8 Ways to Survive a Debate about God with a Coworker

We’ve all had those encounters with the coworker who has something to prove. Maybe they just want to show off how intelligent they are or maybe they want to simply get some attention. Or maybe they’ve had a really bad experience with church in their past and have decided to take it out on you.

If others in your workplace know that you are a Christian and insist on trying to start up a debate with you about God or your beliefs, here are 8 ways to deal with it.

1. Determine a starting point. You’ll need to agree on a base. Agreement can only spring from common ground and if one side believes the Bible is the Word of God but the other side does not, there will be challenges when you’re quoting Scripture to support your argument. Here are some opportunities for agreement to get you started:
a. Does your coworker believe in a higher power?
b. Does your coworker believe Jesus lived?
c. Does your coworker believe Jesus was a good person?
d. Does your coworker believe Jesus died?
e. Does your coworker believe Jesus rose again?
f. Does your coworker believe we can learn something from the Bible?

2. Hold up a mirror. After presenting your side of the debate, as soon as your coworker begins trying to poke holes in your arguments, stop him or her and tell them that you haven’t heard what they believe. Point out that you’re interested in having a conversation, not a diagnosis.

3. Know your stuff! There are some excellent books out there on apologetics. Go to your local Christian bookstore and pick up a couple books on apologetics.

4. Know their stuff! Christians often fail in defending their faith because they seem like they have blindly accepted faith while remaining oblivious to arguments against it. Ask for help from believers who came to Christ in their adult years to talk to you about their beliefs beforehand. And, try to find out the cause of your coworker’s anger. If they had a negative situation in a church many years ago, a debate in an afternoon at the office isn’t going to solve it.

5. Agree on some things. Agree that, yes, the Bible is full of inaccuracies; why is that up for debate? Then tell them this: Imagine three friends go to a store and all buy the same CD. Later, you ask them how much they paid. One says $25. One says he bought three CD’s on sale for $60. The other says $26.25, after tax. Do you not believe any of them because of the inaccuracies they told you? Of course not. The bible is not a computerized database or spreadsheet. It is a scrapbook of memories and word-pictures.

6. Get personal. A struggle of atheism is that Christianity seems anti-intellectual. If you are asked how you can possibly believe in a God who lets bad things happen, take the argument out of the intellectual realm. Instead, say something like, “I think there are bad things in the world and you’ve been misinformed if you feel that Christians think they have all the answers. I have the same kinds of questions as you do. But I know the life-changing impact that Jesus Christ has had in me. He’s really changed my outlook on my life… and on my death. There are still question marks in the world, but there’s meaning in my life and as a believer it is my role to have a positive impact in some of those tragedies.�

7. Diffuse the argument. If things are getting heated, cool it down. Say, “Not everyone shares my beliefs. I feel that what I believe is true and I’m not interested in debating about it.� This will state your opinion quite bluntly while still showing that you respect his or her opinion. Just be careful, though, because although you may respect that they have a differing point of view, you don’t want to show that you think it’s an acceptable alternative to faith in Jesus Christ.

8. Stay professional! You are going to have to work together after this. You don’t want to cause such a rift in your relationship that you lose your witness or your work relationship.

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