You’re scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, or the internet in general, and you see something that makes you stop. An atheist, or antitheist, meme, or something that questions your beliefs, pops up. What do you do? How do you respond? Do you even know how to counter it?
How firm is your foundation?
Most come to their faith experientially. Something happened. That’s what happened to me. I saw things falling into place over the course a year after a desperate plea to a God I wasn’t sure existed as my world crumbled. If you see me in public, feel free to ask me about it.
I converted from an agnostic to a believer. However, I have really smart friends who love to play the devil’s advocate, on top of their posts shaking me as well. So I looked at the case for Jesus and God.
It’s broader and stronger than you’d think. I wrote two posts in a brief series titled Investigating Christianity.
- Investigating Christianity: Tips From A Cold-Case Detective
- Continuing the Investigation of Christianity
Now memes don’t shake me. I can counter most of them since they’re rhetorically powerful, yet intellectually weak. Others are a source of curiosity, others a struggle, I admit. We all have questions, like understanding the problem of evil inside and out. I can address it, just not as well as I’d like.
Are you ready to give an answer for your faith?
A former atheist, cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace has a series of books chronicling his journey to the faith. He did it by applying his detective skills to the Gospels in Cold-Case Christianity. Then again in God’s Crime Scene. His last one in the trilogy is Forensic Faith, where he makes a case for making a case for Christianity.
Why is it important? First, for your own foundation. You have to have a thoughtful Christianity, if you know it’s true, you’ll more likely live like it. Secondly, what if someone asks you a question that you don’t know how to answer?
That’s a lost evangelism opportunity.
Wallace has on his website, forensicfaithbook.com, a test to check your readiness. A stress test with seven common questions and objections offered by skeptics. You have 21 minutes to complete it. The test is at http://forensicfaithbook.com/can-you-pass-the-test/ with his instructions and analysis.
The questions are:
- Why are you a Christian?
- What evidence do you have to believe that God exists?
- Why do you trust what the Bible says about Jesus?
- Why would God send people to hell just because they don’t believe in Jesus?
- If God is All-Loving and All-Powerful, why is there so much evil in the world?
- If God is the creator, who created God?
- Why would a loving God command the total destruction of all of Israel’s enemies?
I finished in 20 minutes. But I didn’t get to flesh out my responses as much as I could due to the time limit. Some I struggled with.
Don’t panic, they’re not unanswerable. Wallace has links to his answers on the page above. The Simplified Systematic Theology series is working through them. We just finished the Doctrine of the Bible, and are on the Doctrine of God now. A one-stop shop for it all is Dr. Geisler’s book, The Big Book of Christian Apologetics; An A to Z Guide.
My question is, are you ready?
A Ronin's Journey 
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