Paul wrote to the Corinthians that either the Christian faith was objectively true (as in the Resurrection) or Christians are pathetic people. This idea of truth is what separates Christianity from every other faith. For if Christianity is objectively true, then every faith that is opposed to Christianity is, by definition, false.
If our faith is indeed true, then we should not shrink away from intellectual challenges, but we should happily embrace any and every honest, sincere question. Skeptics have good questions, Christians have good answers.
However, many Christians are afraid of the questions largely because they don’t know the answers, so they choose to stick their head in the sand and keep their fingers crossed that the challenge will go away. Christianity was never meant to be the blind faith that many believers today have embraced.
The church itself is largely responsible for this blindness as it has chosen to redefine the faith to be one of the heart alone. Listen for your preacher to use some variation of the following statement, “All people want to know is the difference that Jesus has made in your life.” Historically and Biblically the Christian faith is one of the heart and the mind, but the training of the mind seems to have been eradicated from the teaching of most churches.
I want to encourage all believers to step up to the plate and become familiar with the very powerful evidence your Creator has given you. The existence of evil, the reliability of Scripture, Darwin, the relativistic view of truth, every challenge reveals evidence that points fully and consistently to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is, as he himself said, the truth. I believe that every honest, complete, effective search for the truth will end up at the foot of a bloody cross and the entrance to an empty tomb.
Parents, learn this stuff and have your kids learn it so they will be prepared when they encounter the relativistic and atheistic challenges the world will hit them with when they leave home. Don’t depend on your church to do this for you as most of them prefer to talk to your kids about dating skills and loving their neighbor, and pretty much ignore preparing them for the intellectual challenges that will cause many of them to eventually abandon their faith.
And do not be afraid of demagogues like Richard Dawkins and his kind, who think they can huff and puff and blow your faith down. Your Creator has given you overwhelming evidence that the truth is on your side. He wants you to be an ambassador for Him and ambassadors are expected to have the knowledge that will allow them to represent Him effectively.
Pepper Adams
Peachtree City, Ga.
