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Clear thinking about Rachael Slick’s departure from Christianity

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I saw that Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 tweeted a post from Right Reason by philosopher Glenn Peoples about Rachael Slick, the daughter of CARM president Matt Slick. Rachael recently announced her departure from Christianity for atheism.

Here is the passage where she explains why she left Christianity:

This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?

Now this is not necessarily basic apologetics, but it is fairly easy to respond to, and I posted something about it earlier in the week. I just want to point out that I don’t really view these sorts of objections as serious objections, since the core of Christianity is about the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus. Peripheral issues like Bible difficulties don’t really matter if the core is sound. The main focus in Christian apologetics isn’t on fine points of inerrancy or doctrine, it’s on God’s existence and the resurrection, which authenticates Jesus as the Messiah. More on that later.

I wanted to quote from the post that Brian found though, because I think this really explains some very important things that Christians need to understand in order to avoid these sorts of Bart Ehrman / Dan Barker de-conversion stories.

And here it is:

To a Christian who up until now has taken the faith seriously an an intellectual level, holding a view that this faith is robust enough to withstand a bit of light prodding such as this, the solution would have been a bit of light (yes, actually very light) reading on the subject – and there is plenty to be done. This is to say nothing about the rather idiosyncratic view of morality expressed here (comparing moral truths to mathematical truths does not bode well!). And yet this moment of dorm room theology banter lead headlong to this:

I still remember sitting there in my dorm room bunk bed, staring at the cheap plywood desk, and feeling something horrible shift inside me, a vast chasm opening up beneath my identity, and I could only sit there and watch it fall away into darkness.The Bible is not infallible, logic whispered from the depths, and I had no defense against it. If it’s not infallible, you’ve been basing your life’s beliefs on the oral traditions of a Middle Eastern tribe. The Bible lied to you.Everything I was, everything I knew, the structure of my reality, my society, and my sense of self suddenly crumbled away, and I was left naked. I was no longer a Christian. That thought was a punch to the gut, a wave of nausea and terror. Who was I, now, when all this had gone away? What did I know? What did I have to cling to? Where was my comfort? ??I didn’t know it, but I was free.

Dramatise much? You couldn’t answer a much discussed question in theological ethics. You could have added a bit of learning at this point, but instead you make out that you intellectual world has been nuked. The closing statement sums it up better, I think: “I was free.” And that was really the point of this. Here’s my pick for the real culprit, in the next breath:

For a long time I couldn’t have sex with my boyfriend (of over a year by this point) without crippling guilt. I had anxiety that I was going to Hell. I felt like I was standing upon glass, and, though I knew it was safe, every time I glanced down I saw death.

But over time – thanks to the deconversion, that changed. It’s telling that she chose to draw attention to this. Numerous times I have seen people turn away from the faith, not because they became aware of new intellectual reasons to reject it, but because the appeal of remaining in the faith became dulled by the drive to live a life that was not compatible with it (and that number includes “apologists” for atheism). You see something, you want it. But you have this belief that you shouldn’t do it. So, as is human nature, you rationalise. You re-create the world of truth around you and what you want. “Maybe this Christianity thing isn’t true after all…” What changed? The evidence? Nope. The arguments are as good as ever. Your will is what has changed. This is confirmed by the celebratory comment that “Freedom is my God now.” No doubt, and that is what you were pursuing. Christianity hindered you, so bye bye Christianity. As was shown in the study Losing my Religion, and as I commented in a recent podcast about why some reject Christianity, there is a correlation between having sex outside of marriage and giving up one’s religion (usually Christian, in the American context in which the study was carried out). Other factors that correlate with abandoning the faith include drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders and get this – lacking a higher education. But that’s another matter, and of course does not answer questions about the truth or otherwise of atheistic or religious claims. It also makes sense that the time when a young person leaves their parents’ home and out into an environment where a smorgasbord of choices are now available to them is the most likely time that they will walk away. The comments thread at the blog where this story is told is full of the usual and can be paraphrased thus: “Oh, you taught her to THINK? Big mistake Dad, of course she was going to walk away!” Not even close to the mark. It was not critical thinking that sunk this faith. It was desire, as it so often is. The intellectual reason offered is absolutely flimsy, and certainly not offered an intellectually respectable presentation.

I think that’s very well said, and my experience with other decoverted fundamentalists has always been that they often had non-cognitive issues driving the deconversion:

  • boyfriend and girlfriend issues
  • popularity issues
  • sexual activity / sexual orientation issues
  • unrealistic expectations of a pain-free life
  • unrealistic expectations of God providing financially
  • unrealistic expectations of God making their foolish decisions “work out”

So here’s my advice to parents who want to avoid this sort of rebellion.

First, don’t concentrate on the inerrancy of the Bible as much as you emphasize the good philosophical and scientific arguments for a Creator/Designer. More effort should be put on the mainstream findings of science: cosmology, fine-tuning, origin of life, Cambrian explosion, galactic habitability, stellar habitability. The resurrection is also key, but should be defended with a minimal facts approach using mainstream historical methods – not by assuming inerrancy. The existence of God and the resurrection are the strong core of Christianity, not inerrancy. I am saying this as someone who believes in inerrancy for the autographs. It’s better to lay a foundation rather than trying to defend too much.

Secondly, don’t try to force children to act beyond what their worldview can bear. It is OK for you to have children and to go about doing your Christian ministry based on your convictions, without trying to demand that your kids operate at that level. Instead of telling them what to think, always try to show them both sides. Once a person sees a couple of William Lane Craig debates or Mike Licona debates, they are probably going to want to be like Craig and Licona naturally. But the main thing is that the actions have to be supported by knowledge. When the young person has taken the time to study on their own and sorted out the evidence for themselves, then they will be able to operate more and more authentically as a Christian. The studying comes first, and then the acting like a Christian comes second – at least in a challenging society like ours where we really have to know our stuff cold to stand firm. But you can’t expect the actions before the studying.

Third, don’t just rest your support or opposition to various positions on the Bible. For example your views on theism and the resurrection should be rooted in secular arguments and secular evidence. Consider it a joy when you can go outside the Bible and confirm something the Bible says with secular evidence. Especially scientific and historical evidence. Connecting the Bible to real world evidence eliminates the painful anxiety of being “separate” and “other”. Always make the data the issue, not the position. The data can be debated more easily.

For example, if the issue is gay marriage, spend lots of time talking about the health effects of the gay lifestyle on gay men, the effects of same-sex parenting on children, the social costs of HIV/AIDS, the scientific evidence against the “gay gene”,  the low levels of stability and exclusivity in gay relationships, etc. Look – young people don’t want to feel weird having to defend every moral conviction with the Bible in public. Teach them secular reasons for everything that the Bible says, and it will reduce their anxiety and make being a fully convinced Christian in public much easier.

I think that one of the biggest problems out there right now is that Christian men and women are under so much pressure to conform to the sexual standards of the day in order to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Some people really want to have boyfriends and girlfriends who are first and foremost physically attractive, and their faith gets in the way of achieving that goal. They see superhot guys and superhot girls, and they think about how impressed their friends will be if they are “with” that person. Young Christians basically have a “God will provide the perfect person for me” view of relationships, and their method of figuring out who God wants is by having tingles, not by thinking about what marriage is and finding someone who can do the job. Very often, just being superhot is no guarantee of willingness to marry, though, and may actually be more of a guarantee that you are going to be pressured for sex. Did Rachael do a good job of choosing a marriage-minded boyfriend who values chasity and is ready to commit in order to get sex?

So what to do about that pressure for sex? Well, when I think about why I am totally convinced that premarital sex is stupid, it’s because I want my future marriage to last. And I have looked at evidence from peer-reviewed studies that shows that the number of premarital sex partners is a threat to relationship quality and stability. I want to make effective Christian children, and to impact the church and the university. I want my marriage to be an example to others. A divorce wrecks all of those plans. With the evidence in my hand from mainstream research, it is much easier to accept and act on what the Bible says about premarital sex. The Bible doesn’t have this data, we have to look outside the Bible to get the data to confirm it. Has Rachael looked outside the Bible to be persuasive about what the Bible says?

For a young person facing her non-Christian peers, parroting “the Bible says” is not as reasonable or defensible as saying “the Bible says, and mainstream scientific evidence confirms”. We need to make evidence the foundation. The problem with young people is that they are surrounded by other young people who are just as clueless as they are. A pretty easy question from a young friend cannot easily be answered by a person who has a very limited knowledge apologetics gleaned from Christian rock music and television shows. What we need to do is to get them looking outside of their peer group for answers, and that means connecting them to real scholars with real logical arguments supported by real mainstream science and history. We need to connect the Bible to the data in the real world.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Related posts on chastity

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Pastor’s Matt’s book of the year – and the rest of his astonishing reading list

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Previously, I have been pretty critical of pastors being unwilling to connect the Bible to evidence outside the Bible. I have always maintained that the secret to getting people to act like Christians and evangelize effectively was that we needed to train Christians to understand how to relate what the Bible says to the way the world really works outside church doors. Whether it be the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, social issues, fiscal issues and foreign policy issues, my view has always been that pastors by and large were just not taking seriously their obligation to train their flocks to engage with non-Christians. I guess that I expected that most pastors would be more like Wayne Grudem, who is really good at connecting the Bible to knowledge outside the Bible. But in my experience, most pastors aren’t like that.

Look, I don’t even think it’s possible – in a secularized, postmodern, relativistic, naturalistic society like ours – to impact the world for Christ unless our faith is connected to knowledge from the real world. Christians today say that they believe the Bible, but can they really live it out if it’s just private preferences, and not objective knowledge? Many beliefs that conflict with Christianity are accepted by most people today as being beyond dispute. In order to evangelize today, I think that we have to support our beliefs with knowledge. And that means building a worldview from the ground up, with each block the result of a careful study of some area of knowledge. We have to put as much effort into our faith as we do into our education, our careers, our investments, our fitness and nutrition, etc. That’s the only way to be an authentic Christian in such a hostile environment.

OK, so with that said, let’s take a look at Pastor Matt’s exciting post.

He writes:

Hi, my name is Matt and I’m a book addict.  It is a sickness that leads people to such reckless behavior as reading on a couch for hours during sunny days, spending free time wondering the racks at Barnes & Noble and boring the heck out of people at parties when soft-hearted fools make the mistake of inviting a well-known “bibliophile.”  BUT my sickness may be your blessing because raging geeks like me can help you spend your money and time a little bit more wisely.

My favorite book of the year so far is Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by Detective J. Warner Wallace (David C. Cook 2013).  Detective Wallace presents apologetics, the necessary but often dry discipline of defending the Christian faith, in a fresh and compelling manner.  He approaches the Gospels as a cold-case detective and illustrates his points with fascinating stories from his years working as an investigator.  It is a fun, well-written and helpful work that will embolden Christians to share their faith with others for decades to come.  You MUST pick-up a copy of this book.

So far so good. But this is where things get really weird. You see, Pastor Matt is really addicted to reading. He has read SIXTY-SEVEN books so far this year, and he has a bunch more in progress.

Now just check out a few of these books and ask yourself – what would the world be like if every pastor was like Pastor Matt?

Behold, the awesomeness of his book list:

1. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Zondervan 2009).  A lot of budding apologists fill their head with knowledge but lack tact in conversing with non-believers–Koukl’s book can help. A must read.

2. Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells (Regnery 2002).  What unsupported claims do Darwinists hold to? Wells, a trained evolutionary biologists, points them out in this wonderful book.

4. On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig (David C. Cook 2010).  A good apologetics resource although I think Craig struggles to explain in lay terms his response to scientific objections to the faith.

6. True for You, but Not For Me: Answering Objections to the Christian Faith by Paul Copan (Bethany 2009).  A good but short guide to various objections. Recommended.

7. How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong? Responding to Objections that Leave Christians Speechless by Paul Copan (Baker 2005).  A good guide with more meat to it than True For You, But Not For Me. Recommended.

9-11. The Case for Christ (Zondervan 1998), The Case for Faith (Zondervan 2006) and The Case for a Creator (Zondervan 2004).  The Strobel’s trilogy serves as a wonderful introduction to apologetics.  Strobel is a former journalist who interviews experts on matters of faith and reports them with crisp prose.  Highly recommended.

12. The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards (Regnery 2004). A wonderful book on the fine-tuning of the universe.  Highly recommended.

13. Seven Days that Divide the World by John Lennox (Zondervan 2011).  A great little book, which serves as a fine introduction to old earth creationism. Recommended.

15. The Reason for God by Tim Keller (Dutton 2009).  This is the 3rd time I have read through this work and it stands up as THE post-modern apologetic.  A must read.

16. Darwin on Trial: Deluxe Edition by Phillip Johnson (IVP 2010).  The best analysis and refutation of Darwinisn. A must read.

18. Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality by David Baggett and Jerry Walls (Oxford 2011).  A well argued but dense work for the moral argument for the existence of God. Highly recommended for those with a background in philosophy.

19. How We Got the Bible by Neil Lightfoot (Baker 2003). A readable history of how Bibles went from scrolls written by hand in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to the plethora of translations we have today. Recommended.

21. The New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer, Jr. (Zondervan, 1982).  A helpful book dealing alleged discrepancies but a bit dated.

22. The Big Book of Difficulties by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe (Baker, 1992).  Not as handy as Archer’s book but still well worth consulting.

23. The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Newness, 1905).  My son and I finished the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes last year and had a blast working through the sequel.

28. Is God A Moral Monster? by Paul Copan (Baker 2011).  A wonderful survey of the Old Testament with clear, concise answers. Highly recommended.

30. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona (Kregel 2004).  A very good overview of the arguments for the historicity of the resurrection. Recommended.

34. Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (Crossway 2008).  I have read through this book at least three times and am blessed every time. Highly recommended.

35. The Myth of Junk DNA by Jonathan Wells (Discovery Institute 2011).  Dr. Wells debunks a common objection to intelligent design.  Short but effective.

36. Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe (Free Press, 2006 ed.).  A classic that is often ridiculed by materialists but yet to be refuted!

37. Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer (HarperOne 2010 edition).  Another classic but a long and difficult read.

42. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith by Douglas Groothuis (IVP 2011).  THE text-book for apologetics.  Don’t let the size of the book intimidate, it is readable yet truly comprehensive.  Amazing.

43. Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics by Doug Powell (Holman 2006). The entries are short but still handy.  Recommended.

44. A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt (Vintage 1990 Edition).  A classic ode to following your conscience. Highly recommended.

45. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Dialogue between N.T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan by Robert Stewart, ed. (Fortress Press 2005).  An interesting but frustrating dialogue between two great New Testament scholars.

46. Holman Quick Source Guide to Understanding Creation by Mark Whorton and Hill Roberts (Holman 2008). The Holman Guides are always good to keep close even if they aren’t as extensive as say the Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics.

48.  Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan Edited by Paul Copan (Baker Academic 1999).  A fine read but how one can peruse this and not be dazed and confused by Crossan’s positions is beyond me.

50. The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian (WND 2005).  How did liberals win the PR war in re: to so-called “same-sex marriage” and the butchering of unborn children? Kupelian does a good job of outlining it.

51. Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike S. Adams (Regnery 2013).  Professor Adams has long been one of my favorite columnists and this book is a must read.  I highly recommend it.

52. A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel J. Flynn (Crown 2008).  One of the few books in the last few years that I have read multiple times.  A must read.

54. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson (Penguin 2009).  A wonderful and readable economic history that is a must for any and all wanna be policy wonks and political junkies.

55. God & Man at Yale by William F. Buckley (Regnery 1986 ed.) A stunning indictment of Buckley’s alma mater, which envisioned the takeover of academia by the secular left.  A must.

56. Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism by Peter Schweizer (Anchor 2004).   A compelling overview of one man’s determination to destroy the evil of Soviet communism.

I am currently re-reading The Apologetics Study Bible (B&H 2007), A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen (Sentinel 2007), Intellectuals and Society (revised and expanded) by Thomas Sowell (Basic 2012), The Last Command by Timothy Zahn (Spectra 1994) Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen C. Meyer (HarperOne 2013) and Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America by Mark Levin (Threshold 2012).  So far, I recommend them all.

This man is the James Bond of church! Where the heck did he come from? Where do they even make pastors like this? I’ve been in the church and in campus groups for the last 20 years, and I haven’t met a single church leader who read books like this.

I really don’t know what to say about this list. I am just so blown away. Can anyone tell me why it is that there is only one Pastor Matt? What’s wrong with all the other pastors, or is it just that I haven’t heard about any of the good ones in my travels? Is your pastor like this? Does he mention ideas from these books in his preaching?

By the way, you can friend Matt on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. Recommended!

UPDATE: He’s written a new post explaining how he is able to read so many books.

News

J. Warner Wallace: is the idea that you should only evangelize your friends Biblical?

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A recent post from the Please Convince Me blog analyzed whether it is normal for Christians to only evangelize their friends.

Excerpt:

We typically only share our faith with people we know, so it’s shouldn’t surprise us that these are the people who come to know something about our faith! But does it have to be this way, and more importantly, is this approach consistent with what the New Testament teaches?

In order to answer this question, we needn’t go further than the words of Jesus. During His earthly ministry, Jesus commissioned seventy-two of His followers to travel from town to town, announcing, “The Kingdom of God has come near” (Luke 10:9). Were these disciples told to engage only people they already knew? Hardly. In fact, Jesus warned these budding evangelists that they would be in unknown, often dangerous territory; He told the group they would be “lambs in the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3). Later, after the Resurrection, Jesus commissioned His apostles with a more sweeping directive: “You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It’s clear that the expansive geographic parameters described by Jesus would require the apostles to move quickly beyond the limits of their friends and acquaintances.

And that’s exactly what the apostles proceeded to do. Paul repeatedly entered unfamiliar synagogues to announce the Good News to Jews who were strangers to Paul (i.e. Acts 13:13-42 and Acts 18:4-5), and he frequently evangelized “on the streets” from town to town to Jewish and Gentile groups he did not know (i.e. Acts 13:44-52 and Acts 17:16-21). In fact, there are very few examples of friendship evangelism on the pages of Scripture.

I gently reminded the students that they needed to see strict friendship evangelism for what it truly is: a natural, fallen, human response to the fear of discomfort and worldly judgment. Most of us are more concerned with how we will be perceived (and the discomfort we might feel) than our godly responsibility to share the Gospel.  Jesus has a message for us: Get over it. Get comfortable with discomfort. The more we talk about Jesus and reflect His nature and mission, the more likely the world will hate us (John 15:18-16:14). The more we stand up for the truth, the more likely the world will put us in a tough spot (Matthew 10:17-23). And the more we are ostracized by the fallen world around us, the more joy we ought to feel to have been given the opportunity to stand up for something more than our own immediate personal comfort (Luke 6:22-23).

See, I think the problem is that Christians, when they evangelize, are not equipped to do anything more than talk about their personal experiences and preferences when it comes to evangelism. The problem is that asserting that your experience/preference is better than someone else’s experience/preference is uncomfortable. Especially if their preference makes them happy and makes them act nicely. That’s why evangelizing people is so intimidating for us – because we’re never telling people about facts that are true or false out there in the real world. It’s not controversial to tell someone that their belief about the world out there is wrong. That’s why I prefer to talk about public, testable data – like whether the universe began, or how to make a protein, or where the Cambrian animals came from. That’s just like discussing anything else.

The publication of the new Darwin’s Doubt book that was on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list is a good example of something to talk about safely. Although I might intimidated about trying to talk about feelings, sinfulness and religious experiences with people, I don’t mind talking about science with people. It’s much easier to talk about facts and evidence that about my personal experiences. People understand that and they aren’t intimidated by it, because they feel that they can disagree with factual claims and participate in the discussion.

For example, if I am talking to a Hindu, I’ll show him the papers that argue against the oscillating universe model which is part of the Hindu religion. I don’t even have to mention Hinduism, Christianity or religion. And then he has to come back to me on that factual claim. But it’s a lot easier for me to tell him he’s wrong about facts than to tell him he’s wrong about religious preference claims. Think about it – you disagree with strangers and acquaintances all the time about facts, and you’re not scared of that. I tell people they’re wrong about computer science stuff every day. Why is it any different to tell them that they’re wrong about facts that happen to be related to the claims of different religions? It’s the same thing! That’s why it’s so important to speak about facts with strangers. It’s normal. It’s not weird. It’s easy to say “You need to get your facts straight, because not knowing the facts is causing you to commit to the wrong religion”. That’s doable. Even with strangers.