Truth, Conviction, and Jesus Are Relevant
Larry Taunton has an article
in The Atlantic describing what his
organization found when they asked college students who were actively involved
in campus atheist groups the question, “What led you to become an atheist?” He
told a particularly telling story about why an atheist named Phil left his
church:
[Phil’s youth leader’s] Bible
studies were particularly meaningful to him. He admired the fact that Jim
didn't dodge the tough chapters or the tough questions: "He didn't always
have satisfying answers or answers at all, but he didn't run away from the
questions either. The way he taught the Bible made me feel smart."
Listening to his story I had to
remind myself that Phil was an atheist, not a seminary student recalling those
who had inspired him to enter the pastorate. As the narrative developed,
however, it became clear where things came apart for Phil. During his junior
year of high school, the church, in an effort to attract more young people,
wanted Jim to teach less and play more. Difference of opinion over this new
strategy led to Jim's dismissal. He was replaced by Savannah, an attractive
twenty-something who, according to Phil, "didn't know a thing about the
Bible." The church got what it wanted: the youth group grew. But it lost
Phil.
An hour deeper into our
conversation I asked, "When did you begin to think of yourself as an
atheist?"
He thought for a moment. "I
would say by the end of my junior year."
I checked my notes. "Wasn't that
about the time that your church fired Jim?"
He seemed surprised by the
connection. "Yeah, I guess it was."
A few of the themes that emerged from the atheists through
this study:
They had attended church
The mission and message of their churches was
vague
They felt their churches offered superficial
answers to life’s difficult questions
They expressed their respect for those ministers
who took the Bible seriously
Taunton notes:
These students heard plenty of
messages encouraging "social justice," community involvement, and
"being good," but they seldom saw the relationship between that
message, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. Listen to Stephanie, a student at Northwestern:
"The connection between Jesus and a person's life was not clear”….
[T]hey often concluded that church
services were largely shallow, harmless, and ultimately irrelevant.
I’m sorry to say that my experience has taught me these
atheists are not referring merely to liberal churches. I’ve visited quite a
number of churches, and I’d say that at 90% of those, I’ve heard nothing but
moralism.
Churches, often for good reasons, want to increase their
membership. So to get people’s attention, they operate under the assumption
that they must be relevant. They look around and say that self-improvement is
relevant. Practical is relevant. Fun is relevant. Being just like the culture
around us is relevant.
All this relevancy is making us irrelevant by removing every true and glorious thing from
Christianity that makes us unique. Where is Jesus? Where is the Gospel? Where
is the context for the actual Bible passage being cited? Where is our
connection to history and the great Christian thinkers? Where is the theology?
Where is the centrality of God in every message? Where are the answers that
every human being cries out for? We would trade these weighty things for a
boring sermon we could have heard on Oprah?
Relevance is not conformity. What’s relevant to human beings made in the image of God is the historical
reality of Jesus and His payment on the cross for our sins, given freely out of
“the great love with which He loved us,“ in order to remove our objective guilt
and reconcile us to God, upholding both God’s perfect, good justice and His
beautiful, awe-inspiring grace. What’s relevant is hearing this, learning about
this, and responding to this in worship to God and love shown to our neighbor.
When we avoid saying these things as a strategy for drawing
people, we betray both our lack of conviction and our lack of love for these
truths. Is the story of God and His work in the world the treasure hidden in
the field for which we happily sacrifice all else because we value it above all
else, or isn’t it? If you act as if it is not, then don’t be surprised when
people like these atheists see right through you and walk away.
Read the full article.
[HT: Sarah Pulliam
Bailey]
