Toward Clarity - Live What We Believe

In 1st Peter 2, the writer cautions us to walk in a manner that pleases God and is a clear demonstration of the presence of the indwelling Christ.
11Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,12having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.
The way we live can be a visible demonstration of the power and presence of Jesus.   If He is our Lord, that means that we are not only following His principles, but the attitude we display toward those who do not share our faith will be clear and compelling.   If Christ is our life, if He is truly living through us, expressing His nature through us, there will be a distinct difference in the way WE live versus a person that merely claims to be a Christian, but whose heart is not in it.  God is calling us to be people of conviction, and that can enable us to cut through the secular haze that is so pervasive in this culture and reflect the glory of and the truth of God.

In Colossians 4, the apostle Paul challenges believers to be wise in the way that we engage those who are outside the family of faith:
5Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time.6Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

So what would propel someone to choose to be an atheist rather than a Christian?   Larry Taunton of Birmingham's Fixed Point Foundation posed that question to a sampling of young people claiming to be atheist, and reports the findings in an article on the Atlantic website called, "Listening to Young Atheists:
Lessons for a Stronger Christianity."

Fixed Point launched a nationwide campaign to interview college students who are members of Secular Student Alliances (SSA) or Freethought Societies (FS), which are what you might call the atheist equivalents to Campus Crusade: They meet regularly for fellowship, encourage one another in their (un)belief, and even proselytize. They are people who are not merely irreligious; they are actively, determinedly irreligious.

They contacted leaders in those groups from a variety of campuses and asked this: Tell us your journey to unbelief. Larry writes, "It was not our purpose to dispute their stories or to debate the merits of their views. Not then, anyway. We just wanted to listen to what they had to say. And what they had to say startled us."

Some of the factors for these atheist students personal journeys included:

They had attended church.   Most of the participants had not chosen their worldview from ideologically neutral positions at all, but in reaction to Christianity. Not Islam. Not Buddhism. Christianity.

The mission and message of their churches was vague.  These students heard plenty of messages encouraging "social justice," community involvement, and "being good," but they seldom saw the relationship between that message, Jesus Christ, and the Bible. 

They felt their churches offered superficial answers to life's difficult questions.   Fixed Point found that when participants were asked what they found unconvincing about the Christian faith, they spoke of evolution vs. creation, sexuality, the reliability of the biblical text, Jesus as the only way, etc.  Some had gone to church hoping to find answers to these questions.  Serious-minded, they often concluded that church services were largely shallow, harmless, and ultimately irrelevant. 

They expressed their respect for those ministers who took the Bible seriously. The former church-attending students apparently respected Christians who unashamedly embraced biblical teaching.   Michael, a political science major at Dartmouth, told us that he is drawn to Christians like that, adding: "I really can't consider a Christian a good, moral person if he isn't trying to convert me."  

Ages 14-17 were decisive.  For most, the high school years were the time when they embraced unbelief.

The decision to embrace unbelief was often an emotional one.   With few exceptions, students told those conducting the study that they had become atheists for exclusively rational reasons. But as they listened it became clear that, for most, this was a deeply emotional transition as well. 

And, the internet factored heavily into their conversion to atheism.  When participants were asked to cite key influences in their conversion to atheism, such as people, books, or seminars, they heard vague references to videos they had watched on YouTube or website forums.

The takeaway for those of us who are Christians? In conclusion, Larry makes some great points. He says, "...these students were, above all else, idealists who longed for authenticity, and having failed to find it in their churches, they settled for a non-belief that, while less grand in its promises, felt more genuine and attainable." He adds: "Sincerity does not trump truth. After all, one can be sincerely wrong. But sincerity is indispensable to any truth we wish others to believe. There is something winsome, even irresistible, about a life lived with conviction."

Columnist Rod Dreher, in elaborating on Larry's article for The American Conservative writes: "We live in a truly secular age, in which religion is not taken for granted, but is a choice — and in which there is little or no pressure to go to church at all. More than ever, the Church has to give people a reason to believe. I’m not talking about an argument to believe (though that’s part of it), but a sense that the faith is true and compelling. You can’t get there through argument alone, at least not with most people. They need to see more. They need to see the faith incarnate in a meaningful way."

And, that's the challenge for each of us - do we believe what we say we believe?    Have we developed a strong personal theology rooted in the Scriptures so that we not only know what we believe, but are able to engage in conversation about some of the Big Questions?   And, do our lives reflect a sincere devotion to our Lord Jesus?    If we are seeking to apply His truth to every area of life, then we will see the nature of Christ developed in our hearts, which will flow out to those with whom we come in contact.