Sermon Illustrations on Unbelief — page 2

Infidelity Answered

Infidels often lack true conviction and revert to faith in times of crisis.

While Ingersoll was still living, in answer to an inquiry by some of his students as to whether the arguments of Ingersoll are unanswerable, a college president answered them in the _Andover Review_ as follows:

An infidel is an abnormal growth, and nature feels funny once in a while and creates a freak, _e.g._, the living skeleton; the fat woman, the two-headed girl. So there is about one infidel to a million sane men. The most of these noisy fellows are amateur infidels. They talk Ingersoll in fair weather and pray themselves hoarse every time it thunders. A well-developed case of cholera morbus will knock their infidelity out of them, and leave them in a cold sweat like a china dog in an ice-house. I know them. The most of them are like the boy who runs away from home, and comes back to stay with his father nights. Then, again, boys, take a look around you when you invest another fifty cents to hear Ingersoll talk on “liberty,” and compare the crowd with the kind of people you find in almost any church. Is it the odor of sanctity you smell? Hardly, boys, hardly. But you can eat peanuts there, and choke on the shells, while you applaud the funny jokes about heaven where you know in your hearts your dear mother is; or hear the humble Nazarene ridiculed, who, you think, and always will think, gave a home to your weary old father when he left the earth.

Infidelity Repulsive

Infidelity is repulsive, even to those who once served unbelievers.

The nurse who waited upon Voltaire, the French infidel, during his last hours, was requested a few months later to attend another infidel in the same city. Her answer was, “I would not wait upon another infidel for all the gold of Paris.” All infidelity is repulsive. (Text.)

Types, Distinct

Unbelief leads to ruin and destruction in a person's life.

U

UNBELIEF

Years ago, in my Sunday-school, a young fellow came to me and said: “I have come to the conclusion that there is no God, no future life, no heaven and no hell. When you are dead, you are dead, and that is the end of you.” My reply was: “My dear fellow, these opinions will wreck you before you get through.” Before long, he left the Sunday-school, and I saw no more of him for years. Then one evening a knock came at my study door, and behold! the young man appeared. He was much run down, was blear-eyed and bloated. “Is that you, Fred?” said I. “Yes,” he replied. “Is it drink?” said I. “Yes,” he replied again. “Do you remember that I told you your opinions would wreck you before you got through?”--A. F. SCHAUFFLER, _The Christian Herald_.

Types, Distinct

Unbelief challenges many creeds but only reveals the enduring rock of truth.

* * * * *

The waves of unbelief mount and recede, And jar the century with strong unrest; They carry back the sands of many a creed, But only leave the rock more manifest. (Text.)

The Problem of Unbelief

The problem of unbelief. (filed under SCP Newsletter)

Scientists study Creation, but have a hard time with the Creator. Noted astronomer Robert Jastrow writes:

The Big Bang theory in astronomy tells us the universe has a

beginning. Theologians are delighted with the proof that the

Universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset.

It turns out that the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do

when our beliefs are in conflict with the evidence. We become

irritated, we pretend the conflict does not exist, or we paper it

over with meaningless phrases.

(from “God and the Astronomers,” p.16)

The Death Sin - Unbelief and Doubt

John 16:9

Relationship of doubt to unbelief is explored. Doubt is good, unbelief bad.

I. Doubting is normal.

A. The Bible doesn't warn against "doubt" as such.

B. Doubt and belief are compatible.

1) You can doubt and believe at the same time.

2) Without beliefs, you cannot question.

C. What doubt is.

1) Doubt is the act of questioning, the expression of

uncertainty.

2) Doubt is the humility of a mind asking real questions and

seeking real solutions.

D. Formaldehyde faith is dangerous.

1) We comfortably mouth a set of faith formulas, without passion.

2) It is easily threatened. (Paul de Vries and S.S. class)

3) Christians need to learn to ask serious questions.

II. Unbelief is sin.

A. Deliberate denial, disobedience, rebellion, resistance.

B. Doubt is the sincere question, but unbelief is the unwillingness

to hear the answer.

C. Unbelief is the condition of being closed and out of touch with

God.

III. Intellectual disdain.

A. Blanket assertions that something is impossible.

1) "Laws of nature."

2) Our understanding of nature is always limited.

B. Doubting the resurrection of Jesus.

1) Not unusual to doubt it. It flies against our experience.

a) Even the disciples doubted it.

b) This is why it is such incredible good news.

2) Unbelief leaves no room for the Easter surprise.

a) It refuses the possiblity that dead bodies rise anew.

b) Doubt still says that renewal is possible.

IV. Dashed hope.

A. Our desire FOR miracles is equal in strength to our DOUBT that

they can happen.

1) Many can recall earnest prayers as a youngster.

a) "God, please make Daddy forget who broke the window."

2) Serious prayers - for healing of loved ones, who died.

B. Our anger at God is an expression of doubts that He is running

the world the best that he can.

1) The psalms include much anger and sing of doubts and

disappointments.

2) God is there and cares to listen.

3) By contrast, in a state of unbelief our anger would be

completely pointless and absurd.

a) Jesus expresses doubt on cross, but keeps faith. Ps 22.

V. Spiritual numbness. [expanded in sermon 4/3/94]

A. Faith can be an enterprise, without feeling.

B. Paul de Vries doubted Christ's presence in his life, even

though he said he did during evangelism.

His pastor admitted he did not feel it, either.

Dobut ended up giving him hope.

He doubted that this formal profession of faith was all God

had for him.

He doubted that his knowledge was the extent of Christian

faith because he sincerely hoped that there was more.

Still believing the Bible, he asked questions.

Strangely, he would not have asked, knocked, or even sought,

if he had not doubted.

Professing what we do not have and promoting what we do not

know is a deceitful form of unbelief.

It is deadly, but also amazingly attractive.

Our lives are perfectly under our own control.

We can also miss the incomparable power of God's presence

and the authentic light of his truth.

VI. Constructive doubt.

A. We see through a glass darkly. 1 Cor 13:12.

1) What we see is always clouded by our limitations and sin.

2) Therefore we must doubt, but we also have to strain to see

what we can through the glass. We must seek.

B. We know only in part. 1 Cor 13:12.

1) Humility of mind must characterize our most enthusiastic

professions of faith.

2) The power of God's Word does not depend on our assertions.

3) God has authority, we must have humility.

C. Our doubts must make us hungry to know God.

1) Pray for the time when we will know him as well as he

knows us. 1 Cor 13:12.

2) This hunger excludes unbelief.

The Brilliance of Unbelief

Luke 24:38

Testimonies of young infidels: Dan Barker, public relations director for the Freedom From Religion Foundation and a contributing editor to "Freethought Today." From age 15 to 32 he says he was gung-ho into Christian work, preaching, doing missionary work, visiting house-to-house, and immersing himself in all the accepted norms of the Christian religion. He went to a Christian college [Azusa Pacific University] and majored in Religion/Philosophy before becoming a preacher and evangelist.[1]

Now, the faith he once heralded he calls "an erroneous way of thinking" an "ill-conceived" world view. However, he says he should not be blamed for believing and acting as he did, "based on my limited knowledge back then," explaining, "Should children be blamed for believing in Santa Claus?" Eventually, he says, he came to realize "there is no evidence for Christianity" and "no need for it".

If brilliance is on the side of atheism and Christians are dumb for believing God, why are there so many truly brilliant humble Christians? The greatest discoveries in the area of science, for example, were made by men who waited before God and walked with God. Among this group we would include Frances Bacon, "the father of modern science"; William Harvey, "the founder of modern physiology"; John Ray, "the founder of systematic biology"; Carolus Linnaeus, "the father of modern systematic botany"; Isaac Newton, "the father of physics"; Robert Boyle, "the father of chemistry"; Louis Agassiz, "the world's leading ichthyologist" and "America's leading biologist"; Micheal Farraday, "the discoverer of electromagnetic induction"; James Y. Simpson, "a leading founder of gynecology"; Rene Descartes; Gottfried Wilhelm Liebnitz; Edmund Halley; William Ramsey; John William Dawson; Johann Kepler; Louis Pasteur; and Galileo Galilei, just for starters.

________

1. From Barker's website :

"Dan Barker, Co-president, Freedom From Religion Foundation: Minister Turned Atheist"

Dan became a teenage evangelist at age 15. At 16 he was choir librarian for faith-healer Kathryn Kuhlman’s Los Angeles appearances. He received a degree in Religion from Azusa Pacific University and was ordained to the ministry by the Standard Community Church, California, in 1975. He served as associate pastor at a Friends (Quaker) Church, an Assembly of God, and an independent Charismatic church. Dan was a Protestant missionary in Mexico for a total of two years.

Dan maintained a touring musical ministry for 17 years, including eight years of full-time, cross-country evangelism. An accomplished pianist, record producer, arranger and songwriter, he worked with Christian music companies such as Manna Music and Word Music. For many years, Dan wrote and produced the annual “Mini Musicale” for Gospel Light Publications’ Vacation Bible School curriculum.

For more than two decades, Dan was accompanist, arranger, and record producer for Manuel Bonilla, the leading Christian singer in the Spanish-speaking world. He accompanied on the piano such Christian personalities as Pat Boone, Jimmy Roberts (of the Lawrence Welk Show), and gospel songwriter Audrey Meier, and was a regular guest on Southern California’s “Praise The Lord” TV show (Spanish). One of Dan’s Christian songs, “There Is One,” was performed by Rev. Robert Schuller’s television choir on the “Hour of Power” broadcast. To this day, he receives royalties from his popular children’s Christian musicals, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1977), and “His Fleece Was White As Snow” (1978), both published by Manna Music and performed in many countries.

Following five years of reading, Dan gradually outgrew his religious beliefs. “If I had limited myself to Christian authors, I’d still be a Christian today,” Dan says. “I just lost faith in faith.” He announced his atheism publicly in January, 1984.

The Brilliance of Unbelief

Luke 24:38

William Ramsey was not convinced of the historicity of Luke's writings in the Book of Acts - especially as they pertained to the missionary journeys of Paul - and he spent years of investigation into the matter. His work was so scholarly and commendable that the Queen of England knighted him for his labor. But Sir William Ramsey, instead of finding Luke in error, discovered that the divine amanuensis was completely accurate, and he described Acts as the most perfect historical document of all time. (used 7/28/91)

Lew Wallace, the brilliant general who saved Washington from capture by the Confederates during the Civil War, was challenged by "Boasting Bob" Ingersol to write a book discrediting Christianity, but his research brought him to Christ and he wrote "Ben Hur" instead.

A more recent example is Josh McDowell, the law student who set out to discredit the Bible and ended up one of its most vigorous defenders, writing books, lecturing on university campuses, and debating all would-be challengers.

Schuller Clarifies His View of Sin

Schuller's view of sin.

Four traditional views of sin:

1. Sin does not exist. (Humanism, communism)

2. Sin is something everyone has, but no one is born with. (Pelagianism)

3. We are born in sin - that is, every person is born as rebellious as Adam

was when he willfully chose to disobey God. (Federal theology)

4. Every person is conceived and born in sin. But this condition is, unlike

that in the thrid view, a state of unbelief first - before it is an

act of rebellion. [1485]

*

When Doubt Can Help You

Mark 9:24

The prophet Jeremiah had doubts, which led him to greater faith. Otherwise he would have been content with temple reform. Blaise Pascal had doubts but also great faith. Nietzsche paraded his doubts and congratulated himself for them. Real doubt, coming from a reverence for truth, is from God: it does not forbid questions, nor does it answer questions prematurely. Instead, it reaches beyond understanding and asks honest questions.

"Beyond the Shadow of Doubt"

Job 19:6

What can we do with the secret doubts that sometimes haunt us?

1. Many in the Bible experienced, and expressed, doubt.

2. Determine the source of your doubt.

a. Doubt triggered by suffering.

b. From legitimate intellectual questions.

c. It can spring from unbelief. We can use doubt to rationalize sin.

3. Accept that faith is still under construction.

4. Nurture a forever perspective.

#2621

[see also HolwickID #22107]

*

Why Should God Visit Us... When We're Not Interested?

Amos 8:5

Five reasons we don't pray, according to Richard Halverson:

1) Unbelief.

a) We don't think it really works.

b) It's just something you have to endure in church.

2) Indifference.

a) We don't pray until a problem is huge.

3) Priorities.

a) Other things are more important to us.

4) It is hard work.

5) We are focused on this world.

a) We limit our goals to what we expect here and now.

b) The things of God do not mean much to us.

6) Guilt. (This one was supplied by a member of Ledgewood Baptist Church, not Halverson)

a) Sometimes we realize our lives are not honoring God and we feel too guilty to pray to him, so we don’t.

Isn't It True That His Promise Failed?

John 16:24

[Sermon version below]

During his first pastorate, Dr. Reuben Torrey had a woman who attended his church often but was not a member. When Torrey asked her about this fact she replied that she was not a member simply become she did not believe the Bible. Torrey said, "Why don't you believe the Bible?" She answered, "Because I have tried its promises and found them untrue."

Torrey asked her to give one promise which she had found to be untrue. She said, "The promise that says that whatever things you desire when you pray, believe that you shall receive them and you shall have them. Once I prayed for something very earnestly, but I did not receive it. Isn't it true that his promise failed?"

Torrey said, "No, not at all."

"But doesn't it say that you shall receive whatever you ask for if you believe it?" Torrey agreed that it said something like that. But he said, "You first have to ask yourself if you are one of the 'we's' [original-'ye's']." She did not know what he was talking about, so he asked again, "Are you one of the people to whom the promise is made?"

"Why," she said, "isn't it made to every professing Christian?" Torrey said, "Certainly not! God defines very clearly in his Word just to whom his promises to answer prayer are made." She said, "It does?" When she asked to see the verse, he took her to 1 John 3:22: "Whatever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight."

The prayers that God answers are made by those believers in Jesus Christ who keep his commandments and do those things that please him. Torrey said, "Those are the 'we's.' Do you keep his commandments?" The woman then admitted that she did not. And she came back to God and eventfully became one of the most active and useful members of his congregation.

#3839

During his first pastorate, Dr. Reuben Torrey had a woman who

attended his church often but was not a member.

When Torrey asked her about this fact she replied that she was not

a member simply become she did not believe the Bible.

Torrey said, "Why don't you believe the Bible?"

She responded, "Because I have tried its promises and found them

untrue."

Torrey asked her to give one promise which she had found to be

untrue.

She said, "The promise that says that whatever things you desire

when you pray, believe that you shall receive them and you

shall have them.

Once I prayed for something very earnestly, but I did not receive

it.

Isn't it true that his promise failed?"

Torrey said, "No, not at all."

"But doesn't it say that you shall receive whatever you ask for

if you believe it?"

Torrey agreed that it said something like that.

But he said, "You first have to ask yourself if you are one of the

'we's.'"

She looked puzzled, so he asked again, "Are you one of the people

to whom the promise is made?"

"Isn't it made to every professing Christian?"

Torrey said, "Certainly not! God defines very clearly in his Word

the ones to whom his promises to answer prayer are made."

She said, "It does?"

When she asked to see the verse, he took her to 1 John 3:22:

We have confidence before God and receive from him anything

we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

Torrey said, "The prayers that God answers are made by those

believers in Jesus Christ who keep his commands and do those

things that please him.

Torrey said, "They are the 'we's.' Do you keep his commandments?"

The woman admitted that she did not.

Eventually she came back to God and became one of the most active

and useful members of his congregation.

#3839

*

Jesus' Unanswered Prayers

Luke 6:12

When Jesus prayed to the one who could save him from death, he did not get that salvation; he got instead the salvation of the world.

---------------------------------

When prayer seems more like struggle than relationship, when I find myself repeating the same requests over and over and even wonder, "Is anyone really listening?," I take no small comfort in remembering that Jesus, too, had unanswered prayers. Three come to mind.

As Luke records, Jesus spent an entire night in prayer before choosing the inner core of twelve disciples. Yet if you read the Gospels, you marvel that this dodgy dozen could be the answer to any prayer. They included, Luke pointedly notes, "Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor," not to mention the pettily ambitious Sons of Thunder and the hothead Simon, whom Jesus would once address as "Satan."

"O unbelieving generation," Jesus would sigh about these twelve, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" I wonder if, in that moment of exasperation, Jesus questioned the Father's guidance.

Technically, I admit, the particular makeup of the twelve does not qualify as an unanswered prayer, for we have no reason to believe that any other choices might have served Jesus better. Yet I find it comforting that while on earth Jesus faced the same limitations as does anyone in leadership. The Son of God himself could only work with the talent pool available.

Eventually, except for Judas, the twelve underwent a slow but steady transformation, providing a kind of long-term answer. John, a Son of Thunder, softened into "the apostle of Love." Peter, who earned Jesus' rebuke by recoiling from the idea of Messiah's suffering, later urged his followers to "follow in his steps" by suffering as Christ did.

The second "unanswered prayer" occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane when, as Luther put it, "God struggled with God." While Jesus lay prostrate on the ground, sweat falling from him like drops of blood, his prayers took on an uncharacteristic tone of pleading. He "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death," the Letter to the Hebrews says, but of course Jesus knew he would not be saved from death. As that awareness grew, Jesus felt distress. He had no community of support -- they had all fallen asleep. "Could you not keep watch for one hour?" he chided.

A dramatic change takes place, however, between that scene in the garden and what follows. The Gospel accounts of Gethsemane show a person in anguish. Afterward they show one who, more than Pilate, more than Herod, acts in utter control. At his trials Jesus is no victim; he is serene, the master of his destiny.

What happened in the garden? What made the difference? We have few details about the content of Jesus' prayers, since potential witnesses were all dozing. He may have reviewed his entire ministry on earth. The weight of all that went undone may have borne down upon him: his disciples were unstable, irresponsible; the movement seemed in peril; God's chosen people had rejected him; the world still harbored evil and much suffering.

Jesus himself seemed at the very edge of human endurance. He no more relished the idea of pain and death than you or I do. "Everything is possible for you," Jesus pleaded to the Father. "Take this cup from me."

Somehow, though, in Gethsemane Jesus worked through that crisis by transferring the burden to the Father. It was God's will he had come to do, after all, and his plea resolved into these words: "Yet not what I will, but what you will." Not many hours later he could cry out, in profound summation, "It is finished."

Hebrews mysteriously concludes that, though Jesus was not saved from death, nevertheless "he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered."

How many times have I prayed for one thing only to receive another? I long for the sense of detachment, of trust, that I see in Gethsemane. God and God alone is qualified to answer my prayers, even if it means transmuting them from my own self-protective will into God's perfect will. When Jesus prayed to the one who could save him from death, he did not get that salvation; he got instead the salvation of the world.

The third unanswered prayer appears in an intimate scene recorded by John, Jesus' last supper with his disciples. Jesus expands the scope of his prayer far beyond the walls of the Upper Room, to encompass even those of us who live today:

My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for

those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them

may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they

also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I

have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as

we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete

unity to let the world know that you sent me.

Disunity virtually defines the history of the church. Pick at random any year of history -- pick today -- and you will see how far short we fall of Jesus' final request. The church, and the watching world, still await an answer.

________

===================

Condensed version.

Even God’s Son didn’t get an instant reply.

______

When prayer seems more like struggle than relationship, when I find myself repeating the same requests over and over and even wonder, “Is anyone really listening?” I take comfort in remembering that Jesus, too, had unanswered prayers. Three come to mind.

As Luke records, Jesus spent an entire night in prayer before choosing the twelve disciples. Yet if you read the Gospels, you marvel that this dodgy dozen could be the answer to any prayer. They included, Luke pointedly notes, “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor,” not to mention the pettily ambitious Sons of Thunder and the hothead Simon, whom Jesus would once address as “Satan.”

“O unbelieving generation,” Jesus would sigh about these twelve, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?” I wonder if, in that moment of exasperation, Jesus questioned the Father’s guidance.

Technically, I admit, the particular makeup of the twelve does not qualify as an unanswered prayer, for we have no reason to believe that any other choices might have served Jesus better. Yet I find it comforting that while on earth Jesus faced the same limitations as does anyone in leadership. The Son of God himself could only work with the talent pool available.

Eventually, except for Judas, the twelve underwent a slow but steady transformation, providing a kind of long-term answer. John, a Son of Thunder, softened into “the apostle of Love.” Peter, who earned Jesus’ rebuke by recoiling from the idea of Messiah’s suffering, later urged his followers to “follow in his steps” by suffering as Christ did.

A CUP NOT REMOVED

The second “unanswered prayer” occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane when, as Luther put it, “God struggled with God.” While Jesus lay prostrate on the ground, sweat falling from him like drops of blood, his prayers took on an uncharacteristic tone of pleading. He “offered up prayer and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death,” the letter to the Hebrews says, but of course Jesus knew he would not be saved from death.

As that awareness grew, Jesus felt distress. He had no community of support — they had all fallen asleep. “Could you not keep watch for one hour?” he chided.

A dramatic change takes place, however, between that scene in the garden and what follows. The Gospel accounts of Gethsemane show a person in anguish. Afterward they show one who, more than Pilate, more than Herod, acts in utter control. At his trials Jesus is no victim; he is serene, the master of his destiny.

What happened in the garden? What made the difference? We have few details about the content of Jesus’ prayers, since potential witnesses were all dozing. He may have reviewed his entire ministry on earth. The weight of all that went undone may have borne down upon him: his disciples were unstable, irresponsible; the movement seemed in peril; God’s chosen people had rejected him; the world still harbored evil and much suffering.

Jesus himself seemed at the very edge of human endurance. He no more relished the idea of pain and death than you or I do.

“Everything is possible for you,” Jesus pleaded to the Father. “Take this cup from me.”

Somehow, though, in Gethsemane Jesus worked through that crisis by transferring the burden to the Father. It was God’s will he had come to do, after all, and his plea resolved into these words: “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Not many hours later he could cry out, in profound summation, “It is finished.”

Hebrews mysteriously concludes that, though Jesus was not saved from death, nevertheless “he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”

How many times have I prayed for one thing only to receive another? I long for the sense of trust that I see in Gethsemane. God and God alone is qualified to answer my prayers, even if it means transmuting them from my own self-protective will into God’s perfect will. When Jesus prayed to the one who could save him from death, he did not get that salvation; he got instead the salvation of the world.

A UNITY STILL SOUGHT

The third unanswered prayer appears in an intimate scene recorded by John, Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. Jesus expands the scope of his prayer far beyond the walls of the Upper Room, to encompass even those of us who live today:

“My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me.”

Disunity virtually defines the history of the church. Pick at random any year of history — pick today — and you will see how far short we fall of Jesus’ final request.

The church, and the watching world, still await an answer.

________

Lincoln Saw Himself As A Seeker

Mark 9:23

Abraham Lincoln, one of the few presidents who never joined a church, was often challenged about his faith. He once responded, “Probably it is my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, as questioning, doubting Thomas did. But in my poor, maimed way, I bear with me as I go on seeking a spirit of desire for a faith that was with him of olden time, who, in his need, as I in mine, exclaimed, ‘Help thou my unbelief’.”

Lincoln added: “I doubt the possibility, or propriety, of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made creeds and dogmas ... I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and catechisms.”

*

[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Quote

"There is one single fact which we may oppose to all the wit

and argument of infidelity, namely, that no man ever repented of

being a Christian on his death bed."

- Hannah More

- _Instant Quotation Dictionary_, p. 59.

Story

Several years ago I read a story about a writer who visited a farm

cooperative in the Soviet Union. The writer asked a gnarled Ukrainian

how the new communism compared with the old days. The Ukrainian answered that in the old days they invited the priest to

bless the fields in the spring. "But we don't need to do that

anymore." He explained, "we have tractors now."

One does not need to go to the Soviet Union to find that type of

reasoning. It can be found in any society where people believe that

if you have fertilizer you don't need faith, that if you have

antibiotics you don't need prayer, that if you have psychotherapy you

don't need salvation, that if you have social welfare you don't need

the church, and if you have education you don't need God. Such a shallow perspective forgets that man does not live by bread

alone, and that a disease free, well-fed generation will still starve

and thirst spiritually without the Bread and Water of Life.

Hastings Illustrations, p. 86

Flight Is Reserved For Angels!

An Eastern bishop was accustomed to paying an annual visit to a

small religious college. On one such visit, the bishop engaged in an

after-dinner conversation with the college president. The religious

leader offered the opinion that the millennium could not be long in

coming since everything about nature had been discovered, and all

possible inventions had been made. The college president disagreed,

stating that he felt the next fifty years would bring amazing

discoveries and inventions. In his opinion, human beings would be

flying through the skies like birds within a relatively short time.

"Nonsense!" shouted the bishop. "Flight is reserved for angels!"

The bishop's name was Wright. He had two sons -- Orville and

Wilbur. Fortunately for American aviation, the bishop's two sons were

willing to join the college president in "standing up" for their

beliefs and convictions.

(untitled)

One of our best-known American preachers and theologians was Horace

Bushnell (1802-1876). In his early years, Bushnell believed that a

child ought to grow up as a "Chirstian" and he opposed the idea of a

personal, spiritual crisis in children. Bushnell also helped select

the Berkley site for the University of California campus.

But while a law student at Yale, Bushnell was an unbeliever.

During a great spiritual revival that was sweeping the Yale campus,

Bushnell became disturbed when he learned that many of the

undergraduate students refused to attend the services because he

didn't attend them.

One day he faced his unbelief squarely. "If I do not believe in

Christ, what do I believe in?" he asked himself. He then firmly

decided that there had to be an absolute difference between right and

wrong. Then he asked himself, "If I put myself on the side of what is

right, do I tend to follow it regardless of the consequences?"

His answer was that he ahd not, but he would. It was then and

there he dedicated himself to the principle of doing what is right.

After Bushnell had been in the ministry forty-seven years, having

moved a great distance from the unbelief of his immature years, he

confessed, "Better than I know any man in Hartford, I know Jesus

Christ."

- Charles L. Allen, {Roads To Radiant Living, }(Old Tappan, NJ:

Fleming H. Revell, Co. 1961) 130

(untitled)

On the corner of Park Row and Beekman Street, New York City, where

Horace Greeley's Statue now stands, stood a man offering $20 gold

pieces for $1 each. All day he kept up loudly announcing his wares,

but of the thousands that passed him, most paid no attention and

others either laughted or scowled at him. About fifteen minutes

before six o'clock, when he was about to quit, a woman timidly

approached him and, after carefully investigating the gold piece, by

biting it and testing its sound, bu throwing it on the pavement, she

reluctantly paid the dollar and pocketed the golden double eagle. Ten

minutes later, just as the man was about to go home, the woman

reappeared accompanied by two friends and between them they purchased

the rest of the man's stock, consisting of eight double eagles, worth

$160, for $8 in bills.

The next and for several following mornings, the street was crowded

for blocks with the same woman in the lead waiting for the vender of

gold coins, but he never appeared again. This story is known to be

true and Horace Greeley is responsible for the incident in

demonstration of his theory that most poverty is due to the fact that

the general public refuse to believe even in the face of overwhelming

evidence and there is the point.

- Selected

A Vigorous Skeptic of Everything but Fact

These are some of the things that Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and publisher of the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, does not believe in: parapsychology, holistic cures for animal illnesses, the universal effectiveness of chiropractic, extraterrestrial beings, alternative medicine, Bigfoot and organized religion.

For 35 years Mr. Kurtz has kept up a drumbeat of opposition to all kinds of this nonsense, as he calls it. And now he is turning his attention to the proliferation of the paranormal in movies and on television. Although movies are obviously fiction, Mr. Kurtz said, their power and influence are enormous. Meanwhile some television shows are presenting extraterrestrial conversations as a real thing.

“The television networks are selling communication with the dead with abandon,” Mr. Kurtz complained as he sat in the headquarters of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y., near Buffalo, the secular humanist organization that is the umbrella group for all his interests. Mr. Kurtz pointed to John Edward’s show, “Crossing Over,” and to James Van Praagh and George Anderson, mediums who also appear regularly on television claiming to talk to the dead.

Then “there are the increasing number of scenes in soap operas that are set in heaven,” Mr. Kurtz said, adding that movies are also gross offenders. For instance, on Aug. 2, Touchstone is scheduled to release “Signs,” starring Mel Gibson, about the mysterious appearance of crop circles on a family farm. Another example is “The Mothman Prophecies” with Richard Gere, released in January, in which the characters are terrified by an otherworldly creature in the form of a giant moth.

To monitor these trends his investigating committee, which its members call Csicop (pronounced SY-cop), has opened a National Media Center on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. And tomorrow Mr. Kurtz and some 400 other skeptics from around the world are to convene in Los Angeles at the World Skeptics Congress at the Hilton Burbank Airport and Convention Center to discuss these and other concerns.

“We are all concerned with this media distortion,” he said. “We consider this area of pseudoscience to be critical.”

“We are the heroic defenders of science and reason,” said Mr. Kurtz, 76, an emeritus professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo and author or editor of 35 books, including the “Secular Humanist Manifesto II.” And he is not above a touch of humor in his crusade.

The March-April issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, for instance, gave a special “Foot in Mouth Disease Award” to the Rev. Jerry Falwell for holding pagans, abortionists and feminists partly responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And to another minister, Jack Brock, and the Christ Community Church of Alamogordo, N.M., the magazine gave a Pagan Pride Award for sponsoring “a Harry Potter book burning.”

“Our kind of saints are magicians and comedians,” Mr. Kurtz said. “They show by sleight of hand how you can deceive.” Magicians often perform at his group’s conventions.

Mr. Kurtz’s operations have an annual budget of $11 million. The center has small branches in Los Angeles and Montclair, N.J., and has about 40 employees overall. There are affiliated groups in Russia, France, Peru, Germany, Africa and other locations.

In an effort to dispel the notion that paranormal powers exist and to debunk its other targets, like organized religion, Mr. Kurtz publishes magazines and newsletters, including The Skeptical Inquirer, which Mr. Kurtz said had a circulation of about 50,000. Other magazines include Free Inquiry, The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice and a few others. Mr. Kurtz also operates a publishing house, Prometheus Books, which brings out about 100 books a year. In addition the center sponsors a student organization, the Campus Freethought Alliance, and S.O.S. (for Save Ourselves), a secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. “You don’t need a higher spiritual power to get rid of alcohol addiction,” he said.

The struggle against organized religion is lonely. Religion exerts a tyranny over society, he said, and for an American politician “the worst crime is to be an agnostic.” In France, François Mitterrand and former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin reported they were agnostics. “They could not get away with that here.”

He added: “Years ago you never met anyone who believed in Satan. Now it’s common.” By his count there are “1,350 cults and sects in the United States, from the Church of Scientology to Hasidic Judaism,” he said, speaking of offshoots of mainstream religions.

Still Mr. Kurtz insists he is not anti-religion. “Some of my best friends are Christians,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Not only does mainstream religion constitute a tyranny, but beliefs like “Astrology and U.F.O.-ology have become major religions of our day,” he said.

“Among our strongest supporters are astronomers, because they are confused with astrologers and U.F.O.-ologists and Scientologists.” The International Astronomical Union, which names newly discovered bodies in the skies, have named asteroid No. 6,629 Kurtz for him.

The bland, modernist headquarters of the center is a virtual temple to reason. In the main reading room is a bust of Mr. Kurtz’s great hero, Charles Darwin, whose theories of natural selection as the basis of evolution run counter to some conservative Christians’ belief system. Every Feb. 12 the center celebrates his birthday with lectures, films and a birthday cake.

On the walls are paintings to illustrate some of the center’s precepts. One, called “The Ascent of Reason,” shows the figures of Hypatia, Democritus, Aristotle, Socrates, Epicurus and Protagoras, who said, “Man is the measure of all things.” Another, “Prometheus Bound,” is a homage to Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and bequeathed it to humankind and taught humans arts and sciences. There is also a strange painting based on “The Last Supper,” with Susan B. Anthony, Sidney Hook, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire and other atheists and humanists seated around the table instead of the apostles.

In addition there is a picture of Mr. Kurtz’s friend the comedian Steve Allen. Over the years Prometheus published 15 of Mr. Allen’s books, including “Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion and Morality.”

Another room at the center is the Academy of Humanism, with busts of Aristotle, Socrates and great humanists. The basement holds the center’s collection of some 35,000 books and pamphlets relating to evolution, secular humanism, atheism and skepticism.

Mr. Kurtz, who was born in Newark, the son of a businessman, was left-wing in his youth, he said. But serving in the Army in World War II taught him the dangers of ideology. He entered the Dachau and Buchenwald camps after they were liberated. He also became disillusioned with Communism when he encountered Russian slave laborers who had been taken to Germany forcibly and refused to return to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.

As an undergraduate at New York University in the 1940’s Mr. Kurtz came under the influence of the philosopher Sidney Hook and pragmatism. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University on value theory, on whether there can be a science of ethics. He is married to Claudine Vial, a retired French teacher. They have four children, including Jonathan, 33, a vice president of Prometheus Books.

Mr. Kurtz founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal when he was teaching at Buffalo in the 1970’s. He said he had noticed that students were suddenly saying that they believed in astrology, U.F.O.’s and other mystical systems. In 1973 he published “The Humanist Manifesto II.” It set forth his philosophy of pragmatic skepticism, which he saw as a continuation of John Dewey’s philosophy of pragmatism.

Today one of Mr. Kurtz’s biggest challenges, in addition to the proliferation of people talking to the dead in movies and on television, is Islam. “Islam is a great religion, a great culture,” he said. “It contributed to the preservation of science in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries.” But there is a need for a scientific analysis of Islam’s claims, such as the belief of some Muslims that religious martyrs are greeted by 72 virgins in Paradise.

“There is a rich tradition of inquiry into Islam dating back to the 19th-century French and German scholarly critiques,” Mr. Kurtz said. “There are many versions of the Koran. We don’t know if we have the authentic one. Muhammad never wrote anything down. Some of it was written 150 years later.” As in the Bible, the prophet’s words in the Koran and the Hadith, his collected sayings, were recorded by followers.

“Islam desperately needs a Protestant-like Reformation,” he continued. The Islamic system is the product of “a nomadic, agrarian society, pre-modern and pre-urban, which they are trying to apply to the contemporary world.”

Mr. Kurtz is well aware of the dangers of criticizing Islam. “Anything critical of Islam, you can get a fatwa,” he said. But no matter, he said. “My main interest is defending humanism as an alternative morality, of happiness here and now, of autonomy and individual freedom and dignity, and of the value of the exuberance of this life.”

He concluded, “Islam and Judaism and Christianity are false.”

________

Quotes On Faith

Luke 7:9

"Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible."

-- Mary McLeod Bethune (1875 - 1955), educator, BITS & PIECES (B&P)

"Physical strength can never permanently withstand the impact of spiritual force."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), 32nd U.S. President, B&P

"I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith. What is faith if it is not translated into action."

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), Indian nationalist leader, B&P

"To me, faith is not just a noun but also a verb."

-- Jimmy Carter, 39th U.S. President, B&P

"Unbelief puts our circumstance between us and God, but faith puts God between us and our circumstances."

-- F.B. Meyer

"There is nothing, indeed, which God will not do for a man who dares to step out upon what seems to be the mist; though as he puts his foot down he finds a rock beneath him."

-- F.B. Meyer; SermonCentral.com 8/3/04

"God does not expect us to submit our faith to him without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity."

-- Augustine

"Faith is realizing that I am useful to God not in spite of my scars but because of them."

-- Pamela Reeve

"Man must live by faith -- faith in himself and faith in others."

-- Benjamin E. Mays (1894-1984), educator, B&P

[Holwick: this is of course a purely humanistic approach to faith]

"Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation."

-- Andrew Murray; SermonCentral.com newsletter, 6/23/03

“Faith is unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams that He will not stand by us.”

-- Oswald Chambers

"He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith, loses all."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, QFTM 1/31/04

"The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith; and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety."

-- George Muller, SermonCentral 7/27/04

"Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will."

-- Ben Stein, movie star and commentator, 12/20/03

"A weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes, whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them."

-- Victor Frankl (1905 - 1997), psychiatrist, cited in BITS & PIECES

"Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse."

-- Philip Yancey

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone.”

-- Charles Swindoll

"Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief

that God will do what is right."

-- Max Lucado

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone”

-- John Calvin

The Blind Atheist

Shelley could write of the exquisite beauty of nature and yet was blind to its Source. He had often visited the Alps and exulted in their breath-taking majesty. Yet when he signed the guest book at the inn he added "atheist" after his name. The next visitor looked at it and added, "If an atheist then a fool; if not a fool then a liar."

Dogma For the Diaper Crowd: Teaching Kids About Origins

Not long ago, a friend of mine picked up a picture book for her young son about the well-known Berenstain Bears. In this book, the Bear family invites young readers on a nature walk. After a few pages, they are struck by a startling slogan, sprawled across the page: Nature is “all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE.”

Where did this strange credo come from?

The words are borrowed from the late science popularizer Carl Sagan, host of the famous PBS show “Cosmos.” Sagan’s trademark phrase was: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Sagan was echoing the classic Christian liturgy- “Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.” Sagan was offering nothing less than a religion of naturalism-where nature takes the place of God as the ultimate and eternal reality.

What Sagan did for adults, the Berenstain Bears are doing for youngsters-introducing them to the religion of naturalism. Yet, ironically, the most recent scientific discoveries actually contradict naturalism.

Take the big bang theory. For centuries, the scientific evidence seemed to suggest that matter was eternal-without beginning or end. Then, just thirty years ago, several lines of evidence came together indicating that matter is not eternal after all–that the physical universe exploded into existence at a definite point in time. And if the universe popped into existence, then something-or Someone–outside the universe must have brought it into existence. Science itself points to a transcendent Creator.

Even more striking, science is turning up evidence that the universe was designed for a purpose. Take the position of Earth: If it were even slightly closer to the sun, all water would be scorched away and life would be impossible. On the other hand, if the Earth were only slightly farther away from the sun, all water would freeze and there would be nothing but barren deserts.

Or consider the force of gravity. If it were only slightly stronger, the universe would have collapsed back in on itself shortly after the big bang. If gravity were only slightly weaker, the universe would have expanded far too quickly for stars and galaxies to form.

Why is the force of gravity just right for our universe to form? No one knows. There’s no physical cause to explain it. Is it just coincidence? Or was the universe designed this way for a purpose?

Cosmologists are discovering that the slightest tinkering with the values of the fundamental forces of physics would have resulted in a universe where life was impossible. It looks more and more like the best explanation for the exquisitely balanced structure of the universe is that someone intended it to be that way.

If you’re a parent or teacher, make sure you read your children’s books-and that you can help them answer the challenge of naturalism. Nature is NOT all there is or was or ever will be. Science itself is turning up evidence that the universe had a beginning, and that came from the hand of God for a purpose.

The Purpose of the Storms

Early one morning the doorbell rang at a pastor's home. There stood a young man, half drunk, in despair, at the end of his own rope. If ever there was a life on the way to shipwreck in a storm of his own creating, it was this young man's. His wife, too, had come through a similar experience. Only 20 years old, she had been married twice, and with children by both husbands had suffered indescribable beatings-a storm of her own making. But in the midst of it all she had seen the face of Christ through the ministry of this faithful pastor. She had been saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, and her life had been radically changed. Now her husband had come before dawn to wake up the preacher and ask for spiritual help. He could no longer live in the storm he had created. What had made him come to himself?-the recent death of a young soldier killed in the line of duty. The whole town was speaking of this fine Christian lad, now dead. The prodigal husband questioned why God would take such a good man who was a blessing to the world, and leave him, a miserable sinner, behind. The answer, of course, is that the young soldier was ready to meet his God, while the prodigal was not. This may be the reason He is keeping you alive. The storms God permits are temporary, but the purpose for which He permits them is eternal.

An Ill-spent Life

A millionaire in New York came to the end of his journey and died. On his deathbed he gave continual expression to remorse for what his conscience told him had been an ill-spent life. "Oh," he exclaimed, "if I could only be spared for a few years I would give all the wealth I have amassed in my lifetime! It is a life devoted to money-getting that I regret. It is this which weighs me down and makes me despair of the life hereafter!"

A Pig in A Parlor

A Christian military officer, who visited the bedside of a dying soldier under his command, said to him, "I am going to ask you a strange question. Suppose you could carry your sins with you to heaven-would that satisfy you?" "The poor dying lad replied, "Why, sir, what kind of heaven would that be to me? I would be just like a pig in a parlor!" He was awakened to a sense of his lost state. The officer concluded, "The soldier was panting after a heaven of holiness, and was convinced if he died in his sin he would be quite out of his element in such a place of purity."

A Firm Stand for Christ

A wealthy unbeliever who had spent much money on the education of his daughter, returned home from a business trip to be informed by his wife that the girl had gone forward and accepted Christ at an evangelistic meeting. When she ran to greet him, he struck her several times and told her to get out and never come back. She took shelter in a friend's home and spent the night in prayer. Early next morning the repentant father sent for her to come back. He met her at the gate, saying, "I give you my heart and hand to go with you to heaven." The mother followed, and all rejoiced in the saving power of Christ. A firm stand for Christ did it all.

A Child Shall Lead

1 Corinthians 1:27

A skeptical physician declared he could see no reason why he should have to come to the cross of Christ to be saved. A friend gave him a famous book on apologetics with a powerful defense of the reasonableness of the gospel. It satisfied the doctor's reason, but it did not move his will. A short time later he was called to the bedside of a little girl who was dying. She whispered that she had something to say to him, that she hardly had the courage to, as it was about his peace with God. But she added, "Tomorrow morning, when I am stronger, I will tell you." But in the morning she was dead. This led to the physician's conversion and a subsequent life of dedicated Christian service. God used a child rather than an apologist of the faith to lead a learned man to Christ. Very interestingly the word moron in Modern Greek has come to mean "child, baby."

Thus we could paraphrase 1 Corinthians 1:27 as "But God has chosen the mora-the foolish things or those who are like little children-and the weak ones of the world, to confound the wise and mighty ones."

No Fear nor Hope in Death

When Robert Owen, the notorious freethinker, visited Alexander Campbell to arrange the preliminaries for the great debate that was to follow, they walked about the farm till they came to the family burying ground. "There is one advantage I have over the Christian," boasted Mr. Owen. "I am not afraid to die. Most Christians have fear in death, but, if some few items of my business were settled, I should be perfectly willing to die at any moment." "Well," replied Mr. Campbell, "you say you have no fear in death; have you any hope in death?" "No," said Mr. Owen after a thoughtful pause. "Then," said Mr. Campbell, pointing to an ox standing nearby, "you are on a level with that animal. He has eaten till he is satisfied, stands in the shade whisking off the flies, and has neither hope nor fear in death." How true is the saying, "They that die without dying thoughts shall die without living comforts."

No Comfort

Voltaire, that strange combination of freethinker, deist, and rabid denouncer of Christianity, gives scant comfort to atheists and agnostics in some of his pronouncements. "The world embarrasses me," he said, "and I cannot think that this watch exists and has no watchmaker." And in the same vein he confesses, "To whatever side you turn, you are forced to acknowledge your own ignorance and the boundless power of the Creator."

The One Supreme Mystery

A young man who was studying medicine could not accept the doctrine of the supernatural birth of Jesus Christ. He went to a preacher who reasoned with him but left him in greater perplexity than ever. When he had finished his medical studies, he went to practice medicine in a rural community. One Sunday he decided to go and hear a backwoods preacher, not thinking for a moment that such a man could change his viewpoint on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. But this humble preacher knocked more skepticism out of the doctor in half an hour than he had accumulated in all his years of medical school. He said, "If anybody here is troubled about the mystery of God becoming man, I want to take you back to the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse. 'In the beginning God....'" He looked down into the audience very searchingly. The doctor was so self-conscious that he felt the speaker was looking directly at him. Then the preacher continued, "My brother, let me ask you this: Do you believe God was in the beginning?

That is to say, that before the beginning began, God was? Somebody had to be, to start things off. Science tells us how things evolve and grow, but not how they first started." The doctor whispered to himself, "Yes, I believe that." "Now," the preacher said, "if you believe that God was before the beginning, you believe the only mysterious thing of this universe." "If I believe that, God knows I could believe anything else in the world," thought the doctor to himself. His conclusion that memorable morning was, "I went to college and traveled through the mysteries of the theory of reproduction and cell formation, and now I realize that I was just a common fool; that if God was in the beginning, that was the one supreme mystery of all mysteries of this mysterious universe of God."

Who Made It?

One of the greatest atheists of the past was Robert G. Ingersoll. In spite of his atheism, he had for a friend the famous preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. In the preacher's study was an elaborate celestial globe which had been sent him with the compliments of some manufacturer. On the surface in delicate workmanship were raised figures of the constellations and stars which composed them. The globe struck Ingersoll's fancy one day when he was visiting the preacher. He turned it around and around with admiration. "That is just what I want," he said, "Who made it?" "Who made it, do you say, Colonel?" repeated Beecher. "Who made this globe? Why nobody, of course. It just happened." Well, we all know better than that. We know that things don't just happen but they have a cause, and there must be a First Cause of all things. That is as far as the mind of man will take him.

The logical conclusion-there must be God, the Creator.

What Is the Difference...

1. Between the atheist who would not dream of financially supporting the church and the Christian who will not financially support the Lord's church?

2. Between the skeptic who does not believe the Bible and the negligent Christian who never reads it?

3. Between those who do not believe in Bible classes and those who choose never to attend a class?

4. Between the atheist who does nothing to build up the Lord's church and the Christian who finds fault with others but does nothing himself?

5. Between a man of the world and a person in the church who lives like a man in the world?

6. Between a man of the world who lives for self, and a person in the church building who lives for self, not God?

These are tough questions for Christians who live in a tough world.

The fact is that Christians make no difference until they are different.

Again, what's the difference?

The Unacceptable Excuse

During a revival a young man said that he did not wish to become a Christian. When asked for his reason, he replied, "Several years ago I was in a man's kitchen. Finding me there, he swore at me and kicked me out. He was a professing Christian, and from that time on I decided never to have anything to do with religion. And I never have to this day." The young man was asked to write down his reason in full and sign it. Then it was handed back to him with the words, "Take this, and when you are asked for your excuse on the day of judgment, hand this up."

The Philosopher's Answer

A heathen philosopher, on being asked the question, "What and where is God?" desired two days in which to prepare an answer. Partly pressed with the difficulties of the subject itself, and partly encumbered and confounded by polytheistic prejudices, he doubled and redoubled the time. When required to state the reason for his delay, he acknowledged, "It is a question in which my insufficient reason is lost. The oftener I ask myself, 'What is God?' the less able I am to answer." How much more are you unable to reason why the omnipotent God, in order to save your soul, had to become man in the person of Jesus Christ and die on a cross. That is beyond reasoning, but it is within grasp of one's experience.

The Chicken and the Egg

A young skeptic said to an elderly lady, "I once believed there was a God, but now, since studying philosophy and mathematics, I am convinced that God is but an empty word." "Well," said the lady, "I have not studied such things, but since you have, can you tell me where this egg comes from?" "Why, of course, from a hen," was the reply. "And where does the hen come from?" "Why, from an egg." Then the lady inquired, "Which existed first, the hen or the egg?" "The hen, of course," rejoined the young man. "Oh, then a hen must have existed without having come from an egg?" "Oh, no, I mean that one egg existed without having come from a hen." The young man hesitated:

"Well, you see - that is - of course, well, the hen was first!" "Very well," said she, "who made that first hen from which all succeeding eggs and hens have come?" "What do you mean by all this?" he asked.

"Simply this: I say that He who created the first hen or egg is He who created the world. You can't explain the existence even of a hen or an egg without God, and yet you wish me to believe that you can explain the existence of the whole world without Him!" Thus the old lady's common sense sent the young man's philosophy packing. Everything finite must have had a beginning. But the important issue is, what is behind every finite beginning? Is it self-begun, or is there an infinite and eternal mind, a personality, behind it, the same personality which is behind every finite beginning? This personality John chooses to call ho Logos, "the Word."

The Dirt Floor

Spurgeon, that great prince of preachers, was once staying at an inn in one of the valleys of northern Italy where the floor was dreadfully dirty. "I had it in my mind to advise the lady to scrub it," said Spurgeon, "but when I perceived it was made of dirt, I reflected that the more she scrubbed the worse it would be." Just so, God knew that there could be no improvement of the corrupt nature of man except through faith in His Son.

The Challenged Atheist

An atheist who had just finished lecturing to a great audience invited any who had questions to come to the platform. After a short interval, a man who had been well-known in the town as a hopeless drunkard but who had lately been converted, stepped forward. Taking an orange, he turned to the lecturer and asked him if it was a sweet one. Very angrily the man said, "Idiot, how can I know whether it is sweet or sour, when I haven't tasted it?" To this the converted drunkard retorted, "And how can you know anything about Christ if you have not tried Him?"

The Atheist Persuaded

A young preacher once called upon an old atheist who was constantly arguing against the existence of God. He found him sitting in his sawmill just over the lever that lifts as the saw leaves the log. As the old man began to denounce the Deity, that lever sprang, catching him under the heels and flinging him backward and down into the stream. As he plunged, however, he shrieked as loudly as he could, "God have mercy!" The preacher ran around, waded into the water, and drew the struggling man ashore. Said the pastor, "I thought that you did not believe in a God." As soon as the atheist stopped struggling he said in a subdued voice, "Well, if there is not a God, there ought to be one, to help a man when he can't help himself!"

Atheism Is Dying Under Its Own Irrelevance

“Worldwide decline in atheism cited” reads the headline in last month's Washington Times.(1) With the recent recantation of atheist icon Anthony Flew, atheism as a worldview is growing a more unpopular a position.

Atheism as a worldview gained its prominence in the modernist era where rationalism was the foundation for knowledge. But because postmodernism is chiseling away at that foundation, the younger generations don't buy it. In fact, I have found in speaking to many teenage audiences that atheists are scarce. And those who dare proclaim the view tend to be those who have done so not because of rationality, but because they dare to be different.

Paul Vitz, in FAITH OF THE FATHERLESS: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATHEISM, writes Freud and others who reduce belief in God to unmet emotional needs may owe their disbelief to the very same cause. As Vitz says, “Atheism of the strong or intense type is to a substantial degree generated by peculiar psychological needs of its advocates.” His analysis is that it often stems from defective father figures.(2)

Quentin Smith, an astute atheist, has remarked, “Naturalists [atheists] passively watched as realist versions of theism ... began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians.... God is not 'dead' in academia; he returned to life in the 1960's and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.”(3)

There are several reasons for the decline of atheism as I see it. First, while philosophy was once respected as the underpinning discipline of all disciplines in the university, today its authority is being challenged with cultural force by the other humanities departments as postmodernism muscles its way onto the cultural stage. Second, even in philosophical quarters, atheism once sat as high priest in the philosophy of science. The Intelligent Design movement has taken great strides to show the philosophical prejudice of naturalistic philosophy and that there's an alternative, rational, and coherent way to see the universe through the lens of a Creator. Third, much evidence has been proffered in research hospitals all over the world that the psychological conditions of faith and hope in a higher power produce results. Atheistic, prosaic views of death and suffering are less likely benefits to those who hold them. Fourth, along with postmodernism and openness to the psychological effects of “faith” is openness to potpourri spirituality.

Atheism is dying under its own irrelevance. People are finding that it isn't ultimately livable. Yet new and unhelpful ideas and worldviews are emerging quickly to take its place. A new opportunity for the church is upon us to offer both the rationality of theism as well as the spirituality of walking with a living God who really exists. Here's the double-edged message that I believe Christians need to prepare to use: In my own journey, the message of Jesus Christ was compelling, not only because it was true, but because Christ offered to help me walk the healthy life. And in my experience in speaking across the United States, I can attest that testimony after testimony among our youth is much the same. Our young people want to live for something that makes sense, is healthy, and is helpful. But they also want it to be filled with love, adventure, life, and all the legitimate pleasures God created.

Be alert. Keep your ear to the culture. There is good work to be done. Let us as Paul “press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me... forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (Phil 3:12-13.) Let us be prepared to walk and talk an intelligent and emotionally healthy walk with the risen Savior.

________

1. Washington Times, Weekend Edition, March 7-13, 2005.

2. In David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 32.

3. Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Phil 4, no. 2 (2001): 3, 4, quoted in J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 3.

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Lost Thoughts

At death a man sees all those thoughts which were not spent upon God to be fruitless. A Scythian captain having, for a draught of water, yielded up a city, cried out: "What have I lost? What have I betrayed?" So will it be with that man when he comes to die who hath spent all his meditations upon the world; he will say: "What have I lost? What have I betrayed? I have lost Heaven, I have betrayed my soul." Should not the consideration of this fix our minds upon the thoughts of God and glory? All other meditations are fruitless; like a piece of ground which has much cost laid out upon it, but it yields no crop.

Love of Darkness

When the Bastille was about to be destroyed a prisoner was brought out, who had long been lying in one of its gloomy cells. Instead of joyfully welcoming his liberty, he entreated that he might be taken back to his dungeon. It was so long since he had seen the light that his eye could not endure the light of the sun. Besides this, his friends were all dead, he had no home, and his limbs refused to move. His chief desire now was that he might die in the dark prison where so long he had been a captive.

Too Respectable for Hell

A wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, who would not listen to the gospel message in health, sent for me at his death-bed. I told him: "I have nothing now to tell you. You are a sinner, and here is a Savior. Do you feel your guilt, and will you take a Savior?" "No. There must be some better place than hell for a man of my respectability."

A Reasonable Belief

John 5:39

Lecturing at a Veritas Forum several years ago, Dallas Willard spoke pointedly on the topic of “irresponsible disbelief.” That is, choosing to disbelieve in something without a commitment to coming to that disbelief by way of sound reasoning. The burden of proof, he argued, is equally significant for both belief and disbelief. To ignore this is to address reality irresponsibly and foolishly.

If belief is the readiness to act as if something is true, it follows that unbelief, whether chosen consciously or unconsciously, still affects our behavior. There are consequences to our non-answers in the same way that there are consequences to our answers. And yet, in our society where skepticism is almost encouraged, belief and unbelief are treated quite differently. We do not feel compelled to justify our disbelief in the same way we feel compelled to justify our belief. We expect a certain REASONABLENESS about belief that we don’t expect of disbelief, in part because we’ve been conditioned to see skepticism and disbelief as logical, and belief as emotional or irrational.

This is largely the case when it comes to belief or disbelief in God. As Napoleon once quipped, “Religion is excellent for keeping the common people quiet.” Belief in God is seen as a superstition reserved for non-thinkers, while disbelief is thought scholarly. On the contrary, Paul Vitz, a professor who has written extensively on the psychology of religion, observes that quite often the decision to disbelieve in God is largely made apart from logic and sound reasoning. He writes, “The major barriers to belief in God are not rational but -- in a general sense -- can be called psychological.... I am quite convinced that for every person strongly swayed by rational argument, there are many, many more affected by non-rational psychological factors.”(1) His words are noteworthy; disbelief in God is more often a decision made by personal biases and emotions, than it is a decision made by sound reasoning.

In fact, such was often the case in the crowd’s responses to Jesus. Speaking to the religious leaders of his day, Jesus once observed, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me! Yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39). Jesus points to their irresponsible disbelief, their resolve that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES could he be the one they read about, the one to whom Moses pointed and the prophets announced. Therefore, Jesus concludes, “Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set” (5:45). All too often, the question of Jesus’s identity is answered by a determination NOT to see the one standing before us.

Yet Jesus repeatedly voices the subtleties of our hearts, calling out our false hopes and misguided determinations. He reveals how often our expectations and biases establish our beliefs and disbeliefs instead of sound reasoning and honest investigation. His words pierce our faulty logic and the conclusions we have drawn irresponsibly, and he calls us to account even as he calls us home. The burden of proof is a burden the heavens have not overlooked; the God of all wisdom has not asked us to believe in Him without extraordinary attempts to be known.

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1. Paul Vitz, FAITH OF THE FATHERLESS: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATHEISM (Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 2000), 33.

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Learning To See

Mark 8:24

Author E.M. Forster once suggested that the only books which influence us are those for which we are ready, those “which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have gone ourselves.”

I am most comfortable reading with a pen in my hand. Navigating through the pages with circles and highlights is my way of remembering where I’ve been and charting wisdom for where I hope to go. And yet, how often I have returned to a book previously read only to wonder curiously why I underlined paragraph 3 and overlooked sentence 7. Certainly many well-worn Bibles hold similar mysteries. As we experience more of life, we find more of the God who speaks life into our experiences. We are learning to see.

In an account of a miracle unlike any other found in any of the gospel accounts, Mark describes Jesus healing a blind man in stages. Touching the man’s eyes once, Jesus asks, “Do you see anything?” “I see people,” the man replies. “They look like trees walking around” (Mark 8:24). Putting his hands on the man once more, Jesus restores the blind man’s sight. And the man walks away seeing clearly.

A two-staged miracle seems something like a contradiction in terms. But here, in this particular place in the book of Mark, the story seems all the more charged with symbolism. Following an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees (who are looking for Jesus to give them a miraculous sign), and an exchange between Jesus and the disciples (who have been in the presence of such miracles and yet fail to see), Jesus seems to tell them all that seeing takes time. Moreover, as Jesus returns his hands to the blind man’s eyes that he might see more than walking trees, he demonstrates a great hope. Namely, the Son of God is ever-patient with those who truly long to see.

Perhaps adding even more to this provoking theme of sight, Mark places his account of the transfiguration of Christ near these events as well. As Peter, James, and John climb the mountain with Christ, they are suddenly terrified as Elijah and Moses appear before them. The clothes of Jesus become dazzling white and just then a cloud appears and envelopes them, and a voice thunders from the heavens, saying: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly once again, as they look around, they see no one but Jesus.

Mark imparts a profound mystery: Seeing clearly can be just as disturbing as not seeing at all. Whether in blindness or in partial sight, overwhelmed by reality or consumed by darkness, we need God to help us see and to help us once we do see. As Emily Dickinson once penned:

As Lightening to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind --

A wise old man with a most encouraging gleam of hope in his eyes once told me that though he had been a churchgoer all of his life, it was well into his 46th year when Christ became in his heart one who is known. The truth dazzled gradually, until it was given its proper place.

As we learn to see, the promise that THOSE WHO SEEK SHALL ALSO FIND is ours to keep before us. But how essential to also remember that in the task of seeing we are not alone. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). As the man who believed and asked Christ to help him with his unbelief, we can be thankful for what we see, even as we ask him to help us with all we do not. Though partial sight is itself a miracle, the one who comes near intends more.

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A Reviled Minority

A perspective from an atheist on their status in society:

For years, non-believers have been considered undesirable, untrustworthy and essentially reviled. I mean, in a country where “In God We Trust” is printed on every dollar bill, would you expect anything less? A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in 2007 found that more than half of Americans 53% — would not vote for an atheist. No category fared worse. A University of Minnesota study taken a year earlier found that Americans rank atheists as the most disliked minority group in the country. But surely our elected leaders see all citizens as equals, right? Well, President Obama reached out to non-believers in his inaugural address, but just over 20 years ago while campaigning for the presidency, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush said, “I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.” Atheists can tell you that they have faced problems — some at work, some with family members or friends — once their non-belief is stated publicly.

How Godly Is Your City?

Cities in the Southeast have the highest percentage of churchgoers and self-identified Christians while cities in the Northeast and Northwest contain the greatest percentage of self-identified atheists and agnostics, according to a new Barna study that largely confirms perceptions of the nation’s religiosity.

The data is based on nearly 40,000 surveys conducted over the last seven years by the Christian research group.

Birmingham (67 percent), Baton Rouge, La. (62 percent), Salt Lake City (62 percent) and Huntsville, Ala. (60 percent) have the highest percentage of churchgoers. Conversely, San Francisco has the highest percentage of unchurched people, with 43 percent saying they have not been to a religious service the last six months. Following San Francisco among unchurched cities are Portland, Maine (43 percent), Portland, Ore. (42 percent), Albany, N.Y. (42 percent), Boston (40 percent), Sacramento, Calif. (40 percent), Seattle (40 percent), Spokane, Wash. (39 percent), New York (38 percent), Phoenix (38 percent), Tucson, Ariz. (37 percent), and West Palm Beach, Fla. (37 percent).

Portland, Maine, and Seattle lead the way with the highest percentage of atheists and agnostics (19 percent), trailed by Portland, Ore., Sacramento and Spokane, each at 16 percent.

On doctrine, significant differences between cities also were evident. Nearly three-fourths of those who live in Charlotte, N.C. (73 percent) and Shreveport, La. (73 percent) agree with the statement that “the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches.” But few in Providence, R.I. (27 percent) and San Francisco (28 percent) agree with the statement.

Still, a large percentage of the country self-identifies as Christian, with the highest percentage found in the South: Shreveport (98 percent) leads the way, followed by Birmingham (96 percent), Charlotte (96 percent), Nashville (95 percent), Greenville, S.C./Asheville, N.C. (94 percent), New Orleans (94 percent), Indianapolis (93 percent), Lexington, Ky. (93 percent), Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va. (93 percent), Little Rock, Ark. (92 percent), and Memphis (92 percent).

The lowest percentage of self-identified Christians are found in San Francisco (68 percent), Portland, Ore. (71 percent), Portland, Maine (72 percent), Seattle (73 percent), Sacramento (73 percent), New York (73 percent), San Diego (75 percent), Los Angeles (75 percent), Boston (76 percent), Phoenix (78 percent), Miami (78 percent), Las Vegas (78 percent), and Denver (78 percent).

From an evangelical perspective, the “self-identified” category does not mean that a person is a Christian -- only that he or she claims to be one.

He Couldn't Make the Leap

Mark 9:24

A while back in World magazine, interviewer Larry King was quoted as saying: “I can’t make that leap that a lot of people around me have made into belief that there’s some judge somewhere. I have a lot of respect for true people of faith ... . I’ve done so many interviews on it. I’ve always searched. But as someone said, 'Did you ever sit down and read the Bible cover to cover?' The answer’s no, because I don’t know who wrote it. I’m too in my head to be into faith. Faith is a wonderful thing. I envy people who have it. I just can’t make the leap.”

Leading Scientists Still Reject God

John 20:25

The question of religious belief among U.S. scientists has been debated since early in the century. Our latest survey finds that, among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever — almost total.

Research on this topic began with the eminent U.S. psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 “greater” scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively [2].

In 1996, we repeated Leuba’s 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature [3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba’s 1914 survey to gauge belief among “greater” scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents.

Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among “greater” scientists to their “superior knowledge, understanding, and experience” [3]. Similarly, Oxford University scientist Peter Atkins commented on our 1996 survey, “You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs. But I don’t think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they are such alien categories of knowledge.” [4] Such comments led us to repeat the second phase of Leuba’s study for an up-to-date comparison of the religious beliefs of “greater” and “lesser” scientists.

Our chosen group of “greater” scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality). Overall comparison figures for the 1914, 1933 and 1998 surveys:

Belief in personal God 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0

Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2

Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8

Belief in human immortality 1914 1933 1998

Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9

Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7

Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3

Figures are percentages.

Repeating Leuba’s methods presented challenges. For his general surveys, he randomly polled scientists listed in the standard reference work, American Men of Science (AMS). We used the current edition. In Leuba’s day, AMS editors designated the “great scientists” among their entries, and Leuba used these to identify his “greater” scientists [1,2]. The AMS no longer makes these designations, so we chose as our “greater” scientists members of the NAS, a status that once assured designation as “great scientists” in the early AMS. Our method surely generated a more elite sample than Leuba’s method, which (if the quoted comments by Leuba and Atkins are correct) may explain the extremely low level of belief among our respondents.

For the 1914 survey, Leuba mailed his brief questionnaire to a random sample of 400 AMS “great scientists”. It asked about the respondent’s belief in “a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind” and in “personal immortality”. Respondents had the options of affirming belief, disbelief or agnosticism on each question [1]. Our survey contained precisely the same questions and also asked for anonymous responses.

Leuba sent the 1914 survey to 400 “biological and physical scientists”, with the latter group including mathematicians as well as physicists and astronomers [1]. Because of the relatively small size of NAS membership, we sent our survey to all 517 NAS members in those core disciplines. Leuba obtained a return rate of about 70% in 1914 and more than 75% in 1933 whereas our returns stood at about 60% for the 1996 survey and slightly over 50% from NAS members [1,2].

As we compiled our findings, the NAS issued a booklet encouraging the teaching of evolution in public schools, an ongoing source of friction between the scientific community and some conservative Christians in the United States. The booklet assures readers, “Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral”[5]. NAS president Bruce Alberts said: “There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.” Our survey suggests otherwise.

Edward J. Larson

Department of History, University of Georgia,

Athens, Georgia 30602-6012, USA

e-mail:edlarson@uga.edu

Larry Witham

3816 Lansdale Court, Burtonsville,

Maryland 20866, USA

References

Leuba, J. H. The Belief in God and Immortality: A Psychological, Anthropological and Statistical Study (Sherman, French & Co., Boston, 1916).

Leuba, J. H. Harper’s Magazine 169, 291-300 (1934).

Larson, E. J. & Witham, L. Nature 386, 435-436 (1997).

Highfield, R. The Daily Telegraph 3 April, p. 4 (1997).

National Academy of Sciences Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (Natl Acad. Press, Washington DC, 1998).

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100 Sermon Illustrations on Unbelief