JReiman

There is a big difference between “evidence” and “proof”, and I think many of our difficulties with both religion and politics could be much better understood if we use these terms correctly. “Proof” is defined as “evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement” whereas “evidence” is defined as “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.” They are very similar but different. “Proof” is generally not something that can fit in a soundbite, or even within the attention span of the average sceptic. It is made up of the sum total of a body of evidence, and in my opinion, it is almost impossible to establish, even in science. The whole post-modern movement exists because long-held physical “laws” are being undermined. Scientist are increasingly being reminded that they can’t afford the arrogance of certainty. So I never claim “proof” in my Gospel outreach conversations, but I do claim to provide evidence, which Pastor Tim Keller wisely calls “clues”. In a court of law, both the defense and the prosecution build a body of evidence for their respective claims, and the judge or jury weigh the evidence, pro and con, and declare a verdict. Rarely would one claim that the other side has absolutely “no evidence”. Both sides usually have reasonable evidence; it’s just that one side has more than the other. Yet that is what I see in arguments for both religion and politics. Usually what people mean when they say there is “not a shred of evidence” or “baseless claims” is that they see no evidence that they are willing to consider or accept according to their personal “scepto-meter”, due to their strong commitment to a certain position. A young man named Ishmael, for example, claimed he would start believing in God as soon as he saw “proof”. My usual response is that as a Christian I can’t “prove” God exists, but that there is enough evidence that we can have “reasonable faith”, as opposed to the blind faith that Christians are so often accused of. The Bible and Romans 2 in particular tells us that God gives us all the evidence we need for that reasonable faith, but it never tells the sceptic will get all the evidence he wants. In my experience, even if a sceptic does get the proof he requires, he would just dismiss it by quickly moving the goalposts. For most controversial truth claims, circumstantial evidence and eyewitness accounts aren’t enough to convince the opposing view. Casual arguments rely on expert testimony, which can be detailed and time-consuming to consider. So the argument quickly devolves into a contest of “my favorite expert versus yours”. In person, I for one can’t remember all the details of the arguments my favorite experts give that were so convincing at the time I read them, so I end up making claims that I can’t quickly back up in a sound bite. Online, our opponents are rarely willing to read the convincing but lengthy sources we link them to. I believe the best approach is usually to present our view along with a reasonable amount of evidence to at least show our claims aren’t baseless, and to demonstrate we understand the opposing view and have considered that evidence also. But before we do that we need to prove ourselves to be careful, active listeners, and to ask sincere clarifying questions. I hope we can all learn to stop talking past each other, to quit trying to convince each other of our position in a slam dunk (otherwise known as shoving our view down their throats), but also to stop retreating to our polarized safe zones and avoiding and even condemning dissenting opinions. We as a culture, especially in this age of social media algorithms, must make an effort to engage in civil conversations that help us to stop demonizing the other side but to better understand both our differences and the many things we still have in common.

“If you could get to heaven by being a good person, why would you need Jesus?” I asked Dolly, a young person I found sitting on a bench outside of a grocery store. Dolly said she had attended a Christian church, believes in God and that she will go to heaven because she hadn’t done any of the real bad things that could send a person to hell. In her view, Jesus basically came to teach us and to set an example for us to follow, which is why I asked her whether she even needed Jesus for salvation. Anyone with a reasonable church background has heard growing up that “Jesus died for your sins”, but what does that really mean? Why would the obscure death of a Jewish itinerate preacher on a cross 2000 years ago in a remote Roman province have anything to do with our forgiveness here in America today? Everything. Jesus lived and taught the moral law of God as revealed in the Jewish scriptures so that we might have a mirror in which to see ourselves, not in comparison to other people but in comparison to God’s holy standard. And if we are brave enough to take an honest look at ourselves in that mirror, we will see that we can’t possibly measure up to that standard. Romans 3 tells us “…no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin”. God’s law, then, helps us; not because by following it we can be saved, but because by measuring ourselves by its standard we see our need for a savior. John the Baptist used various commandments to prepare people’s hearts for Jesus, and Jesus did the same with his famous “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5. In it, he told us of an impossible standard: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But Jesus also taught that what is impossible for man is possible for God. We can’t save ourselves but Jesus can. Romans 3 continues to tell us “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” This all means that as our “sacrifice of atonement”, Jesus took the punishment for our sins in our place. Even though we are guilty and He is innocent, He took the punishment that we deserve. We did the crime, and He paid our fine. But we need to settle out of court, now, today, before that great Day of Judgement arrives. We need the repentance John the Baptist preached to “receive by faith” the gift of our salvation bought with the “shedding of his blood” – which alone can take away our sin and allow us to reach that impossible standard of perfection in God’s sight. Why do we need Jesus? Better, where would we be without Him? Just something to think about this Christmas as we contemplate the obscure birth of a baby in a manger in a remote Roman province with a little village called Bethlehem, over 2000 years ago.

“Never talk religion or politics in polite company”, they say. I would agree, as most people have fairly strong feelings about both subjects and the chance that we are in complete agreement about them is pretty slim. But there’s one subject that is by far even more divisive: religion AND politics. Our politics are usually driven by our core values and beliefs, so to try to persuade someone politically means we must also try to change who they are religiously. In our politically charged climate, I’ve found that religion is by far the safer subject of the two, and I rarely feel the need to talk politics in any of my Gospel outreach efforts, such as a recent conversation with Fabian, whom I discovered to have a solid faith in Christ. Fabian and I had a lot in common as fellow followers of Jesus Christ, and we enjoyed a pleasant conversation. Would we have had as much agreement if we had talked politics? Most likely not. And I think the seeds of those disagreements among Christians could be seen toward the end of our conversation, when we talked about our approach to sharing Gospel truths with people around us. As Christians, we are “born again” spiritually as the Holy Spirit, who previously had only influenced us from the outside in, now takes up residence in us and begins to change us from the inside out. Two of the changes that occur often conflict with each other: as we learn what it means to “love our neighbor as ourselves” as Jesus teaches us, it means we want to share our greatest treasure – our salvation and faith relationship with Jesus – but it also means we want to be friendly and kind as we do so. The good news of the Gospel only makes sense if we understand the bad news of our guilt and condemnation without Christ, so trying to be loving and nice as we try to explain this isn’t very easy. In fact, it is often offensive to people, especially as our society drifts further and further away from a biblical understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to God. So, as Christians, we often find ourselves caught between trying to be a loving and kind person that always “gets along” with our neighbor, and one who honestly tries to share the hard but lifechanging truths of the Gospel. Love, or truth. But are they really incompatible? For his part, Fabian tries to do what I also tried to do for most of my Christian life – to be a nice, approachable Christian with a ready answer about the Gospel for anyone who might come to me and ask about it. Apparently, I wasn’t nice enough, because these kinds of conversations rarely happened. I finally realized I was expecting people who aren’t born again – who only experience the influence of the Holy Spirit from the outside – to initiate the kinds of risky conversations that we can really only expect to be started by people who are motivated by the Holy Spirit from the inside. This is why Jesus said “go and tell”, not “wait and answer”. So, what does this have to do with politics? How is it that Christians are so often divided politically? I think it has to do with questions of how, exactly, are we to love our neighbor when it comes to decisions between loving, friendly relationships or difficult but necessary truth. For me, I fall on the side of “tough love” – a love that is tough enough to tell my neighbor the truth, even if they hate me personally for it. I am willing to risk offending my neighbor in the short term in order to share truth that will be for their long-term benefit. And, especially in politics, it’s not just a question for individuals but one of policy. Take, for example, the question of our budget deficits and crushing debts, which both sides of the political divide struggle with. The Bible teaches in Proverbs that “the borrower is slave to the lender”. Is it really loving our neighbor, including our children’s children, to kick the can of slavery to debt on down to future generations? On the other hand, is it really loving our neighbor to impose harsh measures of austerity that hurt the poorest and weakest of society most right here and now? Christians will deal with issues such as these in very different ways, so we shouldn’t expect to agree politically. For me, since our politics are so often driven by our religion, I’d rather avoid political side issues for the most part and try to focus on sharing the heart of the Gospel, simply because I trust the Holy Spirit to take it from there. Thanks, Fabian, for allowing me to record our conversation. It can also be seen on my YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/k7hAaOzty0s

Highlights from a Gospel conversation with a young man named Gil. Comments interspersed about how to have a friendly witnessing conversation.

What does it mean to be made “in the image of God”? If you think about it, even the best mirror in the world does a poor job of accurately reflecting back a full representation of ourselves when we look into it. Of the five senses - seeing, hearing, taste, touch, and smell - a mirror can only reproduce one. That “image” of ourselves leaves a lot of questions unanswered! So it would be a mistake to think that our being made “in the image of God” means we are anywhere near to being like God in every way, or that God is limited to just being like us. What it does mean is that, of all of creation, we humans have a special ability to understand and relate to our Creator. It also means that God has made us more like Himself, so that we possess more God-given rights and privileges than any other part of creation. I think a correct understanding of what it means to be made in God’s image can help build a right foundation for our faith to build upon, in many ways, and a recent outreach conversation touched on two of them. Early in a conversation with Christian, a young man I found out at the park talking to his friend Ignatio about just this sort of thing, he told me he believes that since he had no consciousness before he was born, he won’t have it after he dies. He sees himself as but one drop of energy that has separated for a short time but will disperse back into a vast ocean of energy after his life is over. But, I asked, given our lack of existence before we were born, is that the only conclusion we can reach? The Bible teaches us that God has always existed, for He was already there when He began creating the universe. He is not only exists into the eternal future, but he has always existed from eternity past. If we are made in God’s image, shouldn’t we have always existed too? The Bible teaches that we humans did not exist forever but, rather, had a definite beginning. Yet we are told in Ecclesiastes 3 that God has “set eternity in the human heart”. We are created in God’s image in that we will exist for eternity to come, but God’s image in us is limited in that we haven’t existed in eternity past. Christian also observed another clue that God’s image in us is limited. He rightly concludes that, on our own, we couldn’t begin to comprehend the vast complexity of such an entity as God. But we are not on our own. It isn’t a matter of man discovering God, like we might discover the cure for cancer or the laws of nature. It’s more on the order of God revealing Himself to man, at least the parts He knows we need in order for us to have a relationship with Him, and for which he holds us responsible. Our shared status as image-bearers of God should cause us to treat all other members of the human race with great respect and dignity, but we should also realize the limitations of being just an image and not the real thing. We are created beings with many sins and shortcomings, and God is the Creator, perfect in every way. He is the one who puts eternity in our hearts, reaches out to reveal Himself to us, and gives us the capacity to respond with childlike faith. And, Jesus taught, we can do more than bear God’s image, we can actually be adopted into His family: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1) We need not settle for the limitations of simply being an “image”. As we trust and follow Christ, we can become genuine children of God, more and more like the real thing with each passing day!

How many “pleasant surprises” will there be on Judgement Day? A young man named Aaron answered my question about eternity by telling me he doesn’t believe in life after death but is open to being “pleasantly surprised”. I wonder though, is he just as open to being un-pleasantly surprised? It’s an important question, because Jesus said there will be far more about unpleasant surprises after we die than pleasant ones. Seems He well knew to be true what I have been finding out about human nature on the street – the vast majority of people fully expect that any “surprises” in the next life will automatically be pleasant ones. But in Matthew 7, Jesus states, "Enter by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." The vast majority of people on that broad path to destruction will be unpleasantly surprised when they get there, because they have such a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of the holiness of God that they can’t imagine that hell could ever be their fate. Aaron expects that this life is all there is, so his surprise would come in having any eternal life at all. But without Jesus, there is no way that any such surprise could be a pleasant one.