800 million Christians...

Yesterday at work I was doing a manual labor project sorting about 700 boxes. I was working with an atheist and we were talking mostly about MMA. It was around lunch when another fellow employee, a known atheist who likes to start strange conversations that challenge others faith, came along.

When my project buddy (Mike) saw the rabble rouser (Will) coming close, even he said "oh hell." We were about to be surprised.

Will walked up with another co-worker in tow. This other gentleman is a fundamentalist Baptist named Ricky. Ricky and I share a commitment to the essential biblical truths and we both value Christ. Ricky is probably the closest person to me at my job in terms of faith.

Will has rubbed Ricky and me the wrong way many times in the past. We used to engage him pretty often in his questions. When it became apparent that Will is more interested in causing dissension than getting truthful and honest answers, that's when Ricky and I began to slow down on getting caught up in fruitless conversation with Will.

Will walked up and said that he heard there were 800 million Christians on the earth, but Ricky told him that was an inaccurate number and the only true Christians were born again Christians. Will proceeded to ask me if the only real Christians were born again and if so, did that mean that non-pentecostal/ charismatic denominations were going to hell.

First, I tackled the definition and history of born again. I explained the origin of the phrase in John 3 and I cleared up the misunderstanding that only certain denominations were born again (Will thought it was only the emotionally driven groups). I talked about the relatively new use of that term to describe the classical beliefs about regeneration and the inability of any group, especially relatively young groups like the charismatic movement, to lay claim to the term born again.

I told Will that being born again is an individual thing between a person and the God who gives them new spiritual life. Ultimately, that means that I can't judge if a person in the Orthodox church or the Catholic church or the Anglican communion is born again. I told Will that I could critique denominational doctrines against the plain truth of scripture - but I couldn't lump all catholics or all anglicans into "non-born again status."

I was glad that Mike was listening since I know him to be an atheist as well. And I was glad that Ricky has since told me that he was praying the whole time I was talking.

I went on to answer Wills next question..."how then do you get saved and go to heaven." That one was easy - believe on the Lord Jesus, confess with your mouth and believe with your heart, accept the free gift of grace that comes to you..." I elaborated with passages from James and Matthew to show that mental assent to facts isn't enough - the act of regeneration occurs when one is so moved to trust their life to Christ in whole.

I talked about our inability to do anything truly "good" on our own and I worked to clear up some legalistic thoughts that Will had been taught. I used my own testimony as a drunk, disrespectful, male whore coming to an unexpected and relatively quick 180 in my life to show that it is God who sovereignly changes us (the born again principle) and that no one is too bad for him to make new, just as no one is good enough to earn salvation.

I think we had an overall fruitful conversation. I told him that the 800 million statistic was certainly wrong due to the high numbers of nominal Christians, moral legalists, liberal religionists, etc... However, there was no real way to attain a number of "real" Christians (those who have been regenerated, made alive, born again) since these surveys are usually done too generally, too vaguely, and with an assumption that the participant is truthful.

Finally, Will asked me if that meant that the behavior of Christians wasn't important. I told him it was quite the opposite. Once a person is touched by the Spirit and adopted by God, they will begin to exhibit Christ-like love in their actions - not to earn their way to heaven or to feel better about themselves, but because the Spirit of a perfect God lives in them. They won't be perfect, but they will show steady remarkable improvement in their moral life on the whole over time. Again, I used my own life to give illustration.

I parted ways by encouraging Will to earnestly look for answers like he had that day and to steer clear of his usual attempts to cause controversy and doubt.

As Will and Ricky left, I was asked a question by Mike. Mike wanted to know what a charismatic was. He had heard the term in our conversation and he didn't know it. I went thru a brief sketch of the history of the church from the Apostles to Constantine to the Crusades and the Orthodox Schism to the Reformation to the Puritans to the Great Awakening to Finney then to the Pentecostal Movement to charismatic preachers to modern heresies like the prosperity gospel.

I tried to give Mike a large picture of the development of the faith and I used parts of that sketch to highlight the woes of politicizing the church, the return to Sola Scriptura, the American distortion of biblical truth into libertarian free will faith and the most recent ear tickling done by televangelist. I concluded by noting the newest phenomenon (of which I belong), the return to Protestant principles in the Young, Restless, and Reformed New Calvinists.

Despite attempting to make the short lesson fun and engaging, my audience was flat. It is really clear to me that Mike is simply uninterested in faith of any kind. It is a stark difference from Will, who wants to talk about nothing else.

I pray that God will use our conversation yesterday in the lives of both of these men, in different ways, to (in some small way) bring forth the new birth of their souls.