ShelfLife

This week’s blog entry is from Mike Netzer.  Enjoy!

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In chapter 5, Keller addresses the objection of “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?” 

Consider the implication of a loving God who is not just.  I believe Keller does a good job showing how this belief is not necessarily as logical as one might think. 

Imagine a God who created the world, gave the world’s inhabitants free will, and then revealed himself to these inhabitants as “loving”.  Now imagine there were no immediate or deferred consequences for disobedience.  Would this God still be considered “loving”? 

I believe that a critical building block to Keller’s argument is the idea that doing something other than what God has instructed (sin) is harmful to us.  For example, if you saw someone you cared about hurting themselves and didn’t try to help them, would that not be perceived as uncaring? So it is with God. A lack of help/correction would be more of an indictment against God as “unloving” than his judgment could ever be.  Why?  Because not helping someone who is harming themselves demonstrates indifference, the “final form of hate”, says Becky Pippert.  

In reading this chapter I was reminded of Jesus’ words concerning judgment found in the book of John.

John 3:16, everyone knows, but often overlooked is John 3:17, For God did not send the Son to Judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Jesus repeats in John 12:47 I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. 

What did Jesus save it from?  Man’s ultimate destination apart from God: Hell. 

There must be a consequence for rejecting God’s offer of relationship and eternal life in Him and that consequence must be eternal separation from Him.  Keller says that hell is simply “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity.” 

It is worth repeating that Jesus’ purpose, his mission, his driving force, was not to judge.  John 3:16 says for God so loved the world, not God was so frustrated with the world or God wanted to teach those evil humans a lesson.  See also 2 Peter 3:9 [The Lord] is patient toward you, not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

Judgment is a necessary byproduct of Jesus’ saving work.  I feel like I fully believe, but only half-understand this truth.  (Maybe some enlightened commenter will shed additional light!)

Once a belief in God’s loving judgment has been established, the belief “vengeance is the Lord’s” (and only the Lord’s) serves as the backbone for a belief in non-violence.  To insist upon non-violence without reason is naive, and such a belief will never endure trial. A stance in non-violence must be rooted in the belief that God will judge the righteous and unrighteous. This makes a lot of sense to me. Without this belief, when wronged, you will either react violently and get caught up in a cycle of retaliation or fall into a bitter emotional state where you desire revenge, but lack the courage to act.  Only a belief that God will judge evil will allow you to patiently, peacefully endure suffering at the hands of another.

• How do you understand God’s justice and love to be interconnected?

• Are the wars the U.S. is currently involved in Biblically justifiable?

• What do you believe is the opposite of Keller’s definition of Hell as “one’s freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory to infinity”? 

This week’s discussion on Chapter 4 was written by Veronica Netzer.

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In chapter 4, Keller addresses the behavior of Christians using three main issues:

1. Character Flaws – he recognized that people would be put off by the idea of Christianity based on the Christians they’ve met or things they’ve heard about Christians. Why would someone be a Christian if they can be a good person apart from the Christina faith?
2. War and violence – how/why could someone be apart of a religion that supports/promotes violence? Many people are quick to bring up something such as the Crusades to defend their reason for not being a Christian. 
3. Fanaticism – why would someone want to be associated with such self-righteous people?

I related most closely with the first issue. I was raised in a church where people called themselves Christians, but they were only identified as such on Sunday.  Because of this, I was witness to what many would call hypocrisy. I never believed Christians should be perfect, but as a teenager especially I realized there were a lot of people in the church who indifferent to caring for widows and orphans, loving their neighbor, or doing anything else that would inconvenience them.  Instead these people focused on causing strife in the church, gossiping about the latest happenings in the church office, and turning their back when someone came into Sunday service not dressed in their finest attire.

Recently I’ve had conversations with someone who I know loves the Lord that looked like this:

Friend:    Would your church hire someone who is homosexual?

Me:         If they knew that person recognized homosexuality as a sin, and was seeking to find freedom from it?

Friend:    But what if they sinned again?

Me:         Well, we are all struggling with something, right?

Keller said the church is “filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually…The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

One Sunday, Todd read a letter from someone who was disappointed with some of the attire they saw young women wearing on Easter Sunday.  They felt like the attire was inappropriate not just for Sunday, but for any day.  In response, Todd talked about a church being full of people all across the board in regards to their maturity.  He concluded that the church needs to have immature people; otherwise the mature are not doing their job!  

Having such a large church full of people who “still have a long way to go emotionally, morally, and spiritually”, I believe Keller’s following statement applies to Watermark so well:

“It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are ‘lower on the character scale’ are more likely to recognize their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we should expect that many Christians’ lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious (just as the health of the people in the hospital is comparatively worse than people visiting museums).”

Discussion Questions

• Was there one particular issue that you have found yourself resonating with?
• Can you remember a time when you judged someone who called themselves a Christian but didn’t act like one?
• If you call yourself a Christian, can you recall a time when you did something that may have turned someone off to the church?

This week’s discussion on Chapter Three was written by Andrew and Carlton Johnson.  This is ShelfLife’s first ever collaboration between brothers.  Thanks for starting the conversation this week guys!

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In the beginning of chapter three, Keller quotes a woman named Charlene who stated, “I want to live for…my own sake.” To her, she thought Christianity would stifle her creativity and growth.  I believe her opinion is at the heart of those who say that Christianity is a “straight jacket”.  However as I continued to read I found that Keller makes what I believe to be an excellent argument for how this view is misleading and ultimately is itself constraining.  If we constantly chose our way, we will ultimately end up destroying ourselves. 

Two recent conversations aided in my better understanding of Keller’s perspective in this regard:

First Conversation – A Chinese graduate student at SMU lived a successful life in China up until he turned 33 when his wife got an opportunity to come work in America. While having dinner recently, he told me about a friend of his here in the States that owns a business and therefore can choose his work schedule and run his business as he sees fit.  This man’s experiences vary greatly from those of my friend’s countrymen who live with many restrictions and regulations which don’t allow them to always choose what they want to do.  I quickly concluded that he equates freedom, as many Westerners do, with being able to do whatever you want whenever you want.

Second Conversation – A former heroin addict grew up in Chicago.  His dad was as a gang leader and his mom was a prostitute. He lived many years of his life running drug rings, using cocaine, heroin, and alcohol. His world came crashing down one day when he finally became exhausted from his lifestyle. He thought he was living a life of freedom, however, after years of recovery, he now sees that he was enslaved to his own desires.

Keller comments that love is the ultimate freedom. “To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy” and “involve mutual, unselfish service, a mutual loss of independence.” Based on this proclamation, the remainder of my conversation with my friend from China now makes more sense to me.  While he envies some of the perceived “freedom” his friend here in the States enjoys, he deeply values the freedom realized by his countrymen due to their giving up some autonomy out of love for country and each other.

In this same way, my friend from Chicago found freedom in turning his life over to Jesus Christ.  He now defines freedom as “living your life believing our Creator has embraced us in grace and has taken away our chains of sin and can now utilize our God-given gifts and abilities to the fullest in such a way that brings us complete joy and fulfillment.”  1 John 3:16 speaks to the best example of true love and freedom through the forfeiture of self-autonomy, “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

Discussion Questions 

• How would you have defined freedom before you read this chapter?
• In following Charlene’s statement how do you accept the iRobot view and believe that “true freedom is freedom to create your own meaning and purpose”?
• Can you truly define freedom without taking into consideration your community / society?
• Do you believe that if you always made selfish decisions you would be fulfilled in life?
• Have you been in a relationship that you are placing restrictions on your desires for the betterment of another, which ultimately then increases your joy?

Discussion Questions Related to Other Sections of Chapter Three

• When evaluating your community, would you conclude you are inclusive or exclusive?
• How would you relate your community to Christianity?
• Keller uses the New Jerusalem to “prove” that Christianity is an inclusive worldwide religion, do the future promises provide you comfort in Christianity today?
• Personal Application – Can you relate to Keller’s work comparison? If you were to reevaluate your career decisions, would you conclude you are actually restricting your full potential?

The following is Herb Thomas’ discussion of Chapter 2:

Hello, thank you for participating in Shelflife.  It is fun to read and discuss this book as a group.  

Our Book is Tim Keller’s The Reason for God – Belief in an Age of Skepticism;

Tim Keller’s rankings of the seven biggest objections to the Christian faith:  The following are my comments after reading Chapter 2

# 2:  How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? 

This is a problem that many non-Christians and Christians struggle with.  It goes to the “Nature of God” [hear Graham Cooke describe it on YouTube]. 

This question causes people to reject God as being [1] un-loving or un-caring and thus cannot be trusted or [2] non-existent.  Tim Keller discussed both reactions to this question. 

[1] God is un-loving or un-caring and thus cannot be trusted.

I think the more compelling and widespread objection to God allowing Evil and Suffering to continue is by persons who have been severely and deeply hurt or humiliated by another human being, especially if they were of an innocent age to protect themselves: Their questions to God are:  I could not protect myself and I was abused against my will.  Where were you, God?  If you loved me, why did you not stop this evil from happening to me?  How can I trust that you love me when you failed to protect me when I needed you the most?  A loving God would not have allowed this abuse to happen to me and definitely would not have allowed it to continue to happen to me.  You may love other people but you sure do not love me.  What’s worse is I’m not even sure that you care what happens to me. There is no way I am going to trust in you and I am so angry with you I refuse to believe in you. 

There are many people who question the “nature of God” as not being good, maybe even bad or possibly just doesn’t care.  God proved it to them by not showing up when needed the most.  How can God be counted on or trusted in the future? 

The reaction against God by non-Christian victims is rejection.  The reaction against God by Christian victims is distrust and fear (God is the “only game in town” so I dare not offend him because he made take something cherished away from me, like my child).  It is emotional and intense.  They could be very intelligent and use their intellect/scientific methods in their jobs but summarily reject God purely on emotional response to their pain.  They   are willing to be “intellectually dishonest” when it comes to God and refuse to examine the proofs of his claims.   

Remember that God’s offense is that he “allows” Evil and Suffering.  The fact is he is not to blame – he did not cause Evil – Satan caused Evil.  How? God gave Man the ability to choice to allow Man the freedom to prove through his choices that Man loved God – rather than being a puppet like Pinocchio.  Satan talked Man into a Sinful Choice that introduced Sin into the world and “survival of the fittest” – the “strong devour the weak”  Thereafter, the weak and innocent continually suffered pain.  God loved Man so much that God had a Rescue Plan.  He could have terminated the race of Man but the Rescue Plan was to redeem or cleanse them.  The pure blood of Jesus, God’s Son, was shed to absorb all the Evil and Suffering and cleanse us from our sin and heal us from our pain.  but Man had to make the correct choice this time and accept redemption through Jesus’ sacrifice. The Rescue Plan proves that God loves us because he will reverse the pain caused by Evil.  Why?  It is his nature to Love his children.  The Rescue Plan proves that God can be trusted because he is there to rescue you from the ultimate Pain and Suffering – eternal Hell – separation from all love, beauty, purity, goodness, kindness, joy, comfort, and light for eternity.  

Tim Keller says “ditto” because he said that God is not ambivalent against Evil and Suffering but is aggressively pursuing a Rescue Mission of by sending Jesus Christ to pay for all the Evil and Sins of this earth so that some day evil and suffering will end without having to terminate the human race to do it.  God had his Son experience pain and suffering, just like you, and pay the penalty all sin for all times by dying on the Cross.  Through his Resurrection, there will not be just a repair of your sufferings but a restoration will occur in you – “every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy greater” – all things will be made NEW.  “Resurrection …promises that we will get the life we most longed for, but it will be an infinitely more glorious world than if there had never been the need for bravery, endurance, sacrifice, or salvation”.

The ministries, like Someone Cares (abortion), Shelter From the Storm (sexual abuse) Celebrate Recovery (destructive habits) Reengage (destructive habits in marriage) try to demonstrate that God’s true nature is to love you, that he has always loved you and been with you even in your pain, that he has brought everything good into your life, that he  can heal your wounds and hurts, that he can restore broken relationships through the power of his love, that he can be trusted, that he can be counted on to be with you, that he will ultimately restore you. 

[2] God is non-existent.

Philosopher J.L. Mackie made the case against God: “If  a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjust able, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist.” God does not exist because God [by definition] could not allow Evil and Suffering to exist [because he would prevent them from existing] based upon their definition that God is just and loving.  The basis for non-existence of God is Logic.  The existence of Evil disproves the existence of God.  God could not exist because God allows terrible suffering therefore either God is all-powerful but not good enough to end Evil and Suffering or God is All-good but not powerful enough to end Evil and Suffering – implying that if God existed he would be compelled by his nature to end Evil and Suffering and since Evil and Suffering exists then God does not.  Tim Keller demonstrates that this logic is faulty and “bankrupt”.  It is based upon a false assumption that if there was a good reason that God allows suffering then their minds would be able to think of it. It is illogical that not believing in the existence of God will make Evil and Suffering go away.  But true logic says that just because you cannot see a good reason why God might allow suffering does not mean that there cannot be one.  He also said that the experiences of people show good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain with Joseph’s life as an example.

So, here are some questions to help keep this discussion going:

1. Do you have any opinions about these subjects? 

2. If so, please submit a response and let us hear from you. 

3. If you do not wish to comment, please let us know you are reading the book and participating in the forum by answering the Roll Call – submit a response and insert the work “Here”  just as your teachers used to do. It encourages us.  Thanks. 

~Herb Thomas

If the first seven chapters of this book are Tim Keller’s ranking of the seven biggest objections to the Christian faith, then I personally believe he got number one spot on.  For years, the one doctrine of the Christian faith that has caused me the most heartburn when talking with skeptics is the doctrine of exclusivity.

I think the reason I’ve struggled with this doctrine is because, to me, it seems arrogant, smug, mean, unfair, inconsiderate, narrow, and outdated.  It’s no wonder Christians are often given the worst label today’s culture can assign: close minded.

What I have failed to realize over the years (and what Tim Keller’s teaching and this book has helped me to see) is that every religion and every worldview makes exclusive truth claims.  Since Christianity is not the only religion/worldview that makes an exclusive truth claim, the issue is not why we have exclusive truth claims, but rather how are Christ’s exclusive truth claims different from others?  I find that subtle difference very freeing.

I loved Keller’s question at the end of the first chapter, “Which set of unavoidably exclusive beliefs will lead us to humble, peace-loving behavior?”  What a great question.  Said another way: which set of exclusive beliefs lead to the most inclusive lifestyle?

The model we’ve been given by our founder is of someone who made himself nothing, became a servant and gave his life as a ransom for the world.  The instructions we’ve been given are to consider others better than ourselves, to pray for our enemies, to eagerly remember the poor, to look after widows and orphans, and to give generously, just to name a few.  For hearts transformed by the Gospel, the outflow of our love for one another and for the world is far from exclusive.  As Keller said, we have access to “the strongest possible resource for practicing sacrificial service, generosity, and peace-making.”

Therefore, one significant take-away for me from the first chapter is that attitude, body language, communication style, tone and a genuine interest in people might be the most important factors to embodying the way Christ’s exclusive truth claims are different.  Based upon the New Testament record of Jesus’ life and his teachings, I cannot imagine him ever talking to a large group of followers poking and fun at the “pop culture wisdom” of his day while the crowd claps and yells in smug excitement that screams, “we are right and they are wrong!” 

Jesus reserved his harshest comments for the arrogant, religious exclusivists of his day: the Pharisees.  Though the Pharisees believed they had the exclusiveTruth, they did not seek to live an inclusive lifestyle of grace and charity, but rather an exclusive lifestyle of power and control.  Jesus humbly served people, he asked questions, he listened and he taught with a perfect mix of grace and truth.  This is our model for engaging a skeptical world.

So, here are some questions to help keep this discussion going:

1. What were some of the highlights of the introduction and chapter one to you?
2.  If Keller was ranking the top seven biggest objections to the Christian faith, do you agree that exclusivity is the number one objection?  Why or why not?
3. Why do you believe we are so easily tempted to form an exclusive community rather than an inclusive community?
4. I’ve heard it said that “telling people the truth is never an option, however, the method and timing of telling someone the truth is always optional.”  Do you believe the Church needs to do a better job at “telling the truth” or “method and timing”?
5. Were you surprised to read that Keller agrees religion can be one of the major threats to world peace?
6. Do you believe this chapter better has equipped you to engage with people about the doctrine of exclusivity?  If so, how?  If not, what issues do you believe were left unaddressed by Keller?

We’re excited to start discussing this book with you next week.  Remember, we’ll post our first blog entry covering the introduction and the first chapter on Wednesday, January 6th.  Our plan is to post a new entry each Wednesday, for 14 weeks.

As some of you may have seen the the Watermark News, starting in January 2010, we will be reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God.  The book has 14 chapters and the tentative schedule is to read and discuss one chapter a week.  The ShelfLife team will post blog entries mid-week.

Starting the week of January 4th, we will discuss the introduction and chapter 1.  If you’d like to read along with us, please pick up a copy of this great book between now and January 4th.

If there any questions, please feel free to email me at: adtarnow@yahoo.com

~Adam

Two quotes stick in my mind as I finished up the book this week:

1. Dallas Willard’s quote from The Divine Conspiracy that says, “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are getting.”

1. A quote from a lecture on leadership given by Andy Stanley where he said, “To reach people no one else is reaching, we must do things no one else is doing.”

I think these quotes sum up the message Moreland has been trying to communicate throughout all 10 chapters of this book.  Our church “system” in America is yielding a result and the result is marginal, at best.  As with many things in life, admitting there is a problem is often the first step towards transformation.  That is why I think these quotes are relevant.  If we want to yield a different result, then we are going to have to change the system and do things that no one else is doing.  To me, this reality is very challenging, to say the least.

When faced with challenges like this, my mental pendulum swings dramatically before finally settling somewhere in the middle.  At this moment, my pendulum is pretty far to the side of, “I’m not sure the American mega-church is the best environment to accomplish the goals Moreland presented in this book.”  It seems like the greater the number of people, the more divided the interests and the more moderate everything has to be.  I am thankful that Watermark does try, as was evidenced this past weekend with the guest William Lane Craig (and trying something like this blog!), however, for some reason I feel like we are too big to make any quick and far reaching changes.

On the flip side, the size of our church brings many great opportunities to try to raise the value of intellectualism.  More people usually means more resources and the ability to conduct little experiments like this blog, guest speakers and other one-time equipping classes.  With so many season-of-life specific ministries offered at Watermark, I find it refreshing that we can start something new and know up front that each new endeavor is not intended to reach everyone.  We have the freedom to try a lot of stuff and see what sticks.

So, what is next for ShelfLife and how can it help to foster some change?  To be honest, we are not sure.  Week #1 of this book started off with a bang from a dialogue perspective and was really fun.  Then, as you all can tell, the dialogue stopped.  We’re not sure why that happened, but our suspicion is that although the content of the book was excellent, it didn’t lend itself easily to good dialogue beyond the first two chapters.  Despite the fast start and slow finish, we believe there is a need in our church body to provide a forum for more mature believers to converse about topics that are not regularly discussed on Sunday morning, in our community groups or in most equipping classes.  Our hope is that ShelfLife can help to meet that need.

In the meantime, as the ShelfLife team talks through a few ideas for “what’s next”, we’d love to hear from those of you who followed along the past four weeks:

• Did you enjoy the book?
• Why do you believe the dialogue stopped after chapter 2?
• Do you believe electronic communication (i.e. a blog) is a good forum to discuss books like the one we just read?
• What would have made this test run better?
• Besides simply reading a book and talking about it on-line, what are some other things ShelfLife can do to help meet the needs discussed above?
• Would you participate again?
• What other general or specific suggestions do you have to help make this a better tool for the body?

If you’d rather not post your answers as a response, please feel free to email me directly at adtarnow@yahoo.com .

~Adam Tarnow

Let’s face it, we’re men. It comes naturally to us to compartmentalize everything… Be honest, how many times has your wife said to put down the paper and “talk to her” even though you know that you can read and “talk” at the same time? But we do this…we compartmentalize family and other relationships, work and fun, food and exercise (for me especially lately), and feelings and truth, to name a few. While sometimes this can be a useful trait, it can also be very dangerous when we do this in our spiritual lives – when we separate Sunday from the rest of the week – and particularly when we view our jobs simply as a means to earn a living and nothing more.

In Chapter 9, J.P. Moreland continues the theme that begins in Chapter 1 of cautioning us to stop segregating our faith (the “sacred”) and our everyday lives (the “secular”) (p. 174). Specifically, he exhorts us to integrate our Christian worldview with our vocation. Early in the book, Moreland says “If I am a plumber, clerk, bank manager, homemaker, elected official, senior citizen, or migrant worker, I am in “full time” Christian service no less than someone who earns his or her living in a specifically religious role” (p. 12). Let that soak in for a minute….Christian service is not left to the paid church staff “professionals,” but is a calling to all who claim to be Christ-followers and in whatever profession you are engaged in. If you haven’t thought about all the ways that your particular job intersects with the eternal priorities of God, I would encourage you to burn some quiet time and do just that.

Several years ago, I began to question the significance of what I was doing professionally. I was practicing law at the time and felt like I had some great opportunities to speak into folks’ lives at the point where they were most troubled (if you’ve ever been involved in litigation, you know that it’s emotionally, financially, and spiritually difficult). And while there were some great opportunities to share with my clients, overall, I began to wrestle with whether I was still on the sidelines or actually in the game in terms of advancing God’s kingdom on earth. I was successful – but was it success at “meaningless” things? How would someone sum up my life after my death? Most importantly, what would I say to God about how I had stewarded not just my time and money, but my vocation as well?

Scripture teaches that life is a “vapor.” So, how was I doing at the things that God clearly called me to be concerned about – sharing the gospel, loving others, serving the poor, actually seeking out those in need (outside of my safe circles of friends, family, and colleagues). You do not need to “meditate” over the meaning of passages like Isaiah 58, Micah 6:8, James 1:27, Matthew 25:31-46, and Luke 10:25-37. They are clear enough for my 7 year old to understand and apply. Why then are we not doing better in this area?

Please don’t hear me say that the conclusion you should reach is to leave your profession and go into paid ministry. While allowing for the fact that might be exactly what God is asking of you, the world really needs devoted Christian plumbers, bankers, business folks, architects, construction workers, computer techs and teachers – who are living out scriptural principles in all aspects of their work. We need to be engaging our culture, wherever we are. And, God may very well haveplaced you right where you are for maximum kingdom impact. So, explore that…and be very sensitive to the Spirit’sleading. And, be sure that your heart is in a place to obey whatever the Lord might lead you to do. Make sure everything is “on the table”. Otherwise, save yourself the effort. There are some great books and resources out there to help you generally (i.e. “Don’t Waste Your Life” by Piper, “Crazy Love” by Chan, “Holy Discontent” by Ortberg, “The Purpose Driven Life” by Warren, “The Hole in our Gospel” by Stearns, etc). Then there are vocation-specific resources (i.e. for me it was “A Lawyer’s Calling”). Moreland also suggests gathering in groups centered on vocations. I think this is a great idea. Also check out these Internet resources: http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/features/living.html

So, if you haven’t already, take a cue from Moreland and spend some time thinking and praying about your profession particularly and ways that your faith should inform the various aspects of your work and then also consider how to use your particular professional strengths to directly advance the kingdom in even more impactful ways.

~Jeff Ward

I’ll never forget my first “real” encounter with a moral relativist.  I was traveling on an airplane for work from Atlanta, GA to Anchorage, AK and was I sitting in a row with three seats.  I was in the aisle seat, a middle aged woman named Jerry was in the middle, and a man in his late twenties named Derek was sitting by the window.  As the flight took off, I was doing what I normally try to do on an airplane: not talk to anyone.  When the beverage service started, I overheard Derek say to Jerry something about how Jesus was a “good teacher, but not God.”  I listened to Derek espouse his “spiritual views” and after about 10 minutes I decided I would ask God whether or not He wanted me to join this conversation.  I’ve never had a prayer answered so quickly and so surely in my life.  So, I took a deep breath and ask Derek and Jerry if I could join their conversation.  Derek and Jerry were more than happy to let me join and began to ask me why I believe what I believe.

My answers were heartfelt, yet simple.  Everything for me changed when I began to see my bad behavior as more than just mistakes and actually realized they were sins against God.  “At that point,” I told them, “I came to see my need for Jesus.  I came to see that I needed my sins to be forgiven and realized that Jesus died on my behalf as payment for my sins.”

The conversation continued back and forth for a few more minutes, but I was having trouble trying to figure out what it was exactly that Derek believed.  He was very spiritual and seemed to believe everything, except that Jesus was the Son of God and savior of the world.  I finally asked Derek how he thought his sin was going to impact him when he died and he gave me an answer that I’ll never forget.  He said, “Well Adam, in my world, there is no sin.”

I was stunned.  I had never heard anyone say something like that before.  What Derek meant, was that in his worldview, there was no concept of “sin” and therefore no need for a savior.  There really wasn’t any right or wrong in his worldview.  Therefore, he was fine keeping Jesus as a teacher, because Derek’s worldview didn’t have any need for a savior.

I have to admit, once he said that, I had no defense.  All I knew at that time was good news and bad news.  The bad news is everyone’s a sinner and needs a savior.  The good news is Jesus is that savior.  Derek completely stole my thunder and I just went back to reading my book thinking to myself, “Oh well, one day he’ll see I’m right and he’s wrong.”

Looking back, I’m kind of embarrassed.  I know God is sovereign and I have no way of knowing what Derek took away from that conversation.  But looking at that conversation on a purely surface level, I was ill equipped to intelligently respond to his relativistic worldview.  What may even be more embarrassing is that it took years before I took that time to think through what a good response to Derek may have been.  I was fine once I was able to retreat back into my holy huddle of suburban white middle class Christianity.

After reading chapter seven, I must say I wish I would have done something similar to Moreland’s attempt at stealing the student’s stereo to make his point (page 153-154).  I guess I could have thrown my Diet Coke in his face or made the guy sitting in front of him lean his seat all the way back or something cool like that.

Learning how to communicate the gospel of salvation clearly is invaluable and without a doubt should be a priority of the church.  But I wonder how many conversations Christians engage in with a skeptical or morally relativistic person that never make it to the point where the gospel of salvation can be shared because we cannot intelligently speak to a person’s skepticism, their philosophy of science, or their moral relativism?

The more I read in this book the more I see how vital it is for us to do all we can to better equip ourselves so that conversations with all the “Dereks” in this world don’t end like mine did.  I left that conversation happy I had a group of people who believed the same thing I did and Derek left that conversation a man who was still in need of a savior.

~Adam Tarnow