{"id":42833,"date":"2013-07-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/young-atheists-respect-christian-conviction\/"},"modified":"2013-07-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T00:00:00","slug":"young-atheists-respect-christian-conviction","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/young-atheists-respect-christian-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Atheists Respect Christian Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Christian scholar Larry Taunton launched a nationwide campaign to interview college students who belong to atheistic campus groups. After receiving a flood of enquiries, Larry and his team heard one consistent theme from these young unbelievers: they often expected but didn&#39;t find more spiritual depth from their Christian neighbors. Larry writes:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Some [of these young atheists] had gone to church hoping to find answers to [tough questions about faith]. Others hoped to find answers to questions of personal significance, purpose, and ethics. Serious-minded, they often concluded that church services were largely shallow, harmless, and ultimately irrelevant. As Ben, an engineering major at the University of Texas, so bluntly put it: &quot;I really started to get bored with church.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>In contrast, these young atheists expressed their respect for those ministers who took the Bible seriously. Larry writes,<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Without fail, our former church-attending students expressed [positive] feelings for those Christians who unashamedly embraced biblical teaching. Michael, a political science major at Dartmouth, told us, &quot;I really can&#39;t consider a Christian a good, moral person if he isn&#39;t trying to convert me &hellip;. Christianity is something that if you <em>really<\/em> believed it, it would change your life and you would want to change [the lives] of others. I haven&#39;t seen too much of that.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><em>Possible Preaching Angles: <strong>(1) Worship; Preaching<\/strong>&mdash;Surprisingly, many young atheists aren&#39;t looking for Christians who will water-down the faith. They want us to worship and preach with wholehearted devotion. <strong>(2) Commitment; Zeal; Discipleship<\/strong>&mdash;This story shows what lukewarm discipleship looks like to the watching world&mdash;it&#39;s blah. <strong>(3) Evangelism<\/strong>&mdash;These young atheists want and expect us to share our faith&mdash;assuming that it&#39;s done in an appropriate way.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3423,3450,3512,3601,3690,3726,3792,3793,3897,3956,4408,4752,4876,4906,5305,5316],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-42833","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-apathy","tax_ctp_tags-atheism","tax_ctp_tags-boldness","tax_ctp_tags-church","tax_ctp_tags-conviction","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-disciples","tax_ctp_tags-discipleship","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-false-worship","tax_ctp_tags-lukewarmness","tax_ctp_tags-questions","tax_ctp_tags-salt","tax_ctp_tags-seekers","tax_ctp_tags-worship","tax_ctp_tags-zeal"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Young Atheists Respect Christian Conviction - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/young-atheists-respect-christian-conviction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Young Atheists Respect Christian Conviction - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Christian scholar Larry Taunton launched a nationwide campaign to interview college students who belong to atheistic campus groups. 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