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I’m Glad You Asked That: Help Needed

 
Carl Laferton | 29 Mar 2011

We’d love you to help us with a new resource we’re developing…

What it is

You’re standing at the bar… or at the school gate… or in the staff room… and someone asks you a question about your faith.

  • “All this suffering: how can you believe in God?”
  • “Surely you don’t think there’s only one way to heaven?”
  • “Don’t you have to go to church if you’re a Christian?”

There are different ways of answering those questions. You can give a logical argument, or quote a passage of scripture that points to an answer. But what most often sticks in people's minds is a turn of phrase, or a story or illustration that gets to the heart of an answer to the question.

I'm Glad You Asked That is a resource we're trying to develop giving short answers to the 11 most commonly-asked questions we face.

We’ll give simple answers, and with a couple of key points, together with a bible passage you could go to: but we also love to include some stories or illustrations which help people to remember and explain gospel truths.

How you can help

So, a couple of times a week on the blog, we’re going to put a question up. And we just need you to tell us of an:

  • illustration
  • story; or
  • "sound bite"
that you’ve heard used, which you’ve found helpful.

Question One

So here’s the first question:

“Hasn’t science disproved Christianity?”

Each and every comment below is gratefully received, and if what you scribble down gets used, or prompts an idea that gets used, there will be 10 free copies winging their way to you once I’m Glad You Asked That is published.

Thanks in advance for your help on this one!

James Oakley

11:01 PM AEDT on January 8th
Sound-bite: I'm not aware of any experiment, in any of the sciences, that has proved that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Rob

11:01 PM AEDT on January 8th
There's a memorable illustration from "God's Undertaker" by John Lennox. He describes a man who finds a Model T Ford, and takes it apart piece by piece, in the process learning all about internal combustion engines. This man figures out exactly how the Model T works...and then declares "there is no Henry Ford"! It makes no sense! Knowing how a car works doesn't mean there was no-one to build or design the car.

In the same way, even as science helps us discover more and more about how the world/universe works - it makes no sense to therefore claim there is no God that made the world.

I found the illustration helpful, and have used it a few times in conversation.

Marc Lloyd

11:01 PM AEDT on January 8th
To say that science has disproved Christianity is a bit like saying cookery has disproved roast dinners. Science is a method. Christianity is one of the possible outcomes to which science helps to direct us, if used rightly. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. And Christianity (or roast dinners) may need to be understood and assessed by rather different methods from science (or cookery technique). Taste and see that the LORD is Good.

Tom

11:01 PM AEDT on January 8th
I find it difficult when people express scientific theories they've read in a book (or worse, on the internet) which claim to disprove certain bits of Christianity, but as neither of you are experts, it's pretty impossible to engage in a rational conversation about them.

It's a bit like people claiming 'that word is different in the Greek', but as neither of you know Greek, the whole discussion ends in an uncomfortable stalemate.

Peter Bourke

2:07 AM AEDT on February 6th
Did you ever develop this new resource? Is the old 'I'm glad you asked that.." (Copyright 1991, 2000) now out of print? I'm currently using 2Ways2Live in our evening service and wanted to give these out to help with the training. Any help?

Helen Thorne

12:06 AM AEDT on February 7th
Hi Peter. "I'm glad you asked that ..." is indeed now out of print. But we have developed a new resource that we trust will be of help. It's called "Good Question". You can find it by clicking here: http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/outreach/booklets-and-tracts/good-question

Carl Laferton

Carl is Editorial Director at The Good Book Company and is a member of Grace Church Worcester Park, London. He is the best-selling author of The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross and God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, and also serves as series editor of the God's Word for You series. Before joining TGBC, he worked as a journalist and then as a teacher, and pastored a congregation in Hull. Carl is married to Lizzie, and they have two children. He studied history at Oxford University.