Can We Still Believe In God

People regularly give certain reasons for not believing in God, but they are much less aware of what the New Testament actually teaches. Although challenges to Christianity are perennial and have frequently been addressed, they are noticeably more common today and are currently of particular interest among evangelicals. Skeptics of Christianity often ask highly regarded biblical scholar and popular speaker Craig Blomberg how he can believe in a faith that seems so problematic. How can God allow evil and suffering? Isn't the Bible anti-women, anti-gay, and pro-slavery? Isn't the New Testament riddled with contradictions? What about the nature of hell, violence in Scripture, and prayer and predestination? Following the author's successful Can We Still Believe the Bible?, this succinct and readable book focuses on what the New Testament teaches about 10 key reasons people give for not believing in God.

When things are going your way, trusting the Lord is easy. But when painful trials, unmet needs, or lost dreams assail, do you wonder if God can still be trusted? What do you do when facing a challenge that seems insurmountable? Do you believe God can be trusted? In Can You Still Trust God?, Dr. Charles Stanley reveals three essential beliefs for trusting God: God is perfect in His love. God is infinite in wisdom. God is absolutely sovereign. Can You Still Trust God? is a message of: hope for anyone struggling to reconcile the suffering and turmoil in the world with a loving God. truth for pastors, ministers, and Bible study leaders searching for a resource to teach their communities about God’s promises and how to deepen trust in Him. Even when you cannot understand why God would allow certain situations to occur, these core beliefs form the basis for trusting Him. Your ability to receive the blessings God has for you is determined by the degree to which these wise truths are embedded in your soul.

Challenges to the reliability of Scripture are perennial and have frequently been addressed. However, some of these challenges are noticeably more common today, and the topic is currently of particular interest among evangelicals. In this volume, highly regarded biblical scholar Craig Blomberg offers an accessible and nuanced argument for the Bible's reliability in response to the extreme views about Scripture and its authority articulated by both sides of the debate. He believes that a careful analysis of the relevant evidence shows we have reason to be more confident in the Bible than ever before. As he traces his own academic and spiritual journey, Blomberg sketches out the case for confidence in the Bible in spite of various challenges to the trustworthiness of Scripture, offering a positive, informed, and defensible approach.

For anyone who feels caught in the tension between the beauty of God's story and the ugliness of human hypocrisy, Why I Still Believe offers a stirring story of hope. Why would anyone be a Christian when there is so much hypocrisy in the church? Mary Jo Sharp shares her journey as a skeptical believer who still holds to a beautiful faith despite wounding experiences in the Christian community. At a time when de-conversion stories have become all too common, this is an earnest response - the compelling conversion of an unlikely believer whose questions ultimately led her to irresistible hope. Sharp addresses her own struggle with the reality that God's people repeatedly give God's story a bad name and takes a careful look at how the current church often inadvertently produces atheists despite its life-giving message. For those who feel the ever-present tension between the beauty of salvation and the dark side of human nature, Why I Still Believe is a candid and approachable case for believing in God when you really want to walk away. With fresh and thoughtful insights, this spiritual narrative presents relevant answers to haunting questions like: Isn't there too much pain and suffering to believe? Is it okay to have doubt? What if Jesus' story is a copy of another story? Is there any evidence for Jesus' resurrection? Does atheism explain the human experience better than Christianity can? How can the truth of Christianity matter when the behaviors of Christians are reprehensible? At once logical and loving, Sharp reframes the gospel as it truly is: the good news of redemption. With firmly grounded truths, Why I Still Believe is an affirming reminder that the hypocrisy of Christians can never negate the transforming grace and truth of Christ.

In this Enhanced eBook edition, Philip Yancey is featured in exclusive videos, offering insight into the stories and people he has encountered along the way. Journalist and spiritual seeker Philip Yancey has always struggled with the most basic questions of the Christian faith. The question he tackles in WHAT GOOD IS GOD? concerns the practical value of belief in God. His search for the answer to this question took him to some amazing settings around the world: Mumbai, India when the firing started during the terrorist attacks; at the motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; on the Virginia Tech campus soon after the massacre; an AA convention; and even to a conference for women in prostitution. At each of the 10 places he visited, his preparation for the visit and exactly what he said to the people he met each provided evidence that faith really does work when what we believe is severely tested. WHAT GOOD IS GOD? tells the story of Philips journey--the background, the preparation, the presentations themselves. Here is a story of grace for armchair travelers, spiritual seekers, and those in desperate need of assurance that their faith really matters.

From the author of the bestselling novel The Shack and the New York Times bestsellers Cross Roads and Eve comes a compelling, conversational exploration of twenty-eight assumptions about God—assumptions that just might be keeping us from experiencing His unconditional, all-encompassing love. In his wildly popular novels, Wm. Paul Young portrayed the Triune God in ways that challenged our thinking—sometimes upending long-held beliefs, but always centered in the eternal, all-encompassing nature of God’s love. Now, in Wm. Paul Young’s first nonfiction book, he invites us to revisit our assumptions about God—this time using the Bible, theological discussion, and personal anecdotes. Paul encourages us to think through beliefs we’ve presumed to be true and consider whether some might actually be false. Expounding on the compassion fans felt from the “Papa” portrayed in The Shack—now a major film starring Sam Worthington and Octavia Spencer—Paul encourages you to think anew about important issues including sin, religion, hell, politics, identity, creation, human rights, and helping us discover God’s deep and abiding love.

In this groundbreaking volume, J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, with Clare Aukofer, offers a succinct yet comprehensive study of how and why the human mind generates religious belief. Dr. Thomson, a highly respected practicing psychiatrist with credentials in forensic psychiatry and evolutionary psychology, methodically investigates the components and causes of religious belief in the same way any scientist would investigate the movement of astronomical bodies or the evolution of life over time—that is, as a purely natural phenomenon. Providing compelling evidence from psychology, the cognitive neurosciences, and related fields, he, with Ms. Aukofer, presents an easily accessible and exceptionally convincing case that god(s) were created by man—not vice versa. With this slim volume, Dr. Thomson establishes himself as a must-read thinker and leading voice on the primacy of reason and science over superstition and religion.