Yesterday I wrote about a book by a Michigan pastor named Rob Bell, who has been upsetting the evangelical world with some of his off-beat ideas about heaven and hell and salvation. Never mind that C. S. Lewis, the darling of the evangelical set, wrote about some of the very same ideas in his books; Lewis is orthodox and Bell is not. Go figure.
My pastor is fond of saying that not everything in a Christian bookstore is Christian; and Bell is his number one example of why that is so. Well, you know what? I hate to tell you this, Pastor, but Rob Bell is not the threat you think he is. Rob Bell is actually on your side. He believes much the same things you do, just in a different way.
But I want to know, why focus on Bell when there are so many others out there that are real threats to faith? And I think I know why. Because the writers I read--the ones who really are threats to faith, the ones that ask the really hard questions--aren't to be found in Christian bookstores. Pastor isn't really worried about Dawkins et. al., because either he is not aware of them, or he is aware of them but assumes that none of his flock will be reading them. And for the most part, he's right. Except he is wrong, and making a terrible mistake.
Atheism and atheists (and by that I include agnostics, though we really are a different breed) have changed in the last few years and have become much more militant about their lack of belief. They are not afraid to challenge belief and attack sacred cows. However, traditional Christian apologetics (the art of defending the faith) is completely unprepared to answer these new challenges. I was having a discussion the other day with one of my friends from church and I named several prominent writers who write about atheism or agnosticsm and she said she had never heard of any of them. Talk about a Burt Reynolds-Sally Fields moment (Smokey and the Bandit)! I said, don't you think that you ought to know what they are saying?
I bet if I asked 50 people in that church what arguments do atheists base their lack of belief in God on, what evidence do they use, not one of them would be able to come up with anything close to what these writers really say. And that's sad.
Especially when a recent Pew Institute poll revealed that atheists and agnostics were better informed about the contents of the Bible than believers! So they aren't believing because they haven't heard the Gospel and are ignorant. Something else is going on.
Now, I am an agnostic so I am not sure whether Christianity or any other religion has anything to offer society as far as having the Truth goes. But let's just say it does. If this Truth is as important, as critical as they claim it is, wouldn't they want to answer objections and clarify the matter? To erase what Pastor calls "hurdles" or obstacles to believing? I would think so.
Instead what I see happening in the evangelical church is a microcosm of what is happening in society in general; and that is a widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots, particularly in the areas of education, science and technology. Increasingly the innovators are those outside the faith, while those inside are content to be users. I am thinking of people like Edison, Ford, and the late Steve Jobs; possibly the Wright Brothers as well. Men (and women) who either have no faith or their faith is not public, who have changed the way we live by their inventions. Yes, politically, the "Religious Right" makes a lot of noise and seemingly has a lot of influence, but in the long run, it is all an illusion. They are no longer the movers and shakers of this world. Yes, "God is working" in my church, we are gaining members--but who are these members? Are they a true cross-section of society--or is there one group that is conspicuously absent, and why?
My pastor is fond of saying that not everything in a Christian bookstore is Christian; and Bell is his number one example of why that is so. Well, you know what? I hate to tell you this, Pastor, but Rob Bell is not the threat you think he is. Rob Bell is actually on your side. He believes much the same things you do, just in a different way.
But I want to know, why focus on Bell when there are so many others out there that are real threats to faith? And I think I know why. Because the writers I read--the ones who really are threats to faith, the ones that ask the really hard questions--aren't to be found in Christian bookstores. Pastor isn't really worried about Dawkins et. al., because either he is not aware of them, or he is aware of them but assumes that none of his flock will be reading them. And for the most part, he's right. Except he is wrong, and making a terrible mistake.
Atheism and atheists (and by that I include agnostics, though we really are a different breed) have changed in the last few years and have become much more militant about their lack of belief. They are not afraid to challenge belief and attack sacred cows. However, traditional Christian apologetics (the art of defending the faith) is completely unprepared to answer these new challenges. I was having a discussion the other day with one of my friends from church and I named several prominent writers who write about atheism or agnosticsm and she said she had never heard of any of them. Talk about a Burt Reynolds-Sally Fields moment (Smokey and the Bandit)! I said, don't you think that you ought to know what they are saying?
I bet if I asked 50 people in that church what arguments do atheists base their lack of belief in God on, what evidence do they use, not one of them would be able to come up with anything close to what these writers really say. And that's sad.
Especially when a recent Pew Institute poll revealed that atheists and agnostics were better informed about the contents of the Bible than believers! So they aren't believing because they haven't heard the Gospel and are ignorant. Something else is going on.
Now, I am an agnostic so I am not sure whether Christianity or any other religion has anything to offer society as far as having the Truth goes. But let's just say it does. If this Truth is as important, as critical as they claim it is, wouldn't they want to answer objections and clarify the matter? To erase what Pastor calls "hurdles" or obstacles to believing? I would think so.
Instead what I see happening in the evangelical church is a microcosm of what is happening in society in general; and that is a widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots, particularly in the areas of education, science and technology. Increasingly the innovators are those outside the faith, while those inside are content to be users. I am thinking of people like Edison, Ford, and the late Steve Jobs; possibly the Wright Brothers as well. Men (and women) who either have no faith or their faith is not public, who have changed the way we live by their inventions. Yes, politically, the "Religious Right" makes a lot of noise and seemingly has a lot of influence, but in the long run, it is all an illusion. They are no longer the movers and shakers of this world. Yes, "God is working" in my church, we are gaining members--but who are these members? Are they a true cross-section of society--or is there one group that is conspicuously absent, and why?
