Preach Magazine Issue 5 - Preaching to the unconverted | Page 14

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INTERVIEW

RJ This is what you do

professionally now – sharing and
defending the faith. Can you tell me
a little about that and what you do?
Now I’m involved in apologetics
and evangelism, and trying to reach
people who aren’t in church, or who
aren’t even nominally Christian.
We all know people who are in that
category, who just aren’t ‘churchy’
people. There are steps on the way to
seeing them come to faith and some
of those steps are answering their
questions or objections, and so part
of my work over the last seventeen
years has been giving talks, helping
lead a team and identifying and
raising up a team to do that, but also
writing books and resources that
help address some of those questions
that we all face.

RJ You’ve obviously come into

contact with many people of different
faiths and no faith, and you must
have come into contact with their
objections and questions. Could you
tell me a bit about some of the key
questions and objections that you’ve
encountered over the years, and
whether those have changed?
There are some questions that
continually come up and haven’t
changed, such as questions about
science and faith or questions about
suffering. In the last five years there
have been more questions around the
moral character of God, around the
idea that belief in God is dangerous or
religion causes violence. I think that’s
due to two things: firstly, the rise of
militant Islam – people see serious
religious ideology, people passionate
about their faith committing violence,
therefore they think any passionate
religious commitment will lead to
violence. Secondly, New Atheists
have been identifying the
moral character of
God in the Bible as a
reason to disbelieve
in God. There have
also been more
questions about
how we live,
particularly
around sex and
sexuality than
there were a few
years ago.

RJ What are some of the challenges

that you’ve come into contact with
personally, when defending the faith?
That is a good question!
Obviously there are the intellectual
challenges we just talked about – the
potency of some of the questions,
but I think increasingly one of the
challenges is the disillusionment and
disconnect with what people hoped
faith might offer, and what they
actually see and experience. That
can take different forms – in very
charismatic settings people grow tired
and weary of the promise of revival
around the corner, or the idea that
everyone will be healed if you have
enough faith. I think if you do grow
up in that culture, as you get older,
you experience disappointment and
suffering, and there isn’t a narrative
for that in some charismatic churches.
People can feel that it’s God who’s
let them down, rather than that
particular theology.
Then obviously there are the horrific
sex and abuse scandals that have
occurred, either with people loosely
affiliated with religion, or by priests or
Christian leaders. There’s an impact
personally, but also a societal impact:
people feel ‘Christians have done that,
therefore I can’t go there. I’m just not
interested.’ I think those things are
really challenging to walk through
because they are so deeply felt.

RJ Do you have an example of

where you’ve been in a speaking
context and you’ve come into contact
with a particularly hostile or tricky
audience, and how did you overcome
that?

I’M GOING TO DO EVERYTHING
I CAN TO BE GENTLE,
RESPECTFUL AND LOVING, AND
TO SHOW JESUS’ LOVE IN HOW
I WOULD EVEN RESPOND IN A