The Meaning of Faith

As an ex-atheist, I am guilty of perpetuating the false dichotomy of “reason” and faith. The popular culture of the last decade has provided ample ammunition for the rationalists’ (non-)holy war, which presents a distorted image of religious adherents as dangerous fanatics or deluded bigots. The “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement have led the charge in describing the faithful in terms usually applied to the mentally ill or dangerous criminals: Daniel Dennett, for example, offered an analogy of an ant behaving erratically because it was afflicted by a parasite. A famous newspaper ad depicted the still-standing twin towers in New York with the caption “Imagine No Religion.” Richard Dawkins implicated even the most benign of believers with his assertion that religious extremists learned their destructive mental habits of “faith” at the hands of religious moderates. The implication is that there are two starkly different ways of thinking: rational or religious. And the religious is uniformly bad because it could just as easily take down a building as compose a worship song.

I will argue that this is an unfortunate caricature of faith. As a born again Jesus follower today, I affirm the value of the right kind of faith. To be a true follower of Jesus you must have faith, yes! But don’t misunderstand what that means. Saying you must have faith is not the same as saying you must close your eyes and cover your ears and shout “la la la, I’m not listening, I can’t hear you” until inconvenient facts go away. The kind of faith that Jesus advocates is not the kind that will make you a blindly obedient automaton. Rather, biblical faith requires careful assessment of information, a willingness to reprove error where it is found, and finally, a relational trust in Jesus.

It’s that trust part that gets people, and for good reason. There are a lot of wackos out there who can deceive you, so you want to be careful where you put your trust! Jesus understood this reality, and regularly warned people to “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15). The Bible offers warnings repeatedly such as, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1).

It is tempting to say that you will simply trust no one but yourself. Maybe a proven system of fail-safes like the scientific method will be your ultimate and only standard for knowing truth. But you can’t put God in a Petri dish, my friends. Actually, if we had to rely on our five senses and upon science for every bit of information, we would have a difficult time functioning as human beings. How do you know your significant other loves you? Do you have a checklist whereby you can objectively verify their love? Cards on all the right holidays and hugs of just the right duration? Will an EEG reading pinpoint what moves you about a work of literature or of music? Maybe you could chart the exact firing of electrons and then, instead of listening to your favourite song, you could just evoke the same emotions by stimulating the right series of nerves? Can a man in a lab coat do tests to determine objectively what is right and wrong, as atheist Sam Harris comes close to suggesting?

This is all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is to make a point. Your epistemology for knowing your spouse loves you is based upon a relational trust. The meanings which we derive from our experiences are far more subjective than “rationality” allows, and yet, they are what make us human. That subjective criterion of relational trust is the basis of the Christian life, and indeed, the singular requirement for salvation. In short, God wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t want you to be just some servant who blindly takes orders, but he wants to call you friend AND make known to you the things of God! (John 15:15). He wants you to get to know him and trust him – not some other false God, not some religious system, and not some man who claims to speak for God today. Trust only God, who as Jesus Christ presented himself to humanity and died on the cross to atone for your sins. He will give you eternal life. (1 John 5:9-13)

Forget whatever caricature of Christian faith that Dawkins or false religious teachers have spoonfed to you. Instead, look at what Jesus said and did as recorded in the gospels themselves. He gives a reasonable basis for that relational trust to rest upon. Take for example “doubting” Thomas, who would not believe Jesus was resurrected until he felt the nail prints in his hands and feet. Jesus gave him that proof, after which his skepticism was satisfied and he cried out “My Lord, and my God!” (John 20:24-28).

Jesus never rebuked Thomas’s skepticism. It is perfectly reasonable to doubt amazing things before you can have some basis upon which to accept them. Just don’t let your skepticism be the hands over your ears as you shout “la la la, I can’t hear you,” lest you miss the reasonable proof God is trying to show you.

The Bible and Atheists

Dearest Atheist friends,

I was proud to count myself among you for four years. Last year I became a Christian (you can read about what led to that conversion here: http://eph1-17.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-journey-to-jesus-part-two.html). But I find that I can still relate to the way you think, and I can still appreciate the reasoning for your position on the religion question.

That said, if you’re anything like me when I was an atheist, you may be less informed about the Bible than you think. I remember railing against what I perceived to be inconsistencies and absurdities in the Bible; it was much later that I realized I only had an “on-the-surface” understanding of the text. I’m sure you’ve looked up passages in the Bible here and there, perhaps to cite as a friendly challenge to a Christian friend; unfortunately, selective reading like that can miss the meaning the text is trying to convey. I don’t expect everyone to be Bible scholars, but I do want to encourage you to read the Bible differently.

If you’re one of those skeptics who (like me) has cried “foul” at a biblical passage before fully understanding its intended meaning, you’re in good company. Several brilliant minds have made the same mistake. Here are two that come to mind:

The Cursing of the Fig Tree

In the 1920s, philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell wrote “Why I Am Not a Christian.” He expounded a number of arguments against Christianity. It is apparent that he only skim-read certain passages of the Bible, however, and as such he misunderstood them.

For example, in his section on “The Moral Problem” of Christianity, Russell criticizes Jesus for cursing the fig tree that did not bear fruit. “This is a very curious story,” says Russell, “because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.”

The story Russell refers to is found in Matthew 21 and Mark 11/12. Jesus enters Jerusalem, goes to a fig tree and sees that it is barren; he curses it, and it withers up. Its significance is not apparent at first because Jesus first uses his actions to illustrate the importance of faith for producing miracles (after all, the people were baffled at how he just did that). He doesn’t reveal the symbolism of his actions until after he delivers a related parable (starting at Matthew 21:33). Jesus concludes, “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matthew 21:43).

The point of the story was that it was a warning to the nation of Israel! They had been entrusted with God’s word and they did not do with it as God had desired. The context of the story makes it clear that cursing the fig tree had symbolic significance, but you simply don’t get that from a surface-level reading of the text. Ignoring the symbolism, it just seems like a petty move. Read the parable in Matthew 21:33-43 to understand the concept Jesus was illustrating with the fig tree.

“My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

It’s one thing for a mathematician to misunderstand the Bible, but you would expect more from someone who specializes in studying early Christianity. Even New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman has misunderstood passages of the Bible by overlooking some of its nuances.

For example, Ehrman said in a public presentation (and likely in his book “Misquoting Jesus” as well; regrettably, I have not yet read it) that there were discrepancies in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. See a clip from that presentation here: http://youtu.be/ipiZnRHnY0s?t=2m52s.

He concludes by summarizing, “In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is completely in control of the situation. He knows what’s going on, he knows why it’s going on, unlike [the gospel of] Mark where he seems to be in doubt.” His reason for believing this is that Luke’s gospel records more of Jesus’ words during the crucifixion, whereas the only quote that Mark records is “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

If that’s all you knew of that quote, it would be easy to get the impression that Jesus felt abandoned by God during his crucifixion. However, Jesus was not lamenting his abandonment – he was quoting scripture which actually declared his status as the victorious Messiah! If you look at Psalm 22 you can read what Jesus had in mind when he said that. It is a psalm that describes one who is unjustly persecuted before being vindicated by the ultimate triumph of God over his enemies! Hardly the statement of one feeling abandoned.

The Jews of Jesus’ day understood what those words meant. It even says in the Book of Mark that the onlookers understood his words to be messianic: “And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias” (Mark 15:34-35). It is easy to miss this if you’re not willing to look into the intended purpose and context of the text.

Conclusion

Remember, these mistakes were made by well-respected and widely-published scholars! If they can get it wrong, it is certainly possible for a guy with a search engine to get a few things wrong too. Myself included.

I hope this does not come across as a “straw man” argument (ie, these criticisms of the Bible are wrong, therefore all of them are); that’s not what I am trying to communicate. Indeed, there are other criticisms which are far more sophisticated. But I do hope these examples give us pause to think! When you come across a questionable passage in the Bible, do not cry “foul” until you fully understand the context and nuances of the passage. If your criticism is justified, it will have to convey more than a surface-level understanding if you intend to be taken seriously by Christians who know their Bibles.

When you read the Bible, I recommend starting with the New Testament (Why? Because it deals with the life of Jesus and what followed, and Jesus is the way that God reveals himself to humanity – see Matthew 11:27). The Gospel of John is a good place to start because more than any other gospel it was written in very straight-forward language. Try reading it with the intent to understand rather than to find another arrow in your arsenal against Christians. In the end, you will either be better equipped to defend your position, or you will come around to the position that the Bible advocates – that maybe there’s something to this Jesus fellow. Either way, what do you have to lose?

In the next blog post I will continue my series about the Bible. Happy reading!

A Journey to Jesus (Part Two)

Read part one here: http://eph1-17.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-journey-to-jesus-part-one.html

I became an atheist in 2008, and I was content with my godless life. 

In 2012 that changed unexpectedly. In April, when we were packing to move to a new house I found an old Bible that my now-wife had given me as a gift the year we started dating. I opened it and flipped through the pages a bit. As a history and religious studies major in university I still found religion interesting even if I didn’t believe any of it. So it was maybe a bit of scholarly curiosity, maybe a bit of nostalgia that kept me reading the book. At a few points while packing I decided to take a break to read a chapter or two, and it eventually turned into a habit. As the summer progressed I continued to devour the words of Jesus in the New Testament. At some points the words pierced me deeply – early on I encountered John 8:58, in which Jesus said “Before Abraham was, I AM!” I knew it to be a thinly veiled claim to divinity – he was claiming to be the God of the Old Testament (see Exodus 3:14; John 8:58). I considered for the first time in years the possibility that Jesus was telling the truth. I had a conversation with my wife about these things, and we decided to go to church once or twice to explore that option again.

That decision resulted in a series of events that led to my conversion. I believe that God responds when we open our hearts to him in sincere prayer. I slowly allowed myself to set aside old prejudices toward born again Christians, toward the Bible, and toward God… Rather than rallying my faculties to attack Christianity upon reading a questionable passage of scripture, I yielded to the possibility that my conclusions were premature. More often than not, I realized that such criticisms of the Bible were based on a very shallow reading of the text which often ignored the intended purpose and meaning (I hope to address this in a future blog post entitled “Atheists can trust the Bible”). It required some newfound humility on my part, but God led the way in breaking down every wall that kept him out.

There were a few instances where a particular “wall” (problem I had with Christianity) that I had prayed about was addressed in the very next church service I attended or the very next chapter of the Bible I read. My years as an atheist trained my mind to recognize such instances as coincidences – and I certainly still believe that skepticism can be very healthy! But it can also lead to blindness, or a willing disregard for truth. Just as Jesus healed literal blind men in the first century, he dealt with my spiritual “blindness” with patience and continued to provide me with the evidence I required to believe. He is faithful, even when I was not.

Finally, toward the end of June I had a series of three dreams which I believe to be revelations from God. First I dreamed that there was something spiritually unclean in my life that I should have put away a long time ago (the concept was presented to me in visual metaphors, but the meaning was clear). Second, I dreamed that I was preaching Christianity. The third dream was more complicated, but I was quoting biblical passages, rebuking false doctrine, and telling a man of the need to be born again; in the morning I looked up the biblical passages that my character in the dream had quoted and it clarified the meaning of a particular part of the dream. I was convinced more than ever before that God had answered my prayers for guidance! The thought still stirs up such gratitude that I can hardly express it in words! All I can say is Praise God! Glory to God! The very next chapter I read in the Bible was the first chapter of Ephesians, which contained the following passage…

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians 1:17-18)

A revelation of the knowledge of God… The hope of his calling… That is exactly what I believe God had just given me.

The next day was July 1, 2012. I was in Calgary for a conference and was to head home by bus that morning. As I was waiting to board the C-Train I found myself overwhelmed by the idea that despite my faithlessness (and every other flaw), God was still interested in walking patiently with me, answering my prayers for guidance, and pointing me in the right direction. He even had a calling for me – to share his gospel. Amazing grace! The idea brought tears to my eyes as I stood waiting for that train; so you can imagine that I was tipped over the edge when I finally boarded the C-Train and found a piece of paper beside the very seat that I sat upon: a tract from a group called Every Home for Christ, a group that preaches Christianity. I knew for certain at that point that God was trying to get a message across to me, underlining it again and again! Dreams, biblical passages, tracts – rapid-fire sequence. The message was clear as day, and I could not ignore it.

The next feeling I had was that of conviction. God had a calling for me, but it was not because of my own worthiness or piety. I had a wicked heart; among other flaws, over the past several years I had expressed utter resentment and hatred toward God, toward Christianity, and toward born again Christians and others in my life. I needed forgiveness. At that very moment I asked God to forgive me, to give me new life, and to make me a new creature. My feeling of conviction was followed by enormous relief and joy. I had given my life to Jesus, and I was born again.

Since that day I have sought to follow the path that God set out for me in his word and in his revelations to me. I experienced for the first time what “Amazing Grace” means, and it drives me to share what I believe is the true gospel (the “good news”) with others. Jesus is the son of God, and he came to build a bridge between us and God, restoring that relationship that was lost through human rebellion.

May God give you a revelation of the knowledge of him, and the hope of his calling for YOU! Thanks for reading! The next blog post will address one of the most frequent comments that I get… “All paths lead to God; Jesus is not the only way, is he?”

A Journey to Jesus (Part One)

It’s not easy to put a “testimony” to writing. But it’s a story that I believe is meant to be shared, because it is the story of what God has done in my life. The biggest challenge is providing sufficient details without making it too long to read! I had to divide it into two parts. 

At about 10 a.m. on July 1, 2012, I became a born again Christian. Here is a brief summary of what led to that event. 

I was raised a Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and took my religion very seriously. It was at some point in my youth that I first heard of those “evangelicals” or “born again Christians” who believed so differently from us. For example, they believed that they were “saved by grace”; we believed that was just an excuse to live immorally, and we affirmed that “works” were necessary to earn a place with God in the next life.

In 2007, I attended an evangelical-type church service for the first time – with my then-girlfriend, now-wife. The deal was that she would come to my LDS church one week, and I would go to her church the next week. I had hoped she would convert to Mormonism. But it was around this time that my crisis of faith began…

I never had any reason to question my faith; I believed in it strongly. But three instances in 2007 led me to doubt for the first time:

1) My family happened upon a radio interview in the car one day in which a man claimed to have left the church due to concerns he had with the LDS temple endowment (I will NOT describe it here, but it is a sacred ceremony in Mormonism). I had no idea what he was talking about, not having been through the temple myself. But it made me wonder.

2) An interaction with a born again Christian man at my then-girlfriend’s church. Most of the people at this church were very welcoming and friendly even if they knew I was a Mormon; one man, however, when he found out I was a Mormon, accused Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) of being a false prophet and a freemason. He said “You can’t be a Mormon and a Christian.” I should stress that his approach was the exception and not the rule in my early interactions with evangelicals. But it left a lasting impression upon me – it was upsetting, and I had nothing but contempt for the man at the time. His mention of freemasonry puzzled me, so I looked it up online to see what on earth he was talking about. There is a lot of sensationalism and misinformation about freemasonry, but from what I could tell from the more reliable accounts, it did not seem consistent with my faith. I wondered if Joseph Smith had been involved with that kind of thing… I hoped not.

3) In November I picked up a copy of the October 2007 issue of the Ensign, an LDS magazine. The theme of the issue was the temple. I read an article by Boyd K. Packer called “Come to the Temple” which included a quote from Brigham Young in it in which he described the purpose of the endowment as receiving “key words, signs, and tokens” which would enable a person to get back to God’s presence after they died (article can be read here: http://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/10/come-to-the-temple?lang=eng). I had never heard this before, and I suddenly realized how little I knew about my own religion.

I struggled for a long time, but I eventually decided to see what those “anti-Mormon” evangelicals had to say about Mormonism. I didn’t like what I read. It was here that I found a solid link between freemasonry and Mormonism, and none of it seemed to have anything to do with Jesus. My faith was shaken.

In January 2008, I moved away from home to start university. I continued to attend the LDS church for a short time, but inside I was struggling with my faith. I soon encountered a book called “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, an atheist who argued that God likely did not exist, and that the Bible was written by primitive men. It made sense to me, and provided much-needed certainty in a time of turmoil and change. I soon became an atheist. In summer 2008, I asked to have my name removed from the LDS church.

Life went on. I continued at university and I became a husband and father. Life was good; I had no need for God or religion.

I was content, but God wasn't; he reached into my life in ways that I couldn't have imagined. In my next blog post I will recount my conversion to Christianity. Thank you for reading!