Recently, Oscar Amaechina, the president of Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network in Abuja, Nigeria, shared with the readers of The Christian Post what Evangelicals should do for atheists, people he labels fools.
Some people believe that the world is governed by chance, not by God, and that morality is man-made, not divine. This ideology did not start today. David identified atheists and called them fools: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’.” This verse in fact occurs in two passages in the Psalms (14:1 and 53:1).
It is obvious that one of the characteristics of fools is that they do not believe in the existence of God. Their statements do not literally deny the existence of God but give them the impetus to continue in their wicked ways. These people are not only foolish but wicked as well. They’ve come to believe that God does not exist and that they are not accountable to Him at the end of their journey here on earth. This belief has given them the license to live freely and do what pleases them.
The unfortunate thing is that more and more people are joining them. Are they possessed by the devil? I do not think so because even the devil and his demons know that God exists: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder!” (James 2:19). What could make man deny the existence of his creator?
It is obvious that the devil cannot outrightly tell anyone not to believe in God but can bring about circumstances and events that can create doubt in the mind of believers. So many in the Church nowadays claim that God exists, but do not revere or fear Him. When the custodians of the Gospel are playing games and politics with God, how do we expect followers and unbelievers to take Christianity seriously? “As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’” (Romans 2:24).
In addition to this, when church leaders are robbing congregants in the name of God, what kind of testimony is that to the unbelieving world? In my country, many people are leaving the church because they have been shortchanged by their pastors. There is a trending news item about a pastor in Nigeria who is selling rapture tickets at the rate of $751 to Christians who want to go to Heaven. The world sees this and turns its back on the Church.Hermeneutical perversion of the Word of God is another factor that contributes to the growth of atheism. When worldly messages are regularly preached, and fake promises are made to worshipers, people tend to be disillusioned. And when lies are dished from the pulpit, believers are inevitably pushed down the road of apostasy.
Most people who say that there is no God do not know what they are doing. Christians should emulate Christ and pray for them on a regular basis and ask God to forgive them. Instead of condemning and attacking atheists, we should regularly intercede for the mercy of God to triumph over the judgment that they are inflicting on themselves. A little act of Christian kindness and love of Christ can go a long way in making atheists see the presence of God in our lives. Instead of getting into drawn-out arguments with them, we should kindly and respectful engage with them.
Jesus died for all, and salvation is for all. Too many image-bearers of God are being destroyed for lack of knowledge. For us to attract atheists to the saving knowledge of Christ, we must regularly intercede for them, show them love and kindness and tell them the truth about our God.
According to Oscar Amaechina:
- Atheists are fools. Why? The Bible says they are.
- Atheists believe the universe is governed by chance.
- Atheists believe morality is a human construct.
- Atheists are “wicked.”
- Atheists believe they can live any way they want without consequences.
- Atheists are influenced by Satan, causing them to question and doubt the existence of the Christian God.
- Atheists don’t take Christianity seriously because of the bad behavior of many Christians.
- Atheists don’t believe in God due to hermeneutical perversion (a new term, for me) of the Bible by preachers. (I’m more into normal perversion.) 🙂
- Most atheists don’t know what they are doing.
Amaechina then tells Christians what they should do when engaging atheists:
- They should emulate Christ. You know, WWJD?
- They should daily pray for atheists, interceding before God on their behalf.
- They should ask their mythical God to forgive atheists.
Amaechina tells Christians to NOT engage atheists in lengthy discussions. Why is that? Shouldn’t Evangelicals be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within them? Shouldn’t they be ready to defend the faith once delivered to the saints? Amaechina wrongly thinks atheists are ignorant about Evangelical beliefs. While that may be the case in some corners of the atheistverse, here at this site, we are quite conversant in all things Christian. We know our Bibles inside and out. I was part of the Christian church for fifty years. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times. I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible, preaching 4,000 sermons during my ministerial career. Ignorant, I am not, and the same can be said of many of the readers of this blog.
So, to Amaechina I say this: leave off your phony “love them to Jesus” methodology. Bring your A-game and let’s dig into the things you say you believe. Stop standing on the sidelines, calling atheists names, and lying about their beliefs and motivations. Come into the lion’s den, Pastor Amaechina. I’m licking my chops . . .
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I don’t know, Bruce. It might be a relief (for a little while) for these Christians to show us love and kindness. I wonder how long that would last?
problem is that they never show love or kindness. they show demands for obedience.
Exactly. It never happens.
Sorry, you are wrong. My wife screams God’s name all the time. 😂😂
My eyes are wide open. I see no evidence for God, not in universe, nor your sorry, pathetic life.
I’m a better Christian than you are, Revival Fires. If I don’t make it to Heaven, you most certainly are going to 🔥🔥🔥 end up in Hell. And I will laugh, saying, this piece of shit 💩💩thought God would let him into Heaven because he was a faithful Christian Asshole. 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
Hey, if he wants to pray to God to intercede and bring us atheists to belief, that’s fine. I hope he spends tons of time doing it. It’ll keep him away from actually pestering us.
Reviled Dumpster Fire, why would an atheist hope that a fictional being would overlook a fictional problem in order to gain admittance into a fictional place in a fictional afterlife?
And the vast majority of atheists aren’t screaming “There is no god!” What we’re actually doing is rolling our eyes at the childish stupidity of your beliefs and saying “We don’t believe you. Grow the fuck up, already.”
Love it that the link to his mission says he split from a former church, to create his present mission. Simple soul that I am, how can I tell if this one really does have the correct doctrine for getting me through those pearly gates? I think if I went to the websites of, say, ten other nearby missions, they’d each claim they were the lone purveyors of TheTruth. Oh, and there’ll be the obligatory ‘Donate’ button on all of them no doubt. One thing he’s right about, he says ‘many have been shortchanged by their pastors.’ you’re to right there, Oscar – many of us here can testify to that!
Actually morality is entirely secular in origin and in nature. Human history clearly shows that attempting to introduce God and Jesus (never mind any of the countless other gods) into the mix actually lowers moral mores in anything other than very primitive societies. There’s the practical end of things that can be seen in the US, which is more akin in the authoritarian religious states to Saudi Arabia, but there’s also the basic philosophical issue that if you need a third party to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong then you really do have problems.
I’m with BJW. At least he’s not being mean and hateful.
lying about others and insisting they deserve eternal torture is being mean and hateful.
clubschadenfreude, you are right. I totally missed the mark when it came to the motives behind his words and BJW’s sarcasm went right over my head. All I can say is, I must have been really tired when I read and responded and tried to find a hint of goodness from my rather shitty day that day.
no problem at all. it can be hard to interpret things first glance. And we all hope these failures aren’t really as ignorant and mean as they are.
Lacy, I was being very sarcastic. Although I may not call his exact behavior as being mean, I definitely think he’s full of his own goodness, and being so much better than us he gets to tell Bruce (especially) and the rest of us that the lived experiences we had of being saved Christians was bogus. (In other words, he comes off as believing he is good and saved, so he’s so “sorry” we aren’t and yet, he lacks a smidgen of empathy. Nothing kind about that.) Because his imaginary doctrine (imaginary because it isn’t based in any reality) is that we couldn’t be saved and then leave the faith.
Of course, his doctrine is in opposition to churches/denominations that teach you can always repent, or conversely, that you can only be saved and never repent and be saved again. And while he would argue that his beliefs are the REAL, true beliefs, why, all those other pesky churches can point to verses to prove their theology too.
BJW, Ah! I see your point. I didn’t realize that was sarcasm. Guess I’m so used to the hell-fire damnation that comes from these kind of folks that his version of passive-aggressive writing style eluded me.
Heh. I’m a pretty sarcastic person when I’m in the mood!
Geoff, you’re on to something. When a Christian says they wouldn’t rape or steal or kill without God, I’m worried! They are telling me that they actually feel this way, and are barely holding on.
Indeed. As Penn Jillette said, “The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.”
RF carries such pain in his diatribes. It is clear evidence of the mistake you have made RF, the sad need to rail against non-believers. Christianity first harms you by telling you that you are sinful by nature. Once you have succumbed to that bait, you soon flip and flop like a fish on a hook.
The stylish couple who are making a killing performing in Nigeria have a good business plan, well not good exactly but effective. They spread harmful thoughts from the black book and then pass the offering plate so they can buy more stylish outfits and perform some more. RF doesn’t need the stylish outfits. He is on fire and burning. He brands all who come near with his fire. And then he plays the victim, poor persecuted innocent… Those of us who choose non-belief are seen a devils and agents of harm because Christians deplore insight and human responsibility. They know they are not responsible and have no hope. Only their Jesus can save them, so evil are they from birth. Sad that they do this to children, so unfair, abusive even if you really consider it. Slowly, the Christian abdicates the self, becomes their own worst enemy and they plea for a life that is less them and more Christ. They dwindle and finally end up calling themselves Revival Fires, and share only clichés and quotes from the black book. The person who was has been overcome. Humanity has been overcome; personal responsibility is no longer. Everybody is blamed for being human now, merely human, even children. So sad. RF does not even have a personal testimony he can share, just parrots all the homogenized goop that he has been buried in…
“Hermeneutical perversion.” Hmm…Maybe that’s the name I should’ve given to my band.
Every place seems to have a version of that couple. They scare and cajole people into giving money for their “ministry,” which seems to consist of maintaining the couple’s lifestyle and helping them put on a gaudier show.
No, it’s just Christian Assholes like you we don’t listen to. Much like Joe, certainty has turned you into an arrogant prick🍆. You might get a better reception if you at least pretended to follow in the footsteps of Jesus😇. You know, WWJD? Your behavior on this site breaks numerous Biblical commands, yet you seem to not care what God thinks. Why is that? Maybe, deep down you know you’re an atheist. 😂😂🔥🔥
This is so completely divorced from my own experience of being an atheist that I really have to ask: what color is the sky in your world? Is there a name for this alternate reality that you appear to dwell in? Have you listened to the words you’re saying to us?
Your statement literally makes no sense. If God really does exist, and we’re all intrinsically aware of it, why in the world would anyone think that pretending He doesn’t exist would do us any good at all? The only logical response in that scenario is to do your absolute best to get on God’s good side.
The whole idea that everybody knows deep down that God exists is categorically false. It is incompatible on its face with the character of the world we live in. And if you can’t acknowledge that and accept it, you’re basically that “old man yells at cloud” meme.
Dude, I’ve met plenty of Christians who are running around and busily sinning, you know, cheating on spouses, cheating on their jobs, maybe some light stealing, not to mention gluttony and all the 7 vices. And the atheists I know are NOT doing those things. Now, that doesn’t mean atheists don’t do bad things. They do. But the atheists I know are ethical, and try to do good, not harm. Whereas Christians like you are so busy yelling how we are sinning, you’re ignoring that oh so giant beam in YOUR. FUCKING. EYE.
poor dear RF, so upset that no one needs him or his god.
and Rf with the usual impotent threats.
RF, how would you feel if fundamentalist Muslims or Fundamentalist Hindus or any other sort of religious Fundamentalist who isn’t of your brand came to your space and yelled at you for NOT JUST BELIEVING ALREADY YOU DEMON-POSSESSED EVIL VILE CREATURE. That’s how we feel when you do it to us. Why not do as Jesus commanded, and go into your closet and pray in the privacy of your own home? I mean, if you believe in the Power of Prayer. Coming here and composing written screeds at people who know the Bible as well as or better than you do is obviously not effective…..
Deleted
(smiles quietly, knowing that The Truth™ will completely and permanently destroy RF’s faith sometime in the next hundred years)