Hemant Mehta, author of I Sold My Soul on eBay, was interviewed in the last issue of Wineskins. He’s an athiest who set up an eBay auction promising “that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old … says he suspected he had been missing out on something. The winning bidder actually asked him to visit 10-15 church services, then write about them. I was surpised to find that in this interview he said a few things I agree with.
“…the pastors were speaking to a group of believers; however, I still didn’t get the feeling that the various congregations were going to question anything the pastors said.”
“I was shocked because I rarely saw critical thinking going on. I thought the churches would emphasize the reasons for believing a lot more than they actually did.”
“I took the phrase “Bible Study” much more literally than I should have. There was very little questioning of whether we should believe everything we read, and much more of “The Bible says it so it must be true.” I’m sure Christians would become stronger in their faith with more of the former…”
That last bit is something I’ve seen far too often. Our faith should be deeper than, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” I don’t think that we should question everything in the Bible ad infinitum…what kind of lives could we live? I guess you could be an Emergent pastor. Wait, do they have pastors? Maybe an Emergent Non-authoritative-discussion-facilitator.
I was also a bit disappointed in the interviewer. Mehta raised some valid philosophical questions about Christian belief, and rather than engage those questions - which were the focal point of Mehta’s criticisms - he brought out the Anthropic Principle.
He didn’t recognize the angle from which his subject was viewing the issue. The signals were there - “none of [the churches] gave me reason to dismiss my own logic”; ” I would’ve been more satisfied hearing someone tell me why using my brain is the wrong way to go”; “I rarely saw critical thinking going on”; “I was never being asked to think these types of questions through”. The guys at ScriptoriumDaily.com would have been able to handle this.
Technorati Tags: anthropic, atheist, bible study, critical thinking, philosophy
2 responses so far...
You’re right. This guy was probably going to ignore whatever part of the Gospel he heard, and write it off as unproven.
There was a comment battle at Evangelical Outpost a while back over whether physical/scientific evidence or testimonial evidence was superior. If you’re not willing to accept testimonial evidence - the evidence that points to the validity of the New Testament, and the evidence of God’s work in the lives of His people, then you’re going to say things like he said.
But we have to be ready to give a response, right? To testify to the hope we have. But we can’t just give any old response, we - like the Gospel writers have to tailor our message to our hearers (without altering or diluting the truth). The interviewer here didn’t do that.
Again, you’re right, he may not have responded to it…maybe he would have reacted with the same tone. But I think it might have hit him a little harder.
Blogs4God
I don’t know Charles. In some ways I agree with the dude, but with others, I can’t get within a cruise missile.
What does come to my mind is what Jesus said - ‘Don’t give pearls to swine’ - an unbelieving heart will pick through the Gospel no matter which way it’s presented.
There will always be 3 responses…
http://www.layguy.com/2008/05/04/3-responses/
Which of course, you have already commented on@ Keep up the good work Charles.