Oct. 13, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:
'Confronting Christianity' tackles 12 hard questions of faith
By Mike Haynes
I’m
not going to call Rebecca McLaughlin “the new C.S. Lewis.” Few could disagree
that Lewis was the foremost defender of Christianity of the 20th
century; his is the name to which later Christian apologists most often are
compared.
McLaughlin certainly has given much to 21st century efforts, however, to explain and promote Jesus
Christ to unbelievers and urge churchgoers to consider Christian walks more in line with scripture.
On
the recommendation of my friend Mark in Florida, I listened to a podcast
featuring McLaughlin, a Christian writer, speaker and teacher. It led me to
read her 2019 book, “Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the
World’s Hardest Religion.”
I’m
glad I did.
“Confronting
Christianity” was “Christianity Today” magazine’s 2020 book of the year, and
for good reason. McLaughlin uses her extensive knowledge of theology, history,
sociology and science to present convincing answers to those 12 questions –
managing to quote Lewis a few times along with a myriad of historical and current
academics from atheists to committed Christians.
McLaughlin
herself is intriguing. She’s English (the accent got my attention right away)
with a doctorate in Renaissance literature from Cambridge University and a
degree in theological and pastoral studies from Oak Hill Theological College in
London.
The
scholarly Brit married Bryan, a guy from Oklahoma, after they met in graduate
school at Cambridge, and they now live in what she called “New Cambridge,” the
one in Massachusetts. Her husband, who also has Ph.D. after his name, is a
medical researcher.
 |
| Rebecca McLaughlin |
McLaughlin spent nine years with the Veritas Forum, where she equipped Christian professors to speak about the relation of their faith to their work. She co-founded Vocable Communications, which coaches professionals in communication based on academic research. “Confronting Christianity” was published in association with the Gospel Coalition.
The
book takes the 12 questions – including “Doesn’t Christianity Crush Diversity?”
and “How Could a Loving God Allow So Much Suffering?” and refutes common
assumptions not only with logic, but with compassion.
A key topic is
“How Can You Say There’s Only One True Faith?” One of McLaughlin’s replies
addresses the current popularity of saying, “I have my truth, and you have your
truth.” She wrote, “Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson famously quipped to Stephen
Colbert, ‘The good thing about science’ is that ‘it’s true whether or not you
believe in it.’” She adds, “But this is not limited to science: it’s the good
thing about truth. Period.”
McLaughlin uses
the “central truth claim on which Christianity stands or falls” to point out
that the three major religions that claim one God cannot all be 100 percent
true. “Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead,” she wrote. “Muslims
believe that Jesus did not die, but that he was instead taken up into heaven.
Jews (and atheists and agnostics, for that matter) believe that Jesus died and
remained dead. These claims are mutually exclusive. … (T)o say that all
religions are equally true is to lose our grip on history.”
Although C.S.
Lewis’ lines of reasoning were based on his deep knowledge of the Bible, he
used few direct scripture references in his books. McLaughlin takes a different
approach. Her book is filled with the Old and New Testaments, plus a four-page
scripture index at the back. Regarding Jesus’ divinity, she quotes him from
John 14:6 – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me” – and highlights his actions, such as not only
healing the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him from the roof of a house to
reach Jesus but telling him, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:5)
She quotes Jesus
again: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he
die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never
die.” (John 11:25-26). And she paraphrases Lewis: “This is not the teaching of
a good man. … (T)his is the teaching of an egotistical maniac or an evil
manipulator, or God in the flesh.”
Coming from
Cambridge University and living near Harvard, McLaughlin has many scientist
friends. (She also is married to one.) She took advantage of some of them in
considering the question, “Hasn’t Science Disproved Christianity?”
One long
paragraph lists 11 professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
near her home, who are Christians at “the sacred temple of scientific
endeavor.” “If science has disproved Christianity, no one has thought to notify
them!” she writes.
The book quotes Russell
Cowburn, a Cambridge experimental physics professor: “Understanding more of science doesn’t make
God smaller. It allows us to see His creative activity in more detail.”
“Confronting
Christianity” doesn’t just spew out facts and arguments. McLaughlin’s book
examines the heart and human feelings as much as intellectual issues,
especially in chapters such as “Isn’t Christianity Homophobic?”, where she is straightforward
about her own attraction to women since childhood but believes her relationship
with Christ is far more important. She writes that as significant as
male-female marital bonds are to God, brotherly and sisterly connections
between Christian friends might be just as worthy.
“Like
marriage and like parenthood,” she writes, “(friendship) is another way in
which God manifests
an aspect of his love for us.”
This
book lays out why Christianity is the best foundation for race relations,
women’s concerns, morality and other modern cultural issues. It doesn’t
directly address politics, but I wish many would read it before the upcoming
election. I suspect McLaughlin’s 2021 book, “The Secular Creed: Engaging Five
Contemporary Claims,” would be even more helpful for that purpose.
“Confronting
Christianity” effectively hits the major objections to following Christ. My Florida
friend and I don’t need convincing, but many do.
