Last time I began the first of several posts regarding the comfort and discomforts of discussing religion with non-Christians. The majority of what I covered in that post revolved around the struggle with Christian Institutions and their often shallow, divisive nature. Not only has the Church encouraged its membership to avoid being a part of the world – counter to Jesus himself – it has only driven some of its deeper thinkers away. It is an irony to me that some of the older gentlemen at my Church refer to me as a “deep thinker”, for the only thing I know is that my ignorance far outweighs my knowledge.

Which leads me to my next point. One of the common themes since this column’s inception has been my fear of seeming ignorant. In some ways this is simply my lack of self-esteem talking. In others, though, I must wonder if it’s a lack of proper Church leadership and teaching.

Speaking with colleagues on the matter, many have expressed a common belief that the Sunday sermon should not be too challenging. If they come to Church and feel bad or guilty after the service, it’s possible they won’t look forward to coming back. If they don’t come back, that’s fewer donations to help keep the Church alive. This is not a claim about Churches being greedy, just an acknowledgment of a very understandable fear: a Church’s livelihood.

I can understand the perspective, but without challenge then you aren’t speaking the word of God. A sermon should challenge but it should not condemn. The pastor should draw from the Bible stories and testimony that cause the audience to ask themselves, on a personal level, how they might be faltering. At the same time we must also be reminded that we, as Christians, are followers of Jesus Christ and not Jesus Christ himself. We are bound to falter. What matters is we try to be better.

My notebook is filled with questions I’ve asked myself during my pastor’s sermons. How am I guilty of pride and pleasure like Samson? How might I learn from these commonalities? To whom should I look for inspiration? Sure, the pastor occasionally points to his congregation and asks how “you’re” living “your” life, but he is also often quick to follow-up with his own shortcomings.

Unfortunately this introspective attitude is not the one I’ve often encountered in most Churches. In fact, I’ve never really enjoyed being in Church as much as I have this past year. I largely think that’s because most sermons are written to sound as if someone learned something without encouraging the tough questions. I’ve encountered the optimistic focus on how wonderful God’s love is and what he has done for his faithful people, and I’ve heard sermons criticizing the sins of the world, but this may be the first time I’ve been at a Church that demands honesty from its congregation.

To perhaps illustrate some of what I mean, I’d like to reference a preacher that had criticized the rather unkind actions of a Mormon family. Upon hearing that their son had accepted Jesus and been baptized, they disowned him, tossed his belongings onto the sidewalk and left him to live with his aunt instead.

I do not recollect the specifics of Mormonism, so why this baptism would prove such a problem is unknown to me. The preacher’s purpose was merely to call the “Christianity” of others into question. All I could wonder was “what if that child were gay? How would you, preacher, have responded?”

Not that my own pastor does not bring up horrific actions in reference, either. What bugged me about this particular sermon was that it was intentionally pointing at another group as wrong. It elevated that congregation up pridefully. It was judgmental and accusatory. Everyone felt good about themselves because clearly they would never do such a thing.

If you believe in a sin nature, however, then it should be a given that we’re all capable of such horrific actions – or worse. None of us are above those allegedly real mormon parents. Furthermore, Christ himself certainly has something to say about plucking the log from your own eye before snagging the speck of another’s.

Regardless of the attitude, this is only one type of challenge. It’s not going to help in regards to feeling ignorant when speaking with non-Christians. At most you just have an amicable talk on differences in morality and what is right or wrong. The problem with how Church examines the Bible is that it often does so without the greater historical context in which each part of it was written.

I had no real idea what had happened in the four-hundred years between the Old and New Testaments until I picked up my current Study Bible. Within it detailed the conquest of Alexander the Great, the shift to Greek as the dominant language throughout much of Western civilization, and the Roman Empire taking over. This (insufficient on my part) summary of events gave me a theory as to why Jesus would come when he did. If his purpose was salvation to an entire world, then you’d want a common language and government that could make the spread of such word possible. To me, it was four hundred years of moving pieces upon a chess board.

Why was I only learning about it by age thirty-two?

Perhaps it’s asking a bit much to expect the sermon to do deep dives into historical context, but surely Sunday School could? By junior high students should be learning far more complicated material than basic morality lessons. They should be introduced to the very basics of Christian philosophy and its historical context. By high school they’ll be ready for more complex materials.

The first issue is the lack of knowledge within each Church’s volunteers. Proper education of faith has remained simple and stagnant while the education of the populace has continued to advance.

Study Bibles are certainly helpful in this matter, but even as I flip through my own I find myself craving more specialized materials. Google searches result in a lot of shallow speculation or ignorant assumptions. Wikipedia is similarly superficial. The best luck you can have is if your Church has a well-stocked library, and most of those I’ve attended lack a library at all.

Even then, a lot of the books are dedicated to alternatives to secular entertainment.

Any encounter with non-Christians is going to leave the believer at a disadvantage. There’s too much guesswork and theory and not enough facts. Even if there’s a prevalence of misinformation and misunderstanding about the Bible and its contradictions, the believer needs a better foundation to be able to counter many accusations and answer the multitude of questions.

Perhaps part of the problem is also that the argument from Christians is why you yourself should be Christian. The first step, however, is proving that Christianity isn’t just fiction. When the Church addresses its congregation with simple statements like “the Bible is truth” and fails to dive deep into the implications of such a phrase, you’ve already failed. The congregation can believe the Bible is truth all they want, it doesn’t matter if they cannot prove it.

Which is how we run into people insisting the world is four-thousand years old, or relentlessly arguing how literal the book of Genesis was at the start. Any “what if?” questions are immediately silenced. It’s possible that the stories of Adam and Eve are metaphorical and the Bible still remain true, but too many Christians and pastors demand these truths all be taken literally. Understandably so, too! Once you begin to address certain aspects as metaphorical you leave a lot of miracles up to interpretation.

This is why I find myself so poorly equipped, though. On a philosophical level I love discussing my faith. I love explaining why I think its morality makes sense to me. However, I am unable to fully defend the very relevance of the Bible adequately. So when I’m writing a column such as this, I find myself paralyzed. I know there’s going to be disagreement, but I tremble at the thought of being incapable of responding to hostile questions.

The Age of Enlightenment brought about a generation of educated intellectuals that began to question the validity of God. Heck, it had started before then. Instead of increasing the education of its congregations, however, the Institution of the Church seemed to double down on gut feelings and simplicity. Intellectualism itself was sinful, despite the fact that Jesus himself clearly exhibited a joy in thought. He was a teacher, after all.

Sadly, I am a poor teacher. Nonetheless, I shall continue trying. I thank you for following me on this personal journey of faith (and, as it turns out, misgivings).