Tracy's thoughts

Maybe another question is how do you combine love and truth appropriately? Another question I'd love to ask is it possible to be other centered and still bold with the Gospel?

The issue of evidence is real for some but simply emotional smokescreens for others. I do believe there is plenty of good evidence for the existence of God and the relability of the Scriptures...however no amount of arguing will convince the actually disinterested. Let us use caution though in hinting that there is no room for those who are legitimately seeking answers...some still do. I think our role is to be other centered with the person and the gospel, not message or self centered.

Good point, Tom. You know what is interesting? I am not sure the debate on God was even really answered. Each time an issue came up, the debators didn't really answer the original question. Just another thought.

This was a chanllenging assignment. I spent way too much time reading the responses to the article. Like you, Tracy, the question that kept coming to me was "where's the love?" But the wide-open discussion has had me questioning some of my dogma-like adherance to canned answers that I've heard before or that I've come up with on my own at different stages of my journey.

It would be refreshing to hear someone speaking from a point of view where they admit their own doubts, acknowledge other points of view, and say "hey, we're all in this together."

The article disappointed me in that it went flying all over the place, without ever landing very long on any one discussion point. One problem is that no one is ever going to "prove God" to the unbeliever, and no one can prove there is no God to the believer. But we can show love and concern toward everyone, and talk about why we personally believe in God.

For me, often, the compelling reason comes down to the historicity of the Bible -- how it has pointed the same direction over thousands of years of writing by different authors, and the many instances of fulfilled prophecy. Of course, many could shoot holes in any belief I have because I haven't done original research, I'm not a scholar, my culture pre-directs me towards Christianity (or it used to), etc, etc.... but fantastic and unbelievable as it seems, I place my sometimes quivering faith on the historically backed-up claim that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.