Come Home

Recently I’ve been thinking about the attitude regarding evangelism or invitation I’ve had on the site, in the comments and in posts. Right now the current thoughts I’ve wrote about can be summed up in this quote from a post I wrote a month ago titled “The Perfect Judge and Amazing Grace”:

Christians are called to preach the good news, not fire and brimstone. Although warnings may be necessary at times, we need to keep ourselves from passing judgments on others by ordering them to get saved or face hellfire. However, I know that I personally am not even close to perfect, and that I need forgiveness from my sins; I need a savior. We shouldn’t require this feeling of others, but simply spread the good news that, if they also need forgiveness from their sins, they shall find a savior in Jesus Christ the Messiah.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the right stance to take. It may be too lackadaisical or apathetic; what I’m essentially saying is “If you need Jesus, He’s here. Just come to Him whenever you want to, if you feel like it.” This is not how it should be at all.

The message of the Gospel is an immensely important message, and an urgent mesage. If we Christians are correct, we are dealing with the fate of immortal souls. Souls that are in danger, and will be hard pressed to save themselves. Even if one ultimately ends up rejecting Christianity, the extreme and dire claims that it makes, coupled with Chrisitan apologetics, should at least persuade someone to think very long and very hard about the issue.

We should look to the Bible for examples of how we should evangelize. When Jesus began His ministry in Mark 1, He “came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Jesus wasn’t simply calling those who felt they needed a savior, He was convicting and then calling everyone.

Three years later, soon after Jesus had been crucified, and after His resurrection and ascension, the apostle Peter finished preaching to a gathering of Jews at the Jewish feast of Pentecost:

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Peter wasn’t saying “Come to Jesus if you need to, and if not, that’ll be fine too.” No, Peter was saying, warning, pleading that his audience come to Christ. He knew the dire consequences of rejecting Christ, so out of love he begged people to turn to Christ.

That is a very important point to remember. The Gospel is a message of urgency, but it is a message of love. “Love your neighbor” is the second greatest commandment (only behind “Love God”), and the Parable of the Good Samaritan certainly shows that it applies to those we evangelize to. We must make sure to preach the Gospel with love, not with threats.

How then should we preach the Gospel? This urgent message can’t be preached by simply saying “Jesus is here if you need Him,” but we also have to be sure to spread the good news in love. What is the solution?

I believe the old, well-known, and well-loved hymn “Softly and Tenderly” states the answer better than I have the ability to do. Here are the lyrics, and the melody available at The Cyber Hymnal here (beware of auto-playing music):

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me;
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
Coming for you and for me.

O for the wonderful love He has promised,
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon,
Pardon for you and for me.

Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!

Jesus is calling, waiting, watching, pleading for you to come to Him. You don’t have forever; we know that life is but a vapor that vanishes in an instant – either tomorrow, or today, or eighty years from now. Nothing can save you from the wrath of God against your sins except the blood of Jesus, which he freely offered out of love for you. Don’t tarry. Accept the gift. It is an issue of urgent and vital importance.

Purpose and Morals without God

During the past week I read the second chapter of Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig’s book, Reasonable Faith, which is titled “The Absurdity of Life without God”. In it, Dr. Craig discusses what is called in philosophy “the human predicament,” which deals with the value of human life without God.

While reading this chapter, I couldn’t help but think of the post I wrote almost four months (four months?!) ago titled “Sense in a Senseless World.” In it I questioned how an atheist or an agnostic could handle the ideas of suffering and death without God to make sense of it.

By the way, after writing that post, in the comments I acknowledge that I probably focused too much on fear (specifically, fear of death). Ubiquitous Che countered my assumption of fear of death by essentially stating (more eloquently) “When I’m dead, I won’t know it,” or something thereabout, and while I don’t completely believe that philosophy will hold as death draws closer, I can understand how it can at least intellectually justify a lack of fear of death.

Dr. Craig talks about several different facets of the human predicament, but one thing he asserts is that man can find no purpose, value, or meaning in life, and he cannot make any claims to objective moral truth, without God. If he tries, he will end up making irrational and arbitrary claims of moral truth.

For example, while preparing to write this, I stumbled across a post on Che’s blog, rhetoric sans pareil. In it, Che reprints a comment he wrote on an article on Secular Philosophy. As I understand it, part of the post argues that objective morals truths can be claimed while holding a naturalistic worldview:

I’m convinced that there IS a moral truth about the world, and we CAN discover it through evidence-based reasoning. Morality and ethics are more like trigonometry than legislation.

Consider this: Practicing genuine compassion will lead to an increase in personal happiness. That increase will be proportional to the intensity of the practice. Hence, our personal quest for happiness provides a solid rationale for self-transcendence. It’s not a question of opinion. It’s an empirically testable statement about how morality and ethics function, and as such evidence-based reasoning DOES have something to say on the subject.

[...]

If a man should kill his daughter in cold blood because he perceives that she has committed some slight against his honor, there IS a moral and ethical truth to be discerned that is not relative to culture or perspective. That daughter had a long life ahead of her. Life itself is the very basis of compassion and happiness. Considering that life is also fragile, and we have a strong basis for regarding life as something precious. Far more precious than any perceived slight of honor could ever be. As such, the act of sacrificing a precious human life for the restoration of mere honor is in direct violation of basic moral and ethical principles.

If I read this correctly, Che argues that, for example, a man killing his daughter because she dishonored him is objectively morally wrong, because if the daughter had been permitted to live, she would have experienced happiness that she now will now not experience. This claims that the denial of potential happiness is something morally wrong, which ( at least in this passage) is arbitrary. What warrant does Che have for saying that happiness is something that should not be denied, or that the daughter’s happiness is more valuable than the man’s happiness cause by his “regained honor”?

Now, very importantly, I acknowledge that Che was not entirely trying to make a complete, airtight, philosophical argument out of this. Also, please refer to the comments on his post for a discussion he and some others had of this argument. I’m using his argument in this case as an example.

This brings me to the point of this post. As I was reading this chapter and the assertions Dr. Craig made, I became curious as to how atheists and agnostics would respond to this. I learned from my experiences with the “fear of death” discussion in my old post not to underestimate the innovation of philosophical arguments for either side, so I’d like to get some atheist and agnostic opinions while I’m still forming my thoughts on the issue. I know I have a few who have commented on this site, such as Ubiquitous Che and Mardé. I’d to pose this question to them, and to anyone else who cares to reply:

How can one hold an atheistic or agnostic view and still make rational claims of meaning and value in life, and objective moral truths?

In this particular case, I’m only concerned with naturalistic philosophies that believe in objective moral truth and meaning in life. I acknowledge that there are plenty that don’t, but for this particular discussion I only want to deal with those that do.

I look foward to your responses.

Revisiting the Place of Apologetics

A while ago (a few months short of a year), I wrote a post titled “The Place of Apologetics”. In it, I discussed the what I believed was the proper use of apologetics (rational defenses of Christianity). I stated that apologetics is needed to make Christianity intellectually justifiable, but had no role beyond that.

I recently started reading Reasonable Faith, written by Dr. William Lane Craig. I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long time, and finally got around to it. Dr. Craig is a well-known and highly-regarded Christian apologist, and Reasonable Faith is probably his best-known book, with a third edition just published this year. He also is the founder of a website that shares his book’s name, Reasonable Faith, which offers a variety of apologetics resources, including two podcasts, which of both I’ve been a regular listener at some time, and I highly recommend.

In the introduction to his book (readable online here), Dr. Craig discusses the same question I wrote about in my post: What good is apologetics?

Some people depreciate the importance of apologetics as a theoretical discipline. “Nobody comes to Christ through arguments,” they’ll tell you. “People aren’t interested in what’s true, but in what works for them. They don’t want intellectual answers; they want to see Christianity lived out.” I believe that the attitude expressed in these statements is both shortsighted and mistaken. Let me explain three vital roles which the discipline of apologetics plays today.

The first of the three roles of apologetics, Dr. Craig states, is “shaping culture.” He examines how modern western culture is becoming increasingly more secular and post-modern. Society is turning indifferent toward Christianity, and objective claims for religion in general. This is at least partially due to a fall in apologetics in the past. While some may say “no one comes to Christ through arguments,” if society comes to completely view Christianity as intellectually irrational and unjustified, evangelism will be severely hampered. Christianity might simply fall into the ranks of post-modernism, “no better” than any other belief. Apologetics serves the important role of raising Christianity out of the crowds of post-modernism by providing it with objective claims to truth.

The second role of apologetics, according to Dr. Craig, is to strengthen believers. As post-modernism rises and culture continues to turn hostile towards objective claims in the spiritual realm, many Christians (especially new or young believers) begin to question their faith. Although everyone has doubts sometimes, without apologetics these doubts may grow and eventually cause a believer to turn away from Christianity. Apologetics helps these people combat their doubts and ultimately become better Christians in the end.

The last of the three roles of apologetics presented by Dr. Craig is to evangelize unbelievers. Introducing this point, he writes:

Few people would disagree with me that apologetics strengthens the faith of Christian believers. But many will say that apologetics is not very useful in evangelism. As noted earlier, they claim that nobody comes to Christ through arguments. (I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this said.)

Now this dismissive attitude toward apologetics’ role in evangelism is certainly not the biblical view. As one reads the Acts of the Apostles, it’s evident that it was the apostles’ standard procedure to argue for the truth of the Christian worldview, both with Jews and pagans (e.g., Acts 17:2–3, 17; 19:8; 28:23–24). In dealing with Jewish audiences, the apostles appealed to fulfilled prophecy, Jesus’ miracles, and especially Jesus’ resurrection as evidence that he was the Messiah (Acts 2:22–32). When they confronted Gentile audiences who did not accept Jewish Scripture, the apostles appealed to God’s handiwork in nature as evidence of the existence of the Creator (Acts 14:17). Then appeal was made to the eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus to show specifically that God had revealed himself in Jesus Christ (Acts 17:30–31; 1 Cor. 15:3–8).

While not everyone will be convinced by apologetic arguments, they certainly can benefit evangelism. I won’t claim that rational reasons are required to be a good Christian (I don’t think they are), but I do believe that they are an important part of a believer’s training and offer tremendous benefit to Christianity as a whole.

As I read Reasonable Faith, expect to see quotes or topics from it popping up from time to time, much like when I was reading a lot of C. S. Lewis. And with apologetics, the most important thing to remember is what I concluded my old post with:

Apologetics can tell someone why we believe what we we believe, but it can’t tell someone the nature and strength of that belief. We can tell people time and time again why we believe what we do, that two thousand years ago one man who claimed to be the Son of God was killed and rose from the dead. We won’t get anywhere, however, until we start telling them what it means.