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Holy hardball: asking Christians tough questions |
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Written by asap
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Sunday, 07 January 2007 |
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Does faith make sense, or is that not the point? Should Christians have to explain themselves?
Questions about religion remain a dinner party taboo. Believers have trouble explaining, logically, their leap of faith. And skeptics refuse to leap over logic to land on faith.
At a national youth ministers' convention last month, nearly 3,000 people exchanged ideas about how to lead young people in building a relationship with God. Unlike more fundamentalist Christian groups, San Diego-based Youth Specialties encouraged participants to ask questions — and accept that they don't have all the answers.
During the kickoff session, Youth Specialties president Mark Oestreicher took the stage, telling a packed auditorium of Christian youth workers to "put batteries in your crap detectors."
He exhorted them to attend talks with speakers they didn't agree with, or engage in debates with fellow youth workers who might have a different approach to understanding the Bible. Open your eyes, in other words. It's a searching process.
At night, many of the leaders would gather in Oestreicher's hotel suite to test their own crap detectors. Over snacks and even alcohol, for some, the friendly, mostly male group would stay up late into the night exchanging probing theological, cultural and philosophical discussions.
That kind of openness and humility might look promising to some nonbelievers. In his recent book "Letter to a Christian Nation," atheist writer Sam Harris said, "Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about."
But if you're willing to accept you might be wrong in spots, what makes you certain that the general foundation of the Bible as a holy book is valid in the first place?
In the spirit of asking questions and wanting viable answers, we wandered around the convention with a video camera and asked participants to explain themselves.
Sure, there was a little squirming involved. But this is eternity we're talking about — someone's got to ask.
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Hillary Rhodes is an asap staff reporter in New York. | Only registered users can write comments.
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