Dr Paul Allen

An apologist recently shared three common reasons why some Christians deconstruct their faith: intellectual issues, disagreement with doctrine, and emotionally negative experiences with Christianity and Christians.      Apologist, author, and speaker Brett Kunkle joined Pastor Jason Jimenez for an episode of the "Challenging Conversations" podcast posted earlier this month. They tackled the issue of deconstruction, a term used to describe Christians who question their faith.  Kunkle, the founder and president of the MAVEN movement to equip the next generation to pursue goodness and truth, said that deconstruction is based on postmodern philosophy, which argues that people cannot understand a text due to various intellectual or cultural biases.  He believes that some Christians have taken the postmodern idea of deconstructing and used it more "to tear something down," like one's own beliefs than to rebuild.  There are "a myriad of reasons" why people ...

If we reach back to the beginning of our long and devastating history with sin, we will find a crowd of excuses. When the fruit touched Adam’s and Eve’s lips, “You see, what had happened was . . .” became stamped upon them. Instead of contrition and confession, Adam tried to pass his blame to his wife: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Adam was not responsible. It was “the woman” — or even the God who gave her to him. Eve, the following suit, passed the blame farther downfield: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13). What they had never seen practised became natural. The first man and woman, our parents, discovered in the forbidden fruit the idea to cover up their evil. And this knowledge was passed down to their children. The gardens of humanity’s mind became well-stocked with fig leaves to cover our sin’s nakedness. All of us have become tailors and seamstresses, dressing up our failures in fine clothing. Fl...

All believers have the desire to be faithful ambassadors for Christ. We want to bring the message of salvation to those around us. But like a deer in headlights we tend to freeze up instead of joyfully sharing the lifesaving news we possess. Like a diabetic rationalizing himself into eating that piece of cheesecake, Christian’s justify their disobedience with some well-crafted excuses. I’d like to help squash some excuses so that when we have the opportunity nothing would come in the way of those around us hearing about the hope that’s only found in Christ. I’ll do more harm than good Some seem to think that if they make mistakes, they may end up leading someone further away from Christ. While I do believe that there are “evangelists” out there who do more harm than good , I do not think that the average, gentle Christian can. You do more harm than good not by being unable to answer a hard question but by having a bad attitude while sharing your faith. It is those who are angry, a...

Lay It All Down For The Lord (Photo credit: Will Foster ) When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also, forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive.  They keep on replying, “But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise.” Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God ’s forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in...