1/8/17
Jonathan 33
“If you had asked me two years ago, I wouldn’t have
talked to you”, a man named Jonathan, 33, told me as we talked about his
beliefs about eternity. He identifies himself
as an atheist, but not the militant atheist he was a 2 years earlier. He had always been one to question
everything, and growing up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green Housing projects had him
questioning his family’s Pentecostal beliefs and the violence he saw all around
him. To break away from his family’s
religious beliefs he felt he had to go the extreme in the opposite
direction. “It was easy to make
accusations of manipulation and hypocrisy in the lives of church members I
knew, but I began to see the same ugliness in myself as an atheist, and I didn’t
like who I was becoming.” Now he is
still an atheist, but more open to considering other viewpoints and less quick
to criticize.
He still rebels against any idea of hell or punishment
because he sees it as just a manipulative form of coercion on the part of
religious people or the God they believe in.
“But if someone told you not jump out of a plane because of the law of
gravity, you wouldn’t think they were manipulating you, right?” I asked.
He did not. “God is so perfect
and consistent in his character that his justice is just as consistent as the
law of gravity. For us as Christians to
tell of the judgment and punishment to come is just a warning of the fact of
God’s “law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2)
The good news is that just as a parachute would save you from the law of
gravity, Jesus will save you from the law of sin and death.”
He also rejects that a God who is both great and good
would allow so much evil in the world to exist, as he described various
incidents he had witnessed growing up in the housing projects. “But how much evil is acceptable?” I
asked. “If it was cut in half, would you
believe in God then? Really, as long as
there is just one person treated unjustly in the world, it would be too much. And
we don’t know how much God is limiting evil, how much worse it could be. There is a deeper purpose for God allowing
evil to exist that can’t be easily explained away with trite phrases or easy answers.”
We talked almost two hours. I see Jonathan on a trajectory away from the
extremes of manipulative religious beliefs and militant atheism, and I believe
our conversation has helped him see there are some answers to his many
questions. Toward the end he asked “What
if I did want to believe, how would I do that if I really don’t?” I told him “The Bible says “So faith comes
from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) You can take small steps of faith even as an
unbeliever. Agreeing to talk with me and
listen to what I say as a Christian might be one. Reading the Bible for yourself rather than
just believing the opinions of others might be another.” I gave him a Bible and explained how our
focus needs to be on the life and teachings of Christ as beginners. Please pray for Jonathan, for a faith in the
living Christ based on the words of scripture.
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