Indeed, some of the data indicates quite the opposite, but the nuanced nature of the study’s results defies a simple explanation.  Two factors, however, seemed clear enough: first, ethnic background plays an important role in determining one’s beliefs on the God question; and, second, that unbelief is unnatural.

If you’re interested, read the linked article and then, for the full explanation of the study, click on “Where do atheists come from?”

It has been Lauri, however, who has done the heavy lifting of educating Sasha.  When I say “educating Sasha”, I mean much more than you may assume.

Education in this sense means a great deal more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Think Eliza Doolittle.  Lauri must begin with the most basic of basics and move forward, and Sasha, to her credit, is an exemplary student.

Not that reading, writing, and arithmetic are not at the heart of her homeschooling.  In a previous life, Sasha was told that she could not learn.  What nonsense!  She not only loves to learn, she is a little sponge.  Less than a year ago, she could not speak a word of English.  Now, she speaks it, reads it, and writes it.  Not bad.  But there is a great deal more to her education than the academic element.  She must learn elementary rules of society.

Allow me to illustrate.  In one recent episode, Lauri took Sasha to the Social Security office to obtain a social security number for her.  When an exceptionally obese woman walked in, Sasha stared.  There was nothing malevolent or even thoughtlessly rude in the stare.  She simply didn’t know any better and, having never seen anyone that hefty, she was understandably fascinated.

“Why she so big, mommy?”

“Sasha, shhhh.  Don’t say that.  And don’t stare.” Lauri corrected, trying to avoid giving offense or causing a scene.

“But why she so fat?  Did God make her like that?”  Lauri had to think about that one for a moment.  “Uh, no.  He didn’t.  Shhhh!”

“I glad He no make me that fat.”  Taking her out of the office, Lauri explained that questions and comments of that sort were not appropriate.

On another occasion, Sasha had to write a short paragraph in school describing what her mother and father did for a living.  “Mommy cook, wash clothes, and take care of family,” she wrote.
And her father?  “Daddy loves me”, she declared.  A father’s love seems like the basis of a fine essay, if not a sufficient means of support for a family!

Children are a keen reminder to us of our own behavior insofar as they tend to mimic it.  To date, it seems that Sasha is learning the right things, and that is largely attributable to a dedicated mother and a merciful Heavenly Father.

As one amazing act followed another, I became aware that the audience seemed rather unenthusiastic.  Applause was intermittent and scattered.  So much so, in fact, that I found myself clapping louder and with greater frequency in a vain effort to make up the difference.  The strongman held up a pyramid of people totaling 1,250 pounds—yawn; the firewalker tread on a pallet of flaming broken glass—sigh; a woman twirled fifty feet above the ground (without a net) by her hair—ho-hum; and a motorcyclist sped across a high wire as a woman dangled from the exhaust pipe—crickets chirping.

Then, suddenly, all of that changed.

When the trapeze artist missed a quadruple somersault and fell into the net below, the crowd roared.  I don’t know if the applause was meant as encouragement to him or if it was only in that moment that the audience realized that all of these performances, which seemed so effortless at times, were actually the result of extraordinary skill, discipline, and years of practice.

And they did make it look effortless.  Watching the acrobats bound through the air so gracefully, for a moment one imagines that he could do it, too.  It looked that easy.  Perhaps when the man fell to earth from the trapeze, the rest of us fell with him in a metaphorical sense, bringing us back to the reality of our limitations.

There is a spiritual parallel here.  I am continually amazed by the number of religious people I meet who believe that their eternal salvation can be attained through their own efforts.  Grossly overestimating their own spiritual ability, they think that they can “do it”.  Think about this for just a moment.  Think about the well-documented fallibility of the human race—our penchant for cruelty, violence, greed, hatred, bigotry, and weakness.  Evil aside, who among us can do something as modest as keep a strict diet?  I can’t even manage to stop biting my fingernails without the occasional lapse.  Could such a man really earn his own salvation?  I think not.

However easy it might appear, a Christian’s salvation was not easily achieved.  It was purchased at the price of Christ’s blood.  His life was given “a ransom for many” precisely because we could attain salvation by no other means.  This is the meaning of grace.  Can’t do the spiritual trapeze?  Can’t tame the lions of your life?  Did you launch out onto a high wire only to discover that it isn’t as easy as you thought?  No worries.  Christ has done all of this and more for you!  Humble yourself.  Acknowledge your weakness.  And eternity is yours.

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” - I Corinthians 15:57

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We believe that this mission was accomplished.

Held at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, the conference attracted some 600 people from around the country.  After Alabama, attendees came from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas, California, South Dakota, Arizona, and many others.  The speakers were fabulous.  Ravi Zacharias diagnosed the problem we face; Alistair Begg, addressing pastors, urged them to “bridge two worlds”—the secular and the sacred—in their preaching; John Lennox gave a brilliant exposition of what is quite possibly the most controversial chapter in all of Scripture: Genesis 1 and the Creation Story; I sought to give practical arguments for proclaiming and defending the Christian faith; and finally, Rick Burgess shared his very personal story of grief, pain, and the power of the Gospel to transform lives.  Tying it all together was the beautiful, Celtic-flavored music of Keith and Kristyn Getty.  In short, it was three very powerful days of God’s blessing.

It also revealed that our instincts were correct—Christians in this country are in much need of encouragement and a confidence that the Bible has not failed them on the critical cultural issues.  That is not given through lectures and seminars alone, but in ministering to people individually.  In this conference, the combined staffs of RZIM and Fixed Point Foundation—the Seeking 7 staff—created a warm and hospitable environment that was conducive to conversation and personal interaction.  That element, perhaps more than any other, contributed heavily to the feeling that many experienced and expressed—that the conference had not only equipped them for ministry, it had ministered to them.

Will there be another Seeking 7 event?  We are hopeful.  That will depend on resources.  This event was done at a considerable loss as we gave away some $25,000 worth of free meals and passes to those who are in fulltime vocational ministry.  That we could do so was both a blessing to the recipients as well as to us.  But we cannot do it again without substantive support. (If you would like to aid this tax-deductable initiative, click here.)

2010 is off to an exciting start.  We are looking forward to all that God has in store for us and hope to see you soon.

Professor John Lennox, teasing me about my hectic schedule, once quipped, “This is the only Fixed Point I have ever heard of that never stops moving!”  2010 will be no different.  We begin the year with Seeking 7’s “Into the Fire”, an apologetics conference that starts tomorrow (Wednesday) night at the Sheraton.

Seeking 7 is a joint initiative of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) and Fixed Point Foundation.  It is, in effect, a new ministry designed to equip, encourage, and mobilize Christians to engage a fallen world.  The topics and speakers are sure to accomplish those goals:

• Radio personality Rick Burgess on the problem of suffering.
• Pastor Alistair Begg on the challenges facing the church in the new millennium and how the church must rise to meet those challenges.
• Scientist John Lennox on the Genesis account of creation
• RZIM apologist Ravi Zacharias on how Christians can affect the culture.
• Fixed Point’s own Bill Wortman on the authority of Scripture and modern education.
• Evangelist and Islamic scholar Jay Smith on the rise of Radical Islam.
• RZIM apologist Stuart McAllister on the Hollywood window onto America’s soul.
• Harry Reeder on the all but forgotten doctrine of Hell.
• And I will be offering a few common sense reasons why we can believe that the God of the Bible is real.

 
Many have asked about the name Seeking 7.  What does it mean?  One fellow joked with me, “I am coming to your … what do you call it?  The Magnificent Seven Conference?”  He was close, but incorrect.  The name derives from the significance of the number seven in Scripture.  It is a perfect number.  Consider the seven days of creation; Joshua and the people of Israel marching around Jericho seven times; the seven loaves with which Jesus fed the four thousand; the choosing of seven servants in Acts 6; the seven lampstands and churches in Revelation; the seven thousand God reserved to Himself “who did not bend the knee to Baal”, etc.  Furthermore, we are to seek God seven days a week.

Into the Fire” is the name of this particular Seeking 7 conference.  Picture Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing before the fiery furnace in Daniel 3.  They remained faithful, even as the flames singed and ultimately consumed some of those near them.  Are you willing to go into the fire?

We hope to see you at the conference!  Tickets range from $25 for individual sessions to $495 for a full conference pass. (The latter includes all four days and all meals.)

Click here to register, or call (205) 414-6311.

This day, however, was an exception to the rule.

As I stood near the counter waiting for my “to go” order, one of the waitresses took a tray from the kitchen window and, proceeding in the usual manner, called out the order:

“Number 666!”

For a moment, it seemed that the restaurant was completely silent.  No one answered.  I looked around apprehensively, wondering if, in fact, the Anti-Christ liked steak fries with his pork BBQ sandwich as I did.

The waitress looked at me questioningly.  “Are you 666?”  I could feel the eyes of others upon me.

I shook my head vigorously and held up my hands.  “No, I am not.”  She moved off, holding the tray and repeating the refrain, “Number 666!” as she walked around the restaurant, but no one answered.

When she returned to the counter, I said, “It seems that the Anti-Christ has left the premises.”

A middle-aged African-American woman seated near me looked up from her stack of BBQ ribs.  She chuckled at first and then gave way to hearty laughter.

“I was watchin’ to see who was gonna claim that one!” She said.  “I noticed you were quick to disown it!”

“You’re darn right,” I said smiling.  “You don’t see the Mark of the Beast on me, do you?”  With a hand I brushed the hair back from my forehead.  She convulsed with laughter, wiping tears from her eyes with a napkin.

The waitress, unamused by our little joke, only looked at us uncomprehendingly and returned to the kitchen.

“No one claimed order 666,” she told her manager as she put the tray under a heat lamp.

And we may thank God for that.

But this is absurd as these men already have tremendous audiences, receive lavish media attention, and are treated like rock stars. Worse yet, they are seldom challenged. Using their visibility to our advantage, we wanted refute their arguments and demonstrate the spiritual, moral, and intellectual power of the Gospel. There is a twofold objective here:

• First, to encourage Christians who feel demoralized by what they see as the unrelenting advance of secularism and a corresponding retreat of Christianity.
  
  In our experience, many Christians do not doubt that the Bible is true; they doubt its relevance and ability to address the complex questions of modern life. Furthermore, there is an unhealthy reluctance among "ordinary" Christians to enter the arena, preferring as they do to leave these things to the pantheon of Christian "stars." We must demolish these notions and mobilize the Church, not just an elite few.  In seeing someone who takes the Gospel seriously mount the stage in opposition to militant secularists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Singer, Ehrman, et al., many Christians who were otherwise disengaged, are inspired by the model and do likewise. They see that the Word of God is not a liability, but a two-edged sword when it is properly wielded.

• Second, to challenge skeptics in their unbelief, or, as C.S. Lewis put it, "To put doubt in the minds of the doubters."
  
  Ideally, it is our desire to see skeptics come to Christ. It has been our privilege to see that happen on numerous occasions.  Failing that, however, we want to undermine the skeptic's confidence that his is the default position. By way of example, that Richard Dawkins' confidence has been severely shaken seems clear to those of us who are privy to all that has transpired with him. I am not suggesting that he is nearing conversion. On the contrary, he has become more shrill, more vituperative, and more reluctant to engage any but those who adore him. Hardly the actions of a man who is confident that he is absolutely right.

Is the discipline of apologetics being given enough emphasis in our current Christian curriculum?

LT: No.  

How should we as Christians respond to the charge that apologetics is an elitist practice targeting a privileged few, and ignoring the laymen among us?

LT: Another great question. This charge is nonsense. Unfortunately, apologetics is frequently treated as either an endeavor limited to some specialized and enlightened few or as utterly irrelevant. We encounter both with great regularity, much to our distress.  Apologetics, like evangelism, is simply part of what it means to be a Christian. Sure, some may have special gifts in this area, but that does not absolve others of their duty to proclaim Christ. We should be grieved to hear His name blasphemed, taken in vain, or otherwise abused, and that should move us to action. A careful reading of the Bible's so-called "red letters" and one begins to see that apologetics occurred in more places than Acts 17 and the Areopagus (bizarrely, this is referenced as though it is the only example of apologetics in the Bible), but was modeled by our Lord on numerous occasions.

Let's remove the theological implications for a moment and just consider the question from the perspective of everyday life. Would a man defend his wife were he to hear her criticized?  Would a mother defend her child? Today is Dec. 8th. 68 years ago today, America declared war on Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor the day before. Wasn't this perfectly reasonable? Honor is a precious thing, and Christians are called to defend the honor of God. For some reason, however, we have a very high tolerance for criticisms of God, but not for our favorite sports teams, political parties, or cultural preferences.

Do evil and suffering undermine the possibility of God's existence?

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There are, as noted above, legal definitions, but popular culture has other means of determining it. I was recently reminded of this as I sat with a group of Midwestern farmers. Like men everywhere, they talked about the things they had in common; in this case, that was their work. They talked about their crops, the weather, the troubles they had had with their farming equipment, agricultural prices, and so on. Needless to say, I contributed little to the conversation. The conversation meandered until they debated the necessity for places that perform quick oil changes on automobiles. Well, I say they debated, but it wasn't much of a debate. They were unanimous in their opinion that such places were superfluous. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, they sought my opinion:

"You change your own oil, don't you, Larry?"

"Uh, well, no. I take it to an Express Oil. They do it faster and cheaper than I can do it myself."

I might as well have said that I enjoyed shopping or having my nails done. There was a general silence and eyebrows were raised in surprise. Then one of them, as if to make excuse for me, said, "Well, he lives in a big city and that's different." I don't think he really thought that it was different, but he said it, affecting a note of understanding, in an effort to get me off the hook. My manhood was, after all, in question on this point.

As I reflected on this incident I couldn't help but notice how, in an almost comedic moment, manhood was, even if only implicitly, being defined. In this agricultural community manhood was defined by flannel shirts, calloused hands, how many acres one possesses, a big pick-up truck, and hard manual labor. Why? Because that's what mattered there. A briefcase and tie were scorned in favor of more "manly" endeavors.

In my own world, the standard is different, but it is there nonetheless. It is, I think, defined by how well a man provides, how he provides it, and how early he starts his day. (Yes, some men take an inordinate amount of pride in getting up before the crack of dawn.)

Yet, the possession of these traits is no guarantee that your fellow man will accept you as an equal. There are unwritten rules (these are all unwritten, now that I think about it) and there are a few disqualifiers: men don't respect other men whose way was paved for them by others; being henpecked is an automatic disqualifer regardless of prowess in other areas; lazy men are deemed losers; and men who lack conviction.

But just as there are traits that may negate one's manhood in the eyes of his peers, there are a few universal truths that may contribute to one being deemed a man: physical strength, athletic ability, determination, trustworthiness, and, above all, character. Men respect, even if somewhat grudgingly, men of character. It is the trump card. It is the trait that overrides all other traits and shortcomings. In his classic work The Blue and the Gray, Amherst historian Henry Steele Commager, wrote (I write from memory): "Character is an elusive word, like all great words - truth, beauty, love, courage, honor - but we know well enough what it means, and we know it when we see it." Commager was right.

Held in Birmingham, Alabama from January 13 to 16, "Into the Fire" addressed such topics as Radical Islam, the Authority of Scripture, the Gospel in the Marketplace, the New Atheism, and the Science-Religion debate. 2010's speakers included Ravi Zacharias, Prof. John Lennox, Alistair Begg, Larry Taunton, Stuart McAllister, Rick Burgess, Harry Reeder, Jay Smith, and Bill Wortman.

Praise and worship was led by "In Christ Alone's" Keith and Kristyn Getty.  More information about this year's speakers and conference is available on the Seeking 7 website.

Rather than the typical break-neck conference schedule, we set aside time to exchange ideas and fellowship with other believers, but without compromise to the overall content of the experience. Book-ending each day were sessions featuring some of contemporary Christianity's best speakers and thinkers.

Seeking 7 is an initiative to mobilize a generation of Christians with the requisite boldness to proclaim and defend the Gospel in an increasingly hostile world. Born of a partnership between Fixed Point Foundation and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Seeking 7 combines the very best of these two organizations, offering an authoritative perspective on the challenges facing the Church as well as practical solutions. Seeking 7 will encourage, educate, and energize the faithful while restoring their confidence and sense of urgency.