Here’s a fun question to ask yourself:

If you could sit down and have a conversation with the person you were 10 years ago, what would you say to your younger self? On what topics would you agree, and on what would you disagree?

As I think about the ways in which I’ve grown in the last 10 years, I am grateful for the changes. God has been faithful to prune me of some rather unattractive habits and personality flaws, and hopefully He’ll continue to do so. My stubborn nature has ensured that the growth is slow and even stagnant at times, but God has persevered. That said, if I could sit down with my younger self today, I would probably tell myself to quit acting like a know-it-all and try listening for a change.

For instance, there were seasons in my life when I was unwilling to thoughtfully consider any opinion that was different than my own. In fact, I dug in my heels even deeper if someone tried to convince me otherwise.  I didn’t know enough to know how little I knew, if that makes sense. So I persisted in my naiveté.

In the last 10 years my growth as a thinker has indeed been a circuitous path, and a classmate of mine recently helped me to understand why. He told me about an idea called “The Persuasion Scale” and it works like this:

First, picture a scale from 1 to 10 in which the numbers represent agreement with an idea or an opinion. 1 signifies total disagreement, and 10 signifies total agreement.

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Now imagine an issue with which you totally agree, such as helping the poor, or marital fidelity. Then imagine a person who disagrees with you. Let’s say they fall somewhere around a 4 or 5 on the scale.

Research shows that if you want to persuade a person to move from level 4 or 5 to level 10, do not aim for 10 initially. If you push them too hard too fast, they will actually move backward to level 1 or 2. They will disagree even more strongly than before. However, if you try to move them from a 5 to a 6 or 7, they are far more likely to respond positively. Persuasion is much more effective in little steps.

Looking back on my own process of spiritual and intellectual maturity, the Persuasion Scale makes a lot of sense. If an idea is too radical, my fear tempts me to run away from it even harder. But if a new idea is relatively close to something I already believe and can wrap my head around, I am much more likely to consider it.

The Persuasion Scale is also helpful for Christians as we think about evangelism. Although God certainly has the power to move someone from a 1 to a 10 in a moment, everyone’s journey is different. Your role in the life of an unbelieving friend may be rather small, but it is nevertheless significant. Perhaps your only job is to show them that God is truly loving. Perhaps you are the safe place for a friend to explore spiritual questions.

Yet the Persuasion Scale also reminds us that if we share Christ in a way that ignores individual processes and tries to force growth, we risk doing greater damage than good. We can push people farther away from God than they were before.

Thankfully, God is Lord over each person’s path. The Persuasion Scale is not a sure-fire formula for salvation but a reflection of the human nature. It helps us to understand ourselves better, and in turn be better stewards of the message we have to share.

“Who you are speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.”

Those are the words of Mayor Cory Booker, who I discussed in my last post as part of my reflections on the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Today I’m going to conclude those reflections by highlighting the life and message of another speaker, but Mayor Booker’s words were so relevant that I couldn’t help but post them.

Our actions and our attitudes have tremendous power. They can either amplify our words or drown them out as irrelevant and meaningless. I’m sure you can think of an individual or two whose demeanor or conduct is so unattractive that, even if you agree with some of what they say, you can’t help distance yourself. Whatever their stance is, you don’t want to be associated with them.

On the other hand, there are those individuals whose lives are so authentically devoted to God and neighbor that their words are dripping with authority. The Leadership Summit was graced with just such a person and her name was Maggie Gobran, or “Mama Maggie.” Often described as the “Mother Teresa of Egypt,” Mama Maggie abandoned her life of comfort and success to live with the poor. That was 20 years ago, and since then she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

I was deeply impacted by Mama Maggie’s message. In fact, I was deeply impacted by her mere presence. Earlier this week I wrote about the experience for Cultivate Her, and here is an excerpt from that post:

Throughout the Summit I heard incredible advice from some of the top leaders in the country, both inside and outside the church. Every session was packed with wisdom and insight. What distinguished Mama Maggie from the group, however, was her mere presence. This tiny, wisp of a woman was the only speaker who shook the room by simply stepping onto stage. As we applauded her she wept in humility, and I couldn’t help but weep also.

Mama Maggie shared numerous profound and important truths, but what impacted me the most was the power of her incarnational leadership. She is one of those rare individuals who is so intimately connected to God that you can literally feel it. She spoke with power and authority, not because she was an excellent communicator, but because her life and ministry gave weight to her words. Her person was her message.

I titled that particular post “Incarnational Leadership” because Mama Maggie demonstrated Jesus’ incarnational approach to leadership and ministry. Like Jesus, she embodied her beliefs totally, not simply teaching about service but serving; not simply teaching about love but loving. Mama Maggie didn’t stop at teaching about Jesus but she also lived like Jesus. I had heard preachers teach this kind of embodiment–and I’ve even written about it myself–but something about her was palpably different.

Mama Maggie’s love for Christ was breath-taking and, to be quite honest with you, it changed my life. I was devastated and humbled by her example. She also reminded me why intimacy with God is our greatest evangelistic strength. Even in this increasingly post-Christian culture of ours, the world still has a pretty good idea of how Christians should act. Non-Christians know that believers are called to be loving and kind and to advocate for the least of these. They know we are called to model Christ. So when we preach those principles but fail to live them out, when our lives are utterly out of sync with God, the world around us is smart enough to notice. The glaring dissonance between message and practice is impossible to ignore.

To be fair, no Christian will ever live perfectly this side of eternity. We will all make hypocrites of ourselves at some time or another, which is why the gospel is ultimately about Christ and not Christians. Yet Mama Maggie’s life and faith is qualitatively different from mine. She is, undeniably, a woman who has seen the face of God. Her example withers any excuse I might have for an inconsistent witness.

Which brings me to one of the chief lessons I learned from Mama Maggie: When it comes to preaching the gospel, the world won’t take our word for it. In matters of God and salvation, it is not enough simply to be right. We need to follow Christ’s example and put flesh to the Good News. Don’t just tell but show.

That is why, as my title states, your body matters. As a Christian called to reflect God’s love and plan for the world, your body is part of the equation—and not solely in terms of purity. Just as Christ’s human body was the location of love, hospitality, kindness, healing, miracles, sacrifice and redemption, our bodies, in a rather literal sense, ought to be the same.

Before encountering Mama Maggie, I think I had forgotten just how radically holistic the Christian call is. It’s easy to write about Jesus and tell others how to live, but am I embodying my message in a physical, life-altering way? Is my character undercutting my witness or bolstering it? Is my response to criticism loving or spiteful? Is my own body a tool for love and redemption, or for vanity and destruction?

I am humbled by those questions, but grateful that the answer to them all is found in Christ. Mama Maggie reflected Christ because she knew him so well. When others look at my life, do they encounter a woman who has clearly seen the face of God? Or do I conduct myself as one who has only heard about Him?

Humbling questions indeed, but I thank God for Jesus, and for His faithful servant, Mama Maggie.

About five years ago my pastor and I sat down to dinner with a young man who had questions about the Christian faith. I had been conversing with the man via e-mail, so my pastor decided to join us for a face-to-face chat. Our curious conversation partner was extremely bright and had a lot of great questions, but after an hour or two of talking we eventually reached an impasse.

The discussion hit a wall when my pastor explained the idea that no human being can believe the gospel apart from the grace of God. Even with all the best arguments and evidence in the world, we are helpless and blind without the enlightening vision of the Holy Spirit. Belief in Christ is actually a sign of grace.

This, of course, sounds like a circular argument to anyone outside the church. It seems awfully convenient that non-Christians don’t believe in Jesus “because God hasn’t allowed them to.” As far as apologetic strategies go, this isn’t exactly a popular one. However, the significance of belief as a sign of grace is an essential principle of Christianity, especially at a time in the church’s history when “feeling” or “sensing” God is so closely equated with spiritual vibrancy.

For many of us, faith can be a real drag when we don’t feel God’s presence. I have experienced extended periods of time during which I could not feel God at all. During those periods, I felt condemned to wander a real spiritual wilderness. For some Christians, the inability to feel God’s presence or experience God leads to larger doubts about the validity of their salvation or the existence of God. It is a serious thing.

Conversely, encounters with God provide a real boost to one’s faith. No one can take away something I have experienced personally. It makes faith more real and sure. That is the power of experience.

Experiencing God is undoubtedly blessed, but should one’s spiritual confidence rest in God’s felt presence? No it should not, and there are several reasons why. The first reason is that experience is subjective. Christianity is not the only religion that claims to have a connection with God, which means Christians are not alone in their claims of experiencing God.

As mentioned before, experience is tough to argue with. Once someone believes they have experienced God, it is difficult to take that away from them regardless of reality. Even within Christianity, a worship service might manipulate a Christian into experiencing emotion that feels like God but is not, in fact, Him. It is a very gray area that is troublesome to navigate.

“Feeling” as evidence of God is therefore a slippery slope. That is not to say that our experiences of God are illusions or that we shouldn’t hope to feel God’s presence–we should!–but we should be careful about basing the substance of our faith on a feeling, especially when feeling comes and goes so unpredictably.

The second reason experiencing God is not a good spiritual foundation is that it is not Biblical. Notice how frequently individuals in the Bible signify their salvation by believing, not feeling:

John 2:20–After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

John 4:53–Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

John 12:37–Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. (This is an example of people who experienced the miraculous power of God, but still did not believe).

Acts 4:4–But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.

Acts 8:14–Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

Acts 9:42–This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.

Acts 11:24–The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Acts 13:12–When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

This list could go on and on. The word “believe” appears in some form over 260 times in the New Testament. 84 of those appearances are in the book of John, and 62 are in the book of Acts. Belief–not experience or feeling or a strange warm sensation in your heart–is repeatedly described as the key sign of faith. It may not be glamorous or exciting, but the simple recognition that Jesus died for your sins and delivered you from a helpless and broken state, that is a work of the Holy Spirit.

Today I want to remind you of that truth for a couple reasons. The first two I have already named. By founding your faith on belief instead of feeling, you avoid some dangerous slippery slopes and you adhere to a more Scriptural understanding of faith.

But there is a third reason this message is important. To all of you who find yourselves in that wilderness, not having felt God for some time, take heart. Experiencing God and feeling His presence is indeed inspiring and beautiful, but it is not the most basic foundation of the Christian life. It is not a sign of salvation or God’s nearness to you. Instead, the very existence of your belief is a sign of God’s intervention in your life. The simple affirmation of Christ as Lord may seem small and insignificant at times, but it is not. Not everyone in the world believes the gospel; the fact that you do is literally a miracle.

And finally, on those days when you struggle to believe, the following prayer from Scripture is a helpful one:

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” -Mark 9:24

The paradoxical nature of this prayer is a wonderful summary of the Christian life. Each one of us is on a journey toward greater faith. Apart from the grace of God, we would have no belief at all. We could not know Him. Our doubt is a reflection of the finite and inadequate condition of our souls, vessels unable to grasp the infinite and perfect Lord of Creation. But God meets us in our doubts and draws us to Himself. The very act of that prayer is a sign of grace.

So be encouraged! Your belief in God is a tremendous mercy not to be underestimated. Whether you feel God’s presence today or not (and I pray you do!) rejoice in the knowledge that you know Him. Your belief is a gift.

This week I happened upon a news story about the above billboard–posted in New Jersey by the atheist advocacy group American Atheists–and the subsequent backlash that ensued. As you look at this billboard (you can click on it for a larger view), I want you to pause for a moment and reflect on your feelings about it. What kind of a personal reaction does this billboard cause?

If you’re anything like me, your feelings are probably a mix between anger and hurt. After all, Christmas is such an innocent season of hope and goodwill. My observance of Christmas is a positive one, not an aggressive or angry one, so the attack feels completely unwarranted.

However, almost as soon as I processed those thoughts my mind immediately turned to this convicting counter-point: My feelings are probably similar to those felt by non-Christians when they see Christian billboards commanding them to repent. The spirit of these two types of billboards is not so different.

The reality is that every religion or system of beliefs has within its ranks a visible few who steal the spotlight with their over-the-top behavior and offensive tactics. Atheism is certainly no exception, as self-righteousness and anger are common human conditions that plague us all.  And that is a perspective I have to keep in mind when faced with situations like this one. To borrow the language of the billboard, this perspective is the “reasonable” response.

But what is the Christian response? That is the real question I need to ask. While reason tells me to keep a cool head, the Gospel of Christ tells me to go even further. Consider Matthew 5:38-45:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

It’s easy to forget how difficult it is to follow Christ. Jesus’ words sound great in theory, but my true feelings are quickly revealed with just the slightest bit of provocation. While it is tempting to respond tit-for-tat in these situations, a response of grace, love and gentleness is the real sign of faithfulness to God. Anyone can argue loudly but very few, when slapped on the cheek, will turn to have the other slapped also.

As we enter this Christmas season, remembering in quiet awe the miracle of Jesus’ birth, let’s not forget that the Incarnation is also a map for Christian living. God humbled Himself and became a man, suffering the persecution of a broken world when He deserved nothing but eternal glory. Blessedly, we are transformed by that act of grace, and we are to be a similar means of grace in the lives of others. When we feel unfairly attacked or judged, we are free from the burden of defending ourselves and are instead compelled to love in radical ways. I can think of no response more fitting as I celebrate this happy season.

In the last month I’ve written a couple posts incorporating my doctoral studies with the practical, every-day-life concerns of being a Christian woman. I was kind of nervous about those posts because I thought you all might get as far as the first paragraph and then say “YAWN”….click. Never to return again.

Fortunately, my readers are amazing and y’all were totally tracking with me! I tell you what, that was just one more reminder that the church needs to raise the bar for women. Women are clearly craving meat and are yearning to dig into the deeper things of the faith. Thank you for your feedback! It was a welcome affirmation of my call back to school as I sit here in the dark basement of a library surrounded by books.

Since you girls are theological rock stars, I thought I would share something else that caught my attention. It has TREMENDOUS application for how we think about and understand evangelism. It also levels a pretty searing critique in the process.

The other day I read about a man named Jurgen Habermas, a German philosopher and sociologist who studied how we communicate to one another. In his work, he established a term called “validity claims” which is what we use whenever we’re trying to communicate something to another person. For instance, if I wanted to communicate to my fellow Chicagoans that Chick-fil-a makes better chicken than any of the other chicken joints around here, and that we should start a petition to bring Chick-fil-a to this area, my argument would be composed of validity claims. These claims might include things like:

• Chick-fil-a has the best chicken because they use a special recipe (that may or may not be magic)
• Chick-fil-a has the best customer service, bar none.
• They serve chicken biscuits for breakfast (that validity claim speaks for itself)
• And the list goes on…

By now you probably get the point. Habermas goes on to say that our arguments are most effective when our validity claims meet 4  particular qualifications. This is where it gets really good! As I list these 4 qualifications, I want you to think about how Christians communicate the Gospel and then count up how many of these qualifications Christians generally meet:

To be effective, validity claims must…

1. Be clear and easy to understand–How clear and understandable are the words being used? Is the speaker using language that stands the best chance of being understood by its hearers?

2. Be truthful–Does your claim accurately reflect the the world around you? Are you giving the best argument for why things are the way they are? Is your claim rooted in the best explanation available?

3. Be presented appropriately–In other words, are you presenting your beliefs according to the rules of civil conversation, or are you screaming at people’s faces? Are you being respectful, gentle and kind, or are you condescending and forceful?

4. Be presented by a credible speaker–Can your listeners trust you? Can your listeners tell that you are sincerely trying to communicate with them? And more importantly, do your listeners feel like you are hearing them, or do they simply feel preached at?

What is remarkable about these 4 qualifications is that they were not written within a Christian context. Even the above descriptions were excerpted from a secular book. But what a GREAT application this has for Christians! As I read through these and diagnose mainstream evangelism I think that we get #2 right, but too often we stop there, thinking that as long as we’re right, as long as we’ve got the truth, it doesn’t matter how we present it.

Habermas reminds us that in order to communicate effectively, we need to be using language that the world can understand, rather than Christian lingo. We need to present the Gospel in a manner that is appropriate and respectful. And who you are as a person will impact whether people pay any attention to you at all. Of course, these are all truths found in Scripture, but Habermas’ work shows us why theology and philosophy matter. Sometimes these disciplines can help us to see things in a way we haven’t before. Sometimes stepping back and taking a different look at a problem can shed new light on it.

This week I heard a truly fascinating story on NPR about why ALL humans, no matter their skepticism, are inclined to sense or experience the supernatural. The story began with a scientist named Jesse Bering who was a confessing atheist but, upon losing his mom, had a supernatural experience. The evening after her passing, he heard the wind chimes chiming outside her room, as if to indicate that his mother had safely “passed to the other side.”

Upon having this thought, Bering was surprised at himself. Where did this thought come from? As a seasoned skeptic and proud scientist, why did his brain so easily drift into this non-scientific belief? Bering was fascinated by the psychological implications of his experience, so he decided to study it.

Bering is not the first to ask this question. As the NPR story explained, “In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system,” a reality that has grabbed the attention of the scientific community and warranted much research.

You can read more about Bering’s study here, but for the moment I want to focus on his conclusions. After years of research, Bering has slightly altered his formerly atheist stance: “I’ve always said that I don’t believe in God, but I don’t really believe in atheists either.” He explains, “Everybody experiences the illusion that God — or some type of supernatural agent — is watching them or is concerned about what they do in their sort of private everyday moral lives.”

The article goes on to summarize Bering’s findings: The belief that “supernatural beings are watching you is so basic to being human that even committed atheists regularly have moments where their minds turn in a supernatural direction, as his did in the wake of his mother’s death.” As Bering puts it, “They experience it but they reject it. [They] sort of override or stomp on their immediate intuition. But that’s not to say that they don’t experience it. We all have the same basic brain. And our brains have evolved to work in a particular way.”

The story goes on to interview other scientists who speculate that this belief in God may be some kind of evolutionary development, a type of survival mechanism. But as the narrator herself concludes, these theories are nothing more than pure speculation. Scientists can never really know from where this human inclination originated. They can only draw on evolutionary theory to guess.

Now, I find two things about this story particularly fascinating. The first is that, in spite of his findings, Bering has persisted in espousing an anti-supernatural worldview. As a scientist, he is simply not open to the possibility that every human culture throughout the history of the world has believed in some sort of god because there might actually be one. The irony of his unflinching stance is the unscientific nature of it. He approached a problem with a foregone conclusion. If ever there was an argument to be made for the “religious faith” that individuals have in science, this is it. Bering admits to experiencing the transcendent echoes of a grander reality, and simultaneously denies it.

However this study also has interesting implications for how Christians approach atheists. So often we feel the need to defend God aggressively, as if He can’t defend Himself. Let us not be so proud. In Luke 19:40 Jesus reminds us that even if we are silent, the rocks themselves will cry out. God’s fingerprints can be found all over this world, including the humans who inhabit it. He created our very souls–in His image, no less–which means the most staunch of skeptics cannot help but encounter the divine…a point that human philosophers and theologians have always claimed throughout history, and that scientists are just now discovering.

Given this human tendency, Christians are reminded that when unbelievers deny the existence of God, it’s not always for lack of belief. As Bering so aptly put it, many atheists engage in a willful suppression of their natural inclinations. Bering might be surprised to learn that his wording is almost a direct quote from Romans 1:18.

But let’s get back to the practical implications of Bering’s admission. One of the things we learn is that the battle is not always fought and won in the arena of logic. That is why Jesus so heavily emphasizes an apologetic of love, not rhetoric. It’s not that reason has no place in this debate, but logic isn’t always the real issue. Rather than play a game of tit for tat with people who may argue with science but have also been frustrated or hurt by the church, it’s important to recognize the power of gentleness and grace. It is indeed discouraging to dialogue with individuals who have pre-existing biases no matter what you say and no matter what evidence there is to the contrary, but it is also true that atheists feel the same about us. Let us therefore be known foremost by our unreasonable love, and trust that God is always on the move in invisible but undeniable ways.

The title I initially wanted to give this post was “How to Talk About Sin Without Sounding Totally Self-Deprecating”–but I thought that was a little too long! Either way, this is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately. It all started several months ago when my husband and I were sitting in a Starbucks reading. Ike had just started a book called Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart (which he recommends, by the way!) when he noticed that the man sitting directly across from us was reading a book call The Atheist Bible. We eventually struck up a conversation and spent the next 2 hours dialoging about religion and atheism.

One of the points of disconnect between us and our conversation partner was our language about sin. As I tried to articulate my broken humanity and my subsequent need for grace, it came off as a mix between excessive self-belittling and false humility. As a law abiding citizen who has spent a lot of my life helping others, the average person might look at my life and stand unconvinced of my “wretched state.” It seems like absurd modesty at best, and sadism at worst.

With that in mind, I’ve been rethinking the way Christians typically explain sin to non-Christians. So often we revert into these formula questions: “Have you ever lied? Have you ever cheated? Well if you commit one sin, even just one, then you’re a sinner!” (So much for any attempt at bridging the gap between Christian lingo and the rest of the world!)  When we start there, we are clearly starting in the wrong place.

Inaccessible Christian jargon aside, sin is so much bigger than whether you lied to your parents when you were a teenager or cheated on a test. It’s even bigger than the “big” sins like murder. At the heart of sin is not what we do, but what we are unable to do. Paul summarized this predicament best in Romans 7:15–”I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Sin is about the inability of the will to do what is good, true, holy and pure. Even when we want to do good, even on our best days, our souls are so twisted that we end up doing what we hate.

For instance, as a wife there is nothing I love more than making my husband happy and loving him the way he deserves to be loved. Why is it, then, that I hurt him? Why do I disappoint him or deliberately withhold tenderness and care from him at times? If I love to love him, why do I do the very thing I hate? Why can’t I promise to NEVER hurt him again? Because I can’t. My soul is unable to do so because it is in bondage to a foreign power that I can’t get rid of–sin.

Here’s another way to think about it: Today we tend to think of free will as the ability to choose between right and wrong. However the great theologian St. Augustine defined free will quite differently. He said that free will is the freedom of the will from sin. Without God’s grace, our will is not free, but is instead in bondage. As long as our wills are imprisoned by the power of sin, we will not have the actual capacity to do what we want.

That is the heart of sin–it is a will in bondage. We cannot do what we want to do. Even when we desire to good, we find ways to short-circuit ourselves along the way. So while I cannot expect that this explanation will make sense to every person who hears it–after all, Scripture reminds us that God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world (1 Cor. 1:18)–I find this to be a better approach than the usual tabulating of sins. This method comes off sounding legalistic and it doesn’t really get to the root of the matter, which is that your will is fundamentally turned away from God. Even if you did all the good deeds in the world, without God’s grace you would still reject Him. THAT, not staying up past curfew or fudging your taxes, is the real problem.

This past week I’ve been listening to an excellent sermon series by Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church in Atlanta. The series is entitled “It’s Personal,” and in it he makes the case for why people should become Christians. In typical Andy Stanley fashion, he approaches the topic from a completely fresh perspective, and I want to share one particularly challenging illustration with you here.

Stanley began by explaining that if you ask an adult why they’re not a Christian, they’ll give you a lot of reasons, some being philosophical and others being more experiential. Generally the reasons are good ones that we should take seriously, but here’s the catch–If you can explain away all your friend’s obstacles to Christianity, they still won’t become a Christian. Or at the very least, it’s unlikely.

In his experience, Stanley found that most adults don’t become Christians by working through their objections. As long as Christianity remains an intellectual category, it will never be compelling enough to surrender their lives to.

To explain what he meant, Stanley used the illustration of marriage. Consider a single man who has a bunch of reasons for not getting married: It’s too expensive, it’s not a good time, what about all the other women he’ll miss out on dating, and look at how bad other marriages are today–why would he want that?

Then one day, this single man who is set in his single ways meets the woman of his dreams, and wouldn’t you know it? He wants to marry her! What happened to all of those obstacles? Does he suddenly have more money than before? No. Is he afraid of missing out on other women? Maybe a little, but not enough to let this one go. What about the other bad marriages he’s seen? He’s determined to make this work–it’s WORTH IT.

You see, it’s not that he worked through the obstacles. They simply became less important in the face of this new relationship. That doesn’t mean that the objections were not important ones and that they no longer matter. The single man who decides to get married must still be financially responsible, and he should still guard against the pitfalls that have ruined marriages around him. But those roadblocks have only become important considerations, not large enough to prevent him from moving forward.

And that’s how it is with God. Adults who become Christians don’t necessarily work through all of their objections–they simply meet Jesus, and suddenly their objections become less important. And like the single man who decides to marry, adult Christians don’t ignore the objections that plagued them for so long. They carry their doubts and concerns into their Christian faith, but the objections are no longer spiritual roadblocks. They are simply important considerations to be worked out in relationship with God.

What does all this mean for Christians? For me, this was very convicting. When someone objects to the Christian faith it is easy to go into debate mode and cast gentleness to the wind. I don’t bother being spiritually consistent as long as I’m right. While it’s not wrong to discuss a person’s objections to Christianity (Paul did this all the time in Scripture) Stanley’s words remind us that what is MOST important is that your discussion partner is encountering Christ along the way. You may be offering an air-tight argument, but if you’re a jerk about it then you’re missing the point. Non-Christians need to encounter Christ in us. Ultimately, that is what changes people.

If Christianity is about a personal God, then we shouldn’t get angry or confused when non-Christians stand unconvinced by our arguments. They simply haven’t met Jesus yet. By the way we love them, let’s make sure that they do.

Today I read an interesting articled published in First Things magazine by David B. Hart entitled “Believe It Or Not.” Hart is a Christian apologist who specifically grapples with the beliefs of New Atheism, and he does so in his book Atheist Delusions. This most recent article is written as a response to a recently published book titled 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists.

In case you aren’t familiar with the “New Atheism” that has risen in popularity in our culture, the term refers to a brand of Atheism that is extremely critical of and sometimes hostile towards religion, and in turn touts science as the antidote. The reason I’m bringing it up on my blog is that it’s an issue about which we as women should not only be concerned, but also well-informed.

What is particularly troubling about the New Atheism is that it has risen to popularity on the coattails of out-dated ideas, a point that Hart makes in his article. And while the lack of originality would seem to be a plus, it actually reveals a startling complacency amidst the church. New Atheism is raising concerns and objections that Christians addressed centuries ago, but so few of us are familiar with these arguments that we are ill-equipped to respond. As a result, we have witnessed the birth of a new generation of Atheists who believe they are genuinely challenging the Christian faith in new and original ways, especially because many Christians can only offer a babbling response.

This predicament aims a particularly searing critique at Christian women. It is not uncommon for Christian women to chuckle about how much their husbands enjoy discussing theology, all the while shrugging off their own lack of interest. “I just don’t understand that stuff” is the common excuse. Ladies, if you are someone who brushes off these important questions because it does not interest you, let me gently challenge you to repent of this mindset. While we are not all called to achieve advanced degrees in this area, the rise of the New Atheism has been made possible by our theological apathy.

Not all Atheists are men. Nor do they all live in ivory towers. They are your neighbor, your co-worker, maybe someone in your family. There are women who squarely reject God on philosophical grounds who will never enter your church to hear your pastor’s defense. That’s why they need to hear it from you.

Of course not all of us are philosophically minded, but that’s no excuse for not having thought through some of the questions that Atheists are asking. Consider the following:

• Some Atheists object to the existence of God because He failed to answer their prayers when they needed Him most. How would you respond to that seeming betrayal?
• Others object to the existence of God because they don’t understand how a good God could allow evil to exist in the world. How would you respond to this problem in a manner that avoids being cliché or pat?
• Some Atheists are so repulsed by corruption within the church that they write off God altogether. How might you respond to this objection, taking seriously the very real mistakes of the church?

What is striking to me about some (though not all) of the Atheist objections to God is that they are sometimes founded upon an emotional reflex. Something bad happened to them in relation to the church or Christians, so they reject God altogether. And while that is by no means a sound philosophical argument against the existence of God, many Christians have a faith born out of the same basic reasoning; an equal but opposite reaction. It is a Christianity based upon sentimentalism, but not an understanding of WHY God is real and worth trusting your life with.

So while I do not mean to imply that reason trumps faith, nor is it a more powerful evangelistic tool than unconditional love, reason should certainly be a factor. As 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 reminds us, there will never come a time when the wisdom of God is anything but foolishness to a blind world, but we are still called to love God with both our hearts and our minds. So spend some time reading about these difficult issues. Few of them have tidy answers but the important thing is that you engage the questions, because as we are learning, your skeptical neighbors and friends certainly are.