111 Sermon Illustrations on Apostasy

[An analysis of why so many liberal mainline pastors lose their faith and drop out of church after retiring.]

“Be merciful to those who doubt.” — Jude 22

I belong to a support group of seven retired Mainline clergypersons. Six of the seven no longer affirm historic, creedal, orthodox, traditional theology. The same six members of the group no longer actively participate in a congregation. If you do the math, that means 86% of my retired clergy group have, to a large degree, lost traditional faith and left institutional religion.

For a long time, I assumed this dynamic in my support group was an anomaly. Surely, I thought, this is not typical. So, several months ago, I decided to take an informal survey of retired clergy to help find out. I asked them two questions: “Do you still affirm traditional doctrines/theology? Why or why not? Are you still actively involved in a church? Why or why not?”

Before sharing the results of the survey, a significant disclaimer needs to be made. This was not a large or a scientific survey. Instead, it represents the responses of about 100 retired (almost all Mainline) clergy who read DoubtersParish.com, ProgressiveChristianity.org or Baptist News Global. In short, the responders to this survey already trend “liberal/progressive” theologically and ecclesiastically. Had I surveyed retired clergy from conservative evangelicalism, the results likely would have been significantly different.

With that important disclaimer, I’d like to share some of the findings of the survey. Overall, it identified the following three categories of retired clergypersons (with percentages):

Those who affirm traditional theology and participate in a church (19%)

Those who do not affirm traditional theology but participate in a church (40%)

Those who do not affirm traditional theology and do not participate in a church (41%)

Three major trends that surfaced in the survey will now be reviewed, followed by a tentative attempt to explain why so many retired clergy have lost traditional faith and left church.

A majority remain in church

Fifty-nine percent of the retired clergy who took this survey still participate in a local church. This includes clergy who retain traditional faith and those who do not. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“I am still active in a congregation. How can a good son abandon one’s mother?”

“I believe in the church, in the sense that we were never meant to go it alone in our faith.”

“I certainly don’t believe all that is preached from the pulpit but have stayed for the social connection.”

“I appreciate the mission work and the camaraderie. It is affirming for me.”

“I am actively involved in my church, partly because it has jettisoned dogma.”

“I go mostly because it is a communal activity in which I have participated all my life.”

“The church is where community can be found, care received and practiced, and prophetic voices can be heard. The church can be frustrating, but it’s also the place where I learned to love Jesus, my neighbors, the Bible’s story and the power of hope.”

A significant minority have left church

Although 59% of retired clergy who responded to this survey remain in church, 41% have left. For people who devoted decades of their lives to institutional religion, this seems like a large number. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“The church is not going to change. For example, the language used for worship is so gendered and theistic. When people ask me what I did before retiring, I tell them I am a retired pastor who no longer goes to church.”

“Today’s church has become a political pawn in the American culture. It has lost its voice and credibility in the world. Other cultures often see the American church as an instrument of imperialism.”

“Churches are prejudiced, racist, they don’t think, they are comfortable with 1950s understandings of the Bible and theology, and they spend almost all of their money on themselves.”

“The church has abandoned the example and teachings of Jesus for power, politics, money and the status quo.”

“My experience is that many churches continue to offer only white worship, white music and white liturgy, thus resembling a white country club that really doesn’t want to do any hands-on work with the least of these.”

“I found parish ministry to be very draining, and I’m still feeling the need to have my own well filled up with peace and beauty rather than theological squabbling, meetings, committee work and toxic relationships in troubled systems.”

“I’ve shoveled enough church crap to last a hundred lifetimes. I’m finished, and it’s absolutely liberating.”

A large majority no longer affirm traditional theology

The biggest surprise of this retired clergy survey, at least for me, is that 81% of the respondents no longer hold traditional (historic, creedal, orthodox) theology/doctrines. A few representative quotes from respondents follow:

“I no longer believe the doctrines of the church. Instead, I follow the life, teachings and example of Jesus.”

“I believe in a nontheistic God who is universal energy.”

“I am closer to the Jesus of The Jefferson Bible and the Jesus Seminar than to the Jesus of The Apostles’ Creed.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure if I still believe in God, but I’m sure I still believe in Jesus.”

“I no longer affirm the doctrines I learned in junior high Sunday school like heaven, hell, virgin birth, physical resurrection, ascension or the second coming.”

“I cannot reconcile reality with traditional doctrines, nor do they make logical sense anymore. Some of the traditional doctrines I find to be morally corrupt and inconsistent with a loving God.”

“I still possess a belief in God, but it is not bound by what lies in the formulated canon of Scripture.”

“Far more important than any creed or system of beliefs or principles is having a moral compass and great kindness.”

Why have so many retired clergy lost traditional faith and left church?

When 81% of retired clergy (who took this survey) have lost traditional faith, and 41% have left church, you cannot help but ask why. There’s no one definitive answer. For example, numerous respondents never affirmed traditional faith in the first place, especially those in the noncreedal, highly progressive United Church of Christ. But the primary explanation respondents gave for losing traditional faith and leaving church is that, as retired clergy, they now have the theological and ecclesiastical freedom to do so.

For example, when you are a professional minister, even if you are fed up with institutional religion, you obviously do not have the freedom to leave church. Retirement allows you, for the first time in a long time, to make a decision about your church participation.

As already noted, the majority choose to stay. After spending a lifetime working in church, most clergy want to remain connected to their life’s work. However, retired clergy who have grown disillusioned with institutional religion are now free to cut their ecclesiastical ties — and many do.

As one respondent said, “I am not involved in a church. Short version, I had enough. Retirement provides freedom not to.”

This freedom is even more pronounced when it comes to theology. For active clergy, not believing in traditional doctrines can create major crises on many levels. Therefore, most clergy attempt to avoid this painful reality, even if it requires not being fully forthright with themselves or their congregations.

However, once they are freed from vocational constraints, many of them come to the realization they no longer affirm traditional beliefs. Very few become atheists. However, many of them, like those in this survey, become far less orthodox.

As one respondent said, “Although I struggled with doubt my entire career, I convinced myself that I still believed in the core tenants of historic Christianity. But when I retired, I realized that I didn’t.”

While writing this article, I came upon a provocative quote by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Although he was not specifically referring to religion or clergypersons, it certainly applies.

I don’t share this quote in a judgmental or cynical way. Instead, I share it to illustrate how difficult it is for doubting clergypersons to understand and admit (to themselves or others) that they have lost important tenants of their religion. Why? Because, as the quote suggests, losing those beliefs can result in the termination of your salary, which is no small matter.

But it goes much deeper than that. Losing faith also can lead to a loss of call, vocation, identity, community, purpose, meaning, reputation and even family relationships.

For someone with “Reverend” in front of their name, admitting he or she has lost faith feels overwhelmingly frightening and threatening. As a result, most clergy find a way to hang on to some semblance of faith, if only by their fingernails.

But when they retire, such fears and constraints dissipate, giving many of them the freedom to acknowledge (perhaps for the first time) that their faith has significantly strayed from traditional orthodoxy.

A case study

Let me share a specific example. A few weeks ago, I read a book by a clergyman narrating his struggle with doubt. I won’t go into many details, but he laid out numerous factors that led him to doubt his faith. They included the usual suspects (questions about the Bible, the problem of suffering, skepticism about a theistic God and a divine Christ, difficulty believing in supernaturalism, and the massive failures of institutional religion).

By this point in the book, most readers would expect to turn the page and discover he has given up on faith and resigned as a minister. Instead, the author makes a surprising shift. Instead of jettisoning his religion, he decided to take a “leap of faith” and “trust” Christianity. Given his massive doubts, I’m sure many readers felt a bit of whiplash.

However, his decision to retain faith despite debilitating doubts will not surprise most clergy. The cost of giving up his faith was too high a bar, the price too steep. He acknowledged as much when he admitted he could not bring himself to leave his vocation, which is all he knew and which he was good at. Nor could he bear to leave his denominational tribe and the community it provided. He also loathed to give up the spiritual comfort traditional faith offered him. So he found a way to keep faith alive, although just barely.

When I read his story, which was published 12 years ago, I thought to myself, “I bet his perspective changed when he retired.” My hunch proved correct. An online search revealed he recently retired. I then read several of his current blog posts. He no longer talks about “a leap of faith” or “trust” in God. Instead, he talks about his “slowly dissolving faith.” He clearly no longer believes in traditional Christianity, and he’s deeply frustrated with institutional religion.

I do not criticize this man for hanging on to a minimum of traditional faith while serving as a minister, only to let it go upon retirement. Instead, I can empathize with him. When we are still in the ministerial arena, it’s extraordinarily difficult to acknowledge our deepest doubts to ourselves, much less to others. The stakes are simply too high. Therefore, many doubting clergy — often subconsciously — defer and deny such threatening thoughts.

However, according to the participants of this survey, when we retire, and gain the theological and ecclesiastical freedom that accompanies it, our perspectives often change. And that, more than anything else, appears to be the primary reason so many thoughtful and well-educated clergy, upon their retirement, release (at least some) traditional faith, embrace (at least some) nontraditional faith, and rethink their relationship with institutional religion.

Are there clergy who don’t believe in God? That is the question posed by a new report that is certain to receive considerable attention -- and rightly so. Few church members are likely to be disinterested in whether their pastor believes in God.

The study was conducted by the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, under the direction of Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola. Dennett, of course, is one of the primary figures in the “New Atheism” -- the newly aggressive and influential atheist movement that has gained a considerable hearing among the intellectual elites and the media.

Dennett is a cognitive scientist whose book, BREAKING THE SPELL, suggests that belief in God must have at one point served an important evolutionary purpose, granting an evolutionary advantage to those who had some belief in an afterlife as compared to humans without such a belief. The reality of death, Dennett surmises, might well have been the precipitating factor. In order to make life meaningful in the face of death (and thus encourage reproduction), Dennett suggests that primitive humans invented the idea of God and the afterlife. Now, he argues, we have no more need of such primitive beliefs.

Interestingly, Dennett also proposes a new interpretation of theological liberalism. Noting that many modern people claim to be Christians while holding to virtually no specific theological content, Dennett suggests that their mode of faith should not be described as “belief,” but rather as “believing in belief.”

Given Dennett’s own atheistic agenda, we can rightly assume that he would be thrilled to see Christian ministers and believers abandon the faith. Indeed, the New Atheists have made this a stated aim. Thus, this new research report, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers,” should be read within that framework. Nevertheless, it must be read. This report demands the attention of anyone concerned with the integrity of the Christian church and the Christian faith.

Dennett and LaScola undertook their project with the goal of looking for unbelieving pastors and ministers who continue to serve their churches in “secret disbelief.” Their “small and self-selected” sample of ministers represents a microcosm of the theological collapse at the heart of many churches and denominations.

In their report, Dennett and LaScola present case studies of five unbelieving ministers, three from liberal denominations (“the liberals”) and two from conservative denominations (“the literals”).

Wes, a Methodist, lost his confidence in the Bible while attending a liberal Christian college and seminary. “I went to college thinking Adam and Eve were real people,” he explained. Now, he no longer believes that God exists. In his rendering, God is a word that “can be used very expressively in some of my more meditative modes” and “a kind of poetry that is written by human beings.”

His church members do not know that he is an atheist, but he explains that they are somewhat liberal themselves. His ministerial colleagues are even more liberal: “They’ve been de-mythologized, I’ll say that. They don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead literally. They don’t believe Jesus was born of a virgin. They don’t believe all those things that would cause a big stir in their churches.”

Rick, a campus minister for the United Church of Christ, perhaps the most liberal Protestant denomination, was an agnostic in college and seems to have lost all belief by the time he graduated from seminary. He chose ordination in the UCC because it required “no forced doctrine.” Even as he graduated from seminary, he knew, “I’m not going to make it in a conventional church.” He knew he could not go into a church and teach his own theological views, based on Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann. He did not believe in the doctrinal content of the Christian faith from the beginning of his ministry. “I did not believe the traditional things even then.”

He does not believe “all this creedal stuff” about the incarnation of Christ or the need for salvation, but he remained in the ministry because, “These are my people, this is the context in which I work, these are the people that I know.” In the pulpit, his mode is to talk as if he does believe, because “as long as ... you are talking about God and Jesus and the Bible, that’s what they want to hear. You’re just phrasing it in a way that makes sense to [them] ... but language is ambiguous and can be heard in different ways.”

He doesn’t like to call himself an atheist, but: “If not believing in a supernatural, theistic god is what distinguishes an atheist, then I am one too.”

Darryl is a Presbyterian who sees himself as a “progressive-minded” pastor who wants to see his kind of non-doctrinal Christianity “given validity in some way.” He acknowledges that he is more a pantheist than a theist, and thinks that many of the more educated members of his church hold to the same liberal beliefs as his own. And those beliefs (or unbeliefs) are stated clearly: “I reject the virgin birth. I reject substitutionary atonement. I reject the divinity of Jesus. I reject heaven and hell in the traditional sense, and I am not alone.”

Amazingly, Darryl is candid about the fact that he remains in the ministry largely for financial reasons. It is how he provides for his family. If he openly espoused his beliefs, “I may be burning bridges in terms of my ability to earn a living this way.”

Adam ministers in the Church of Christ, a conservative denomination. After years in the ministry, he began to lose all theological confidence. After reading a series of books, he became convinced that the atheists have better arguments than believers. He has moved fully into an atheist mode, yet he continues to lead his church in worship. How? “Here’s how I’m handling my job on Sunday mornings: I see it as play acting. I see myself as taking on the role of a believer in a worship service, and performing.”

This “atheistic agnostic” stays in the ministry because he likes the people and, “I need the job still.” If he had an alternative source of income, he would take it. He feels hypocritical, but no longer believes that hypocrisy is wrong.

John is identified as a Southern Baptist minister who has primarily served as a worship leader. He was attracted to Christianity as a religion of love, but his pursuit of Christianity “brought me to the point of not believing in God.” As he explains, “I didn’t plan to become an atheist. I didn’t even want to become an atheist. It’s just I had no choice. If I’m being honest with myself.”

He is clearly not being honest with his church members. He rejects all belief in God and all Christian truth claims out of hand. He is a determined atheist. Once again, this unbelieving minister admits that he stays in the ministry because of finances. Amazingly, this minister even names his price: “If someone said, ‘Here’s $200,000,’ I’d be turning my notice in this week, saying, ‘A month from now is my last Sunday.’ Because then I can pay off everything.”

Early in their report, Dennett and LaScola point to a problem of definition. Many churches and denominations have adopted such fluid and doctrineless identities that determining who is a believer and who is an unbeliever has become difficult. Their statement deserves a close reading:

The ambiguity about who is a believer and who is an unbeliever

follows inexorably from the pluralism that has been assiduously

fostered by many religious leaders for a century and more: God is

many different things to different people, and since we can’t

know if one of these conceptions is the right one, we should

honor them all. This counsel of tolerance creates a gentle fog

that shrouds the question of belief in God in so much

indeterminacy that if asked whether they believed in God, many

people could sincerely say that they don’t know what they are

being asked.

In other words, some theologians and denominations have embraced a theology so fluid and indeterminate that even an atheist cannot tell the believers and unbelievers apart.

“Preachers Who Are Not Believers” is a stunning and revealing report that lays bare a level of heresy, apostasy, and hypocrisy that staggers the mind. In 1739, Gilbert Tennett preached his famous sermon, “On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry.” In that sermon, Tennett described unbelieving pastors as a curse upon the church. They prey upon the faith and the faithful. “These caterpillars labor to devour every green thing.”

If they will not remove themselves from the ministry, they must be removed. If they lack the integrity to resign their pulpits, the churches must muster the integrity to eject them. If they will not “out” themselves, it is the duty of faithful Christians to “out” them. The caterpillars are hard at work. Will it take a report from an atheist to awaken the church to the danger?

It was one of the most infamous statements an entertainer has ever made - and the comment is still talked about 44 years later.

During an interview with the London Evening Standard, one of the Beatles, John Lennon, was talking about Christianity. “It will vanish and shrink ... I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now.”

Although Lennon made it clear he was talking only about his native England -- a point that may have been lost as the story spread -- the comment outraged many Americans.

But as Robert Hart reminds us in Touchstone magazine, the comment went “practically unnoticed” in Europe and England; they were neither upset nor surprised. Why? Because Lennon was simply expressing what they already knew to be true: Christianity had already begun its long European decline.

In England at the time, the Beatles really were “more popular than the Lord himself among youth.” So says Hart.

If you think about it, Lennon’s comment really should not have been so shocking. The Scriptures warn us that many things will be more popular than Jesus. As the Apostle John warns us, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

As Hart notes, the apostle’s words explain the “almost hidden orthodoxy we can derive from” Lennon’s words, “long assumed to have been blasphemous or boastful.” In reality, Hart writes, “they were diagnostic.”

More than 40 years after Lennon’s comment, Imagine how Americans would react if a similar statement were made today about the United States? Would the church Twist and Shout with outrage? Or would we sadly see it as an accurate observation? The truth is, Christianity has declined in America, as well. And along with it has come a substantial rise in hostility towards all things Christian.

What are we to do about it? First, we should Slow Down and ask ourselves what is more popular than Jesus in our own lives. Video games? Television? Shopping? Sports?

Second, as Hart notes, we should look to the lessons of places like Africa and Asia, where the church is growing stronger under great persecution.

And we should ask ourselves if the shrinking of the church in America is entirely a bad thing. After all, as Hart writes, people used to go to church simply because that’s what respectable people did. They don’t do that so much today-which means that those who do attend are more deeply committed. That’s a good thing.

What we need to do is strengthen that commitment and Help them understand the fundamentals of the faith. Too many of our kids think that “All You Need Is Love” is the essence of Christianity.

And after they learn the fundamentals, we need to drill into them an understanding of worldview, Eight Days a Week, if we have to, and how everything in our culture-including popular music-contains worldview messages.

And then we need to send them out into the world-including the world of music-loving youth. It Won’t Be Long before they start a godly Revolution.

________

Copyright (c) 2010 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A recent letter to columnist Carolyn Hax of The Washington Post seemed straightforward enough. “I am a stay-at-home mother of four who has tried to raise my family under the same strong Christian values that I grew up with,” the woman writes. “Therefore I was shocked when my oldest daughter, ‘Emily,’ suddenly announced she had ‘given up believing in God’ and decided to ‘come out’ as an atheist.”

The idea of a 16-year-old atheist in the house would be enough to alarm any Christian parent, and rightly so. The thought that a secular advice columnist for The Washington Post might be the source of help seems very odd, but desperation can surely lead a parent to seek help almost anywhere.

You usually get what you expect from an advice columnist like this — therapeutic counsel based in a secular worldview and a deep commitment to personal autonomy. Carolyn Hax responds to this mother with an admonition to respect the integrity of her daughter’s declaration of non-belief. She adds, “Parents can and should teach their beliefs and values, but when a would-be disciple stops believing, it’s not a ‘decision’ or ‘choice’ to ‘reject’ church or family or tradition or virtue or whatever else has hitched a cultural ride with faith.”

That is patent nonsense, of course. Declarations of adolescent unbelief often are exactly what Hax argues they are not: rejections of “church or family or tradition or virtue.” Hax does offer some legitimate insights, suggesting that honesty is to be preferred to dishonesty and that such adolescent statements are often indications of a phase of intellectual questioning or just trying on a personality for style.

Hax then tells this distraught mother that she “didn’t throw out what my childhood, including my church, taught me; I still apply what I believe in. I just apply it to a secular life.” In other words, Hax asserts that she maintains many of the values she learned as a child in church, and simply applies these values now to a secular life.

“How can I help my daughter see that she is making a serious mistake with her life if she chooses to reject her God and her faith?,” the mother asks. Hax tells the mother to accept the daughter’s atheism and get over her “disappointment that she isn’t turning out just as you envisioned.”

What else would you expect a secular columnist who operates from a secular worldview to say?

The real problem does not lie with Carolyn Hax’s answer, however, but with the mother’s question. The problem appears at the onset, when the mother states that she has “tried to raise my family under the same strong Christian values that I grew up with.”

Christian values are the problem. Hell will be filled with people who were avidly committed to Christian values. Christian values cannot save anyone and never will. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a Christian value, and a comfortability with Christian values can blind sinners to their need for the gospel.

This one sentence may not accurately communicate this mother’s understanding, but it appears to be perfectly consistent with the larger context of her question and the source of the advice she sought.

Parents who raise their children with nothing more than Christian values should not be surprised when their children abandon those values. If the child or young person does not have a firm commitment to Christ and to the truth of the Christian faith, values will have no binding authority, and we should not expect that they would. Most of our neighbors have some commitment to Christian values, but what they desperately need is salvation from their sins. This does not come by Christian values, no matter how fervently held. Salvation comes only by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Human beings are natural-born moralists, and moralism is the most potent of all the false gospels. The language of “values” is the language of moralism and cultural Protestantism — what the Germans called Kulturprotestantismus. This is the religion that produces cultural Christians, and cultural Christianity soon dissipates into atheism, agnosticism, and other forms of non-belief. Cultural Christianity is the great denomination of moralism, and far too many church folk fail to recognize that their own religion is only cultural Christianity — not the genuine Christian faith.

The language of values is all that remains when the substance of belief disappears. Tragically, many churches seem to perpetuate their existence by values, long after they abandon the faith.

We should not pray for Christian morality to disappear or for Christian values to evaporate. We should not pray to live in Sodom or in Vanity Fair. But a culture marked even by Christian values is in desperate need of evangelism, and that evangelism requires the knowledge that Christian values and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not the same thing.

I pray that this young woman and her mother find common hope and confidence in the salvation that comes only through Christ — not by Christian values. Otherwise, we are facing far more than a young woman “making a serious mistake with her life.” We are talking about what matters for eternity. Christian values cannot save anyone.

________

Carolyn Hax, “Daughter’s Turnabout on Religion Shakes Mother’s Faith,” The Washington Post, Friday, September 7, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/daughters-turnabout-on-religion-shakes-mothers-faith/2012/09/04/1e6ead68-f3a9-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_story.html

I discussed this matter in The Briefing. Listen here: http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/10/the-briefing-09-10-12/

It’s risky to start saying, “This person’s rejection of faith could have been avoided If Only...”

Still, if someone says her father was a relatively well-known apologetics group founder, and she memorized all the debate points but now rejects Christ, let’s take heed.

Faith rejections have many causes. One may be sincere appraisal of other religions. Another may be an opposition to Christian sexual ethics (as Tim Keller suggested). But in her Monday column for Friendly Atheist, Rachael Slick emphasized her apologetics-based upbringing — an upbringing that backfired.

Having a dad highly schooled in Christian apologetics meant that every question I brought up was explained away confidently and thoroughly. Many times, after our nightly Bible study, we would sit at the table after my Mom and sisters had left and debate, discuss, and dissect the theological questions I had. No stone was left unturned, and all my uncertainty was neatly packaged away.

But she wouldn’t trade what she says was her homeschool-based, fact-heavy education:

[W]ithout that childhood, I wouldn’t understand what freedom truly is — freedom from a life centered around obedience and submission, freedom to think anything, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from the perpetual heavy obligation to keep every thought pure. Nothing I’ve ever encountered in my life has been so breathtakingly beautiful.

Freedom is my God now, and I love this one a thousand times more than I ever loved the last one.

Novelist and screenwriter Brian Godawa‘s story begins similarly. As a younger Christian, he likewise craved apologetics, evidence, facts, doctrines, and debate (and still enjoys these).

In his opening chapter of his nonfiction Word Pictures, he describes where this craving led.

Over the years, as I pursued an emphasis on rational discourse almost exclusively in my spiritual walk, I noticed in myself a tendency toward reducing everything to logical debate. I became argumentative. Encounters with unbelievers and even believers would seem to always end in cognitive dispute.

Yet so far, the path of Godawa’s life story has taken a different turn from Slick’s.

I began to discover just what was lopsiding my Christianity and my communication. It was my devaluation of imagination. I had become logocentric. I had privileged rational discourse as the ultimate means of discerning truth and neglected the legitimacy of emotion and imagination in understanding God. Reason had become a sort of idol to me. And it was not well with my soul.... Some Christians have tended to be so word-oriented that they border on rationalism and distrust the use of imagination, deeming it an idol tool of the devil’s workshop.

Now, being respectful of Slick’s stated motives, I have to ask: “Were you taught to enjoy the love, wonder, and imagination that Christ and His Gospel bring to the world, to human life, and to the art and stories we enjoy for God’s glory? Or were these joys taught as optional, lesser, and at best frivolous in the mechanical, law-and-debate-based Christian life?”

And for all who love apologetics arguments, I would ask: If we only enjoy fighting pagans in this world, how are we preparing for the next?

We will not argue with atheists on the New Heavens and New Earth. So let us not act as if apologetics is the “chief end of man.”