Christopher Hitchens says religion is absurd:

“If Moses and Jesus and Mohammed had never existed — let alone Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy or Kim Jong Il or any of the other man-made prophets or idols — we would still be faced with precisely the same questions about how to explain ourselves and our lives, how to think about the just city, and how to comport ourselves with our fellow-creatures. The small progress we have made so far, from the basic realization that diseases are not punishments to the noble idea that as humans we may even have “rights”, is due to the exercise of skepticism and doubt, and to the objective scrutiny of hard evidence, and not at all …

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Looks interesting… Anyone seen this movie?

Now playing at:
Atlanta
Regal Medlock Crossing
9700 Medlock Bridge Road
Duluth, Ga.
770.814.8437

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The July 27th issue of Sports Illustrated features the two-time national champion and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. The following is an excerpt from the whole story.

At a time when Americans are leaving organized religion in large numbers, according to a 2008 Pew Research poll, Tebow is leading his own personal counterinsurgency.

“Every Sunday we have a service for our players and their families,” says Meyer, who remembers when “three or four kids would show up. Now the room’s full.”

Since Tebow’s arrival on campus, and in large part because of him, Florida has launched a series of community-service initiatives. Even as the football program has suffered an embarrassing string of arrests, the number of hours players …

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I just peeked into the online memorial for Michael Jackson. I happened to catch the performance of Lionel Richie singing the song “Jesus is Love.” It was the worst thing I could ever hear at a funeral. Why? Because the picture of Jesus in this song is disconnected from the real Jesus contained in the Bible. Am I saying the Jesus of the Bible is not love? Hardly. What I am saying is that the type of love that this song is communicating is a cheap emotional concoction; a man-centered image made up in the mind of people who want to claim Jesus as their teacher or icon, but refuse to worship Him …

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Like Dan said yesterday, making disciples is a relationship-oriented process. So how do you cultivate relationships that are fertile ground for disciple-making?If not knowing what to say is holding you back from starting conversations with folks that might lead to making disciples of Christ, take heart. Listening is far more important, as Jonathan Dodson writes at TheResurgence:

One of the most effective ways to know our “target audience” was to ask them questions…something that we really aren’t good at in the West. Instead, Christians assume a defensive posture, making conversations doctrinal battles or apologetic arguments. [A better way is] the path of learning from those we hope “to reach.”By asking questions from concern

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It’s one of the hardest things to do – explain your faith without losing a friend. I want you to consider something; the gut reaction you had as you read this statement placed you on a particular side of the issue I want to address. Allow me to explain, if you felt immediate concern for how this statement sounds – a prelude to compromising the Gospel, I would label you a “red” christian. If you’re first gut-reaction was a feeling of excitement or curiosity to know how to express the Gospel without offending someone; I would label you a “blue” christian.

This is where it gets tricky. Both “red” and “blue” Christians have valid feelings …

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C.A. sent me a link to a story about the American Humanist Association spending $40,000 on an ad campaign asking: “Why believe in a god?” I was especially intrigued by this because our Gospel Conversations class is paying a lot of attention to the sort of questions people ask, and here’s a big one gift-wrapped and served up on a plate.

Rather than serve up some pat answers here, I’d rather hear from you, Grace Fellowship (especially you Gospel Conversationalists out there)… Why believe in a god?

(P.S. Please do a better job than the American Family Association’s representative, who said, “It’s a stupid ad.” He said some other things after that, but by then I wasn’t

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On Sunday, the Gospel Conversations class discussed “pre-evangelism.” What’s that? If “evangelism” is “telling people about the good news,” then “pre-evangelism” is what you do before you tell people the good news. After all, “take up your cross and follow me” is not good news unless you know the whole story.

D.A. Carson has written a helpful article on Acts 17 in which he outlines the need for explaining the “big story” of the Bible in our evangelism:

Paul at the Areopagus in Athens has established an entire frame of reference before he gets to Jesus. He has challenged the Greek worldview with his JudeoChristian worldview. If he had presented clichés like “Jesus died

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Here’s the situation: you’re in a conversation with someone about the Gospel. The person you’re talking with says, “Let me ask you a question.” You feel a pit forming in your stomach because there are some questions you really, really don’t want to be asked.

I want to build up an inventory of those questions, so let me have ‘em. Please use the mail form to send in your questions—I’ve turned off the comments because I don’t want anybody to be afraid of asking questions “in public.” (Note: if you’d actually like a question answered, please indicate

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I just learned that Google Books are embeddable in blog posts, so I thought I’d give it a try with the title I called out yesterday, Randy Newman’s Questioning Evangelism:

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