Retiring the Cliche "If You Can Talk Someone into Heaven, Then You Can Talk Them Out"

Yesterday, I read two different articles on the upswing of apologetics in Christian ministry. The fact that apologetics is getting any press at all is both exciting and telling as our culture continues its decline into a more secular worldview. What struck me, however, was that in both someone cautioned the use of apologetics in witnessing by quoting the old trope, "If you can talk someone into heaven, then you can talk them out of it." Like most clichés, at first blush this sounds like a truism we need to take to heart, but I'd like to examine it further because I think there's something fundamentally wrong with the idea.

The basis of a belief

The command to evangelize in Matthew 28:19 is well known. The call to evangelism is essential for those within Christendom that define themselves as evangelicals. But what exactly does evangelism entail? Evangelism at its core is changing a belief. It requires an individual to move from a state of non-belief in Jesus as savior and Lord to a state of belief. That is no small thing, since embracing that belief affects one's understanding of things like the nature of God, the nature of man, the nature of sin, and the nature of one's own eternity.

Now, I know of no reasonable person, whether believer or non-believer, who does not have at least some sense of belief on each of those issues. Some feel that people have souls that will live on after their bodies die. Others hold that people are just a physical byproduct of evolutionary processes and once the machine stops, so will they. Some hold to a fuzzy concept of God while others dismiss the idea of God altogether. The point is that beliefs at their core are ideas that one takes to be true, and everyone holds certain ideas as true, whether or not they have good reason for so doing.

Evangelism works in the medium of ideas

So if the evangelist is engaging with a nonbeliever, he or she must take into account their current beliefs. Asking someone if they want to avoid an eternity in hell will not be very effective if that person believes he will cease to exist at death! The sensitive evangelist will look for ways to interact with the nonbeliever in order to remove wrong beliefs he may hold about the world. He or she should strive to show why the ideas the non-believer has about the world are faulty. This means the evangelist is in the idea business. As a building inspector uses his knowledge of weight loads, safety requirements, and material specifications to ensure a new structure is safe to occupy, the evangelist uses evidence, arguments, and reason to correct faulty beliefs. Even one's testimony of how coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus transformed our lives is a type of argument. The evangelist is using a known sample (his or her own life experience) to tell the non-believer that he too can have a similar experience.

All of this shows the problem with the "If you can talk someone into heaven, then you can talk them out of it" retort. Christianity isn't like selling a used car. The evangelist or apologist should be offering reasons that are not merely convincing, but true! Apologetics is not and should never be Christian hucksterism. It isn't some kind of verbal ju-jitsu. The apologist simply sets out to deal with the fuzzy and illegitimate ideas that non-believers have so they can properly receive the Gospel message. We don't offer arguments instead of reasons; we offer arguments based on reasons, hopefully good reasons. If the non-believer changes one or two of the beliefs that he holds, then that's progress.

The ideas that matter in evangelism are either true or they're not. The Christian that rejects apologetics because "if you can talk someone into heaven, then you can talk them out of it" is really rejecting the concept of objective truth. That person doesn't mark the difference between good reasons for believing something and bad reasons for so doing. But Christianity depends on truth being objective. Paul made this clear when he said that if the belief in the resurrection of Christ is only a belief, if it isn't rooted in an objective fact of history, then it's a worthless one, even if it helps us feel better now. Indeed "we are of all people most to be pitied."(1 Cor. 15:12-19).

Ideas matter. The truth matters. Tomorrow, I will talk about how one may go about trying to change a belief, but know this for now: talking about beliefs is how God intends for us to go out and make disciples.

The One Question Mormons Hope You Don't Ask

Talking with Mormon missionaries can feel daunting. They seem to know their scriptures and have all the answers. Do the LDS really worship the same God we do? Are they Christians? Here is a very special four part podcast series where I offer a key question that Mormons cannot answer. Listen to all four parts here:

• The One Question Mormons Hope You Don't Ask - Part 1
• The One Question Mormons Hope You Don't Ask - Part 2
• The One Question Mormons Hope You Don't Ask - Part 3
• The One Question Mormons Hope You Don't Ask - Part 4

Photo courtesy Saaby and licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License.

How Heresies Tried to Change Scripture

Were books left out of the Bible? What are heresies against scripture? How did the early church determine which writings should be recognized as scripture and which shouldn't? In this one hour lecture, Lenny reviews the heretical movements that plagued the early church in regards to Scripture. The teaching is part of the Deepening Your Faith series put on at Harvest Christian Fellowship. For more information on that class, visit http://deepfaith.harvest.org/

Don't Avoid the JWs, or You May Lose a Christian!

Two Jehovah's Witnessed came to my door yesterday. We talked for some time and during our conversation I asked the more experienced gentleman, whose name was Albert, to tell me why he decided to follow the teachings of the Watchtower. This is his response:

"I was raised Baptist. However, one day when two men came up to my door, they told me a lot of things that I had never heard before. They told me the truth. For example, they told me the truth about holidays. Today is Halloween and many of the different churches will celebrate this holiday that has its roots in paganism. It was a pagan holiday, started by pagans but Christians don't seem to mind. Even Christmas.  People will say 'Oh, on Christmas we celebrate Jesus,' but Jesus wasn't born on December 25! We know that he wasn't because snow would have been on the ground in December, but the shepherds were out feeding their flocks."

During this point in the conversation, I began to wonder why holidays would be the thing to cause one to change belief systems. It sounded trivial to me. But then Albert got to the crux of the problem:

"They also talked about things like the Trinity and how the Trinity isn't right. They told me things that I'd never heard before in all my time at church. Afterwards, I was confused and called my pastor. I told him what they said and asked about the holidays and the points they brought up. He asked me, 'Are those Jehovah's Witnesses? You just need to stay away from those guys. They aren't good for you. And he hung up. It was after that that I began to learn from the Witnesses because they would tell me the truth."

This really saddened me. It wasn't the problems with the holidays that turned Albert away; it was his pastor's lack of response. Albert thought that his pastor either was trying to hide something from him or possibly that the pastor had no answer to his questions. But he didn't care about these issues that bothered Albert. He simply dismissed his meeting with the Witnesses and said, "Those guys are dangerous. Don't listen to them."

Albert's pastor should be ashamed of his counsel. Instead of protecting Albert from the wolves that cone in to devour the flock, the pastor's warning had the opposite effect and made Albert a Jehovah's Witness. That was in 1980, and Albert has spent the last forty years going door to door trying to pry others away from the faith.

I've heard several pastors tell their congregations not to engage with Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons.  They say don't confront atheists. They don't see any benefit of arguing with a person whose mind is made up. But, as Albert's story shows, this kind of response doesn't protect people from falling away. In fact, it may actually drive them towards a heretical belief since the Mormon or JW appear to want to engage in difficult questions about the Bible and faith.

Churches today need to become more serious in tackling the hard questions that both their congregants and their critics have. If Christianity is true, tough questions shouldn't scare us. Given the complexity of humanity and the transcendence of God, it also shouldn't surprise us that there will be some difficult issues we'll need to handle. But, we do a grave disservice to both the unbeliever and the Christian if we don't start working hard to find the best answers we can to the objections to the faith and incorporate them as part of a mature Christian life. In the Great Commission, Jesus commands his followers to "go and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19)." If we neglect the life of the mind, we are not fulfilling that call.

Is God just in punishing one person for the sins of another?

"How can it be fair to punish one person for the sins of another?" When I speak about the atonement, it's a question I've received more than once. "It doesn't seem for God to punish one person for the acts of another. Imagine a rapist whose brother volunteers to go to jail for him. A righteous judge would never accept such a thing! It wouldn't bring justice to the rapist, and it wouldn't bring justice to the victim, no matter how morally upright his brother is. How then can God punish Jesus for our sins and still be considered righteous?"

I think this is a good question and one that isn't addressed frequently enough in our understanding of salvation. There does seem to be something amiss here, but I think much of that is a misunderstanding based on the analogy used to explain the concept of atonement to begin with. In the past, I've even used courtroom analogies to try and show how God's love and His justice can be met simultaneously. But I've probably not done the best job in explaining this particular facet of the atonement. Let's take a look at what sin actually is and why Jesus' death can be accepted as full payment for our violation before God.

Over the next few posts, I will answer this objection. Today we'll see that people are only judged by God on how they violated of his laws. In the next couple of posts, I will talk about how God is justified in setting the appropriate punishment for violations against His laws and why the atonement is a more just and more fair solution to sin than even punishing the most heinous of sinners.

1. One can sin only against God

The problem here is one of equivocation. I agree that people can wrong, hurt, and abuse other people. But as I've explained before, sin is an absence of doing good, doing what is required of you. When we sin, we violate God's law because we don't do that which He as our Creator has set as our proper standard of conduct. Our sin may be due to an act against an individual, but it is not the laws of the individual I have violated. Another person does not inherently have a moral claim upon me. It is God to whom we are answerable because it is God who created us. God is also the source of moral law. Therefore, the condemnation resulting from sin is not primarily because one violated another's interests, but because he violated God's laws on how he should act.

In the book of Genesis, Joseph was tempted by Potiphar's wife to sleep with her. In resisting, he did not say he didn't want to violate Potiphar's trust. He said that he could not sin against God (Gen. 39:9). Similarly, after David, was confronted for taking Bathsheba in adultery and having her husband killed in battle, he said "Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge" (Psalm 51:4). It is the fact that the sinner trespassed God's will that makes him accountable before God.

Our modern judicial system does make this distinction as well. We can agree that one person sleeping with the wife of another is immoral; however a person cannot be put in prison for doing so. You cannot bring criminal charges against an individual for adultery in a court of law in the United States since the person has not violated any laws. However, if a person takes a married woman and forces sex upon her, he or she can be put in jail for rape, which is against the law.

Because God is loving, His law includes prohibitions against hurting others, but we has His creation are answerable first and foremost to Him. It is His law to which we are obligated, and when we transgress we break that obligation. This is why Jesus created such a stir with the Jewish leaders when he told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven. If sin is a violation of God's laws, then only God has the authority to forgive such transgressions, just as the authority the state holds to press charges even when a victim declines.

This sets the stage for the atonement, but it doesn't answer the question fully.  Even if God is the one offended, how is crediting the offender with the punishment of another just? We'll look at that aspect tomorrow.