Talk me out of it? Yes or No?

This post is intended to be food for thought.  The scenario that created this question is the college professor who thinks he is going to be cute by asking if there are any Christians in the room, and then proceed to shred their faith for sport.  This never happened to me, but I watched it happen once and didn’t know how to defuse the problem.  The old adage is that the guy with the microphone always wins.  My response is not if he is speechless.  I have learned this from two sources, one cited here, in recent months and thought it was too good not to share.

There was an article that I posted elsewhere a few months ago that stated how the college and university system was so entrenched with liberals and atheists, that they are now not even coy or covert about their intention of subverting the religious training of our children.  This is why teaching apologetics, or the defense of the faith, is so important for us.  It is not enough to think your child knows all the right doctrine.  What happens when their faith is put in the cross-hairs of some smug idiot with a microphone, a subjective grading scale and an axe to grind?

I have seen and heard, either on tape or in review, interchanges between panelists that are typical of the fare seen on television these days.  The panel usually has an atheist, a Pentecostal, a Mormon, a scientist of some sort, and if we are lucky, a reformed person of some small skill.  The game is usually played like this.  The atheist dismissively insults the thoughts and feelings of the rest of the group, while the one person stays silent.  Finally, the moderator will ask what this last person thinks.  He will say that he agrees with the atheist about all of the others.  This is particularly disarming, as the others were not expecting to be run down by a Christian, and the atheist thinks he has a foolish ally.  Then, one simple question can change the conversation: what if the tomb was empty?  If the atheist is honest, he will have to admit that an empty tomb changes the conversation.

Now, back to the classroom, the professor one day asks if there are any Christians in the room.  Your child raises his hand.  Being exceptionally clever, the professor asks if there is anything that would cause your darling child to change his mind about his faith.  The knee jerk reaction is usually “no” upon which a tirade against the child ensues in which he is tossing questions of all types, all to be treated rhetorically by him, of variable quality, and then offering poorly constructed answers to those questions in a quest to destroy the child’s faith.  The child is helpless in the situation.  They have not been trained to deal with these sorts of frontal assaults.

Let’s look at the atheist’s dilemma again.  What made the atheist reconsider his position?  What if the tomb wasn’t empty?  If you knew that the tomb wasn’t really empty, would you still be a Christian?  That gets to the heart of the faith.  Our faith has an object.  It is not blind faith.  The object of that faith is the redeeming work of Christ Jesus on the cross and in His resurrection.  Get to the point.  What is it exactly that makes Christianity different?  Talk about the central event in redemptive history.

One last time, the professor one day asks if there are any Christians in the room.  Your child raises her hand.  Being exceptionally clever, the professor asks if there is anything that would cause your darling child to change her mind about her faith.  She responds, “Yes, of course.” The silence will be deafening.  Caught off guard, the professor will hand control of the conversation to your child and asks, “What would that be?” She answers, “Prove to me that the tomb wasn’t empty.  And by the way, all of the historical documents on the subject either testify to the empty tomb or are silent in the matter.  Let me know when you find His bones.” And you, dear parent, will be proud of that child.

--Ogre--