The lack of evidence instilled in Christians
From Ean:
In August of 2024, my life was changed after rediscovering Christianity (you can read my testimony for a fuller explanation.) However, I still had some big doubts about Christianity before and after that timeframe. For example, how do I know God exists? Can there be subjective morality? Is abortion okay in instances of rape? Etc.
For a while, I really didn’t know where to stand on these issues.
The way I clung onto Christianity for the time being was thinking that Christianity is all about Faith; as my Youth Group taught, “Faith just means belief in something you can’t see.”
I supposed that I just had strong “Faith” and belief in it; in retrospect, I had a perception that Faith is blind.
Circa early September that year, me and my friend Sam had discussed our dissatisfaction with our youth group since some of our friends didn’t attend the same Church.
In late September, Sam messaged me out of nowhere:
“Hey, I’ve been trying to talk to you for 2 weeks now and kept forgetting to bring it up: what if we started our own study group?”
We called shortly after and had a long conversation. I was hooked! We wrote out a plan document on starting our own study group. Our biggest question and issue was this: what do we study as a group?
I told Sam about this really interesting Christian speaker I saw on YouTube recently, Dr. Frank Turek. His responses to aforementioned atheist attacks and questions were mind-boggling and intellectual. After some searches, we learned that Dr. Turek already had a group study curriculum based on his book, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.”
To go with the curriculum, I started listening to the audiobook; my entire perspective of Christianity shifted when I learned of Apologetics and the intellectual side of Christianity.
Lo and behold, my friend group and I went through the study and learned a lot.
I promise you, this boring story above of my own experience rounds back to the topic at hand, because my first question after diving into Apologetics was this:
“Why wasn’t I taught this sooner?”
Truly I don’t pose this question in a selfish manner; my Faith was changed from one of blindness to one of evidence, and I saw it happen with everyone who attended that same study group.
One of the biggest problems I have seen is that Christians are only being taught what to believe, but not why to believe in it. Both of these items are equally important as they are interesting, but we are in a generation of skepticism. Why would a Bible-belt Christian who has been attending Church with their parents for 18 years want to listen to this bigoted, freedom and fun-limiting, zealous religious talk when all of the billboards and experts, social media posts and influencers, and other media inputs like TV shows and movies etc. around them say that God probably doesn’t exist? The most exposure most Christians have now to Apologetics are some Christian media personalities like Cliffe Knechtle and Theist Brooks. Ironically, most comments I see under posts from both alike are praising the apologists and not praising God, and most people that interact with an atheist online just point to other apologists and don’t want to answer questions themselves.
1 Peter 3:15 says,“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”
Isaiah 1:18 says,
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”
Christianity is a reasonable and evidential Faith, (I said the thing!) and as Christians we are called to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” with “gentleness and respect.”‘
Proverbs 15:14 says,
“A discerning mind seeks knowledge,
but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness.”
As Christians we should be seeking knowledge of our great God and learning how to reasonably defend our Faith and know more about Him; we should have an appetite for knowledge and discernment.
Let us not “trivialize” our Faith as I see so many doing as being some sort of blind belief, which allows equal prudence and value in false religions, ideologies and worldview.
The Christian Faith is like no other: the Christian Faith has the most substantial evidence, is the strongest and most well-standing worldview and has survived millenia of persecution and attacks from non-Christians. We should not be leveling the playing field and acting as if each religion, including our own, is equal in value or truth to false religions: that is a destructive, secular and new-age-thought worldview.
Again, we as Christians are not called to blind faith, we are called to a reasonable and evidential Faith and should be sharing it as such; our Faith is defensible and triumphs over all worldviews, ideologies and beliefs.
I want my opinions above not to serve as condemnation but rather as a reminder of what we believe, why we believe it, and how we can more effectively serve Christ as we have been called to. The aforementioned definition of Faith has nuance that needs to be addressed:
If Faith is belief in something you can’t see, the question is why do you believe in that thing? If someone believes that Faith can only be blind, it is a false qualifier, because it equates all worldviews and false religions with stupidity: A muslim that has (blind) "faith" is a worldview not on the same playing field as Christians. The same goes for hindus, buddhists, mormons etc., because Christianity is the only worldview that has and will stand.
Learning apologetics does not qualify your salvation. However it can strengthen Faith within Christians, including you, the reader. Faith alone will always save a Christian, but if we are able, we should always have discerning minds that are seeking knowledge of how to strengthen our own and others' Faith, especially through defending the Gospel to those who do not believe.
Apologetics positively changed my perspective on Christianity for the better and exposed me to the shear depth of Christianity, its history, evidence and reason.
In doing so, Apologetics has helped remove doubt from my Faith, and we should be sharing such knowledge with others.
Jude 1:22
"have mercy on those who doubt"
From Aedan:
Christianity is the most influential belief system in history, with approximately a third of the world belonging to Christianity. However, many Christians in the modern-day church struggle to articulate why they believe the things that they believe. While faith is rooted in trust, that trust should be informed by knowledge. The problem is that many modern churches neglect intellectual engagement, leaving congregants with little understanding of the historical, philosophical, or scientific foundations of their beliefs.
There is a common misconception that faith and reason are incompatible. However, Christianity has always invited examination. The Bible presents detailed historical events, fulfilled prophecies, and moral philosophy as evidence of its truth. Theologians like Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and C.S. Lewis have demonstrated that faith does not require blind acceptance but can coexist with rigorous intellectual inquiry.
Yet, in many churches today, believers are encouraged to rely on feelings or tradition rather than reasoned study. “I believe it with my heart” is not good enough. When challenged about the resurrection, the origins of Scripture, or arguments for God’s existence, many Christians struggle to respond. Not because evidence is lacking or their belief is false, but because they were never taught how to find and evaluate it.
If Christianity is to thrive in the modern world, it must embrace faith and reason in order to recognize that trust in God and his Word is strongest when built upon a foundation of intellectual reason. Reviving this engagement is not about replacing faith with heartless rationalism. Rather, it is about strengthening your trust in God by showing that belief in Him is not only emotionally filling but also intellectually defensible. A church that equips its congregation with knowledge will foster a stronger, more resilient faith, one that can engage meaningfully with the world and stand firm in the face of questioning.
