Thoughts: why come to hear Lennox?

Lately I've been thinking about the way people avoid others who are unlike them, and how I see the tendency in myself.

In doing some work for the up and coming John Lennox tour Cosmic Chemistry: Do Science and God Mix? I came across an interview with John Lennox.

Reading the below I can only respect John's humility. There's a fearlessness, an authenticity and a generosity there I hope I can one day glean:

"When I turned up at Cambridge in 1962, one of the first questions I was asked as an undergraduate was a student said to me, 'Do you believe in God?' and then he apologised, he said, 'Oh, sorry, sorry, I forgot, you're Irish, you all believe in God and you fight about it.'

And although I'd heard the question before, that provided an intellectual challenge. Here on the one hand I was studying an intellectually respectable subject like mathematics, a really hard subject. On the other hand, could I be content with a faith that was simply a product of Irish heredity and environment, kind of Irish genetics?

And so what I decided to do, on that day, I remember very clearly, was to befriend people who didn't share my world view, and in particular, look out for atheists. And I've essentially been doing that ever since, and finding out about their world view; trying to be vulnerable about my own arguments, because if one believes in God and cannot open that up to investigation, then the belief must be very shaky."

John will be speaking in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney in August, on the topic of cosmic chemistry, about science and the Christian faith, and how they have been two of his greatest passions in life. I can't wait.

Would you like to get to know John Lennox a bit more before the tour? This interview with Radio National is a great read.

Written by Philip McGann, who works with City Bible Forum Brisbane team as Social Media Coordinator and Writer. Philip has a degree in Creative Writing at QUT and is writing his first novel.