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“Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?” by Andy Bannister

by Andy Bannister

Dr. Andy Bannister’s book, Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? explores the startling differences between Allah as found in the Qu’ran and the Christian God of the Bible.

If you sign up to support the evangelistic and apologetic work of Solas for as little as £3 (roughly $5) a month, we will send you a copy of Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? as a gift.

If you’d prefer to buy the book in the normal way, then UK folks can order it from a number of booksellers including 10ofThose, Eden Books, IVP direct, Aslan Christian Books — or, if you’re desperate, Waterstones or Amazon.

International folks can order it from:

The audiobook can be purchased direct from IVP.

Read a Free Sample!

Download chapter 1 (and the table of contents) as a PDF.

Listen to a Free Sample!

Listen to the first chapter of the audio book, brilliantly narrated/read by Neil Gardner. If the media player below doesn’t work, or if you’d prefer to listen to it using a different app, you can download the MP3 here.

Here’s what people are saying about the book:

A nuanced and sensitive examination, from an overtly Christian perspective, of how to negotiate a truth that is no less self-evident for being one that many prefer to draw a veil across: Christianity and Islam are not remotely the same.”
~ Tom Holland ― author of Dominion and In the Shadow of the Sword

“A must-read for the curious whether you have faith already or not. Prepare to be entertained, edified and gripped – I found myself unable to put it down.”
~ Dr Amy Orr-Ewing ― President, OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics

“We need thinkers who have studied both religions extensively. Andy Bannister is just such an expert and he helps us wrestle with this important question with the depth and care it deserves.”
~ Randy Newman ― Senior Fellow at The C. S. Lewis Institute and author of Questioning Evangelism.

“This book is a must-read for all interested in inter-religious issues, both believers and non-believers.”
~ Peter G Riddell ― SOAS University of London and Australian College of Theology

“Persistently challenging, consistently provoking, deeply searching, and endlessly witty!”
~ Anna Robbins ― President and Dean of Theology, Acadia University

“A sharp witted, big hearted, and clear minded romp through one of the most pressing religious questions of our time.”
~ Dr Richard Shumack ― Research Fellow, Centre for Public Christianity and Director, Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam, Melbourne School of Theology

Frontlines / Christians at Work: “The Mechanical Engineer”

by Editor

Paul Jeffers spoke to Solas about his faith and the world of mechanical engineering.

Solas: Tell us a little about your job? What are your roles and responsibilities?

PJ: I am a mechanical engineer, and I’m professionally licensed in the USA & the UK, and my current title is “Integration execution manager” for the “Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope”. In practice that means that I coordinate the day-to-day activities of integration and commissioning for the solar telescope on the summit of Mt. Haleakala on the island of Maui. I began with the design, contracting and fabrication of the telescope, then managed the delivery, installation and testing of the telescope-mount, and now have moved over to running the telescope operations.

Solas: And your telescope is (I think I’m right in saying!), the world’s leading telescope for looking at The Sun, Sun-activity, solar-flares – and how that affects the earth..

PJ: Exactly! Our work informs the theories that are being developed and used to predict space-weather (which affects us) and the engine that drives that is The Sun. So it’s the prediction and forecasting of that which we are really trying to understand.

Solas: What’s the best part of your job? What gives you real satisfaction?

PJ: When we integrate a new piece of technology, at the end of a long process of complex teamwork – and it works! So, for instance there was a huge sense of euphoria throughout the project when we captured our first light-images, because the amount of effort that had gone into that and number of people that had devoted a decade to this activity all came together and we were able to produce something that’s never been done before. That sense of group achievement was great, because no one person could make something this complex happen. It could only happen from a group working together with a single aim.

Solas: What challenges do you face in this environment and how does your faith in Christ help you to navigate those challenges?

PJ: So in the early days of the project I worked on a single contract and didn’t have anybody working directly for me. Now though I have had managerial roles added to my technical work. What takes most of my emotional energy is actually dealing with the interpersonal stuff – dealing with people. So, up at the observatory on the summit, I am managing technical matters, and directing staff in that. I’m also dealing with any number of conflicts that arise within a diverse team. These can be anything from professional disagreements about procedures, to personality clashes amongst individuals.

The other real challenge is making decisions that really affect people’s lives and careers. Questions such as “are we going to extend this person’s contract – or not”, issues such as who to promote or having to enact workplace discipline procedures occasionally.

It’s those issues that take a lot more emotional energy than working on technical issues. As a Christian I find that I don’t tend to pray much about technical issues, but I pray a lot more about personnel issues! When I have to deal with conflict or confrontation then I suppose I dwell on the fact that the people I am dealing with are all made in God’s image and that God loves them (even though they are being a complete schmuck) and that changes my attitude from being one of wanting to angrily tell people how bad their performance or decision-making has been, or what difficult people they are; to wanting to work through some of these issues with them.

Solas: So does being a Christian make a difference to the way you go about your own work? Ethic? Ethos motivation etc?

PJ: I’d hope so!! Take integrity for example. If you are in a position of responsibility and you gossip about people – you have the ability to poison someone’s career. So you have to learn to be really careful about what you say and who you say it to. I feel that integrity in the workplace is sometimes a real struggle – it might be easier to say nothing in the workplace when something is not right, than to raise an issue. But integrity sometimes requires those issues to be raised. It might be tempting to change the rules to accommodate someone I like, but being even-handed across the workforce is very important, regardless of whether the person is fun to work with or a pain in the butt!

As a Christian, I am also aware of the time that I am paid for. So I do my best to be conscientious about not stealing time. The other thing is that I have made a point of being willing to pause what I am doing in order to listen to people. So often we are driven by lists, rotas and tasks but it is really important to have time for people. It’s important to remember things about them and to ask how their kids are and what is going on in life; not just about the task at hand. Those are small things, maybe – but they are important and things which are definitely informed by my Christian faith. And of all those things, integrity really is one of the big ones.

Solas: So, do the people at your work know that you are a Christian? How do people react when they find out?

PJ: The majority of people I work with know that I am a Christian and that I go to church – and that’s usually through the “how was your weekend?” type of conversations. I tell people that we were at church, but I don’t push the conversation. So a lot of people realise that I’m a Christian, as well as times when I’ve been able to mention my faith in conversation. I also don’t swear –which is really unusual in my workplace! In fact the only two people on site who don’t swear are me and our Muslim colleague!

People react in different ways – the predominant attitude is apathy, coupled with the view that ‘I’m happy it works for you, but it’s nothing to do with me’. Hawaii has a heavily Christian background, so most of the local guys have had some kind of church background, perhaps Sunday School or a Christian Grandmother. In fact I was speaking to someone yesterday who said that her Grandmother was both Hawaiian and “deeply religious” ie. Christian. She couldn’t understand how that worked as she saw those things as being in conflict. There’s not much overt hostility to my faith as “spirituality” is really significant here. There is Hawaiian spirituality, there is the church (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Liberal-progressives) as well as all the Hindus, hippies and Buddhists – many of whom came with the Japanese plantations. So apathy is the most common response, followed by the ‘I’m glad it works for you, but it has nothing to do with me’ view.

Solas: Have you ever had any opportunities to take things any further in terms of what you believe with any colleagues?

PJ: Yeah, some. I don’t really have many peers at work, my boss and I are in management over the whole site. I feel unsure as to the appropriateness of saying to people who report to me and who are responsible to me for their salaries and whether they get promoted or not “I am a Christian and you should be too” – that sounds in danger of becoming “rice-Christianity”!

So where I have felt more able to talk about my faith has been with colleagues who are my friends. Usually the subject has come up when there has been some issue in their lives, or they are questioning something and the conversation will naturally occur. So one colleague had a bad experience of evangelicalism in California, and so we had a number of conversations about what it means to be a Christian. My boss on the other hand was brought up with church going as a thing the family did, which involved a lot of dressing up and formality – but it made no difference to anything they did the rest of the week. And that was her perception of Christianity. A lot of the conversations I have seem to be around trying to understand what people think Christianity is and then trying to direct the conversation back to Christ. The culture here is so riddled with ‘religion’ that has browbeaten folks.

And then as we come out of the election cycle… trying to explain to people that being a Christian does not mean you are a right-wing nut! That you can be a Christian and not necessarily agree with everything the Republican Party or Donald Trump says! The failures of the church, bad experiences of Christianity and the assumed tie-up of Christianity and right-wing politics really cloud the issue here.

Solas: I was struck by the comments you made around wanting people not to see religion but to see Christ. So why do you want them to see him?

PJ: Because religion cannot save us. I can’t buy my way, or act my way, or think my way into salvation. So all this other stuff is just a distraction. We are surrounded by people both socially and at work, who have been broken by the church. And that is really sad. So if you can get past stuff that they were broken by, such as “you must speak in tongues to be a Christian”, or “you must do this, or that” and a whole bunch of other issues where the church has tried to tell people to ‘man-up and behave in a Christian way’, rather than focussing on Christ who died for us, who is our route to salvation. It is not about being a member of a particular church, or having the ‘right’ view of the endtimes, or belonging to this particular political party – but it is about the centrality of the gospel of Christ! Everything else is just noise.

Unfortunately, getting to that point of actually talking about Jesus is slow, and round-about. It can take a long time.

Solas: What advice would you give to a young Christian entering your field of work who wants to be faithful to Christ there?

PJ: I would say – don’t compromise either in your personal or professional integrity. If someone asks you to do something inappropriate or tell a ‘white lie’ – don’t compromise. Because if you start doing that early and it becomes a practice then it’s a slope – and recovering from that slope takes a lot more time than it does to slide down it. Your reputation is something that you need to protect. Now, you may be slandered, unfairly attacked because of who you are, and in a sense that’s unavoidable. But never let your reputation get dragged down by doing dumb-stuff, because that then defeats your ability to speak to people about the most important things in life.

Then, always be open to people. Make sure people know that you are open, approachable and will listen to them.

Solas: Thanks for talking to us!

Pj: No problem!

__-

In this video, Paul explains more about his groundbreaking work in telescope engineering

Re-Freshers Week – Student Evangelism in Stirling

by Editor

The CU in Stirling University held their “Refreshers Week” earlier this year.  They held a series of exciting events across the week including a ‘real lives night’, an escape room. and a quiz, as well as the talk nights. In the middle of the week they had an open-forum – basically a question and answer panel. I was invited, along with three Christian students to field questions which students sent in. We were all online, and the questions came in via various channels including via text to one of the CU leaders who emceed the session and there was a Facebook group in which people could ask questions too. A good number of the questions were clearly from non-Christian folks really looking for answers too, which was encouraging.

There were questions on God and Science, the uniqueness of Jesus in a world of other faiths, and then a whole raft of more existential questions around hope, purpose, meaning and significance.  Some of these questions were angled around questions of suffering in the context of Coronavirus and where God is. Interesting by their absence were any questions around sexuality, which often come in these kinds of forums. Suffering and evil were obviously at the forefront of many people’s minds in Stirling. Covid has clearly made a huge impression on the kinds of questions that people are searching for answers to. People asked about the reliability of the Bible, about why we believe in just one God, where God came from, if we “need” God, and whether Christianity is just a “Western religion” – all fascinating, searching topics. Lydia one of the CU leaders said, “The Q&A panel went really well. We had a few questions regarding what was said in the previous talks and events which was brilliant. It was great to see people submitting questions both before the event and during the live stream.”

Solas has had a long-standing friendship with the Christian Union at Stirling, so it was great to be able to renew fellowship them, and do some mission work alongside them again.  I’ve spoken at a couple of their mission weeks, my colleague Gavin Matthews has spoken at their meetings and spoken at their CU weekend away and their previous Cu President, Cameron was a guest on our PEPtalk podcast and talked about how they reach out with the gospel to other students on the campus which was great. So we have a great relationship with the Stirling CU! It’s great to work with students who haven’t given up on mission because of the restrictions of lockdown, but are thinking creatively.

PEP Talk Podcast With Justin Brierley

by Solas

Today on PEP Talk, we interview the great interviewer himself, Justin Brierley. For years he has hosted discussions with top Christian thinkers and thought leaders from other backgrounds. What has he learned from this, and how has it impacted his personal gospel conversations?

With Justin Brierley – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Justin Brierley is an international speaker, author and much-loved host of the podcast Unbelievable?  His show on Premier Radio has aired weekly for over 15 years, growing to become a popular podcast and serving as the catalyst for the annual Unbelievable? Evangelism and Apologetics Conference and (currently in its third season) The Big Conversation. He was also the editor of Premier Christianity magazine from 2014-2018. Justin’s love for reaching the skeptic with the Christian faith led him to write Unbelievable? Why, after ten years of talking with atheists, I’m still a Christian (SPCK) in which Justin reflects on conversations he has had with famous atheist and skeptic thinkers including Richard Dawkins and Derren Brown, and why he still finds Christianity to be  as true and compelling as ever.

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 Prayer Gap

by Editor

The first Solas event I ever went to was when a group of us travelled to Dundee to hear Professor John Lennox speaking about science and faith. Having read some of his work, I was really excited to have the opportunity to hear him in person. This took place during what we now look back on as the high-water-mark of the New Atheism, when Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and Hitchens’ God is Not Great were on prominent display in high street bookshops and friends’ coffee tables. Suddenly people around us seemed confident in their assertions that belief in God was not only idiotic; but also positively evil. Popular anti-theism seemed to be carrying all before it.

Lennox strode the platform, clearly undaunted by all of this. Well versed in all the New Atheist literature, he demonstrated their scientific, methodological and philosophical flaws; and the ways in which their towering self-confidence was completely ill-founded. It was at once, educational, authoritative and inspiring. I remember someone saying to me at the end of Lennox’s second talk, “How could anyone not believe after hearing that?” Which was quickly followed up by the suggestion that if only we could get him to our town, then inevitably huge numbers of people would come to faith.

The problem is that winning arguments doesn’t necessarily win people to faith in Jesus.

There are dangers in an anti-intellectualism on one hand (which fails to address the questions of the age, with reasoned, coherent arguments) and with an over-reliance on winning the battle of ideas on the other. Those of us engaged in apologetics are constantly in danger of this latter imbalance, which can severely hinder our witness for Christ. If all our efforts are focused on researching, learning and presenting reasons for faith, we can miss an essential spiritual dynamic: the essential role of prayer, and the leading of The Holy Spirit in evangelism. If we neglect prayer, even the best arguments will fail to change people’s hearts, because intellectual assent to the things such as the existence of God are not enough. Ultimately, a Christian is someone who is “in Christ” to use the central theme of the New Testament. When someone is united to Christ they do, of course, need to be persuaded that Christ died for them and rose again –  there is an essential belief/truth element to it, the mind must be converted.. However, they must also be forgiven for their sins by God in heaven and regenerated in their inmost being by the Holy Spirit, evidenced in faith and repentance which is symbolised in baptism.

The power of God is needed to convince the mind, impart the Holy Spirit and unite them to Christ. It was an over-confidence in apologetics, and in persuasive techniques to win converts that led Martyn Lloyd-Jones to write, “I am not sure that apologetics has not been the curse of evangelical Christianity over the last twenty to thirty years[1]” in 1966. You may think that that is not what you expected to read in a Solas publication, as we are firmly committed to apologetics! But hear Lloyd-Jones out, because he was not denigrating the life of the mind in any way – he was pushing firmly back against the idea that we can bring people to Christ on our own, without the power of God, if we could only just get our arguments finely tuned*, and our presentation contemporary.

So, while we do our evangelism to the absolute best of our ability, we will be ineffective if we do not pray. In places like Solas, we are sometimes accused of depending on winning arguments, not on God’s Spirit. We understand that critique and while we would never want to present anything less than our best answers to enquirers and sceptics, we are trying to be increasingly committed to praying as we present, and for our hearers too.

I knew someone who lost his faith for many years around questions of faith and science. He had come to faith as an adult and studied science to a high level. It was a long, complicated story, but it was the arguments of new Atheists that shipwrecked his faith in God. Which brings me back to Professor John Lennox. This chap came back to Christ, after John Lennox skewered the atheist arguments which had bamboozled him, in a public lecture: the power of apologetics in all its glory you might think. However, there is another side to this tale. That is that some people had been praying for this guy everyday for more than a decade, before he was even willing to go to a public lecture from a Christian apologist. The fact that he was even there listening and engaging was in itself an answer to much prayer. Likewise when we are enabled to formulate a wise answer which connects to a sceptic hearer, this is not by-passing prayer but an answer to it! Prayer and apologetics should not be pitched against each other as being in tension any more than the left and right oars in a boat should. They may occasionally need to correct each other; but they are most assuredly on the same side.

Knowledge, apologetics and good communication are no substitute for the power of The Holy Spirit. That is a truth that must be held in tension with the fact that when the gospel is proclaimed, it has objective cognitive content! It is coupled to the fact that Paul, that great Spirit-filled Apostle reasoned for the faith,[2] and Peter who was the preacher on the very Day of Pentecost when the Spirit came; commended giving reasons for our faith.[3] The point of coalescence seems to be that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength[4]; and not pick and choose which faculty we do so with most!

Acts 4 is a model for us in making sure that we do not let God and our neighbours down by presenting arid arguments, without the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.[5]  The context is that the early church had suffered its first persecution, and had been told not to speak the name of Jesus in public again.

24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:

“‘Why do the nations rage
    and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
against the Lord
    and against his anointed one.

They called out to The Lord together, echoing the words of Psalm 2. Their prayer is remarkably informed, they bring together the Old Testament concept of Kingship and apply it to Jesus the Messiah, and His ongoing work through the church. It was heartfelt too – they didn’t read a set of impressive words in which they had no consuming interest either.

The way that God responded to their cry was quite amazing. Luke puts it simply like this:

31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

There is a tendency in the church to think that the Holy Spirit was only poured out once, at Pentecost; and that this is a model for us – that we are regenerated by the Spirit when we are converted and never should ask for more. Acts challenges such thinking, as do Paul’s prayers for the churches in his epistles. Here, just two chapters after Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fills them again, and the room is shaken like an earthquake. Those pyrotechnics (however eye-catching) are not the point though. What Luke wants us to grasp is the substance of the matter, not the side-effects, namely “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly”.

There is an old truism, “Speak to God about people, before you speak to people about God!”. We do need to pray for our hearers, and ourselves, for our arguments, presentation and non-verbal communication too. We must pray that we will be filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaim the word of God boldly. Those involved in apologetics must on one hand study hard, think hard, and write and speak as persuasively and winsomely as we possibly can. We long for God to be glorified in what we do, this is our worship and we want to present the very best to God. Yet on the other hand, we dare not do that prayerlessly as if the power of argument can by itself change people’s lives.

John Wesley the great Methodist evangelist, so used of God in the 18th Century, seems to have been convinced of the main tenets of the Christian faith, prior to the experience of the Spirit he had in Aldersgate Street in 1738 when his “heart was strangely warmed”. So much so that Christian historians debate whether he was meaningfully a Christian before that date. It was from that point that he preached the word of God boldly.

When we are proclaiming, publishing, debating and defending the gospel; if we find that people are not engaging, or we lack power in our proclamation, let’s first check and make sure that we haven’t fallen down the prayer gap. Pulling back from activity to pray, can sometimes be the most fruitful and productive possible thing for us to do in God’s kingdom. I once knew a man who preached with an unusual sense of clarity and a Godly authority. I asked him how he was able to do that. His answer was that for every hour he spent preaching he spent ten in prayer. The most impressive buildings rest on unseen, hidden foundations without which they would topple. If we’re finding our efforts unproductive, we perhaps need to re-underpin our spiritual foundations, and devote ourselves firstly to prayer. Then our apologetics will win hearts, souls, minds and people for The Lord.

[1] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Authority p14

[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+17%3A2&version=NIV

[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3%3A15&version=NIV

[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+22%3A37&version=NIV

[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+4%3A23-35&version=NIV

Being The Bad Guys

by Solas

“Being The Bad Guys: How to live for Jesus in a world that says you shouldn’t” Webinar with author Stephen McAlpine, hosted by Andy Bannister. Visit Stephen’s blog at https://stephenmcalpine.com/

His book is published by the Good Book Company –
UK – https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/being-the-bad-guys
USA – https://www.thegoodbook.com/authors/stephen-mcalpine
AUS – https://www.thegoodbook.com.au/being-the-bad-guys

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions on Facebook and Instagram for this pre-recorded webinar.

Is Christianity Anti-Diversity?

by Solas

Everybody cares about diversity. But if atheism is true, why precisely does diversity matter? In this provocative Short Answers film, Solas Director Andy Bannister takes a look at Christianity and diversity — and uncovers the remarkable fact that the church, from its very beginning, has always been one of the most diverse communities on Earth. And only the Christian faith, if one takes it utterly seriously, gives any basis for caring about culture and diversity in the first place.

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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.

Support

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.

Frontlines / Christians at Work: “The Nurse”

by Editor

Solas: Today I’m speaking to Georgie Coster, who is a nurse at Stoke Hospital. Welcome Georgie, how are you? Tell us what field of nursing you are in?

Georgie: Hi! I’m well thankyou! I’m a Staff Nurse in the emergency surgery ward, although during 2020 we were converted into a Covid ward. Now though we are back working in emergency surgery. In 2021, I’ll be moving over to intensive Care nursing.

Solas: And what was it like running the Covid ward?

Georgie: There are no words to describe how busy it’s been! We’ve been in the top-ten of worst number of cases and admissions, so it’s been pretty hard.

Solas: What are your main roles and responsibilities?

Georgie: in emergency Surgery, we take patients who have come in through A&E, we don’t do any elective (planned) procedures, we are constantly responding to emergency situations. We receive the patients from A&E and look after them until they go into the operating theatre. Then we receive them back from theatre and nurse them through their recovery through until they are ready to be discharged from the hospital. Of course, some patients don’t actually require surgery, others don’t make it as far as surgery – there’s a huge variety. My role as a nurse is to manage every aspect of their care; continence, eating, drinking, personal hygiene, oral care, preventing pressure sores, administering all medications (orally or injections) including managing pain relief. We put in and remove catheters, take cannulas in and out, do blood-transfusions, administer IV fluids (known as putting up a drip), we take blood, monitor blood-pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, temperature, and then we liaise with relative of the patients. Communication with families is important, as is communicating with Drs, in terms of everyone knowing what is going on with a particular patient and how we are going to treat them. Often the patient has lots of questions, which they won’t ask the Dr – but they will ask us, so communication with both Drs and patients is really important. The nurse is also the patient’s advocate within the system. Then we liaise with physios, pharmacists, social care workers, and then at patient discharge we make sure they are going to a suitable place, whether it’s home, a care home or respite etc, and that District Nurses are informed if there is ongoing wound care needed. Then we are also involved in training student nurses as well. No two days are the same!

Solas: Which parts of the job do you enjoy the most? What gives you job satisfaction in all of that?

Georgie:  What has always attracted me to the job is being there for patients at their most vulnerable moments. Even a 92-year old lying in a bed looking very frail and vulnerable was at one time a banker, or a business manager or a very capable, independent man or woman. Or I am faced with 18 year old who has had a car crash and can’t do things for themselves as they used to do – as a nurse I am able to step into their situation and do things for them, that they can no longer do. I love being able to be there – when people need you the most. There’s great satisfaction in seeing patients get better too. That’s not always the case obviously, but there are those moments when you’ve worked really, really hard to turn somebody around and you see them walking out of the door well – you can’t beat that!

Solas: So in all that frenetic multi-tasking work you’ve described, what challenges do you face and how does your faith in Christ help you to navigate those? What difference does your faith make in how you go about your job?

Georgie: There can be something therapeutic about knowing that you don’t have to have everything all together. In nursing there can be a real ‘ego-culture’ and ‘blame-culture’ is massive too in the NHS in general but particularly in nursing. That comes as a bit of a surprise when you are young and come into nursing expecting nurses to be the most compassionate people on earth, yet find them being so absolutely horrible to each other. Part of the reason for that is that if you “throw somebody else under the bus” you automatically clear your own name. or you feel better about yourself by pointing out other people’s failures. There is an awful lot of pressure to be the best nurse – being the most competent or compassionate turns into a competition. But sometimes you wake up and feel totally inadequate for the day ahead, especially if you haven’t had much sleep, and you don’t think that anybody’s life should be in your hands. It’s such a relief for me to know that I’m not dependent on my own great nursing abilities, or compassionate nature, because there are days when that’s non-existent. But in those times I can look to God, because He’s the one I’m relying on! Because if there is any gift in me, of patience or compassion or kindness or skill; then He gave it to me anyway! So the whole need to continually prove yourself or fuel your ego melts away. And I find that so comforting. I don’t need to go into work to impress Drs, managers, or get the most nominations from patients; because for me work is an act of worship to God. So God gives me everything I need. When my compassion runs dry, He’s got an endless supply! So when I am really struggling to love a person I can say to God, “I know you love them and so please give me some of that love for them because I have not got any.” So there is something so good about being able to  hold your hands up and say, “actually I am so rubbish but actually God, you are able to give me everything I need to do a good job”. It’s a big relief!

Solas: Do colleagues know you’re a Christian – how do they react when they find out?

Georgie: Everyone I work with knows I’m a Christian, but I haven’t faced any hostility. My ward manager, he’s married to a man – which has led to some interesting conversations; but he’s never ever once shown any animosity; he’s always just said that he respects my beliefs. I’ve been really blessed that nobody had ever expressed any anger towards me because of my faith. Now people have expressed their anger towards God, when conversations at 4AM on the night-shift come up, and people ask how God could allow suffering. People have expressed their anger at God to me; but no one has expressed anger at me personally.

Solas: So have you ever had opportunities to share anything of your faith with people that you work with? If so, what’s helped those conversations? Did you set out deliberately to have conversations, or is it something that just happened spontaneously?

Georgie: A key to having an opportunity to share your faith is this. We probably, as Christians, get into a routine of travelling into work and praying, “Oh Lord, please give me an opportunity to speak about you today”, and maybe that is drilled into us. But often my lips have been saying “give me an opportunity to speak about you” but my heart has been saying “She doesn’t mean what she’s saying, don’t listen to her, please don’t answer this prayer!!” But there have been other days when I have really genuinely prayed, really genuinely wanting to talk about The Lord that day. And it’s been on those days when my heart has matched my lips when I’ve prayed – that I’ve always, always been presented with an opportunity on a plate to speak about my faith. Someone will say, “So, what do you believe about…..” It just happens, the opportunity is given to me, and I don’t have to work for it. A massive part of our evangelism is about having a heart that wants to, rather than a heart that knows it ought to but would rather not. What The Lord wants is a heart that wants to talk about Him, that is not ashamed of him. When he sees that that is there, I think He delights to give us an opportunity. There have been times when I have not really wanted to talk about Him, and felt embarrassed or too busy to have a conversation about faith; and opportunities have still come, but by far the best conversations I have had are when I have prayed sincerely on the way in; and then ended up having some really, really deep conversations with people. That’s especially the case on night-shift that has to be said. There is something spiritual which happens in the heart of a man or woman at 4AM – and all life’s deepest questions come to the surface; it’s when the deepest conversations occur.

When people first get to meet you and realise that you’re a Christian, they try and work out if you are a ‘private-Christian’, or one who is open to talking about these things. I’ve had people say to me, “I really hope you don’t mind me asking this, and I don’t mean any offence by this but…. Do you believe the Bible?”(or whatever their question is). They often tiptoe into the conversation, apologizing in case I’m offended by their question! As soon as you make it plain that you actually love talking about this, and that no one could ever offend you by bringing up matters of faith in conversation, then people know that you’re up for a chat about it – then they become more open. They need to know they can speak their mind to you, and you’re not going to go and cry in the corner, then people enjoy asking questions and talking about deeper things.

Solas: Presumably though those conversations don’t come completely out of the blue, there must be some foundation of trust, relationship with you?

Georgie: In our job we build that very quickly. We are quite literally wiping people’s bums together – and we do develop a close rapport really quickly. We resuscitate human being together, we grieve together when a patient we’ve worked with dies, and that creates a bond which perhaps you wouldn’t get in some office jobs when you are working at separate desks. So in that way the soil gets ‘worked’ and relationships formed at quite a deep level. You can’t do the job without developing a high level of trust in colleagues, and again that makes a good foundation for meaningful conversation.

Solas: So when you have spoken about your faith, have people brought up questions and objections? What sort of things have they said?

Georgie: A lot of the responses are suffering related. We so much suffering in our context that that is a big question. Many people think, “How can God be real, if he allows that?” – or if He’s real, He’s not good. So that’s huge. Everytime we see a patient in pain, or at the end of their life – then that question is there, especially when someone dies young.

Solas: And how do you respond to such a huge question, if you only have five minutes in a coffee break?

Georgie: I usually say to people we have to go back to Genesis, right back to the beginning. I try to explain to people that God made the world, and it was originally ‘good’ – not like it is now. It was originally perfect, and He could have kept it perfect, but that would have meant reducing us to robots – but He didn’t want robots who were always programmed to make the right choices and worship Him. He didn’t want people only one setting (the “worship God and live for him” setting), He wanted real relationship. He wanted to create a people who would really love Him and chose to have genuine and authentic relationship with Him. And so the consequences of the fact that we have choice, means sadly that we have messed the world up. Then, sometimes on night shift, you get more detailed discussions. During lockdown, one of my colleagues found things really difficult, and this was her big question. I was able to lend her several good Christian books on the subject and she read and read and then came to discuss them with me. A good book can be helpful, because it can give people a lot more than you can in the few minutes you might have to say something.

Solas: You talked about praying for opportunities to speak about Jesus at work; what motivates you to want to do that?

Georgie: Knowing that Jesus is my only hope in this life and In eternity. He is the only way to the Father, there is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved, and I care about the eternity of my colleagues. In recent months I’ve also realised more and more that Jesus is also the only hope for life here and now too. I don’t know how I would have got through this year without a solid, stable, steady hope which is like an anchor and a rock! The world has gone mad! And that motivates me all the more, because I think “If they just knew Jesus they would have such hope.” He can bring peace to their chaos and anxieties. He is someone they can trust, who is dependable and will never change or let them down. I have this hope – and I so badly want that for others too.

Solas: What advice would give a young Christian starting in your job who wants to be faithful to Christ there?

Georgie: Well, one biggest thing I have learnt is that when I first qualified I had this sacred-secular divide. I saw work as an interruption to my worship of God. I ran the church youth ministry then, and if I had to work on a Friday-night and miss the youth group, then I would resent the inconvenience.  I thought that coming to work was interrupting my life of service to God! So work became like this big, bad enemy which kept me from worship and service and God’s glory! But actually, what I’ve learned is that work is worship, and I can serve and glorify God in youthwork on a Friday night, and equally on a night-shift; when everyone is bad-mouthing a patient or colleague and I take things in a more helpful direction. Or if no one is giving a patient a drink, and I can bring them what they need. It’s not explicit evangelism or church-work, but it is ministry when you do it with a heart that wants to please God. So I’d say that nursing is an interruption to your church-life, but don’t let it become and interruption to your worship. Everything you do for a patient can offered as worship to God, or for a relative. Every extra hour you spend at work when your shift is actually over can be worship. God doesn’t only reward us for our evangelism – but also “you were hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” as well. Nursing is not easy, it is a costly life which will demand from you a lot of patience, effort and compassion. You will get tired, and go home late and miss weekends. But that costly offering can be given as a sacrifice of praise to God – and it is worth it.

Solas: That’s a great note to end on – thankyou so much!

Georgie: Pleasure!

Andy Bannister at The Ministry of Defence

by Editor

At the Ministry of Defence there is a large Christian group who meet together and also host series of evangelistic events across lunchtimes. I was invited, along with several other Christian apologists to take part and help them with this. I was hoping to travel down to their MOD site in Bristol to deliver the talk in person, but Covid prevented that so we did it online instead.

The topic they asked me to address was “Has Science made God irrelevant”. An unexpected benefit of Covid was that as the meeting wasn’t restricted to the Bristol site, people from lots of other MOD sites joined us online. The audience was significantly larger than it would have been in normal times!

Speaking on the topic of science to that community was especially interesting – as it has some connections with their professional lives. So for instance when showing that science has not displaced God, I demonstrated that science actually raises religious, philosophical and moral questions, which it fails to answer. One example I gave was Louis Frederick Fieser (April 7, 1899 – July 25, 1977) one of the most famous chemists of the 20th C. He invented two things. Firstly he achieved the first artificial synthesis of Vitamin K – and saved hundreds of thousands of lives; but he was also the lead scientist for developing Napalm – which took hundreds of thousands of lives. So how then do you assess one man’s work? How do you say that one of those things is good and is bad? Science alone just produces results and develops technology, it doesn’t let you decide which outcomes are right. In fact if anything, science opens up more questions than it answers.

The same thing occurs at the highest scientific levels too. When physicists explore the origins of the universe; it opens up massive questions which I think point us in the direction of a creator.

After my talk we had a particularly good Q&A sessions. Sometimes when you open the floor for questions – not many come in. Then there are times when you get hostile questions because there are some aggressive atheists in the room! However, the questions that came in on this session was remarkable. They were obviously from people who were not Christians, but were genuinely interested and searching for answers and wanting to think things through.

I will be speaking for them again later in the year on “The Pursuit of Happiness”. That might be in person in Bristol in the MOD’s high-security premises, but more likely to be online again! It’s a great partnership to have and one we at Solas hope will continue to grow and develop.

PEP Talk Podcast With David Galloway

by Solas

What happens when the dreaded “God and science” topic comes up when you’re speaking about Jesus? Today’s guest reassures us that most people who assume that science explains away the need for God, are only merely assuming it. He encourages us to dig deeper and points us towards some resources that will help give us confidence if the subject arises.

With David Galloway – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

David Galloway is a gastroenterological surgeon, formerly President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow. He has worked in Zambia, Malaysia and the USA. He is currently President of the Centre for Intelligent Design, speaking regularly on issues of faith, medicine and science. His latest books are Design Dissected and Follow the Science co-authored with Alistair Noble.

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 Bad Theology Gap

by Editor

Among my favourite mountains is Blencathra, one of the grandest and most beautifully sculpted of all the hills of northern England. Rising almost 3,000 feet in a series of dramatic shattered rock ridges from the fields below, it makes a for a fantastic hike. (I remember dragging my wife—who had never in her life climbed a mountain before—up Blencathra on the very first day of our honeymoon. For the rest of the holiday I was then able to say “Today’s walk is only 80% as hard as day one”, a bribery strategy which was eventually superseded by the judicious use of chocolate).

By far the most impressive route up Blencathra is the ascent via Sharp Edge, an exposed and impressive rock ridges which looks for all the world like ‘a breaking wave carved in stone’.[1] Scramble up the mountain by Sharp Edge and you have to pick your way along its narrow arête with care, especially in the winter: for on one side, a thousand feet of sheer granite plunges vertically to the waters of Scales Tarn whilst on the other side of the ridge, a mass of splintered rock and broken crags tumble down to the river Glenderamackin.

But for all of the adrenalin-inducing exposure that comes with a scramble up the apex of Sharp Edge, the route is nevertheless perfectly safe, provided you keep to the very top of the arête and don’t start fooling around trying to veer off to one side or the other. Keep your balance and keep a straight line and you’ll be fine.

There are parts of Christian theology that are somewhat like this. Concepts and ideas that the Bible insists on holding together that we, often through our urge to simplify, have a tendency to divide. Rather than stick to the theological arête, we delight in plunging down one side of an issue or the other, sliding like a mountain goat with greased hooves as we suddenly discover the cliff is sheerer than we thought. The classic example is the balance between God’s sovereignty and human free will. One has to be wilfully obsessive, obstinate, or utterly selective in one’s reading of scripture to miss the obvious fact that the Bible is very clear: God is sovereign and human beings have significant, meaningful freedom. The Bible has no problem with this and sees no difficulty affirming both. Yet despite that, throughout church history factions have formed, denominations have split apart, hostilities broken out, and nasty emoticons deployed in anger on Twitter by people who want to play off divine sovereignty versus human freedom.

But my concern is that failing to do as the Bible insists and affirming both God’s sovereignty and human freedom has a very negative impact on evangelism. In particular, it leads to two opposite but equally dangerous gaps that can yawn open like abysses, preventing us from pressing on joyfully with evangelism. What are the theological gaps that keep some Christians from evangelising? Well, let’s discover that by taking a look at the two errors that can arise if we disconnect God’s sovereignty and human freedom.

THEOLOGICAL GAP #1 — GOD IS NOT A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER

The first error that we can be tempted to fall into is to take an extreme view of God’s sovereignty. When we begin sliding down this particular cliff face, we forget about scriptures that affirm human freedom and simply focus on those that talk about God’s power and control. On this view, evangelism fades into the background: after all, God has picked ahead of time who will be saved and who will not. Everything has been decided, even programmed in advance, and human beings are just going through the motions, acting out their pre-scripted parts, and nothing we do will change anything: God simply micromanages the whole process. If a person will be saved, they will be saved, whether we share Christ with them or not.

There are a myriad problems with this view. First, if we are not careful, it can become full-blown fatalism—with not merely evangelism but everything seen through this lens. We can’t change anything, we have no responsibility, and we just become passive and helpless. Why even struggle to pursue holiness, or do justice, or avoid sin, if we are just puppets on a string? Second, this view is devastating for evangelism which becomes pointless. Why bother doing it if God has already set up the game in advance? (At best one might say ‘Because God commanded it’, but it’s still pretty de-incentivising: evangelism does nothing, God might equally have commanded us to balance a kipper on our nose). Or we can just do evangelism really, really badly —why bother to work hard at sharing our faith, if evangelism effectively has nothing to do with us? All in all, this particular theological gap is totally demotivating and it can lead Christians to an attitude of simply sitting back and doing nothing at all.

But more significantly, this particular theological error ignores numerous parts of scripture. For example, in the gospels, Jesus sent out the 12 and then the 72 on preaching missions (Luke 9:1-6; 10:1-16) and Jesus was overjoyed at the results (Luke 10:17-20). He also commanded all of his followers to “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). Then there’s the book of Acts, which one might subtitle The Book of Evangelism and Mission. The very first sermon, preached by Peter on the Day of Pentecost, sees the crowds ask “What shall we do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37) and Peter doesn’t reply, “Well, those of you who are preselected, step through door number 1 …” but rather “Repent and be baptised, every one of you” (Acts 2:38). And then we might point to those scriptures that emphasise the universality of God’s love (John 3:16), or which call for all to repent (Acts 17:30), or which promise that all who call on God will be saved (Romans 10:13).

So, if your evangelism lacks a certain oomph because you have become passive, maybe you’re at risk of sliding down this side of the arête and into this particular theological gap. How can you overcome it? Start by reflecting on God’s love of all and his gift of freedom; read through some of the scriptural passages (especially the commands about) evangelism and disciple-making; and in your prayers, thank God for the privilege of him choosing to involve us and inviting us to partner with him in sharing the good news. What an amazing honour that he would do that!

THEOLOGICAL GAP #2 — HUMANS ARE NOT THE CENTRE OF THE STORY

But there’s another, opposite error that we can plunge into if we fall off the other side of the theological ridge and that’s the error of thinking that everything (or at least everything that really matters) is about human beings and our choices. On this view, God would never (or even in extreme forms of this view, cannot) override our will and so everything becomes about us. When it comes to evangelism, the emphasis is placed on humans and their choices—it is humans who search for or seek God, humans who decide for themselves whether they will follow God or not, and humans who are ultimately the deciders of who will, or will not, spend eternity with Jesus. In extreme forms of this view, even God doesn’t know who will be saved (presumably God will spend the first thousand years of the eternity saying “Fancy seeing you here!” every time he meets somebody new).

It goes without saying that there are numerous problems with this theology. In a bizarre mirror image of the first error, this time it is God who is the passive actor—buffeted about and restricted by the choices of billions of human beings. He is weak, even helpless, boxed in by our preferences and our decisions. When it comes to evangelism, that becomes all about us: it is down to us and our efforts to persuade, bribe, cajole, or motivate our friends to follow Christ as we, through our rhetoric and intellect try to overcome their willpower. All of which is terribly demotivating and usually leads to paralysis and fear: What if I’m not a talented enough evangelist? How will I ever forgive myself if somebody doesn’t become a Christian? Have I done enough—maybe I could do more, more, more! Unintentionally, we have become the centre of the story and God has become side-lined.

This theological error has also ignored large portions of scripture. For example, Jesus said “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them” (John 6:44). Or consider the book of Acts, which might equally be subtitled The Book of God at Work, since God is the main character in it, a point made in statements like “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). And then we come to books like Ephesians, with its crystal clear assertion that “it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

So, if your evangelism lacks a certain pizzazz because you are afraid that you’re not good enough, that your efforts will be in vain, how can you arrest your slide into this theological gap and get yourself back onto the biblical ridge? Start reflecting on the fact that God is in ultimate control and our freedom operates under this protection; read through some of the scriptures about God’s love for the human race (his love for the lost is far greater than ours!); and in your prayers, thank God for the wonderful freedom this brings—we have the joy of taking part in God’s mission, but don’t have to carry the load or the burden. Rather we can relax and enjoy that God chooses to work through us.

CONCLUSION: GOD’S WORK THROUGH US

The more you soak yourself in the scriptures, the more it becomes inescapably obvious that the Bible holds together both truths: yes, God is sovereign and yes, he has given us significant freedom. To ignore either truth is rather like shouting “Arêtes are for wimps!” before leaping off one side of Sharp Edge or the other. You’d better have Mountain Rescue, or ideally the local undertaker, on speed dial. And besides, if our fallible attempts at theology can’t fully hold together these two great and wonderful biblical truths, then “So much for your theology!” would, I think, be the Bible’s answer.[2]

Indeed, sometimes in many stories in the Bible about evangelism one sees these themes in the very same text. For example, think of the story of Jonah, a whale of a tale and one of the most famous episodes in the Old Testament. The Lord commands Jonah to go to Nineveh (God could have thundered from the sky, but sent Jonah). Jonah then acts very freely and leaps on a boat headed in literally the opposite direction. God then demonstrates his power and sends a storm and a giant fish. Finally Jonah goes to Nineveh and begrudgingly preaches what is, quite frankly, a fairly rubbish and short sermon (just five words in the Hebrew!) Despite all that, the whole city full of people freely turn in repentance and are saved. Thus we see God’s sovereignty and human freedom woven together throughout the story. As Glen Scrivener puts it:

The great evangelist of the Bible is not Jonah, it’s the Lord. And that’s great news because by the Spirit, the Lord continues to reach out through rubbish evangelists like Jonah, like me, like you. As you seek to share your faith with others today, take heart: nothing can thwart God’s gospel mission to the ends of the earth—not even you can thwart it. Because “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).[3]

So if you think you think that you might be in danger of falling into the theological gap and it keeping you from evangelism, why not bring this to the Lord in prayer:

Father God, thank you that you are on the throne and I can trust you with everything!
Thank you, Lord, for your love for the world and thank you for choosing to work through us to reach the lost with the gospel.
Please forgive me for the times I let bad theology get in the way of your plans and your work!
Please would you work through me to reach my friends, neighbours, and colleagues with the forgiveness and peace that is to be found in Jesus.
Please help me trust you to work through my efforts, however weak and feeble.
In Jesus’s name, Amen!

[1]        A. Wainwright, A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Book 5, The Northern Fells. (London: Frances Lincoln, 2003) Blencathra 25.

[2]        The famous preacher and evangelist, Charles Spurgeon, once said: “There is a great deal of truth in the positive side of both systems, and a great deal of error in the negative side of both systems. If I were asked, ‘Why is a man damned?’ I should answer as an Arminian answers, ‘He destroys himself’. I should not dare to lay man’s ruin at the door of Divine sovereignty. On the other hand, if I were asked, ‘Why is a man saved?’ I could only give the Calvinist answer, ‘He is saved through the sovereign grace of God, and not at all of himself.” Source: Charles H. Spurgeon, vol. 22, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Volume 22, electronic ed., Logos Library System; Spurgeon’s Sermons. Sermon No. 1271, also available online here).

[3]        Glen Scrivener, Reading Between the Lines, Volume 1. (Leyland: 10Publishing, 2018) p. 469.

Andy Bannister at Veritas Conference Norway

by Editor

I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Norwegian Veritas Conference online. It was such a shame that I couldn’t be there in person, as I was originally booked to be, because I love visiting Norway. As has soften been the case this year, travel was out of the question so I joined with them online from my study in Dundee!

The guys at Veritas-Norway did an amazing job at pulling together a brilliantly organised conference despite the difficulties of Covid. It really was a brilliant event to be part of! Students formed the bulk of the audience, and they had brought speakers in from a range of countries too. The host Bjorn Hinderacker told that me that, “more than 1000 attended online, and more have watched afterwards, and listened to the podcast”, which is really encouraging given the restrictions.

I was invited to go and speak on the subject of my previous book, “The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist” – which they coincided with the launch of “Ateisten som ikke fantes: eller: de forferdelige konsekvensene av dårlige argumenter” which is the Norweigan translation of that book! The last translation of that book was into Swedish – so for some reason the Scandinavian countries seem to really like the book! That is hilarious because the second chapter in the book is called “Why Sweden doesn’t exist!” The book uses some funny illustrations to explore some big questions about Atheism. So that chapter looks at the way that some atheists like to claim that their ‘absence of belief is not a belief’ and therefore requires no argument or evidence. So I imagine that someone says to me “I don’t believe that Sweden exists”; and I refute their assertion with evidence and they reply, ”No, you don’t understand – my statement that Sweden doesn’t exist isn’t a belief, it’s a non-belief so I don’t need to defend it!” I didn’t know how that example would be received there, but they loved it! I remember asking to the translator, “Is the humour in this book too British for your audience?” and he replied, “No, we love Monty Python!”

So as well as looking at the claim that Atheism isn’t a belief, we also examined the spurious claim that ‘science can explain everything’ and then the idea that “we don’t need God to be good” – some of the key sections in the book. So we had some fun with some of the comedy in the book – but then used that last topic (goodness) to pivot into the heart of the gospel itself. Christianity is not about claiming that you are a ‘good person’, but about admitting that you are not and need forgiveness and transformation.

I really hope to be able to work with the Veritas Conference in Norway again, and after Covid go back there. It’s a wonderful part of the world which my family love!

Editors Note:

Bjorn Hinderaker from Veritas Norway commented,  “We had the book The Atheist Who Didnt Exist translated and published for the conference, but due to the  lack of large in-person conference, the sales have not yet picked up. We hope there will be opportunity to promote the book further when we get out of the pandemic. And we would like to reconnect with Andy at some point both for his input, and to further promote his book. We are really happy with his contribution, combining knowledge, clear thinking with humour. It has given an additional edge to our apologetic resources.

Heaven Sounds So Boring! Why Would I Want To Go?

by Solas

“Heaven sounds incredibly boring — who’d want to spend eternity in a never ending dusty and boring church service!” a friend once remarked. Admittedly an eternal church service does sound a bit boring; and the idea of a party in the sky doesn’t sound much better either (surely you’d eventually get bored). But what if the reality is something MUCH more exciting than either of those stereotypes? In this Short Answers video, Andy Bannister explores what the Bible really promises about life after death and why it’s such exciting news.

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