A Pastor’s Question
Recently I had a pastor in an online men’s group reach out with a heartbreaking question. His own son came home and renounced his faith in Jesus and he’s of course, totally heartbroken. I encouraged him to not abandon him and that God isn’t done with his son’s story, to pray because that is the intercession and relationship God desires.
Teach Us to Pray
The disciples didn’t ask “Jesus, teach us to preach” it was teach us to pray!
No great work is done from expository preaching or teaching by a man who’s not on his knees before God. God wants your heart, your whole life, not your undergrad degree, your doctorate, your ordination or your church attendance numbers. I’m not saying those are bad but they aren’t substitutes for intimacy with Jesus in prayer.
God seeks faithful men and isn’t impressed by the things the world is impressed with. But a praying and obedient man or woman, God will use that vessel!
This Happened to Me Too
What is happening in his son’s life happened in mine.
But God’s grace and love, I could not outrun.
I came to a place in my own life where the version of faith in God I’d been taught, and the version I’d been living, couldn’t survive anymore. It couldn’t survive my own questions, and it couldn’t survive the questions of others.
And if I’m honest, my flesh was always hunting for a reason to abandon it anyway.
The Preacher’s Kid Pressure
Most of my young adult life, I heard some version of this: “You only believe all that Jesus and Bible stuff because you’re a preacher’s kid.” Which was funny, because I also heard, “You can’t do that (insert wild teenage rebellion) because you’re a preacher’s kid.” And that usually got answered with, “Oh yeah? Watch me.” Looking back, those things coming from the same mouths was ridiculous because if you deny God’s power, being a preacher’s son was meaningless.
But, I couldn’t escape the fact that I had a lot of questions just like this man’s son. And at some point I finally got over being shamed by Sunday school teachers for being a “doubting Thomas.” Now I actually think we should teach this kind of wrestling in Sunday school. I know some places do, God bless them.
Why Apologetics Matters
Because apologetics, and just learning how to defend the faith, matters. It matters for kids who are about to get hit with pressure they didn’t ask for, from friends, teachers, podcasts, and a culture that treats conviction like a disease. And if our discipleship has been as deep as a contact lens, it is not going to hold when the heat turns up.
Faith that can’t take questions usually isn’t faith, it’s just borrowed confidence. And borrowed confidence collapses fast when it gets tested.
The Questions I Needed Answers to First
So, why was the cross actually necessary in a morally and intellectually coherent way?
And how does someone raised in the faith come to conclude that belief itself is intellectually dishonest?
Those are connected more deeply than most churches, faithful and obedient parents and friends want to admit.
Why Jesus Had to Die, Not Sentimentally, But Logically
Christianity does not claim:
“God just decided violence and sacrifice was a good idea.”
God is perfectly just and perfectly merciful and neither can be compromised. So, that tension is the engine of the cross of Christ.
Forgiveness Is Never Morally Free
Forgiveness is never morally free.
In real life, forgiveness always costs someone.
If a man steals your car and you forgive him:
• Justice is not erased
• The cost is just absorbed by you
You either:
• Demand repayment, justice be enforced or
• Absorb the loss yourself and mercy is given
What you cannot do without becoming unjust, is simply declare:
“Nothing wrong happened.”
See, if God did that with evil, He would not be good; He would be indifferent.
God who forgives without justice is not merciful, he’s unjust.
God Cannot Deny His Own Nature
Scripture states plainly: “He cannot deny himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13
God cannot:
• Call evil good
• Pretend sin doesn’t matter
• Violate justice to show mercy
So the problem is not whether God wants to forgive, it’s how forgiveness occurs without destroying justice.
That’s the dilemma the cross solves. The cross is substitution, not a spectacle.
What Christianity Actually Claims
Christianity’s claim is not:
“Jesus died to make or allow God to love us”
It’s:
Jesus died because God already loved us, but justice had to be satisfied.
Isaiah says:
“The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6
Paul explains the logic:
“To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Romans 3:26
That verse is surgically precise.
God remains:
• Just, sin is punished
• Justifier, sinners are forgiven
The cross is how those attributes are revealed without contradiction
Why Jesus Had to Be Fully God and Fully Man
This is not theological gymnastics; it’s a necessity.
• A mere man could not bear infinite moral debt
• God cannot die, unless He takes on humanity
So:
• Humanity pays the debt
• God supplies the infinite worth
“God was manifest in the flesh.” 1 Timothy 3:16
Remove the incarnation and the atonement collapses.
Why God Couldn’t “Just Forgive”
Because then:
• Evil would have no ultimate reckoning
• Justice would be a suggestion, not a reality
• Moral outrage of any kind would be absolutely meaningless
If God simply waved sin away, then:
• Criminals and the victims are morally equivalent
• The cross becomes unnecessary
• Justice becomes arbitrary
The cross says:
Evil matters so much it must be judged and love matters so much God bears the judgment Himself.
That’s not primitive.
That’s morally severe.
How Someone Concludes Faith Is “Intellectually Dishonest”
This rarely begins with any hatred of God. How can you hate a deity you don’t believe in? That’s already intellectually dishonest.
For me and a lot of “believers” it begins with epistemic shock.
The collapse usually follows this pattern:
- Inherited belief, “This is true because trusted family and people told me it is.”
- Unexamined assumptions, belief is confused with familiarity and contentment.
- External challenge
Philosophy class or books, intellectual curiosity, science courses, skeptical friends, boyfriend. - Realization, “I can’t even explain why I believe what I believe.”
- Conclusion (often incorrect, but totally understandable) “If I can’t even defend this rationally, believing it must be totally dishonest.
At that point, rejecting faith feels intellectually virtuous or even superior at times.
Plus, it’s temporarily exciting to abandon morality. The Bible even says “sin is fun for a season”.
“The pleasures of sin for a season.” — Hebrews 11:25 (KJV)
Then comes the reaping of destruction from the sowing though.
The Real Problem Is Not Doubt, It’s Category Confusion
Many Christians are taught:
• Faith = believing without evidence
• Questioning = weakness
• Certainty = maturity
But biblically, faith is trust grounded in truth, not some blind emotional assent.
“Be ready always to give an answer.” 1 Peter 3:15
When belief has never been reasoned, questioning it feels like betrayal.
So some people don’t revise the bad teaching and lack of depth, they discard faith itself.
Why “Intellectual Dishonesty” Feels True to Them
From their perspective:
• They were told belief was virtuous because it avoided doubt
• They discover belief rested on authority, not understanding
• They conclude honesty requires suspending belief or worse, true belief equals suspending reality.
This is not all forms of rebellion.
It’s often an attempt at integrity.
The real tragedy is that they were not often shown Christianity as capable of answering its own questions.
Until we make it our own faith working out our own salvation.
Christianity Does Not Fear Scrutiny, Shallow Teaching Does
Historically:
– Christianity grew most in oppressive and hostile intellectual environments
– Early believers debated philosophers, they didn’t avoid them and we are seeing more and more of that today
– The resurrection is defended as a public event
– Early church believers died often crucified themselves, stoned to death, fed to lions or burned at the stake for a belief founded on a risen Savior they saw with their own eyes
Paul does not say:
“Believe this because I said so.”
He says:
“If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:14
That is falsifiable language.
Christianity stakes everything on historical and metaphysical claims.
If it were intellectually dishonest, it would not dare do that.
The Painful Truth Underneath My Story
Many people do not abandon Christianity because it fails scrutiny.
They abandon the version of Christianity they were given, never worked out, because it cannot survive scrutiny.
We can be taught:
• Conclusions without premises
• Answers without arguments
• Stories without structure
When that collapses, it feels like the faith itself collapsed.
But what actually failed was discipleship without depth.
Why This Matters Now, Not Later
If faith is never allowed to grow beyond childhood formulations and Sunday school classes and it often isn’t, then in our adulthood it feels like a betrayal of honesty.
But when belief is shown to be:
• Rationally grounded
• Morally coherent
• Historically anchored
Then curiosity or doubt becomes a doorway to truth, not a wrecking ball for borrowed confidence that can’t survive the scrutiny of scoffers and unbelievers.
But the core answer is this:
Jesus died because reality requires justice, love, and truth to coexist, and the cross is the place they do.
And people leave because they were never shown that faith was built to handle all the weight.
And in the end, no one enters into a relationship with Almighty God by intellect alone. Jesus said we must come as a child. At some point, every person must either reject the truth or humbly come before Him, bringing their small and limited understanding before an all knowing God.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” John 12:32 KJV
Not the symbol of the cross but Christ crucified, lifting Jesus’ name.