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A bloke called Joe sets off from New York City on a world cruise. But a great storm blows his ship a thousand miles off course. Eventually the luxury liner starts to break up in titanic seas. In a blind panic Joe jumps into the dark raging ocean as the stricken vessel sinks into the murky depths…

The next morning he comes round and finds himself lying on a deserted beach. He has a huge bump on his head. He remembers nothing at all—what happened, who he is, where he’s from, what year it is—not a thing. He’s starting over.

Beside him he finds a large sealed crate. He breaks it open with a rock and looks inside. He finds tools, culinary utensils, clothes and two books. One is called How to Survive on an Uninhabited Island for Two Years. Lucky Joe. The other is an old Bible[1].

So for two years Joe survives without serious incident. He reads both books avidly. He peruses the Bible daily until it becomes very familiar to him.

Before he’s rescued, do you think that reading the Bible every day will change him? Will he become a disciple of Christ? A Bible-believing born again believer? Will he hear a commanding Voice telling him to return to civilisation to form a new radical cult: The Church of the Enlightened Islanders? Will he reject the Bible on intellectual grounds choosing instead to accept only what can be observed, factually tested and developed into credible theories?

If Joe fully accepts the teaching of The New Testament, he will be convinced that he’s found a complete system of salvation. A Bible text out of context is a pretext for just about anything, but Joe won’t know anything about that. Instead the overall text will tell him he’s a lost sinner, that Christ got punished instead of him, and that faith in Jesus saves him from God's punishment. It’s all there in unambiguous black and white. Everything will be covered perfectly. He will have total confidence in the inclusiveness of God’s salvation. Quickly he will realise that the Bible itself (the Word of God) can nourish his mind with all the godly instruction he will ever need.

He won’t become a Mormon, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Christian Scientist or even a Roman Catholic. While all of these claim links of some kind to the Bible they also rely heavily on additional ideas and beliefs Joe won’t read about below the palm trees on his island home. Neither will he know anything about the distinct differences that exist among Christians who are Baptists, Pentecostalists, Puritans, Presbyterians and Methodists, and all the rest of them. He won't become a genuine Protestant because there's nothing to be separated from and nothing to protest about.

He won’t be influenced by dogmatic and possibly erroneous footnotes that expound questionable hypotheses, like dispensationalism. As he reads The New Testament over and over it's unlikely he will reach the conclusion that gifts have died out, that tongues are no longer necessary. He won’t know that there's such a thing as bland religiosity. He won’t understand anything about influential religious tradition that's said to be equal to God's Word. In two years of undisrupted and undisputed Bible reading nothing will leap out at him to suggest that church membership for life is possible through baby-sprinkling[2] at church fonts.

If he gets rescued he’s in for a diabolical shock!

Direct or Complicated Christianity?

This essay may get a little complicated and even long-winded here and there. But that's inevitable! It's mainly for intellectual Christians. Or do I mean Christian intellectuals?

There are shocking inconsistencies in the lives of professing Christians and minds are needlessly distracted. There is directness, of a kind, buried in the religious muddle somewhere. Religion insists on making things intricate and complicated. It's human nature to question, reinterpret and needlessly diversify. The New Testament has had plenty of investigation and prejudiced manipulation. What the Christian needs to know most is really quite simple to grasp: "Simple: easily understood or done; plain and uncomplicated in form, nature, or design" (Oxford English Dictionary). The Bible and its Gospel message would have limited scope if they could be only understood by God and the world's bookish elite.[3]

Being a Christian shouldn't be complicated, but if it isn't a full-time undertaking it isn't anything at all.

I’m a lay expert in these things… well, arguably! I’ve been studying the Bible on and off (mostly on) for three long decades. I’ve extensive experience of churches big and small, formal and informal. I mixed with Christians and Christians only for many years. I’ve experienced Christian Renewal and Restoration Truth, or was it the other way around? I’ve read about Bible Infallibility and immersed myself in the thorny Creation versus Evolution debate.

I’ve investigated the more typical hallmarks of cults and false religions. I’ve studied the textual reliability of the Bible, the unreliability of the Apocrypha, and the formation of the holy canon of Scripture. Happily over the years I’ve drastically downgraded most of this accumulated information because I've learned the knack of being uncomplicated. I've forgotten a lot of it too, though I'm putting some of it to good use here.

Many Christians simply can't be simple! Straightforwardness and simplicity aren't synonymous with weakness or a lack of brains. Many “born again believers” struggle with a wide range of bothersome issues that ultimately bog them down in irrelevancies. Those who know their Bibles may identify this problem as the striking difference between self and inner spiritual perception, or "soul and spirit" as the Bible puts it. Some pressing objectives have everything to do with the expression of self and nothing at all to do with spiritual essentials.

The Bible says that nobody can come to Christ unless God draws him, or her. So could it be that Apologetics is just a waste of precious time? At best Christian Apologetics is an intellectual sideshow, but it's spending too much time center stage. The academically-minded Christian goes to incredible lengths to undermine the theory of evolution. He talks about missing links, flawed dating methods and the seemingly circular arguments of geology.

He advocates intelligent design in nature over Natural Selection, whether the context is ichneumon wasps and candirú fish, or cute pandas and pretty little calliope hummingbirds. Everything created by God is good. He criticises evolution's shabby “conceptual framework” that reduces it to a mere hypothesis. Much is made of adaptation in nature (as opposed to evolutionary change), the astonishing complexity of a single cell, the burning question of the origin of life itself, and many other heavy subjects.

He arms himself with these to do battle with minds and to reassure and assuage believers. Maybe they are all legitimate points of view. Maybe not. It takes him ages to learn even the basics. Time might be more profitably spent in prayer or Bible reading, or even better—good works! But the Bible is clear about it: the believer just needs to preach The Truth. Full stop. According to the Bible, evolutionists, atheists and followers of false religion are set free by The Truth, even against their personal bias and beliefs because God is spiritually realised and people are partly spiritual too. Are they set free from sin and self by intellectual assertions? Even miracles and signs are no big deal. Get a thrill at the front of the church and hit the floor; get up happy, speak in tongues, have a vision, get healed and in time ungratefully walk away. Digging deeper is more meaningful.

Understanding what The New Testament has to say about Christian spirituality is vital. It's straightforward enough. The problem isn't faith versus reason, as some claim. In fact we're at a deeper level than that—a spiritual level. We read that God, who is a Spirit remember, draws people to Himself. He reveals Himself like that in particular. Why would He need to reveal Himself by the complicated scrutiny of somewhat heavy philosophical and scientific subjects that many ordinary people can't really grasp and won't be that interested in? Each person has a spirit and God brings it to life when he or she is "born again". God spiritually reveals Himself. Only those who hear and learn from God can come to Christ. His Spirit lives in Christians and any form of ongoing communication with Him must be grounded in spiritual truth.

In a New Testament context then, the human mind alone could never grasp the significance and reality of God. Spiritual discernment can never be a mental exercise. A spirit of revelation and understanding comes by God's Spirit. A Christian doesn't need to understand this process that begins in the spirit and is then accommodated in the mind where self (the soul) is defined. For the unbeliever, the spiritual (and Spiritual) revelation that God is real and Christ is Saviour may well be at odds with his human perception of reality. But wouldn't we expect the presence and revelation of God to be all-pervading anyway?

An unbeliever may ask, "Why am I accepting the reality of God when my head tells me He's a fairy story?" In a spiritual context then we need to ask what value is there in the unbeliever's store of knowledge and his personal bias? Do they matter? Are they an effective barrier to God's Spirit? Do Christians need to write books to mentally convince him that God is real? Will such intelligent arguments and expositions result in a mental persuasion that leads to salvation? Or can Christians simply ignore apologetics altogether, believe that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and be content to let God draw whomever He will? Does any Christian doubt that an individual may be intellectually convinced God exists, yet remain spiritually dead? So why bother with his head at all?

A Christian apologist recently told me: “If a person is unconvinced that God exists or that the Bible is inspired, there is an extremely small chance that he will listen to the Gospel. So, while the Gospel is the power of God to salvation (Romans 1:16), a person must be in an intellectual position to receive the Gospel (see the remainder of Romans 1). If, for example, a person believes that the presence of evil in the world proves the nonexistence of God, then he most likely will not obey the Gospel. Only when the intellectual 'roadblocks' have been removed can he come to a full knowledge of the truth” (Caleb Glenn Colley, Production Administrator, Apologetics Press, Inc.)

Yes, it’s true—we do need intelligence for just about everything. Naturally. But spiritually?

While we need to be sure of our facts, we can’t help but wonder if it’s possible to arrive at faith and Truth on the back of error. How many can be absolutely convinced that what they have been told is true and accurate? Intellectual “roadblocks” may be removed when misconceptions and inaccuracies are accepted as fact! Indeed, it’s entirely possible that additional knowledge may someday lead us to reject the original evidence we once leaned on. That’s the problem with apologetics. It easily becomes excess to requirements. Where do we draw the line? How many really need to be totally convinced about this, or that? Are these Christians right? Can science and maths enable us to "detect" Adam and Eve? Is the centre of the universe nearby and is it God's Great White Throne? Should anybody care?

The atheist can only be deeply frustrated when a Bible-reading born again Christian insists he has a relationship with God spiritually. It's understandable that atheists need sensory reassurances and concrete factual evidence to satisfy their minds, but ultimately Christians can't really offer them any because they claim the Person of God, Who is a Spirit, is revealed spiritually by faith. "What kind of an explanation is that?" exclaims the exasperated atheist. "The best I can give," is the honest reply. "People need to experience God spiritually through placing their total trust in Christ." The Christian believes Spiritual enlightenment (note the capital S) massively supersedes the mind's store of accumulated knowledge, perceptions, experiences and personal preferences.

He quotes his New Testament: "...the natural man does not receive the things of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things..." (1st Corinthians 2:14, NKJV). The atheist sees this as a sure recipe for ignorance and a closed mind. The Christian considers it a blessing to be on a higher plane.

But, back to the neglected basics. God alone is enough. He is. Isn't He? "I am," the Bible says He said. Christians don’t need to spend a huge amount of time shooting things down. They should try building up instead. How many Christians concentrate on straightforward subjects relevant to a holy and effective walk with God? A powerful faith is supposed to be the ultimate defence. “Defending the faith” isn’t the mind games of modern day apologetics.

1st Peter 3:15 shouldn't be broadcast as a prescription for heavy intellectual ideology in the name of God. Faith-defence should be about doctrinal purity and Bible-based church structure. To get all Scriptural about it: Should Christian faith try to fit into the wisdom and thinking of people at their level, or should it be simply expressed and demonstrated in the power of God? Normal Christianity in all its fullness can never be compatible with Christian apologetics. When God and people reason together it's not likely to be about natural selection or cults or atheism or complex molecular structures. It might be about coming to Him for salvation and spiritual fulfilment.

Or to put it another way—why not preach Christ crucified and quit massaging minds? At a Scriptural level, if you're a Christian don't you think that being a fool for Christ is better than looking just plain foolish when intellectual contests become transparently pointless, contentious or run aground? And setting apologetics to one side for a moment, evangelical church formalism is considered a drab affair by some. Atheism looks good if the Christian's god is academically black and white, bound up in a leather cover. Just detached theology.

We may allow that the God of the Bible could set about influencing minds by offering intellectual alternatives to atheistic evolutionists, but do you think it's really necessary? It may be argued, somewhat unconvincingly, that reason and knowledge have a role to play, but on the whole it's best to keep it simple—some Christians may respond by pointing out that reason is a poor subsitute for spiritual revelation. Stay on a solid foundation. There’s endless power in the Truth, the Bible says. All the other stuff can stir up petty wrangling. Complex debates rage on fruitlessly and endlessly,[4] but Christians can simply bypass it all! There’s a huge amount of Christian effort put into combating the beliefs of the world and "exposing" a host of humanist ideologies that are woven into every secular society on the planet.

If Joe gets back to city life he might become so very depressed and disillusioned by the mess people had made of simple Christianity. Separated from the Bible it ends up unrecognisable. Not everything in the Bible is clear, but it’s clear enough in its completeness. There’s no need to string everything out, picking endlessly through the minutiae. What's the point when there's a better, more powerful way? Shouldn't we conclude from The New Testament that it’s not God’s style to openly prove and convince with signs and facts? Christians must go through daily life by faith—the evidence of things not seen. The wisdom of man is foolishness to God. Human intellect is puny. Important and very useful, but puny by comparison.

We read that faith comes by hearing. But hearing what? Hearing that the brain is made up of 10,000,000,000 neurons and that every second 100,000,000 sensations are processed? That in the human eye light is transformed into electrical impulses by 125,000,000 rods and 7,000,000 cones that make up photosensitive cells? That large fossils have been found extending through several layers of strata thus seriously undermining geologic theory and its timescale? That the dust on the moon is so thin it suggests it hasn’t been accumulating for billions of years? That the second law of thermodynamics opposes the theory of evolution? That there are many highly qualified scientists who are religious? And there are.

Although very stimulating to some, nobody actually needs to hear all of that. Christians don't need to tell unbelievers these things. It's not what they are called to do. According to the Bible, believed by Christians to be the Word of God (see HERE), what people need to hear is the message of Salvation in Christ, and simple instruction for righteous daily living.[5] Then let God draw whoever He wants. But that’s much too simple to be widely adopted. Instead Christians work endlessly to cajole and appeal to intellects. They get involved in brain box debates online, but the God of the Bible doesn't. Mental stimulation is not spiritual enlightenment. Knowledge isn't discernment. Scoring points of the other person is valueless.

Can you imagine God chiding everyday Christians for failing to clearly explain the finer points of Creationism and the shortcomings of worldly philosophies and The Theory of Evolution? He wants the light to shine out, His power to be revealed on earth, and people to be changed into His likeness from the inside out. He's not trying to get in from the outside as a mere intellectual concept that needs some serious thought. At least that’s what our friend Joe would probably have concluded while he sat undistracted on his island. If he accepted direct Bible Truths he could simply have leaned on them and let the heavy stuff (he would encounter later) just pass him by.

Christian Apologetics is fuelled by insecurities, aggravations and grievances. Christians don’t need to directly combat the world's many errors down at a human intellectual level. We can never spiritually overcome through our natural abilities. Rather we simply proclaim, Here He is—believe in Him and be saved. That’s what the Bible says. Christians affirm the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. Better get to doing it then. Life is short; death certain.

It’s worrying, but who among the ordinary Christians, who sit in our churches two or three times a week, can know enough to pass on anything remotely scientific to other believers? And how many in our local churches can be trusted to formally lecture on scientific knowledge accurately? Does it matter? The sciences can be very weighty specialised fields that require many years of dedicated study.

Religious non-scientists with church responsibilities read lots of things in many books, assume they are so and parrot their discoveries, possibly in error. The qualified Christian scientist looks at the world around him and sees the hand of God. The unbelieving scientist examines the same evidence and is convinced it clearly supports secular theories running all the way back to The Big Bang. So we go round and round in circles until our big brains spin to mush. And for what?

"Renowned physicist Professor Adam Lightbody, a Bible-believing Christian for over 40 years, has just arrived in the UK to deliver a series of lectures that tie in with his new global best-seller, The Fact of Creation." So, a lot Christians buy it, read it, and are content to accept what it says. If Professor Lightbody says it—well, there you are! But then the following year evolutionary psychologist Dr Faith Short sells a million copies of her latest paperback, Creation Mythology and Scientific Certainty. How can this be?

To make true sense of things some people may need a lot more than the mere interpretation of facts.

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