Reaching Unbelievers takes Demonstrations of Power

Modern Atheism

A journalist has written a series of column in our local newspaper explaining why he is an atheist. He does not seem to be virulently anti-Christian. He just believes that Christianity is not very relevant to modern life.

Once people needed God to explain why life exists. The theory of evolution makes this unnecessary. Once people needed help to decide right from wrong, but now people can work out what is good and evil without the help of a god. The journalist concluded that there is just no role left for a god. If his only experience of Christianity is believers with peace (so deep down in their hearts it cannot escape) and hope of heaven, I am not surprised that he has reached this conclusion.

Christians reacted strongly to his arguments, but maybe the problem rests with us. Something is seriously wrong with the church when a reasonable person can just assume that the theory of evolution has made Christianity redundant.

Imagine if he had made the same argument in Jerusalem after the day of Pentecost. When Peter was preaching after in the temple after the man who had been lame from birth was healed (Acts 3), all philosophical arguments seemed to be irrelevant. If someone had called out that evolution made God irrelevant, the response would be obvious. “Can the evolutionary process heal a man who has been lame from birth?”.

Imagine the situation in Samaria.

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city (Acts 8:6-8).

If someone had suggested that humans can now decide right and wrong without help from a god, the crowd would have laughed. Someone would have asked, “Can the people who can distinguish good from evil, get paralytics and cripples restored to full health.

Christianity is currently facing a strong philosophical attack from various atheist groups. The effectiveness of this attack is a sign of our weakness. If the modern church was moving in the power of the Spirit, the arguments of the atheist philosophers would be falling flat.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power (1 Cor 2:4).