Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church

Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church

by Walter Henegar

Religion & Spirituality

What's the Deal with Worship?

Worship is weird. When Christians pray, sing, recite old words, ponder scripture, and participate in sacraments, those who don't yet believe may wonder what on earth is going on. Is it a concert? A seminar? A variety show? In Psalm 145, David helps us understand worship by worshiping. As we ponder and speak and sing his words, we find ourselves drawn into the act of worship ourselves.

Q&R for Why Are Christians So Awful?

Questions on the canonization of the Bible, logic vs. feelings, identifying fake Christians, interacting with inconsistent Christians, how to know if we're not elect or just hypocrites, and asking hard questions vs. childlike faith.

Why Are Christians So Awful?

No one is more critical of the failures of God's people than Jesus. In his six "woes" to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, Jesus not only eviscerates the hypocrisies of false religion, but warns true believers against falling into the same errors. Ultimately, the integrity of the Gospel is not preserved by Christians behaving perfectly, but by acknowledging their chronic weakness, returning constantly to the well of God's grace in the Gospel, and seeking the power of the Holy Spirit to keep changing over time.

Can Faith Include Doubt?

Whether faith can include doubt depends on what you mean by faith and by doubt. According to James, faith is not just a set of theological beliefs, but a lived, embodied trust in God that can only come through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This personal faith can vary from weak to strong or from little to great, and it always includes some degree of struggle with what we don't know or can't understand. The struggle is what we sometimes call "doubt" or "unbelief." By contrast, the word translated "doubting" in James 1:6 is about hedging your bets, putting some of the weight of your life on God's promises and the rest of it on other sources of hope. This kind of "straddle doubting" forfeits your access to the wisdom of God, which only comes through active trust in the person of God.

Q&R for Can Faith Include Doubt?

Six short-ish responses to questions about faith and doubt, and two longer responses about the distinction in the sermon between "struggle doubt" and "straddle doubt."

Why This Bible?

The Bible claims that God speaks true and authoritative words to us through fallible human authors. Peter explains that the Holy Spirit "carried along" these authors, without bypassing their unique personalities, languages, cultures and times. Accepting the Bible as we find it today means accepting the Spirit continued to work through people in history to authenticate, preserve, transmit and translate it into other languages. While Scripture is not as tidy as we might want, the Spirit continues to speak through it, illuminating the abundant grace of Jesus to all who will receive it.

Q&R for Why This Bible?

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Is God Even Knowable?

Christianity claims not only that God exists, but that we can know him — despite the fact that none of us can access him in physical, visible or audible form. Christians believe this knowledge of God is nonetheless real, because we experience him in both indirect and direct ways that progressively change us, inside and out.

Q&R for Is God Even Knowable?

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Q&R for Why Isn't God More Obvious?

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