Tough Questions

For many people, there are some BIG questions to be asked about faith and religion, and about faith in Jesus Christ in particular. They look at the Church (global) and they look at Christians today, and decide they want nothing to do with it, or with God. In the words of Rigby Wallace, though, if you think churches are filled with people who are perfect, or close to being perfect, then you couldn't be more wrong. Churches are filled with people who are all too aware of their sin, or their shortcomings - that's one of the reasons they're in church in the first place.

I'm not the best advert for Christianity at the moment either. Despite that though, people ask me the difficult questions - why does God allow suffering? Surely science has disproved the existence of God? Surely evolution and the Bible are incompatible? Wasn't Jesus just a good (moral) teacher and not really God? Surely all religions lead to God? Surely the Bible is a man-made construct, not the Word of God? Does God really hate all homosexuals?

Questions like this indicate me to that the person asking is genuinely searching for something. While I can attempt an answer, there usually isn't enough time to really explore these issues with the person concerned, so I usually recommend a host of really good books they can borrow from me - I particularly like C.S. Lewis and John Stott's books.

Common Ground Church is currently running a series looking at these tough questions. Last week looked at how a loving God can allow suffering. Today looked at whether or not science has disproved God and religion. So far, I've found the talks very good, given the limited amount of time to discuss the topic. If you are at all interested, then do click on the link and download the talks as they are uploaded to the site.

It might just change your life.