An Apologetic for Hope

In our last newsletter, I shared a conversation I had on the beach in Hawaii. I was speaking there at Youth with a Mission (YWAM) and of course took some time to enjoy the state’s many beaches. As I sat in the shade, steps away from clear blue water (in the sunshine the sand was too hot), I kept asking myself, “Why am I going back to Canada again when Hawaiians need Jesus too?”

As I was thinking this, almost as if on cue, I overheard a family sitting directly behind me talking about the state of the church. Mom and dad and their adult son were discussing his Christian experience. He was concerned that many of the people he grew up with in his church and Christian school no longer identified as Christians. From their conversation I could tell the family were at a loss about what to do. And if it wasn’t already obvious that God wanted me to hear this conversation, it turned out that the family were all from Canada.

Listening to the family as they talked I realized they were not merely discouraged. Nor were they only feeling bad because many of their friends and acquaintances had turned their backs on Christ. Rather, it sounded like they were in full despair; Not only did they feel bad about what was happening, they believed themselves unable to do anything that would make a difference. 

Despair is an unhealthy obsession with failure, combined with the feeling that nothing can be done that will reverse course. The Oxford dictionary even defines it as the absence of all hope. We hear and see this sentiment everywhere we speak. We’re often called to speak at churches and schools where even Christians are resigned to despair. They complain about the government or a split in their church over the newest theological fad; they point to headlines that further limit religious freedoms or expand the “right” to do dangerous and immoral activities; then they add something like, “But what can you do?”

Orthodox Christian writer Rod Dreher recently published an article entitled, The Culture War is Lost. He argues that believers need to accept that we live in a post-Christian age. Rather than trying to restore a dominant Christian worldview, he argues that the church needs to be a preservative, keeping traditions and teachings alive within our Christian institutions just as Benedictine monks preserved western civilization in their monasteries by keeping books and resources that the rest of the culture rejected. He argues as much in his widely read book, The Benedict Option. But I think we must do more than that.

Why? Because at FBB we are apologists, and the field of apologetics is meant to address despair. In fact, the primary verse we use to point to our biblical mandate to defend the faith, 1 Peter 3:15, explains what apologetics is for. Peter writes that Christians are to always be ready to give a good reason or defense (apologia) for the hope that we have (Italics added). We defend the faith not for the sake of looking smarter or for the sake of arguing. Rather, we give good reasons why everyone can find hope in Christ.

“We defend the faith not for the sake of looking smarter or for the sake of arguing. Rather, we give good reasons why everyone can find hope in Christ.”

One of the key reasons Christians must share this hope is because the despair we see in the church pales in comparison to the despair experienced by those outside the church. As my colleague Yvonne pointed out in our recent podcast, despair is so much worse in our culture because people embrace harmful activities as actual goods and do not understand the damage they’ve inflicted upon themselves. For example, she shared that last year the first ever conference for former transgender women took place. These women thought becoming men would be the solution to their dysphoria and dysfunction, only to discover years later that being transgender contributed nothing toward a solution for their existential despair.

The problem is, when Christians are lost in despair we become so focused on our problems we forget that God wants to use us to be the solution. We become so self-absorbed about how bad we feel about the culture that we lose sight of all the opportunities we have to share our hope in Christ.

As an apologetics ministry, we want to encourage you to remember that Christians have no reason for despair. God has given us many reasons to find hope and to share that hope. Each month in 2020, Faith Beyond Belief wants to feature a reason why we can find hope in Christ. These 12 reasons are meant to encourage Christians to remember the hope they can have in Christ, even as they mourn the decay in our culture and rise to challenge those outside the faith. You’ll see us discuss these reasons throughout the year in our blogs, podcasts and videos. And if you donate to our work, you’ll also be given a chance to win a book that focuses on the theme of the month. 

Appropriately, our January reason for hope is that God promises to make all things new. In a month where we make all kinds of commitments for renewal we need to remember that Jesus promises every good deed will be remembered, every bad deed punished, and every injustice righted. As Adolphe Adam penned in the Christmas hymn, O Holy Night, “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, And in His name all oppression shall cease.”In other words, Christians don’t have to despair that the world we live in will always be the way it is. Jesus Himself promised renewal and the Bible makes clear that the pain and evil we see in our world today is only temporary when compared to the eternal joy given to all who follow Him (Rom. 8:18). Rather than despair, we can encourage others to invest in an eternity where everything is renewed. If you are like me and are tempted to despair about our culture, read and reread the promises God made about how He will right every wrong. And remind those who are resigned to despair to look past their own feelings so they can point others to the only One lasting hope for renewal.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He *said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Revelations 21: 1-5

 1.This month, all donor’s names will be put into a draw to win God’s Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace. The book details evidence for a supernatural designer to the universe.

Our Annual Be Ready Conference is back! This year at Be Ready 2020 our theme is ‘Conversations that Matter’. We'll equip you to have conversations with family and friends on matters of faith and culture. Learn how you can explain your faith to others and how you can strengthen your own family and children.