In Charade, a 1963 movie starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, dangerous thieves have been cheated out of their stolen money by a fellow thief. Apparently, they kill the thief but aren’t able to recover the money. So, they turn their attention toward the widow, a woman named Regina (played by Audrey Hepburn). Unfortunately, this is all a surprise to her, as she wasn’t even aware her husband had been a thief.
Nice but mysterious “Peter” (played by Cary Grant) befriends Regina. At first, Regina thinks Peter is helping her, protecting her from the thieves. The problem is that “Peter” keeps switching identities. First, he’s just a random American named Peter. When pressed about his identity, he shifts from Peter to Alexander (brother to one of the dead thieves), to Adam (a professional thief, but still a nice guy), to Brian (who works for the American government). Regina is extraordinarily confused. Plus, she’s starting to fall in love with him—whoever he is.
It all comes to a head in the end, when two men are on either side of Regina, both with guns drawn, both telling her to come his way. One of them—Peter (Cary Grant)—urges her, “Stop! He’ll kill you! Trust me once more!” The other says, “Are you going to believe every lie he tells you? He wants the money for himself! That’s all he’s ever wanted!”
Peter says, “Trust me once more—please.”
She asks, “Can I really believe you this time?”
He pauses and says, “There’s not a reason on earth why you should.”
“He pauses and says, ‘There’s not a reason on earth why you should.'”
After a pause, Regina gets a dreamy look in her eyes, smiles, and starts walking toward Peter.
You might push pause on Regina, suspended in the middle, not sure whom to trust. There are people in our lives similarly caught in the middle. On one side is Jesus, and on the other side is whatever they’re tempted to trust instead of Jesus. You’re trying to help the people in your church trust in Jesus instead of trusting in their own do-it-yourself spirituality, or another religion, or some kind of false god in their life. In our ever-distracted, easily-deceived world, the choice can get confusing for people.
Let’s imagine that your friend says to you, “Why should I trust in Jesus?” You respond, “There’s not a reason on earth why you should.”
Your friend says, “Why should I believe in a God who keeps not answering my prayers?” You say, “There’s not a reason on earth why you should.”
Your friend says, “Why should I believe in miracles, like the resurrection? Why think that a dead guy started living again? That’s impossible!” You say, “There’s not a reason on earth why you should.”
If that’s your response, should you expect your friend to get a dreamy look in his eyes, smile, and decide to walk toward Jesus?
“You and I know a lot of people caught in the middle.”
That kind of response might work in a movie when you’re talking to a character played by Audrey Hepburn. But in real life, the whole, “Well, I can’t give you any reasons. I don’t really have any evidence. But even though there aren’t any good reasons to believe in Jesus, you should believe in Jesus” isn’t all that persuasive. And it’s not very biblical.
The Skeptic in Your Church
Throughout the book of Acts, the great missionary Paul is constantly building bridges to whoever his audience is, showing them that there are compelling reasons to believe in Jesus. For his Jewish audience, he reasons from the Jewish Scriptures. For his pagan audience, he reasons from creation around them. For his audience of Stoic philosophers, he reasons from their own poets.
So, how can we build bridges to the skeptic in our churches through our preaching? You might say, “Wait. Aren’t the skeptics outside my church?” They’re outside your church too. But you’ve got people in your church who are checking Jesus out, as well as people who grew up in the church but aren’t sure what they actually believe. They might be struggling to believe the biblical portrait of reality and need more than, “I can’t think of a reason in the world why you should believe—but you should believe.”
In future articles, we’ll talk about some “what’s” and the “how’s” when it comes to preaching that engages the skeptic. In this article, we’re going to ask the question “why.” Why should you engage the skeptic in your preaching?
“You’ve got people in your church who are checking Jesus out, as well as people who grew up in the church but aren’t sure what they actually believe.”
Here’s my two cents’ as to why you need to engage the skeptic in your preaching. I’ll call my answer the “two weeks to flatten the curve” effect.
Once Upon a Time
Why engage the skeptic? It’s because the problem of skepticism is going to turn out to be a lot bigger than we thought. It’s going to be similar to a refrain we kept hearing in 2020 surrounding COVID-19. We heard some version of “two weeks to flatten the curve . . . oh wait, two more weeks . . . oh wait, two months . . . oh wait . . . .”
The problem of skepticism in your church may likely be far bigger than you might have thought. And that’s why you’ve got to engage the skeptic in your preaching.
There was once a time in American culture where most people, even outside the church, already had a sense of right and wrong that basically connected up with the Ten Commandments. Most people recognized that they had sinned and needed to be forgiven. Most people believed in an afterlife and wanted to go to heaven. Tim Keller wisely compared that era to a dot-to-dot puzzle where the dots were already in place for most people, and the church just needed to come along and connect the dots with the gospel.
“Most people recognized that they had sinned and needed to be forgiven.”
For many people, times have changed. Friedrich Nietzsche was correct when he talked about how, when we leave God behind as a culture, there becomes a “transvaluation of values.” In secularized Western culture, we are being conditioned to see valuable realities such as objective truth, biblical morality, monogamous marriage, and the sanctity of human life as oppressive and toxic.
In other words, for people being discipled by the dominant culture, Christianity may strike people more like a game of Mad Libs or Mad Gab than a dot-to-dot. Many people will have trouble even understanding what we’re saying.
Saved from my sins? What? That’s assuming a lot. I have trauma that needs therapy. I’ve got toxic voices that need to be silenced. But sinner? That doesn’t sound like me.
Wait. I’ve got to obey God’s commands, or I’ll come under God’s judgment? That doesn’t sound at all like the God of love that Jesus came to show us.
“Saved from my sins? What? That’s assuming a lot.”
We’ve been undergoing a “transvaluation of values,” and over time it shows in people’s receptivity to the gospel.
Gresham Machen said,
“We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.”[1]
I’d say we’re kind of there. We’re very close to the place where the collective thought of the nation is being controlled by ideas which prevent people from taking Christianity seriously.
Three Ways the Pressure Is Applied
How did we get here? Well, the pressure has been applied very strategically. The pressure for people in your church to leave historic Christianity for something else is being applied in three ways:
First, you want to. It feels good to be able to say, along with the predominant culture, that non-Christians are probably saved too, everybody is a basically good person (except for a few deviants), and “love is love.”
Second, you have to. There’s increasing pressure to give up offensive Christian doctrines (e.g., about sexuality and gender) if you want to be successful in a secular career.
“There’s increasing pressure to give up offensive Christian doctrines.”
Third, you ought to. Your people are being conditioned to see much of historic Christianity as toxic and immoral. The idea is that its views of truth are too narrow, its views of sexuality are repressive and harmful, and its views of salvation are exclusive and bigoted. Your people are being conditioned to label many of Christianity’s beliefs as toxic and leave them behind or at least change them. Those beliefs aren’t life-giving, therapeutic, or self-affirming, they are told. (For more on these three applications of pressure, see “Why People Leave the Church: 3 Reasons from the Book of Revelation.”)
All that to say, skepticism in your church is likely growing. It’s the “two weeks to flatten the curve . . . oh wait, two more weeks . . . oh wait, two months” effect. Skepticism is influencing people you love—whether they tell you or not.
People in your church are hearing that they want to, have to, and ought to give up on the God of the Bible. But they’re also giving you a few uninterrupted minutes each week to convince them otherwise.
[1] J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Culture,” The Princeton Theological Review, Volume XI, 1913, 7.
