Dan Barker wrote a book at the urging of Richard Dawkins addressing their idea of God. To them, God is the most unpleasant character, and that is putting it nicely. You may dismiss these men, but you would be amiss to do so because they express what so many people in our world believe about the God of the Bible.
The fact is Christianity has not been gaining ground in our world. Christians have not been moving it forward in our modern culture, and it is because we ignore the thoughts and questions people have about the Bible. We preach Jesus, which is right, but we do it to people who are already skeptical of the Bible as a worthy book. As a result, if they do not immediately dismiss the gospel, they probably will lose faith when confronted with these ideas as so many have.
In the past, opposition to the Bible was minimal. The culture and the inability to communicate openly to a large audience prevented descent. Today, however, all thoughts are on the table. In his book “God, The Most Unpleasant Character In Fiction,” Dan Barker expresses what many people believe about the Bible.
Most Christians, even some pastors, are inept in dealing with these thoughts. As long as we can preach to the choir, we think we are okay. It is as if we are Nero who supposedly fiddle while Rome was burning. We have made Christianity too much about the individual and not the whole. We focus on our story and not God’s story. We are just pieces in the big story, but some see Christianity as their little world with God.
If we are the Christians that God wants us to be, we need to be like the first apostles who went out into the world to change the big story. Paul went into all the different cultures and turned their world upside down. We are not doing that at all. I am afraid that most Christians do not even understand the biblical issues of the day, yet even defend the biblical view.
I beg you to spend a few moments watching this video, even if you do not finish it. It will at least give you some ideas of what we are facing. Do not dismiss this as some isolated thinking. Dan‘s understanding of the Bible is becoming the common thought of our day.
If you want to hear my understanding of how to approach this, please let me know. Send Email or Contact