One of the ways that I'm trying to speak to the non-believers who attend our worship services is to take a couple minutes in each sermon to address an objection to Christianity. I got this idea from Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC. He points out that almost every text we preach speaks to one of the major objections to Christianity.
Tim Keller identifies six objections to Christianity. He calls them "defeater beliefs." That is, these are six reasons why people argue that Christianity can not be true. Recently, I've been trying to address one of them in every sermon I preach. Here is a paraphrase of the six objections.
1. Christianity is not superior to other religions; there are many ways to God.
2. Evil and suffering argue against a God who is powerful, good, or loving.
3. Truth is a personal matter, not something the Bible can legislate.
4. Christians are condemning, exclusive, and intolerant.
5. The God of Christianity is condemning, judgmental, and angry.
6. The Bible is unreliable.
Here is an example of how I addressed one of these objections. I preached on Ephesians 4:25-5:2 last Sunday. In this passage, Paul counsels members of Christ's body to get rid of five destructive behaviors. For each one, he offers a better way and a motivator. Then, at the end of the discussion, he expresses his main idea: we (believers) should allow God's love to shape the way we treat other Christians.
Towards the end of the sermon, I addressed the problem of Christian behavior. Here is the gist of what I said: "If you're struggling with Christianity because of the bad behavior of Christians, please notice what the Bible has said. It's calling Christians to truer Christianity. The solution to the lying and anger you see in Christians is not less Christianity, but truer Christianity." Then, I used the analogy of hospitals and medicine. It makes as much sense to reject Christianity because Christians behave poorly as it does to reject hospitals and medicine because of malpractice and unethical medical practices. The solution is not less hospitals and doctors. The solution is for hospitals and doctors to act with care and integrity.
How have you dealt with objections to Christianity in your preaching? What other major objections to Christianity would you add to the six identified by Keller?
Posted by Steve Mathewson at 9:41 AM on October 26, 2007
Comments
Very good ideas. Being honest about our shortcomings and our movement toward authentic change could hopefully be seen as an invitation to others to join the journey toward integrity with us.
Posted by: Dennis Mullen on October 27, 2007
Steve - thanks for the post and the great insights.
I find in an urban, blue collar (or no collar) environment the questions seem to be a bit different, as does the way to address them. Week after week I meet the seeker and the skeptic in our services and I'm constantly confronted by their questions: Is there hope? Can I be healed? Will love disappoint me? Do I matter?
These are the questions we try to address every week. We used to do apologetics series here, but now we focus mostly on life change. Every week we share testimonies of God's activity in the world in the lives of ordinary believers. Every week we keep it personal, confessing our own brokenness and weakness and struggle and victory. Maybe this isn't the way to go, but I've seen far more people coming to faith here through the stories of life change than through apologetics.
I love Tim Keller and his church, and have visited and brought friends there - white collar friends. We are just in a different setting with different questions.
Posted by: Bill White on October 30, 2007
BILL: Thanks for your helpful input. You're so right that our cultural context makes a difference. The objections or questions people have here in Chicagoland are sometimes quite different from the ones I heard while pastoring in Montana. Even there, the questions varied from the university crowd to the agricultural crowd. Thanks for your reminder that stories of life-change are critical, too.
Posted by: Steve Mathewson on November 2, 2007