Questions & answers
You may have serious questions about Christianity - 'who is God?', 'Who is Jesus?', 'what about suffering/science?', to which we would like to offer some serious grown-up answers.
Now, this may seem very odd indeed; claiming to offer serious answers, when everyone 'knows' that Christianity is just a prop for the feeble minded!
Or perhaps not...
Let's see if we can clear away that and other myths for you, so that you at least have an adult understanding of Christianity, and not just the baby view that so many are content to keep.
These are huge questions, so we can only hope to give the briefest of replies. On this page we just show the first bit of each answer; the full reply is [or will be] given on a linked page, along with links to other resources or books where you can get more food for thought.
We dont plan to rush these answers and anticipate gradually adding to this section until mid 2006 at the earliest.
God
This section offers some answers to questions that are often raised about God.
Who/what is God?
Fundamentally there are two possibilities: either God made the universe out of nothing [the Judeo-Christian view], or the universe is self existant. If the latter is true, then there is a further sub set of options:
- atheist - no such thing as god
- pantheist - god is the universe
- pagan - multiple extremely powerful beings have developed in and inhabit the universe, who would seem to us to have god like powers
As an aside, an atheist might accept the idea of some galactic consciousness which evolved out of the unimaginable complexity of the universe - we might call such a person an 'athegan'! Interestingly, Philip Pullman, in his 'Dark Materials' trilogy seems to mistake this view for Christianity.
Of course, Christians hold that God made everything...
What is God like?
Depends who you ask. A strict materialist would say that is meaningless question, which follows logically from holding that there is no God. It is rather odd that such people generally seem to be seriously mad at God :-)
More seriously, Christians would say...
Why does God allow suffering?
People ask this question for one of three reasons:
- for honest intellectual understanding
- the cry of the human heart in despair
- as a stick to beat Christians with
We will try to address each type of questioner appropriately ...
Jesus
This section answers some questions about Jesus.
Who was Jesus?
Historically, Jesus was born in the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, in the remote province of Judea. His family were refugees from King Herod, and spent a time in exile in Egypt. Eventually they returned to Capernaum by Lake Galilee where he stayed as a carpenter until he was 30 or so years old.
What do you mean by 'son of God'?
By this we mean that Jesus Christ, while a man, was also fully God, in the full sense of the first question. How this can be, we do not, can not understand...
Christianity
When it comes to Christianity, most questions are concerned with what they do, and with science. So we will start with these two.
What about all the suffering that the church has caused?
To this we can only grieve and say that, yes, the church, or perhaps more accurately some people using the church have caused great suffering. Sometimes this suffering has been because of a teaching propounded by some section of the church, other times it has been the wrong behavior of individuals. Being honest, I think that most Christians are well aware of times when they have caused harm, and the more so as they get older...
It is a human propensity, wherever there is a structure or organisation, that some people will use it to exercise power over others, sometimes with devastating results. This is not limited to Christians, as a brief reflection on the last century will show. Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, all ardent atheists, murdered millions and tens of millions. Hitler doesn't seem to have had any formal beliefs, except in the 'will to power' & the 'survival of the fittest', was what might be called an extreme social darwinian.
Hasn't science disproved christianity?
A question of authority, physicists and biologists, the 'god' gene and other red herrings - some thoughts about science and christianity. This is not so much a detailed answer to the question, but a look behind that widely used statement.
Shoreham Baptist Church
Here are some answers to questions about Shoreham Baptist Church in particular.
What do you believe?
Fundamentally, we believe that God is, that He is the Creator of the universe, and that He loves us. We believe that Jesus Christ is God, and that...
Tell us about your values
The values that we hold important are 'worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry & evangelism'. These words are short-hand for the things that we aim to live out in our lives. They flow from our beliefs...