Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?  Posted: 03 Jul 2017 01:49 AM PDT  

I’ve been speaking around the country for a number of years now. I often address church groups of one nature or another, and when I do, I usually begin by asking a simple question: “Why are you a Christian?” The response I get is sometimes disappointing. Typically, attendees provide responses in one of the following broad categories:

Answer 1: “I was raised in the church” / “My parents were Christians” / “I’ve been a Christian as long as I can remember”

 Answer 2: “I’ve had an experience that convinced me” / “The Holy Spirit confirmed it for me” / “God demonstrated His existence to me”

 Answer 3: “I was changed by Jesus” / “I used to be [fill in your choice of immoral lifestyle], and God changed my life”

 Answer 4: “Because I just know the Bible is true” / “Because God called me to believe”

It's nice to know that you regard as "disappointing" these perfectly biblical answer:  Answer 1 (kids are supposed to be raised in the church and are expected to not deviate from this after adulthood, Ephesians 6:1, Proverbs 22:6);  Answer 2 (experience is a valid basis for religious conversion, what about Paul's experience of Jesus on the road to Damascus, Acts 9, 22, 26?  The Holy Spirit often uses "experience" to "confirm" conversion, Acts 14:3); Answer 3 (giving up immorality is an attribute of true Christians, 1st John 3:9, 1st Cor. 6:9-11);  Answer 4 (conversion on the basis of God "calling" something is biblical, Romans 1:6, 8:30;  1st Cor. 1:9, 24, 7:21, Galatians 1:15, Ephesians 4:4, etc, etc.)

 That will perhaps tell your readers which goal (their spiritual maturity or their selling your books) you prioritize higher.

As often as I ask this question, I seldom receive anything other than these four responses.

Because Christianity appeals mostly to people looking for a social club, not people who are impressed with its academic claims (1st Cor. 1:26). 

If you were asked this question, which answer would you give?

When I was a Christian, my answer was "because I've done what the bible says I need to do, in order to be saved, confess Christ as Lord and believe in his resurrection, Romans 10:9".

Some of these are good answers, but others are not. If you’re a Christian simply because you’ve been raised in the church, how can you be sure Christianity is true?

Well since the bible requires Christian parents to raise their kids in the faith, it is apparently God's will that certain adults be Christian more because they were raised that way, and less because they are impressed with things asserted by Christianity's current car salesman, J. Warner Wallace.
 

If you’re a Christian because you’ve had a transformative experience, how do you know if this experience is truly from the God described on the pages of the New Testament?

They don't need to know for sure, Paul apparently was capable of being a good apostle despite the fact that he couldn't tell, even 14 years after the fact, whether a divine experience he had was in his body or out of his body, 2nd Corinthians 12:1-4.  Apparently, knowing "for sure" wasn't as big of a deal to first-century Christians, as it is to modern day business men who view Christianity as an opportunity to making money and be the center of attention.

As an atheist for most of my life, I learned to be skeptical of people who told me they believed something simply because they grew up a certain way or had an “experience.” I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, and the man I respected most (my father) was a cynical detective. He was (and still is) also a committed atheist.

Which should have told you that the way the human mind works, there's more reason why we believe or deny something, than merely "evidence".  Yet you carry on as if your intended readership could be blank slates ready to process information as objectively as a computer.

I grew up as a skeptic and noticed something important along the way: the members of every religion seem to give the same answers. The four responses provided by my Christian audiences today are also the four answers my Mormon friends offer when asked why they believe Mormonism is true. In fact, the vast majority of believers in any religion—from Buddhist to Baptist—are likely to offer the same responses. While these kinds of answers are common, they are not sufficient. Mormonism and Christianity, for example, make entirely contradictory claims related to the nature of Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and a myriad of other important theological truths. Both groups could be wrong, or one could be correct, but they can’t both be right, given their contradictory beliefs. Yet both groups offer the same kinds of answers when asked “Why are you a Christian / Mormon?”

Perhaps Christianity is just as false as Mormonism?

It seems that all believers (regardless of religious affiliation) typically answer this question in the same way, and that’s the problem. If our answers sound like the answers given by every other religious group, we need better answers.

Trouble is, you have failed in your materials to establish Jesus' resurrection as historical fact.  You certainly talk a lot about it, but you refuse debate challenges from informed bible critics. You apparently recognize you'll be less successful allowing your readership to see how well your fluff stands up under real life attacks, and you apparently think you'll be more successful selling your stuff if Christians are the only ones doing the talking.

You know the one response I seldom, if ever, get when I ask my believing audiences why they are Christians? It’s this one: “I am a Christian because it is true.”

Testifying to what a failure Christianity is.  Perhaps a more biblical answer is "I am a Christian because I don't want to suffer in hell for all eternity", and Lord knows the bible sets nforth conscious eternal suffering in the afterworld as a motive to "get saved".  Luke 16. 

Few people seem to have taken the time to investigate the claims of Christianity to determine if they are evidentially true.

That's because Christianity is not an evidentialist faith.  God has chosen to do less than his best to establish Christianity as a true religion, thankfully creating a problem that your reasonably priced materials can $olve.

In fact, as I present the case for Christianity around the country, people repeatedly approach me after my presentations to tell me they never knew there was so much evidence supporting what they believe.

And they wouldn't come up to you like that had you done the nmore objective thing, and present your Christian case in the context of a live debate with an informed bible critic.  When it's just you who is doing the speaking, your audience isn't being given the opportunity to see how your alleged evidence holds up under real-world crossfire by informed skeptics like me.

These Christian brothers and sisters have intuitions and experiences that incline them to believe Christianity is true long before they’ve actually investigated the case. They’re correct, but when challenged to tell others why they believe Christianity is true, they sound like every other non-Christian theistic believer. Their defenses seldom stand up to aggressive challenges and are often less than persuasive. Why should atheists accept the testimonial experiences of Christians when Christians themselves don’t accept the testimonial experiences of other believing groups—or of atheists? Now, more than ever, it’s time to develop a Forensic Faith. It’s time to know what you believe and why you believe it.

Translation:  "Now, more than ever, it's time to purchase my reasonably priced materials intended to fix the problems created by God's failure to explain things better in the bible.  How can you possibly have that Forensic Faith if you depend solely on the bible as sufficient for faith and practice?"