Been a While

Wow, it has been a while since my last post. I have been slacking but also reading two books about Mother Teresa that are really interesting to me. I will talk about them in another post.

Today a thought ran through my mind that might be a little random and off subject, but I want to share it anyway. Here it is: I wonder if, by the way the church evangelizes people, we create selfish Christians. I mean, think of how we try to "convert" people:

• God loves you
• He has a plan for you
• Jesus is your friend
• God is your father
• Join our church and become part of our church family
• God will forgive your sins
• Accept Jesus and you will be able to go to Heaven

All those things are great and true, but I just wonder if we focus so much on what people can get, how do we teach people the meaning of humility and putting others above themselves. I wonder if this is how all cultures do it.

Of course people want to be loved, to have a place to belong, to have hope for the future. But if that is all they know of God and the faith, is that true faith? Do they also need to know God's wrath and judgement to fully understand?

I have been studying Isaiah in a Bible study this year. There is some tough stuff in there... God wiping out whole groups of people because they turned from Him. He also used ungodly people to punish godly people. I know so much has changed because of Jesus and his sacrifice, but He is the same God now as he was back then.

Maybe all this came about because I need to balance and remedy in my mind the wrath vs. the grace of God. God's wrath is holy and so is his grace. It is just hard sometimes to grasp that for me.

Dealing with Doubt, Chapter 3

I am again continuing my review of the online book, Dealing with Doubt. Chapter 3 describes in more detail the topic of factual doubt. The author says there are four areas crucial to composing the gospel: the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, as well as His deity. He gives some evidence to the validity of these facts as follows.


CHRIST'S DEATH

1. There are several portrayals of the details of events in Jesus' life and there is agreement in the different documents. 
2. New Testament includes several creedal statements which are oral testimonies from the time of Jesus' death. This provides early witnesses to these facts.
3. More than 20 non-Christian sources mention Jesus and 12 include information about his death. 
4. Medical science provides strong evidence for death by crucifixion and that someone would not be able to play dead while being on the cross since they have to push up and down to breathe.
5. The spear wound in Jesus' side would have killed him and since water flowed out, it would have gone in his heart.
6. The swoon theory that some believe couldn't be true because if he did appear to the disciples he would have been in very bad shape and in need of much medical help.

THE BURIAL OF JESUS

1. Each of the 4 gospels record his burial and there is much agreement between them on general ideas. 
2. The creed in 1 Cor. records the burial of Jesus and predates the writing of the New Testament which shows early testimony.
3. Burial is the normal result of death. The facts which confirm his death would seem to lead naturally to his burial.

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS

1. The trustworthiness of the New Testament provides support for Jesus' resurrection.
2. The pre-New Testament creeds also support the resurrection of Jesus.
3. Several extra-biblical sources discuss the resurrection of Jesus.
4. The other attempts to explain away the resurrection of Jesus in natural terms have failed. 
5. Eyewitness testimony, disciples willingness to die for their beliefs in the resurrection, testimonies of Paul and James (former skeptical believers). 

THE DEITY OF CHRIST

1. The New Testament absolutely proclaims the diety of Christ.
2. Jesus proclaimed himself God and His actions reveal he acted as God. 
3. Early church proclaimed Jesus as deity.
4. Numerous extra-biblical sources refer to Jesus as deity. At least 3 non-Christian sources call Jesus divine, four others relate that the early church believed this about him.

Board says that "deep questions require deep study . . . . Christianity has something to do with fact and truth . . . . So doubts of error are met by knowledge and study." This I suppose is the point of my study.


The author suggests three ways to deal with factual doubt: 1.) Learn the factual basis of the Christian faith, 2.) We must constantly review and rehearse these facts through prayer, reading, worship and meditation, and 3.) the factual basis must be held by faith.


C.S. Lewis says "now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."


This chapter had some good points but the biggest issue I had is that it is assumed that a person already trusts the Bible as complete truth. That is a big hurdle to get over for most people I think.

Dealing with Doubt, Chapter 2

Continuing my review of the online book, Dealing with Doubt. This chapter deals with the different types of doubt a person can have. Each type of doubt has a different remedy. Here are the types the author outlines:

• Factual doubt: concerned with the evidential foundation for belief
• factual foundations
• sidetracked by pseudo problems
• questioning intellect
• system confusion   
• Emotional doubt: concerned with one's feelings and frequently involves more subjective responses
• psychological causes
• medical causes
• faulty view of God
• childhood problems
• old wounds
• judging by feelings
• need for attention
• lack of sleep
• peer pressure
• identifying with fiction
• Christian hypocrisy
• forgiven sin
• anxiety about the future
• judgment and Hell
• Volitional doubt: concerned with one's will and choices
• weak faith
• immature faith
• lack of growth
• self-sufficiency
• repentance
• difficulty of application

Something I need to keep in mind throughout my study is that "the testimony of the New Testament is that the healing of an individual's problems is performed by God and not by the person." I deal mostly with the factual doubts but also some of the others overlap for me from time to time.

Become a Christian to Join a Club?

I received the book I ordered about Mother Teresa. It is Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. He is not a Christian himself and he has a quote that was interesting:

"Of all the purposes which draw people together - excitement, cupidity, curiosity, lechery, hatred - this alone, worship, makes them seem like a loving family; abolishing the conflicts and divisions of class and race and wealth and talent, as they fall on their knees before a Father in heaven and his incarnate Son; confess their sins, renew their hopes, find the strength to snatch another mortal day from the splendid prospect opened before them of eternity, their immortal dwelling-place."

He said this quote in response to Mother Teresa wanting him to accept Christ. Muggeridge says he wants to only to please her. But he couldn't in good conscience do that because it would be "fraudulent."

How many people have joined the church to become part of a club or find a family that they are longing for. I know I grew a lot in my faith in college when I was living with and spending a lot of time with some really great friends who were Christ-followers. I wanted to please them as well as grow closer to them so I was interested in what they were into. This means Bible studies, prayer groups and leadership at our campus ministry. I don't think my motivation for doing these things was fully Christ-centered.

Does Doubt Influence Commitment?

So as the first chapter of Dealing With Doubt said, most all people have issues with doubt from time to time. What I wonder is, does this doubt affect people "selling out" to Christ and living a radical life for His purposes?

For example, when people give reasons why they don't witness to others, I have never heard someone say because they have doubts in their faith. Maybe this is something they don't want to admit to. I know this is an issue for me. The doubts I have often make it hard for me to want to tell others about Him.

Also, the doubts make me wonder about what if our faith is not true? What then? All the time and energy we spend praying, studying the Bible, serving at church, etc. would be a waste. Then we would have to figure out the real purpose of life... being happy, leaving a legacy, mastering an area of expertise, etc.

Mother Teresa's Doubts

Most would consider Mother Teresa to be a great example of Christ's message on earth. However, despite her living the life, her inner faith was in turmoil throughout her life. She wrote of her inner "dryness", "darkness", "loneliness" and "torture". She shared these issues with her spiritual confidant, Rev. Michael van der Peet. Here are some excerpts of what she wrote to him:

• "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, - Listen and do not hear - the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me - that I let Him have [a] free hand."
• "Where is my Faith - even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness - My God - how painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd my heart - & make me suffer untold agony"
• "I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"
• "Such deep longing for God - and ... repulsed - empty - no faith - no love - no zeal. - [The saving of] Souls hold no attraction - Heaven means nothing - pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything."
• "What do I labour for? If there be no God - there can be no soul - if there is no Soul then Jesus - You also are not true."

This quote from an article about these letters really sum it up... "Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith? And who would have thought that the one thought to be the most ardent of believers could be a saint to the skeptics?"

After reading through these quotes I have decided to buy the book of letters that Mother Teresa wrote. I am intrigued by both her public successes and internal struggles.

Dealing with Doubt, Chapter 1

I found an interesting online book called Dealing with Doubt by Gary R. Habermas (http://www.garyhabermas.com/books/dealing_with_doubt/dealing_with_doubt.htm). This post will include what I took away from Chapter 1 - Introduction: Some Crucial Groundwork.

• "I will define doubt more specifically as a lack of certainty concerning the teachings of Christianity or one's personal relation to them."
• C.S. Lewis: "Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable."
• Mark Littleton: "Doubt hangs its hat on all Christians. None can honestly say they've escaped it."
• John Guest holds that all Christians were once agnostic in that they moved from unbelief to belief. Some Christians remain in a semi-agnostic condition even after salvation.
• Stephen Board thinks that there may at least be some truth to the saying that unless a person has never doubted, he has never truly believed.
• It is true that doubt may progress to where it may challenge one's very faith, but the failure to believe is unbelief or disbelief, not doubt.
• Littleton: "But doubt is not the opposite of faith . . . . doubt suggests that there is a lack of faith somewhere, but a person can doubt and still have a perfectly sound trust in God. Doubt is rather a state of uncertainty, a spiritual fork in our road."
• Even John the Baptist questioned Jesus if he was the Messiah. Jesus did not rebuke him for this. (Matt. 11:1-11; Lk. 7:18-30)
• Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus. (Jn. 20:24-29)