God Works In Interesting Ways

It's funny, because lately, I have joined an online discussion forum in which anything goes, topics wise. Several parts of the forum recently had threads along the lines of "Why I am No Longer a Christian". Little did I know that there were so many people who had an opinion of Christianity, and not a positive one. The fact that this site had predominantly Canadians and Americans of Asian descent as their user base, added extra complexity to how I was going to frame my contributions to the discussion, as the audience was going to be mostly buddhist or atheist. I wanted to read a lot of the postings and get a flavour of people's personalities and temperments before I start to delve into their points and open it to a back and forth discussion. My interest is in Biblical apologetics anyway, so I would humbly say that I am more comfortable debating the Bible and theology with non-Christians than the average church-going North American born-again believer. Still, because of the hostile tone of the posts and some of the absolutely denigrating comments made about Christianity (interestingly enough, much of this was directed at what most people think constitutes Christianity - the Roman Catholic church - from what they see in the media and movies. I had no desire, nor interest in defending Roman Catholicism, so someone else would have to do that job), I wanted to make sure that I approach my response in a constructive, logical and empathetic way (since I'm prone to do quite the opposite).

My interest was in some of the comments about the Bible and how science and theology cannot co-exist, and how the Bible is false, Christians are all hypocrites, and so forth. I have been thinking of how I would engage the discussion and I started recently by empathizing with the writers, in that I totally agree with the fact that many Christians are so awkward at arguing in these types of debates, because most of them are not familiar with what the Bible says. I will go to my grave arguing this point, and my experience has shown me that I am not wrong here. North American Christians (and I say that specifically because I know that Christians in emerging countries in Asia and South America and Africa have a deep hunger for Biblical knowledge) are generally not heavy studiers of the Bible - I can't say why, but I suspect it's probably because of too many distractions. On the flip side, every single African born-again brother or sister that I have met knows their Bible far better than most Canadian or American believers, and that is considering the fact that we in North America have abundant Bible study and resource materials. So born again believers in the Western world have some work to do. Don't argue with me on this point - I know this is true.

Anyway, I conceded that point to the posters there. I also conceded the point that they argued, which was a common one - that there is much hypocrisy in the church and amongst Christians. I couldn't argue there, but I added that the Bible, in its wisdom, already indicated that we are all sinful and there is more than enough evidence to show that followers of Christ are fall from perfect. I then challenged these posters to actually take their own advice and research the Bible for themselves rather than listening to hearsay and what not. I also agreed with their assertion that the Roman Catholic church has some absolutely ridiculous rules that were never in Scripture. Several of these posters are quite intelligent, so I was fully anticipating that the conversation would turn towards the scientific realm (let's face it, stereotype or not, many Asians have strengths and math and science). So in the last couple of days, I was meditating on this on the way home and wondering how I should respond, and asking God for direction.

Well, how's this for interesting...this morning (Wednesday, August 15), I was listening to the radio on the way to work. Now, I normally listen to CFRB (news talk radio) or The Fan 590 (sports talk radio). For whatever reason today, I decided to put the dial on AM 640 Talk Radio (which I do not listen to that often). The John Oakley show was on, and since I used to listen to John Oakley 15 years or so ago when he was on CFRB, I kept the station on, while I turned onto the highway. To my utter surprise, his special guest was non other than the head of the global human genome DNA project, the very distinguished Dr. Francis Collins. This guy has been featured in Time magazine, etc. I didn't really know much about him, but I thought, uh-oh, here's a guy who will start talking science and slam Christianity. To my utter shock, he got on the airwaves and started talking about how he once was an atheist, but when he was 20-years-of-age or so, he realized that atheism required more faith than he had, and he could not believe that the world just happened without a Creator. And on Toronto airwaves (very liberal Toronto airwaves), he came on saying, that's when he realized His need for a Saviour and gave his life over to Jesus Christ!

Holy crap! I almost swerved the car into another car as I heard this. He then went on to detail why he believes in creation and that God exists, and he even acknowledged that he had an opportunity to publicly debate (for Time magazine) the well known atheist Richard Dawkins. He only had about 20 minutes as a guest, but in those 20 minutes, he made the most of his time, arguing for Christianity, without being interrupted. I cannot tell you how blessed I was to hear this, especially given the fact that I'm going through an exchange on a forum with not only a group of non-Christians, but seemingly a group of anti-Christians. This was well timed nourishment, and it comes to show you, God knows exactly when to time this stuff to show you, there's no way this is coincidence. It also goes to show that God is with His people in their daily lives. I definitely felt a renewal of faith this morning, and to hear a top scientist, well regarded in his field, stating publicly that he is a follower of Christ, and then giving solid, logical reasons why science and faith can coexist, in an intelligent thoughtful manner, I just had to stop and thank God for these types of situations.