somewhere between silence & screaming

I was driving home from work the other day and started thinking about a lot of things all at once.  I mean, mostly I was thinking about driving (maybe?), but I was also thinking about atheism.   I’m reading a book called If God Were Real & I’ve also stumbled across a couple of blogs and read a few forum posts on faith, so that’s where all the thinking was stemming from.

Basically, I found myself frustrated by the idea that the burden of proof as to whether or not God exists seems to fall on Christians while the burden of proof on others that God does not exist seems to be overlooked.  I realize this is one-sided because of which side of the fence I’m on, but this is my blog, so I get to voice my opinion here.

I started thinking about how I really believe it takes just as much faith to believe there isn’t a God as it does to believe there is, and how I tend to respect the views of agnostics more than atheists because agnostics at least have the humility to say, “No one knows.  It can’t be proved either way.”  I think a search for truth starts with humility.

But that’s not where I’m going with this.  As I thought this all through, a strange memory popped into my head.  At some point during my senior year of high school – someone started a “North Dakota does not exist” grassroots campaign at our school.  And by grassroots, I mean super grassroots.  As word-of-mouth as you can get.  (Don’t believe me?  Check the FB group.) It all started with a few simple questions, “Have you ever been to North Dakota?,” “Do you know anyone from North Dakota?.” “Do you know anyone who knows anyone from North Dakota?”  As more and more people realized their answers to these questions were “No,” the more widespread the joke grew – that North Dakota was a conspiracy dreamed up and perpetuated by South Dakota or the government or whoever, but that the state itself did not actually exist.  Remembering the whole scenario really got me thinking about the burden of proof. 

I started wondering:  What if as a group we had really believed North Dakota didn’t exist?  What if an outsider came in and claimed they were from North Dakota?  Wouldn’t we just shoot them down and claim they were one of the conspirators?  If they began describing North Dakota, we’d dismiss it as hearsay and not at all proof.  We’d be adamant about North Dakota not existing, pointing within ourselves at all of the reasons why it doesn’t or couldn’t.   But if one of the North Dakota-visiting outsiders challenged us to find out for ourselves – to buy a plane ticket to North Dakota and see what happens – we’d shrug it off and say, “Eh, we don’t really care that much…”

I feel like this happens a lot with Jesus.  Enough people come together and form a group and put all of their trust into human insight, logic, and rationale, without realizing that the Creator is not bound by the created.  If God created logic (and He did), He’s not bound by it.  But that’s an entirely different topic for an entirely different time.

Point being:  I don’t think the burden of proof falls on Christians to prove God exists.  I really don’t think that’s our battle.  I think that just leads to arguments and/or defensiveness.  Just like if someone questioned North Dakota’s existence, I don’t think it’s the responsibility of someone who has visited North Dakota to use their verbal arguments to convince us that North Dakota is a real place.  However, I do think it’s that person’s “burden” as an advocate of the state of North Dakota to provide us with enough reasons to check it out for ourselves.  They can name random information about North Dakota all day, but it’s their actions that will show whether or not it’s worth visiting.  We wouldn’t care about city populations or the names of attractions.  We’d want to know about that person’s personal experiences there – how North Dakota impacted their life.  

It’s a bit of a stretch… because… it’s North Dakota.  But I think the parallel I’m trying to make (and made in my head much more clearly while driving) is that as a Christ-follower, my “burden” (and it’s really not burdensome – just using that term as opposed to burden of proof) is to let Christ impact my life enough that others take notice and are interested.   That doesn’t mean sitting at home reading my Bible and praying and then living a good moral life.   It’s talking to God and listening to Him in an ongoing relationship – and then letting that relationship motivate me to do what He wants done.  And what He wants done is love, social justice, redemption, freedom, and community.   Legalism isn’t worth checking out…  Changed lives are.

EDIT:  Just in case there’s confusion… I’m not saying I think we should abandon talking about Jesus.  We should absolutely talk about Him.  I’m speaking more to the back and forth “prove them wrong” arguments that happen sometimes.