Evil and the Christian life

I was recently sitting, talking with a friend. She is truly having difficulty with Christianity. She grew up in a church, but has now decided to "kick it to the curb."
I can understand that. I did it. Many have.
One of the reasons that she said she was able to allow herself to let go of her faith was because of reading a book. It was by Bishop Spong. She said that inside of that book he insisted that the story of Jesus was more mythical, folklore, and oral history than anything else. I have been studying this lately, to kinda see where she is coming from. A book that I just was given for my birthday has proven helpful.
Tim Keller's The Reason for God has an entire chapter dedicated to this one complaint. He chooses seven complaints that the average thinking person has against Christianity. He treats their complaints fairly, and then shows sholarly evidence, shares anecdotes, and layers history story on history story to defend the faith. It is a brilliant book. It lacks the sparkle of his sermons, but it is still very helpful. I would recommend reading this book if you are having troubled with this assumption that Jesus Christ was merely a moral hero.
C.S. Lewis will help on this score as well.

Tim Keller also says some amazingly helpful words as regards to evil.
This issue, for most, is the hardest issue. It is a hard one. Any honest person must wrestle with it. Every geniune person, who is a disciple of Jesus, must at some time hang their head in wonder, in question, in doubt. That is the good news. We rely on Christ, not ourselves. But Keller says more than this.
He talks about evil as being the one spot on the Christian map that is white.
All maps have white spaces, space where their are no habitations.
If you say that this brings into Christianity, we have to try every alternative.
God gave us free will. He made us good. He did not make us good and bad. He gave us free will, and we sinned. Either evil is an illusion, it is unqonquerable, that God lives evil, --so the alternatives are worse. All Christian theologians have said that. One of Keller's Old Testament professors would say, when asked, "Evil sprang to life in the heart of satan." And then he would say, "Where God has shut his holy mouth, I should be willing to shut mine."

Finally, another word from Keller. He speaks so beautifully about jusiticaion by faith.
He mentions Luther.
Luther talks about the 10 commandments.
If you lie, it is because you have also broken the first commandment. The redeemer paradigm, you are only repenting for suprficial sins, out of fear. You are repenting of the idolatry that always underlies the sin. It is bitter sweet. It is bitter that we have not only broken a rule, but we have spurned the one who has died for us. He loves us so completely though, that it is sweet.
Deeper repentance. We always need to repent for the idolatry underneath the sin. The reason that what I have done is so bad, is because he loves me so deeply despite this. You are always repenting for two sins, the behavior, and the idol beneath it. If you come to redeemer, you will realize that this is the model out of which everything comes. We believe that even though plenty of Christians are --they offer out of a teacher paradigm. People must be born again. I did that once in fact. The average person does this. So they are really saying, "Now I am really gonna live for him. All the kid knows is that they are gonna clean up. They cry.
Everyone says, "Oh.That is great."
But they have not gotten to the redeemer paradigm. When all of my fear of punishment is gone, then I have no incentive to live a holy life. Incentives create fear sometimes, as God as a boss, and so change is mechanical, rather than organic inside change. There is a new motivation. If Jesus is teacher only, then you grab behavior. But if Jesus is Redeemer, then we see that the sin under every sin is what caused Jesus to die. This is so important. The first commandment is to make nothing but God as your salvation, as your justification. The first commandment is justificaion by faith alone. Why then, is the first commandment first?
It is because if you lie, then everything is broken after it.
The redeemer paradigm you are repenting for the sin beneath the sin.
Teacher paradigm repents for superficial sins out of fear.
Redeemer church in New York gives a model out of which everything comes.
We believe that there is a tendency to operate out of a teacher paradigm in churches.
Jesus is teacher. But for Keller, and much of the PCA, we realize that Christ does so much more than teach us to defray fear, but, he gives us a new creation. He is our redeemer. This is good news. This is great news. This is the only news. We are not born again until we see into this new paradigm.