Is your church dumb?

[Angela53510]

We have a very active apologetics program in our church, including for the teens. They attend all the different workshops and seminars we have, in order to learn more about "defense of the faith."

I found this interesting blog on line.

"the greatest danger confronting American evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism"

The Tragedy of the Dumb Church


What do you think? Does your church teach and preach? Or just entertain and then wonder why the youth are leaving?

 

[Nautilus]

Ive never been a fan of apologetics mainly because I have better things to do with my life than get into arguments with atheists over what I believe. There isn't a point to it when your opponent is throwing out straw man and out of context questions anyways. The christians who do engage in this I also cant stand because They get way to defensive into it and it just looks bad. I wouldnt know about youth leaving my church its roughly 80% college students so kids come and go each year wth graduations and new freshmen.

 

[Angela53510]

This is talking about kids raised in the church. And apologetics is not just about fighting with atheists. It is about having reasons for OUR faith. Now, I agree the Bible and Jesus Christ should be our reasons for our faith, yet atheists will ask us questions, or TV shows will promote evolution, and we need to have a full arsenal of understanding of the incredible way in which God created our world.

I have gone through some periods of doubt, and learning about the reasons to believe, certainly helped me through those difficult times.

 

[Descyple]

That is one thing I absolutely love about my church; my Senior Pastor (Joseph Boot) is both a preacher and a trained apologist. He is the former Director of Ravi Zacharias Canada Ministries and he started his own church here in Toronto a couple of years ago. He is a very good preacher of God's Word, and although he doesn't always "do" apologetics from the pulpit, he does once in a while leave for a week's time to do debates defending Christianity in Canada and other countries around the world.

He often apologizes when he tells us he has to leave the church for a short time to do the debates, and I can't help but think "Don't you dare apologize for that, we are greatly blessed to have such a unique Pastor as yourself."

Here is a debate my Pastor did last year with Atheist Dan Barker on the question "Is There Life After Death?"

[video=youtube;o2Azcq9h4Ns]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Azcq9h4Ns[/video]

 

[Oncefallen]

He often apologizes when he tells us he has to leave the church for a short time to do the debates, and I can't help but think "Don't you dare apologize for that, we are greatly blessed to have such a unique Pastor as yourself."

Your church is blessed. I've had the privilege of hearing Ravi speak and can only say that his ministry and others like it are a huge asset in teaching Christians how to defend the hope that we have in Christ.

 

[santuzza]

We MUST be ready to defend our faith -- on an intellectual level. And it had nothing to do with arguments with atheists (although that may occur). Scripture commands us to be prepared to give an answer for our beliefs. We simply must be able to give an intelligent, coherent response to the common questions of why we believe what we believe. Otherwise we're seen as "rote" Christians -- just going through the motions for no apparent reason.

 

[SonInMe]

Faith proves christianity. Yep, in this faith there are facts, arguable facts.

The revelation must occur for those facts to have meaning. Not sure debating with people who have no revelation is worth a lot. It would be like explaining physics in french to a martian.

Apologetics is interesting. Its nice to know there is substance to our faith. God could use debate to reveal Himself to an unsaved person as well but the thing is...

God saves, not even substantive arguments can save someone. I would think love does more than debate.

 

[Misty77]

I once went to a church with a preacher who was proud of his lack of education. "I went to the seminary of the Holy Spirit!" he proudly proclaimed. It became increasingly obvious that he was proud of his ignorance and started to demean education in general. My sister is a high school teacher, and I was working for a lexicographer so it quickly became insulting.

Then he started bible classes online and was talking about Nebuchadnezzar being a werewolf and wormholes in heaven. It got so weird one evening that I texted my sister in the middle of the sermon, "What the heck are we listening to?" I wanted to say, "Your discount online Bible classes are showing."

 

[just_monicat]

I once went to a church with a preacher who was proud of his lack of education. "I went to the seminary of the Holy Spirit!" he proudly proclaimed. It became increasingly obvious that he was proud of his ignorance and started to demean education in general. My sister is a high school teacher, and I was working for a lexicographer so it quickly became insulting.

Then he started bible classes online and was talking about Nebuchadnezzar being a werewolf and wormholes in heaven. It got so weird one evening that I texted my sister in the middle of the sermon, "What the heck are we listening to?" I wanted to say, "Your discount online Bible classes are showing."

you worked for a lexicographer? i have a thing for lexicographers, amateur and pros. i'm such a massive geek

no, i think i would struggle with that. i don't really understand how someone could ably handle the role of apologetics, interpretation and or any valid questions with any answers short of "because i said so".

not to say that you can't be highly educated through non-traditional means, because i've met those too. i'm not sure that would be a bragging point though.

i've never walked up and requested a curriculum vitae before, but perhaps more people ought to.

werewolves and wormholes???

 

[maxwel]

I agree with Angela.

Apologetics are extremely important.

A lot of young Christians go off to college without any proper education beforehand, and they just get ridiculed and lambasted by their atheist teachers. It's just horrible. Many of then are utterly destroyed. It's like sending them out into a battle with no ammunition... most of them don't know the bible OR apologetics... they're totally unequipped in every way.

 

[SonInMe]

You don't need a cannon to kill a mouse.

Fighting the liberal atheist isn't hard at all. You just use facts.

They will not believe them, delusion and liberal have interchangeable definitions.

 

[Misty77]

I love apologetics, but we need to be careful to use it timely and with respect and love. Most will not be argued to Christ but led by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Donkeyfish07]

I think Apologetics would be useful, if intelligent people were doing it. Unfortunately that's usually not the case.The only good ones I've ever seen is C.S. Lewis, his book Mere Christianity is a good example.....because it's rational. And Kent Hovind. A lot of people in the Church don't like Hovind but he's been able to hold his ground in a debate, logically, better than anyone I've ever seen in the modern area. Most of the time I see an "Apologeticist" working, they get completely decimated when it comes to being rational. While what your average apologetics practitioner is defending is true (Christ), they do it in such an illogical and misinformed manner that it often hurts more than it helps.

Atheists are usually more rational than an average Church going individual. Unfortunately, their point of view is so riddled with logical fallacies and they are so effected by propaganda that they don't realize how wrong they actually are or even see the inconsistencies in their own theories.....it only serves to make them more confident when they beat a Christian in a debate by destroying his so called "Logical Arguments". The fact that they have a variety of so called "Experts" with PHD's to quote makes them feel even more bold because they feel that by having "Reliable Sources, Peer Reviewed Documents" to refer to.....that their viewpoint is superior.

In the modern age, Apologetics should only be done by the most intelligent and rational of us that are educated enough in mainstream science to be able to know what their opponents are quoting and why it's flawed. It's not a manner of winning debates, it's a matter of showing people that they are mistaken and going down the wrong path.....and you can only do that by showing people logically why their theories on evolution/atheism are incorrect. It's a very challenging form of ministry to work in but it's certainly an important one.

 

[crossnote]

Are we speaking of evidential apologetics or presuppositional? (he he)
The former helps the believer/honest seeker whereas the latter helps knock out the false foundations of skeptics.

 

[shrimp]

We have a very active apologetics program in our church, including for the teens. They attend all the different workshops and seminars we have, in order to learn more about "defense of the faith."

I found this interesting blog on line.

"the greatest danger confronting American evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism"

The Tragedy of the Dumb Church


What do you think? Does your church teach and preach? Or just entertain and then wonder why the youth are leaving?

The pastor and teachers that preach and teach at the church my husband and I attend, do so from the Bible. The church has few youth because of a split many years ago. Since then, it has been difficult to organize things for outreach. However, youth day has a pretty good attendance each month.

 

[SparkleEyes]

Using the word dumb in this context is poor use of the English language and doesn't really make your point. Dumb doesn't mean what you are saying it means. Sigh....It dismays me to see so many people make so many basic mistakes when they write and speak. I am not going apologize for believing it is important to know and use good grammar and English.

 

[Misty77]

Using the word dumb in this context is poor use of the English language and doesn't really make your point. Dumb doesn't mean what you are saying it means. Sigh....It dismays me to see so many people make so many basic mistakes when they write and speak. I am not going apologize for believing it is important to know and use good grammar and English.

It's not the original meaning of the word, but it is a valid meaning (see Merriam-Webster, #6). As an editor, I agree that grammar is very important. But I also realize that this is not a forum for formal writing. As long as an attempt at sentence structure and vocabulary is made, I think we can choose to be gracious.

 

[SparkleEyes]

It's not the original meaning of the word, but it is a valid meaning (see Merriam-Webster, #6). As an editor, I agree that grammar is very important. But I also realize that this is not a forum for formal writing. As long as an attempt at sentence structure and vocabulary is made, I think we can choose to be gracious.

I still think dumb is not the best word here. Just because a church has a different order of what they think is important to focus on doesn't mean they are unintelligent.

Formal writing here no...Capitals letters where they are needed, good punctuation, decent sentence structure...Before anyone else speaks up, the OP does use decent grammar, English and punctuation.

 

[Misty77]

I still think dumb is not the best word here. Just because a church has a different order of what they think is important to focus on doesn't mean they are unintelligent.

Formal writing here no...Capitals letters where they are needed, good punctuation, decent sentence structure...Before anyone else speaks up, the OP does use decent grammar, English and punctuation.

Perhaps it isn't the best word in all cases, but I have been in churches where it truly fits.

 

[Angela53510]

Well, I think the instructions of this forum say to make it like "A Headline". Since that was the headline of the link I provided, and a bit controversial, (like a good headline often is!) I thought I would mimic it.

Of course, from my brief perusal of the responses, I don't think one person actually read the link. Perhaps I need to "dummy" things down here a bit and copy and paste the entire article???

I guess the article was right. Of course, no one here will know that, since they decided they were the grammar police and forgot what the entire post was about. (OR they don't need to know anything to preach the gospel except the Bible only, which would be ok, if they had actually read the link!)

One more time, in case you don't know how to scroll up to the link.

The Tragedy of the Dumb Church

This is from a website called "Theology Matters."

PS. I taught school for 10 years and I have a Master's degree. I am guilty of often being a member of the grammar police. However, I would never think to comment on a thread without having read the article. I'm sort of disappointed no one took the time, or at least the answers do not indicate that anyone is interacting with the point of this thread.