Christianity in a Nutshell

Objections to Christianity

God doesn't exist

Can you prove it? It would be more accurate to say “I believe God doesn’t exist”. Just because some people don’t believe something is true doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not it really is true. Whether I believe or deny that global warming is actually happening has no influence on the reality. Christianity, atheism, or Islam can’t be “proved”. They are faiths. When I look at the wonders of nature, or read the inspiring words of Jesus, the evidence of my eyes suggests God does exist, but I can’t prove it.


Horrible deeds have been carried out by the Church so Christianity is shameful

There’s no denying that evil people within the Church have indulged in many despicable activities and only a few of them have been found out. But there is no hiding from God. In this life many will have got away with it, but when they meet their Maker, no doubt they will find out what the phrase "wrath of God" really means.

Church people are human and although they are supposed to follow the shining example of Jesus’ love and compassion, some of them follow their own desires instead. Is it right to blame Jesus for this? For the majority of decent Christians Jesus is their role model. Nevertheless, churches must find out where abuse is happening and take thorough measures to put a stop to it, for God's sake - and I mean that literally.


Fossils prove that the world wasn’t created in 6 days so the Bible isn’t true

The Bible states that God created the universe in 6 “days”. Some people take this to mean 6 days of 24 hours, but because it also says that the sun wasn’t created until the 4th “day”, a 24 hour day obviously wasn’t the original meaning. The word used in Old Hebrew for day was “yom” יום. Mostly this simply meant day, but sometimes it meant an unspecified period of time, as in “It wasn’t like that in my day”. Here “yom” means an era, an epoch, or a stage.


If God cared about us, why would he allow wars, injustice and crime?

Everybody is a mixture of good and bad. We have been given the free will to choose which we want to be. Most people choose to be good most of the time. Some people, on the other hand, always put self interest first, ignore what’s left of their conscience and do whatever they can get away with. They get a lot of pleasure from hurting people. They have the free will to choose that lifestyle. God could stop wars, injustice and crime at a stroke by taking away our free will, but would we approve of that?


There was no such person as Jesus. He is a myth invented by the Church

The Romano-Jewish historian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus and the Roman historian Suetonius stated as a fact that Jesus existed. The vast majority of modern historians are of the same opinion. Would the early Christians have chosen to be martyred when the easy option would have been to deny Jesus, knowing in their hearts that He never existed? No, too many people had seen Him in action.


Miracles are impossible so Christianity can’t be true

Could Julius Caesar have imagined today’s digital devices? Not many centuries ago human flight, walking on the moon, or knowing what stars are made of were all said to be impossible. With this in mind, is it wise to say anything is impossible? If God could create a sophisticated universe out of nothing, is it unreasonable that His son Jesus could perform miracles during His 33 year stay in this world?

Nevertheless, turning water into wine and walking on water are obviously impossible for ordinary people. Only the Son of the Creator could do that. That was one of the reasons Jesus did them!


If God really loved us life wouldn’t be unfair

We live in a random world. Could life ever be fair? If we were all robots, all living in the same environment, programmed to be totally predictable, life would be fair, but meaningless and extremely boring. Instead we live on Planet Earth where living conditions vary widely. Our God-given consciences tell us that we should be as charitable as possible, trying to make life better for those who, by random chance, happen to be worse off than ourselves. God wants us to go through life making the world a better place whenever we can. He wants us to “make a difference”.


The Gospels are full of errors and contradictions so they can’t be true

The four Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Matthew was one of the 12 Disciples and so was John. Peter, the fisherman, relied on Mark to write down Peter’s many memories of life with Jesus. Luke was an educated physician and amateur historian who apparently learnt what happened not only from the Disciples, but also from Jesus’ mother Mary.

Not everything Jesus said or did was witnessed by all of the Gospel writers every time. Where one writer only saw part of an event, he might give a slightly different account from someone who saw the same things, but from a different view point. There is no contradiction or dishonesty, but simply different people describing the part of the event they saw. Reading all four of the Gospels gives the best picture of Jesus and His mission in this world.


Christianity is exclusive – only Christians go to heaven

This idea comes about because the Bible says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Note that it says that God loves all the people of the world, not just some of them. It certainly promises that if you are a believer you will be saved, having eternal life in heaven, but the Bible goes on to say that this isn’t all.

It says that people who, for whatever reason, never had a chance to be believers are “a law unto themselves” (Romans 2,14). If they behaved as decent Christians then when they die Jesus will judge them as if they actually were Christians. As for everyone else, the Bible says that Jesus will judge them fairly, like a shepherd separating his sheep from his goats. The uncertainty about being in that category is that we don’t know how demanding or relaxed Jesus’ standards for entry to Heaven are. Join the believers, lead a Christian life and be saved. No worries!

People who reject Jesus in this life shouldn't be surprised if they themselves are rejected at the gates of heaven. As for people who try to wreck Christianity, will they be welcome in heaven?


How could a God of Love send people to hell?

To understand this we need to give a thought to the controversial and misunderstood expression “wrath of God”. People ask, “If God is love, how can He ever show wrath?”

Ok, suppose you saw a teenager bullying a young child. What would your reaction be? Suppose you saw an old lady being attacked in the street and having her pension money stolen? Again, what would your reaction be? The emotion you might feel would be similar to the emotion God felt when He too saw what you saw. The “wrath of God” is the anger God feels when He sees anyone getting away with hurting other people (i.e. “sinning”). They might think nobody saw them, but God saw them and He remembers.

Are we saying that we have a right to be angry when we see a flagrant injustice or assault taking place, but God doesn’t have that right? Are we saying we have the right to demand that people who are cruel to children should be punished severely, but God doesn’t?

If a despicable person gets away with a life of evil and dies peacefully in their own bed, is that the end of the story? Has the God of Justice allowed a gross injustice to take place?

When that individual comes to the end of their life, their body will die, but their spirit won’t. That is when they will meet their Maker. They will be confronted with all the bad things they did to other people and before their spirit follows their body into death, they will be punished according to what they had done. When people say “How could a God of Love send anybody to hell?” they are really questioning why God wants people who got away with so much during their lifetime to finally answer for their sins. He says

Be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32,23

There are many examples of unrepentant serial killers and of dictators guilty of genocide who escape justice. Are we asking how a God of love could send such people to hell? Perhaps it’s because the God of love and justice loves the victims and wants them to finally have the justice they crave.

Yes, God is a God of justice. Nobody gets away with hurting other people unless they later become truly sorry. This is repentance. It doesn’t mean simply saying sorry and then carrying on as if nothing had happened. It means turning their life around and becoming a force for good. It means trying to make up for the harm done. It means showing humility.

The arrogant sinners who show no remorse are the ones who will find out what the expression “the wrath of God” means. They will be punished with a severity according to how much they hurt other people in their lives.

On the other hand, anyone who suffered any unjust punishment in this life will be fully compensated in Heaven. God is a God of justice, not of injustice.

As Jesus told us to pray in His Sermon on the Mount,

Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. Matthew 6,12

We can’t expect God to forgive us unless we actively forgive anyone else we hold a grudge against.

If you forgive others the wrongs they have done to you, your Father in heaven will also forgive you. Matthew 6,14

Everyone is a sinner in one way or another. We’ve all hurt people in our lifetimes. We may be very good at getting away with our bad deeds, but in the end we will each be called to account. However, there are some mitigating circumstances:

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Matthew 5,7

Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7,1

Best of all, if you don’t want to face judgment, repent of all the things you’ve done which have hurt people, where possible go out of your way to make amends, try very hard not to let it happen again and accept Jesus into your life. He will pardon you of any punishment you deserve because He took it on your behalf on the Cross.

One way to become a Christian is to ask a Christian friend to help you. They won’t laugh at you, or turn you away. Jesus is truly delighted whenever anyone chooses to become a follower of His. He will welcome you with love.

[Saint Paul wrote] "Today is the day to be saved!" 2 Corinthians 6,2

Christians are judgmental, sinners and hypocrites so why listen to them?

Yes, everybody is human, with human failings. Different people have different failings. But Jesus was special. He was the Son of God, sent to earth to live a human life, to teach people how to treat others with kindness and compassion, and to tell people how this short life isn’t all there is. He came to earth to lead by example and to open our eyes to the bigger picture. In His own lifetime in this world He gained thousands of followers, but now that number has swelled to about 2.2 billion world wide. While some do consistently fail to lead a lifestyle to make Jesus proud, many go through life doing their best and trying hard to “make this world a better place.”


I prayed in good faith but my prayers weren’t answered, so why believe?

Remember, we see life from our own personal viewpoint, but God sees the bigger picture. God is our Father and, like human fathers, He sometimes makes us wait for our own good. Jesus promised that all reasonable prayers prayed with a trusting heart would be answered. Urgent ones would be answered immediately, though all prayers would be answered during our lifetimes, at the time God decides is best, often in a better way than we imagined. When God makes us wait He is testing us, but the wait will be worth it. A so far unanswered prayer is not one forgotten by God.


Evolution disproves Christianity

Thousands of fossils, DNA evidence, animal anatomy and scientific logic all point to the concept that life on earth evolved. But as the Bible never mentions evolution, how can that be an issue? Sure, the Book Of Genesis says that God was responsible for life on earth and that it took six eras to achieve (Ancient Hebrew יום “yom” meant “era”, “stage”, or more generally “day”) but modern science categorizes the fossil record into various eras too. No, evolution does not disprove Christianity. It was a logical part of God's creation process.


A loving God would prevent natural disasters from happening

Ever since the beginning of time as we know it, the universe has been governed by the laws of nature. Science has shown over and over again that the laws of nature are fixed and never change. This is how God planned it. So how do you think He feels when He sees people building villages on the sides of volcanoes, or pumping gases into the atmosphere that we know will cause ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise and hurricanes to become more frequent? We depend on God’s laws of nature being predictable, so we mustn’t blame Him when the earth’s geology results in earthquakes and tsunamis. Rather, we should plan for these events to minimise the risks, and be charitable, generous and compassionate to the innocent victims.


Religion relies on faith – I must have proof

Christianity is a family-centred religion with God being our Father and all humankind being our brothers and sisters. Jesus is God’s firstborn son. Just as in other families, when a loving parent tells a son or daughter they need to do something, they don’t always have to give reasons. The child has to trust that Mum or Dad has their best interests at heart and knows what they're doing. To have faith is the same as having trust. Unlike human parents though, God doesn’t make mistakes so it is safe to trust Him. He has given us a role model to follow – Jesus Christ.