Have you ever sent an email, text, or some other message you wished you could take back right after pushing “send”? A few months after college graduation I was getting my hair cut in Breckenridge, Colorado. The lady cutting my hair noticed I was reading The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Leslie Newbigin.

Figuring I might know a little about theology, she asked if I could explain why there was so much evil in the world. Since I had just taken a class on apologetics, I decided to tell her everything I knew about why God might allow evil. Every time she had a question, I had a quick retort.

From my perspective the conversation was going great. But all of a sudden she started crying and said, “This is a bunch of &$%! You have an answer for everything. It can’t be that easy.” I was completely taken aback. This made me a bit nervous, especially since she was holding scissors next to my head! 

You may be wondering why I would bother to thank the New Atheists. Why would people such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens deserve my gratitude? After all, haven’t they wrecked havoc on the lives of many believers and emboldened many skeptics, agnostics, and atheists? There is probably some truth behind this last question. In fact, I’ve personally had to clean up some of the mess from young believers unable to respond to their attacks. So, why thank them?

The reason is simple: they have helped put the discussion of God back in the forefront of public dialogue. When William Dembski was in grad school, he was amazed at how his professors simply wrote of Christianity as false. There was no debate. Christianity was ignored as false superstition. This is part of what motivated him to begin his research into ID. This certainly isn’t the case anymore. God cannot be ignored. There is public debate about the existence of God, and the New Atheists have helped bring it down from the academy to the common folk. I much prefer ferocious attacks than benign apathy.

Young people are leaving the church in droves. For those of us who work with students, this is hardly breaking news. All of us have stories we could share about young people who were “on fire” for God that, for whatever reason, abandoned their faith. Personally, I will never forget seeing a former classmate from Biola University walk by hand-in-hand with another man just one year after my graduation. I was shocked! He not only left Christianity (from what I could tell), he went headlong into the gay lifestyle.

Church attendance is a good indicator of this trend. The Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those raised in the church will disengage by twenty-nine years old. While it may be typical for young people to walk away from the faith during the college years and then return upon child rearing, the signs are that this generation (as a whole) is not coming back. As a Christian high school teacher, it’s disconcerting to think that four out of every five students I teach (statistically speaking) will be completely disengaged from their faith within a decade of graduation. The Facebook profiles of many former students tell it all.

What are the questions you most fear being asked about your faith? Even as a trained apologist there are many tough questions I hope don’t come up in my discussions with non-believers. Some questions are simply difficult to answer. But we can’t ignore the tough questions. Such an approach is cowardly and counterproductive for the kingdom of God. We must—yes, must—be prepared with an answer for the toughest questions (1 Peter 3:15). We have nothing to fear because the truth is on our side.

I recently had the opportunity to endorse Mark Mittelberg’s upcoming book entitled, “The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask (With Answers).” This book is based upon a survey Mark sponsored with Tyndale Publishers through the Barna Group of one thousand self-proclaimed Christians. They asked each person what faith questions they would feel most uncomfortable being asked by a co-worker or friend. Some questions are expected but a few might come as a surprise.

Check out this short video of The Unshakable Truth, the new book my dad and I wrote together. This was truly a special project as it was released in the 50th anniversary of my dad's ministry. It's really a milestone book for us, as it captures some of the key lessons my dad has learned over 5 decades in ministry. And, of course, I add a lot of stories and research from my own ministry and experience. EnjoyI

Check out this short video of The Unshakable Truth, the new book my dad and I wrote together. This was truly a special project as it was released in the 50th anniversary of my dad's ministry. It's really a milestone book for us, as it captures some of the key lessons my dad has learned over 5 decades in ministry. And, of course, I add a lot of stories and research from my own ministry and experience. EnjoyI

Check out this article in the NY Times about a new atheist pocket debater app. This shows the level to which the current debate about God has reached. It's no longer just in academic or public settings. They even quote me:

"Sean McDowell, the editor of 'Fast Facts' and some textbooks for Bible students, said he has become increasingly aware of a skill gap between believers and nonbelievers, who he feels tend to be instinctively more savvy at arguing. 'Christians who believe, but cannot explain why they believe, become ‘Bible-thumpers’ who seem dogmatic and insecure about their convictions,' he said. 'We have to deal with that.'

'Nowadays, atheists are coming to the forefront at every level of society — from the top of academia all the way down to the level of the average Joe,' added Mr. McDowell, a seminary Ph.D. candidate whose phone app was produced by the B&H Publishing Group, one of the country’s largest distributors of Bibles and religious textbooks.

William Dembski has done it again. His recent book “Intelligent Design Uncensored” (co-written with Jonathan Witt) is a marvelous introduction to the controversy surrounding the ID movement. If you’re unfamiliar with intelligent design, or you want a primer, this is the book for you. While they cover the usual ground for a book on intelligent design, the uniqueness of this book comes from its engaging and sometimes even humorous writing style.

This book is very timely because there is a pressing need to get the message of ID to young people. While the arguments for ID have been developed considerably, many people still assume Darwinism is the only game in town. Last week I received an email from a high school student in Orange County who had a class debate on intelligent design versus evolution.

In the last post, I provided a summary about emerging adults from Christian Smith’s new book Souls In Transition. Now, let’s explore what this means for ministering to this generation. Rather than focusing on outreach to the current emerging adults, I want to focus on how we pass on our values to the next generation in light of this research.

Are Christian Kids Leaving their Faith?

One of the surprising findings of Souls In Transition is that 64 percent of 13 to 17 year old conservative Protestants (evangelicals) remained so as emerging adults five years later (p. 108). Thus, 36 percent are leaving their evangelical faith after five years. This is still a significant number, but it is a far cry from the common claims that 80-90 percent of evangelicals are leaving their faith after high school graduation. Smith says, “The myth of overall religious decline among emerging adults must be dispelled” (283). In fact, Smith argues that those who do not go to college are more likely to lose their faith than those who do go.

In 2005, sociologist Christian Smith released a monumental study of the spiritual lives of American youth. The study—called “The National Study of Youth and Religion”—is detailed in the book Soul Searching and is an insightful and eye-opening account of what students ages 13-17 believe about God and religion. A few months ago, Smith released a follow-up book called Souls In Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (Oxford, 2010) that follows these same students as they transition into adulthood.

Like Soul Searching, this book is a must-read for anyone—parents, youth pastors, and teachers—interested in understanding the mindset of this generation. Smith is a careful, thoughtful, and highly respected sociologist from Notre Dame. He writes Souls in Transition to inform about this generation rather than to persuade to a particular form of ministry. Thus, people from various theological backgrounds will appreciate his work.

Last February I debated Dr. Jim Corbett on the question of God and morality. As a result, I was invited to appear as a guest by Luke Muehlhauser, the host for a Podcast at Common Sense Atheism. We discussed many things including apologetics and debate, the state of youth today and how apologetics relates to philosophy. Luke was a gracious and thoughtful host. Check it out!

Here's the link: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8087