The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Week 5: Chapter 4 — The Church Is Responsible for So Much Injustice

Read Chapter 4 of The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.

The historical crimes committed in the name of Christianity — the Crusades, the Inquisition, colonialism, slavery — are real, and Keller does not minimize them. His question is whether these failures disprove Christianity or reveal something else entirely.

Discussion Questions

7 questions

1.Keller acknowledges the genuine historical evils done in the name of Christianity without flinching. How did you respond to his willingness to admit the church's failures? Does intellectual honesty about Christian history strengthen or weaken his overall case, in your view?

2.He makes the argument that the atrocities committed by Christians were done in direct violation of the teachings of Jesus — and that the reformers and abolitionists who eventually corrected those evils were also motivated by Christian faith. How strong is this argument? Does it excuse the church, or simply clarify what is actually being evaluated?

a.Is it fair to judge a religion by the worst behavior of its followers, or by its core teachings?

b.By the same standard, how would secular ideologies like Marxism or nationalism fare?

3.Keller points out that the 20th century's most systematic violence was carried out by explicitly secular regimes — Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China — and that this does not make secularism evil any more than the Crusades make Christianity evil. Is this a fair parallel? Why or why not?

4.He argues that the internal resources of Christianity — the prophetic tradition, the call to repentance, the authority of Scripture over the church — actually gave the church the tools to correct its own worst abuses. Can you think of historical examples where this self-correction happened? What drove it?

5.Keller says that "a person who has been a Christian for any length of time has had to grapple with the church's failures." How have you personally grappled with this? Have the failures of Christians you know ever threatened your own faith?

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Closing Prayer

Full guide

Lord, we confess the sins of your people — the violence, the hypocrisy, the ways your name has been taken in vain by those claiming to act in it. We are not exempt from that accusation ourselves. Give us the humility to repent genuinely, and the courage not to use the church's failures as an excuse to avoid the claims of Jesus. Thank you that your purposes are not derailed by our worst moments, and that your kingdom advances through broken people made new. Amen.

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