christianity's 2 enduring problems

christianity has two enduring, but acute problems, both exacerbated by modernity. 

the first is the question of origins -- how the universe began. sending our children into the society without the equipment to think-through the modern view of origins is like placing them outside naked in the winter. once they see the staggering proof for the age of the earth and the veracity in the claims of the movement of change, and once they see how this does not jive with what they were taught in the church, it throws everything else under the bus as well?

second, is the problem of evil, most seriously expressed in the shoah. nothing, and i mean nothing has called into question the sovereignty of God, the providence of God, the goodness of God and the power of God like the ashes of auschwitz. this catastrophe continues to be a serious blow to all current theological work, that at best trivializes it, and at worst, makes it obscene. (go here: http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10652).

as irving greenberg said, speaking about the shoah: "let us offer, then, as a working principle the following: no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children."

here, here.

Two books might help us:

Strange Fire: Reading the Bible after the Holocaust

Tod Linafelt

Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.)

Kenneth R. Miller