Disillusionment and Discipleship

I’m concerned that Christians are vulnerable to disillusionment. Particularly, what we might call intellectual disillusionment.

Unrealistic triumphalism is the temptation of many a church but even when the hard realities of life are acknowledged, you still won’t hear much about the harsh realities of intellectual life. We acknowledge, for instance, that your “life dreams” may not come true. You may never marry. You may never have a successful ministry. You may fail in education, etc. We also acknowledge that you might have to confront some hard truths about yourself. You may come to reinterpret attitudes you’ve long held and assumed were innocent as, instead, deeply rooted in sin and emotional damage. You may find that you are not nearly as competent (by a long country mile) a parent, teacher, spouse etc as you thought you’d be. Our honesty in these areas, however, needs to carry over into honesty regarding the possibilities of profound intellectual disappointment in the Christian life.

Francis Chan: Think Hard, Stay Humble -- The Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride

Response to the New Atheist Rosa Rubicondior - Christians! Be Sensible Now And Tell Me This.

 I recently found myself reading the blog of a UK based  New Atheist who blogs and Tweets alot about problems they have have with Christianity here. Most of the content is actually pretty good and the author seems pretty well read in the atheistic literature from what I can see. I subsequently stumbled upon a post that posed several questions for Christians to respond to. So being Christians, a few of us got together and offer a few brief points in response to Rosa Rubicondior. They are not exhaustive responses, and some of the questions touch upon very similar points so it wasn't necessary to go over them again. Anyway, below are our thoughts on the questions posed to Christians, hopefully the response will be helpful for both Christians and Atheists.

 Hopefully these questions are genuine and if this is the case I hope that these short responses help to correct any misunderstandings, and help people to better understand what Christians actually believe. There is often a tendency for many New Atheists to come up with questions about theism or Christianity specifically that are meant to rock the theistic boat. However the answers are usually a little thought or book away. I think its important as a Christian to better understand the New Atheism and see where their coming from so I take the time to read their books. Perhaps if I can humbly suggest that the New Atheists occasionally pick up a book on the basics of Christian Theology (I know after reading Dawkins you think its a non-subject). Stranger things have happened. Most of us are products of the books we read, most atheists read books that support their case or assumptions and the minority of Christians who do pick up a book generally do the same. Its good to mix it up a little.

Why it's impossible to Tithe today - What is Biblical Tithing?

A little bit different to what we usually post about here but I  think the issue of how we use our resources to be highly important. Especially if what we're doing with it is in fact rather un-biblical. We are responsible for using our minds when answering sceptics objections, and we should  be using it when we give our money away or feel pressured into doing so. This post will briefly describe tithing as understood in the Old Testament (OT) and in my next post on tithing I will examine some arguments given in support of Christian tithing and give a short response to each of the points.


So before we can get into any debate of whether or not we should tithe its important to define our terms. This is because many Christians start from the assumption that what they practice in their churches today is actually biblical tithing. However if you start from that assumption you will always misunderstand what tithing actually is and isn't. It may come as a surprise to many Christians but what is practised in many churches today is not tithing as prescribed in the scriptures. It also often comes as a surprise to Christians when they find out that Jesus and Paul wouldn't have tithed and that the total amount tithed by individuals whom actually met the specific requirements in the OT would have resulted in a total of 23%+. In fact its actually impossible to tithe biblically today. Especially so if your outside Israel as that already rules you out, not forgetting that there is no temple (destroyed in AD 70), storehouse, and no Levitical Priesthood to receive your tithe offerings.

 OT biblical tithing worked in a 7 year agricultural cycle known as the Shmittah cycle similar to the 7 days of creation.

- The 7th day of creation was the day God rested from creation and the 7th day of the week became known as the Sabbath, a time to honour God and rest from work.

- Every 7th year was a time for the land to replenish itself known as the sabbatical year or Shmita.