A mom has a son who is asking if Christianity is true. This is a real mom I interact with, by the way. How can he trust the Bible? How do we know it is true? What if our faith is in vain? What if somebody made it all up?
All these questions are flooding her son’s mind because he has lots of friends challenging him at school. I do not have anything AGAINST these teenagers. I think it’s awesome they ask though questions. I recently discovered that when you look for answers, you find them. I am honestly all pumped when I write and when I read books, because I know that my children will ask me those questions. I want to be ready to give them answers for the reason why I believe what I believe.
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…”
I have failed at being gentle and respectful. I know I have. I have asked God to forgive me, and also the people I wronged. That being said, disagreeing with people over faith issues is inevitable. I want to challenge my children to look for TRUTH. I myself don’t want to be lukewarm saying, “Well… this is my truth, then you have your truth, and all of us are right – somehow”
I don’t believe in Relativism.
Truth is true – even if no one knows it
Truth is true – even if no one admits it
Truth is true – even if no one agrees what it is
Truth is true – even if no one follows it
Truth is true – even if no one but God grasps it fully
I want to encourage my children to ask God to guide them when looking for Truth, because when your heart is set on finding Him, then He will show you who He is – guaranteed.
So I am writing this post for this teenager struggling, for myself, for my children, and for all the people who struggle or have struggled, or who will struggle with the concept of Christian Faith. All the credit goes to Rich Nathan, and Abdu Murray. I am just here to share what I have learned from them, and interpolate my own experiences.
I hope somebody finds this useful in their own spiritual journey. I encourage you to listen to the resources I provide at the end of this post.
WHAT IS FAITH?
You might be interested to know that there a lot of writers and thinkers who call themselves the “New Atheists”. One of the core New Atheist assertion that is repeated endlessly is Richard Dawkins’ statement that Faith is blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.
For Dawkins, Faith is a kind of mental illness. Dawkins and others rail against Faith because whereas the New Atheists prove their convictions with reason, religious people live in a fantasy world totally disconnected from reality. As Richard Dawkins puts it, Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.
And so the New Atheists love to talk about blind faith or something taken on faith or a leap of faith. What they mean is that people who have Faith are acting and believing without sufficient justification. People’s beliefs that are not supported by facts or logic. People embracing ideas despite an absence of evidence or proof.
I was definitely in this category.
For the most part of my experience as a Christian, I relied on reading my Bible and I never questioned its authenticity. So it wasn’t until my friends challenged me on the reliability of the Bible that I actually began asking the same kind of questions my friend’s teenager is asking.
What if the Bible is actually corrupted? What if I have blind faith? What if Jesus never died? Is that possible at all? Was I misguided into Christianity? What if I chose Christianity because I was never exposed to other religions? What is Faith?
So when I began having all these reasonable questions – that undoubtedly come when your faith is challenged – I felt awful. I felt guilty, and I felt like I was not supposed to doubt. I had no idea what to do. I wish I had had the “guts” to say, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it for me”.
But I couldn’t do that. I had to know more. In the next post I will address what Biblical Faith really is 🙂
Sources:
- Rich Nathan message transcript: Why does Faith make sense?
- Rich Nathan message transcript: What does Faith feels like?
- Rich Nathan. Vineyard Columbus: Heroic Faith Series
- Abdu Murray podcast: Faith and Doubt – Part 1
- Abdu Murray podcast: Faith and Doubt – Part 2
- Abdu Murray podcast: Faith and Doubt – Part 3
- Abdu Murray: Truth more than a feeling
Dissecting Jesus 