Earlier this week my kids came home asking about terrorism and why people do it. “Is it all about religion and do only Muslim people do it?” one child asked.

So folks what is terrorism? How do you answer your kids in a way that make sense and don’t just reinforce your own prejudice, anger or indifference?

In this post I want to focus on the Muslim extremist terrorism we are now seeing absorb our headlines after the Paris massacre. As we approach Christmas I think these events really throw focus on the necessity and beauty of Jesus. There’s a bunch of things that make a terrorist; in this post I’m going to focus on just one and maybe look at some others in later posts at some stage. Today, it’s all about being inquisitive or not as the case may be, if you’re a terrorist. But let me take you back to a hard time of questioning in my life…

When I was in my early 20’s I went through a serious period of searching. I had serious doubts about my faith in Jesus. Boy it was a tough time. I’d been brought up in a Christian home and knew and accepted that Jesus died for my sins from a very early age. But as I grew older I started to question everything. Questions that really rocked the foundations of my upbringing came thick and fast. Questions like:

• Where does the Bible come from? Who wrote it?
• Who put it together? What choices were made and why?
• Who said what books were in and what books are out? How can I be sure the books are the right ones?
• How can I trust the Bible?
• Is it even historically reliable?
• How can you possibly know something is divinely written and infallible?
• What does it even mean to be inspired Holy Scripture?

And there were more, but that’s the gist of it. I spent a few hard years drowning in doubt. Until someone I’d met at church offered to sit down and work through a bunch of really ‘boring’ books with me that helped delve into those questions. “Boring”, I say because I think that friend was particularly generous to plough through some pretty dry, academic stuff that weren’t pressing issues for him. Thanks brother.

Some other mates just encouraged me to keep hanging around and keep reading the Bible regardless of my struggle to really ‘believe it’ at the time. It made sense; how can you investigate your doubts about the Bible if you don’t even read the Bible!? Fair call I thought; so I kept meeting with Christians and kept reading the Bible with them. But we also cracked into my questions, one by one as time went by.

See that’s the good news mums and dads! Encourage your kids to ask questions. Don’t ever seal off the Christian faith or the Bible into some impenetrable cocoon that says…’just accept this’. Btw my parents never did make me ‘believe or else’, it’s just that I never really delved much into doubt before.

In contrast, Islam, as far as I can see, is not a faith you can interrogate. There’s no room for healthy criticism. Unlike the Bible, the Koran has not been exposed to hundreds of years of critical examination. Scholars, both believing and non believing, have stripped, pounded, beaten and shredded the Bible for a long time. You can ask hard questions and you can get good answers. Amen. But Islam…there just hasn’t been the history of exposure to critical examination. Plus Islam encourages a culture of fear. Question the Koran, question the character of Mohammed? What, you want to join Salman Rushdie? You want a fatwa on your life? Just accept it. Do not query the divine. Hmmm.

It’s unlikely the guys blowing themselves up in Paris knew little more of the Koran than “God is great”. The guys at the top of their network are probably a bit more educated, but the foot soldiers, poor guys, would be just the exploited, uneducated folk motivated by promises of rewards from a simplistic theology and a culture of fear. I wonder how many suicide bombers fail to go through with it and just blow themselves up in a corner somewhere. Terror cults are terrifying even to those on the inside. Cults are like this. You are told what to believe and you are discouraged from asking questions. The leaders are supreme and there are serious social, emotional, financial and even life threatening penalties for those who stop to think.

I don’t think Islam in the west can survive unless it is prepared to go through the crucible of critical examination like Christianity and the Bible have undergone. How can existing and future generations of Islamic adherents go to western universities and keep sticking their heads in the sand with the Koran?

So encourage questions. Encourage your kids when they ask questions. Help them seek answers. Don’t brush it aside, or get worried when they ask something you find hard to answer. You’ve got to let them know it’s always ok to ask questions and seek answers. Answers are out there; you’re in great company when it comes to the Bible, Jesus and Christianity.

The Bible writers themselves knew people needed evidence. They knew we needed to see trustworthiness. You can see that even in the text and what they include in the gospels. But there is also a wealth of scholarship outside the Bible that is refreshing in its depth to anyone really willing to seek answers to hard questions.

So don’t have a simple faith. Encourage a faith in Jesus that is brutally honest and willing to let any wrecking ball have a go at it.

With Christmas coming soon we’ve all the more reason to be excited about Jesus, the prince of peace in light of these events in Paris. I’ve got some cool ideas for families (and of-course ministries) coming up on how to make Jesus the centre of your Christmas, so keep an eye out, it’s going to be a great ride.

Remember if you'd like to share this with a friend simply use the email function at the top of the post or the social media sharing buttions below. To subscribe hit the subscribe button with your email on this website.