Wednesday, August 23, 2006
A pretty intresting artic I grabbed from ChristianityToday.com. Hope it helps
An atheist turned believer answers your questions about Christ, evolution, evil, suffering and more.
an interview by Chris Lutes
Lee Strobel was 14 when he decided God didn't exist. The loss of what little faith he had took place after a biology teacher introduced him to evolution.
In the years that followed his "conversion" to atheism, Lee studied journalism at the University of Missouri, received legal training at Yale Law School, and eventually became an award-winning legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. Somewhere along the way, he married his high school sweetheart, Leslie, who eventually became a Christian. Lee was not only stunned by her newfound beliefs, but also fascinated by the way faith had changed her life for the good. He decided it was time to take another look at God and Christianity.
Like a good journalist, he carefully investigated the facts behind faith and eventually found himself bowing before the Creator he once rejected. And to help others check out the facts of faith for themselves, Lee has written The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ (Zondervan).
Now the teaching pastor at California's Saddleback Valley Community Church, Lee said he'd gladly try to answer some of the toughest questions we could toss his way. Keep reading for his answers.
Why do Christians insist Jesus is the only way to heaven?
Because Jesus said he was the only way. He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
Now anybody could make that claim, but Jesus backed it up by living a perfect life, by performing miracles in front of skeptics and cynics, and, ultimately, by being raised from the dead.
But Christianity sounds so narrow and exclusive. There are so many sincere followers of other religions. Why would God reject them?
Imagine two student clubs everybody would love to join. To get into the one club, you've got to do a bunch of good things. You've got to be an honor student, a nice guy and a great athlete. If you can't meet the club's high standards, you don't get in.
Then there's the other club. No matter who you are—great grades or bad grades, incredible athlete or horrible athlete—this club is wide open to you. And your dues have been paid in full by the club leader! That club is an example of Christianity.
Does the second "club" sound narrow to you? Actually, I think other religions are a lot more exclusive, because you must live up to all kinds of rules, and even then, you still can't know if you've done enough. But Christianity says, "Jesus has met the requirements. The dues have been paid. Come on in!"
So, you don't have to do anything to get to heaven but repent of your sins. That means God will let in murderers and rapists, which doesn't seem fair to those who have lived a good, moral life.
It may seem unfair because we don't completely understand sin. We might think we're nowhere near as bad as Timothy McVeigh or Adolf Hitler. We can't imagine how anybody like that could ever be forgiven. After all, we haven't killed anybody. Most of us haven't even committed a crime. But the Bible says our sin—any sin or wrongdoing—separates us from God. We all fall short of God's holy standards. We all need forgiveness so this separation can be ended and we can have a relationship with God.
When Jesus was asked "What is the greatest law?" he didn't say "Do not murder." He said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). We're all guilty of breaking God's greatest law of not loving God with complete devotion.
We may think it's too easy to get into heaven. All you have to do is "repent." But think about what that means. We must truly regret our sins. We must admit we can't do anything to get to heaven, but accept God's forgiveness. For stubborn, proud humans, that's very hard to do.
Even more than that, though, we must understand salvation is not cheap. It's very costly. Imagine that I give you a new Corvette. You then say, "Wow, what a great free gift!" And I say, "Yes, it is free to you, but it cost me a lot of money!"
That's kind of like what Jesus did for us. He offered us a free gift of forgiveness so we could have eternal life. But it cost him everything—his very life. That's the price tag of eternal life.
Let's switch gears. Evolution keeps many people from even considering Christianity. Why should we believe God is the Creator when it seems that science backs evolution?
I understand why this is a problem for many students. In high school, evolution pretty much destroyed the little bit of faith I had. If evolution explained where life came from, then who needed God? Why believe in him? Evolution became the issue that pushed me toward atheism.
When I started looking into Christianity, I discovered evolution had its share of flaws. For instance, when Darwin looked through a microscope at a one-cell organism, he believed he was looking at a simple, noncomplex creature. It didn't take much of a leap for him to believe that this simple cell could have easily developed from a bunch of dead chemicals—given the right conditions and enough time. But modern science tells us the most basic single-cell organism is so incredibly complex that our biggest supercomputers cannot duplicate what it does. We know the leap from non-living chemicals to the first basic life form is so huge that scientists don't have any credible theory to explain how it could have happened on its own.
So why are intelligent scientists still clinging to Darwin's theory?
I think it's because they believe there's no God. If you start with that premise, you simply can't admit that anything but evolution is true. But the reality is, many scientists aren't clinging to evolution. For example, Dr. Walter Bradley, co-author of Mystery of Life's Origin, concluded that life could not have happened without "outside help"—without an intelligent designer. Even The New York Times recently had a front-page article about the intelligent design movement. The article stressed that growing numbers of scientists, not all of them Christians, are finding that the design of nature and of the universe points powerfully toward the existence of an intelligent Creator.
Why is there evil and suffering?
Questions about evil and suffering are often very personal. It's hard to believe in a loving God when your parents are getting divorced, when your mother is dying from cancer, when your brother is paralyzed in a car accident. As important as rational answers can be, hurting people need something more. They need someone who will simply love them—someone who will show them God's love.
Now for others, the problems of pain and evil really do pose an intellectual barrier between them and God. And to these people, I'd say, first off, that God made the decision to create people who could freely love him—because love is the greatest value in the universe. And you can't have authentic love without choice. Take a doll that's programmed to say, "I love you!" That's not real love. Love demands the ability to love or not to love. It demands what Christians call "free will." This allows the potential for evil, where people could decide to be abusive and cruel rather than loving.
The first two humans made the choice to not love God completely. They turned their backs on him and chose evil over good. So evil was introduced into the world, and it continues to negatively affect everything and everybody.
Here's the amazing thing, though. While God allows evil and suffering, he manages to use them for good. My friend's mom was not a Christian when she got cancer. It awakened her to her own mortality, and caused her to realize her need for God. She became a Christian. Before she died, she said, "If it took cancer for me to find God, then I say thank God for cancer."
It may seem radical to say, but God can bring good out of bad. He can use the most terrible circumstances to draw us to himself, and to sharpen our character and make us better people. The best example of this is Jesus Christ, who endured the worst evil and suffering ever.
Yet God took that evil and turned it into something wonderful, throwing open the door of heaven!
But what about hell? Why would a loving God create a horrible place of eternal suffering?
This is a very difficult question theologians have argued over for centuries. But I believe the Bible teaches hell is a place where non-believers go after death. For those who are offended by the idea of hell, I ask, "What is God supposed to do with people who've spent their entire lives denying and rejecting their Creator?" In the end, God has to separate these people forever from himself. And why would they want to be in heaven anyway? Heaven is about worshiping God and experiencing him to the fullest. Our heaven would be their hell.
The main thing to understand about hell is that it means eternal separation from God. We can end that separation by accepting Jesus' death on the cross as payment for our sins. That's our doorway into heaven.
Everything you're saying depends on whether or not the Bible is true. How do we know it's true?
When I was an atheist, I had many questions about whether or not the Bible was true. So I researched it. I concluded that the Bible is a dependable record of history. And recent archaeological discoveries give more evidence that supports events, people and places mentioned in the Bible.
When I worked on The Case for Faith, I talked to Dr. Norman Geisler, a brilliant Bible scholar. He pointed out many instances where skeptical archaeologists have been forced to revise their thinking because recent archaeological discoveries have supported what the Old Testament and New Testament say. Archaeology can't prove all Scriptures are true, but it certainly has helped establish the Bible as a reliable historical work. When you combine that with the Bible's incredible fulfillment of ancient prophecies against all mathematical odds, there's little reason to doubt its reliability. Because of that, it's not hard for me to take the next step and say it really is what it claims to be—the unique Word of God.
What's the most important thing I can do to make my beliefs more real?
I'd encourage you to ask God that question. Come to him with an open and honest heart and say, "God, I don't want to just know a bunch of facts about you, I want to know you and experience you. I want our relationship to grow deep and strong. I want you to lead my life and give me the courage to follow you wherever you direct me."
When I gave my life to Christ, I'd done a lot of research into the Bible. I finally became convinced it was true—that Jesus was the Son of God, and he died for my sins. But that knowledge would have meant nothing if I hadn't acted on it—if I hadn't personally trusted Christ to forgive my sins and change my life.
God has made a monumental difference in my life. I've gone from being an immoral atheist to someone who wants to love God and love others. I'm certainly not perfect. But I have been changed—and that change is probably the greatest evidence I have that God is real and Christianity is true.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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