The best argument against Christianity

There’s a little-known song by a little-known group named Shinedown that has a verse in it, which has always rung 100% true for me. The song is called “Daylight,” and the verse in question goes like this:

“It’s amazing what the hard times can reveal
Like who shows up, who walks away, and who’s for real.”

Have you experienced this? I know a guy who has for much of his life and is going through it again right now.

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He lost his first wife to cancer when they were both very young. He remarried, and just a few years later, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She survived that and now, 21 years later, the cancer has returned in her other breast.

He’s been a Christian since his late teens, and through all of the above, including his wife’s current chemo treatment, he said he’s noticed a sad trend in each case. Too many of the professing Christians (including family) that are regular church attenders, Bible study devotees, etc., who know them well have been nowhere to be found during their trials. By contrast, non-Christians and family members who are accused by their Christian siblings of not being real in their faith have stuck to them like glue in serving, checking on their well-being, and general loving on them.

How do you explain that?

Before you say anything, let’s please lay aside the superficial responses of, “Well, they don’t have the gift of mercy or serving” and “Some don’t know what to say or do” because that just doesn’t cut it. In our crazy age of over-communication, there’s no excuse for that level of indifference, of not even going minimal with occasional texts saying, “I’m thinking/praying for you.”

Such ick behavior is one reason why Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Bumper stickers you’ve seen say the same thing in a different way: “Dear God, please save me from your ‘good people.’”

I’ve got formal degrees in Christian apologetics and theology and have written and spoken a lot on the best arguments for the truths of Christianity. But if I’m asked to give the best argument against Christianity, there’s a miles-ahead clear winner over anything else in my opinion.

It’s the lives of some professing Christians.

Now, before I go on, let me pause to quickly say I’m not trying to paint with too broad a brush here. Many changed lives are due to Christ’s power in them, and their effect on the world has been profound. A quick read of Alvin Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World will confirm that.  

But if what Jesus said is true: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35), then something’s amiss with too many card-carrying Christians, or that gate Christ speaks about in Matthew 7:13 is narrower than we think.  

Gandhi is not the only one who’s noticed this. The atheist philosopher Frederick Nietzsche said, “I might believe in the Redeemer if His followers looked more redeemed.” A man that a well-known apologist was witnessing to told him, “If this conversion you speak about is truly supernatural, then why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians that I know?”

John MacArthur asks the same thing in one of his messages: “When statistics come out that show how the divorce rate among Christians is really no different than that of the rest of the world … and when other studies are done that show how unmarried teen pregnancy rates are no different inside or outside the Body of Christ … and when reports come out that speak to heavy use of alcohol and drugs among professing believers … you have to pause and wonder … why — with a God who transforms lives — why are so many supposed Christians living lives with no evidence of any transformation having taken place?”    

Good question.

Scripture gives us at least two answers, with the first being that not everyone who carries a Bible is born again. This is why Jesus said “few” are those who find salvation (Matt. 7:13) and why Paul exhorted his readers to “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you — unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5).

And how does one “fail the test”? In his commentary on 2 Corinthians, Simon Kistemaker says falling short involves a calloused spirit to the gospel and people in general: “Failure leads to hardening of the heart and hardening of the heart to spiritual death.”

The second answer the Bible gives us concerns our fleshly nature (see Rom. 7), which can manifest in all sorts of terrible ways. One particular awful exhibition is an indifferent spirit that rules inside a professing believer; a complacency that stifles out the living of the golden rule: “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).

Just think about the situation of the man and his wife battling cancer right now. If you had cancer, how would you want others to behave towards you? Abandon you or be by your side, encouraging you and letting you know you are loved and not alone in the fight?

Not a hard question to answer, right?

The effect on a culture that sees the opposite behavior in you and me, as well as other “deeds of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19), is naturally one of stiff-arming the faith. The conclusion, as Paul says, is, “The name of God is blasphemed … because of you” (Rom. 2:24), and presto, we become a walking, talking argument against the faith.     

So, how do we make sure we’re not part of the problem? A good start is adhering to what James tells us: “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22–25).

How are you doing these days in being a “doer of the word,” especially when it comes to showing the love of Christ to others who are hurting and struggling? Really well, or are you missing in action?

If the latter, then I’d like to encourage you to snap out of your indifference and remember what Jesus said: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). Life is ugly for many and you’re needed in their fight.

For sure, it’s amazing what the hard times can reveal, like who shows up, who walks away, and who’s for real.

Be one who’s real and a doer of the word. You’ll not only be serving others but also be what some call “the 5th Gospel” — a living example of Jesus’ life and a good argument for Christianity. And at that point you will be letting “your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 15:16).

And that’s a win-win for everyone.