Religion’s decline in the modern world turns out to be a myth. John Watkins talks to Rebecca McLaughlin about her new book.
What prompted you the write the book?
I had the privilege of spending 9 years working with some of the world’s top Christian intellectuals, helping them speak about their faith in relation to their work. In the course of this, I discovered a massive information gap: I knew Christians who were world-leaders in every academic field that has supposedly discredited Christianity, and how their faith motivated their work, but most people had no access to this knowledge. I wrote Confronting Christianity to help close that gap and turn roadblocks into signposts.
Who is the book aimed at – believer or non-believer?
This book is a love-song to my non-believing friends. Many of them are fiercely intelligent and deeply compassionate, and they have very good moral and intellectual reasons for dismissing Christianity. But I believe that if you look more closely at each of these reasons, they stop being roadblocks to Christ and become signposts. So the book is addressed to non-Christians, but my hope is that it will get into their hands via their Christian friends, and that reading the book themselves will equip believers to speak compellingly when they are asked hard questions.
Of the twelve questions you cover which are you asked most often and in what context?
I previously served at an organisation that hosted university events with academics talking about questions of faith. The question that always came up, from non-Christian students and speakers, was the question of suffering. But rather than being an embarrassment to Christianity, suffering is staked at its heart! Christians worship a man who died on a cross – lonely, abandoned, tortured and humiliated – and almost every page of the Bible is written by and for suffering people. Christianity gives us meaning and hope in the face of our suffering. The question behind, “How could a loving God allow us to suffer?” is “What could possibly be worth it?” The ultimate, universesized answer is relationship with Christ, who meets us in our suffering now, and will one day wipe every tear from our eyes.
Which objection to Christianity is the hardest to answer and why?
The last question in my book is, “How can a loving God send people to hell?” This is by far the hardest. But it also gets us to the heart of the gospel, because Christianity isn’t about God arbitrarily sending people to one place or another on the basis of their agreement with certain propositions, but about relationship with Christ. We have all rebelled against our Creator and fallen under His judgment. But at the cross, the judge Himself took on the judgment. If we put our trust in Jesus, we are in Christ – His death is our death and His life becomes our life. If we reject Jesus, we will face him as judge.
How can Christians even get a hearing to answer the questions?
I think we need to start seeing apologetics more like cross-cultural missions. If I wanted to share Christ with a friend from Iran, I would tell the conversion story of an Iranian professor friend of mine, so that they would know the gospel transcends culture. Likewise, if I’m answering a question about homosexuality, I share my own history of same-sex attraction and I talk about friends who have come to Christ out of gay and lesbian relationships. Likewise, if I’m answering questions about science, I’ll point a friend to the top scientists who are serious Christians.
Are the questions and answers different in non-Western cultures?
Absolutely! The gospel is unchanged, but the objections vary across cultures. Interestingly, one of the strongest witnesses to secular liberal westerners is the vibrant faith of Christians in the rest of the world. White westerners who care about diversity often dismiss Christianity. But Christianity is the greatest movement for diversity in all of history! It began in the Middle East, we read about the first African Christian in the book of Acts, Christianity took hold in parts of Africa 1000 years before it came to America, and today, the center of gravity for Christianity is increasingly not in the West. In fact, by 2030 China could have more Christians than America and by 2060, 40% of the world’s Christians could live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rebecca McLaughlin (PhD, Cambridge University) is the cofounder of Vocable Communications, a communications consulting and training firm. She is also a regular contributor to the Gospel Coalition and previously spent nine years working with top academics at the Veritas Forum, which hosts forums on college campuses with conversations that pursue answers to life’s hardest questions.
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