Last night, I happened to catch Mike Huckabee’s interview of Bill Maher. Apparently, Maher is releasing a new documentary movie “taking on” religion called, “Religulous.” Maher identified himself as agnostic. He said he has no understanding of why people would want to live their lives according to ancient myth and went as far as to say that all religious people have some kind of psychological problem. Maher cited all of the wars fought in the name of religion as a real problem with enlightened people accepting these “mythical beliefs.” He asked how a loving God could allow so much suffering to exist in the world.

I don’t mention all of this so you and I can get mad at Bill Maher together. Rather, it is important to keep in mind that our students will face opposition in their faith.

For me, the best thing about the interview was that Huckabee, in his home-spun, corn-fed way, was able to give a reason for his Christian faith. True religion, the faith Jesus died for, does not inspire people to violence, but to love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. People don’t need religion to be bad. We live in a broken world. God didn’t make it that way; we did. And God allows us the freedom to love him . . . or to reject him.

I don’t really care whether you like or dislike Huckabee as a politician. My point is I want students to leave my youth group with enough understanding of their faith that they, too, can give a reasonable defense for the faith they have in Christ.

How does the Bible answer hard questions like those Bill Maher was asking? Even if our students are content with simplistic answers, I don’t think we can be. There is no reason to fear hard questions from your students. In fact, if they aren’t raising hard questions in your youth Bible study, perhaps you should.