Ex-Christian Norman Hansen debates Amy Orr Ewing - What do we make of his former faith? (show of 18 Oct 08)

[justinbrierley]

Check out the show of 18 Oct 08 at www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,1138590_1,00.jpg

Norman Hansen was a fully fledged evangelical Christian, working for a missionary organisation. His life was ordered around church, his faith etc.

He lost his faith. He tells the story on this programme and debates with Amy Orr Ewing, apologist with Ravi Zacharias Trust in Oxford, UK about losing faith, the reliability of the gospels and the proof of God.

The whole thing made me wonder. How does an individual like Norman go from a position of complete faith to complete atheism? Obviously, as he explains, it was to do with succumbing to doubts about the creationist beliefs he was being taught at his church, followed by doubts about the reliability of scripture.

But beyond that (all of which can be debated) - how does he reconcile all those occasions when he must have believed that God had been leading and directing his life. That he had answers to prayer etc.

To be fair to him, his decision to leave it all behind is on one level extremely brave, however much I may disagree with it.

What would it take to bring him back now that he believes it was all in his head?

p.s. for a similar kind of conversation - see the shows of 5 and 12 April 08 with John Loftus

[Shadow Phoenix]

You know Justin, I really was disappointed by Amy's performance on this one. When Andy showed up, it was a breath of fresh air. Norman's experience was one of pop Christianity it seems. When I found evidence against a YEC view, I didn't chuck the baby out with the bathwater. I simply said, "Okay. That make sense and it's not damaging the Scriptural text."

Since the debate though was to be about the historicity of the NT, then it should have been about that. Amy's argument though centered on the experience of God and having a personal relationship with him. (Someone want to point to me to where the Scriptures speak of such a thing? They speak of peace with God. That's it.)

In fact, this is the problem I had with what I heard of the Alpha Course and I wanted to cheer during the program several weeks ago about the guy who I fully believe is a Christian but is anti-church because he doesn't think he can find God.

Did it ever occur to anyone that this guy has a valid point? That maybe we're promising something Christ never did? We're not promised an experience. We're promised forgiveness.

Instead, Amy kept pointing to this experience. Norman says that he didn't hear God or he didn't have prayer answered that way. The Heavens were silent. Amy's response is along the lines of "Well I've had that happen."

Really. Does any atheist at this point fall down and say "Well my! It must be so! I shall repent!"

I guarantee you, I'm not impressed when the Mormons give such arguments and that is their argument. I'd also state the personal testimony was NOT the main message of the apostles and it is not the most powerful argument. The argument meant to have the most power is the empty tomb. That's what the apostles preached.

At this point, Norman is right. It's question-begging. It's saying all experiences are invalid except the Christian experience. Amy got into for awhile a look at numbers and how God makes sense of abstract realities, but then went away from that. Instead, it was back to experience. Abstract realities would have been a much better line of argumentation.

When we finally got into it, Amy did very well in handling what Norman was saying and it was extremely weak. One wonders just what kind of research he did. Especially with lines like "Paul didn't talk about the historical Jesus." That wouldn't be his main focus. That would have been passed around orally so that all the readers would have known about it. Paul wrote what he needed to write, his teaching on a subject.

Andy handled his side very well and that was quite pleasing. My main problem is still this notion of pop Christianity. It has us basing Christianity on personal experience instead of the reality of the empty tomb. In my experience, for instance, I have never heard the voice of God or had a prayer dialogue. I don't expect to either. It doesn't change my faith. In fact, it helps deepen it because it makes me focus on Scripture and theology instead of my experience.

My hope is that Christians will drop this idea of an experience as being normative. When skeptics don't have these experiences, they write the whole thing off. They're very skeptical of people claiming to hear from God and think that Christianity is based on subjective feelings. Well, with the arguments we give at times, who can blame them?

[Echelon]

I loved Amy's performance, and I thought she countered everything that was said and added many arguments that were not properly dealt with. She did a great job!