Is there a place for pessimism in the Christian life? Is Halloween evil? Does God have ‘mothering’ characteristics, too? Why won’t there be marriage in heaven? Yes, it’s this season’s Q&A episode, and John is having a crack at a heap of listener questions.

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Here are the questions John answers in this episode:

1. Is it ever ok for Christians to be pessimistic or cynical about life (the universe and, well, everything)? It just seems like Xns are (implicitly) forced by each other to be super positive and “encouraging” (kinda sick of that word) all the time – but it doesn’t always correspond to lived reality.
2. I believe there is evil partly because of our free will and sin, and because there would be no good story without growth and redemption. How could the afterlife and the new creation be good given that there would be no sorrow or anything negative? I can imagine the first 50 years would be enjoying the burden-free living but what about after 1000 years? Or does time matter? How is a perfectly good and sin-free life even possible? Lastly, let’s say we are somehow different than in Eden and really wouldn’t fall anymore for eternity. Why didn’t God already create this world to be completely good?
3. What do we make of the “mothering” aspects of God, mentioned in the Bible?
4.  If you are married here on earth, will you still have that intimate union in heaven? What happens to those that remarry for whatever reason, will you have two wives or husbands in heaven?
5. How did the early church react to an openly hostile non-Christian society? They obviously survived and eventually thrived! I suspect we are entering into a similar period in Western Society and Christians seem to be ‘up in arms’ at the temerity of non-Christians who dismiss Christianity! We all know that there were outbreaks of violent persecution against Christians in the Roman world.  But how did the Christians live their lives as members of an unapproved religion? 
6. Why would God need to perform miracles today, if we have the Bible? Why would we need them?
7. What about those generations of people that are unreached or unreachable? In other words, how would someone come to Christ if they don’t know he exists or what he did? 
8. Many Christians seem to get a bit riled up about Halloween. Could you say something about its historical roots?  Current cultural relevance?  And whether followers of Jesus should participate in it or not.
9. On the question of women being treated poorly by Christianity, why is it that contemporary culture is so critical of the church in this regard when contemporary culture is also at fault? For example, Our media objectifies women way more than the church! Just look at the adverts!
10. Twelve-year-old Jesus clearly caught the attention of the temple teachers. Would they have kept an eye on him as a rising rabbinical star? Is there any record of this? He was obviously highly educated – do we know what kind of education he received in first-century Galilee?
11. If all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching … why is Revelation so hard to understand!?