It’s been said that we should believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts, but many of us doubt our beliefs and believe our doubts. I know the feeling. If you do as well, please continue reading.

We’ll begin with what must seem like a non sequitur: the results are in from Indiana’s Republican primaries.

As Politico reported yesterday, these primaries were “the first big test for whether the president still has an iron grip over his party.” The reason: last December, despite the president’s strong urging, nearly a dozen GOP state senators refused to redraw Indiana’s congressional maps. Seven of these lawmakers were targeted yesterday as Mr. Trump’s allies spent nearly $10 million combined against them; the president also endorsed a candidate running for an open Senate seat.

In election returns last night, five of the seven lost to challengers backed by the president; a sixth race is too close to call, and Mr. Trump’s candidate for the open seat won as well.

Here’s my point: Not in living memory has a single politician so unified both parties as Donald Trump does.

I recognize that politics are replacing religion for many, inciting the personal commitment formerly reserved for faith. And I know that certainty in uncertain times will always be attractive. But I don’t remember a politician who has been backed as fervently by so many in his party and opposed as fervently by so many in the other as Donald Trump.

However, I think there’s more at work here, a factor that applies to every Christian, whatever our political beliefs.

Martians in my backyard

The philosopher Antony Flew observed that an “unfalsifiable” truth claim is not a truth claim at all. Suppose I tell you I met some Martians in my backyard last night. Suppose you then ask, “Do I have any objective evidence that they were there? Did anyone else see them?” I answer both questions in the negative. Then you explain to me that if Martians had come to my city, astronomers would have documented their journey to our planet, but no such data exists.

We continue our debate, but nothing you say dissuades me from my assertion. Consequently, as Prof. Flew would note, my assertion is a mere opinion, not a truth claim.

Some in the media these days seem to have such an unfalsifiable position on Donald Trump, reporting everything he says and does as wrong or everything he says and does as right. I know people who have such a view of the president personally as well. To some who disagree, such commitments are evidence of such bias as to be disqualifying as truth claims.

However, Prof. Flew used his falsification principle not for political purposes but to argue that religious claims about God are meaningless, since believers refuse to allow evidence such as evil and suffering to disprove them.

1. S. Lewis similarly recognized,

The case against Christianity that is made out in the world is quite strong. Every war, every shipwreck, every cancer case, every calamity, contributes to making a prima facie case against Christianity. It is not easy to be a believer in the face of this surface evidence. It calls for a strong faith in Jesus Christ.

Professors Flew and Lewis are among the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. However, in what must be the absolute height of audacity, I would like to disagree with both today.

If my faith doesn’t come at a cost

It is easy to have unfalsifiable faith in Jesus so long as I encounter little that could falsify it.

I enjoy my personal time each day in Bible study, prayer, and worship. I enjoy worshiping with fellow Christians and serving alongside them. I especially enjoy writing these articles each morning and otherwise serving through our ministry. The costs in time and effort associated with these activities pale in comparison to the fulfillment they bring.

Here’s the problem: If my faith in Jesus does not cost me something significant, I am not truly following him.

Paul warned us, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12, my emphasis). The more I serve the Lord, the more I threaten the devil. In addition, following Jesus fully will cost me in personal morality. Every day, there will be things I must do that I don’t want to do and things I want to do that I must not do. Not to mention the suffering that comes to all who live on a fallen, broken planet.

At such times, however, trusting in Jesus does not invalidate my faith as unfalsifiable—it empowers it as transforming and true. The evil in the world is less a “case against Christianity” than an opportunity to demonstrate its relevance.

“Our cause is never more in danger”

The key is experiencing the living Lord Jesus himself in the midst of our trials and tribulations. It is claiming God’s promise to be “with” us in the rivers (Isaiah 43:2) and even more his promise to be “in” us by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16). Think of it: everything you experience today will be experienced by the risen Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus is as real in your body as he was in his own (1 Corinthians 12:27).

And, as I noted yesterday, he is working every moment of every day to make you like himself so he can manifest himself in and through you to the world. Frederick Buechner said it this way:

[The gospel is] the mad insistence that Jesus lives on among us not just as another haunting memory but as the outlandish, holy, and invisible power of God working . . . in countless hidden ways to make even slobs like us loving and whole beyond anything we could conceivably pull off by ourselves.

The more we experience Jesus himself, the more we trust him, and the more we trust him, the more we experience his transforming power and grace. Then, even in the hardest places and times, our suffering becomes an invitation to the faith that changes the world.

I’ll close with one more quotation from my theological mentor. In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis has a chief tempter write to his apprentice,

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Will you endanger Satan’s “cause” today?

Quote for the day:

“Show me an individual or a congregation committed to spiritual progress with the Lord, interested in what the Bible teaches about spiritual perfection and victory, and I will show you where there is strong and immediate defiance by the devil.” —A. W. Tozer

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