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PEP Talk Podcast With Mary Jo Sharp (Again)

by Solas

Today we welcome back a previous guest on the podcast to discuss Gen Z, deconstruction and the role of apologetics in the church today. Mary Jo Sharp also introduces Darkroom: a new, free resource for young people and youth leaders to address the issues Gen Z cares about in terms they understand. Clare Williams also joins the podcast as our guest co-host for this episode.

With Mary Jo Sharp Again – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

A former atheist who came to faith, Mary Jo Sharp has experienced two worlds of American culture: the post-Christian culture of the Pacific Northwest and the evangelical culture of the Bible Belt. She first encountered apologetics in her own spiritual search while seeking answers. Mary Jo is now an assistant professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University and the founder and director of Confident Christianity Apologetics Ministry. She has been featured in Christianity Today’s cover story “The Unexpected Defenders” and is an international speaker on apologetics, focusing on love and logic to uncover truth. 

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

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The Work of Street Pastors – In conversation with Sandy Gunn

by Editor

Every week all over the UK, countless volunteers put on their “Street Pastors” uniforms and head out onto the streets of our towns and cities to “Listen, Help and care”. Typically after praying together, these volunteers from the local churches in the areas they serve, go on patrol at 10:00PM and don’t get home until after 4AM. That’s when they are most needed, when people are drunk, lonely vulnerable or isolated.

Sandy Gunn helps to co-ordinate the work of Street Pastors across Scotland, and is a regular on the patrols of his local patch in Perth. He’s a passionate advocate for the ministry that Street Pastors provide and came to Solas to tell us all about it.

“When Les Isaac started Street Pastors in Brixton in London in 2003, he wanted the church to present an alternative to the crime and sadness of the streets. His first 18 volunteers went out to represent Jesus on the streets, listening, caring and looking after people”, Sandy told me. “Since then it has spread across the UK, and there are 20 Street Pastors groups across Scotland now.” Sandy explained.

While each local initiative is run independently, Street Pastors Scotland acts as an umbrella-body, standardising training, skills, equipment, procedures and quality assurance; so that while each community can respond to local needs, there is a consistent standard of care.

I asked Sandy how he became involved.

“I was working as a Church of Scotland minister in the town and was invited along and was immediately hooked!”, he enthused.

Every city is different, but Perth’s streets can sometimes be very quiet – especially on their midweek shifts. Sandy Gunn observes that sometimes the quiet shifts can be the most significant ones. When the streets are deserted, girls walking home alone can feel especially vulnerable, and welcome the reassuring presence of a trusted, uniformed volunteer. Equally, people walking alone on those nights often want someone to talk to, and there is more time to give them when things are quiet – and some of the most profound conversations occur.

Sandy described some typical events on a Street Pastors night shift.

“We walk the streets, make eye-contact with folk and ask how they are doing” he says. “We are familiar faces in the town, and people often come up and chat to us. A common thing people say to us is ‘What’s a Street Pastor?’ and we always tell them that we are volunteers who are there to listen, help and care. We don’t start conversations by talking about our Christian faith, because we don’t need to – and it would send people a mile away. We do not go in ‘proselytising’, and making people think that we are having a go at them. Instead we listen, ask questions and begin conversations with people where they are at and see where it goes. Sometimes people will have a go at us because we are known as a Christian organisation. I remember one person wanting to start a row with us about religion and war; but instead of getting drawn into an argument, my colleague said to the guy, ‘I’m so pleased to meet you, I wish there were more people like you in the world who really care about justice and right and wrong.’ The guy’s attitude totally changed. As the conversation developed it turned out that years ago he had had a very sad bereavement and then had been unable to talk about it; but opened up to us. Now if we had started by talking about Christianity, he would have walked off, but by the end we were discussing the evidence of the resurrection and he went home to read Psalm 73.”

Having said that they are not there to preach at people, Sandy explained that that doesn’t mean that Street Pastors hide their faith.

“Even secularists would say that if you are asked a question about what you believe you are entitled to answer”, he pointed out, and as a result of going out, meeting people and serving them “We seldom have a night when we do not have a spiritual conversation. One man said to me, I don’t like drinking – but it’s better than sitting in on my own on a Saturday night. Often these conversations find their way to talking about Jesus.”

People sometimes ask Street Pastors about hope. Covid, climate change, recession and price-hikes and wars all conspire to take away people’s hope. Sandy Gunn is an enthusiast for Christian hope. He told me,

“1 Peter 3:15 says always be prepared to give an answer for the hope you have, but do so with gentleness and respect – and people do ask us where we find hope in this world. And we are ready to answer them. Another Bible verse that comes up in conversation often is Romans 8:26 which says that the Holy Spirit prays for us with wordless groans. That surprises people, especially those who are hurting – who picture prayer as chanting in a church; not of closeness to a God who is personal and involved in their pain.”

Street Pastors undergo thorough training before they don the uniform and take to the streets. That training consists of everything from do’s and don’ts, safety,  identifying and responding appropriately to mental illness, interactions with the emergency services, to administering Naxolone for opioid drug-overdoses (Scotland only), and how to have jargon-free, concise conversations about faith. Street Pastors are also trained to deal with revelations of abuse or disclosures about criminality which come their way as they are often trusted with confidential and sensitive information.

While Street Pastors have a ministry to individuals, caring for them practically and having conversations about faith; their work is of great benefit to communities as a whole. The Street Pastors are not part of the police, nor are they ‘spying’ for the authorities; but the police forces across the country do appreciate their work. Sandy summarises, “the police say we make the streets safer”.  In many cities the police call on the SP’s to look after people who are just drunk or cold and need to be cared for – freeing them up to attend to more serious crime. In some places like Glasgow Street Pastors run “Safe Spaces”he same for people who don’t need medical treatment but somewhere safe to “sleep it off”.

Sandy Gunn concluded,

“It’s always a joy and never a chore to go out with the Street Pastors. I look forward to it being ‘my turn’ enormously. We do occasionally get a militant atheist who isn’t pleased to see us, but the vast majority of people are very glad we are there. We meet loads of people, help a lot of people and sometimes get to tell them about Jesus.”

The Street Pastors are always looking for new volunteers, prayer and financial supporters and people to come and observe a shift with them to get a taste for this unique ministry. If you’d like to find out how to get involved, or where your nearest local Street Pastors organisation is,  go to https://streetpastors.org/

A Passion for Life: Inverness

by Editor

The beginning of April 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of Highland International Church (HIC) and some months ago the church leaders decided it would be good to mark this with a focus on mission and outreach.

This also coincided with the Passion for Life initiative whose aim was to encourage and resource local churches to engage in ‘a month of mission (and a life-time of evangelism’) in the run up to Easter 2022. Passion for Life were also keen to see local churches co-operating and working together in the cause of the gospel.

So, working with Culduthel Christian Centre (CCC) and Smithton Free Church (SFC), we asked Andy Bannister to come north for a few days, to help equip our members for the task of mission and outreach as well as to speak at an event to which non-Christians would be specifically invited.

Andy spoke at 6 different meetings over 5 days. The first two were Q&A sessions where some questions had been submitted in advance, but most were fresh from the floor in an ‘open mic’ style. One of these was held in the Craigmonie Hotel, where HIC normally meet, and the other at SFC. Although the majority of those there were Christian, as it was billed primarily as an apologetic resource for Christians, a few non-Christians were also present.

There was a good range of questions which Andy dealt with honestly and humorously, while also acknowledging that he was not there as some kind of ‘guru’ with all the answers to all of life’s questions!

The third event was held at another hotel in Inverness and consisted of a meal with a talk given by Andy entitled ‘Hope in a time of fear’. The meal was subsidised by two of the churches so that the cost was £10 per person. The idea was that a Christian would invite and pay for their non-Christian friend to attend and it was so encouraging to see the number who did just that.

I can only speak of those I know about, but from our own fellowship we had Christians bring neighbours, work-colleagues, spouses, adult children and other family members – some of whom had studiously avoided attending any kind of ‘Christian’ thing for years.

Andy spoke well and the response on the whole was positive; there was one man who was very dismissive of everything that was said, but he was very much in the minority. Others took invitation cards to attend a follow-up Alpha Course run by Culduthel, a young woman has been attending church services regularly since then (and showing evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in her life), another woman came on a church-organised hill-walk and a man has continued reading through John’s Gospel using the Word One-to-One resources. So there has been much to give thanks for and much to pray on for!

The fourth event was a Saturday morning ‘Confident Christianity’ session held at CCC, during which Andy spoke on ‘How to share the message and hope of Easter in everyday conversation’ and ‘Sharing your faith in a post-Covid world.’

On Sunday morning, Andy spoke at HIC’s 10th anniversary service which was followed by a buffet lunch. His theme was ‘Jesus and the failures of the church’. Again, a number of non-Christians were present including a Buddhist-Agnostic-Quaker (!), whom some of us have been praying for, for quite some time. She was able to speak with Andy after the service and told her Christian friend later that she had been challenged by what he had said.

Andy’s last speaking engagement was speaking at the evening service at Smithton Free Church where his topic was ‘War and Peace’.

It was a blessing and privilege to be able to partner with Solas and Andy over the course of these days. We are grateful to Andy for all his work and energy in preparing to speak, speaking and then speaking to others after speaking! The Lord was gracious in hearing and answering many prayers and we look forward to seeing ‘fruit that lasts’ either here or in eternity.

James Torrens, Highland International Church

You can watch Andy’s talk “Jesus and The Failures of the Church” from Inverness, below.

What Happens When We Die?

by Solas

Have you ever wondered what happens when you die? Whilst we tend to avoid thinking about our own mortality, we can’t escape the fact all of us will one day die. Then what? Are we just worm food, soon to be forgotten forever? And what about justice — can you live a selfish, monstrous life and if you die without facing justice, you win? In this Short Answers video, Andy Bannister suggests that what we think about death has huge implications for what we think about life.

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Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

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Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Have You Ever Wondered If Your Life Is Worthwhile?

by Solas

Scrolling through social media, we swim daily in a sea of memes, motivations and messages which affirm our lives—and all before 7am!  Find something inspiring? Like and share.  Find something triggering? Block and delete.  But the question of our worth cannot be answered simply by our daily diet of feel-good digital content.  It is a deeply confronting question because it demands that we examine our standard for a life well lived.  What is the measure of a worthwhile life?

Three ways in which we attempt to answer this question are through stuff, self-care and selflessness.

Stuff. A good education, a well-paid job, a loving partner, 2.4 children and a healthy body seem to be self-evident indicators of a great life.  Education demonstrates that we’ve worked hard, a top job that we’ve worked harder.  A partner and progeny show that we’re loved and that we haven’t been rejected.  But what happens if we don’t make the grade?  What happens if we’re made redundant, our loved ones pass away, or our health is compromised?  Does the loss of these things–and they are very good things too–mean a loss or decline in the value of our lives?  Surely not.

We know that exterior stuff can’t truly satisfy, so instead we look within.  We recite positive affirmations, practise gratitude, detox and diet.  Our mood improves and we face life challenges with a renewed sense of purpose.  Self-care is healthy and healing for many of us.  And yet, the reality is we don’t always feel good about ourselves.  We don’t always eat clean and workout dirty.  We don’t always have something profound to say when life gets hard.  Does a dip in our personal wellbeing and inner peace undermine the value of our lives?

Rather than looking within, we sometimes opt for looking out.  We redirect our focus and energies onto the needs of others.  We stand with the marginalised and give to the less fortunate.  We campaign and call for justice.  Genuinely seeking out the liberation of others is a beautiful act.  Doing the work of justice is a rewarding and exhausting pursuit.  Such self-sacrifice has undoubtedly been instrumental in the moral progress we have made over millennia. But can we ever reach perfection? It seems there will always be a cause for which to contend.  And who takes care of the heroes?  It’s impossible to always be saving the day; we must take some time to put down our capes.

Perhaps stuff, self-care, selflessness or a combination of all three will always be found wanting.  Maybe we should stop taking ourselves so seriously and throw out the idea of a worthwhile life altogether.

In the latest offering of the Jurassic Park franchise, a young and brilliant scientist reflects upon the age of the earth and the dinosaurs which traversed it long before humans ever did.  She muses that the very idea of a planet billions of years old and the existence of species much stronger and fiercer that our own should humble us.  Instead of looking for stuff, looking within or without, we should look back and bask in the wonder of our insignificance.  Tiny specks in the expanse of time, we are lives of spectacular mediocrity.  And this view is not just the stuff of fiction.

In his essay, ‘Sanctity of Life or Quality of Life?’, philosopher Peter Singer asks a chilling question: “Why should we believe that the mere fact that a being is a member of the species Homo Sapiens endows its life with some unique almost infinite value?”  In this vein, there is nothing about being human that legitimises any presumption of ourselves and our lives as having intrinsic worth. Whilst it’s possible to subscribe to this view intellectually, can we do so practically? Is it liveable? In the day-to-day grind of joys and injustices, we behave as though good things that come our way are deserved and bad things are unfair, precisely because we intuitively believe that we are fundamentally people of worth. And what if this intuition is correct, not just a fuzzy feeling?

Moreover, the stuff, self-care and our attempts at selflessness also fail to deliver a lasting sense of worth because of their impermanence. They’re fleeting. They’re not sustainable. They’re only parts of a story that comes to an abrupt and unfulfilling end.  However, the Christian worldview tells a different story.  We are encouraged to look up—not back, within or without.  We look up to a God who has created us with inherent dignity and value because we are made in his image.  As theologian Ekemini Uwan writes, “The image of God, also known as the imago Dei, is not a supplementary gift or addendum, not is it accidental.  The imago Dei is irrevocable.”[1]  So when we lose our stuff, when we feel we’re not enough, when we can’t cure the ills of this world, and when we feel insignificant, we can look up.

We look up to God who has stepped down into human history in the person of Jesus and affirmed our lives as worthwhile.

[1] Ekemini Uwan, Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love and Liberation (2022)

Partners in the Gospel of Jesus in Milngavie

by Editor

Milngavie is an East Dunbartonshire town, a northern suburb of Glasgow; famous for being the starting point for the West Highland Way, and being mispronounced by English TV pundits on election night! In the heart of Milngavie are four churches who work together in gospel partnership – and who Solas have been working with recently.

The minister at St Luke’s parish church, Ramsay Shields describes the friendship that has sprung up like this:

“There is a massive difference between “unity” and “union”. As Eric Alexander once said – you can tie two cats together by their tails and you have union, but the last thing that you would have is unity. Here in Milngavie we enjoy true Gospel Partnership across St Luke’s Church of Scotland. St Paul’s Church of Scotland, Allander Evangelical Church, a Milgavie United Free Church Church, and to a lesser extent, the Episcopalians. This Gospel Partnership has been a great blessing to the church, and, we pray, to the community. We started working together at the millennium and have held some wonderful outreach events over the years.

Our joint Holy Week Services have had an evangelistic theme (we have had Rico Tice, Dick Lucas and Steve Brady, to name but three guest preachers), and have delighted to see the churches coming together for these. We have drawn on the best of the leadership in the churches to host, Christianity Explored, Discipleship Explored, etc, and more recently, A Passion for Life together. We also join together monthly for a prayer breakfast which goes around the churches too.”

Solas was delighted to work with these Milngavie Churches recently, both in evangelism and evangelism training.

Andy Bannister said of his time with the Milngavie Churches:

“At Milgavie I did our introductory session on conversational evangelism which I call, How to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot. The idea behind it is to teach people how to have conversations about Jesus which are productive and persuasive with friends and colleagues.
One of the core ideas in this session is teaching people that wise use of questions can be a way of opening up really helpful conversations, and we look at a few such as, What do you mean by that?, Why do you think that? and Have you ever wondered..?

There was a really good audience in Milgavie, over a hundred people were there from the four churches in the town for a joint Sunday night meeting, and it was great to see a good mix of ages – with students right up to retired folks. I especially love Q&A, when people ask specific questions about how to apply some of this to their context, their friendships and relationships – and there were some very good questions at Milngavie that evening. And then some really interesting informal conversations after the meeting had officially finished. One conversation was especially interesting, with an academic from the University of Glasgow who goes to one of the Milngavie churches, and we had a great chat about science and faith – as well as the around outreach on the campus and the work of the CU’s.”

Solas was then able to send Gavin Matthews as a speaker down to Milngavie for the churches joint outreach service. He spoke about the way in which human relationships when they are fractured can be restored, but not without forgiveness. The same is true of our relationship to God, who we have alienated through our sin – but God in Christ offers us true forgiveness and reconciliation with him. The churches had arranged for everyone attending the service to be given a little leaflet explaining more about the gospel, written by Rico Tice of Christianity Explored. It was great to see so many people heading off into the Milngavie night clutching Rico’s leaflet.

If Solas can be of use to you, your church – or groups of local churches together – please do get in touch. We are committed to serving the local church across the denominational divides in sharing Christ with their communities. We work in cities, suburbs and rural areas – wherever the church has a heart for mission and invites us to come!

New Day 2022

by Andy Bannister

Andy really enjoyed speaking at New Day on 5 August 2022. Below, you can find links to Andy’s slides and some other resources related to the talk that he gave.

Me and the Environment (or: Why Greta Thunberg Really Needs Jesus)

Download a handout / summary sheet for the talk

Download a copy of the slides that Andy showed

Read J. Matthew Sleeth’s book Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action

Watch Andy’s Solas webinar “Is Christianity Bad for the Environment?” for a refresher on today’s material

Listen to an episode of Pod of the Gaps, a podcast that Andy co-presents, on this topic

Enjoyed Andy’s talk? Why not check out his newest book — have a read (or a listen) to a free sample chapter of Andy’s brand new book, Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

For more information about the Solas Centre for Public Christianity that Andy leads, visit www.solas-cpc.org. In particular, do check out our SHORT/ANSWERS video series. Over a million people have now watched, downloaded, or shared one of these videos with friends. They’re a great, free evangelistic resource. 

If you’d like to help support Solas’s work of evangelism and evangelism training across the UK, you can do for as little as £3 a month and we’ll send you a choice of one of several great books as a gift.

PEP Talk with Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

by Solas

We have recently heard more stories of Christians “deconstructing” their faith before eventually leaving it. But today we speak with an academic and historian about how her atheism was “deconstructed” when she discovered its true implications for morality, value and equality.  She goes on to show how hospitality and relationship can be radical evangelistic tools in the context of our secular individualised culture.

With Sarah Irving-Stonebraker – PEP Talk

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Read more about Sarah’s testimony here: How Oxford and Peter Singer drove me from atheism to Jesus

Check out this extract from Rosaria Butterfield’s book “The Gospel Comes with a House Key” which Sarah and Andy mention: ‘The most effective tool for sharing the gospel is your home!’

Our Guest

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian-based academic, focusing on the history of Britain and the colonial world and especially the intersection of religion, science, and politics. She was awarded her PhD in History from Cambridge University and has lectured at Western Sydney University since 2012. Sarah and her husband, Johnathan, have three children. The family lives in the Hawkesbury region outside of Sydney where they are active members of a Sydney Anglican Church.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

Support the Podcast

Keep a Thing Seven Years

by Editor

There’s a Gaelic saying which suggests that if you keep a thing for seven years, a use will be found for it. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t take that long.

This Sunday, I will have kept my grief for seven years. Like many new possessions, I carried it with me everywhere for the first while, moving it around as self-consciously as a child walking in stiff, leather shoes. When it was worn in a little, I started to forget for minutes at a time, only to be assailed by the reality of it when I least expected. In the last few days of Donnie’s life, I had been painfully aware that some time very soon I would no longer be a wife, but a widow.

I didn’t like the word and still less the idea that it represented.

Yet, in seven years, I have been taught to wear the mantle with something approaching acceptance. Instead of being allowed to push the garment from me, God has gently shown me that it IS mine to put on, every day. Traditionally, it also took seven years to train a piper, before they would be allowed to perform in front of an audience. There was no such apprenticeship for me, though – just straight in at the deep end.

I often think how this might all have been, had but one thing been different.

These seven years would have seen me grow bitter, perhaps, or reckless. I might have spent my time in wishing my husband back, or wishing I’d never met him – anything, in short, to remove the excruciating pain. The memory of his suffering could have tormented me to who knows what depths of anguish.

The one thing, though, which saved me from all of that was the hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t simply Christ saying, ‘I’m here, you can lean on me’. That would have been wonderful enough. In fact, his message was subtly different. He was actually telling me, ‘Remember I’m here. You know what to do’. This wasn’t the beginning of a wonderful new relationship, but a life-changing development of one that I hadn’t truly known I was in.

While I have carried – and will carry – Donnie in my heart, it is not loss which dominates my reflections over these seven years without him. It is gratitude. I had such a marriage that I didn’t think I could live without him. But God used that blessing to show me a much deeper and more enduring love. He has fulfilled me in the years of my widowhood, and shown me that, in Christ, all situations are an opportunity to know blessing.

I have profited from his teaching. It goes without saying that I have benefitted in more ways than I can count from his love and mercy. From the very beginning of this journey, though, God has laid it on my heart to share my providence with you. He did that, and then he made it possible.

Most miraculous of all, he took what might have destroyed me and blessed it to the extent that I can say that the Lord gives more than he takes away. Last Sunday, our minister used the sermon time to remind us of the glory and holiness of this God. And, right at the end, that devastatingly beautiful flourish of truth: ‘Remember, though, he is also your Father’.

Glorious, holy, perfect – of course; but tender and loving to the last. Not ‘also in our hard providences’ but especially. If you don’t believe it, I will take you to see a man who told me all things I ever did, and loved me just the same.

This article first appeared on Catriona Murray’s blog, “Post Tenebras Lux” here, and is used here with her kind permission.

At Tower Hamlets Community Church

by Editor

Andy was recently in London’s East End, speaking at Tower Hamlets Community Church (THCC) and catching up with their Pastor Tony Uddin who he knew over three decades ago. Tony describes himself as ‘half-Bengali, half-Scottish and 100% south London’ and leads a vibrant multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, all-age church in the heart of Tower Hamlets. Of all the local authorities in the country, Tower Hamlets is the most densely populated (16,237/Km2), has one of the fastest growing populations in the UK and is the heart of the country’s Bengali and Bangladeshi communities who make up over 30% of the population.

While it is sometimes the case that Christian churches have retreated from the inner cities, Tower Hamlets Community Church have deliberately sought to engage with their neighbours of all faiths and none and create a welcoming Christ-centred community for all.

The place they meet is part of a coffee-shop complex called “The Husk”, which provides a really welcoming space into which people feel welcome – and not as intimidated as they might be by a, traditional church building. The church provides a wealth of things for people to get involved with from youth and children’s work, to a night shelter and a Bengali Fellowship too!

When Andy went to THCC and chatted to folk there he was struck by the wide variety of faith-perspectives of people present. There were people who had been Christians for decades, some very new Christians – and several others who were exploring questions of faith and belief from a range of faith-backgrounds.

Andy had been invited to speak on the question, “Do all religions lead to God?” Many pluralists say “yes”, the implication being that no one need consider the truth claims of any faith at all in any depth; but assume that they are all different expressions of the same root.

Andy used a comparison of Christianity and Islam to show why this pluralistic view is massively problematic. Firstly that kind of pluralism is used to shut down real dialogue between people of different faiths and exclude them. Secondly, it arrogantly assumes that “If only every other religious person in the world was an enlightened as me, they would realise that they are wrong and I am right” but hiding that under a veneer of plurality. Thirdly it doesn’t do justice to the content of what different faiths actually teach – notable on the nature and character of God. in Christianity God is love, knowable, relational and willing to suffer for His creations; all of which are not claims that the Qur’an would ever make for Allah.

In John chapters 13 and 14, Jesus charts a different course, which Andy called “Open Exclusivity”. When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to The Father except through me” he makes a boldly exclusive claim. However, Jesus does this in an unexpected way because he also said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” in Matthew 11. So, while Jesus says he is exclusively the way – He also said that he would welcome all kinds of people! That is open exclusivity!

Andy reported that he had many great conversations with all kinds of people afterwards. One particularly significant one with a man who had left Islam but is still working out what he really believes. He had been attracted to the idea that all religions were essentially the same, but saw that this was an incoherent view and that he would need to actually think about Christian faith more deeply.

For Andy and all of us at Solas, we hope that this is only the start of a fruitful relationships with Tower Hamlets Community Church. There is already the possibility of some evangelism and training later in the year. Having conversations about faith can be hard to start in some parts of the UK, but as many people at THCC mentioned, “In Tower Hamlets there are people talking about faith, morning noon and night!”

The whole service is available online here , and Andy’s talk starts at 39:30.

 

Have You Ever Wondered Who You really Are?

by Editor

The story is told of a couple of lads who come out of a pub one night having had a bit too much to drink. As they staggered down the road trying to find their way home, they came across a very smart, uniformed, naval officer. Seeing his opportunity for some assistance, one of the lads asked, ‘Oi, mate, do you know where we are?’. Somewhat offended by their rather over-friendly approach, he looked down his nose at them and asked ‘Do you know who I am?’

At this the lad turned to his mate and exclaimed ‘Now we are really in trouble. We don’t know where we are, and he doesn’t know who he is!’

Have you ever wondered ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What makes me, me?’ The way we answer that question usually depends on the culture we live in.

Non-western cultures (and previous generations in the West as well) would have suggested that the answer to that question is external to ourselves. We need to look out and listen to who society tells us we are. In such a culture our identity is something given to us by our family and society.

A good example of this from my own country are the names that people have. Why are some people called ‘Cook’ or ‘Smith’ or ‘Baker’ and so on? Clearly, at some point these names were descriptive of the family profession. In such a society a certain set of expectations were placed upon you from birth. Your vocation and other life choices were given to you.

There are some benefits to such a way of doing things. Life was much simpler, and in some vocations, passing skills down through the generations can be highly beneficial. But it is also very restrictive. What if I don’t want to be who I have been told to be? What if my own personality, desires and natural abilities don’t fit the expectations laid upon me?

Today in the West most people would answer the question ‘Who am I?’ in a very different way. Instead of looking out to see what other people say, we are encouraged to look in and find the answer in our own desires and feelings. Our identity is not something given to us but something we can choose. We feel that we are free to create our own identity, and that no one else should be able to tell us who we are.

In some ways this is a very liberating mindset. We are no longer restricted by cultural expectations and stereotypes. For instance, when people first discover my wife works for an airline many assume she is cabin crew and are very surprised to discover she is actually a pilot. (Passengers have been known to ask her for drinks as she walks to the flight deck!). It is great that her career hasn’t been limited by those expectations and that she has been free to pursue and achieve her childhood dream.

However, is it really true that I can whoever I want to be? When I was a child, I discovered I was flat footed and needed special insoles in my shoes. The main result was that I wasn’t very good at running. Therefore, no matter how much I might have desired to be an Olympic 100 metre champion, that dream was never going to be realised. The limitations of our own physicality will at least in part determine who we are (and aren’t).

We also need to consider whether it is wise to not listen to others, and only consider our inner, subjective sense of self? Couldn’t others help us discover who are and what we are good at (or not)? Imagine for instance that I decide that I am going to be a great comedian. The only issue is that no one ever finds me funny? How do I respond? I could try ignoring them and pressing on with my career. I could try – but I’d probably be telling jokes only to myself before long. And this goes much farther than simply career choices. We are constantly refining our sense of identity based on the reaction of others.

We should also ask whether we are really as free as we think we are? We laugh at previous generations and their conformity to a set of societal expectations. But are we really free today or are we just conforming to a different set of expectations? Just look at what happens when people question some of those expectations on social media. We’re not as free as we think we are.

Both looking out to society and looking in to our desires can have some value in helping us find out who we really are. But what if our identity was not simply something given to us (from outside) or something we chose for ourselves (from within) but rather something to be discovered.

One ancient Hebrew poet expressed it this way when he wrote: ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’. The poet didn’t view himself simply as the result of biology and sociology, but as the creation of a loving God.

If this were true then it would mean that we have a value and significance inherent in who are, and not just because of what we do. We are after all human beings not human doings! In fact the Christian faith says that God loves and values us, but that love and value is not based on what we do, it’s actually in spite of what we do! He is a God who loves us in spite of our brokenness and failings and is willing to forgive us (at great cost).

If we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ it also would mean your uniqueness is not simply the result of chance but of design. Could it be that God has created you with a unique combination of abilities, desires and interests? If this is the case then maybe our identity is not something we chose but rather something to be discovered? The joy of the Christian life is that I don’t have to discover it by myself, or even just with the help of those around me. We can get to know in a personal way the God who created us. In relationship with him we can discover who he created us to be and how we can use that to make a difference in this world.

Solas and Riverside Church

by Editor

Our good friends at Riverside Church in Ayr invited Gavin Matthews from Solas to join them for a Sunday morning service recently. They are working through Luke’s gospel and asked him to take on Luke 12:1-12 – which is a tough passage of teaching from Jesus. He also was invited to give a short talk about the work and ministry of Solas. The video of the whole service is below. The Solas section is at 15:10 on the timer and Luke 12 at 32:47.

Riverside is great church that Solas love sharing with – and on October 1st we will be working together on a Confident Christianity conference in Ayrshire, with Riverside and several other churches who co-operate under the Keswick-in-Ayrshire banner. Look out for details of the conference in the autumn, or for updates on the Solas events page here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Andy Moore

by Solas 1 Comment

Andy Moore joins us this week to bring us insights from his unique background spanning full-time evangelism and corporate finance. Looking at the shifts happening in big business and the personal lives of his financial colleagues, how can we respond to the questions of purpose, moral responsibility and meaning that dominate these worlds?

With Andy Moore – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Andy Moore is a Director and Entrepreneur with experience across Corporate, Private Equity, Charitable and start-up sectors. Andy leads an Angel-investment network, with a sister-Venture Capital fund focussed on scaling for-profit businesses that solve social or environmental problems. Besides this, Andy serves on the Board for a Christian charity which focuses on human rights and religious freedom.

Andy is an experienced public speaker and holds associate positions with The OCCA, Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and Transform Work UK. Andy has spoken at some of the world’s largest corporates, including Facebook, UBS, Goldman Sachs, KPMG and Barclays among others. Andy is a Chartered Accountant in England and Wales and holds a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham. Andy is married to Rachel and enjoys the highs and lows of following Manchester United and the Irish rugby team!

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

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Have You Ever Wondered Why Humans Are So Curious?

by Editor

My father loved cosmology. He often shared with me his wonder at the vastness and complexity of the universe. I remember how he particularly loved to share lunar and celestial events with me. Once, he woke me up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower from our back porch. He brought out two lounge chairs and some blankets, and we watched the bright, burning rocks soar through the night sky commenting on their brilliance. I asked him, “What all do you think is out there?” He replied, “I don’t know, but it’s fascinating isn’t it?”

We humans are curious creatures. From our earliest ability to speak, we ask the question, “why?” We want to know how and why things work. We investigate and discover the existence of things. We marvel at creation. This intellectual curiosity has driven us on to impressive discoveries about our world and has advanced our technologies in nearly every field.

And curiosity is not just something that happens inside our heads. It is also a social pursuit. We often share thoughts and ideas with others, testing out our knowledge and expanding our depth of understanding. Sharing our interests leads to friendships and relationships and further exploration of ideas, which, in turn, builds community.

But why are humans so curious? Is there anything we can say about the origin of this inquisitive nature? While there are many avenues to explore on this matter, let’s stick with exploring Christianity’s relationship with human wonder.

Made in the Image of God

In the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible 1:26-27, we read,

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

In God’s acts of creation, there was one being that He created to significantly reflect something of Himself: humans. We reflect God’s image, through our morality, our free agency, our emotions, but also through our rationality and self-awareness. These gifts have led us to ask the hard questions about the world in which we live, from God’s existence to our own existence and the existence of everything in-between. You may be familiar with the philosopher Rene Descartes’ renowned thought experiment, in which he wondered how we could even know our own existence with any sense of certainty. How can we know that we are not just deceived or hallucinating? This experiment led to his now famous conclusion, “I think, therefore I am.”

We don’t have to go to the level of scepticism of Descartes to understand that being rational is not the same thing as having all knowledge. There are some things that we do not know. And there are some things further that may be beyond our ability to know, such as “What is God?” and “How did God create?” The gaps in our knowledge and in our ability to know are major driving forces in our wonder at the universe in which we live. We are constantly aware that there is always more to discover. So we reach out and stretch ourselves to the limits of what we know, always pushing further.

The Transcendence of God

While we are made with critical reasoning skills, only God has perfect knowledge, or as The Bible puts it,, God’s mind is greater than ours:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The transcendence of God’s knowledge over ours is an important point. If humans could fully comprehend the mind of God, then I would argue that God is something of our own creation. However, if there is a God who created the universe, including humans, then I would expect Him to be greater than us in every way. It’s an argument from common sense, but it’s also so much more. God’s transcendence is a foundation for human wonder.

C.S. Lewis notably stated,

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

Reasonably, if there is a God who is immeasurably great, then we will have an immeasurably great desire to discover. There will always be something that we do not know. The intensity of this desire is matched, not by our closed universe with, ultimately, limitations to knowledge, but by an eternal Creator whose vastness is unfathomed…his “other worldliness.”

Standing in Awe

As I think back to those cherished childhood moments, of marveling at the universe surrounding us, I think of the Psalmist’s words: Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! (Psalm 33:8, ESV) There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. (Psalm 86:8-10 ESV)

We humans are curious because of our created nature but also because of our relationship to God and the vastness of His creation. It is right and proper for us to wonder. Curiosity is a mechanism through which we grow and mature in our Christian faith. It helps us to be ever inquisitive about ourselves and our world. It also helps to remind us of our intellectual position in the universe; not just of having knowledge, but also recognizing that we lack knowledge. And as we begin to understand the things that God has made, we begin to understand something about our Creator God.

My father helped to cultivate in me a lifelong love of discovery and learning. And that is what we humans were made to do: to seek out information about ourselves, our world, and our Creator. We were made for a relationship with the transcendent Creator God, who is eternally the source of remarkable things, including our insatiably curious minds.

Questions of God and Science at Glasgow University CU

by Editor

Andy reports back after a great day spent with students at Glasgow University, considering questions of faith and science – wonderfully hosted at the student union by Glasgow University Christian Union.

In the video, Andy refers to physicist Luke Barnes and his work on the ‘fine-tuning’ of the universe. For more on this, watch this interview with Barnes here.