Recent research has shown what many Christians suspected is true—the Christian church is losing many young people and the major reason is serious intellectual doubts. [1] Now when we talk about doubt and Christianity, most immediately think about doubting the validity of Christianity. While there are many such questions, Christian apologetics has been very successful in addressing those doubts. I took the certificate program in apologetics from Biola and it clearly demonstrated that Christianity is a very reasonable faith. This is not to say we have iron clad proof for Christianity but given the human condition (we are finite) we have a wealth of evidence for our faith.
However, demonstrating the reasonableness of our faith is only part of the answer.
There are other doubts besides the validity of Christianity such as theological or doctrinal questions. These questions must be dealt with as well. In this blog and in my book, we have asked three of those questions.
- What kind of a God would condemn to hell those who have never heard of Jesus or who have a distorted view of Jesus?
- What kind of God would make us finite (which means our ability to know what is true is limited) and then condemn us to hell for eternity for not believing in Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins (an event for which we cannot have certain proof because we are finite)?
- There are over 70 verses in the Bible that teach salvation is through belief in God or through our conduct, pattern of behavior, motivation, use of abilities, and repentance. Why did God put these verses in the Bible?
It is unfortunate that the Christian community has not addressed these questions. Until it is willing to do so, doubts will remain and we will continue to lose not only our young people but others who thoughtfully examine our faith.
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[1] Craig Hazen and Larry Barnett, “Young People are Indeed Leaving the Church”, Biola Magazine, Fall 2016.
