Tough Questions for the Christian Church
Through years of participation in the life and culture of evangelical Christianity, a number of "difficult to understand" issues came to my attention. The approach to these problems endorsed by evangelical Christian leaders is for thoughtful Christians to accept the "difficulties" as inscrutable but nevertheless true, and to endeavor to strengthen one's faith in other areas where "difficulties" are not a hindrance. I acquiesced to this approach while I lived my busy life, until such time as I should be able to search out the solid answers that evangelical theologians had undoubtedly derived from their more thorough and sophisticated study of scripture.
After years of studying the Bible as an individual and in groups, listening to sermons, attending Christian conferences, leading a small group Bible study, reading evangelicalism's best apologists, and even preaching from the pulpit once, I was dismayed to discover that the church cannot answer the tough questions about Christianity. And I was heartbroken when I finally recognized, quite contrary to my own wish, that the cumulative force of the so-called "difficulties" thoroughly and unquestionably discredits Christianity.
Anticipating that many Christians will not accept my conclusion, and that they will urge me to come back to church and continue "searching," because of Jesus' promise that those who search will find, I have listed some questions the church must answer if it hopes to regain my attention.
The questions that follow have been organized loosely into categories to aid in referencing them. Many questions could legitimately be placed in other categories. Their current placement reflects my own judgment of where the weight of the questions carries the most force.
The list is not exhaustive. There are innumerable serious issues with Christianity laid out in the existing body of skeptical literature. The list that follows is a sampling from a variety of sources. Not a few were independently discovered by myself before I learned of the existence of serious skeptical literature, a few are original with myself, and a few actually come from Christian sources.
Some biblical references are given, but all are not. I am assuming that any Christian knowledgeable enough to address these questions intelligently will not have trouble finding the biblical passages at issue. In addition, some questions assume a general familiarity with certain biblical and extra-biblical subjects which are not practical to reference because the relevant knowledge is widely dispersed through a large body of literature; for unreferenced items, a Christian who does not understand the issue probably is not well-read enough to attempt an answer.
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by James Buckner
(c) Copyright 1997, James Buckner. Permission is hereby given to reproduce and distribute this material in whole or in part in any medium, on condition that the reproductions not be sold for any form of consideration, and on condition that the author is duly cited as the source.
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