Imagine yourself in a room.  The door behind you shut firmly, and you find yourself looking around at the walls, the floor, the ceiling, wondering how you ended up here.  The color of the walls, the coldness of the floor, the smell of old furniture, and the taste of neglect fill your senses with a twist of comfort and anxiety.

At the far side of the room, you see a door, obscured mostly by darkness.  The doorknob is partially lit, inviting you to see what lies beyond but cautioning you all the same.  The room is quiet, strangely quiet, so that your thoughts are almost audible.  You suspect you know what may be beyond the next door, but you’re not quite sure, and you don’t know if you want to find out.  And you’re not sure you want to give up yet as you’ve come this far.

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.

Even though I don't agree with his ideas, I must admit Christopher Hitchens is a talented writer.  Here he writes an interesting account of his battle with cancer. 

What I find highly interesting, and inconsistent, is Hitchens' presumption of meaning.  Hitchens is an atheist.  In his worldview, any objective transcendent meaning to life or its events is utterly illusory.  No purpose here.  Just a random collision of atoms in this cold dark universe we call home.  Hitchens implies as much:  "To the dumb question 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply:  Why not?"  "Why me?' is indeed a dumb question when there's nothing or no one to answer.

It quickly became chaos. Before I knew it, people were interrupting each other and nearly yelling; and then, someone through a shoe. (Well, the shoe part didn’t happen, but I thought that was next.)

Some Question and Answer sessions go smoothly. Some are a bit dicey. But others are just plain chaotic. The one I conducted this week was chaotic.

I used to get frustrated when shoes were thrown, but I don’t anymore because I have realized that when chaos ensues, something incredible happens.

What Happens? There are few things that make us more uneasy than asking: “What’s going to happen next?” We all know people who read their horoscope every day, or regularly see a fortune teller. (Perhaps this is why the ancients were fascinated by prophets.) The question “What’s going to happen next?” leads to anxiety, fear and worry. It can even lead to being dishonest with ourselves. And we know: worry is like a dancing bear and dishonesty is like a monkey with clanging cymbals.

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

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Luke 1:5-7

When I read this passage this morning, I stopped and wrote in the margin of my Bible, "Sometimes the righteous are barren." 

Why did I feel the need to point this out? Why did it strike me as notable?

Because prosperity theology is ubiquitous in Christendom, and it's destroying people's lives.

We all know being dishonest with others is wrong and unacceptable: enough said. But there’s a kind of dishonesty we usually don’t talk about: being dishonest with ourselves. It happens when we’re unwilling to admit our personal faults and weaknesses. We convince ourselves that we can overcome our greatest weaknesses on our own. We go on without accountability. Eventually, either by force or surrender, though, we have to come to terms with who we really are.

If worry is like a dancing bear, then dishonesty is like a monkey with clanging cymbals. I’m a drummer—while we’re being honest, I prefer to be called a percussionist; if you’re a musician, you will get the joke, if not, I’ll just say I do more than bang on trash cans—so I love the toy monkeys with clanging cymbals. And I love the videos of monkeys trying to play with percussion instruments. (That stuff is make your ribs-hurt funny.) But when the monkey with clanging cymbals comes on the scene, we have a hard time hearing anything else. While that monkey is telling us lies about good music, like a garage-band drummer, we can’t hear the real melody. We can’t tune for the life of us. Eventually, we end up playing punk rock and having black hair, and calling ourselves an artist. (I did that, for the record.)