Are you aware of this provocative article? “Christian apologist says church is producing atheists.” Part of this short article reads:
Churches are producing atheists by not answering the questions of young people and explaining why they believe in the Bible, said a Christian apologist who works with young adults. Anthony Horvath, who was formerly an atheist himself after years of Christian education, pointed out that renowned atheists such as Richard Dawkins were raised in the Church but have become some of the fiercest attackers of God. He further noted, “Books like Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ and Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ do not become best sellers in a society that understands what Christianity is all about.” Horvath, who has taught religion to middle school and high school students, explained that some of the recurring questions young adults struggle with but churches often fail to address include the formation and development of the Bible, the presence of evil and suffering in the world, and the question of inspiration and inerrancy.
Churches are producing atheists by not answering the questions of young people and explaining why they believe in the Bible, said a Christian apologist who works with young adults.
Anthony Horvath, who was formerly an atheist himself after years of Christian education, pointed out that renowned atheists such as Richard Dawkins were raised in the Church but have become some of the fiercest attackers of God.
He further noted, “Books like Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ and Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ do not become best sellers in a society that understands what Christianity is all about.”
Horvath, who has taught religion to middle school and high school students, explained that some of the recurring questions young adults struggle with but churches often fail to address include the formation and development of the Bible, the presence of evil and suffering in the world, and the question of inspiration and inerrancy.
I’m in agreement with what this article states. Most of the churches I have belonged to in 47 years of being a Christian have not addressed these apologetic topics. If teens and young adults don’t get their questions answered by the church, what are they to believe? Christians can’t come up with satisfactory answers to society’s penetrating issues.
I know that there is significant material online if one knows where to go. However, the ministry "to prepare God's people for works of service" (Eph. 4:12 NIV) surely involves apologetic training to build up the body of Christ.
Eph. 4:14 tells us what the result will be: "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" (NIV).
What’s your view?
In Christ, Spencer
There is some truth here, but I thik things are more complex as to why our culture has rejected Christ, even in many so called 'churches'.
i take it back a step, not that we have not shown evidence for the truth claims of the bible and Chrisitnas faith,m but mroe we have not preached it and focused on a theology of the cross, or slavation as a free gift to hell bound sinenrs.We have preached too often a wiennie god who has no real wrath or moral fiber, a cuddle bunny deity that is sort of there when men need a hug and affirms their basic vuale and goodness when they need a lift, but whose law word cna be basicly ignored as we do the human project. Becuase we have made 'god' so small in the eyes of men, even if they see the evidence for His word as true it means little, for Hi is little and little enogh of one we need to dela with. The truth about a nice Godette is a nice truth to find, but need not upset us much it we don;'t, of wnat to follow another idea. So as necessary as it is to show the evidence for the truth of God, if the 'god' so spoken of is fairly inconsequential and vipid, evne the best proof about Him or His historic work will be of little impact on people.
So as real as the apologetic failure of the chruch is, and it is a reality in many so called 'evangelicals', evenjellyfills they might be claled, sweet and flabby fattening goop, I see the real problem the so called 'God' placed at the end of the search, the God so 'proven' proves to be not worth bothering to prove or disprove. The salvation offered, being not much different than what is sold in the self help book section, just one of many possible options, the church a pretty and nice way to do what man would do anyways.
I think the reason many become atheists, or 'spiritual in their own way', which amounts to the same thign, is that for a century or more the so claled 'God' the churches have been delaing with is not relaly all that significent or upsetting or evne real, a cosmic great grand daddy with goodies for all. Noce for those into that sort of thign, evne true as history, but why need I bother, why need I fear and tremble at His presence? Nothign about this soft godette shatters, and so nothing of it matters much. Until our preachign, includign apologetics, is saying it is an 'all or nothign, heavne or hell, life and death' matter, nothing will end the slip sliding away.
<<i take it back a step, not that we have not shown evidence for the truth claims of the bible and Chrisitnas faith,m but mroe we have not preached it and focused on a theology of the cross, or slavation as a free gift to hell bound sinenrs.We have preached too often a wiennie god who has no real wrath or moral fiber, a cuddle bunny deity that is sort of there when men need a hug and affirms their basic vuale and goodness when they need a lift, but whose law word cna be basicly ignored as we do the human project.>>
<<In many ways our children have been taught the "gentle Jesus meek and mild" type of religion. Talk to many Christians and they will talk about God being love but start to talk about God being just and the judge of all and they raise objections. I think the problem starts in the Sunday School and probably continues into the sermon. But then again, the World has gained the view of the Christian as someone akin to the current archbishop of Canterbury who bends over backwards to get people to agree.>>
I think you have greatly overestimated the 'Christian' nautre of what is found in most American, even so called 'evangelical' churches now. Today's churches, with a few exceptions, do not insulate their young at all, but the youth find in church simply the same sort of views and practices as one finds in the world, just without the cuss words and more vlatant forms of nihilism on open view. Whatever may have been true when I was a kid, and there was a bit of that then, it is long gone in almost all churches. All the data suggests no real substantive difference exists on basic worldview levels, or in ways of concievign the world, even religiously or ethically, between church kids and other kids.
I think most of the evident church life tends more to harden kids against the rela thing than have them ever be exposed to it. When they think the Christian fiath is is just anotehr version of the same 'religion' of universalism and human potential development that all the rest are. So to prove facts of that true may be a necesary task, in fact it is, but what you get from doing that is not a mroe Chrsitian kid, but one who just happens to firm his worldivew with the true version of the same religion all the rest share, with maybe a few minor ethicla quirks tossed in as ideals we someday ought to aspire to, after the fun times mommy and daddy don't relaly need to know about.
proving that sort of 'Christiantiy' true might even be counterproductive, it might let them rest ocntent thinking they have got the right stuff, the real thing, the truth. But in fact what you have established is no more 'biblical Chrsitian' then the 'Man in the Moon' religion of the world by another name.
Think of the contrast in the preaching of Paul to Jews or pagans as in Acts 14 or 17. With Jews paul could go right to the apologetic task of showing Jesus was the historiclaly valid fufillment of the thing, because they had the base to work from and context to know what he was going on to prove. Today no such 'Christian foundation knowers' really exist, even in churches, and we have to step back from neat, and preceisely accurate, history and such to the mroe baisc questions of who God is and we are and how relaity [both ours and moral relaity[ is basicly constittued, before 'Jesus' will mean to them what it means to us. Othrwise they will plug in the new history and titles of Jesus into the old catagories, [Why, of course, here are Zues and Mercury! / here is a system of ideas that is basicly ahistorical mythic ways of grasping ideal meaning].
<<proving that sort of 'Christiantiy' true might even be counterproductive, it might let them rest ocntent thinking they have got the right stuff, the real thing, the truth. But in fact what you have established is no more 'biblical Chrsitian' then the 'Man in the Moon' religion of the world by another name.>>
Here’s an Australian glimpse of beliefs of people who attend church (the National Church Life Survey, NCLS). Some of the fast facts are:
Faith and Everyday Life: Some 51% of attenders see God as the most important reality in their lives. A further 33% see God as more important than almost anything else in their lives. NCLS 2001) Belief in God: The majority of attenders (85%) accept there is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. NCLS 1996) View of Bible: The vast majority (91%) believe the Bible is the word of God in some form. NCLS 1996) Virgin Birth: 72% believe that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus NCLS 1996) Private Devotions: Two-thirds of attenders spend time in private devotional activities NCLS 1996)
Here are some other statistics:
There are lower levels of orthodox belief among young people in the wider community. While 57% of those aged over 60 in the general community believe that Jesus was God in the full sense, this figure falls to just 33% for those under the age of 40.
Is this a trend that is also consistent within the churches? While this pattern is repeated for younger Catholics, the story for Anglicans and Protestant attenders under 40 is quite different. These attenders were more likely to affirm orthodox beliefs such as, that Christ was fully God and fully human and that he physically rose from the dead. The gap then between the Church and the community is growing, and growing at a significant rate. While 21% of all church attenders believe the Virgin Birth to be a symbolic rather than a literal event almost three-quarters (72%) believe that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. (Catholic 65%, Anglican 67%, Uniting 62%, Baptist 90%, and Pentecostal 95%) The vast majority of attenders (91%) believe the Bible is the Word of God. Based on their responses, different positions can be identified. The ‘Literalist’ group, those believing that the Bible is to be taken literally word for word comprising of 24%. The ‘Contextualist’ group, those believing that the Bible has to be interpreted in the light of its historical and cultural context accounting for 32%. The ‘Traditionalist’ group, those believing that interpretation must take place in light of the churches teachings and traditions made up 35%.
Is this a trend that is also consistent within the churches? While this pattern is repeated for younger Catholics, the story for Anglicans and Protestant attenders under 40 is quite different. These attenders were more likely to affirm orthodox beliefs such as, that Christ was fully God and fully human and that he physically rose from the dead. The gap then between the Church and the community is growing, and growing at a significant rate.
While 21% of all church attenders believe the Virgin Birth to be a symbolic rather than a literal event almost three-quarters (72%) believe that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. (Catholic 65%, Anglican 67%, Uniting 62%, Baptist 90%, and Pentecostal 95%)
The vast majority of attenders (91%) believe the Bible is the Word of God. Based on their responses, different positions can be identified. The ‘Literalist’ group, those believing that the Bible is to be taken literally word for word comprising of 24%. The ‘Contextualist’ group, those believing that the Bible has to be interpreted in the light of its historical and cultural context accounting for 32%. The ‘Traditionalist’ group, those believing that interpretation must take place in light of the churches teachings and traditions made up 35%.
>>What’s your view?>>
I agree, but for different reasons. Almost all, (I said 'almost') churches of today don't teach the consequence for sin. They don't even teach what sin is. They are all 'Feel Good' churches. An awful lot of them are just entertainment centers. People go into them carrying a Bible and have no idea what is in it. There are even a lot of those preachers that don't know, either.
Harold.
I don't follow the statistics much because I have found most people will "say what they are told to say" without any evident ral content belief to back that up. So you have a conversation with a person who speaks of the deity of Chrsit and the cross in one paragraph, and then you go along for a bit and they equally affirm some new age mystical practice or beleif in reincarnation and the like, and they simply seem unable, or unwilling, to see any possible conflict in the two 'beleifs'. To me this actually suggests they don't beleive the Chrisitan talk, but just use it without regard to any real meaning or life forming power it may have.
Our church here in town has gone the way of all flesh, as far as I care they can just keep on goign deepr, and I would join with another oen, if we had another one that was not in many wyas doing just the same thing, more or less. Even the so called Christian Reformed church has self help sermons and little biblical concern, though of coruse they maintain the forms of beleif and style of their confessional stance. The local Baptist group is into country music and pot lucks, though it has some solid people and a good pastor, the Assembly church at least preaches the neeed for people to get saved, to their credit, but the style is sort of an 'Episcapal light' semi-upper class pretense.
There are some good churches in driving distance, which is fine if you drive. But as far as I can see the gospel is dead in this area, even though it would descibe itself msotly as 'moderate to conservitive' in religious terms. [none of the mainline groups, even the Methodist, woould ever admit to being a 'liberal' group around here, 'of coruse notm, we are Chrsitians' as one memeber said commenting on my quuesitons about their pastor's writing in their newsletter last Easter that basicly made the resurrection ahisotircla, 'he does nto mean that but is speaking of how it impacts our life'. Yeah right, what's next, so claled evangelical churches sponsoring 'Bunco game night" > wait, my church does that already.
I would nto be very 'keen on' preaching the wrath of God, it must be preached, but with tears abd compassion as its motive.
Thus because I beleive in preaching texts and not topics, I would nto preahc on the wrath of God as such, but expound the text as it stands, where it speaks of the divine wrth, we do, where it speaks of the divine salvation, we do. Because texts have topics we will stick to the topic WITHIN the text itself, we don't however want to prweach on any tipic we pick out, but on the text and what it says.
One of the worst sermons I ever heard was perfectly sound and orthodox ont he topic of hell, the words were wonderful and sound, but the sermon was itself hellish, as the speaker spoke of the comign judgment and wrath of God in almost gleeful terms, those sinners are gonna get it hard, and of course we are getting heaven! What he said was true as far as it went, the holy God whio judges sin was spoken of correctly in a formal sense, but I left the service feeling unclean and spiritually assaulted by such crass selfish insensitivity to the need for salvation of the lost.
It might be almost better not to speak of these thigns much if when we do we are not filled with anguish over the fact that some must end up there, and if our hearts don't long to see people saved from the wrath of God. .
I think I know what you mean by saying the love of God must be 'tempered' by His justice, but I would not put it that way.
Rather I think that all the attributes of God must be given full sight in our preaching, not one tempering or toning down the impact of the oterh, but all togeterh let have their fullest possible impact. Preaching the amazing nature of grace makes the wrath of God all the more vivid and powerful and effecrting, preaching the wrath of God makes His love and mercy shine forth more brightly as we realize we all deserve just such white hot wrath. I want to avoid any impression that by speaking of both we somehow move things to a sort of middle ground - rather the balance comes from both ends being true and in a dynamic balance of hot wrath and hot love, rather than a steqady state medium condition between them somehow.
In effect this means combining Calvin's theology with Luther's way of preaching the gospel. Careful analysis and balance comes only rightly when in service to bold proclamation of both law and grace. Light without heat blinds with pride, heat without light burns with egoism, There must be a 'burning and shining light' that is both careful in balance and full of the 'whole counsel fo God' and yet is also full of passion, tears, intensity, not tempered in any way, but filled out with a holy zeal for God's glory and our neighbor's good.
Now I think that is what you meant, but to me our problem today is that we are too nice and careful too often. The offense of the cross is lost by our temperate tones, our soft words, our carefullness. Because we are so light and nice we lose both the power of the morla law to convict us of our sins and so indulge in a worldly minded morality as fine, and we lose sight of the fact the gosple is not a program or phhilosophy but good news to dead lost sinners with no other possible hope.
