sense without God?” She tried to answer, “yes they do because…..” and drew on our shared evolutionary history. In other words because we all have a shared genetic history, and have DNA in common, we should therefore respect one another. That is a lovely idea but doesn’t really work. After all, I share carbon atoms with a table and I share some genetic history with lettuces, but that doesn’t really mean that I owe lettuces or tables anything! I think we need something deeper than shared genetic heritage on which to ground human rights and dignity.
Interestingly, the language the Universal Declaration of Human Rights uses, speaking of ‘human rights, dignity and value’, is profoundly Christian. So I developed the idea that it’s only the Christian story, which says that we are ‘made in the image of God’, which genuinely confers value on human beings; irrespective of race, gender, ability or so forth. The other thing I brought out in the dialogue is that it isn’t just a question of human rights and dignity, there’s also the question of accounting for the way human beings repeatedly go wrong. Again, if you try and ground your ethics in evolution, the problem is that evolution has thrown up wildly violent behaviour as well as wildly compassionate behaviour. So how do we determine between them? From a Christian perspective, the gospel doesn’t just give us value (in that we are made in the image of God and Christ died for us); it also addresses our brokenness, which is what causes us to flout the rights and dignity of one another in the first place.
All in all, we had a fascinating dialogue. Karen was very friendly, we had a really good evening, and then what was great was that a load of folks from the atheist community came down to the pub with us afterwards where we shared Christ with them until midnight. It was great to engage with some really good questions and see a real openness amongst them.
Gavin Matthews spoke to David for Solas, about his plans.
SOLAS: Everyone has heard that you are leaving Scotland, but no-one knows much about what you are going to be doing! What are you are planning next? DAVID: I’m moving to Australia! I’m going to be working with an organisation called the City Bible Forum. They are excellent at doing outreach in the cities, businessmen’s lunches, events for lawyers and things like that. I’m going to help develop something called “3rd Space”. That means, if you view the Church as one space, and the culture as another space, “3rd Space” is the kind of thing Solas does here, with cafe evangelism. So my main task will be to do evangelism and help facilitate churches doing evangelism. SOLAS: So is this work a new start-up? DAVID: Well City Bible Forum itself is well established, but the bit I’m going to be doing is a new idea. They felt they were doing well in certain areas, but when I was over there on sabbatical last year and did some work for them, they really felt that they could use more of what I was doing. For me, the “3rd Space”, is really where I fit in. SOLAS: So what will your daily work-life look like when you get there? DAVID: Well, according to some of my friends, it will be on Bondi Beach! Actually, I don’t know what it will be like. I will be part of a team with guys like Steve McAlpine in Perth, and Sam Chan. It’s really important that I’m working as part of a team. I’ll be Sydney based, but covering the other cities as well, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide. Steve will cover Perth, but it’s as far from Sydney to Perth as it is from Dundee to Moscow! I will be directly involved in evangelism, but my new role will also involve preaching, writing, and training people as well. SOLAS: So are you moving Down Under for good? DAVID: No, its a two-year commitment, because it’s a two-year visa. So, yes, two years. The unique thing I do though, is cultural engagement – and that’s what we really need to try and develop. That’s the plan, but who knows! SOLAS: I remember when you arrived in Dundee. I was a member of the University Christian Union, and you came to speak at our lunch at Pete’s Bar in the Union, billed as the ‘new guy!’ DAVID: Yes, and that was a looooonnng time ago, 27 years! SOLAS: So, you have two years planned ahead of you in Australia. What are your goals, what’s your vision, what do you hope to achieve? Two-years is quite a narrow time-space? DAVID: Yes, it’s a very narrow time-space! My view is that if you are coming to work in a local church here in Scotland it takes you five years just to get settled in. We were here 18 years before we began to see any significant fruit. So, it’s a very, very different thing. We still don’t have our visas yet, we’re still waiting for those. My aim is provoke, to stimulate, and God-willing we’ll hit the ground running. SOLAS: Provoke? You!!!?? Surely not!! DAVID: No, not me!! I feel that I don’t think I’ve been provocative enough! The phrase in Hebrews 10 though is to ‘provoke one another to love and good works’.
Australia though isn’t as far down the road as we are. I used to think that it was more secular than us, but is in fact considerably less secular. I think that in Australia they can turn back the tide, and I think that it is evangelism that is needed to do that. Especially evangelism that is culturally engaged, not stuck in the Christian cultural ghetto, hence the “3rd Space” idea. I think the situation in Scotland is a good bit different. I would like to come back, love to come back to Scotland, the UK and Europe, but this just seems like the right thing to do at this moment in time. SOLAS: How does the Australian church scene differ from Scotland? DAVID: It’s very different! So there are some similarities, but Sydney in particular is different. The older denominations are much more evangelical there. I was speaking to the Anglican Bishop of Wollongong, he has sixty churches in his diocese and every single one of them is Evangelical/Reformed. There are probably only five congregations on the whole of the Scottish Episcopal Church that would describe themselves in those terms. In Australia they have Hillsong on the Charismatic side, and other large churches like that. There’s a growing F.I.E.C. movement, there are the Sydney Anglicans. There are also a lot of Chinese people there, and I have previously really enjoyed working with the Chinese Presbyterians. My aim is to work with all of them. Whether that will work, and whether they’ll want me to, I don’t know! The whole thing is that this is a huge “gamble”. It may not work at all, on the other hand it may take off! Who knows? SOLAS: And City Bible Forum works across the denominations? DAVID: Yes, it’s an interdenominational thing. They’ve done a lot of big events in the past, but they have also organised smaller ones too and I’m wanting to move it beyond the event-type thing. SOLAS: And is there a sister-church to the Free Church of Scotland that you have natural, existing ties to? DAVID: Well, there’s the Presbyterian Church of Australia, which used to be closely tied to the Church of Scotland, but because of the Church of Scotland’s direction over recent years on issues like same-sex marriage, they have loosened their ties. They are now closer to the Free Church of Scotland.
There is also the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia which is a more traditional Free Church. Since the Free Church of Scotland has started singing hymns and so forth, I don’t think they are speaking to us! (I’m joking!) I have actually written for both of those denomination’s magazines, and I would hope to work with them.
On previous visits we have been very involved with St Thomas’s Anglican in Sydney, so we hope to work with them again. However, we’ve also been asked to help with a new church plant, in a hippie-ish student area, which I’m really tempted by. Then the Presbyterian Church has a church revitalisation project, right in the heart of Sydney, which I would want to help with. I think that because my remit will be to encourage evangelism through all sorts of local churches, I won’t be tied just to one church. SOLAS: And many opportunities for student work? DAVID: Oh yes! So many opportunities. When I was there before I did some work in the “Eton and Harrow” of Australia, which was fantastic! How many opportunities? Well, how long is a piece of string!? The opportunities for evangelism are tremendous, and that’s what I want to do. SOLAS: And is there an equivalent of UCCF/IFES? DAVID: Yes, Australian IFES is very active and I’ve been involved with the folks there already. They do lots of university missions, debates and all those sorts of things.
One of the things about the Australians is that they are not subtle, are they?! And I like that! An Australian pastor said to me, “you’re really unusual for a Brit, you really ‘get’ us!” I said, “I’m just who I am, you’re probably more like me than most Brits!” They are very direct!
In Australia you also have the Indigenous population, many of whom are Christians, which is really fascinating for me. Then you have the white Europeans, and many of them are moving towards a more secular world-view, like we have in Europe; and that is doing a great deal of harm. But Australia is very rapidly becoming much more Asian and churches are growing rapidly — especially amongst the Chinese; but also amongst Vietnamese and Indonesian people as well. My argument would be that from Scotland you can reach Europe; but from Australia you can reach Asia. Maybe that’s where the future of the Church is, I don’t know. But if I could be even a little, tiny part of that, I would be happy to be so. SOLAS: In terms of the white European population. We know what the challenges to the gospel are here; is it similar for them? What are the objections that an average Sydney person will have to the gospel that you will have to address in your preaching? What are the key apologetic tasks? DAVID: Well, pretty much the same as here, really. There is a good deal of indifference and apathy, and then there is very militant secularism in the academic institutions. I look forward to that challenge — if they’ve got the nerve! You know, as they say, “Come on, if you think you’re hard enough!”. We will face the same materialism as we do here, but we will also observe the same failings of secularism that I do in Scotland. The intolerance, the political-correctness, the greed and political corruption; all these kind of things. But all these things present an opportunity as well as a challenge for the gospel. SOLAS: And what are the top three things you are going to miss about Dundee? DAVID: Alright! Number one is St Peter’s Church. This place has been transformed over the years, it is very much my spiritual home, these people are my spiritual family. This was way and above the hardest part about this decision to go. In terms of physical family, I have family here, and in Australia; so that was ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’, but leaving St Peter’s is really, really hard.
Then, I really, really like the people of Dundee. Even though I think the way that this city is run is as bad as they way our country is run. People have said to me, “You’re running away from Brexit”. No, I’d love to be here for Brexit (if it ever happens). But I am much more concerned about the fact that Scotland seems to be moving towards a much more authoritarian, intolerant, anti-Christian point of view. I would still like to be here to fight that battle, but probably need a break for a while, because I’m knackered! SOLAS: There are a lot of people who are your supporters and friends, all over Scotland. What they want to know is, what you would like them to pray for as you head off to this new work? DAVID: Well, basically I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing, which is my way of operating! My modus operandi is to do things without really knowing what I’m doing. It’s a high-risk/high-reward strategy, but there’s also high failure risk too! So this could all be a disaster.
So in terms of prayer. Pray first of all that we get the visas! And pray about my health, because my health has always been mixed since 2011. Last year was a good year for me, because I wasn’t in hospital at all! I will be having another operation before I go to Australia. So please pray for the visa, for my health. Also I think that pray for the work, that God would give clear guidance as to what we should do. I don’t want to waste my time. I mean, to give up St Peter’s is to give up a lot for me. And also pray that in the Lord’s providence that I would be able to come back. And I don’t want to come back and retire and lead a quiet life.
They used to say that in your fifties you were at your peak in the ministry, because you have all that experience, but you still have energy! But Os Guinness said to me that now that’s your 60s! So I’m still three years off my sixties, so if God spares me I’ve got a lot more to give and I’d like to give it in as profitable and fruitful way as possible. And obviously I will continue to pray that the work of Solas continues to grow and develop.
It’s funny though, because since news about my plans has gone out, I’ve had some politicians contact me to say, “Good Riddance!”. While others have contacted me to say, “What are we going to do without you!” The very mixed reactions have been quite interesting. Both responses are quite humbling, actually. SOLAS: And I see that you will be living very close to where “The Ashes” will be played in 2020-1! DAVID: Well, that’s got to be booked in! Oh my goodness, I’d love that!
I love Dundee, I do. But as a city, Sydney is my favourite city in the world by a mile. I love New York as well. Annabel and myself are really city people. But Sydney – the opportunities for ministry are just amazing, Now I am aware of the ‘grass is greener’ syndrome, and that when I was there before I was the new-boy on the block, so everyone loves you. (Everyone loves you when you are new or dying!) But the environment and the opportunities for gospel ministry are amazing. Lat time God opened so many doors, in such a short space of time, it was remarkable. The were the kind of doors that here, you have to work long and hard to get through. And I have worked long and hard, but I think it is time for something different. SOLAS: Well we’ll be praying for you, and for St Peter’s as it enters a new phase in its life. DAVID: Well, I should also say that if I had stayed here it would have been very difficult to have stayed as the minister of St Peter’s and do all the other things I do in wider ministry. As a congregation it has grown from a handful of people to some 300 plus, and it requires a full-time minister, and I can’t be that, not with the stuff I do. And I can’t not-do what I do. I feel a calling to be pastor of this congregation, but also a calling to reach out, engage secular media, do evangelism. It was going to be one or the other, and the result of all that wrestling is that it is going to be the other. I wish it could have been in Scotland, but right now it can’t, but maybe in the future it will be. SOLAS: Well, we’ll pray and see what happens! DAVID: Thanks! “
Truth is a tricky thing. Today, ‘the truth’ is not just hard to swallow; it is something we refuse to swallow. Truth is too certain, too divisive, too arrogant. In response, today’s truth is often one of relativism: what’s true for you might not be true for me. But if it’s sometimes true, and sometimes not, is it really truth at all?
Jesus claimed to be ‘the way and the truth and the life.’ But can we really accept this ultimate truth in an age of questioning, uncertainty, relativism and scepticism? In MORE > Truth, young philosopher Kristi Mair explores whether Christians can be confident in the ‘truth’ in our anything goes age.
Author Kristi Mair currently works as Pastoral Support and Research Fellow at Oak Hill College, whilst studying for her PhD at University of Birmingham. Kristi is also an apologist and evangelist who speaks regularly at evangelistic events. While pursuing her academic career, she has worked with Friends International and the UCCF as their Assistant Team Leader for the Midlands.
When I wrote this, the annual ritual of New Year Resolution-making was in full swing. By the time it is published in February, most of these will lie in tatters. Siddharth Singh mocked on Twitter: “Startup idea: a gym named Resolution that runs for the 1st month of the year, collects a subscription fee, then converts to a bar named Regret” (1) . According to a recent survey 60% of us make these commitments, of which only 8% are kept; the most popular of which include dieting, exercise, weight loss, budgeting, quitting or reducing smoking/alcohol consumption (2).
The underlying message is that most of us are dissatisfied with some aspect of our lives and behaviour, and mark our own report card with the proverbial “could do better”. Yet the evidence suggests that the most important changes are the hardest to convert from aspiration into reality.
2018 was a year of enormous personal change for two people I spoke to; more revolution than resolution in fact. Nathaniel is a politics and philosophy student in Scotland; who described his life as one of exploring questions of meaning by day, and pursuing pleasure – mostly in alcohol, by night. However, academic success, and personal hedonism led Nathaniel not to contentment but to despair. Change came when he began to explore questions of faith, both listening to a Christian speaker; but then exploring the New Testament. Today he describes his newfound Christian faith in terms of God changing his whole life. (read his story here)
Likewise, another University student we met in Dundee, had a parallel experience. He was a convinced atheist, and attended a campus debate between an atheist academic and a Christian. After a long search, and exploring many questions, he became a Christian last May. Now he writes: “I held that atheism and therefore nihilism was true, but saw the inconsistency of this with my own strong conscience and need for meaning. Christians seemed to have better answers as to where to find meaning and purpose than nihilism, scientism or atheism.” The changes which occurred were not mere resolutions of behaviour; but a revolution of the heart.
Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step recovery famously involves invoking a ‘Higher Power’ which seems to affirm that deep change requires an external force or inspiration. While Christianity is routinely snubbed by critics as a crutch for the weak, the truth is that our ‘Disneyfied’ culture has taught us to search within ourselves to release the inner prince or princess we were ever-destined to be: but this quest has produced despair in countless people. Many people have searched their souls but instead of finding their true-self, meaning and purpose; have become profoundly disillusioned.
For those two students, the power for change came from outside them, when their materialistic philosophical-nihilism crumbled and they found purpose. The atheist writer David Foster Wallace understands this when he describes the place “where you tap real meaning in life” as “worship”, and remarks: “There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship … is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, then you will never feel you have enough…Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you … Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on”(3).
The point Wallace makes is that the weight of our ‘worship’ must rest somewhere. It is what we worship which really governs the trajectory of our lives, not our well intentioned resolutions.. Mere aspirations prove to be powerless in the face of the power of worship, because finally our behaviour will always default to being an expression of what we value most. Thus the question we must all answer, if we are to gain the power to change, is this: ‘is the object of my worship worthy of it?’
In the ancient world, philosophers debated about whether the universe had a purpose, a meaning, an organising principle. They called it the “Logos”. The extravagant claim of the Christian faith is that this Logos turns out not to be an abstract proposition but a personal God, revealed in Jesus Christ. It was this discovery which those two students, and countless others in 2018 made, which unleashed a power in their lives that went far deeper than mere resolution. Vive la revolution.
_______________________ References:
David Foster Wallace, This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009) p100-110.
Where is God when it hurts? In the latest SHORT ANSWERS video, David Robertson takes a very personal look at the question of where God is to be found when we experience sickness, suffering, or grief.
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.
Every year Open Doors publishes their “World Watch List”; the definitive list of the places where Christians face the most severe persecution. The 2019 list contains some familiar names, but also some surprises.
The fact that the roll-call of shameful governments is once again headed by North Korea is a surprise to no-one. It has occupied this position of notoriety for 18 years. Little of what goes on in the world’s most systematically totalitarian regime is known in the outside world, other than the infamous repression of Kim Jong Un’s regime. For the Christian minority, persecution is notoriously severe, but precise statistics about the numbers involved remain hard to establish. Open Doors’ best estimates suggest that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 Christians, of whom between 50,000 and 70,000 are currently toiling in the brutal labour camps. [note]https://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/countries/north-korea/?ref=wwmap[/note]
The Global trend
Steven Pinker points to global trends of healthcare, education, life-expectance and violence and argues that the world is getting substantially better. While there are many reasons to celebrate widespread progress in many fields, this should be matched by concern that for many of the worlds Christians, persecution is getting substantially worse. Henrietta Blyth of Open Doors said: “Our research uncovers a shocking increase in the persecution of Christians globally. In China our figures indicate persecution is the worst it’s been in more than a decade – alarmingly, some church leaders are saying it’s the worst since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976. Worldwide, our data reveals that 13.9 per cent more Christians are experiencing high levels of persecution than last year. That’s 30 million more people.” That includes one-in-three Asian Christians facing a violation of the human rights, simply on account of their faith. No wonder that British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt estimated that 80% of religious persecution in the world is targeted at Christians.[note]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46682411[/note]
China, which was once thought to be liberalising in its approach to human rights, including the freedom of religion, has moved up 16 places to become 27th worst country for Christians. It is shocking to see India appearing in the top-ten on World Watch List in 2019 for the first time ever.
The Indian Constitution protects freedom of religion and belief [note]https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R45303.pdf[/note], yet research demonstrates that Hindu extremists can act with impunity and that violent attacks on Christians and churches are on the rise. This is driven by growing ultra-nationalism, which has brought waves of violence against India’s significant non-Hindu religious minorities. Rising nationalism is leading to similar persecution in other countries such as Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal where national identity is tied to religion. Formal commitments to freedom of religion are being sidelined, as religious conformity is seen as national loyalty and minority belief a form of treachery.
The Worst Offenders
North Korea once held the unenviable record of bring the only country whose persecution index was ranked in the “severe” category. In recent years it has been joined by Afghanistan (2nd), Somalia (3rd), Libya (4th), Pakistan (5th), Sudan (6th), Eritrea (7th), Yemen (8th), Iran (9th), India (10th) and Syria (11th). The global situation has deteriorated so much that Open Doors have had to recalibrate their ‘points’ system for offending regimes. Nigeria, infamous for the kidnappings of Christian girls, saw 3,700 Christians martyred in 2018, but doesn’t even reach the top ten on this year’s persecution index. Gender-specific persecution is receiving new attention in Open Doors research which shows that that the persecution of men tends to be “focused, severe and visible” and that of women is “complex, violent and hidden”. Men are more likely to face detention without trial, or summary execution; whereas the persecution of women more typically involves sexual violence, rape or forced marriage.
Syria bucks the trend for worsening persecution, as the widespread collapse of the Islamic State regime has stemmed the tide of abuses coming from that context. [note]https://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-JXiBRCpARIsAGqF8wWVORVR6zyaJlofh1PrpkYnL9RF79SasesQgiDXrx9gr6av8qk5wloaAk7JEALw_wcB[/note]
Read the World Watch List from Open Doors in more detail here: Persecution, is rated as “Extreme” in North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, India, and Syria. It is rated as “Very High” in Nigeria, Iraq, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Central African Republic, Algeria, Turkmenistan, Mali, Mauritania, Turkey, China, Ethiopia, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Jordan, Nepal, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Brunei, Tunisia, Qatar, Mexico and Kenya. While the following countries have “High” levels of persecution: The Russian Federation, Malaysia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Bangladesh, Palestinian Territories and Azerbaijan.
A few weeks ago I had the incredible privilege of speaking at the headquarters of National Geographic Magazine in Washington DC in the USA. I had previously spoken there a few years ago, which was one of my favourite speaking engagements of all-time. I have a friend who is a commissioning editor for the magazine who has created a lovely lunchtime event there. Once a month he brings a Christian speaker in and lots of people invite their friends to come and listen. So we had a room full of people, the majority of whom didn’t have any kind of faith – and there was me!
I spoke on the question, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ For me it is one of the most important questions of our time. On the one hand we have naturalistic atheism which wants to say that we are nothing more than atoms, particles, and molecules; that we are nothing more than the stuff of which we are made. That has huge implications because it is utterly corrosive if you want to think about human rights or dignity or justice. On the other hand you have the Christian worldview, that says that human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). I talked about that for half an hour and then took questions. It was really interesting to see how many people there in that audience were searching spiritually. Lots of people have figured out that atheism doesn’t really work but they are not convinced that religion really works either, and so are very, very open. We see this wherever we go, on university campuses or in coffee shop events, or even here at places like National Geographic, in some ways the ‘high-temple’ of scientific naturalism. You’ll know that if you read NationalGeographicMagazine or watch their TV shows that many there think that evolution is the only game in town. But it was great to speak to a group of people who really were looking for something more and it was an incredible opportunity to present the gospel.
Too often Christians lock the gospel up within the four walls of the Church but we forget that the message of the gospel is persuasive and powerful and has something to say. The gospel has something to say, whether it’s on university campuses, or in culture-shaping institutions like National Geographic.
The icing on the cake, was that as well as the National Geographic’s own offices, they have a little museum and every time I’ve been there they have had different exhibits. This time they had an exhibition on the Church of The Holy Sepulchre — the church in Jerusalem, built over the site which is thought to have been the tomb of Christ. They had produced this amazing three-dimensional show in which you could “fly” through the church, round it, under it and over it! It turns out that National Geographic were involved in restoring the church a couple of years ago. The exhibition around it was incredible, and there were clearly Christians involved because while it tried its best to be neutral, some of the language was pretty Christian. So it was really encouraging to see the gospel being preached, either directly through my opportunity to stand up and say something, or indirectly on the panels about this church in this amazing location. It archaeologically has a good claim, that it very well maybe was the place where Jesus’ body laid for those three days between his burial and his resurrection.
SOLAS: At University, you got very involved in “the New Atheist” thinking, how did you get into that, what grabbed you about their thinking and what persuaded you that they had a case?
PB: I was on a drama course, at University of Kent, 4-year Masters Programme. In that kind of environment you get to mix with all sorts of people who throw all sorts of ideas around. One of my best friends there said, “you must read this book called The God Delusion, it’s absolutely amazing.” So I started looking into Dawkins, watching him on YouTube, and reading the book.
At University, you want to be independent and break off from your parents and do your own thing. In the crowd I was mixing with – a very liberal, expressive, quite emotionally sensitive, crowd, you really do buy into the general narrative; that ‘we’re here to be expressive, experimental and push boundaries, and get in touch with really deep things about human nature’. So regarding ‘religious-stuff’ or ‘God-belief’ the narrative is that it is something oppressive, dull and boring, and for unimaginative idiots. People throw around arguments in the pub such as “the Pope tells people not to use condoms, isn’t he an idiot”. Then, you hear about ‘creationism’ whereas you believe in evolution, and think it makes you a more sophisticated person, because you embrace the grey areas and complexities of the human condition. So the whole ethos was, ‘if you are a sophisticated, intelligent, person, you don’t do ‘the god-stuff’ which is for losers. That was an atmosphere that I very much enjoyed and embraced, because that gave me more permission to just do things my own way. SOLAS: So you were attracted to a non-Christian lifestyle, and Atheists like Dawkins provided you with a justification for that..?
PB: Yes, I’d ditched whatever bits of Christian upbringing I’d had. But what’s interesting about Dawkins is that he was pioneering the view that you don’t have to give respect to religious ideas. In his view, you can just say it’s wrong and that it’s stupid to believe it. I read his book again and again, and the bit I found liberating was when he defined faith as “belief without evidence”. I now know that’s nonsense, but back then, I bought into his definition that faith meant believing stuff without evidence.
Immediately that made sense, and gave me the right to reject anything anyone said if I didn’t think they had provided evidence. That was the ‘golden-card’. I thought that if I stuck to this life principle then it would open the doors for me. I felt that if anything came up to do with ‘God-stuff’, I could just dismiss it. Dawkins threw down the challenge daringly at the time and it seemed compelling. SOLAS: Is Dawkins an ‘anti-theist’?
PB: That term is more used of Christopher Hitchens, I enjoyed discovering him in the “Intelligence Squared” debate, where he, Dawkins, and Grayling, debated three religious people who really didn’t make much of an impression. Dawkins is technically an agnostic, because he thinks that there is something like a 6.9 out of 7 likelihood that God doesn’t exist. His position is that God is the least reasonable option for explaining our existence and the apparent design in nature. Hitchens though says that you should be an ‘anti-theist’, that theism is wrong, and likens living under a creator to being in a ‘celestial North Korea’. They are very attractive people to listen to. Dawkins gives you a sense of being ‘in’ on the wonder of science, and he plays his talents for explaining science and enthusing people about it. He persuades many people that finding science beautiful, and the natural world amazing, means rejecting all religion. So he turns the ‘argument from beauty’ on its head by saying that life is more beautiful and the world more explainable without God, and that belief in God is lazy and boring. Hitchens was incredibly engaging and drank and smoked a lot too, which is also attractive to students! SOLAS: And were you ever a passionate atheist, trying to convince other people?
PB: I really enjoyed getting into the debates and seeing how well I could argue the case. So , yes, I’d fight for it. SOLAS: But then some cracks started to appear. What were the first things that made you question the atheism that you were living, and believing?
John Lennox (photo: John Cairns)
PB: It was when I discovered “good” Christian apologists confronting the New Atheists. YouTube recommended videos with titles like “Dawkins wipes the floor with…” or “Dawkins destroys….” such and such a person. However, through those debates I was exposed to other points of view. Some Christian debaters I saw were really pathetic, waffly and vague. Eventually, though, I discovered William Lane Craig, and John Lennox. The first Christian apologetics book I read was The Dawkins Delusion, by Alister McGrath, which raised some interesting points. However, the heavy-artillery came in with people with philosophical training, like Lennox and Craig. Soon after that, I discovered Justin Brierley’s “Unbelievable?” programme and from there David Robertson. SOLAS: And were there particular lines of argument which were especially important for you as you started to discover Christian apologetics which were persuasive and credible? Were there particular things which were helpful for you at that critical stage?
PB: Well before looking at particular arguments there was a more general theme. Firstly Dawkins and others were struggling when they came up against academically capable apologists rather than the popular-level ones.
William Lane Craig
It was here that I discovered the best way to develop logical argumentation. William Lane Craig was the one that really led the way with that, because of the way he would lay out an argument: “Premise 1”, “premise 2” and the conclusion. That was interesting because even though the New Atheists, put a lot of emphasis on being logical and evidence based, they didn’t really teach how to actually do that. This is why the strongest apologists are those with philosophical academic training. David Robertson is very strong philosophically, with his grasp of logic; but also he’s got a very good history degree behind him. Justin Brierley and his debating show Unbelievable? on Premier Christian Radio also deserves a shout out – I think I listened to the whole podcast catalogue!
When Craig is sharing the Kalam Cosmological Argument, (the one about how the beginning of the universe implies God) he spells it out very clearly. Premise 1: “Whatever begins to exist has a cause”. Premise 2: “the Universe began to exist”. Premise 3: “Therefore the universe has a cause”. Then he unpacks the implication of premise three, the nature of the cause. He laid the structure of the argument out clearly so you could see the logic, and the evidence presented to support the premises of his arguments, openly and systematically. Then he would critique Dawkins’ arguments.
The closest thing Dawkins did to that was in chapter four of The God Delusion, where he outlines his central argument, known as “The Boeing 747 Gambit”. Dawkins developed a seven-step argument, which begins with the fact that the universe is complex and looks designed, and the temptation is to attribute this to a designer. But he says this is inadequate because it raises the question, “who designed the designer?” He argues that it’s no good trying to explain this complex universe by invoking something even more complex, as that just magnifies the problem. So basically, it’s a dressed-up version of the “Who made God?” argument. He invokes evolution as a way to get that complex universe from simple beginnings and makes it look as if he has solved the problem.
That looks compelling until someone like William Lane Craig comes along and dismantles it. He shows that Dawkins has made all sorts of logically invalid steps and equivocations. One such example is that Dawkins confuses complexity of function with complexity of structure. He’s saying that the universe is structurally very complex. Then when it comes to God, he assumes that God must also have a complex physical structure. But of course the whole point is He doesn’t! God is Spirit, He is a mind. So the complexity that God has is His power, mind and thoughts (i.e. complexity of function). So Dawkins is making a complete “apples and oranges” equivocation there. He is assuming that the only possible beings are those with complex structures, which is to assume naturalism and thereby atheism implicitly from the outset. This was also later pointed out to Dawkins by the agnostic philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, during his dialogue with Rowan Williams in 2012. Dawkins had nothing to say at the time other than “you cannot be serious” (sounding like John McEnroe!), and then proceeded to complain about “the meddling philosopher” after the event.
So, firstly, I discovered how logical argumentation actually works, and then saw that The New Atheists didn’t live up to that standard, and were being hypocritical.
David Robertson
There were specific arguments too, such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument, (the beginning of the universe needs to be explained by God); and The Argument from Contingency (that the universe can’t sustain its own existence so you need to invoke a necessary being, and God is that being). There’s The Fine-tuning Argument, that God is the best option rather than chance or necessity for the life-permitting constants and quantities of the universe. Then there’s The Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, that William Lane Craig, David Robertson and John Lennox weigh in on. Then there’s The Ontological Argument, but The Moral Argument was very significant; because there I found out how weak the New Atheists were. They make moral pronouncements about religion being evil but their responses are an absolute mess when you press them on how they account for the existence of objective moral truths. They try and mischaracterise that whole argument, by making it about whether you can behave like a good person if you don’t believe in God. But that’s not the issue! The issue is, “Even if you do behave like a good person, how do you explain the actual objective truth of what makes anything good!?” How do the objective standards of goodness exist: that’s the question!
So there were some specific arguments which were particularly useful. However, at a broader level I was struck by how ineptly, and at times hypocritically, the New Atheists responded to good Christian apologists who defended their beliefs using logic and evidence. SOLAS: So there you were reading both sides of the argument and you tried famously (or perhaps infamously!) to bring them together! You publicly asked Prof. Dawkins if he would be willing to debate William Lane Craig. And you weren’t that impressed with his answer….
Peter asking Prof Dawkins why he avoids debating William Lane Craig
PB: Oh no…. it was pathetic!! I got very disgruntled with Dawkins. I felt almost personally let down by him. I’d based a lot of my world-view, values and behaviour on his work. I embraced a particular way of life, the unrestricted hedonism which in many respects was implied by and championed by Dawkins. I had felt free of any God or restraint, which looked evolutionarily fine.
Dawkins had made this great name for himself as this intellectual giant who wiped the floor with people, but I began to realise that loads of them were very cheap targets or celebrity figures. I got increasingly irritated with Dawkins excuses for refusing to debate Craig, “It might look good on his CV, but not on mine”, “I don’t know who Craig is” But William Lane Craig had debated, Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett!
Then in that Intelligence Squared debate entitled “Is Atheism the new fundamentalism”, Bishop Richard Harries argued that a characteristic of fundamentalism is that it always attacks the weakest part of the opposition and doesn’t engage with the strongest one. I thought that that was an open door to ask Dawkins if he would debate Craig. He said he was happy to debate Bishops, Cardinals, and Pope’s (even though the whole challenge that he has thrown down is an academic one). And then he said, “I won’t debate people whose only claim to fame is that they are professional debaters. I’m busy!” Well, Bill Craig isn’t a professional debater, he is primarily engaged in peer-reviewed academic publishing. Dawkins responses were obviously excuses for avoiding debating William Lane Craig.
Peter Byrom challenges Dawkins to debate Craig
SOLAS: So there you were, balancing these two positions, and cracks were starting to appear in your atheism, and your New Atheist heroes were not performing well. How did you move from that position to full Christian faith?
PB: There were several fronts. I felt that I was getting almost a free extra university module in critical thinking in philosophy, because I was learning how to do logical argumentation, from Christians! So, intellectually the barriers to belief were coming down and the questions being answered. I was finding the New Atheists were doing a weaker and weaker job. When Christopher Hitchens debated Bill Craig, that was the weakest I had ever seen him perform. I noticed that some of my atheist friends struggled with the counter-arguments too.
But in terms of coming to Christian belief myself, there were a mixture of factors. The intellectual side came first. I had decided that I didn’t want to go anywhere near Christianity because I didn’t want an authority figure over my life. I’d come to university, I was doing my own thing, making my own rules, playing my own game, I was enjoying the pleasures and ‘loose’ ways of living that a lot of students do. I didn’t want a big ‘father-figure’ in the sky thank-you! So, emotionally I was very set against it. But the intellectual barriers had started to come down.
At the same time I ended up living with two friends. One was a Christian who became an atheist, the other an Atheist who became a Christian. He had a massive conversion experience, and that was really annoying; really inconvenient! I didn’t want that in my life. I thought I had got rid of it, and then my friend had to go and become a Christian and stir everything up again. So our flat was a constant source of debate and discussion because I was living with two people who believed these different things!
However, I saw the impact of becoming a Christian on my friend. I couldn’t help noticing that bits of his character seemed to be oddly improving! He seemed to be calming down a bit, he seemed to be a bit more level-headed about a few things. In terms of my own lifestyle choices, I got into a relationship that was really foolish, based purely on hedonism. That was incredibly damaging and messy, one of the most selfish things I ever got into . But I got into that because I was very much embracing the whole kind of “be free and hedonistic, be the animal that you are” ethos. SOLAS; “There’s probably no God so stop worry and enjoy your life…” like the atheist bus campaign slogan!?
PB: Exactly, and that was a ridiculous trajectory and I spent three years of my life on that; a really bad road to go down. It actually compares very weakly to the standards that came from the Christian point of view.
So there were two things. Firstly the intellectual case for Christianity needed to be made. But then, secondly, having already started heading down a hedonistic, foolish lifestyle; then that needed to collapse as well. I think that intellectually I became convinced of Christianity, maybe a year or so before I actually made the step to converting! I’d say the intellectual was a necessary, but not sufficient condition for actually becoming a Christian. SOLAS: So, your head before your heart!?
PB: Yes, that’s right! I suppose the head made it easier to direct the heart where it needed to go. SOLAS: What year was this?
PB: This was during William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith” tour in October 2011. I took a long time to become a Christian. For about a year or so, I was very critical of Dawkins; and slowly shifting allegiance to William Lane Craig and the Christian apologists. I was at my most atheistic around 2006-2008. However by 2011, atheism was looking intellectually weak; and existentially and from a lifestyle point of view it was unfulfilling, silly, cheap and shallow. From 2009-2011 I was challenging atheism with good Christian apologetics. Then by 2011, I was finding Christianity more intellectually convincing that atheism. But I still hadn’t moved on it, because my heart wasn’t there yet. I needed my bad lifestyle choices to fall down around me because I needed to start afresh.
I was very disgruntled with Dawkins too, and tried all sorts of ways to persuade him to debate Craig, including that question that ‘went viral’ on YouTube. Dawkins had made all these boasts about how his view was superior, and that nobody had ever defeated his arguments. So when Craig came to Oxford, Peter May of UCCF had this brilliant idea of inviting Dawkins to debate Craig and putting out an empty chair, with his name on it when he refused!
There were these great representatives of two great clashing world-views, and Dawkins was the one with much more media exposure and yet he was the one running away. Daniel Came the atheist from Oxford University wrote a letter to Dawkins which was published in The Telegraph, which said “You need to debate with Bill Craig otherwise this will look like cowardice”.
So, my oncoming Christianity manifested itself first of all as a frustration with Dawkins. His refusal to debate Craig was the final straw, atheism just doesn’t have the intellectual rigour that he claims. Then I became really concerned about some of the smear campaigns that Dawkins tried to use against Bill Craig. Then one evening I realised, I actually believe, and that I should just get on with it and become a Christian. SOLAS: You mentioned that when you were an atheist, you lived consistently with that and that that was very unhelpful in your life. You talked about unhelpful relationships, no structure of values and things not going well. How has your life looked as a Christian?
PB: There have been all sorts of changes. It’s actually made me confront a lot of the things that lead me to going down those bad roads. My biggest problem is perfectionism. Psychologically, it’s a terrible thing to have. If you are a perfectionist you have an absolute crippling fear of failure; and don’t want to take any risks because everything has to be right. It was very easy for me to be led by the pleasure-seeking and led by other people. But coming into the Christian world, I tried to do everything well and follow all the rules, and not let people down. Then I began to grasp biblical principles that actually helped to confront this perfectionism. Actually becoming a Christian, involves learning that your security is in Christ, and that it’s not about getting your act together and being a perfect person. The irony is that it frees you up to have a better shape to your life because your security is all in God. He has forgiven your sin, and you don’t need to go and worship idols and base your life-identity on something else, like hedonism.
In other ways, things have been incredibly different. I have a better relationship with my parents for example. I had got really into heavy smoking and heavy drinking which needed to be addressed as well. Now I’m married and we have a child on the way, and are getting a new home. There’s a lot of change and a lot of growing for my wife and I because we’re both finding that when you have your mind on Christ, it’s really important to read God’s word, start applying it personally, existentially and emotionally as well.
So the apologetics opened my head to allow my heart to follow to a place where I could take God’s word seriously and start getting the benefits of it.
The Christian life isn’t all easy, however. Some things also get worse before they get better, and the “getting better” is first and foremost to do with growing in knowing God and having Him shape your character, rather than necessarily having “better” life circumstances. But it does mean that, whatever happens, you are secure in Christ, and can trust Him, and that is the greatest thing to have.
If I was to sum it up, I’d say “Don’t be conned”. Faith is not “belief without evidence” as Dawkins says, but is “placing your trust in what the evidence shows you”. Or, to quote C.S. Lewis, “faith means holding on to what your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods!” So, don’t be duped into thinking that you don’t have to use your mind when it comes to the question of God. That’s the case whether you are an atheist who wants to avoid God, or a Christian who wants to grow in God, you’ve got to really use your mind. The heart and the soul cannot be separated from it. Don’t settle for people who just describe things as intellectually credible, or “morally superior” but actually go and test it yourself! SOLAS: Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us your story!
PB: Pleasure!
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https://www.reasonablefaith.org/
http://www.johnlennox.org/
https://theweeflea.com/
Was Hitler a Christian? That may sound a ridiculous question, but it’s an accusation sometimes made by atheists. Does it stand up? In the latest SHORT ANSWERS video, David Robertson, an avid reader of history, checks it out.
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.
Why is apologetics so important? For those unfamiliar with apologetics, it might be helpful to define the term ‘apologetics’ before looking at why it’s important. Simply put, Christian apologetics is giving a reason or defence for the Christian faith.
There are two sub-disciplines of Christian apologetics: positive apologetics and negative apologetics. Positive apologetics involves giving an argument for Christianity. For example, giving arguments for God’s existence or the reliability of the Bible. Negative apologetics involves answering objections against Christianity. For example, answering the problem of evil.
When people ask me why we should engage in Christian apologetics, I have four broad responses: First, the Bible commands it.
Apologetics is not optional. Every follower of Christ is instructed to be an apologist. Let me give you a few verses to back this up. Probably the most often cited passage comes from the apostle Peter. He writes,
[I]n your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)
The apostle Paul says the same thing in a different way. He writes,
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5–6)
In my favourite passage on the subject, Paul says,
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).
Paul also tells the church in Philippi that they are all partakers with him of grace, both in his imprisonment “and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel” (Philippians 1:7). Similarly, Jude says it was “necessary for him to write appealing to [his readers] to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
The Bible is clear. Yet, if you walked into most churches today and asked what they teach on apologetics, they would probably look at you like you had three heads. This is because apologetics is treated as if it’s an extra at best or an error at worst. Whether it’s apathy or animosity towards apologetics, both are often fuelled by anti-intellectualism.
As we’ve seen, God commands apologetics. Therefore, those who refuse to “make a defence” or “answer each person” are disobeying God’s command.
So, why do apologetics? Well, the Bible commands it. And that alone should be reason enough. But that’s not the only reason why we do apologetics. Second, the culture demands it.
The late philosopher and theologian Francis Schaeffer referred to apologetics as ‘pre-evangelism’. This is the idea that God uses well-reasoned answers and arguments as a springboard to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his book Mere Apologetics, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath says, “Apologetics lays the ground for the invitation; evangelism extends it.”
For example, it makes no sense to talk about the Son of God—who communicates the word of God, and performs acts of God, and brings the salvation of God—unless there is a God. Apologetics lays the groundwork for belief in God through arguments and evidence.
In addition, the culture is deeply saturated in three dominant philosophies: relativism, pluralism, and naturalism. Relativism says there is no absolute truth. Religious pluralism says there is no exclusive truth in religion (all views are equally true). Naturalism says there is no supernatural truth.
Do you see a problem in doing evangelism in this cultural climate? We are presenting an absolute truth to a relativistic culture, an exclusivist message to a pluralistic culture, and a supernatural view to a naturalistic culture. It is no surprise that Christians are confronted with questions like, “How can Jesus be the only way?”, “Has science proven that miracles are impossible?” or “Who are you to force your morality on me?”. These questions grow out of the soil of a secular worldview. Apologetics responds to these questions at the worldview level.
Not only does the Bible command apologetics, but the culture also demands it. Third, the church needs it.
This fact cannot be overstated. We just looked at how apologetics is pre-evangelism to the culture. However, apologetics is also post-evangelism to the church. The challenges to faith don’t evaporate once you become a Christian. In fact, they intensify. This is where apologetics comes in.
Arguably, the most important generation of the church is the next generation. Yet, all the research we have shows that approximately three in five young people disconnect from their church by the age of 15.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. In Judges 2:10, after Israel finally enters the Promised Land and Joshua dies, we read, “And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” It took one generation to abandon God and turn to idols.
How do we help curb the next generation’s drift away from God? The answer is—yes, you guessed it—apologetics.
Lest you think this is merely the biased opinion of a professional apologist, consider the research of David Kinnaman—the president of Barna Research. In 2012, Christianity Today summarized Kinnaman’s findings into six reasons why young people leave the church. What’s interesting about the list is that each of the six reasons relates—in some degree—to apologetics. If the church would begin to take the life of the mind more seriously and equip its young people to understand and defend their faith, we could meet these challenges head on.
The church desperately needs apologetics because it helps to provide real responses to the reasons people leave the faith. Fourth, the results confirm it.
Apologetics works. That is, we have evidence of people coming to a knowledge of the truth through apologetics.
For instance, there are multiple occasions in Scripture where the disciples model the use of reason and evidence, and people are persuaded as a result.
For example, Acts 17 says Paul employed apologetics in Thessalonica. It reads:
Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. (Acts 17:1–4, NASB)
It was Paul’s custom—his routine—to reason with the people he spoke to. And as he reasoned from the Scriptures, he would appeal to evidence to make his case. Paul was doing apologetics. As a result, people were persuaded and followed Christ.
There are also many contemporary stories of people coming to know and trust God through apologetics. These include C. S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, Nabeel Qureshi, Abdu Murray, and many others.
Why bother with apologetics? Well, the Bible commands it, the culture demands it, the Church needs it, and the results confirm it. Taken individually, each reason should motivate us to engage in apologetics. However, taken all together, these provide a powerful apologetic for apologetics.
Tim Barnett writes for “Stand to Reason”, an apologetics ministry based in California. This article was first published by them here and is re-printed with permission.
“I’m back from a really exciting weekend of mission in Liverpool, working in partnership with a local church, called “The Lane”. It was a series of training and evangelism events which is exactly the kind of thing we love.
On the Friday night we kicked off with an event at the local golf club. One of the things we do at Solas is to encourage churches to use neutral spaces such as coffee shops, pubs or restaurants; but in this case the church had rented the local golf club. There were 85 people there for a dinner, about half of them were not Christians. They’d asked people to submit questions, and for about an hour after dinner, I engaged with people’s questions. It was everything from ‘God and Science’ to Hell, to suffering, all kinds of questions came.
There was a really good mixture of people there. At a table right in front of me there was a very enthusiastic atheist guy about my age, called Chris. He fired question, after question at me. He didn’t quite heckle, but very much raise his hand and interject into stuff. Actually it really worked, the audience really enjoyed the way that it became more of a dialogue. He came to speak to me afterwards about his personal story and why he had ended up in Atheism, having come from a very Catholic background.
Some of the other questions and conversations afterwards went to really good places. I was hugely encouraged that we had people signing up for the Alpha Course. That was the church’s goal, to use the event to promote Alpha, and now people are starting that journey; we trust towards Christ.
Then on the Saturday morning we did a training event. We love doing these training events for churches. This one was just half a morning, people came for 9:30AM, and we fed them breakfast, and then I had a couple of sessions with them. We were training them and helping them to think through how to answer some of the big questions of our age. We landed with a session on ‘how we can be sure that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened’.
Then on Sunday, I preached to the church of about 200 people. It’s been really encouraging to see this church growing. The pastor there, is an old friend of mine, and a few years ago it was a church of 60, now its around 200. They outgrew their church building and are now meeting in a local school. Now they are outgrowing the local school and are struggling with the question of where to move next! It’s exciting to see growth and exciting to see lots of young Christians and it was really good to be able to be part of that.
One of the things Solas loves to do is to partner with local churches. So if you are reading this, and you’d love to have Solas come and work with your church, in terms of reaching your community, or training folks to be more confident in their faith; do reach out to us, we will happily come to you!
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PS: (From the editor) The local church were encouraged and added the following to Andy’s report:
“I would recommend Andy Bannister to any church that is interested in engaging with some of the more challenging issues of our day. He has the ability to combine serious philosophical argument with a winsome, friendly and humorous style. He is a very gifted communicator both in the answering searching questions and in preaching ‘the word’”: Nick Johnson, Pastor, “The Lane”, Liverpool.
Reviewed by Dr Mark Stirling. Mark is the Director of The Chalmers Institute in St Andrews. The Chalmers Institute exists for the renewal of Church leadership in Europe by developing Biblically mature leaders who will equip God’s people for lives of discipleship and evangelism.
DAVID: It’s very different! So there are some similarities, but Sydney in particular is different. The older denominations are much more evangelical there. I was speaking to the Anglican Bishop of Wollongong, he has sixty churches in his diocese and every single one of them is Evangelical/Reformed. There are probably only five congregations on the whole of the Scottish Episcopal Church that would describe themselves in those terms. In Australia they have Hillsong on the Charismatic side, and other large churches like that. There’s a growing F.I.E.C. movement, there are the Sydney Anglicans. There are also a lot of Chinese people there, and I have previously really enjoyed working with the Chinese Presbyterians. My aim is to work with all of them. Whether that will work, and whether they’ll want me to, I don’t know! The whole thing is that this is a huge “gamble”. It may not work at all, on the other hand it may take off! Who knows?
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It was really interesting to see how many people there in that audience were searching spiritually. Lots of people have figured out that atheism doesn’t really work but they are not convinced that religion really works either, and so are very, very open. We see this wherever we go, on university campuses or in coffee shop events, or even here at places like National Geographic, in some ways the ‘high-temple’ of scientific naturalism. You’ll know that if you read National Geographic Magazine or watch their TV shows that many there think that evolution is the only game in town. But it was great to speak to a group of people who really were looking for something more and it was an incredible opportunity to present the gospel.
Tim Barnett writes for “Stand to Reason”, an apologetics ministry based in California. This article was first published by them 
