{"id":293,"date":"2010-06-11T13:21:25","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T13:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/06\/lausanne-blogger-network-there-is-no-god-understanding-the-unbeliever.html"},"modified":"2010-06-11T13:21:25","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T13:21:25","slug":"lausanne-blogger-network-there-is-no-god-understanding-the-unbeliever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2010\/06\/lausanne-blogger-network-there-is-no-god-understanding-the-unbeliever.html","title":{"rendered":"Lausanne Blogger Network: There Is No God: Understanding the “Unbeliever”…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is the first in a series of short pieces I’ll be posting on as part of the Lausanne Blogger Network<\/a>, a group of Christian communicators from throughout the world who will be raising questions and discussing issues related to the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism<\/a>, which will be held in Capetown, South Africa in October 2010. If you care to discuss these questions with participants in the global Lausanne conversation<\/a>, you can find this same post here.<\/a> Since many readers here at Flirting with Faith are not Christian, I am hoping your thoughts and feedback will bring different perspectives to the conversation.   <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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There is No God: Understanding the “Unbeliever”<\/b> by Joan Ball<\/p>\n

Can you recall a time when you didn’t believe in Jesus? Not a rogue moment of doubt or a season when work\/family\/life took precedence over service to others or attendance at church. I mean a time when the notion of believing that Jesus was anyone’s Lord or Savior fell somewhere on the spectrum between unlikely and absurd. I spent the first 37 years of my life on that spectrum–completely indifferent to Jesus unless I was disparaging Him or mocking His followers.<\/p>\n

As an outsider, my perception of Christian faith was shaped things like mass media coverage of high-profile church scandals and the actions of people whose lives appeared to contradict what I perceived to be Christian principles. I did not mourn Heaven or fear Hell because I did not believe they existed. I would live. I would die. That was it.<\/p>\n

As I enter into the Lausanne Conversation with seven years in the Christian trenches and a lifetime of history outside the faith, I look forward to discussing what it means to share the Gospel effectively in world with an increasing population of people who consider themselves to be atheist, agnostic or “spiritual-not-religious”.<\/p>\n

As a starting point, I’d like to offer two questions for discussion: <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Does discussing the “unchurched” and “unbelievers” as if they are a homogeneous species to be converted rather than individual human beings with unique experiences with faith (both positive and negative) shut down communication before it begins?<\/li>\n
  2. Might lifelong faith lived within the Christian subculture be a barrier to effectively sharing the Gospel with people for whom faith in a saving Jesus seems absurd? If so, what might we do about it?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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