Re: The Atheist Daughter of a Noted Christian Apologist Shares her Story

In a recently released article that has exploded on the internet, Rachael Slick, daughter of Matt Slick, spoke of her atheism. Matt Slick is the founder of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM), and a public voice of Christian Apologetics. Rachael tells of how she grew up in a home where
theology and apologetics were rehearsed and drilled daily. However, when she began to question certain things about these beliefs, she was unsatisfied with the answers. Says Rachael:
"This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?
“Alex had no answer — and I realized I didn’t either. Everyone had always explained this problem away using the principle that Jesus’ sacrifice meant we wouldn’t have to follow those ancient laws. But that wasn’t an answer. In fact, by the very nature of the problem, there was no possible answer that would
align with Christianity."
Since the article doesn't explain to which moral precepts she is referring, one can only speculate that it is a reference to Levitical restrictions such as dietary laws, days of observation, clothing restrictions, etc.
Frequently, skeptics of Christianity use some of these more extreme Levitical laws as an argument about the absurdity of the Bible.
Assuming these are the laws to which she is referring, then the answer to this question is that often a person's position or responsibility before God indicates that which is right and wrong for that person. A simple example of this would be that it would be wrong for a parent to not discipline their child for being disrespectful to a stranger. On the other hand, it would be wrong of the stranger to discipline the child for the same thing. This is because the child is the responsibility of the parent, not of the stranger.
The Jews were chosen by God to become the holy bloodline through which his Messiah would be born. More than this, they were given the singular privilege of being given the scriptures and of caring for and transmitting those scriptures across the generations. Because of this responsibility, they were called to act in a way that distinguished them as being unique and separate from all other people.
In the Biblical story of strong-man Samson, the hero was defeated when he allowed his hair to be cut.
The reason for this is that Samson took what was called a “Nazirite Vow.” This was a vow, described in the Levitical Law, which was to be taken by someone chosen to be a holy representative of God. The vow indicated a number of restrictions, one of which was that the person’s hair was never supposed to
be cut. When Sampson took the Nazarite Vow as an appointed Judge of God, it became a sin for him to cut his hair by virtue of his position before God, despite the fact that there is nothing morally wrong with cutting one’s hair.
In the story of Jonah, there is a rare Old Testament instance of an evangelist preaching repentance to a gentile nation. When Jonah called the people of Ninevah to repentance, he did not enforce upon them the Levitical Law. He merely accused them of violating the basic moral precepts that they knew were
right and had chosen to rebel against.
Significantly, their repentance led to their forgiveness.
What is interesting about the New Testament is that as soon as Jesus commissioned his disciples to go forth and preach the gospel to all the world, he abolished the Levitical code. Prior to his death and resurrection, Jesus made a point of remaining separate from the Gentile world. In the book of Matthew, he is seen telling a gentile woman who is pleading for his help, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Yet after his resurrection, he changes his tune entirely:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Suddenly, rather than remaining separate from the world, the disciples were now called to integrate with the world. The most significant example of this is seen in the life of the apostle Peter. Shortly after the disciples were commissioned to preach the gospel to the entire world, God drives the point home to Peter by giving him a vision of unclean animals which he is told to “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter
responds by saying “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
God replies “What God has made clean, do not call common.” Immediately after this vision, Peter is called by a gentile who is eager to hear the gospel.
With the sacrifice of Jesus, the responsability of the Jewish people had been fulfilled. They had delivered a Messiah through which, as the Old Testament says “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Jesus, in his parables, took the example of leaven, which in the Old Testament had been a negative symbol of integrating with the world, and turned it into a metaphor for the "Kingdom of Heaven":
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
No longer was the Kingdom separate, it was now called to spread and to "leaven" the entire world.
Possibly the problem that Rachael faced was that she framed the question incorrectly. When God created the universe, various aspects of the universe were designed to fulfill various purposes. What is “right” for any created entity is to adhere to the purpose for which it was designed. What is “wrong” is to stray from that purpose. Morality, like all other immaterial constructs, is a function of purpose. This is why God describes people who have sinned as “worthless.” They have literally lost their worth.
Rachael spends the majority of her article outlining the nature of her childhood with specific focus on her relationship with her Christian Apologist father. While one should not judge either her or her father
personally based on this article, she does paint herself as a person open to discussion on topics of philosophy and theology. Appropriately, then, this is a theological answer to a philosophical question.
Of course, the Christian answer is not that one can somehow obey their way into heaven. God demands nothing short of perfection: a standard that no human could achieve through their own efforts. Rather, Christianity states that humans, no matter their imperfections, are forgiven through the work of Christ,
and if they so choose, are ushered purified into God’s presence merely for the asking.