“Faith grows and flourishes when it is well-nourished and exercised, so the best way to resist doubt is to build up faith rather than simply to fight against doubt.” – Os Guinness
Go Deeper: Why Christians Need Apologetics & Should Christians Have Doubts?
Sometimes it takes something shocking to wake people up. That happened and is hopefully happening more and more each day as people see the despicable and callous video involving planned parenthood about selling the body parts of aborted unborn human babies.
In a chilling image senior director of medical research for planned parenthood, Deborah Nucatola, swirls her wine, crunches on a salad and discusses crushing babies in a way that preserves profitable body parts intact. USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers’ comments are spot on:
“This is stomach-turning stuff. But the problem here is not one of tone. It’s the crushing. It’s the organ harvesting of fetuses that abortion-rights activists want us to believe have no more moral value than a fingernail. It’s the lie that these are not human beings worthy of protection. There is no nice way to talk about this. As my friend and former Obama White House staffer Michael Wear tweeted, “It should bother us as a society that we have use for aborted human organs, but not the baby that provides them.”
Read Powers full article here.
Over a million unborn human beings are crushed and dismembered each year in America. Something is very wrong. My prayer is that people would be awakened to the number one human rights issue of our day. The systematic extermination of unborn human beings is bad enough. But to commodify their body parts? To profit from their pain?
Where should you start? Watch this video by Scott Klusendorf on how to make the case for the unborn with science and philosophy (not the Bible says so) in our post-Christian culture. Then share this post and video with others.
How to Make the Case for Life in a Post-Christian Culture with Scott Klusendorf (Impact 360 Institute) from Impact360 on Vimeo.
This isn’t a political issue…this is a human rights issue.
Stand for human life. Stop planned parenthood. Prepare yourself to engage.
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A quick response to the “who are you to judge” objection.
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By now you have no doubt heard that the supreme court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell vs. Hodges that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right and is now the law of the land. (read the full decision here)
As a Christian how are we to think about this? To be honest, this decision did not surprise me, but I was disappointed. I had held out some hope that the constitution and not the winds of public opinion would win the day. But that was not to be.
1) The world has not ended, but make no mistake this will have significant cultural impact. There are 2 sides of this balance beam we can’t afford to fall off of. First, we need to remember that Christianity is still true, regardless of what is going on in a particular cultural moment. Our hope is fixed in Christ, not a cultural majority. We have an opportunity to love and engage. Let’s not miss that.
The other way not to react to this news is to say it won’t effect me and my marriage and everything will continue on as it has. That is not true. And that will become more painfully evident in the days ahead–especially for children.
2) Whatever your views on same-sex marriage, the constitution lost–and that is not good news for the United States of America. While I am not a legal scholar, I have taken the time to try to digest the issues at play here. What remains clear from the 4 dissenting justices is that in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, “The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.” The supreme court acted as a “super-legislature” in this case imposing its will rather than finding a rational basis for it in the constitution.
This may feel good (in the moment) if you happen to find yourself in the majority of current cultural opinion, but opinions change. You may (whatever your view) find yourself in the minority opinion at odds with 5 supreme court justices as the constitution is shaped to fit current trends. The whole point of a fixed document that anchors our country is so that it is really difficult to change laws and amend the constitution. That is being bypassed by judicial activism when it suits the court. That’s not good news for the rule of law in a free society. For more analysis, read here.
3) More than ever it is important to have courage, stand for religious liberty for everyone, and promote and embody true tolerance. There is a lot here. But the bottom line is you and I as Christ-followers must affirm what Jesus affirmed about God’s created order (cf. Matt. 19 as he cited Gen. 1-2). We must also not be silent. We must stand our ground no matter what comes. We need to affirm true tolerance where people can disagree with one another about things that really matter and still love and respect one another (read more about this here). People we may disagree with are not the enemy. They are made in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect. Here are 2 books that need to be must reading.
– Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom by Ryan Anderson
– The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech by Kirsten Powers
Here is a talk that my friend John Stonestreet gave recently at Impact 360 Institute entitled: Same-Sex Marriage What Now (Video). It is well worth a watch.
Now is not the time to lose heart. It is time to think, love, and engage.
A Quick Response to the Who Are You To Judge Objection? (read more)
If you found this post helpful, you would enjoy How to Respond to the “That’s Just Your Interpretation” Objection
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Defending the faith is not optional. The Bible makes this clear:
“In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense [apologia] to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15; cf. Philippians 1:7).
From this passage we learn that apologetics involves responding to objections (defense), making a case (offense), and giving hope (Christ-centered).
In addition to Peter, the book of Acts repeatedly records Paul reasoning with people about Christianity (Acts 14:15–17; 17:2, 4, 17–31; 18:4). Luke records that Paul “entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:8–10).
For hours each day, Paul sought to persuade the intellectuals of his day that Christianity was true!
First, people claim that apologetics is not practical. Isn’t apologetics only for academics and intellectuals? The short answer is no. Here’s why. Everyone has questions—you do, your kids do, your friends and neighbors do, your family does, and our culture certainly does. It’s that simple. We will either think carefully or poorly about these questions, but the questions themselves cannot be avoided. By the way, Christianity welcomes tough questions!
Next, people say you should just preach the simple gospel and not worry about all of that intellectual stuff. Pearcey’s observation is critical here: “The ultimate goal is to preach the gospel. But the gospel is not simple to those whose background prevents them from understanding it. Today’s global secular culture has erected a maze of mental barriers against even considering the biblical message.” Apologetics serves evangelism and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19–20).
Finally, some Christians object that too much knowledge leads to arrogance. I would suggest that the remedy for arrogance is not ignorance, but humility. John Stott is right on target: “I am not pleading for a dry, humorless, academic Christianity, but for a warm devotion set on fire by truth.” Dallas Willard observed that part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and love others well is to think clearly.
“Bluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favors evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally, hell to pay.”
Engaging our minds as Christians is an act of worship and part of loving God with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37). Defending and commending the faith (Jude 3) is just as biblical as loving the poor and caring for the widow or orphan. Both are commands from God. Neither is optional.
Do you want more confidence in defending the reliability and authority of the Bible? – CLICK HERE
A quick response to the “who are you to judge” objection.
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As important as an act of faith is at a point in time, the Christian life is a walk of faith—continuing acts of obedience. Sometimes the notion of “blind faith” creeps into our understanding of walking by faith as well. Didn’t Paul say that “we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7)? He did, but as David Clark explains,
“this means only that at times a Christian may rightly allow faith, in the sense of trust in God, to guide his thinking even though he has no direct evidence. For instance, if I trust my friend and he says he will do something for me, I may rightly believe he will do it, even when I lack direct evidence what he will fulfill his promise. . . . Loyalty and allegiance, based partly on past experience, may rightly guide my thinking and acting.”
This same sentiment is expressed in Hebrews 11 where these courageous men and woman did not allow their circumstances to have the final word. Rather, they continued to look forward to what had been promised with hope and trust.
Faith in this context is a confident expectation in the promises and faithfulness of God. This is what it means for the righteous to live by faith (Rom. 1:17). We trust God even in the midst of difficult times because He is faithful. We trust Him even when the fog of life rolls in making it difficult to see the way forward. This is the kind of faith God is pleased with (Heb. 11:6).
God give us the courage to trust you in the midst of what we don’t understand. Thank you for your past faithfulness that we can lean into in the every day circumstances of life.
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If you found this post helpful, you would enjoy “Should Christians Have Doubts?”
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