"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning."
C.S. Lewis
"The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly."
Charles Reznikoff
"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere."
G.K. Chesterton
"Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason."
Francis Quarles
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."
C.S. Lewis
Resistance Thinking Faith
It is through the Jesus lense the Resistance Thinking seeks to explore truth about the world in which we live. In this faith section you will find articles, news and reivews that will help you explore the complexities of the Christian faith.
We will cover a broad range of topics, including: theology, church, leadership, devotions, classic Christian literature, prayer, everyday faith, apologetics, church history, Christian living, Old Testamnet, New Testament, creation, fresh expressions, epistomology...the list could go on and on!
If there is any topic you would like the Resistance Thinking team to go to work on please shoot us an email. If you have any work that could help us all to be more effective 'Resistance Thinkers' please send it in for our team to review.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." CS Lewis
"Recent evangelical discussion concerning Adam and Eve has served at least one good purpose — it has helped to clarify what is theologically at stake in the debate. The recent report by National Public Radio [NPR] alerted the larger secular culture to the debate, but the debate is hardly new.
What is new, however, is the candid admission on the part of some that the denial of a historical Adam requires a new understanding of the Bible’s basic story — and thus of the Gospel as well.
One of my recent articles, “False Start? The Controversy Over Adam and Eve Heats Up,” made this point clearly. As I argued there, the denial of a historical Adam means not only the rejection of a clear biblical teaching, but also the denial of the biblical doctrine of the Fall, leading to a very different way of telling the story of the Bible and the meaning of the Gospel.....
The denial of a historical Adam and Eve as the first parents of all humanity and the solitary first human pair severs the link between Adam and Christ which is so crucial to the Gospel.
If we do not know how the story of the Gospel begins, then we do not know what that story means. Make no mistake: a false start to the story produces a false grasp of the Gospel."
Click here to read the full article. Well worth it!
Church-Hopping with a Purpose Christianity Today, Reviewed by Linda McCullough Moore, 30 June 2008
I'm trying to think of something that's as strange as church. As frankly odd. As consistently peculiar. My own church, for instance. I love it. But I wonder how it might appear to a Martian. Or, to John the Baptist, say. Or, for that matter, to Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith. Shea, a writer who made it her business to visit fifty-two churches in a year, and to write a chapter about each one.
It's a lot of churches. It's a lot of chapters. Shea visits churches chosen for what they are not—Roman Catholic, the church of her youth—and for what they are—Christian, the latter being defined with unprecedented freedom. Here we have Mormons, Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses, Presbyterians, Christian Scientists, Spiritualists, Quakers, Shakers, Greek Orthodox, Moravians, plus evangelicals of diversified particularity. The litany's the same for every one.
After a brief history of the religious organization, Shea describes designated and/or freelance greeters, carpet tuft and color, seat cushions, dress code, percentage of men and children, (frequently small), hymn lyrics, accompaniment, collection plate design, conveyance for communion (in one instance, "a silver hubcap-type plate containing matzo-like bread and edged with polio vaccine cups of wine"), prayer style, and sermon highlights, with quotes and cadence noted. And we are there, joining Shea in every church-induced behavior from fright and fidgeting to unscripted hallelujahs. And we like her company, this softly spoken woman graced with wit and quiet charm. She's warm and generous, sharing her family and her life as freely as she shares the pew.
After a few dozen chapters, the experience grows a bit routine. I have decided, though, not to complain, since I think it is this ritualized recital that enables us to feel so present at each service. (Okay, okay, so I'm Anglican.) We're not told about these churches over Sunday dinner; rather we are roused, often far too early, dressed up and dragged off to church in every sort of weather, every blessed Sunday for a year. This book is not necessarily a fun read, but not all the good in life is unalloyed pleasure (see: church).
We live in a generation where repentance is particularly unfashionable. Even amongst Christian young adults there seems to be a reluctance to purge ourselves from our sins and kneel unashamedly before the cross. Instead we play off our transgressions and usually forget about the ways we wrong God. We abuse God's forgiveness and pretend as if the mistakes we make are modest and act as if we are cool with God.
This is not a healthy relationship with God. It allows us to believe that we have a monopoly over our own salvation. Hence we do not come before the Lord in contrition but believe that our social life is reflective of Christian living. This is not Christian living! It is merely a Christian social club. Participating in Church and bible study and youth group do not alleviate the ultimate requirement to be convicted of your sin. This means to identify the muck in your life and feel the agony that God experiences when God sees our inequities. As Paul states to the Church of Corinth:
“As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
2 Corinthians 7:9-10
A great example of this contrition is King David in his response to committing adultery and murder.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.....”
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We are totally dependant upon God's forgiveness of us. We are not Christians because of evidence but because of faith vested the power of a saviour. I pity the man who changes his mind because of evidence. Yes creation sings the name of its creator but an understanding that God exists does not lead to the Cross, to repentance. A changed mind is not a changed heart. Rationality does not lead a man to agonising over his corrupt heart. It is with humility that I turn to God. My career or my university education will not save me from His coming wrath.
“[I]f my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Have you noticed that atheists spend a lot of time analysing and criticising - and engaging in conversation about God, whom they say doesn't exist! Add in genes and rational thought and it makes for an interesting dialogue. Bill Meuhlenberg has an insightful article about this, called 'More Atheist Tirades' - commenting on another article in The Age by Catherine Deveney.
More Atheist Tirades Bill Meuhlenberg, 4 September 2009. In one of the more bizarre ways to seek to explain away the universal phenomena of religion, some atheists have invented the idea that a god gene exists. Yes, there is no God, but we have a gene that makes us want to believe there is.
They do this of course for at least two reasons: to discount the overwhelming longing for transcendence found among mankind, and to discredit those who are believers. After all, if we believe in God simply because there is some gene or meme that makes us do so, then there obviously are no good, solid rational reasons for doing so.
Of course two can play this game. It makes as much sense to argue there are no rational arguments for atheism. Instead, we simply have an atheism gene which forces some people to adhere to atheism. Indeed, in a totally materialistic world, our genes end up explaining – and causing – everything we do, believe or value. We are simply the product of our genes.
This is simply one oddity of atheism. Indeed, atheists are a strange bunch. They spend large hunks of their adult lives getting all hot and bothered about someone they claim does not exist. They spend zillions of hours informing us how lousy, bad, twisted, putrid and rotten God is. . . Read the full article on Bill's website.
Bill Muehlenberg reviews Timothy Keller's book 'The Reason for God' which he finds does a commendable job at responding to objections to and misunderstandings of the Christian faith. For more great articles and review by Bill check out Culture Watch.
The Reason for God Culture Watch, Bill Muehlenberg, April 2008 (Timothy Keller, Dutton, 2008)
Subtitled “Belief in an Age of Skepticism,” this very important book is a welcome antidote to the many atheist titles which have appeared lately. It very admirably fulfils the twin tasks of apologetics: dealing with objections to, and misunderstandings of, the Christian faith, and presenting the attractiveness of it.
The first seven chapters deal with the most common objections and criticisms of Christianity that Keller, a New York City pastor, has encountered, while the last seven chapters very nicely lay out the case for the Christian worldview.
Ministering to secular, sceptical New Yorkers has meant Keller has had to answer thousands of questions about the faith. He is very well read, quite intelligent, and has a heart to reach out to the seeker and the sceptic. Thus this book is a great blend of dealing with matters of both head and heart.
Consider how he deals with some of the objections. The problem of suffering and evil is always near the top of such a list, and Keller does a good job in providing biblical responses to this issue. And he reminds us that unbelievers also have to deal with the problem.
Modern “objections to God are based on a sense of fair play and justice,” says Keller. People strongly believe we ought not to suffer, die of oppression and hunger, and so on. Yet in the evolutionary worldview, death, destruction and suffering are fully natural – they are part of the mechanism of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Crap just happens, in other words, in a secular scheme of things.
Indeed, where does the sense of justice and fair play even come from, in such a dog-eat-dog world, where only matter matters? The believer, on the other hand, can account for both evil (we live in a fallen world) and goodness (we are made in the image of a good God).
Moreover, our God is not aloof from suffering, but has entered into the very heart of the human condition, experiencing to the full our pain and suffering. God does not abandon us in our suffering, but is in a very real sense present with us.
Related to this is the objection of how a loving God could send people to hell. But hell is ultimately a destination that people choose for themselves. Says Keller, “hell is simply one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory into infinity”. People who seek to be free of God, - who is the only source of love, goodness, beauty and kindness - can follow that path. And that path does lead to hell, which is the place where God is not. As C.S. Lewis said, hell is the “greatest monument to human freedom”.
And love and judgement are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin. If you really love someone, you get angry at whatever hurts and destroys him or her. One can rightly hate cancer for what it does to people. And sin is a spiritual cancer that destroys people. God’s love for us must entail hating our sin which separates us from his love.
Keller also offers some positives of the Christian faith. Probably the most basic and fundamental good is the cross of Christ. It is here that justice and mercy fully meet. The demands of justice are fully met at Calvary, but in a way in which the grace of God can be freely extended to us, undeserving as we are.
Sin demands a payment. Letting criminals go scot-free is not justice. God did not let sin go unpunished, but allowed his own son to take our punishment, so that he might offer us forgiveness and hope. God himself absorbed the debt, so that we might be freely forgiven. But a huge cost was still paid.
God becomes human in order to “honor moral justice and merciful love,” says Keller, “so that someday he can destroy all evil without destroying us”. That last phrase is a tremendously profound Christian truth. As Solzhenitsyn reminded us, good and evil runs through every human heart. So how can a just and holy God eradicate evil without eradicating us?
The glorious exchange that took place at Calvary is the answer. “All real life-changing love involves some form of this kind of exchange”. There can be no God of love, Keller reminds us, if we take away the cross. This is indeed the good news of the Christian worldview.
Keller also deals with the issue of human relationships, and the alienation and selfishness that destroys such relationships because of sin. God is above all a relational God. The three persons of the Godhead are involved in a free, loving relationship.
We were created to be part of that love relationship. The joy and love found in the Godhead has been extended to us. But that can only be received as we have relationship with God. But sin and selfishness destroy that joy and love, and trap us in alienation and despair.
God wants that love relationship restored, not just in the sweet by and by, but here and now. In this, Christianity is unique among all the world religions in offering hope and wholeness in this material world. Biblical salvation lies not in escape from the world, but in its transformation.
The Christian story is bigger than just having our individual sins forgiven. It is about putting “the whole world right, to renew and restore the creation, not to escape it”.
A short review like this cannot do justice to the riches found in this volume. In 250 pages a very articulate, rational and compassionate case is made for Christian truth claims. This is a book to both strengthen the faith of believers, and help answer many of the nagging questions of sceptics and seekers. I heartily recommend it.
Article found at Culture Watch (Used with permission)
