In the midst of evil and suffering, abandoning your faith will neither help you handle suffering nor understand God. By looking back to Jesus’ death on the cross and looking ahead to the hope of a new heavens and new earth, we can understand God’s overwhelming love for us and the promise that victory will swallow up evil and death.

As Christians, we are often challenged by others or by ourselves to confront questions about science versus religion, and how to view the miracles of the Bible. What are the arguments used to invalidate Christianity? An examination of the main arguments teaches us the origins of the questions, their ramifications, and how to handle them. This talk was given during a leadership training session at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

The modern critique of religion comes from Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. Freud claimed that religion is psychological self-justification, that we created God to assuage our guilt and fear. Marx claimed that religion is a sociological self-justification, that we created God to exclude those unlike us. Nietzsche said that religion is nothing but a power trip, an attempt to use God to accrue power over others. However, Jesus himself critiqued religion and turned it on its head.

Religion poses a danger of creating division or intolerance between groups of people. However, the gospel lead us to three things: humble service, reconciling behavior that is neither patronizing nor self-righteous, and a love toward people who hold different beliefs than we do.

Just a dummy page.