Deeper Waters

Yesterday, we heard a sermon on prayer. I really like the speaker who spoke, but I thought we got hit way too hard. I agree that we should pray and we ought to pray, but there were several shoulds and I’m of the opinion that we got knocked down several times and there was never grace to pick us up again.

I’ll go on and confess that prayer is one of those things that I have a hard time with. I can imagine easily that I’m not alone. For those of us here in America, it seems we get up, go to work, come home, and at the end of the day we’re just too exhausted. Running the rat race keeps us perpetually busy.

This leads us to a misconception I think though. Time. It seems that we think the time spent in prayer is equal to the quality of the prayer. Yet when I look at the Lord’s prayer, it is a very short prayer. Many of the Psalms are quite short. You can say them easily and memorize them easily.

If we think we need to spend an hour in prayer for instance, I think we’re burdening ourselves. If you can do that, great. I’m not condemning that. I’m just saying prayer doesn’t become more holy because you do it for X number of minutes. If that was the case, then we should never stop.

Also, we can’t compare it with other activities. If the value we give to something was determined by the time we give it, then it would seem that sleep and work are the most valuable things to us, yet to many of us, those are not the most valuable things. Those are things we do so we can do other things. (While we can pray on our jobs, most of us can’t pray while we’re asleep I’m wagering.)

Instead, I think of how we are to pray without ceasing many our minds should be directed towards God. We should always have a submission in our attitude towards Christ and seeking to be more like him and looking at the world and trying to find the way to bring about the glory of God. We are to pray his kingdom come. Are we doing something to advance that kingdom?

I’m also going to say this to the men. This is our hurdle. I think generally speaking, we men are more action oriented and we don’t consider prayer an action. We consider it like peace talks. Men. We don’t usually like peace talks either. We’d prefer to go out there and bash some skulls in instead.

We need to learn that prayer is action. It’s asking the aid of the most awesome being of all. This is something that irks me. When people say praying for someone is the least they can do, I always wonder about that. You’re asking the Lord of Heaven and Earth to intervene and that’s the least you can do?

So as for me, my prayer life isn’t the best. I’ll confess that. It’s hard to make time. I think we need to encourage prayer, but we need to do so remembering who we are. We are sinners who are telling other sinners where we found bread, and most of us could use a lot of bread.

Socrates: Greetings kind sir! What are you doing?

Atheist: I’m studying DNA.

Socrates: You are studying letters? How interesting.

Atheist: No. It stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s what contains the genetic make-up of every living substance.

Socrates: What fascinating things you have discovered!

Atheist: And what about you? You’re dressed up like you’re some Greek dude.

Socrates: Well I would hope so considering I am.

Atheist: I’ve been to Greece. They no longer dress like that.

Socrates: They did in my day.

Atheist: Your day? Who are you?

Socrates: Why, I’m Socrates.

Atheist: Right. And I’m George Washington.

Socrates: Pleased to meet you George.

Atheist: That’s not my name.

Socrates: You said it was.

Atheist: I was joking.

Socrates: You joke about your name? I consider names serious? Didn’t you ever read the Cratylus?

Atheist: Never mind. I don’t believe in dead people coming back to life. We gave up on such fairy tales a long time ago.

Socrates: Fairy tales?

Atheist: You know, myths about things that can’t happen.

Socrates: Ah. So the dead coming back to life can’t happen.

Atheist: Nope.

Socrates: And you know this how?

Atheist: We’ve never seen it happen.

Socrates: I see. And that means it can’t.

Atheist: Not with all events, but these are laws of nature.

Socrates: Laws of nature?

Atheist: Yes. Dead people stay dead. We know that.

Socrates: Kind sir. So did we. We practiced burial. I even told my friends what to do for me when I died.

Atheist: Right. The Phaedo. Uh huh.

Socrates: Good. You know my story.

Atheist: I do. But what’s your point?

Socrates: It’s just the dead staying dead is hardly news.

Atheist: But there are some people who believe that the dead don’t stay dead.

Socrates: Ah. Interesting.

Atheist: They’re called Christians mostly. They believe their leader died and came back.

Socrates: Fascinating.

Atheist: Which we know violates natural law.

Socrates: But didn’t they know that back then?

Atheist: Most likely. They just base things on faith.

Socrates: And what do you mean by faith?

Atheist: I think for the Greeks, the word was pistis. It means believing in something without evidence.

Socrates: My friend, you are speaking my language, but you are not speaking my definition.

Atheist: Then what does it mean?

Socrates: It means trust in what has been shown to be reliable.

Atheist: Oh.

Socrates: So that brings us back to why you don’t agree with these Christians.

Atheist: Because I don’t believe in miracles.

Socrates: Why not?

Atheist: There’s no one to perform them.

Socrates: What about the gods?

Atheist: You mean God.

Socrates: Did the rest of them die and only Zeus remain?

Atheist: Wow. You play your acting part well. No one treats Zeus seriously. The Christians treat their God seriously. He’s called YHWH and he’s the only God they say there is. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc.

Socrates: What an interesting idea.

Atheist: But they have no evidence that he exists.

Socrates: Interesting

Atheist: And I don’t believe things without evidence.

Socrates: Then may I ask you a question?

Atheist: Surely.

Socrates: You require evidence for all your beliefs?

Atheist: Of course.

Socrates: So you want to test everything and hold to what is true?

Atheist: Figures you’re a Christian really?

Socrates: Excuse me?

Atheist: Christians tell that to me all the time. It’s in the Bible.

Socrates: The Bible?

Atheist: Their holy book.

Socrates: It may be in that, but my friend, it is just good advice.

Atheist: Get to your point.

Socrates: Okay, you said you should believe only what you have evidence for.

Atheist: Yes

Socrates: And you say Christians have no evidence for their God.

Atheist: Yes

Socrates: I assume you have evidence he doesn’t exist.

Atheist: Well, he’s never shown himself to me.

Socrates: And that means he doesn’t exist?

Atheist: Not necessarily.

Socrates: Then might you not be like some philosophers who just believe that he winds up the clock and lets it go?

Atheist: No. I believe natural law covers it all.

Socrates: But does that rule out God?

Atheist: Not entirely. Some theists apparently believe in evolution.

Socrates: What’s evolution?

Atheist: It’s this belief that all life comes from simple life.

Socrates: That’s hardly news. Aristotle knew that life is in sperm.

Atheist: Not just that. It’s taking those single cells and saying that life was originally just that and eventually improved until it became what we see today.

Socrates: Fascinating theory! I assume it’s well-established?

Atheist: It is, unless you’re religious?

Socrates: A lot of religious people don’t believe it?

Atheist: No. They think it’s opposed to their holy book.

Socrates: Is that the only reason?

Atheist: No. They try to bring up scientific arguments.

Socrates: Like what?

Atheist: That it’s too hard to happen by chance.

Socrates: Chance?

Atheist: No outside interference from God.

Socrates: Ah. So these laws of nature alone did this?

Atheist: Yes.

Socrates: Then if it is so obvious, it must be a simple thing. You’re playing with the building block as you said it was now. Right?

Atheist: Yes.

Socrates: Do all scientists do that?

Atheist: No. Several do though. We study it in a library and try to re-create the first appearance of life?

Socrates: Re-create it?

Atheist: Yeah. Make life in a laboratory.

Socrates: You incredible people! Have you done so?

Atheist: Not yet.

Socrates: Your minds have yet to make life?

Atheist: No.

Socrates: But chance can.

Atheist: Yes.

Socrates: Without a mind?

Atheist: Yes.

Socrates: But minds can’t so far.

Atheist: Not yet.

Socrates: Sounds odd for your position.

Atheist: But Socrates, we see this happening all the time?

Socrates: Life from non-life?

Atheist: Not that. Change from within species.

Socrates: Meaning?

Atheist: We can breed dogs and get better dogs. We can have bugs become immune to chemicals used to kill them. Animals simply change over time.

Socrates: But it seems the dogs stay dogs and the bugs bugs.

Atheist: Yes. But these beneficial changes eventually produce new creatures entirely.

Socrates: So these changed animals stay this way?

Atheist: Actually, no. They usually revert back within a few generations.

Socrates: Interesting. But somehow, this means that new lifeforms emerge?

Atheist: Eventually?

Socrates: Has it been observed?

Atheist: No. Not yet.

Socrates: I see. Let’s move on then.

Atheist: Okay.

Socrates: Why is it so hard to make this lifeform in the first place?

Atheist: Information.

Socrates: Okay. I’ll repeat. Why is it so hard to make this lifeform in the first place?

Atheist: No no. I mean DNA contains information.

Socrates: It does?

Atheist: Yes. One cell contains thousands of pages of information.

Socrates: Incredible! The great mind behind such a feat!

Atheist: There is no great mind behind it.

Socrates: Why not?

Atheist: Natural Law is all we need.

Socrates: I see. Why not admit God?

Atheist: That will kill science.

Socrates: How come?

Atheist: You can say God did anything.

Socrates: But what if he did do something?

Atheist: It can’t be known through science.

Socrates: What do you mean?

Atheist: I mean that science can’t prove God exists.

Socrates: But it can prove he doesn’t?

Atheist: Well, it eliminates the need for him.

Socrates: But it seems you are arguing in a circle. God is a good explanation you have ruled out which leaves you with only natural law.

Atheist: I believe in science. God kills science.

Socrates: My friend, I had many Greeks who sought natural explanations for things who believed in the gods.

Atheist: But that means anything can happen at any time.

Socrates: Perchance it can, but does that mean it will?

Atheist: Why not?

Socrates: Because I would think that such a world would be chaos.

Atheist: Your point?

Socrates: I don’t see chaos here.

Atheist: So God doesn’t exist.

Socrates: Or he just does these miracles infrequently.

Atheist: Science has disproven miracles?

Socrates: It has? When was this?

Atheist: Well, not one specific time.

Socrates: And which part of science?

Atheist: Well, not one specific part.

Socrates: Interesting. Just science in general?

Atheist: Yes.

Socrates: How?

Athiest: We know men don’t walk on water, virgins don’t give birth, and dead people don’t come back to life.

Socrates: So did we.

Atheist: But you didn’t have our modern knowledge.

Socrates: No. We didn’t. That doesn’t mean we were idiots with what we had though.

Atheist: I just say it happened naturally.

Socrates: How do you know?

Atheist: We are here now.

Socrates: My friend, that is self-evident.

Atheist: And we are here without God.

Socrates: We are?

Atheist: He doesn’t exist. That’s why it happened this way.

Socrates: My friend. I am at a loss for words.

Atheist: How come?

Socrates: It seems you have given no clear sign that God does not exist or that these natural laws are all that are at work in the universe.

Atheist: Well, we can’t prove that.

Socrates: You only seem to have assumptions.

Atheist: Do you have evidence otherwise?

Socrates: No. But I don’t claim to know. I claim to not know. I am agnostic on the claim. You are the one making an assertion.

Atheist: I need to do my studies.

Socrates: Very well, but it seems my friend that you have a lot of faith. Until we meet again.

I was thinking about this some last night and some today. Tonight, I’m just going to write my thoughts out loud as I continue. Maybe someone will say something to improve them in some way. I think such musing is good for helping me clear out my own thoughts and if some of you are interested in the way I think, it invites you into the process.

I thought of this with working in the library with being told not to change the books but move the books. Now to change the books would be a change in substance. To change their location though would be a change in accident. The books could be changed in any way that is called an accident and still be books. It is their being that must be the same. For instance, if you burnt the books, they would no longer be books. They would be ash.

I thought about myself then. Is there anything essential to me? I could have called this “Who am I?”, but I wanted to make sure we could all relate. You can ask this of yourself. Is there anything that is absolutely essential to you? This gets into also what is essential to being a human.

Is it my DNA? Well, maybe not. I could have 47 chromosomes and still be a human being. My DNA could be any number of combinations and I’d still be human. Also, what happens when I die? Do I cease to be? If there is a change in my DNA, do I really change in my being?

Now I like to consider myself someone intelligent but in my case, is it essential to me? If I was to get hit on the head and lose my intellectual capabilities, would I cease to be me? Now I wouldn’t perform the way I did before, but that is function. I am pondering would I still be me? I think I would be. There would be a direct link between this person and that person.

Is it my imaginative side? Well, I doubt that as well. If I lost all interest in my imagination, I would still be me. Again, this is simply function. If I were to cease to be a Smallville fan, I would be me. If I gave up my games, I’d still be me. If I gave up apologetics, I’d still be me.

In fact, is it my Christianity? I actually don’t think so. I think there is a direct link between the old creation and the new creation. It is not that God destroys us and remakes us. It is that he takes us and transforms that which is not of him into that which is of him but it is the same patient on the table the whole time.

There is only one thing I can think of and that is the image of God. I do not think I would be me for instance if I was a woman instead of a man. I see that as an aspect of the image though. If I was totally incapable of rationality, I would not be me. If I did not reflect the nature of God at all, I would not be me.

I also think there is an idea of me. God knew me for all eternity before I actually came into existence. He also knows what he is shaping me into and what I am to be. In essence, if God is not, there is no objectivity to my existence. One reason my person is the same is because it exists in the mind of God. Without that, it would simply be matter with no person behind it.

At least, that’s where I stand now. Does it need refining some? Yep. However, I think there is something here and I plan to keep working on it.

In Matthew 11:17, Jesus speaks of the people of his day and says “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; We sang a dirge and you did not mourn.” If any call to be made to the people of our day, it would be “We sounded the alarm, and you did not rise up.” We are doing nothing in a crisis.

I was shopping at a mall today and stopped to get some lunch and sit down with my book. Sometime while I’m there, an alarm starts playing and lights start flashing. For awhile, I could not even understand the automated message that was playing, but eventually I made it out to say something like “An emergency has happened in the building. Evacuate immediately. Do not use the elevators.”

Here’s what was readily noticeable though. No one moved.

It’s got to that point where we don’t respond to such alarms. Where I live, I hear sirens going by regularly. Sadly, I hardly stop and say a prayer even though I’ve called the siren the anthem of where I live. We used to think car alarms would be a great idea, but nowadays, they are an annoyance. If someone was stealing a car, you’d never really notice it. The alarms are just ignored.

I did look around some and watch the security at the mall today when this happened. This is a natural tendency of mine that I want to know what’s going on and see if there’s anything I could do. As one in ministry also, I realize that my skills could be needed if someone needs someone like that. Then, there’s also my adventurous side that wants to be in the thick of things.

But while this was going on, I thought it was a picture of our times. Only one person stopped to asked me what was going on, and I had no clue. Everyone else was going about their lives. They were still entering various stores and still shopping. It was as if the alarm meant nothing.

Friends. We are living in a time of crisis with spiritual alarm. Unfortunately, we are not responding. It is always “someone else’s business” or “something we can’t handle.” It makes me think of the line though in Esther, “Who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

Let’s look at some things that are going on.

God is continuously being removed from the public square.

Naturalists are seeking to take over the realm of science.

Philosophers (And I say this as one) have many of their number trying to break away objective morality.

School shootings are on the rise.

Postmodernism is making us doubt the existence of truth itself.

Homosexuality is seen as normal and homosexual marriage is readily accepted by several.

Thousands of babies are murdered every day in abortion clinics.

Divorce is ending most marriages that start.

Several children are born out of wedlock today not knowing who Daddy is.

Sex is no longer sacred but just something that you do.

Theology in the church is getting more and more liberal denying essential doctrines.

Islam is rapidly being accepted in America.

Friends. This is crisis time. We have too many people ignorant of everything, and this applies to Christians. Christians are sadly some of the most ignorant. There are many atheists I think that know the bible better than Christians. Why else are so many Christians so surprised and don’t know how to answer the conquest of Canaan?

Are we responding though? We need to instead of just going about our lives. We should always be aware that we are in a war and always be ready to do our part. We might have to take up our spiritual arms at any time.

Let’s be sure we do. I know I want to be a soldier who pleases my commanding officer. Don’t you?

Yesterday, I pointed out that exclusivity was a secondary question. I still think it is. However, it does need to be an answer. Even doubts over secondary issues can cause some people to wonder about the primary issues. Perchance if the question is addressed, they will be more willing to listen to the primary issue. Fair enough indeed.

In our world today, it seems odd to think that a religion is exclusive. However, let us be clear on this. All religions are making truth claims. Insofar as anyone makes a claim to truth, they are making an exclusive claim. They are claiming that what they believe is true and all that which is contrary to it is false.

I believe one of the reasons we don’t understand it is there is a hidden assumption that religion is not talking about truth about God. It’s simply telling us how we are supposed to get along with our fellow man. Religion has no vertical aspect to it but only a horizontal one. If that’s the case, I’d agree. We can get morality from most any religion. If we are making claims about God though, that is not the case.

Let’s consider other religions though. Buddha broke away from Hinduism thus saying it was wrong.  Jews have a hard time today with Messianic Jews who believe in Jesus Christ. Islam is so exclusive that you can be killed in a Muslim nation for converting to Christianity. Only Christianity seems to get this complaint though.

Of course, I still need to answer why Christianity is exclusive.

For that, we are going to assume the Christian system. Why? Because we need to see if Christianity is consistent with this belief. For the sake of argument then, I ask readers to grant me that Jesus is who he said he was and the New Testament is an accurate record of what he said and did.

The reason he came then was to pay the price for sin. Why? We had a debt that we could not pay and only the sacrifice of Christ could set us free from sin and death. God made his standard clear. It is absolute perfection. In the atonement of Christ, he is taken as our substitute. He takes our place and gives us his righteousness.

Now we see an important piece of information. Christianity is dealing with a problem, the problem of sin. Let us keep granting then that Jesus is the source of justification whereby we are forgiven of our sins. What does it say then to have the one sacrifice given for your sins and reject it? There is no sacrifice left at that point.

Greg Koukl makes a great point about Revelation 20. He tells us that you don’t go to Hell for not believing in Jesus. It isn’t a theological exam. Those who make it in are those whose names are found in the book of life. If your name is there, you are in. No questions asked.

What about everyone else? They are judged by their works. What other grounds does God have to judge you on? Your works either measure up or they don’t. Rest assured, the judgment will be fair, but God does accept only absolute perfection. If you want to bypass that judgment, then the cross of Christ is the way to go.

As for intolerance, tolerance requires a disagreement on an issue of importance. I can respect the Muslim without believing in Islam. I have an atheist friend who I greatly respect yet I will not budge for a second in stating that my view is right and his is wrong. He knows this well and says the same for me. I wouldn’t expect anything less. This is truth we’re talking about after all.

No. Christianity is quite tolerant really. We see the other person regardless of their worldview as holding the image of God. While we don’t agree with them, we see them as people Jesus Christ loves and died for and thus, we do what we can to give them the gospel. If it is true, it is the most loving thing we can do.

So am I exclusive? As far as the truth claim goes, it is exclusive. The religion though is inclusive in the important way though. All are invited to come. What’s holding you back? The cross is very inclusive and any who want to come are invited.

I am now going to address a point on the topic of exclusivity but from a rather different way. I see a lot of people wondering about the exclusivity of Christianity and wondering if they should come to such a faith. I am going to argue that this is the nature of a secondary question. This is a question that I think you could have a false view on and still be a Christian.

Why? A Christian is one who believes that God dwelt among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity, and he died for our sins, was buried, and on the third day rose again. Salvation is found in placing one’s faith in Christ. If you believe that and submit to Christ, then I believe you can say you are saved.

Now let us go on and confess something. I do believe Christianity is exclusive. I think verses like John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 demonstrate that. I do not believe the path to Heaven is in being a good Jew or a good Muslim or a good Mormon or a good JW or any other belief. I believe it rests in orthodox Christianity.

However, let us suppose that Christianity is true also. If that is the case, then it is quite ridiculous to say “I believe Christianity is true, but I do not think I will come because I am unsure about those who have never heard.” If Christianity is true, the wisest thing to do is to come within the fold where you know you are safe rather than stay outside where there is doubt.

Now does that answer the question of those who’ve never heard or why Christianity is exclusive? No. I’ll grant it does not. Rest assured though that Christianity’s claim is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Is it wise to stay outside where there’s doubt and say “Maybe he’ll save me” or is it better to come within where you can say you are one of the saved?

Naturally, if you didn’t think Christianity was true, then by all means keep looking and raising questions. If, on the other hand, you do believe that Jesus was raised and thus is Lord and God and ruler of all creation, then it would seem that it is a fair bet that it is wise to place yourself in his hand. The question of why exclusivity is believed is a post for another day.

I have a good friend who is a deist who made a remark today that seemed to indicate to me that one of the hurdles he has in coming to Christ is that someone had told him that you can’t be a real Christian as long as you believe in evolution. Now this isn’t going to be a blog about the truth or falsehood of macroevolutionary theory. This is going to be asking if it’s incompatible with Christianity.

My first thought on hearing this was anger. I really don’t like it when people make something an essential of the faith that isn’t. I figure Alister McGrath, Francis Collins, Dinesh D’Souza, and C.S. Lewis would be shocked at this. (For the record, Lewis later did abandon evolutionary theory.)

In fact, there were several devout Christians who defended Darwinism when it came out. Asa Gray wrote a book called “Darwiniana.” In “A Devil’s Chaplain”, Richard Dawkins talks about an excellent educator named Sanderson who apparently was a Darwinian and a devout Christian as well. There are many such people out there.

I do not believe macroevolutionary theory in itself entails atheism. Contrary to what some atheists may think, one can legitimately view evolution as the instrument whereby God brought about life on this planet. It is only contrary to Christian theism when it is naturalistic evolution and being used as an argument for atheism. Writers like McGrath would say evolution alone cannot tell you whether God exists or not.

Christian faith is not rested on what your view of creation is. I have brothers and sisters who are theistic evolutionists. I have brothers and sisters who are old-earth creationists. I have brothers and sisters who are young-earth creationists. Here’s what we all have in common. We all affirm that Jesus is our Lord and God who died, was buried, and rose again.

So if I want to know if someone is a Christian, I do not ask their views on creation. I ask them their views on Jesus. Is he God? Did he die and rise again? Is he the second person of the Trinity? If they affirm all of those and affirm Christ as their Lord and savior, who am I to tell them that they do not belong to the body?

This needs to be said also. It is quite aggravating to see people make secondary doctrines primary doctrines. In doing so, you are shutting a door in the face of people who could come to Christ. We need to remember that in the essentials, we do have unity. In the non-essentials, we have liberty. In all things though, we have charity. Jehovah’s Witnesses are strident opponents of evolution, but I do not consider them my brothers and sisters. They agree with me on the secondary, but they disagree on the essential.

To my friend, I hope this has cleared up doubt in this area at least. Rest assured, I will consider you my brother in Christ if you join the fold despite our differences on how creation came about.

1 Peter 5:7 tells us to cast all our anxiety on Christ, because he cares for us. I had a friend up tonight and we were discussing this passage. He was telling me about wanting to get his life back in line and how he just wasn’t sure he could repent yet because he’d had a period where he’d made the wrong choices and he just wasn’t cleaned up yet.

I really like this friend. He’s a Christian who just needs to get back on the path. From the first time I really saw him, I knew that he had some light in him by his actions. It really saddened me to hear him talking like this, although I think if we were all honest, we’ve all taken the same line before. We all sometimes think we need to make ourselves acceptable to God instead of realizing he’s the one who makes us acceptable.

Don’t we have the cart before the horse?

What is that to say to Christ? That we will go somewhere else to get ourselves clean and then we’ll come and see him? It’s blasphemy when you think about it. If only we could learn to trust him when he says he wants to clean us up. If only we could believe that he is capable.

If my roommate did something wrong to me and asked forgiveness, I know I could give it and I’d probably forget the event right quick. I am sure of something else though. If I wronged him in some way and asked forgiveness, I know I’d get it from him, but I think I’d have a hard time giving it to myself.

Yet what does the passage say? It says to come because he cares. You don’t wait until you get yourself cleaned up. You come to him first not so he will care about you but because he already does care about you. He wants you to come and cast all your anxiety on him not so he will care but because he already does.

A look at the word anxiety indicates that it seems to focus on concerns of this world. When used in the gospels, it is spoken of as the cares of this world. When Paul speaks about it, he speaks about suffering under the care of all the churches. These are things that are burdens and can weigh us down.

Christ is offering to take them on. He cares for us. He is the good shepherd who cares for his sheep and knows them by name. That should give us pause. Christ knows our name. In Galatians 4 Paul says that we know God but then turns and says “or rather, you’re known by God.” It’s good that we know God. It’s astounding that he actually knows who we are.

To all struggling like my friend, I say the same thing. Come. It is the last command given to us in Revelation. The last message given to us in Scripture is to come.

And we should. Why? Because he cares for us.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I have had this title on my mind sometime. It’s the work of Brian McLaren with the emerging church. This is the church that has embraced the postmodern movement and it’s quite anathema to the Christian ideal. However, I’d like to call the title into question.

Why do we need a new kind of Christian? In fact, I think we need an old kind of Christian.

We need a Peter who’s willing to stand up to an angry crowd and tell them the truth and that they need to repent.

We need a Stephen who is willing to suffer martyrdom at the hands of his persecutors simply in testifying to the truth of Christ.

We need a Philip who’s willing to go into unchartered territory and who is willing to speak with the individual even in the hopes of reaching one more convert.

We need a Barnabas who is ready to encourage those Christians who need support and help them on their way.

We need a Paul who is willing to travel the world and speak and write if he can do anything to win a soul to Christ. (Incidentally, this is why all in ministry definitely need to be blogging.)

We need an Apollos who is able to stand up to those in public who disagree and face them in debate to prove that Jesus is the Christ.

We need a Timothy who is not ashamed of his young age but is willing to follow the path of a leader and learn how it is he is to change the world.

We need a John, who is willing to turn from being a son of thunder (meaning someone with a temper) to one who is able to write passionately about the love of God in such beautiful language.

We need a Luke who will be accurate and thorough in his accounts of what is going on to remind us of where we have been before and where we are to go in the future.

We need a Polycarp who would rather die than blaspheme the Lord who saved him.

We need an Augustine who is a master at rhetoric and writing and is willing to come up with the newest ideas to fight the newest heresies.

We need an Aquinas who is able to take the thought of the greatest thinkers and show how it can be integrated with Christianity without destroying Christianity.

Now naturally, there are many heroes in church history who I could name. I haven’t even got to the Reformation and there are many there, but the point is the same. We do not need a new kind of Christian. The old ones did the job just fine and we need more of them.

I’ve lately been blogging often on Richard Dawkins. Now as far as he is a human being, I think he is good. When he is arguing against the faith though, he is not doing good. I do believe though he honestly thinks that he’s doing good. I honestly think I’m doing good. We’d both hopefully tell the other that they’re not. Why? Because there’s no need to be quiet about beliefs in that regard.

Yet as he is the topic of a research paper I’m doing, I’ve come to realize something else. This is something we can forget too often in ministry. There is a person there. Now there are some people that I am willing to offend if I have to. Why? Because I don’t think they’ll respond to anything else and if I have to step on your toes to move you to Christ, then so be it.

I have seen though how the Devil’s Chaplain is dedicated to his daughter Juliet on her eighteenth birthday. (That’s a book of his for those who don’t know.) As far as I know, this is his only child and there is something touching in that. I can imagine having an only child I love and dedicating a book to them.

And so when I read his books, I try to not only understand his arguments but to understand him. If I see something that could be seen as a psychological step to where he got today, I take notice of it. I actually do the same with most all of my opponents. I try to look for little things and even if I don’t mention them, keep them in the back of my mind.

This is a reason also I pray for Mr. Dawkins every night. I really think if I was with him, I’d enjoy discussing these topics, but we’d probably get along great. I think of the case of William Provine and Phillip Johnson. Provine is an atheistic thinker and Johnson a strong creationist who argue evolution. Afterwards, they go out together to a local restaurant as they’re great friends in real life.

I’ll also state at this point that such friendships do exist. My roommate and I have a good friend who is an atheist who comes over here a number of times. (Okay. Sometimes I wonder about God’s existence when he beats us at Ratchet: Deadlocked.) It’s a great friendship where we’ll go out for pizza on Sunday afternoons and get together and have discussion in the evening as well.

But getting back to Dawkins, I think of what Alister McGrath asked him at the end of the interview for Dawkins’s TV program that I commented on a few days ago. Listening to that debate, I didn’t see the angry side I saw in the God Delusion. I saw the rational side that seemed to just be seeking to understand and McGrath was quite cordial also.

For the record, this doesn’t apply to just non-Christians.

If there is a message I could give to my own seminary and every other, it is this. You are not just teaching whatever it is you teach. You are teaching students. We need to keep in mind the personality types that we are dealing with and realize how vastly different a lot of people are.

I have to watch myself as well. Some psychology goes into my thinking of course, so I have to make sure it’s not controlling me. Am I stepping back and really looking at the evidence? When I do, I always do come back to the same place, but even as a Christian, I could hold some errant beliefs that are due in part to psychological conditions. (I am sure I hold some errant beliefs. There’s a lot to believe out there and I doubt I’m the only one who’s got it all right.)

Know your opponent. Know everyone you meet. Also, be sure to pray for them. You never know who God might send someone’s way to lead them to the kingdom. Remember that he took the most hardened opponent in the first century and made him the greatest evangelist of all. Who else might be on the list?