Conversion

When you come to know God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others — not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

—C.S. Lewis

Jennifer Fulwiler has blogged extensively on her conversion from atheism to Christianity. She writes about the quote above having been significant at the time she came to faith in Jesus saying,

When I read that I realized that I was asking the all-good God to come into my heart...yet it was a heart where envy, resentment, anger, selfishness, and all sorts of other nasty sentiments lived. My philosophy up until that time had been to hold off on doing the "hard stuff" that comes with Christianity like forgiving those who've hurt me, serving others selflessly, not indulging in my feelings of wanting to launch a bazooka on cars who cut me off in traffic, etc. until God showed himself to me.

I was basically telling God, "You first." Prove yourself to me and fill my heart with your presence, and then I'll start worrying about all that forgiveness and selflessness stuff. Until then, where's that Eminem CD I was listening to...?

What I totally missed, however, was that this would be like holding up a dirty mirror to the sun, and telling the light, "You first." The sun cannot reflect off of a mirror caked in dirt, just as the Source of all that is pure and good cannot fill a heart that is already jam packed with self and the world.

When I realized this, I admit that it was a painful process to start living as if I were some devout Christian when I was really very dry spiritually and still had plenty of doubts. (At the time my family was involved in a passive-aggressive suburban version of a Romeo and Juliet type drama involving some neighbors and our Home Owner's Association. As I said a prayer for the writer of our third threatening certified letter instead of cursing his name as was my custom, I recall gritting my teeth and thinking, "This Christianity stuff had better be true!")

And yet, an interesting thing started to happen. A sort of snowball effect was put into action, where the more room I made in my heart for God (however reluctantly at first), the more I understood his pure love and goodness, the more I genuinely desired not to sin, the more I felt remorse for those sins that I did commit (even the "little" ones), and the end of this process always left me closer to God than I had been before.

And one day I woke up and realized that I had faith. I believed. Not just on a vague intellectual level, but in my heart and soul. And it all started with taking that first step to make just a little bit of room in my heart for God, dusting off the mirror of my soul so that it could reflect even just a small fraction of his light. You only need to experience that once. I may have bad days and dry spells and doubts in the future, but I know that I'll always know God is there on a deep, fundamental level. Because once you experience his presence — even if it's only in the small way of a barely repentant lifelong atheist — you know there's no going back.

Read it all at her blog here: You First

Agnostic

Agnostic comes from the Greek meaning "Not Know." It is the decision that whatever is being considered is something one can't know. Yann Martel wrote about having a problem with those who remain agnostic in his novel Life of Pi,

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

The French philosopher (and atheist) Jean Paul Sartre taught that to do nothing is itself a choice. And so remaining agnostic, continually saying that one can not know whether there is a God is to effectively be an atheist.

Jesus comes into our lives as a point of decision. Was he God made man? If this is possible, it is a fact about which any person has a stake in not remaining neutral. But not to decide Jesus is the Son of God is the same as deciding he is not. If the early church got it right and Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Son of God, then there is an obligation in terms of how we live our lives. Right?

What did it take for you to believe in the truth claims of Christianity? If you don't yet, what would it take?

Is this something about which one can or should remain neutral? Can one be Agnostic without effectively being an atheist? Does the difference matter?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Good for Goodness Sake

Have you heard how the American Humanist Association is getting multimillion dollars worth of free advertising through its $40,000 ad campaign? The group plunkied down its money to create a series of ads on buses in Washington D.C. and those ads are getting a lot of press coverage. The basic message is,

Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake.

CNN carries the story as Group's New Christmas Message: Be good not godly and at Fox News it is 'Why Believe in a God?' Ad Campaign Launches on D.C. Buses.

Of course the answer to why believe in a god is different for me than for those who created the ads. I believe not in a god, but in God, because I have come to know God through his son Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit I have an ongoing relationship which I cannot deny. That is my experience of reality and I know the humanist are trying to respectfully disagree while encouraging like-minded atheists to make their lack of faith in a god public, in a kinder, gentler way than some angry atheists.

The basic idea of being good for goodness sake is wonderful. I know for a fact that many people don't believe in a god but live good lives—from miltantly anti-religion atheists to those who don't believe in a god but aren't angry about it, to those who as agnostics admit that they don't know. Yes, you can be a basically good person without belief in God. I know this goes against classic Calvinist teaching that says that we are morally depraved and can do no good without God. But scripture teaches that all creation was very good. Yes, humans messed up and through our own free will we created a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves and others. But we were created for goodness and I think that imprint within us comes from God. So, I agree with the Calvinists that we can't do it without God, but disagree in that I think that the Humanists were also created in God's image and God is speaking to their hearts as well even if they don't always hear it or know the source.

The common creed found across many cultures that we call the Golden Rule may be what the humanist are aiming at, treating others as you want to be treated. (see sermon on The Golden Rule for more on this). They would say you don't have to do that because a big mean God is ready to smite you upside the head if you don't. You can be good because you want to be good. I agree. I too feel that we don't have to be good out of fear of a vengeful God.

Here is where I part company with the Humanists. They think we can be good without God. I don't think we would even know what good is without God. God created us with laws written on the tablets of our hearts so that we know that murder is wrong and stealing is wrong. No, we aren't born with a detailed legal code imprinted within us, but we do know something about right and wrong even before culture begins to imprint its own take on morality. I think this comes from God. Even the Humanist ideals of what is right and wrong are, I believe, from God.

And yes, we can attempt the good without God and we can get it kinda close, sometimes better than others. But that is pretty tough to do. I also know that all of us do fall short of the mark set for us by God and that with God's help we can come closer. It is God's spirit bearing witness to our spirits that help us to see the good. Without that relationship with God that animates our moral compass, it would be easier to be diverted to greed or anger or lust. But we will the good to please the God we love who wants what is best for us and we are thus empowered further to live into God's will, which reflects the goodness which is God's nature.

That's my top-of-the-head reaction that captures something of what I see in being good for goodness sake. What's your take on this? Can we be good without God?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The death of God Is Dead

Christianity Today carried a story in a recent issue that tells of how the God Is Dead movement in theology was sidestepped by a movement within philosophy that found other proofs of God's existence to still be intellectually viable. The article is here: God is not dead yet: How current philospher's argue for his existence.

The arguments are fairly basic and things that have occured to many people of faith like the cosmological argument which says,

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.

There is also the moral argument:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

This view would go on to say, "God wills something because he is good. That is to say, what Plato called "the Good" is the moral nature of God himself. God is by nature loving, kind, impartial, and so on. He is the paradigm of goodness. Therefore, the good is not independent of God. Moreover, God's commandments are a necessary expression of his nature. His commands to us are therefore not arbitrary but are necessary reflections of his character."

The author of the article, William Lane Craig is a research professor of philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology. He contends that putting together these and other logical arguments for God's existence is vitally important as while aetheists are working to show that belief in God is not intellectually possible, Christians should be prepared to demonstrate that it is. He still sees conversion as a work of the Holy Spirit and concludes writing,

Christians who depreciate natural theology because "no one comes to faith through intellectual arguments" are therefore tragically shortsighted. For the value of natural theology extends far beyond one's immediate evangelistic contacts. It is the broader task of Christian apologetics, including natural theology, to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. It thereby gives people the intellectual permission to believe when their hearts are moved.

I agree that we need to be able to make an account of the faith that is in us in such a way that those who do not believe feel challenged to open their hearts up to first the possibility of and then the reality of their loving creator.

A related sermon from the archives is Thoroughly Postmodern Paul.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

The God You Don't Believe In

The Rev. Brian McLaren offers an interesting take on atheists he has known over at the On Faith forum:

"According to a new Pew survey, 21% of American atheists believe in God or a universal spirit, 12% believe in heaven and 10% pray at least once a week. What do you make of this?"

I love this question and the reality to which it points, namely, that people are complex and perpetually surprising. What the finding about atheists suggests to me is something that I came across many times in my work as a pastor: when people call themselves atheists, they often mean not that they don't believe in any god at all as the term would indicate, but they don't believe in a particular version or description of God.

I think of a fellow who attended my church for several months and then told me how much he enjoyed my sermons. "I agree with everything you teach," he said, which surprised me since I was pretty sure my wife wouldn't say that! Then he quickly added, "Except for one thing ... I don't believe in God."

A small detail apparently? I asked him to tell me more about that, and he replied, "It's my sister. She has always been annoying, but a few years ago she became a fundamentalist Christian, and now she's completely unbearable. She constantly causes family fights and seems determined to make everybody she meets feel guilty."

I replied, "So you're afraid if you believe in God, you'll become a pain in the neck like your sister."

He replied, "Yes. That's it exactly."

I took a risk: "Do you think I'm a pain in the neck, since I obviously believe in God?"

"Oh, not at all," he replied. "You and the people at the church are wonderful."

"So, if you could find a way to believe in God the way some of us do, and not the way your sister does, maybe it would be OK?"

"Wow, that really helps me," he said. A few months later, he did come to a deep faith in God, which continues to grow today. A lot of pastors have learned from similar experiences to ask people, when they say they are atheists, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in." More often than not, we can say, "I don't believe in that kind of God either. I can't blame you for being an atheist if that's the understanding of God that you're rejecting."

Of course, many people are more "orthodox" atheists of the naturalistic sort, refusing to believe in anything beyond physics and mathematics. But according to the Pew data, there are a significant number out there who at first seem to be simply illogical by claiming both atheism and belief in some sort of deity ... but with further conversation, it turns out they have an interesting spiritual story full of unresolved tensions, and that story isn't finished yet. Which is true of us all.

Other respones are here: What atheists believe.

Blasphemy Challenge

A group is challenging teens to deny God online in a Blasphemy Challenge. The story is online here:



Father Matthew Moretz has his video response here:



And Father Steve Rice also responds here with Does God Exist?:



Related posts in the archives of this blog are: Evangelical Atheists, Delusional?, and The eBay Atheist.

Then there is the practically blasphemous idea in a religion column of Why a non-believer may want a church.