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I Saved Christmas!

A few years ago, I saved Christmas.
Normally that would sound like a misleading headlines, designed to grab a reader in and then impress you with my wit as I try to explain what I really meant. But I do literally mean that. I saved Christmas. Father Christmas, to be exact.
I was on an American road-trip, with my great friend Jamie. We’d begun in the metropolis machine of New York, and had now driven our way across to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was early December, and starting to get a bit chilly. So one night, Jamie, myself and a few other Tulsinian friends ventured downtown to hear some carol singing. We walked the city, saw the lights, and then came across Father Christmas, along with his wife – named, Mother Christmas, I think. They were the real-deal. Both were delightfully old, and had faces that were warm and inviting. The beard was legitimate, the wrinkles were real, and their smiles and rich Southern accents oozed authenticity. We chatted to them both, shared our Christmas wish-lists, and then moved on to get hot chocolate. We wandered. And ten, as we went back to our rental car to head off – we saw an unusual site.
Father Christmas, trying to break into the car next to us.
At first, we were flummoxed. Wasn’t Santa meant to travel by sleigh? And wasn’t he meant to give gifts – not steal them? But a quick conversation later, and we realised the problem. Mother Christmas had been getting too cold, so had taken one of their cars home. Only – she had both sets of keys in her jacket – leaving Santa short of a ride.
He didn’t know what to do – and was about to ask the police if they could assist him in breaking in. We had a better idea – and offered to take him home. He jumped in the car, we put on appropriate Christmas carols – and had a delightful 20 minutes of taking Father Christmas home – knowing that we had done the world a favour.

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A selfie from that night!

Now, the more astute reader will note – that we were in all likelihood not carrying the real Father Christmas at all. Instead, we were carrying an ordinary man, who had lived in Tulsa his whole life.
And with them – I’d agree. Apart from one little word – ‘ordinary.’
You see, according to the story of Christmas, there’s a husband and wife who live a mystical life in the North Pole. They oversee a team of elves, who create toys – which Santa and his magical reindeer deliver across the globe on Christmas Eve.
According to the story of scientism – the belief that science is the only way of knowing – the person sitting in the car with us was a mixture of organic chemicals and compounds. His life was determined entirely by his environment and the way these factors drove his decision making.
And according to the story of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures – this man is one who bears the thumbprint of the divine on every aspect of his life. This is one who is no mere mortal, but is crowned and charged with possibility and mystery in their very being.
This is one thing I love about a worldview that transcends scientism, or materialistic determinism – it makes your world that much bigger. You see, pure scientism – think Richard Dawkin’s atheism – says that what-you-see-is-what-you-get. There is no room for magic, for mystery or for miracle. It is all science and can all be empirically proven.
In all of human history – there cannot be one miracle. Not one moment of enchantment. Not one sense of spiritual mystery. If there was – even just one little answered prayer – the entire scientism castle would come crashing down.
As G. K. Chesterton quipped:
“If the cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of a cosmos. The real thing has shrunk. The whole of life is something much more grey, narrow, and trivial than many separate aspects of it. The parts seem greater than the whole.”
Far from being small-minded – the Christian worldview offers a perspective that includes science – but goes wider than it. It acknowledges that science is a fantastic way of knowing – but it does not tell the whole picture.
It enjoys scientific discovery, and seeking to explore the order behind everything we see. And yet, it is open to those rules being broken and transcended – because it recognises that there is Someone bigger than science.
Thus we can have a neurosurgeon praying for his patient. The perfect marriage of scientific rigour and training, along with a recognition that perhaps there is another helper in the room. We can have philosophers who believe in miracles. We can have theologians who apply methods of science to their study of God – and then worship with heart-felt abandon at the one they enjoy.
This is the joy of life. C.S. Lewis also noted that believing in miracles doesn’t mean disbelieving in science. Instead – we have to know the rules of the world, for a miracle to happen. It’s the playful breaking of the rules that makes a miracle – not an ignorance of them.
We know that water doesn’t turn into wine. That’s what makes it so delightfully good when it does.
We know that sickness is fought by an immune system, and can be supported by medicine. That’s what makes it so delightfully great when a miraculous healing occurs. Blind people don’t suddenly see. We don’t get insights into what’s going to happen. We can’t scientifically discover what latent dreams lie on a person’s heart.
We know this – and yet, we see it happen. This is the delight of mystery, and the beauty of the world. And we need a story of everything that includes this mystery and delight. So maybe I didn’t save Santa. Maybe I didn’t save Christmas. But I did enjoy time with one who is made in the image of God, and one who contains more mystery and worth than science would ever allow.
And, who knows? As the book of Hebrews says, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Angels in your workplace? Amongst the poor? On the side of the road, needing a ride?
That sounds more real to me, more than anything a scientism can tell.
Here’s to mystery, the unknown and a life of faith and adventure – discovering as we follow.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

MG_5993-1-1024x984Jeremy Suisted is an Innovation Consultant, as well as a part-time Old Testament lecturer, copywriter and speaker. He is a New Zealander who blogs at www.jeremysuisted.com, where this article was first published.

Are you just a Christian because you were born that way?

“You’re just a Christian because you were born in a Christian family!” Is it true that we just believe what we believe because of our culture or upbringing? In the latest SHORT/ANSWERS, Solas Director Andy Bannister untangles this common assumption..

 

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Andy Bannister Reports on Recent Work in Canada

canada abA few weeks ago I was back in Canada, where I lived from 2010-2016 — and I always enjoy opportunities to go back and speak in the country that was home for six years.
We had an incredible week of ministry on this trip. We ended up in Toronto, where we worked with one of the huge Coptic churches. It’s an amazing church tradition which I know very little about. The huge Coptic Centre in Toronto wanted me to come and speak to their young people. They expected “a couple of hundred” of them to come on the Friday night, but that was a huge underestimate! We had as many as nine hundred. I have never seen anything like it; they kept coming and coming and coming!
I spoke on “God and Science”. Their leaders asked me to speak about that because a number of their young people were struggling with questions about science at university. After my talk we opened the floor, and answered question after question after question. Some of these youngsters were pretty well read, too. One of the questions on biology contained a term I didn’t even know! So I must admit, I bluffed, and said, “For people in the audience who don’t know what that word means, could you explain it?” Thankfully, he explained it in such a way that the speaker (who is not a scientist!) could understand and then address.
It was amazing to see these young people on fire for Christ. It’s an amazing church community because many of those Coptic families are in Canada having fled from Egypt, where Christians are persecuted quite heavily by the Muslim majority. Hearing stories of Christian families, who have experienced real persecution because of their faith; was very sobering. Many of us ‘Western Christians’ rarely think about these things, while those in the Middle East have been through a lot.
andy B canadaWhen we were in Canada I also took part in a mission at Ottawa University, in Canada’s capital city. It’s always exciting to do university missions in Canada because when I was there (2010-2016), I helped to start them off. To see them now, thriving and having a life of their own is so exciting.
I hadn’t done a mission at Ottawa University before, and it was incredible to see the passion and enthusiasm of the Christian students there. They organised a great mission, and found the perfect location for the talks. Rather than being shut away in a classroom, we used a venue called “The Agora”, a little amphitheatre right in the middle of campus. It’s right by the food courts where students come past all the time. When I was speaking I was surrounded by people on three sides and there was lots of traffic to and fro. There were really good audiences, with hundreds of people coming to our talks. We addressed all the usual topics, like sexuality and identity, suffering, meaning, and significance. I spoke on the resurrection — why we can be sure the resurrection of Christ happened and what it means. It was exciting to see young people come to faith in Christ.

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Young Canadians hearing the gospel in Ottawa

One young man called Ashwant walked into one of our first sessions as a liberal Hindu and, by the end of the week, had come to faith in Christ. We often see people come to faith in Christ in the weeks and months after these university missions. Typically they sign up for an Alpha course during the mission, but the event is just the start of the process. This man though, had a dramatic encounter with Christ! For me to be part of that story, to be part of the group that prayed with him is such a tremendous privilege; and it’s so wonderful to see God at work.
What I love about university missions, whether it’s in Canada or right here in Scotland, is that we see similar things going on all the time. God is very much at work right in the heart of the academy.

"A War of Loves": In Conversation with David Bennett

Gavin Matthews spoke to David Bennett, author of the remarkable book, A War of Loves

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SOLAS: So your book is out now?
DB: Yes, released on Thursday the 29th November in the UK, and then mid-December in Australia, but it was out on November 3th in the States. *Purchase your copy at our 10ofThose partner page.*
SOLAS: So has this book been brewing for a long time?
DB: The plan for the book started a year and a half ago when I was with my friend, the late Nabeel Qureshi. He’d written Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus and there was something profound about that book in the way it wove-together story and apologetics. I thought that we really needed a book like that which connects arguments for the scriptural view of human sexuality with a real story, and I had that story. So, I saw the huge value of pairing those two things together. I sense that a lot of people are trying to ‘box’ my book in, but I really hope that people will lay their ‘bug-bears’ down and actually consider the story and what has actually happened in my life.
I had just finished writing my book and was reading the manuscript in a coffee shop, sitting opposite a young girl who was a chain-smoking atheist, a very forthright interesting individual. We got chatting and she said, “I completely disagree with you being celibate, I think it’s ridiculous. But I respect you, and I’d like you to read your book to me!” And after reading the book, she said, “I not only understand why you are celibate”, but also “How do I become a Christian?” Which was amazing, and that’s really the reason I wrote the book!
SOLAS: Your book is part autobiography, part theology — an interesting mixture of different things going on.
image1DB: So the book is trying to bridge the gap between the subjective and the objective, the theological and the personal. I think the question of human sexuality and desire is a profound one to our personhood, in our bodies and in the world. It really requires a different approach than just a statement of belief, it’s something which requires an incarnational, as much as a scriptural response. My book doesn’t say “here’s what scripture says – now go live it”, it says, “here’s what scripture says, this is how I as a human being have lived it.” I think that is so important for gay people that this question doesn’t remain abstract but comes down and dwells with them and relates to them. That’s what I needed when I was going through my own questioning. So I want the book to make people feel that they have ‘company’ and draw them towards intimacy with God. At the very centre of the book is the question, “have you experienced the love of God?”. I really don’t think that the question of who we are, including our sexuality is really answerable until we have experienced the love of God in Jesus. I don’t think you can understand the Christian ethic without knowing Christ. So I wrote this primarily as an invitation to embrace the love of God.
I’m not really celibate today because I’m gay (although that’s part of it). You know, recently, the Lord said to me, “You are celibate, because I’m worthy of that.” This is actually an invitation to worship and to realise how worthy God is. It’s in losing yourself in God that you find yourself and that is the ‘heart-cry’ of the book.
SOLAS: And there’s enough in the autobiographical side of the book to upset those on the more liberal side of the equation and enough in the theology to upset the more fundamentalist… so I suppose there’s enough to upset almost everybody!
DB: That sounds like somebody I know … Jesus!!! I mean, Jesus agreed with the conservatives, with his views on divorce and resurrection but he didn’t agree with the way they lived out the law. He saw that it was hollow, and he reinstated the life of faith, which is living in the dynamic of relationship with Father-God in the Spirit. Jesus steered us back to that relationship in which the moral life actually makes sense and works. I want to walk to the ‘narrow’ Jesus path, and I’m willing to pay a price.
SOLAS: John’s gospel describes Jesus as “full of grace and truth” but sometimes it seems that the Church is always trying to compromise on one of those things or the other — but you seem to be trying to go all out of BOTH grace and truth!
DB: Yes! And how can we claim to worship Messiah-Jesus and not do that? I don’t understand how people think that truth alone will get people there, and I don’t understand how people want to water down grace and make it ‘fluffy’; it’s an insult to his cross. When people ‘watered down’ truth to me, they thought they were loving me, but they weren’t. When people watered-down grace, they weren’t loving me, they were just making it easier for their flesh to feel comfortable with the fact that I was gay. That doesn’t come from God. Whenever a person acts from the love of God, even if they are rebuking you or correcting you, it will always bring life and encourage you to go deeper with the Lord. I hope that in this sexuality conversation, Jesus will be imitated in the church.
SOLAS: Your book is very open, very personal. Were you ever tempted to hide, to just live out your beliefs quietly, rather than publicly?
DB: I deeply disagree with the lack of vulnerability in Christian ministry platforms and the way the Christian world works. There’s a kind of personal authenticity, that I absolutely love about the gay-community and I miss desperately in the Christian community. It’s ironic because I say in the book that I felt a lack of intimacy when I was in various spaces in the gay world. I also have felt more recently a lack of capacity for Christians to have intimacy with one another and be real and honest and authentic; because of the fear of being judged or losing a platform. I am trying to break that and say that the only way to minister Christ to the world is through our weaknesses, vulnerabilities and personal failures. It’s in that space that the glory of God is seen. I think that it is really important to be personally vulnerable and that’s why I put my head above the parapet. Jesus himself, and Paul and the greats of the faith all put their head above the parapet at the appointed time. I feel that God has given me this opportunity with my story. It is scary, and there are times when I think that people will reject me or come after me. I always worry that there will be those people who are just determined to hate, and don’t want to hear what you have to say, or just pre-judge the book from the cover. But my prayer is that people will read the book, allow it to touch them, and that God will speak to them through it. And it’s worth taking that risk, I think.
SOLAS: You got NT Wright to write the foreword! I remember hearing him once say that wherever Paul preached there were riots and people tried to kill him; but wherever he preaches people serve cups of tea! So what kinds of reactions have you had to the book?
DB: Well I had one very unfortunate reaction on Twitter saying that my book would kill people. But that person then apologised and said that they hadn’t actually read it! But that’s probably the kind of reaction you get from someone who had been hurt by the church. However, it’s unfair to judge my book without understanding who I am or my story. My book is far more complex, gritty and real than some clichéd ex-gay narrative. People see “he was a gay-activist who discovered Jesus”. But you have to understand I was an atheist gay-activist! I wasn’t a Christian, in fact I hated Christianity. I was expecting that there would be a backlash but 99% of feedback has been really positive, and lots of people have said that we really need this book for the church and for the gospel. Some have said thank you for being vulnerable. New Christians have picked up the book and said, ‘this is exactly what I needed, God has led me to your book’ sometimes from people living silently in the closet who feel freed by the book. So it’s amazing to see the stories of people who have been transformed by God through it, and I’m humble grateful to God for that. A War of Loves is not a perfect doctrinal statement either. That might follow after I have completed my theological studies, and have more life experience, I’m only 29!
SOLAS: So, tell me about the title: A War of Loves?
DB: I was trying to come up with a title that really summarised the book . An atheist gay-activist has this crazy encounter with God in a pub, and then wakes up the next day! What is that like…?!
SOLAS: I have no idea!!
DB: Not many people have had that experience! I remember saying to God, “I’m an atheist gay activist, I can’t be a Christian!” So it was a war. Who would I stand for, Jesus, or that? The war in me was huge. Do I trust God or don’t I? It got to a point where the evidential threshold was crossed, and I had to follow Christ. But then there was a war for three years about what I did with my sexuality and my romantic life.
But this isn’t just a matter for people who are gay. There is the matter for everyone, with our will and the will of God. Jesus prayed in Gethsemane “not my will but yours be done” which is a war of loves and is the centre of my doctoral thesis. It’s a human struggle that we all have to do the will of God and not our own; including the wrestling of a gay, same-sex attracted person to be a Christian. There is a huge difference between having a desire, the goal or aim of which will never be fulfilled and has to die; compared to a heterosexual desire which could be sanctified in a marriage. When you are same-sex attracted/gay that’s hard, and I hope that’s something that people pick up in the book, that this “War of Loves” is a struggle to follow Christ and to let the war of loves be won. It’s won by God’s love winning over false, idolatrous views of love.
SOLAS: Does that not thrust a spear at the heart of what has gone wrong with Christianity in the West, that we have marketed it like a life-enhancement product for self-fulfilment, rather than looking Christ-like and sacrificial? And that the sort of cost you describe should be the normal Christian life?
DB: I totally agree, and the fascinating thing is being same-sex attracted and gay is secretly a blessing in disguise because I don’t have the option of lukewarm life-enhancement Christianity that is a hobby on Sunday. I literally don’t have that option. I want to say to the church, “Put your idolatry away where it came from. You can’t get away with it, there are people you are actually hurting by not living the full Christian life!” The fact that there aren’t many celibate heterosexual people is a sign that there is an idolatry of romantic love in the church. A young gay man in the book said, “Why can’t we have romantic love? They get to have romantic love and family and kids, and we don’t. How could God be good if that’s real?” And I said, Praise be to God that we have these desires because if we didn’t, we’d sign up to that idolatry and we wouldn’t follow His will. So it is a blessing in that particular sense that we don’t have that option – we have to go for celibacy. It actually forces your hand into a Christian asceticism as there is no other way through for a gay/same sex attracted person.
It’s the same for a heterosexual person, but because of our culture, you can kind of get away with it. I’m hoping that there’s an edge to the book that calls the church to repentance in this area.
SOLAS: I wonder if the church is uncomfortable with your message of high-cost, real discipleship?
DB: I understand that following Jesus isn’t easy and requires a lot of grace to take the step to carry your cross. In my life the people who have blessed me the most have been those loving, stable, Jesus-loving truth-embracing voices who have confronted me or who have sat with me in hard truths I need to accept. So, I wouldn’t want to do anything less for others.
I have had so many responses from people who are not LGBTQI, who have said to me, ‘this book is really helping me in my marriage’ or ‘in my family life’ to actually re-order my loves around God. I hope that this book is doing good work for the Lord’s purposes.
That’s why the stories of gay/same sex attracted people who are living obediently to Christ need to be shared more in the church because they have a prophetic weight. There’s a risk for the church to let them be heard, but I actually think that that God will bless though it. We need more testimonies of people who have come to embrace Jesus’ ethic of sexuality.
There are people arguing that the male-female created order of God doesn’t matter, that we have this new thing in Jesus and that gay-marriage is wonderful in the church. I think that that is such a betrayal of Jesus. He is the creator-incarnate and He made us male and female for a reason. Just deleting that is just impossible. You can’t worship Him as God and delete male and female marriage: that just doesn’t work. So gay marriage will never be at the centre of the church of Jesus. There will only be marriage as God originally intended it, and that’s not even the point in God’s Kingdom. Jesus said there will be no marriage in the future. So God has ratified the created order through Jesus. However, He will transform it in the future into something into which we all have access, are all invited. Of course, people who are celibate are almost starting heaven now! In the sense that they are embodying what the future will be like.
SOLAS: You talk about the difference between “good celibacy” and “bad celibacy”.. is that part of what you mean by “good celibacy”, pre-empting the future in the Kingdom of God?
DB: Exactly! Sarah Coakley’s book A New Asceticism has been a real blessing to me. It’s very careful thinking. She herself is pro-gay relationships in the church, and I completely disagree with that, but I do think that her model of what Christian asceticism looks like is brilliant. The future-orientated vocation of celibacy, is an admirable and honourable Christian vocation. Marriage obviously points to the future as well.
Of course, everyone is invited to be married in Christ! The real marriage we are actually celebrating is the future marriage of Jesus and the bride. Marriage between a man and a woman, or celibacy both celebrate that. In celibacy there is a deep, intense Christian friendship you can experience such as between David and Jonathan, and other biblical characters too. I’m really interested in seeing the church removing the idol of sexuality and experiencing those kind of friendships. I think they are a radical witness to the world, just as a beautiful Christian marriage is.
SOLAS: Our culture exalts sex to a very high place and will misunderstand some of what you are saying as a choice between sexual activity and misery … but you are a joyful person! What is the source of your joy?
DB: I don’t think people realise that God is actually real! I’m not giving my sexuality up merely for an idea! He’s actually real, Jesus is the Messiah, he actually rose from the dead! He rose, and it’s true. Jesus rose from the dead, I have no doubt about it. I have experienced too many of its effects to ever believe otherwise.
God has designs, desires and goals for our bodies and following them is a deep act of worship. Failing to do that is sinning, falling short of the intention He has for your body. That is a pretty big thing, but scripture is so clear that our bodies are not our own.
God’s love actually changes our hearts and desires that fit with His will and purpose though. That has happened with my same-sex desires. I don’t want a gay marriage, or a gay relationship anymore. I want to be completely with God and serve His kingdom. That’s taken a long time, ten years, and there’s been moments where of course I’ve wanted that, but overall you change over time. Once you have ‘tasted’ God, known His presence, you are given a new desire-life which is not orientated around the ‘old man’, but which desires the heavenly future.
Christian joy is so amazing. I am addicted to the joy of God. I think Christian joy is ultimately about union with God, knowing this incredible joy that He has about who we are, or what the creation will be like when it’s finally finished and we can rest in eternal intimacy with Him. And there’s nothing like that. The Bible states that ‘Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him’, and in some sense I know I’m going to suffer but I’ve got this joy set before me …. Christ! It’s hard to describe what it looks like; but I would say that it looks like a human being, fully alive! Which doesn’t require sex, it’s completely independent of sex. Christian joy is more than happiness, and comes through suffering too. That’s a really interesting mystery in the Christian life. The people who have the greatest Christian joy that I’ve seen, are those who have suffered the most.
SOLAS: Thanks for your time, David!
DB: Pleasure. And God bless you!

Christmas Adverts: Some Gifts Are More Than Just a Gift

by Sarah Allen

I’m writing this in the first week of December, but the battle of the ads started a few weeks ago.  Much anticipated, compared and dissected in the press, these adverts from the major retailers have become a tradition over the last fifteen years.  And I guess they do their job, raising the profile of the companies concerned and presenting them as beneficent, family friendly, cheer-bringing organisations – helping us to forget for a month or so that they are really consumption-creating giants battling each other for the contents of our purses.
As Christians who know that Christmas is about the extraordinary, awe-inspiring, dazzlingly beautiful miracle of the incarnation, it would be tempting to despise these ads.  They are often manipulative and cynical sickly-sweet confections, after all.  They promote idolatry of the family and of consumption and gloss over the pain that is so much a part of many peoples’ Christmases.  But maybe we should not condemn too quickly or switch off from their effects; after all these adverts showcase the aspirations and values of our nation.  They are a picture of the yearnings that we all share.

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Used with permission of John Lewis & Partners

Take, for example, the John Lewis advert which tells backwards the career of Elton John, ending in a Christmas gift of a piano.  The origin of his success, we are told, was the generous gift of loving parents, and throughout his famous “Your Song” plays with its refrain, “how wonderful life is, when you’re in the world”.  Parental love and giving are elevated together. 
This sentimentality is really cleverly undercut by the advert from their partner store, Waitrose, in which a teenage daughter attempts to show her parents this John Lewis advert, but they keep fast forwarding it because they want some cake; it seems we can choose – buy into to the schmaltz or laugh at it, either way, family is centre stage.  The same message is there in the 2018 Boots ad; which tells the story of the reconciliation of a teenage daughter and mum.  The BBC too have run their own ad-like narrative showing a working mum walking away from her demanding job to have fun with her son.  And Sainsburys, whose ad seems to have been the most popular so far, featured a mum putting away her phone to watch her daughter’s starring role in a primary school extravaganza.

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Used with permission of John Lewis & Partners

I could go on, but I think the central message is clear.  These are more like religious tracts than traditional adverts.  They call the watcher to repentance and worship and change with their message that family is more important than work, or technology or superficial disputes.  Unconditional love is at the heart of family, they say, and this love liberates.  So, show this love, presumably by buying stuff.
We might agree with a lot of this — Christians think that the family is important and that we should be generous to each other.  But we know as well that the nuclear family, however materially comfortable, cannot provide us with the love we really need.  And the most peaceful, loving family can still be riven with patterns of sin.  The best parents cannot sacrifice enough to bring their kids round.  If the family is where we turn to for salvation, then we will be left full of guilt and shame, trapped into giving (or buying?) more and more and more.
But the religious yearnings of these ads can also point us to a greater reality.  Isn’t our family relationship with our Father in Heaven, and through His Son, with our brothers and sisters on earth, more valuable than anything else?  Wouldn’t you agree that His love is liberating and accepting and generous.  And don’t the undeserved gifts of forgiveness and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit transform lives?  The desire expressed in these ads finds its answer and end in the gospel.

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“Some gifts are more than just a gift”      Used with permission of John Lewis & Partners

 

Are We Matter or Do We Matter?

What is a human being? Are we just a collection of atoms and particles? Or merely the result of time, chance and natural selection? Or are we, in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people with inherent dignity? In the latest SHORT/ANSWERS video, Andy Bannister explores why what you believe about God has a huge impact on what you believe about human beings — and about how we treat those around us.

 

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Debating Atheists at St Andrews University: a fascinating exchange of views

Last month I had the privilege of speaking at a debate in St Andrews – I believe it was the first of this kind that the Christian Union have organised. I loved it. The place was relatively full, the chairman was excellent and my opponent, Dr Manfredi La Manna, reader of Economics at University of St Andrews, was pleasant, affable and spoke well.

Dr La Manna

However, I found his arguments quite astonishing. He wanted to go further than Christianity being a delusion – he wanted to call it the greatest fraud. He argued that there were seven problems with Christianity which made it false.

    1. Christianity had come in credulous times

 

    1. Christianity had occurred just in the one place

 

    1. Christianity used a book in an age of illiterate people

 

    1. Christianity created a caste of priests

 

    1. In order to be true, Christianity had to be permanent (he later qualified this to mean that the evidence had to be permanent)

 

    1. The Bible would have to be perfect

 

  1. Christianity would have to be beneficial to society.

As you can imagine, these were all a gift! I enjoyed responding to them after giving my own initial presentation. I wonder how you would have responded? Here is a brief summary of my counter-points.
1. We live in credulous times – therefore Christianity must be flourishing! There is no evidence that the 1st century was any more credulous than the 21st.
2. There is no reason logically why this should make Christianity untrue. By definition, the historical Christ could only come in one place. Christians are now all over the world.
3. We taught them to read because Christianity is about education. Without the Book then we are at the mercy of various religious gurus.
4. We created a priesthood of all believers.
5. Christianity is permanent. We are still here. And so is the evidence.
6. It is.
7. It is….the University of St Andrews would not have existed without Christianity.
There was of course much more than that. I thought the questions were excellent and in some cases very difficult (the usual ones on feminism, homosexuality and science). I loved being faced with these challenges and thought that the participation of the students was excellent.
Some arguments from Dr La Manna stuck out. He claimed that he would not believe something unless it was 99.99999% certain – which I pointed out meant that his own discipline, (economics), was redundant!
He also encouraged students to get an online Bible and google it for words and quotes. I suggested that St Andrews students, as intelligent human beings, would be far better off actually reading books rather than just googling for quotes!
screenshot-2018-11-07-at-17-52-29He tried to use mockery, putting up a couple of Bible verses as if they were self-evidently ridiculous. It’s hard to deal with those in a short space of time – but it can be done! (although I am not sure I did it well).
He also claimed that the Bible was written by seven-year-olds – although he apologised for that to me afterwards – not least because it did not help his case!
The final lesson for me was the amount of harm that liberal theologians do. I think Dr La Manna struggled a bit because he was surprised to find that I actually believed the Bible. He suggested that ‘scholars’ thought otherwise – but did not cite any (although there are plenty).
Overall, I loved the evening and thought it was very useful in terms of the gospel. Several students spoke to me afterwards, asking about Bible study, or my Magnificent Obsession book or asking more questions. Years after the event, the debates I did with Matt Dilahunty continue to produce fruit – one student told me that he had been an atheist but partly because of those debates (which he had listened to six times!) was now an agnostic.

Rev David Robertson (Co-founder and Speaker for Solas) is the minister of St Peter’s Free Church, Dundee. He blogs at www.theweeflea.com, where this article was first published.

Sorry, not sorry!

It seems that on at least a weekly basis some public figure says something regrettable, is publicly censured for their words, and issues an apology. Whether it is the sexist content of an after dinner speech, or an editorial piece which lapses into the old tropes of racism, it seems that people cannot help but put their foot in it, transgressing the few remaining moral boundaries that our society upholds and enforces. What is intriguing in all of this is not the fact of people saying offensive things (history is littered with such pronouncements), but the modern means of dealing with it: the issued apologies which are pinned to a Twitter feed, or fed to the press.
One such story in today’s news provides an excellent example. An individual by the name of Graffin Parke was asked to make an after dinner speech at Cooke Rugby Club in Belfast. Perhaps having forgotten that the past thirty years have elapsed, Mr Parke used this as an opportunity to air his saltiest anecdotes and most sexist one-liners. While the actual content of his speech has not been aired, the commendable reaction of Cooke Rugby Club in utterly denouncing his sentiments suggests that his words were highly inappropriate. Approached by the BBC, Mr Parke ‘apologised’ using words which must appear in some kind of manual for people who don’t really want to say sorry:

“The comments I made are not in any way a reflection of my true attitudes or beliefs.”

This is a slightly nuanced form of ‘sorry, not sorry’, an affirmation that the individual was in the room when mistakes were made, but that he or she cannot in any way claim ownership of them. This is the new way to apologise – be outrageous, speak malignantly and abusively, push the edges of gratuitousness, and then as the verbal bomb detonates deny that you really meant to plant it in the first place.
Such words are suggestive of a kind of dualism and are deeply postmodern in their assumptions. A man or woman can make every thinking individual within his audience squirm and fume, but ultimately when confronted can say that this is not really him or her, not authentically who they are, that their words are beautifully divorced from anything they value, think, or truly espouse. The questions then arise: what is this person’s attitude? what do they think? why did they say something diametrically opposed to their belief system? how did Mr Hyde make it into the room when Dr Jekyll is such a fine fellow deep down?
All of this would be laughable if its ubiquity weren’t so lamentable. It is not just misguided middle-aged men who indulge in this behaviour, in essence all of us do. We are excuse-making creatures, we externalise our words and actions, we deplore the symptoms while denying the cause, we will go to any lengths to make sure that we don’t actually own what we do or say, knowing all the while that to do anything else would show us who we are. We are snappy with those closest to us, we show impatience and selfish disregard for everyone else, and then we say that it was tiredness which made us do it (C.S. Lewis is surely right in saying that we never credit good sleep for our better behaviours); we indulge in appetites which destroy us and others and then attribute our weakness to some deeper need or absence. All of us board the train of self-justification, knowing that it is rumbling towards the cliff edge, but to disembark, to face ourselves, to own our behaviours would be painful beyond words.
For me the gospel of Jesus Christ is so helpful here. He tells us that it is ‘out of the overflow of the heart’ that ‘the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12:34). Long before Freud formed his theories, Jesus blocked off our emergency exit, and demands that we see that our heart speaks whether we will it to or not, the corruption of who we are manifests itself, and nowhere more powerfully than in what we say. We will be held to account for our words, Jesus says, not just by the drooling mob on Twitter, but by Almighty God himself – what we say counts, and carries consequence far beyond our immediate discomfort at being called out. Those words are symptoms of the full anatomy of sin which we embody in our lives day by day – our words do show our attitudes and thoughts, they betray us and blab out our sinfulness in spite of our best attempts at moral finesse and respectability.
The gospel solution for this is deeply liberating too – repentant ownership, not just of our behaviour, or our demeanour, but of our sinful nature. The gospel liberates me to say that I am corrupt, that I am contorted and scheming and horribly compromised as a human being. The gospel allows me to say sorry, not just to the faceless crowd of our new speech-morality, but to the God whom I have offended. It allows me to say sorry securely because in Christ my sin has been dealt with and my forgiveness secured. This isn’t a luxury item owned only by those who come from a Christian background – Christ offers that opportunity to us all, to repent, to say this sin is mine and this sin is me, and to receive from him the transparently necessary forgiveness he died and rose to provide.


af4pZZsA_400x400Andrew Roycroft

is pastor of Millisle Baptist Church in Co. Down. N. Ireland, and blogs at www.thinkingpastorally.com

Why Can’t You Believe What You Want As Long As You’re Sincere?

In the latest Short Answers video Andy Bannister asks whether it matters what you believe as long as you believe it sincerely?

This video is used as part of the SU Scotland “Connect Groups Q&A” curriculum.

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Exploring The God Question – Review

The relationship, or conflict, between scientific endeavour and religious belief is a topic about which many a book has been written, and many a debate been held. The Exploring the God Question video series is a resource which attempts to cater for an audience who might not be inclined to read a whole book, or might find a debate arid.
ETGQ Pack ShotAt its heart, Exploring the God Question has three DVDs, covering the three broad topics of ‘The Cosmos’, ‘Life and Evolution’ and ‘Mind and Consciousness’. Each topic is split into two roughly 30 minute programmes, and each programme is divided into between six and nine sections, all of which can be individually played from the main DVD menu. This allows the DVDs to be used to provide stand-alone 30-minute or one-hour presentations on a topic, or each section can be used as short discussion starters. The overall format is made up of segments of interviews linked by a narrator and interspersed with impressive visuals.
A real strength of the material is the range and stature of the voices included. To make the point, here are a selection: Denis Alexander, Peter Atkins, Francis Collins, William Lane Craig, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchins, Steve Jones, John Lennox, Steven Pinker, John Polkinghorne, Michael Ruse, Lord Sacks, Keith Ward and Steven Weinberg. This, by any measure, is a line-up of some of the biggest names in science and religion. It ranges from the strident and uncompromising atheism of Peter Atkins, an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, to the philosophically adroit theism of William Lane Craig of Talbot School of Theology. The programmes move smoothly between interview segments with the various protagonists, and the two sides of the debate are, to my mind, fairly represented.
Those on the side of theism are drawn almost exclusively from Christianity (with Lord Sacks and the Muslim Usama Hasan being the only exceptions I noticed), but given the nature of the topic this makes little difference. The point at issue is primarily God’s existence, not His nature. That said, at the end of the third DVD, which deals with experience of God, the material becomes explicitly Christian in its perspective.
Life and Evolution.001Equally impressive as the line-up of interviewees is the scope of topics covered, and the willingness to take tough topics ‘head-on’. Thus, for example, the ‘Life and Evolution’ DVD includes dealing directly with the fact that suffering is ‘hard-wired’ into any theistic-evolutionary perspective. This point, sometimes skirted over by theists, moves the exegetical issues around the early chapters of Genesis from chapter 1 (the nature of the creative act) to chapter 3 (the consequences of the fall), and related issues of theodicy. I was also happy to see recent creationism being given a voice, not because I happen to agree with it, but rather because it is a view to be found within many evangelical churches, and stems from a genuine respect for the authority of Scripture.
Mind and Consciousness.001The ‘Mind and Consciousness’ DVD covers material which is becoming increasingly relevant, with the rise of Artificial Intelligence and allied questions about the nature of humanity. Nineteenth century concerns about Darwinism may have centred on the reduction of humanity to being no more than a the animal kingdom, but in the twenty-first century the issue is whether we are no more than very complex biological machines. If materialism is true then this is certainly the case. However, this brings in its wake a number of consequences, the most important of which are that free will is an illusion, and that morality is a social construction and no moral absolutes exist. The DVD deals with the question of morality, but also covers near death experiences, religious experience, and the nature of consciousness.
cosmos .001The DVD which dealt with material closest to my own area of expertise was ‘The Cosmos’, which covers the creation of the universe and the Big Bang, the elegance of the laws of physics, and various aspects of the ‘fine tuning’ of the universe. These are well covered, and to me show the difference between atheism and theism at its most stark. For the theist ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’ (Psalm 19). For the atheist ‘it’s really just chance’ (Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize for Physics, 1979). Using the polite discourse of the academy I would say I find Weinberg’s view ‘deeply unsatisfying’. Using the somewhat more direct level of discourse of my local coffee shop I would say that if you are asking me to believe that the whole physical universe, its laws and allied complexity, came into existence out of nothing and ‘it’s really just chance’, then sorry, I just don’t have enough ‘faith’ to be an atheist.
The accompanying Study Guide gives a set of broad questions to accompany each programme as well as more detailed questions based on quotes from the various interviewees. There are also a number of appendices which, among other things, contain definitions of various technical terms which occur in the DVDs and summaries of the cases for both theism and atheism. Finally, the Leader’s Manual gives helpful overviews of the programmes and sensible suggestions on how to lead group discussions.
In summary, this is an excellent resource which would be valuable in the RME or science classroom in school, Christian Unions in universities, or in youth or apologetics groups in churches. The DVD material can be used in short ‘bite-sized’ chunks of a few minutes, or longer half or full hour formats, making it very flexible. It manages to cover a very wide range of topics and perspectives within the broad area of science and religion, and it does so, in the main, very well indeed.

3 DVDs (total running time approx. 3 hrs), Kharis Productions Ltd, 2013
Study Guide (82pp), Leaders Manual (70pp) by Iain Morris, Pub. Search for Truth Enterprises, 2013

http://www.thegodquestion.tv/

Mark McCartney lectures in Mathematics at the University of Ulster

"The Big Conversation": Andy Bannister talks to Peter Singer

 “Evolution, morality and being human: Do we need God to be good?”

In the latest of episode of “The Big Conversation”, Solas’ Director, Andy Bannister spoke to the acclaimed atheist philosopher Peter Singer while host Justin Brierley chaired the discussion. Under the title, “Evolution, Morality and Being Human: Do We Need God?“, the two thinkers engaged in a polite, respectful and very revealing debate in which they were able to air their respective Christian and Utilitarian world-views and have them examined. What made the programme so constructive was that both Peter and Andy listened to one another, and rather than throwing slogans at one another, engaged with one another’s ideas. As such the full implications of Andy Bannister’s Christian worldview and the Peter Singer’s Atheist-Utilitarianism are held up for scrutiny.

https://www.thebigconversation.show/doweneedgodtobegoodonversation/

The full debate is available in the clip above (1 hour 20 minutes.) Premier, who organised, filmed and broadcast the show, have also selected a few key clips from the programme which are below.

  1. Why Peter Singer disagrees with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. Should we euthanise severely disabled children?

3. Peter Singer argues that babies with Downs Syndrome should be aborted.

Many thanks to Justin Brierley and Premier for the film, clips, and photos.
IMG_0768 (2) - Copy
From left to right: Andy Bannister, Justin Brierley, & Peter Singer

Confident Christianity Conference Report

Dundee-Conference-Facebook-Event-Header-VADundee’s Central Baptist Church played host to around three hundred folks on November 3rd, who gathered to consider how to share the gospel in our age of tough questions, at this year’s Solas Conference. They came from all over Scotland, the North of England (and one from Wales!) to explore “Confident Christianity”.

Jim Turrent 'Unashamed'
Rev Jim Turrent

Jim Turrent, the pastor of Central Baptist welcomed everyone to Dundee and kicked proceedings off with a call for the church to embrace the Biblical call to unashamed gospel proclamation. He suggested that lack of confidence in the gospel is the main factor inhibiting the church’s effective witness to Christ today, and that the day’s theme was therefore urgent and pressing.

Dr Andy Bannister 'how to engage in helpful conversations about Jesus'
Dr Andy Bannister

In a session entitled, “How to talk about Jesus without sounding like an idiot”, Dr Andy Bannister examined the way in which Jesus in the gospels engaged with individuals, asking probing questions to reveal their motivation and beliefs. Andy commended the similar use of questions today, and gave examples of conversations he has had when “what makes you ask that?”, has opened up deeper, more fruitful conversations, than instant, sharp answers to initial questions. Likewise, presenting gospel perspectives can be eased into more naturally by asking people to consider, “have you ever considered that….?”, Andy argued.
This crash-course in personal evangelism was especially well received. One attendee. Ewan Cathcart, commented:

“I have enjoyed the conference very much indeed, in Dundee my hometown! I particularly enjoyed Andy, his style was terrific, and he dismantled a lot of things that are a problem in talking to other people. He put up some very useful suggestions of ways to do that, too”.

Dr Sharon Dirckx: “Questions of Science and Faith”

Sharon Dirckx holds a PhD in brain-imaging, and took the atheist materialist world-view to task by arguing that their view of humanity as merely a physical entity doesn’t just clash with Christian belief, but is poor science. Her first talk was entitled “Am I more than my brain?”, and examined the claims of atheists such as Sir Francis Crick, that humanity can be explained by (and reduced to) physical matter. Finding these views lacking, she provided some important pre-evangelism resources, especially for those involved in the physical sciences.
Andy Bannister’s second talk, “Am I matter, or do I matter?” applied this further, exploring our creation ‘in the image of God”. Here he looked at the ethical implications of materialism; and the way in which human rights and dignity require a grounding in a creator-God.

Dr Ben Thomas 'compelling testimony'
Dr Ben Thomas

Dr Ben Thomas gave two talks on sexual ethics during the day. The first was his testimony of conversion to Christ, when he was sharing his life with his same-sex partner. He explained that deep wrestling with scripture led him to conclude that this could not continue, and why he has chosen a single, celibate life. He described the way in which he longed to find liberal/progressive views of the Bible persuasive; but had to concede that they were not. In one particularly memorable phrase, he said that he was compelled by the case that only God could define love. He spoke with great warmth and clarity about the cost, but also the great joys of the Christian life.
His second talk addressed how to share the gospel, faithfully and winsomely with LBGT+ friends, family and colleagues. Emphasising that behavioural changes are a response to grace, not a way of earning it, Ben encouraged the conference to talk openly about Jesus with LGBT people in the same way as with anyone else. Noting 1 Corinthians 6, that ‘the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God’, he pointed out that the list of sins there includes homosexual practice, but also idolatry, drunkenness, greed and so forth; and that there is not a different gospel for different people! He also challenged the church about her love, acceptance, and full inclusion of single people; who can sometimes be made to feel like lesser-Christians. The fact that both the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul were unmarried, should be all the evidence we need that this is wrong.
Dr Mark Stirling examined contemporary culture, and ways in which secularism seeks to claim the public square as its own, the consequences of this, and how we might respond. Of particular significance was that we confront the secular-myth that they are neutral and value-free, while Christians come with an agenda. This cultural presumption is both untrue (secular humanism is a very particular belief-system) and controlling (it uses its presumed neutrality to exclude other views).

Dr Mark Stirling 'engaging the culture'
Dr Mark Stirling

He also spoke about sharing the gospel in an age when everyone takes offence, moving beyond hurling slogans, to a far deeper engagement. Illustrating the point from scripture and experience, he demonstrated that listening to people, developing deeper relationships, and being gracious and respectful is not in tension with apologetics; but essential for it.
He also warned the church in Scotland that we are ‘behind the curve’ in thinking deeply and profoundly about the cultural shifts around us, and that we need to pray and think hard, not regress to mere pragmatism. He commented afterwards: “I was offering some critique of the fact that as a church we have neglected a lot of the necessary hard work to understand culture, to engage with the ideas that are out there; and the failure to do so doesn’t make us more spiritual! It actually means that we are just less relevant and more marginalised. So part of my plea was that we do the necessary hard work which is both intellectual and spiritual. We must never let the academic and the practical be separated.”
Dr Sharon Dirckx brought the day to a conclusion with a talk about suffering. Weaving together national stories of suffering such as Grenfell Tower, with those of illness in her own family, Dr Dirckx examined elements of ‘the fall’, and probed towards the classic ‘freewill defence’. However, her final answer she said, was found in the gospel of Christ itself, and his promise of eternal life. Jesus Christ had entered time and space, and indeed embraced suffering in order not just to empathise with us, but to redeem us for all time. She encouraged people who had spent the day engaged in serious thinking, to ensure that they have trusted Christ themselves.
Q&A Panel
All the speakers were joined by Jim Turrent for a Q&A session during the afternoon. Questions written, texted or raised from the floor, included Jordan Peterson, same-sex marriage, creationism, and those who never hear the gospel. Many more questions were submitted than time allowed, suggesting that there is a need for more conferences!
Reactions to the conference have been incredibly positive. Kevin Gordon, from Perth said:

“I think it’s been amazing, I loved that talk about ‘questions’ and how to engage and dialogue with people’s questions and being respectful about it. It’s been so helpful, and I can’t wait to try and apply it, I really can’t!

Central Baptist Church invested a huge amount of time and effort in hosting the 2018 Conference, and were offered a long, heartfelt round of applause from those who had benefited from it.
Morning Coffee BreakRev Jim Turrent, commented: “The reason we hosted this conference is that we think it is a really good thing to do and we think that Dundee is a really good place to do it. We’re excited about the quality of the speakers, and the equipping of the church both here in Dundee, and across Scotland, and the speakers that we have had, have not disappointed – they have been absolutely excellent. What we are hoping and praying is, that the fruit of this conference will be more Confident Christianity and more confident Christians, because they are the key to the re-evangelisation of Scotland, and The North.”
centraldundee.com

Why are religious people such hypocrites?

The religious and people of faith are often accused of being hypocritical; of not living up to the standards we expect of others. In this Short/Answer, Andy Bannister looks into hypocrisy in religion and in the wider society, its roots, the dangers, and the Bible’s answers to our hypocrisy.

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“Exhilarating and Exhausting”: Andy Bannister on Six Days of Mission in Plymouth

I’ve just got back from doing a mission in Plymouth, and it was an amazing week. I spoke 21 times in 6 days and although it was exhausting, it was incredibly exciting!
We were mostly involved in outreach and had the privilege of speaking in schools, in universities, and evangelistic settings, and also on BBC Radio Devon. On top of that, we also squeezed in some evangelism training. There are many wonderful and encouraging stories from Plymouth: here are just a few of the many highlights.
Right at the start of the week a woman came up to speak to me at one of our training events and said, “I really want to thank you and David Robertson for what you did at Creation Fest”. We’d spoken at this festival with 15,000 people earlier in the summer. She said to me, “Andy, I brought my daughter to your seminar, and during the Q&A session, there was one answer you gave which addressed what was, for her, THE stumbling block. She was almost on the verge of walking away from her faith, she was about to give it all up, but what you shared that afternoon was absolutely what she needed to hear – it just turned her life around. She is now on fire for Christ, she is witnessing to her friends… so I wanted to say a big ‘thank you’.”
I love the way that God often works through the Solas team, and we don’t even know it’s happening. So it’s great to hear those stories!
Another highlight was working in schools. I haven’t done schools work for a while, but we had some really wonderful encounters, including great conversations with RS teachers, who appreciated our work. We led lessons in which we took classes through the historical evidence for the resurrection, which was a huge amount of fun! It was exciting to see pupils beginning to realise that: ‘Wow, there are actually reasons why Christians believe these things!” In another lesson I pretended to be an atheist and fired lots of objections at a local pastor, such as: “Faith is just for those who are weak minded, and can’t think”, or “It’s just a psychological crutch”, or “No-one with any brains believes in it”. The pupils had the job of trying to argue against me and there was a fun moment when, frustrated with my attempt to claim all religious people were idiots, a year 11 kid called out, “Wait a minute! Isaac Newton, he was a Christian, and he wasn’t stupid!” So it was just great to be able to see the kids beginning to engage and respond.  Mark Oliver the local organiser, tells me that that our week there has “opened the doors for further school involvement” for the church.
On the Saturday morning at the end of week, we did a men’s breakfast. Every ticket was sold, every seat filled, and about half the audience were not Christians. The topic they had given me to speak on was “The Problem of Happiness”. I talked about the fact we are encouraged to find meaning and purpose and happiness in our job, family, possessions, bank-balance and so forth: but that those things ultimately let us down. Of course, I was able to then ‘land’ the message on the gospel of Jesus Christ and we had really good conversations afterwards. One gentleman told me that his number-one-goal in life had been to pay his mortgage off. He’d worked very long hours for years, and had finally made the last payment. He said: “I was expecting to feel euphoric, that I’d finally achieved this goal. But in fact, I felt completely empty. I suddenly realised that this thing I’d been aiming for, for the last 15 years of my life, just wasn’t what I thought it would be. Now I need to figure out what it’s about.” So we had a really interesting conversation about Jesus, and meaning and identity. This was something hugely exciting to be part of.
Another highlight at Plymouth was a smaller event in a Costa Coffee. It was informal, with about 25 people sat around tables as I answered questions. Most of the audience were Christians, but there was one lady there who had been quiet for the most of the event. Then, right at the end, she came asked a deeply moving question about suffering. She had been a Christian — had abandoned her faith — and for the next 25 minutes, it became a dialogue between me and her; honest question after honest question. After the event two or three women who she knew, continued the conversation and I even saw them praying for her. I love these ‘divine moments’. For me, the whole purpose of that Costa Coffee event, was about that one series of questions from that one lady. I’ve no idea how that story ended; but to see that she was being cared for and her questions addressed was incredible.
The week ended with an invitation to speak on BBC Radio Devon (listen to it here).  I was given an opportunity to speak about Jesus to around 20,000 people; both directly in a talk – but also to ‘share the gospel through contemporary issues’ in their newspaper review.
All this came about because we were invited by one local church, Plymstock Chapel, to come and work in partnership with them for a week. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Solas is here for, what we live for, and love doing!
So that was the exhilarating and exhausting week in Plymouth, and now I need some sleep! Thanks for your prayers and your support for Solas — they make weeks like this possible. Please do consider supporting our work for as little as £3 a month, or inviting the Solas team to your town or city to do a week like this. If one small church in Plymouth can organise a week like this, your church could too!

“I would wholeheartedly recommend a visit from Solas. People need to know there are answers that have been thought-through to questions of life and faith. Young Christians must know their faith is reliable and rational in today’s sceptical world, and we need people like Solas to give them this confidence.”
Mark Oliver, Plymstock Chapel.

Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens’ and ‘Homo Deus’ – a depressing view of our Humanity

It was at a party that a friend told me that I should read Sapiens. It explains loads of things, he said, describing how Islamic fundamentalism just comes out of the need for a big story, and implying that he thought it explained away my faith, too.
sapiens PB9781784703936
Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli Historian, and its sequel, Homo Deus, have sold well and spread widely.  Published in 2014 and 2016 respectively, at the time of writing they are still at numbers 2 and 6 of Waterstones non-fiction bestsellers chart, and, despite their door-stop size (each just under 500 pages), both have been commended by plenty of famous names, from Barack Obama to Chris Evans. These are popular books which make provocative and significant claims about what it is to be human and how the world works. Christians, take note.
Subtitled ‘A Brief History of Humankind’, Sapiens takes the reader on a breakneck tour of human development, starting at pre-history and ending today.   His writing is as conversational and expansive as his subject, full of opinion and engaging, detailed stories as well as a few facts.  Like many other historians Harari identifies key leaps in progress which changed the course of human history: the movement of early man out of Africa; the discovery of fire; the beginnings of agriculture; the development of written language.  As an atheist he has no sense of why these changes happened.  Big leaps just happen, he seems to say.  Discoveries are made, new skills learned.  But if the why is absent, the how at times is tendentious.
Claiming ‘wheat domesticated us’ as he describes the birth of agriculture, Harari presents an idyllic foraging lifestyle disrupted by the burden of production.  But this gloomy depiction is of a precarious monoculture,  a society depending just on wheat and hard work.   But was that the way farming emerged, was there not a variety of crops and hunting practiced alongside?  And how does he know what life really was like for hunter-gatherers anyway?  Perhaps he is guilty of anthropological romanticism here, as scant archaeological evidence is used to prop up a belief that the primitive is somehow purer than the developed. Worse still is his strange claim that prior to about the fourteenth century AD people didn’t look for knowledge for its own sake – what about Pliny or Archimedes or Galen?  Or again, that prior to the enlightenment writers weren’t interested in feelings – what of Sophocles or Shakespeare or Chaucer?   Whilst cultural shifts in attitude did happen at these times which changed western ways of thinking significantly, Harari is laughably wrong to think in such black and white categories; history is being warped to suit his big ideas.
And what are his big ideas?  Well, they are nothing particularly new (if you have studied humanities or social science in the last thirty years, you’ll think this old hat), but perhaps expressed in a more daring and accessible form than before.  Harari’s confidence in atheistic evolution leads him to conclude that we are no different from any other animal.  No God, no soul, the material is all.  But at the same time, he identifies in us a capacity which sets us apart from other life-forms, saying ‘sapiens could invent socio-political codes that went far beyond the dictates of our DNA and the behaviour patterns of other human and animal species’.  Ironically, he is saying that it is our very capacity to think beyond the material that sets us apart.  The use of language, money, law, nationhood and religion are all examples of these codes, and for Harari they are all convenient fictions.
Although convenient, Harari doesn’t find these myths benign.  They allow humans to progress and cooperate, he says, but they often result in oppression and exploitation.  He picks apart capitalism and Babylonian law, nationalism and individualism (amongst other -isms) deftly, and his observations are at times spot on.  The American declaration of independence which states, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” rests upon a Christian framework which he finds redundant, truthfully acknowledging, “there are no such things as rights in biology” (123).   Humanism is just another myth he suggests, a type of religion, and so he concludes that his beloved liberalism rests on a lie.  Tellingly he admits: ‘There is no way out of the imagined order.  When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious yard of a bigger prison’.   And yet, Harari cannot follow this nihilism through.  He expresses sympathy for human suffering (and even more for animal suffering) and wants to expose untruth, but if meaning is all fabrication, why bother?
Homo Deus, subtitled A Brief History of Tomorrow, repeats many of the ideas in Sapiens and then uses them to predict the future.  Picking up his argument that ‘human behaviour is determined by hormones, genes and synapses rather than free will’ (p263 Sapiens) he neatly and controversially summarises it – we are just algorithms, just a set of rules like a computer program.  Take a pill that increases serotonin level and you feel happy, stimulate certain areas of the brain and you will be calm.   Use an internet search engine and very quickly choices will be presented to you through an algorithim, predicting your preferences and subtly steering you to buy, or believe, or vote.
In this way the division in Harari’s world between what is human and what is not begins to look scarily blurred: robotic limbs and brain implants are just the beginning.   As technology develops, so ways of improving the human condition grow – we can be mini-gods, happy all the time, near-immortal and very powerful.  Life looks as though it is about to get a lot better.  But, says Harari we should be scared of what is round the corner.  A tiny elite which controls technology and so enslaves the rest of us?  Or a non-human super brain – the collection of all knowledge, an internet of all things?  Common to both of these, and in an echo of his argument in Sapiens, is the absence of free will.  Both options sound like science-fiction but are more technologically possible than we realise.   Having depicted these dystopias and argued for a reductive, determinist vision of life, Harari’s ending is abrupt and unexpected.  He asks us to decide the questions: What is life? What is valuable?  What is going to happen to society?  Amazingly (and illogically?), he encourages us to opt out of his conclusions, and choose a different future.
Depressing though these books often are, they do present a great opportunity for debate.  Harari asks at the end of Sapiens, speaking of humanity, “is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want” (Sapiens, 466).  When we make ourselves gods, as happened in Eden, framing for ourselves what is truth and goodness, danger ensues.  Christians know that already.   Harari’s rejection of meaning offers no hope for this chaos, but unintentionally points us in the right direction.   We humans desperately need meaning because we are cooperating and communicating persons made in the image of the personal three-in-one God.   We need to know that our values of love and justice and our feelings of pain and compassion are not part of a lifeless algorithm, or a convenient myth, but have significance beyond our brain chemistry.   We need a story, not a fabricated one, but a history, a true story, to make sense of our lives.  And wonderfully the gospel gives us a story that spans past and future as it takes us to the true sapiens, the true homo deus, Jesus Christ.