I Object!
October 26/27, 2002
Intro:
Last week I shared a story about a missed opportunity to share faith – my wife Joanne had been asked a question by a coworker which Joanne later recognized as being a place where she could have shared her faith. So this past week, Joanne took the initiative with her co-worker and picked up from the previous conversation and created an opportunity to talk about spiritual things. And guess what – God had already been at work ahead of Joanne! This coworker is from an Asian background, so Joanne wasn’t expecting her to have had much exposure to Christianity. But as they talked, Joanne discovered a whole bunch of places where God has been working in her life, and revealing Himself to her. She has even been attending a Christian church here in Edmonton! In the last little while, some things have happened that have kept her from church, and she told Joanne she has been missing it! She laughed and said “so maybe that makes me a part-believer!” As the conversation continued, Joanne was able to share how she used to be driven to succeed, to work hard and do well, as an attempt to find significance and feel like she was worthwhile. But she has recognized now that her significance and worth comes not from what she does, but from who she is as a child of God. She was able to share the difference that being a Christian has made in her life!
I want you to notice a couple of things from this story. The first is simply that God has it under control. He is working in people’s lives, and our job is to do whatever part God has for us. We aren’t responsible to save people – that is God’s job – we are responsible to be witnesses for Him as He works in people’s lives. The second is to notice how Joanne shared the difference that God has made in her life – that’s what we were talking about last week.
Thirdly, I want to springboard off of the comment, “maybe that makes me a part-believer.” Let me show you this (note that this comes from Becoming a Contagious Christian): (draw bridge analogy; emphasize the question at the end and the idea of helping people move from one side to the other.)
1 Peter 3:15-16
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.”
We’ve been talking about how important it is to share our faith. Today I want to talk about some of the common responses we hear from people – some of the things we can expect to hear them say as we share Christ with them – and I want to give you a few tools to respond to those questions or objections. I want to do this so that we can “always be prepared.”
Objection #1: Science proves there is no God
The first common objection to Christianity has to do with the perceived contradiction between God and science. Most often, the objection expresses itself through evolution – the person says something like “I don’t believe in God, I believe in evolution.” In fact, the conversation Joanne had included this element –two scientists, working in medical research at the U of A, and Joanne’s colleague said something to the effect of “I can’t be a biological scientist and not believe in evolution.”
Obviously this is a huge topic, there are literally thousands of books and responses. And it really is an impediment for many people coming to faith in Christ. If putting faith in Christ means concluding that all the supposed “facts” of science are wrong, then most North Americans will side with the science. That is their mindset, their predisposition, and they would conclude that Christians are the same today as they were when they rejected Copernicus and Galileo – people with their heads in the sand, afraid to face the facts because if they do their faith will crumble.
How do we respond? Obviously there are many options; let me give you one simple response. Both science and faith are seeking the same thing – truth. There are many, many Christians who are scientists who see absolutely no conflict between faith and science, my wife being one of them. As to the specific question of evolution, I believe that God created: if science figures out the “how” of creation, and concludes that there was an evolutionary process, then I am happy to believe that evolution is how God chose to create. Here is a great quote from Galileo: “the Bible is intended to teach men to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” We know longer look upon the Bible as a science textbook. Science and faith do not contradict – they answer different questions. Science talks about how; faith talks about who and why.
Let me ask this question of us: even if we disagree on the subject of creation and evolution, is that difference significant enough to keep people from coming to faith in Christ? Is that a difference that is significant enough to damn a person to hell if they don’t believe in a literal, six day creation? I don’t think it is. It is complex, and I don’t want to really delve into the question in detail right now, but my opinion is that the central theological truth – that God created, He loves humanity, and through Jesus wants to be in a relationship with us – that central theological truth is more important than differences between evolution and creation, science and faith.
So the bottom line on this question is, in my opinion, you can still be a Christian and believe that the scientific evidence points to evolution – you are just choosing to believe that behind the processes of evolution there is God who used that method to bring about His creation. Let’s not let that stand in the way of where people spend eternity. Let’s remove that as an obstacle for people to come to faith in Christ.
Objection #2 – All religions are the same; sincerity is what counts
This is a big one, especially here in Canada where we don’t really want to tell anyone else that they are wrong – that would just be too confrontational. So our society prefers to hold up tolerance as the ultimate virtue, and to conclude that all religions basically believe in the same thing, and the most important part of it all is to be really sincere in what you do believe. To believe that we have The Truth is just too narrow-minded for many people, and they might express an objection. I think this is Canada’s “politically correct” religious viewpoint.
How do we respond to this? First, with the simple fact that the various religions hold extremely different worldviews, which are contradictory. Christians, Jews, and Muslims hold that there is one God. Hindus believe that there are many gods, some religions believe that humanity is god, some believe that everything is god, some even believe that there is no god but rather some cosmic energy that we are all a part of. Not all of those things can be true – either there is One God, or there is not. It doesn’t matter how sincere you are in a belief, sincerity does not make it true. I can really, sincerely believe that you are going to give me a million dollars at the end of this sermon, but that doesn’t make that a truth. (please prove me wrong!).
Which brings us to the whole area of truth. Pilate famously asked, “what is truth?” Our culture says truth is whatever you decide it to be. Now, in a conversation with a non-Christian we might easily get into a deep philosophical discussion on this point, and if you are an intellectual type of person you are smacking your lips and looking forward to that conversation! Instead, why don’t we turn that question around on people, and ask them: what have you discovered that is true? I have no fear of people seeking truth, of them asking questions and searching for answers. You might hear your friend say something like, “I’m glad this religion thing works for you…”; why not follow that up with a question to them like, “What is it that works for you?” See, I believe that living in a relationship with Jesus is the best way to live life, and I believe that because of who I’ve experienced God to be. And I’ll put that up against anyone else’s experience. Outside of a relationship with Christ, we all live with insecurity – with fear – with no basis for hope for tomorrow or for eternity. Even in other religious systems of thought, there is too much ambiguity, too much “I hope I’m good enough to be re-incarnated next time as something better than I am this time”; too much “I hope my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds at the end of my life.” In Christ we have security for eternity based not on our merits, but on Jesus’. Based not on what we have done, but on what God has done for us. As you listen, find the need in people’s lives, find where they hurt and struggle and bleed – then show them how being a Christian meets that need. So them how it will work for them.
The bottom line to responding to this objection is a challenge: try it and see. If your friend wants to believe that there is no objective truth, challenge them to ask God to reveal Himself to them in a subjective way. If they want to believe that all faiths teach the same thing, challenge them to investigate what different faiths actually say, and to come to a conclusion themselves. Then pray like crazy for the Holy Spirit’s power and protection in their life.
Objection #3 – Christians are hypocrites
Let’s deal with this one really quickly. Often the source of this is people whom your friend has known who have claimed to be Christians, but have been very poor examples. The response to this one is simple: agree. “yup, you’re right. Many Christians are hypocrites. Many say one thing and live something completely differently.” That is true of all faiths by the way. But the key question is this: was Jesus a hypocrite. Judge the claims of Jesus and the standards of Jesus by Him, not by those who claim to follow Him. You see, if Jesus really is who He claimed to be, then faith in Him is the only proper response.
Objective #4 – What about suffering and evil
Most of you have heard of Ted Turner. He is the founder of CNN, TNT, TBS, etc. He is a very successful businessman, a billionaire and a well known critic of Christianity. In fact he has publicly stated that "Christianity is for losers." What is not so well known is how Mr. Turner became so anti-Christian. According to numerous newspaper articles as a teenager, Mr. Turner aspired to become a missionary but lost his faith when his younger sister, Mary Jane, contracted an immune system disease that eventually killed her. "I was taught that God was love and God was powerful and I couldn’t understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so," he says....
This is the last major objection I want to look at. It might appear in all kinds of ways – such as “If God is real, why do innocent children die of starvation?” or, “If God really loves people, how could He send them to hell for eternity?” or, “If God is all-powerful, why does He let so much terrible stuff happen?”
Once again, this is a big big topic we could talk about for a long time. If you face this one, my advice to you is to try to make it personal. Try to understand if they are making this claim on a philosophical level or on a deeply personal level – out of a personal experience, like maybe they had a believing grandparent who suffered greatly while they stood by and watched – or maybe they are bitter at God for some injustice they personally experienced like the loss of an unborn child. The key here is to use discernment and try to discover what is at the personal level, and then respond accordingly.
If the objection comes out of a personal experience, handle it with much compassion. Agree that it seems unfair, understand why they feel the way they do. And then share how your faith in God has actually helped you through times like that, share how we have a choice in the difficult times to either blame God, or turn to Him and experience His love and presence to help us through those difficult times.
From a more intellectual p.o.v., a classic response to this objection is to approach it from the perspective of free will. It isn’t an air-tight response, but it makes good sense to most people. The response is that God is good, and all powerful, but He has determined to give us the freedom to choose to either obey God or do things our own way. On an individual level, we can all relate to a choice we have made which was not in our best interests and for which we experienced negative consequences. It is the same with God – He created us, and gave us the freedom to choose to love Him or to choose to reject Him. If we choose to love Him, He adopts us into His family and loves us back as a perfect Father. If we choose not to love Him, He respects our choice. On a societal level, much of the evil we see is a result of people choosing not to love and follow God, and choosing to hurt others. The point to make with someone is that God didn’t want a race of robots, but a group of people who could choose, with their own free will, to love Him. Evil and suffering, even on a larger level, come from the choices people have made to reject God.
Conclusion:
Obviously this has been a very brisk walk through some very big questions, but I hope it gets you started and prepares you a little bit to, as Peter put it, “be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within you.” If you don’t know the answer, admit it – then find out and follow it up. And by the way, I would love to help you there!! If you want to dive into this more deeply, I’d recommend a book called A Case For Faith, by Lee Strobel, or Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.
Let me conclude with one more story about my wife. As a scientist, her training has always been to keep searching, keep experimenting, keep digging until all the questions are answered – and then draw a conclusion. In her own faith walk, there was a point where she was trying to do this with God – trying to answer all the questions before completely surrendering to Him. And then she realized that with faith, there would always be another question, always another rock to turn over, always another puzzle and another mystery. She answered enough questions to know that God was the answer, and then had to make a leap of faith. I understand this point much like marriage – on your wedding day, you don’t know everything there is to know about your partner. But you do know enough to say, “I love you, and want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s what it is like to make a decision to follow Christ.
