Searching for God 2 Resolving Doubts. Renewing Purpose. Reasons for God

Christianity Is For Failures

I am the kind of guy who can watch The Biggest Loser (a show about people losing weight) while I sit on the couch, eating cake and ice cream. I find that the subtle pressure of needing to live a healthier life is perfectly met by the satisfying enjoyment of baked goods.

I wish that was my biggest failing in life, but there are many others. I can be lazy, overwork, and procrastinate, all in the same day. To compensate for my lack of spiritual disciplines, sometimes I humbly mention that I fast a minimum of three times a day (the count depends on how many snacks I have between meals). For good measure, I could mention my struggle (or lack of struggle) with materialism, selfishness, impatience, lust, revenge, and so on and so forth. Alternatively, I could try to impress you with my religious devotion, piety, church attendance, dedication to ministry, service to others, and the many sacrifices I’ve heroically made for God.

Is Christianity The One and Only True Faith?

One of the most common questions I receive is on the topic of the unique truth claims of Christianity. This is also known as the problem of pluralism. The basic issue is that there are many religions that claim to be valid ways of knowing God. But Christianity claims it is true and the other ideas are false. Isn’t this a bit arrogant and intolerant? And probably false and stupid too?

There are many related questions on this topic. Let’s look at them in turn.

Does “The Future” Have Moral Authority?

People are changing their minds about a great deal of moral and religious truth claims. Because of these dramatic changes, I’ve heard many people advocate for adopting the future moral consensus as the right moral consensus.

For instance, consider four significant trends with me:

A recent census in the U.K. showed that the number of self-reported Christians was down sharply, while the number of atheists was up sharply. (Though apparently 176,632 people identified themselves as “Jedi Knights”).
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The Wise Men and The Search For Jesus – A Talk on Matthew 2:1-12

This talk was given at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church during their 2012 “Voices of the Nativity” Advent Forum.

A quick summary of the talk:

Main point: The wise men were wise because they passionately sought after Jesus.

Primary application: Be wise like the wise men – passionately seek after Jesus this Christmas.

Why I Love Being Wrong

One of the most common phrases I hear about research scientists is that they love to be wrong. Why? Because when they are wrong, it means there’s a good chance they have discovered something new. This new data, which does not fit the current paradigms, can lead them to a breakthrough discovery. So being wrong can quite literally lead to fame and fortune.

By contrast, of course, the common perception seems to be that Christians absolutely hate to be wrong. Rather, Christians (especially conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist ones) appear to have a high need for certainty that they are right.

Think about it: don’t these words all seem to go together?

Theological Disobedience

Jesus was once asked what the most important commandment of all. How did he reply?

The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:29-31).

Professional theologians and everyday Christians have long recognized that the second commandment is dependent upon the first and primary commandment: as you grow in love for God, you are to grow in love for your neighbor.

Is God a Mystery?

Many people think that God is basically mysterious.

This is both a pop sentiment, like, “OMG! God is like, so, you know, mysterious! I mean, God is GOD, so that’s BIG!”

And it seems to be the careful explanation of sophisticated thinkers. For instance, a famous hymn by William Cowper begins with the stanza:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
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Was the Universe Created Five Minutes Ago?

Recently I heard someone object to the idea that we can know anything at all by saying, “How do you know the universe wasn’t created five minutes ago?”

I responded: “What in the world do you mean? Why think that?”

“Well, it could be true, and you can’t prove that it isn’t true.”

Perhaps you have heard someone make a similarly grandiose claim. There are many different kinds of unsupportable, evidence-free assertions that purport to discourage us from thinking we have knowledge of the world (“we are all brains in a vat,” and so forth).

Interestingly, the humanist Bertrand Russell originally proposed The Five Minute Hypothesis. As he put it:

The Disappointing Gospel

The disappointing gospel is a very real problem.

I’m not talking about the gospel itself, but the gospel that becomes disappointing because of how we present it. The disappointing gospel is one of the worst messages in the world because it so abuses the very best message in the world.

The disappointing gospel sounds like this:

The Main Problem with the Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant

The parable of the blind men and the elephant “has crossed between many religious traditions and is part of Jain, Buddhist, Sufi and Hindu lore.” One version goes like this:

“A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: ‘It is like a pillar.’ This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently. In the same way, he who has seen the Lord in a particular way limits the Lord to that alone and thinks that He is nothing else.”