Episode
Douglas Schofield: Why We Must Ask the Right Questions About Human Suffering
- Published
- Jun 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 758
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- https://www.12minconvos.com
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Summary
I was brought up in a Christian home, the youngest of four children until I was 14 when my parents had another child. She was born with multiple medical issues and spent the first 17 months of her life in hospital. Physically weak, unable to speak or walk, she had a delightful personality. She died at 4 when my parents took their first weekend away after she came home. God spared them being present for that trauma. I came to faith early in my pre-teens. My church was small but loving and committed to its youth. Our leaders, especially pastors, were biblically educated and committed to teaching the Scriptures, rather than their own opinions. Several of them were important mentors to me in my teens, twenties, and thirties. My parents’ generation made room for us in the church. The put up with our noise, our music, our overconfidence because they cared about our spiritual growth. Even with these advantages my faith was challenged by the Creation and Evolution debate, to the point that I refused to read the Old Testament for much of my teen years. Fortunately, I had a strong experience of Christ’s love and forgiveness, as well as a dynamic peer group in the Church. Only when I began to teach and found myself teaching Evolution in an Ancient History course, was I forced to confront the issue. Research lead to the development of a teaching unit on ‘Comparative Origins’ that I taught in a public school for the next 20 years. That also sparked my interest in apologetics. I remained active in leadership in the church, married a Christian girl between degrees at university, enjoy largely Christian friends and neighbours, traveled, built a house and began a family. Plus, I loved my career - teaching high school history students in a small school in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. Afte…