Great article on how to talk to atheists. (h/t HH)

As you’d expect, his understanding of Christianity is flawed, and he is ignorant of (apparently any of) the reasons for its truth. All the same, he still raises some good points.

Essentially:

  1. Talk less. Listen more.
  2. Actually live the gospel.
  3. Don’t refer (only) to the Bible as your authority.
  4. Don’t use heaven and hell as incentives for believing.

Number 2 particularly resonates with me. Christians are hypocrites!! That’s to be expected, we are sinful people following a perfect Saviour. But Christians today are way too comfortable with their sin, and far under-estimate their sinfulness. We need to more openly declare that we are sinful, so as to never give the impression we think otherwise. We also need to repent more, examine ourselves more, apologise more, confess more, and put more importance on change.

Christians could also be better prepared to defend the faith rationally, since (contrary to many atheists) Faith is <b>NOT</b> believe without or even in the face of evidence, it is <i>trust</i>. As John Piper says, God is <b>not</b> honoured by base-less belief, but is honoured by well-founded belief.*

* Not a quote. Click for source.

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