A Conversation Between a Teacher/Evangelist and Me

Shortly after becoming a Christian in Summer 1980, I was confronted by the man with whom I had studied the Bible and who had baptized me. Our conversation went something like this:

T/E:   Hey, I hear that you believe it is okay for Christians to drink alcoholic beverages. Why do you believe that?

Me:    Because that’s what the Bible teaches.

T/E:   No, it doesn’t. Christians should abstain from alcohol.

Me:    Then why does Paul say in First Corinthians 11 that the worshipers were getting drunk on the Lord’s Supper? They could only get drunk if the wine they were using was alcoholic.

T/E:   That’s not what the original Greek says. The word translated as drunk there really means “to become full”.

Me:    Then why did the translators use the word “drunk”?

T/E:   They just mistranslated it. Come to my office with me and I’ll show you.

I follow him to his office, and he pulls out his Greek New Testament and a Greek Dictionary. He opens the Bible to 1 Corinthians.

T/E:   Okay, here it is. Here’s the verse in First Corinthians you were talking about. And here’s the Greek word that is translated “drunk”. Now, let me show you what it says in the dictionary.

          He finds the word in the dictionary, but just sits there and says nothing.

Me:    So, what does it say the Greek word means?

T/E:   It says it means to be drunk. (Pauses) I’m going to have to study this more.

Me:    Okay. Let me know what you find out.

T/E:   I will.

          I never heard another word from him on the matter.

A Conversation About Sending Missionaries

Joe:    Hey, Bob. What are your plans for vacation this summer?

Bob:  Well, my wife and I are actually going on a mission trip during our vacation time this year.

Joe:    Really? I didn’t take you to be the proselytizing type.

Bob:  Oh, I’m not. Or least I haven’t been. But recently my wife and I both decided we needed to do more to spread the gospel.

Joe:    Admirable. Of course, you know I’m an agnostic, so I would never do such a thing. But I can understand why a believer such as yourself would want to go. Where are you going?

Bob:  A remote tribe in South America. It’s my understanding that the gospel has never been presented to the tribe before.

Joe:    Wow! That remote, huh? I’d be scared out of my mind. But since you believe they are lost and going to hell without Jesus, I understand why you’d want to go. And speaking of that, I’ve always had a problem with a God that would condemn people for not believing in someone they don’t even know existed. Seems unfair to me.

Bob:  I never said they were going to hell. There are some verses in the Bible that indicate that God may judge people who have never heard the gospel using a different standard than those who have heard.

Joe:    Really? I’ve always understood the Bible to say that the only way to heaven is through faith in Jesus.

Bob:  Yes, that is true, but there is some indication that God will have mercy on those who have never had a chance to hear about Jesus. God really is merciful. I don’t believe he’d condemn people for not believing something they don’t even know about.

Joe:    Well, I guess that’s good to know, assuming that the Bible is true. But now I have to ask: Why are you going?

Bob:  How do you mean?

Joe:    I mean, why are you going to preach the gospel to a group of people who are already saved?

Bob:  Who said they are saved?

Joe:    I thought you just did. You said they would be judged according to a different standard than those who have heard the gospel. I thought that meant they were saved.

Bob:  No, salvation only comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

Joe:    So, that tribe is not going to heaven?

Bob:  I didn’t say that either. I believe they will go to heaven rather than hell, but only by the grace and mercy of God, not because they are saved. Their rewards in heaven will not be as great as a believer who is saved.

Joe:    Okay, I’m a bit confused. Isn’t the most important thing to go to heaven rather than hell, not that you get there through salvation in Christ? And isn’t heaven with few rewards much better than hell?

Bob:  Yes, that’s true, but the good news of Christ is not just about the afterlife, it’s also for this life. Knowing Jesus will make this life better as well.

Joe:    I would argue that that’s not always true, but let’s put that aside. I have a question. What happens to the tribespeople that hears about Jesus and then reject the message?

Bob:  Well, according to the Bible, they will be lost.

Joe:    And bound for hell?

Bob:  Yes.

Joe:    So why are you going?

Bob:  I answered that already.

Joe:    Not exactly. Let’s lay out what you have said so far. The tribespeople are all going to heaven. Their life here on Earth may not be as good as it could be, and they may not be rewarded as well in heaven, but at least they aren’t going to hell. To me, that seems to be a positive. Now, you plan to preach the good news of Jesus to them. What are the possible outcomes? Some will believe, which may lead to a better life here on Earth and more rewards in heaven. But those who reject the message will now be on a path to hell whereas before hearing the message they were on a path to heaven. Overall, it seems like your preaching has no upside, only a downside.

Bob:  I haven’t really thought about it that way.

Joe:    Well, maybe you should. So, now, why are you going?

Bob:  I guess my answer has to be that Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel to all tribes and nations.

Joe:    I know enough about the Bible to know that is true. But why would he ask people to do that if everyone who hasn’t heard the gospel is going to heaven anyway? Wouldn’t the only valid reason for preaching be that people are lost and bound for hell?

Bob:  I don’t know. I can certainly see your point. Perhaps I have been wrong about people who haven’t heard about Jesus going to heaven. Or perhaps some are going to heaven and some aren’t. So, he wants us to preach to everyone just in case they need to hear.

Joe:    That certainly makes Jesus’ command to preach to everyone make more sense. But it still concerns me that there might be some who are going to heaven who no longer will after hearing the gospel. I thought preaching the gospel was about bringing people into heaven, not casting them out.

Bob:  I hear you. I just don’t know how to answer that. On the one hand, I find it hard to believe that God would condemn a person who has never heard about Jesus. But on the other hand, I don’t know why he would have us preach to those who are already going to heaven if it could lead to some of them rejecting the gospel and not going to heaven. I think I’m going to have to study this topic a bit more.

Joe:    Sounds like a good plan. Let me know what you find out.

On Being Jesus and Beyond

This morning I was thinking about what it would have been like to be Jesus. If he was fully God, as many assert, then from a young age he would have known every single thing he would do and say for the rest of his earthly life. Can you imagine knowing when you are two years old that when you turn 33 you are going to experience a brutal death on the cross? And can you imagine going through life having no choice but to do those things you foresee lest you prove yourself unworthy of Godhood by not having perfect foresight of the future?

On the other hand, having perfect foreknowledge could be fun. Just imagine never having to study for an exam and still getting a C% on every exam and straight Alpha’s on every report card. Think how you could handle those bullies who always want to pick a fight. You could dodge every punch and kick and win the fight through attrition without ever mustering a blow. You could be the greatest mentalist of all. Of course, you could only do those things if your foreknowledge allowed them. If your foreknowledge said you had to miss some questions on an exam, get Beta’s or Gamma’s on your report card, or take a few blows from the bullies, then you’d have to make sure those things happened.

On the other hand, perhaps God relinquished some of his powers when taking on a human form. Perhaps Jesus did not have perfect foreknowledge. After all, he was different from God when it came to other things such as pain. He bled like a human which God supposedly doesn’t do as a spiritual being. But if Jesus had fewer powers than God, then isn’t it true he was not God, but rather a human? You might ask, “But what about the miracles he performed?” Well, the apostles performed miracles. So did a number of people in the Old Testament. If performing miracles is proof one is God, then all these other miracle workers were God also. But I don’t know anyone who believes that.

You might be thinking, “Jesus was God because he was God before taking on human form. He just chose to take on a human form and give up his Godly powers for the benefit of humankind.” Perhaps so, but if God can choose to relinquish his powers when taking on a human form, cannot he choose to do so while in spiritual form? I have heard a number of people say that if the being we call God is not omnipotent (having all powers), omnipresent (being everywhere at once throughout all time), and omniscient (knowing all things and knowing everything that happens everywhere throughout all time), then that being is not really God. To me, this seems to be rather presumptuous. Who are we to tell God what attributes he must possess? Rather, shouldn’t God himself be allowed to choose who he will be and what attributes he will claim for himself?

Here’s a thought. Perhaps the primary attribute of God is his ability to choose. Choose how he will create. Choose what he will know. Choose where to be at any given time. Choose how he will interact with his creation. Quantum theory has shown us that at its base level, the Universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. For example, electrons aren’t fixed particles with fixed positions and momentums, but rather a probability field. You might call this limited determinism or restrained chaos. If this view of the Universe is correct, it implies that God created a Universe whose future cannot be known with certainty. Perhaps he did this on purpose, not wanting to be bored for billions of years by knowing everything that was going to happen. If you want to get a sense of how utterly boring living in a totally predictable Universe can be, watch the old episode of The Twilight Zone entitled “A Nice Place to Visit”.

The current understanding of our Universe is that it consists of a multitude of invisible fields. No, sports fans, not football fields or baseball fields or soccer fields, but rather quark fields, lepton fields, and boson fields. These fields interact with each other to produce what we perceive to be matter and energy. And thanks to Albert Einstein, we know that these two things are interchangeable via the formula E=mc². But what we perceive as particles are actually bundles of probability, thus unpredictable in a deterministic way. Given that everything in the Universe is made up of these fields, that means our brains are made up of these fields as well. Yet, it seems that somehow we are able to make choices. But how? Could it be that the interactions of the fields as embodied by a brain have some sort of feedback that allows us to “nudge” the probabilities in such a way as to make them fall on the choice we want? Whatever is going on, we perceive we can take in information and make freewill choices that are non-deterministic. We also perceive we are conscious beings. Could it be that being made in the image of God means being given the ability to make choices. Choices that are limited by our physical nature, but choices nonetheless.

Here’s another thought. If the invisible fields that make up our Universe can interact in such a way as to make brains capable of knowledge, emotions, and choices, could it be that all the interactions throughout the entirety of these fields in the whole Universe makes one humongous super-brain that is much more capable than any one brain. And perhaps it is this super-brain that sustains everything. Perhaps that super-brain is what we call God.

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Acts 17:27-28

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Thoughts on the Movie "The Case for Christ"

Kathy and I went to see the movie "The Case for Christ" this afternoon. It was an excellent movie and well acted. I found myself being caught up in the emotion of it all.

In case you don't know, Lee Strobel is a famous Christian apologist who started out as an atheist. He has written many poplar apologetic books. This movie depicts his journey from atheism to faith. As an investigative journalist for The Chicago Tribune, he was a firm believer in following the facts wherever they led. When his wife becomes a Christian, he sets out to prove the resurrection of Jesus never happened by visiting and interviewing experts in many fields of study. Eventually he realizes that the evidence for the resurrection was strong and he could not disprove it, so he converts to Christianity himself.

I have read several of Strobel's books and used to watch a question and answer TV show he hosted. His story is intriguing, as are other stories like his, such as Josh McDowell's. There have been a number of atheists that have come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus after examining the evidence. But on the other hand, there have been a number of Christians that have become unbelievers upon more thoroughly investigating the evidence. I am one of those people as is Dan Barker, who was an evangelical preacher for 19 years before realizing that he really didn't believe what he was preaching.

So, how can that be? How can two people examine the exact same evidence and come to such radically different conclusions? It's a conundrum, but fascinating. Think about a trial where 12 people are listening to the evidence being presented about the guilt or innocence of an alleged criminal. Sometimes the evidence is overwhelming one way or the other and all 12 vote the same way. However, in other cases, the evidence is not quite so clear. There is some evidence that makes you think the person is guilty, but other evidence that makes you think the person is innocent.

So what makes a person come down on one side or the other? Well, I believe it has to do with how much evidence each individual requires in order to be convinced of something. Some people can be told that friendly space aliens are going to land in Central Park tomorrow to take willing Earthlings to a better planet, and they will be lined up waiting at midnight. Others could actually see aliens land and take people and still not believe it, thinking some sort of delusion had overtaken them.

There's many other factors that can affect someone's decision in the face of conflicting evidence. Past experiences, facial expressions of the witnesses while they were testifying, how often they have been lied to by supposedly trustworthy people, etc. So, getting 12 people to agree on the meaning of the evidence is actually quite a feat.

In my case, I'm hard-nosed. I want to have near ironclad evidence, especially when it concerns supernatural events such as a resurrection. But when I conducted my multi-year investigation of the Bible, I discovered that the evidence for the supernatural events reported in it, especially the resurrection of Jesus, didn't even come close to being ironclad. In fact, the more I studied, the more ironclad it became against the resurrection. But, it never became what I would call conclusive. And that's the problem. I recorded my thoughts concerning my studies in a book entitled, "God Is."

The Bible says that God does not want any to be lost. Yet, it also says that if you don't believe, you WILL be lost. If you had a child that was in danger and you knew exactly what that child needed to be saved from that danger, would you not do exactly what was required of you? So, if God knows what each of us needs to believe and be saved, why does he not provide that for each individual? Why leave some hanging with a lack of evidence? These are the questions I cannot answer, assuming there is really a loving, powerful God in control.

First Contact – Part 28 – Christian Music

Does God change? According to the Bible, he does not. But also according to the Bible, he does. That is the confusing nature of the Holy Writ. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” This seems to imply that while we humans change our minds on things, God by his very nature does not. Yet, throughout the Bible we see God change his mind. Some might say that the Numbers verse is only talking about crucial matters, not trivial things. Okay, but what about changing his mind about sin itself? Wouldn’t it seem reasonable that God would be consistent about matters of good and evil?

Let’s look at a few examples. Keeping the Sabbath was extremely important to God in the Old Testament. It was so important to him that he made breaking it punishable by death. But today believers don’t pay it any mind. They work and play on the Sabbath without concern of being put to death. And not only that, many Christians have started calling Sunday the Sabbath. But the Bible never does that. The Sabbath was always Saturday. Sunday was called the first day of the week. Did God change his mind about the importance of the Sabbath, or did people make that change?

The Bible is pretty consistent in its lack of condemnation of slavery. This institution was simply accepted as a reality. Christian support of slavery was common as late as the mid-1800’s. Of course there were some Christians who found it abhorrent regardless of the lack of condemnation in their Scriptures. Today, slavery is pretty much universally condemned by the Church. Did God change his mind about slavery, or did people make that change?

In the Old Testament, adultery was so evil to God that he called for the execution of its participants. But in the New Testament we see that Jesus thought that only people who were without sin should cast those execution stones. Does anyone think that the people God told to execute adulterers in the Old Testament were sinless? So, did God change his mind about how to punish adulterers, or did people make that change?

I mentioned in a previous post that most Churches of Christ believe it is sinful to use musical instruments in worship to God. Yet in the Old Testament we read of people praising God with musical instruments. Did God change his mind about his followers using instruments in praise to him, or did people make that change? I’m sure that all those Christians in churches that do use musical instruments would answer the latter and point out it is just a select few who made that change.

When I was growing up, the predominant form of Christian music I listened to was country, bluegrass, and quartet music. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but today I find it interesting how secular country music and religious country music were all wrapped up together in a bundle. It was not unusual to watch a country music show on TV and hear a song about murdering someone and throwing them off a bridge and then a few minutes later, during the gospel segment of the program, hear a song about the love of Jesus and his coming to take his saints home. I don’t recall ever seeing a secular rock or pop show that had a gospel segment associated with it.

In the late 1960’s, but mostly throughout the 1970’s, something wonderful began to happen. Or rather something evil began to happen. It depended on who you were. Contemporary Christian music came on the scene. I first heard this style of music after I graduated from college and began my career. I had become friends with a fellow named Rod who worked at the store where I bought my stereo system. It turned out he lived in a house just a couple of blocks away from my apartment. He began inviting me to parties he and his roommate would have. Rod’s roommate was a fan of some of the Contemporary Christian music of that era and used to play it on Rod’s $5000 stereo system. Talk about cranking it up loud. That system could handle the sound of a jet engine without distortion. There was one group he listened to that really caught my attention: The 2nd Chapter of Acts. I was enthralled by the pop rock-ish sound of their music; especially given it was “Christian” music. On one album a young guitarist by the name of Phil Keaggy played and sang. He was incredible. I later learned that he started as a guitarist in the secular world, but became a Christian, prompting him to change genres. In fact, he was slated by some to be the next Jimi Hendrix, but that all changed with his conversion. Well, unless you want to consider him a Christian Jimi Hendrix.

Contemporary Christian music began to catch on in a number of Christian circles; but not in others. I heard a number of preachers on TV and the radio condemning this new style of music. They considered the style and sound of the music to be of the devil, and no amount of Christian lyrics accompanying it could make it acceptable to God. They were warning young people to stay clear of the music and called on parents to forbid their children listening to it lest they lose their souls. However, over time, many of those condemning preachers began to embrace the music as a tool to reach young people for Christ. Once again the Sabbath had lost its importance, slavery had become evil, and adultery was no longer punishable by death. In other words, believers had changed their thinking about what God wants and had reinterpreted Scripture to match.

The point of all this is that Deanna Troi was right in Star Trek: The Next Generation when she said, “That's the problem with believing in a supreme being: trying to determine what he wants.” Throughout history there have been people of faith that sincerely believed they knew what God wanted. So much so they were willing to die for that belief or kill for it. Oftentimes a new generation would come along that realized their ancestors had been wrong about those beliefs. Or could it be that the ancestors were right and the new generation had been led astray by the devil? That’s the conundrum. Even so, sometimes it doesn’t even take a new generation to realize the error. People often come to realize that they themselves had been wrong about certain issues and change their minds accordingly, just as some of the preachers who had originally condemned Contemporary Christian music did.

Despite its shaky roots, Contemporary Christian music has become mainstream. Many radio stations across the country specialize in playing this genre. I became a great fan of artists such as Amy Grant, Twila Paris, Newsboys, Stryper, Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Petra, and many more. I continued to be a fan even after I changed my beliefs about the Bible. Let’s pray they are not of the devil.

First Contact – Part 21 – Baptists

The Baptist Church is the church I was first exposed to and with which I have had the longest contact. When my parents were young, it was common for people to have a home church yet visit churches of different denominations whenever they had revivals or gospel meetings or whatever. My mother grew up primarily in the Baptist church. I never heard my dad speak of having a home church. I believe that was because he really didn’t attend church very much. You see, he only had a 4^th grade education and couldn’t speak very well. As he got older, he became more and more embarrassed about it and therefore didn’t feel comfortable in a group setting, especially if it was likely someone might call on him to speak or lead a prayer. Even so, I know that he did attend church services on occasion.

As I was growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, I do not recall a single time that my dad attended a class or worship service at a church.  He would go to a church building for a funeral or a party or whatnot, but not for a service. My mom didn’t drive, so she was dependent on someone taking her to church. My dad mostly worked evening shift at his place of employment, so was used to sleeping late in the mornings. Fortunately, Mom had a cousin that drove herself to church, so she started picking my mom up to go with her. As a young child I attended with them. I went to Sunday School, but I don’t remember anything about it other than being in a Christmas play one year. We performed the play in a room, the stage being in one corner. I recall it being my turn to talk and totally forgetting my lines. My SS teacher started prompting me from offstage by saying the first few words. I repeated the words and was able to finish.

My mom had a fear of putting her head under water. So, although she had attended church for years, she had never been baptized. It took a lot of courage on her part, but she finally decided she needed to be baptized. I remember going to that service. I was sitting about halfway back in the sanctuary and watched the event unfold. I was concerned about what she might do upon being dunked under the water. She came out of the water floundering a bit and wiping her face, but nothing too embarrassing. I was proud of her for overcoming her fears for the sake of doing something she really believed in and had wanted to do for many years.

I believe I was in junior high school when a good friend of mine invited me to go to church with him. He attended a Baptist Church not too far from my home. A young man was teaching our Sunday School class, and somehow he got onto the topic of marriage. He asked the class what we thought about interracial marriage. I guess he felt the need to address this topic since it was becoming a societal issue after the civil rights movement. Being young whippersnappers with keen insight, we all sat there like bumps on a log. Hey, how was a bunch of dumb youth supposed to answer a deep philosophical and religious question like that? Well, I actually had some thoughts on the matter, but feared they might not be the right ones, so I kept my mouth shut. He went on to explain how he thought the Bible taught us to keep the races pure. He may have made a point about the Jews in the Old Testament being commanded to not intermarry with other nations, but I don’t recall for sure. He did say something about how the birds of a feather flock together and how the natural thing to do was to only marry your own kind. I have not been able to find this justification for same-race marriages in the New Testament, so I guess he was trying to make his point by observing nature. But apparently he somehow overlooked dogs during those observations. As he was making his argument for same-race marriages, something just didn’t feel right about it. Why would God care what race of person someone married? It just seemed like a non-issue to me, but I didn’t say anything. After all, who was I to question an adult? I wasn’t yet aware of the story in the New Testament about the 12-year-old Jesus questioning the teachers of his day.

When I was in high school, I had several friends who attended Hazelwood Baptist Church, which was near the school. As it turned out, it was the same church that my future mother-in-law and father-in-law would join when they left the United Church of Christ. Occasionally, these friends would invite me to participate in their youth group activities. One day we went to a Putt-Putt miniature golf course. In the middle of a game, a large thunderstorm started approaching, so the youth pastor decided we needed to leave early so we could get back to the church building before the storm actually hit. We all piled into the vehicles and headed back. When the vehicle I was in came to a stop at the back of the church building, I opened the passenger door, got out, and then closed the door. Just as it slammed shut there was a loud explosion. I froze, thinking, “The Lord has returned.” But I soon realized that I was still standing next to the car in the church parking lot. I looked up and saw purple smoke wafting away from a transformer on a nearby power pole. “Okay,” I thought, “it was just lightning hitting a transformer.” But then I realized that the lightning was right overhead, so I hightailed it to safety inside the church building.

I don’t recall ever attending an actual youth group meeting or a Sunday School class or a worship service at my friends’ church. I just remember doing things with the youth group or a few of the people in that group. I remember one girl from this church that apparently wanted to be a race car driver and proved it on the streets. One night I went out with a group when she was driving. She drove as fast as she could down the street, slowed some at red lights, and then ran them when she didn’t see any cars coming her way. Needless to say, I was a bit terrified. I promised myself that I would never again get in a car that she was driving. I kept that promise.

Speaking of driving, there was a two lane winding hilly road just outside of Louisville that was affectionately referred to as The Devil’s Backbone. It was a good test of one’s driving skill if you could make it all the way along this road at an elevated speed. One evening I was out with some friends, including Lester from Hazelwood. He was driving his Pinto and decided he wanted to try out his skills on The Devil’s Backbone. Although he had never driven it before, meaning he wasn’t familiar with where the sharpest turns were located, he decided to drive it at an elevated speed. He was navigating the turns pretty well until he came to a sharp 90 degree left-hand turn. As he was about to attempt the turn, he realized there was no way he could make the turn at the speed he was driving. Fortunately, there was a gravel driveway near the turn and Lester was able to hit his brakes and skid to a halt in the driveway. Wheeeeew!

After joining the Church of Christ, but before I was married, I hung out with a group of Christian friends consisting of both girls and boys. We did a number of things together such as taking a trip to Gatlinburg one winter. One thing we did occasionally was play volleyball. Ken was an avid runner and a member of Woodmont Baptist Church (WBC). At that time WBC had a gymnasium that doubled as their worship center. They also had a volleyball net and ball. Ken would reserve the gym for us and we’d set up everything to play volleyball. It was always a blast. I recall being at Ken’s house one time and our conversation turning to the topic of salvation and whether or not it could be lost. As you may know, most Baptists believe in “Once saved, always saved”. This basically means that once you have gotten right with God and have been saved, you can’t lose that salvation under any circumstances. But what about a person who was saved, but comes to reject his faith? What happens to him? Some skirt the issue by saying that that person was never saved to begin with. Others say that he will still be saved. Ken was one of these latter people. I remember asking him, “What if a person comes to a point where he totally rejects his belief that Jesus is the Savior and shakes his fist to the heavens telling God he doesn’t want to be saved? What happens to him?” Ken’s response was, “He’ll still go to heaven.” I was dumbfounded. At that time I was a member of the Church of Christ and believed that a person’s salvation could be lost. I wanted to get into the Bible with Ken and discuss it further, but Ken said he had studied this issue in depth years before and was totally convinced of his position, so didn’t want to study it further. There was nothing more for me to do.

When Kathy and I first married, we would attend Camden Ave Christian Church whenever we visited her parents in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the church where Kathy had been a member and where we were married. However, this church eventually disbanded. Afterwards we started attending Hazelwood Baptist Church, which I mentioned earlier. It’s where a number of high school friends attended and where Kathy’s mother and father moved to from the United Church of Christ. One of my good friends from high school, John, was still a member there along with his wife and kids. John is the person who got me interested in playing classical guitar. He is still very interested in music, playing a number of different instruments. He would lead some of the worship at the church and eventually became its music minister even though he had a fulltime job as a veterinarian. Hazelwood was a pretty traditional Baptist Church and I enjoyed attending there when we were in town. John always did a good job leading the music.

Kathy had quit her teaching job when our son, Andrew, was born in the early 1990’s. When he was about to enter K-5, we had decided to put him in an all-day program at Woodmont Christian School, which was a part of Woodmont Baptist Church (WBC). As it so happened, the school was about to expand their top grade from the sixth to the ninth and needed a new math teacher. Kathy applied and got the job. As a result of teaching there, she made friends with several other teachers who attended WBC. She decided to attend there to see how she liked it. She liked it so much that she decided to switch her membership. Before she did, however, she asked me if I minded her switching. I was not attending church much at the time so I told her it was totally her decision.

Shortly after Kathy started attending WBC, someone told her that I might like attending a Sunday School class taught by a local lawyer named Jess. I decided to try it out. One Sunday Jess started off the class by having us read some verses about people having demons driven out of them by Jesus. Then he started discussing homosexuality. At first I wasn’t quite sure the point he was trying to make, but eventually it became clear. He was attempting to blame homosexuality on demon possession. As the discussion progressed, I could feel my insides about to burst. I wanted to respond to what he was saying, but was unsure if I should. I eventually could not stand it any longer. I raised my hand and said, “Could I express an opinion from a non-Christian perspective?” I was told I could. So, I began expressing my opinion that homosexuality was not caused by demon possession. I told them that I did not necessarily agree with every agenda item in the homosexual movement, but I had no problem with homosexuality itself. Anyway, the rest of the class time ended up centering on me and my religious background. A discussion ensued as to whether or not I was still saved since I had once confessed the name of Jesus and had joined the church. Opinions varied. Anyway, the discussion was very cordial, and no one attempted to throw me out of class. In fact, one lady came up to me after class and told me how impressed she was with my courage to speak out given the venue. She said that she didn’t know if she would speak out in an opposite situation or not. She encouraged me to come back to class, and I intended to. However, the following Saturday morning I received a call from Jess asking me to meet him at a local restaurant for lunch. I did. He told me that he could not continue to have his class disrupted as it was the previous Sunday. I told him I understood and that I never intended for it to go the way it went in the last class. He told me that I could attend his class as often as I wanted, but I couldn’t speak during it. I told him that I totally understood since it was his class and he could set the ground rules anyway he wanted. At first I planned to attend again, but then I realized how difficult it was for me to keep my mouth shut when I really needed to say something. So, I never returned.

Later, someone suggested I attend a Sunday School class taught by a friend of mine from work named Bill. I was hesitant at first, but decided I would tell Bill about my experience in Jess’ class and see what he thought. Bill told me that his class was pretty tolerant of other ideas and that I should fit in just fine. So, I started attending. I was greatly impressed. The class members were very tolerant of my speaking my mind and even engaged in conversation about my positions. There was really only one conflict to speak of. It was Easter and of course we were discussing Jesus’ resurrection. I made a few comments about the possibility that Jesus was not really resurrected. One of the regular class members then said to me, “But he’s resurrected nonetheless, right?” I said I didn’t think so. “Then where’s the body?” he asked. I answered, “We don’t know. It could have been buried in a pauper’s grave. Just because we don’t know where a body is doesn’t mean that it was resurrected.” I said this off the cuff because I had just read this as a possibility in a book I had been reading. It was the end of the class, so the conversation ended that way. The next week my wife was in class but I was not. I heard Kathy getting home early and soon after the doorbell ringing. I found out later that the fellow I’d had the discussion with the previous week had been offended by my comment and thought I was intentionally trying to provoke him. My comments had ruined Easter for him. He apparently wanted Bill to chastise me over it. Kathy defended me by saying that I was just speaking what I believed and was not trying to provoke anyone. After all, he had asked me a question. I answered it honestly. The conversation apparently got a bit heated. Kathy got very upset and came home rather than go to worship service. The doorbell was the SS teacher, Bill, coming to check on her. Upon talking to Bill later, he did not think I had been out of line and had no intention of chastising me in class. When I showed up in class the next week, the fellow brought it up again, but Bill refused to rebuke me. This impressed me very much. I told Bill that I would gladly quit attending his class if my presence was going to cause problems. But Bill was insistent that I had done nothing wrong and encouraged me to keep attending. I did.

We were attending WBC when Andrew decided to become a Christian. The pastor at the time was Bill Trapp, and he baptized Andrew. I can still remember going with Andrew to the back of the baptistery and helping him prepare for this event. Unfortunately, Bill later came down with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and eventually had to relinquish his pulpit ministry. He ended up dying from this disease despite an around-the-clock prayer vigil. While Brother Bill was sick a visiting evangelist was speaking at a WBC revival meeting. He said that he had been talking to the Lord on his way to our city and He had told him something. But he was hesitant to say what it was. He then relented and said that the Lord had told him that Brother Bill was going to be healed. I was stunned. This preacher was really going out on a limb with that prediction. But then he clarified that the Lord had told him that Bill would either be healed in this lifetime or the next. My jaw dropped. Even though a number of people in the audience were Amen-ing him, I considered this statement to be an insult. He basically was saying that the Lord had revealed to him that Brother Bill was going to either live or die. I could have told the audience that without consulting the Lord.

You might be wondering what my thoughts and feelings were about Andrew being baptized when I had just a few years before converted from Christianity to agnosticism. Well, when I fell away from Christianity, Kathy and I had a serious discussion about how we would raise any children we had. We both agreed that our children would have to determine their own faith themselves; else it would not truly be their faith. Thus we were both okay with having children. As it turned out we only had one child. Over the years Andrew has delved into a number of different religions and asked his mom and me about our beliefs. We never pushed him into any particular belief, letting him decide what he personally believed based on his own search.

I often hear atheists and agnostics talk about the narrow-mindedness of religious people. However, my experience at Woodmont Baptist Church does not reflect that at all. Everybody knows I am an agnostic, yet they are all very warm and inviting. In fact, one time when I was attending a discipleship class on Sunday afternoons, the teacher actually asked me to conduct the class one week when he was going to be out of town. I was friends with Bill Trapp, the pastor who was there when we first started attending. I was also friends with the interim pastors after his passing. The current pastor, Jerry, is a friend also. Occasionally I run into him at the YMCA. It rarely fails that we end up having a 1-2 hour theological discussion. When I was completing my “God Is” book, he actually read part of it and discussed it with me in his office. I love it when people with differing beliefs can discuss their differences in a calm and rational way. Nothing can be learned by shutting others out and not allowing them to speak.

First Contact – Part 18 – Atheism

Growing up I was surrounded by family and friends that were Christians of one sort or another. Well, at least I think I was. There might have been a few nonbelievers amongst them who were afraid to come out of the closet for fear of retribution. Even my Uncle JD, my mom’s brother, believed in God despite not living like it. I can recall him saying to me when I was a teenager, “I’m going to hell.” I was taken aback and asked him why. He said, “Well, everyone knows the Bible is true, but I don’t live by it. So, I’m going to hell.” I queried him as to why he wouldn’t live by it if he really believed it was true and thought he was going to hell. He responded simply, “Because I don’t want to.”

As a young person I was somewhat fearful of atheists. I think it was because I associated anyone who was opposed to God as a supporter of Satan. However, when I got older I came to realize that atheism simply meant not believing in God. It didn’t mean the person was a follower of Satan. In fact, most atheists are in reality asupernatural, meaning they don’t believe in any supernatural beings, including Satan.

Speaking of Satan, as an adult I decided to read the definitive book on Satanism by Anton LaVey, “The Satanic Bible”. As it turns out, LaVey’s brand of Satanism doesn’t even believe in Satan. They just believe that Satan best personifies man’s true nature, that of a carnal beast. They celebrate that rather than condemn it. I can remember sitting in the upstairs bedroom of my in-laws house reading “The Satanic Bible”. Suddenly a thunderstorm came up with high winds, bright flashes of lightning, and booming thunder. I became a bit fearful, thinking that God was letting me know I shouldn’t be reading that book. But deep down I knew it was just a coincidence. The storm passed quickly and I continued to read the book without incident.

I suppose my first true brush with atheism was when I began reading books by Ayn Rand. Ayn was the founder of a philosophy known as Objectivism (which I will cover in my next post) and a declared atheist. However, she was not like many of the so-called militant atheists that wanted to deconvert the religious world. She just considered atheism to be a default belief given the lack of evidence for God. Her primary thrust was to develop a philosophy of life that was suitable to mankind.

Upon becoming more comfortable with the idea of atheism, I began reading other books by atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, David Mills, Robert Ingersoll, Paul Kurtz, and others. But there was one book I read that really struck me. It was “Losing Faith in Faith” by Dan Barker. Dan was a preacher of the Gospel for 19 years, but eventually came to believe that the Bible was not the Word of God. His story concerning his transition was very similar to mine. However, his transition was much more difficult than mine since his whole life and livelihood was wrapped up in the Christian world. His change cost him his job, a number of friends, and his marriage. He later married Annie Laurie Gaylor, whose mother had founded the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Currently Dan and Annie Laurie are co-presidents of the FFRF.

I mentioned in my previous First Contact post that my former Email pal, Rachel Ramer, sent me a copy of “Finding Faith” by Brian McLaren for Christmas 2000. Well, I sent Rachel a copy of “Losing Faith in Faith” by Dan Barker that same Christmas. Just as I opened an Email dialog with Brian, I also opened an Email dialog with Dan. I soon discovered that Dan was going to be debating Rubel Shelly at the upcoming Atheist Alliance convention on Easter weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. At that time Rubel Shelly was the preacher at Woodmont Hills in Nashville, Tennessee, which was originally known as the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. I knew I had to attend this convention. I informed Dan that I would be there and we arranged a time on Easter Sunday morning to get together for a private conversation.

On my solo drive to Atlanta, I was delayed by a bad wreck on the Interstate. I barely made it to the opening dinner on time. The entire weekend was very fascinating. I recall a conversation I had with a man at the opening dinner. I informed him that I was not an atheist, but rather an agnostic. In other words, I wasn’t convinced there was no God, but I also wasn’t convinced there was one either. The man asked why I thought there might be a God. I told him that one thing was the existence of the Universe. Science teaches that the Universe had a beginning and apparently will have an end. Yet, we cannot account for how this vast Universe could have come into existence from nothing. The man responded that there were some exciting advances in the field of cosmology that could potentially explain how this could have happened. I told him that made no sense to me.

He said, “Well, you see, there were these zero fields…”

I interrupted. “Wait. You have already violated your premise that everything started from nothing.”

He countered, “No, you see, these were ZERO fields.”

I responded, “I don’t care what kind of fields they were. They were something. Nothing means no mass, no energy, no fields of any kind, no potentials, no laws, and not even any space or time. Nada! Nothing!”

Anyway, the conversation never really went anywhere. We each had differing views about what constitutes NOTHING.

Another memorable event was one of the breakout talks by an atheist who was somewhat of an activist in that he was willing to challenge religious people to public debates. He told of one debate he had with a preacher. The preacher, speaking on the topic of the importance of Jesus from a moral standpoint, said, “If it weren’t for Jesus, I might cheat on my wife.”

The atheist responded, “So you are saying that you would be willing to have an affair if you didn’t follow Jesus?”

“Yes, I might.”

“Personally, I don’t cheat on my wife because I love her.”

Excellent point.

Many more interesting talks and conversations ensued. The highlight, of course, was the debate between Dan Barker and Rubel Shelly. The host for the debate was from Alabama and was quite the comedian. Throughout the debate he was interjecting bits of humor that cracked me up. Here's one example. Dan told the story of talking to his parents after converting to atheism. They asked him to fly back to California to talk to them about it. After Dan finished, the host said that after he became an atheist his parents asked him to fly to California also, but his parents were in Alabama at the time.

One person who spoke before the debate really made me think. He said that a Christian once asked him, “What is it like not believing in God?” The atheist responded, “I assume you know what it’s like not believing in Zeus, correct? Well, it’s like that. You see, you and I are not that different. There are thousands of Gods that people have believed in that you don’t believe in. Well, I just believe in one less than you do.” I had not looked at it like that before. Everyone is an atheist as concerns all Gods except their own.

The audience was asked to submit one question for each debater beforehand on an index card. My question to Dan was, “What would it take for you to become a believer in the Bible once again?” My question to Rubel was, “What would it take for you to give up your belief in the Bible?” Surprisingly, both my questions were presented to the debaters.

Dan’s answer was something like this, “Well, if the Bible had some precise predictions about the future such as ‘On August 15, 2001, at noon, a meteor will strike the Holiday Inn in downtown Philadelphia’, and then it actually happened, that would really get my attention.” Me too, Dan. Me too.

Rubel’s answer was something like this, “If someone could point out an obvious irrefutable contradiction in the Bible, that would give me pause.” I seriously doubted this statement. There are contradictions in the Bible, but there seems to always be a way to rationalize them such that they disappear. For example, talking about the same point in history, 2 Samuel 24:1 says, “Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’”, and 1 Chronicles 21:1 says, “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.” You can’t get much more contradictory than to have one person claim that God did something while another person claims that Satan did it. Yet, these types of contradictions get explained away all the time. For a New Testament example, see one of my earlier posts.

On the Sunday morning after the debate I met with Dan Barker as planned. I got him to sign my copy of his book “Losing Faith in Faith” and gave him a copy of my book “Beginnings to Endings”. We had a nice conversation about a number of different topics.

So where do I currently stand on the issue of atheism? Well, pretty much where I stood almost 30 years ago upon my deconversion. I’m a theistic-leaning agnostic. I don’t know one way or the other whether God exists, but a number of things about the Universe lead me to think that some kind of power beyond our natural realm must exist. But then again, it may be that we just simply don’t understand enough about the cosmos to at this point in time to provide natural answers to our questions. After all, at one time people thought lightning was caused by angry Gods, but upon learning more about it, we discovered there was a perfectly natural explanation that did not require even one God.

One thing that bothers me about some atheists is the way they talk about religious people. They make fun of them and say things that basically boil down to, “How can anyone be so stupid as to believe in the existence of a God?”  But I have also met Christians that talk about atheists in such a way as to basically boil down to, “How can anyone be so stupid as to not believe in the existence of a God?” Rubel Shelly mentioned during the debate that one thing that broke his heart while attending some of the breakout sessions was the derogatory way some of the attendees talked about Christians. But, he also said that he was aware of Christians that spoke in a similar way about atheists. He said that that animosity between Christians and atheists broke his heart because he felt it hampered conversation between the two groups. I suppose his willingness to miss Easter weekend with his church to attend a meeting of atheists was his attempt at trying to break through that barrier.

I have observed both sides of the fence I straddle, being involved with both atheists and Christians. In reality all these people have much more in common than not. Both atheists and theists have hopes and aspirations, find meaning in their work and families and friends, watch TV and go to movie theaters, read books, eat food, breathe air, go to school, play and watch sports, and so on. In other words, we are all human. If it weren’t for these common human traits and our willingness to concentrate on these rather than our differences, I suppose my wife’s and my marriage would not have lasted after my deconversion. But, my personal experience tells me that if we can look past our differences and see our common human desires and even foibles, we can still love one another. The trouble begins when we start viewing “others” as being sub-human for one reason or another.

One day after my change to agnosticism my wife told me that one of the things that bothered her about my new beliefs was that I must no longer consider her to be a rational person as far as her Christian beliefs went.

I said, “You are correct, I do consider your belief that the Bible is the Word of God to be irrational. But overall I know you are a rational person. You have to be to be a math teacher. But I also don’t think you would believe anything that you thought was irrational. Therefore, you must think that I am irrational for being an unbeliever.”

She thought about it a bit and said, “Yes, I guess that’s true.”

Here's the way I look at it. We are all humans, which mean we are not omniscient. We are all struggling to make sense of our existence in this vast Universe we find ourselves a part of. Our DNAs are different. Our brains are different. We have all had different experiences that have influenced the way we think about things and how we understand the world around us. Let’s give each other the benefit of a doubt when we find ourselves disagreeing over something. In other words, let’s recognize each other’s humanity rather than demonizing each other.

First Contact – Part 15 – Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

As I mentioned in my last post, the Christian Church Disciples of Christ (CCDoC) was one of the offshoots of the Restoration Movement of the 19^th century. The thing that sets this church apart from the other two major offshoots, the Church of Christ and the Christian Church, is that it is much more liberal. By liberal I primarily mean the position that the Bible can be interpreted in a very loose manner. For instance, perhaps Jesus was no more the son of God than you and me. Or perhaps Jesus was not born of a virgin. Or perhaps Adam and Eve were not actual people, but rather symbols that represent generic men and women. You get the point. The Bible should be understood in light of the people who wrote it, the culture of which they were a part, and their intent rather than as a document inspired directly by God. Of course the looseness of interpretation varies from one church to another and from one person to another. But this is true of many different churches.

Back when I was a Christian in the Church of Christ, this liberal view of the Bible by the CCDoC was anathema to me. I did not interpret the Bible as strictly as some of my brethren, but I certainly didn’t go as far as the Disciples of Christ. But now that I have rejected the Bible as being the Word of God, I better understand their position. It makes sense to me now.

Interestingly, back in 1989, the CCDoC and the United Church of Christ approved a partnership of full communion, mutually recognizing each other’s sacraments and ministry. The United Church of Christ is the church that my wife grew up in. As I mentioned in my previous post, she left that church and joined the Christian Church while in college. Kathy’s mother eventually left also and joined a Baptist Church. The last straw was when her Sunday School teacher questioned the virgin birth of Jesus. Eventually Kathy’s dad also left and joined the same Baptist Church that his wife attended.

There is one CCDoC church in the city where I live. I have known about it for years, but had never attended. My first contact with this church was through my son. He is a student at our local university and is majoring in history. He took a lot of religion classes as part of his coursework. One professor that taught a number of these classes was also the minister at the local CCDoC: Dr. Carl Gebhardt. Andrew liked Carl’s approach to studying and teaching the Bible. He believed we should just present the facts as best we know them and let the cards fall where they may. Don’t start with a preconceived doctrine and then seek to prove it, but rather honestly try to understand the Bible properly and let your doctrine follow.

Andrew soon became friends with Carl and was given a parking pass for the church’s parking lot. This was very convenient for Andrew because the church was right across the street from the university buildings in which many of his classes met. Andrew even started having lunch with Carl occasionally. Most of the time they were joined by a Jewish man that was a mutual friend.

Given Andrew’s friendship with Carl, Kathy and I decided to attend a Sunday morning service so we could hear him preach. Unfortunately, he was not present that day and another person was filling in for him. Interestingly, this man was someone we had known from years before in the Church of Christ. We also discovered that a number of couples we had also known from the Church of Christ were now members at the CCDoC. What was going on? How did these former members of the conservative wing of the Restoration Movement come to jump over to the liberal wing? I still don’t know.

Some time later Kathy and I went to the CCDoC again, and this time Carl was preaching. After getting to meet him, I felt compelled to get together with him for a one on one discussion. So I contacted him, and we met for lunch. Over time, Carl and I met several times to discuss religious ideas and our personal lives. When I found out he had an interest in photography just as I did, we arranged to go on a photography expedition to a local nature preserve. We had a great, but exhausting, time.

Around the time I was getting to know Carl, I was finishing up my book “God Is”, which details my thinking of the Bible and how I came to reject it as being the Word of God. I had asked a number of religious friends to read and critique an early copy of this book, but most rejected my offer or failed to follow through with an acceptance. Interestingly, two pastors and a Bible teacher offered to read it. One pastor, Jerry, was from the Baptist Church where my wife is a member. He read part of it, and we had a good discussion about it in his church office. The other pastor to read it was Carl. He actually read the entire book and gave me some written and verbal feedback. The Bible teacher, Joel, was from the Christian school where my wife works and has a PhD in the Old Testament. I appreciated that Carl and Joel were willing to write endorsements for my book. You can read their endorsements, along with several others, in the Editorial Reviews section of my book’s page on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ES61B5K).

Recently, Carl spoke a few times at our local Unitarian Universalist church. I will talk about this church in my next post.