At the recent Be Thinking conference, Dr William Lane Craig speaks on the need to confront the challenge of secularism, in an era that suggests that the Christian Faith is at eclipse in Europe:
He ringingly calls for a counter-cultural response that provides intellectual leadership, starting with the basic question, is belief in God an intellectually credible position?
In addition, he raises the issue of the challenge of Islam as a theological alternative to the Judaeo-Christian worldview.
He emphasises that this is Islam as theology and worldview, including the alternative to the gospel it presents, starting with the denial of the crucifixion of Jesus.
He notes that secularism has left a spiritual vacuum in the heart of European thought and culture, so having nothing to answer Islam on theological terms.
He also raises the concern that the Church has been asleep at the switch on the issue of addressing the Islamic challenge. (Note, that he identifies the denial of the crucifixion of Jesus as the Achilles' heel of Islamic thought and teaching. He highlights how the attempt often made to suggest that someone was substituted for Jesus at the crucifixion, is fatally self-referential, as it implies that the historical evidence is, overwhelmingly -- as is reflected in the general consensus of the knowledgeable, that before those who know him, Jesus was in fact crucified by sentence of Pilate.)
So, we must stand, and we must stand in an informed and effective way. Stand through the truth in love, even if many would not be pleased and may even be angered.
Stand, on both fronts.
That is the challenge before us, as the new century moves into its second decade.
Let us rise to meet it. END
