Broken hearted for an atheist and why we shouldn’t allow our daughters to be raped

Sep 24, 2015 -- Posted by : admin
“So you’d offer your daughters up to be raped then?”

Clearly the person asking this question was a little agitated. He’d engaged in a debate with some Christians in a university corridor. The topics had been varied, ranging from punishment, creation, and now, to morality. One student was trying valiantly and faithfully to help this guy. None of these topics had actually been dealt with sufficiently; the gentleman in question didn’t really give time for answers, only for himself to think of a fresh objection.

And that’s absolutely fine.

I wanted to hear his objections. I wanted to try to understand what he was saying. Where his thinking was upto. So I asked.

And then I asked about authority. As in, what source does a person appeal to to demonstrate the truth of their claims. Specifically this was in the context of morality. He’d made a value based statement about some things being good and some bad, so I wanted to know how he arrived at those conclusions. Christians try to have the Bible as their highest authority in everything, including morality. What about him?

Cue a freaky little Bible study lead by him.

I’ll finish off this story in my next post.  It deserves working through more fully. I’ll just tell you the end of the story for now…

It all finished with him spinning round on the spot, I presume in anger, frustration, fear, resignation or something, and then walking off. He just went.

And it was heart breaking to be honest.

It had all been very energetic and engaging and stimulating but also, it was really sad. I don’t know what he’s experienced in the past that brought him to that point of anger at people’s belief in God. Maybe Christians who’ve not acted in a way towards him that’s anything like Jesus. Maybe a kind of Christianity that’s told him to “behave”, but not told him about Christ. Maybe the kind of pathetic, lightweight “Just believe it because that’s what Christians believe” teaching  without any evidence or indeed,  thought. Maybe it's nothing to do with Christians, it could be any one of the thousands of horrible things that happen to people every day. I don’t know what’s going on with him. But I know that I wish we could have each heard one another’s point of view and assessed it soberly. Grabbed a brew. Thought about things.

My heart was downcast for the rest of the day.

We didn’t get chance to really talk about Jesus. Not really. Not Jesus as a proof for the existence of God. That’s where it needed to go.

Jesus as a historical figure who existed in real time and space, claimed to be God, was put to death, among other reasons, for this claim to his own deity and then who rose from the dead, evidenced by numerous people’s accounts of his resurrection, including more than 500 people seeing him, according to one source. We didn’t get chance to talk about the most compelling proof for God existing. God becoming a man. The reason behind this.

So I’m left thinking now of when Jesus approached Jerusalem and wept over it in Luke 19:41-44. God become a man standing outside a city, his heart broken for it. I want that heart myself. I don’t want to be numb to people’s pain, confusion, stubbornness and desperation. I want to serve a city of people like the fiery, confused atheist I’ve just mentioned. I dream of a community of people who would love people enough that they’d include them in friendships, in their lives, even when they might believe different things. I dream of a community which loves people enough to give them time to express their opinions, their questions and objections.  I dream of a community of people who would love people like that so much that they’d pick up their Bibles and figure out why they actually believe the stuff they do. I dream of a church where Jesus would be the one people are confronted with.

After all, as Jesus wept, he predicted the downfall of Jerusalem, its enemies destroying it. And the reason he gave was this:

“...because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” 


We need Preston to know that God has come. Lets weep for out city.


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