Only in the twisted ethos of today’s Christian Left is a maskless man considered a cold-hearted murderer, while an abortionist is celebrated as a heroic social justice warrior. With seemingly no regard for the scales of justice, the spiritually ‘woke’ Democratic Party is willfully bending the rules of right and wrong to favor their own ethically bankrupt agenda and to ensure it triumphs in the state — no matter the cost. Although they claim to be religiously devout, the Left ignores natural law and has abandoned the Judeo-Christian foundations on which our nation is built.
Arguments from Silence
Responding on TikTok to the question of “Isn’t the Bible against abortion,” a self-identifying “queer lady pastor” answers, “No, not really. The Bible doesn’t say much. Jesus definitely doesn’t say anything [about abortion].” Using what is referred to in philosophical and historical analysis as an argument from silence, this female TikTok pastor attempts to reject the notion that Christianity necessitates a pro-life position due to her claims that the Bible fails to mention abortion. Arguments from silence offer notoriously poor reasoning and little logical proof for her cause.
Although they claim to be religiously devout, the Left ignores natural law and has abandoned the Judeo-Christian foundations on which our nation is built.
For instance, suppose in the next Super Bowl a receiver gets behind the coverage and Tom Brady hits him in stride. As the receiver sprints toward the end zone, the beaten defender pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back five yards short of the goal line. Imagine the uproar if after the referees confer among themselves regarding a flag on the play for pass interference, the final call were presented as, “Upon further review, since nowhere in the rule book does it explicitly say that you can’t shoot a player at the five-yard line, we’re going to assume the commissioner approves of the defender’s freedom to choose. The play stands as called.”
While the rulebook might not explicitly mention that the murder of another player is against the rules, everyone in the stands possesses an innate knowledge that such behavior is not only against the rules — it’s a crime against humanity!
Obvious Sophistry
The Christian Left might claim to be very “devout,” but such reasoning demonstrates, much like the referees in the example on the field above, that they aren’t fit to determine right from wrong. It is as if they pretend not to know what the rule book says about the most important matter of the law — the protection of life — and then assume, contrary to the evidence, that God supports their egregious behavior.
This kind of reasoning is obvious sophistry.
While it’s true that the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention abortion, this doesn’t at all mean that it’s permitted. Even a brief glance at the scriptures reveals that it was unthinkable to the God-fearing Hebrews to kill a child (children were a blessing from the Lord) and abortion was already prohibited by the 10 Commandments (i.e. “You shall not murder.”) Likewise, the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention felony home invasion either, but it is already prohibited by “You shall not steal.” You have to be willfully blind to think otherwise.
Self-appointed Referees
Religious conservatives understand that the primary role of government is to protect its citizens from evil. Government is not commanded to insert itself in every aspect of life or provide services that individuals normally do (the government may do those things, but that’s not its primary charge). Paul writes, government “rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”
Ironically, the Left, as the self-appointed referee of morality, eagerly embraces this role to punish the wrongdoer by assuming they themselves — and not scripture, natural law, or the Constitution — are able to define what is wrong and what is right. Take for instance calls from the Left recently to pressure cable providers to “punish” conservative media outlets by removing them from their platforms. Rather than protecting the unborn or defending First Amendment rights, the Left is busy silencing and fighting free speech!
Promoting Evil
With their support for government-paid abortion, the Left is actually promoting evil. After all, what could be a greater evil than murder? Rulers who don’t want to prevent a murder — and actually want to pay for it — are failing in their primary mission. That’s why being pro-life is a necessary, but not the only, condition for our vote. Being pro-life doesn’t necessarily qualify someone as a ruler, but being pro-abortion necessarily disqualifies them.
Likewise, religious progressives who elevate debatable and less critical issues to supreme importance, while simultaneously offering support of abortion, stand as co-conspirators in the deaths of the unborn. To the Christian Left, climate change trumps abortion, as if allowing the possibility of the river next to the stadium rising two inches a hundred years from now is a graver sin than allowing 800,000 babies to be murdered this year. Jesus would charge them, like he did the politicians of his day, with “neglecting the more important matters of the law.”
The Christian Left is Unleashing Chaos
The job of a good referee is not to affect the outcome of the game one way or the other, but to ensure the game is played fairly by the established rules. The rules are in place to allow fair competition among the players while protecting the players from unnecessary harm. One could imagine what would happen to the game of football if out-of-bounds were overlooked so that fans could walk on and off the field as pleased; if there were quotas on players based on sex and race; and if the players were fined based upon the penalties of their predecessors. It would be chaos. Yet, this is exactly what the left is doing to this country.
All of this is being sold by the Christian Left as some kind of biblical social justice. There is nothing just or biblical about abortion (the same could be said about illegal immigration and the redistribution of wealth). While we cannot question their good intentions, there is no doubt about their inevitable bad results.
If our nation hopes to recapture even a semblance of true justice, as well as our founding freedoms, we must reject the empty ethics of the Left, and revisit the spiritual and ethical guidelines found within our Judeo-Christian roots and the Constitution.
Editor’s note: Watch Frank Turek discuss these issues with Randy Robison on LIFE Today Live.
https://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Blog-1-cover-2.jpg12562400Frank Turekhttps://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ce_logo.pngFrank Turek2021-03-14 18:00:432024-11-11 09:58:36The Christian Left: The New Referee of Morality?
Christians can get so worked up over politics that they can sometimes blow their witness.
Sadly, this is something we see more frequently on social media. It seems like no matter what your political views are, someone will be offendedor will publicly attack you over your support of a candidate they feel is dangerous to the American way of life.
A big reason for Americans’ aggressive behavior is because their views run deep into what is referred to as “identity politics.” Politics is no longer about aligning with a specific political party. Nowadays, people’s political views are intertwined with their religion, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and social or economic status.
If left to its own devices, identity politics can bring out the worst in people. That’s why Christians shouldn’t rush to placate political labels at church. It can send the wrong message and cause a rift with other church members.
Without question, the American church is at a crossroads between faith and politics, which is very disturbing.
So then, what can you do to overcome this contention and bring some clarity and unity back into the Christian community?
Well, for one thing, when you’re knee-deep in a discussion about politics, don’t let secondary issues impede your progress in finding common ground. It’s possible for Christians to have thoughtful debates over politics without biting each other’s heads off.
To avoid letting a conversation surrounding politics from getting too heated, follow these three steps:
Step number one, be cordial. Peter wisely states, “Show proper respect to everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17). It’s okay to critique the other person’s political views as long as you don’t turn into a disrespectful critic of their political party. Avoid getting defensive and cutting the other person off. Your ultimate objective is not to prove the other person wrong but to improve the relationship. No progress can occur if you’re not willing to show respect and listen to the other person.
Step number two, be biblical. Much of the time, political conversations consist of citing a political pundit to back up an opinion. You might be right positionally, but make sure your argument is based primarily on biblical truths rather than from sources that feed your ideological position. As a follower of Jesus Christ, make sure politics do not overshadow the gospel and doctrinal truths. In so doing, you will keep the main thing the main thing and find more important areas of agreement.
Step number three, be reasonable. If you love people and good ideas, you will spend adequate time sharpening your arguments and learning from others. As you debate with someone who holds to a dramatically different political opinion, you will want to be clear and logical when presenting your positions; while, at the same time, remaining teachable (see Phil. 4:5; Js. 3:7).
No matter how intense a political debate may get within the four walls of the church, make it your goal never to let politics ruin your relationships with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
By applying these three steps, you are sure to have friendly interactions with those who don’t share your political views.
Jason Jimenez is the founder of STAND STRONG Ministries and faculty member at Summit Ministries. He is a pastor, apologist, and national speaker who has ministered to families for over twenty years. In his extensive ministry career, Jason has been a Children’s, Student, and College Pastor, and he has authored close to 10 books on topics related to apologetics, theology, and parenting.
https://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Blog-2-cover.jpg12562400Guesthttps://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ce_logo.pngGuest2021-03-08 18:30:502024-11-11 10:00:05How To Be Friendly To People Who Oppose You Politically
After four years of accusing conservatives of violating the First Amendment by attempting to establish an American theocracy, the conclave of the Christian Left sent the ceremonial white smoke of affirmation through the metaphorical chimneys of our nation’s capital as The Times announced a more “religiously observant” neo-papacy, headed by none other than President Joe Biden, himself.
The Christian Left’s Theocracy and Hypocrisy
No longer identifying as simply Catholic or Christian, Biden’s deeply praised spirituality has adopted qualifiers, such as Liberal Christianity and Progressive Christianity, proving that the left takes no issue with an American theocracy, as long as democrats are able to exchange the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, for the holy Marxist trinity of diversity, acceptance and social justice. In this America, President Biden’s pro-abortion beliefs are lauded as “steeped in Christian rituals and practices,” while simultaneously Leftists derogatorily refer to Amy Coney Barrett’s pro-life agreement with the Church as “dogmatic.” Contrary to what The Times says, Biden is not only, not “religiously observant” of the Church’s most important moral teachings, he denies them through his policies. In the new theocracy of the Christian Left, such Biblical defiance is not only desired, it is the very definition of devotion.
Biblical Defiance Required
Forget forgiveness of sins, repentance, and the cross. The new religion of the left initiates its members through forced acceptance of global warming, racism, and pro-abortive child sacrifice. Fueled by a nearly state-run liberal media, the Christian Left holds their new pope’s doctrines, ratified by cowardly executive orders, as infallible and the ultimate expression of not only faith but science, as they “solve” every problem from poverty to pollution. To deny their logic — that allows grown men in girl’s restrooms and invents more than 100 genders — is heretical and will land one in certain “ex-communication” from the church of the state through total political and financial cancellation. Severe offenders even risk being refused access to the left’s most divine sacraments, Twitter and Facebook. This new progressive theocracy considers it perfectly legitimate to be a card-carrying member of the Christian Left and still supports anti-biblical ideals, such as same-sex marriage and abortion, despite mountains of biblical evidence to the contrary. For the church of Biden, there are no contradictions here — after all, the archaic mumblings of biblical orthodoxy are no match in their minds for the religiously enlightened dogma of its past saints, like Darwin, Marx, and Obama, as well as the theocracy’s holy mother herself, Margaret Sanger.
Straining a Gnat, Swallowing a Camel
They assert that liberal Christians can not only overlook abortion, but they can celebrate it, because of the plethora of other pro-life issues that the Democrat party addresses, like universal healthcare, the dangers of global warming, and open borders. So it’s perfectly legitimate, they say, to be a progressive Christian and support politicians who are pro-abortion — after all, for the left, Biden’s Christianity is “less focused on sexual politics and more on combating poverty, climate change and racial inequality.”
Forget forgiveness of sins, repentance, and the cross. The new religion of the left initiates its members through forced acceptance of global warming, racism, and pro-abortive child sacrifice.
Except, of course, this isn’t true. Politics under Biden and the Christian Left have never been more sexualized, with an outright obsession with genders, a women’s right to choose, transgenderism, and introducing America’s children to drag queens. Apropos of Jesus’ rebuke of the religious and political leaders of his day, the Christian Left is nothing more than “blind guides,” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” Much like the Pharisees of scripture, today’s progressive Christians are majoring in the minors. For instance, we have “religiously observant” politicians telling us what light bulbs we can and can’t use, all while neglecting to shed light on the worst injustice imaginable — the senseless slaughter of the unborn — and even worse, all in the name of women’s reproductive rights! Christ-centric Christians know that this logic runs afoul of Jesus and common sense.
One Issue Disqualifiers
Now, none of this means that Christians should be one-issue voters. Being pro-life on the abortion issue doesn’t necessarily qualify someone as a good candidate. Christians and conservatives should also want their candidates to be strong on other issues as well (i.e. religious freedom, national defense, the economy, etc.). Understanding Jesus’s teaching means that we are not one-issue voters but we are one issue disqualifiers, that is when that issue shows complete disregard for human life. In other words, while being pro-life doesn’t necessarily qualify someone as a good candidate, being pro-abortion necessarily disqualifies someone as a good candidate.
In light of an “ascendant liberal Christianity,” true followers of Christ must learn to discern the difference between men who declare themselves gods, and a God who made himself man.
For this reason, a candidate’s position on abortion may very well be the best metric to determine if someone remains true to Christianity, as defined by scripture and natural law, or if they’ve joined the new theocracy of the Christian Left.
Support for Pro-Abortion Politicians and the True Christian
For those who still think it’s appropriate to support pro-abortion politicians, I have a few questions: Would you take the same position if the issue was not abortion but slavery? Would you reason, “There are other freedom issues that are important too, so it’s perfectly fine to support pro-slavery candidates”? Would you deny the moral importance of voting for Abraham Lincoln over Stephen Douglas? Would you gloss over the fact that Douglas not only wants to keep slavery legal, but he wants you, the taxpayer, to subsidize it? I doubt you would. Like Jesus, you would charge anyone making such a terrible case with “neglecting the more important matters of the law,” and as such, true Christians, whether Republican or Democrat, should do the same in Biden’s America. In light of an “ascendant liberal Christianity,” true followers of Christ must learn to discern the difference between men who declare themselves gods, and a God who made himself man.
Dr. Frank Turek is a faculty member with Summit Ministries, the president of CrossExamined.org and the co-author of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. He’s on Twitter at @DrFrankTurek.
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Essential doctrines of the Christian faith play a significant role in Christianity. Many people have lost their faith when they are asked about some core doctrine of Christianity by the people who oppose Christianity. Because our church has not thoroughly taught about essential doctrines of Christian faith they fail to encounter heresies and come to a conclusion thinking that they are believing in something that is not true. Many people in social media directly criticize the Christian faith and churches are not ready to answer their confusion as churches themselves are not sure about these doctrines. Here in this paper, I have elaborated on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. I have addressed human depravity and sinlessness of Jesus, about humanity and divinity of Jesus, and lastly about his death and resurrection. I have also try to deal with some current issues faced by Christians when they are opposed by other religious people in the context of Nepal. Everything in this paper is written from the view of apologetics or evangelistic manner and every scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and if not they are cited.
1. Human Depravity
If one thinks that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of humanity then we must be able to defend why we think it so. Biblical Christianity fully agrees that all human beings are born with sinful nature (Rom. 3:23, c.f. Ps.51:5). Though some people do good in some way in others they fail. But one must understand God didn’t create humans in this way. Adam and Eve who were the first human being created by God were perfect without sin (Gen.1:27-31). Chafer has put it in this way, “It fulfilled not only His purpose completely, but was a supreme satisfaction to HIM. Wherein moral issues were involved-as in the case of man-there could be no exception. Perfect holiness found no fault with that which He had wrought.”[1] They were created by God in His image and likeness (Gen.1:27). So, as God is perfect and the first humans were created in His image and likeness they were perfect. But when they disobeyed God they fall short of His glory and were prohibited to be in the Garden of Eden (Gen.3:23). While explaining about Rom.5:12 Grudem writes, “The context shows that Paul is not talking about actual sins that people commit every day of their lives, for the entire paragraph (Rom.5:12-21) is taken up with the comparison between Adam and Christ. And when Paul says ‘so [Gk. hutos, ‘thus, in this way’-that is, through Adam’s sin] death spread to all men because all men sinned,’ he is saying that through the sin of Adam ‘all men sinned’.”[2] This theory of original sin was coined up by Augustine of Hippo. “When Pelagius, whoever, pushed further the logic of free will and all but denied any effects of Adam’s fall (for him, men and women were born in the state of Adam prior to his fall, were free from his guilt and the pollution of his sin, only exposed to bad influence of his examples), Augustine took up the cudgels against him and for the first strong doctrine of sin.”[3] HippoHAs human being all came through Adam and Eve we inherited the sin of our ancestor.
But this view of creation and sin in Hinduism differs. According to book “Death an inside Story” by Sadhguru from the New York Times bestselling author conveys:[4]
Body is a composition of five sheaths which are Annamaya Kosha, Manomaya Kosha, Pranamaya Kosha, Vignanamaya Kosha, and Anandamaya Kosha. Here Annamaya Kosha means food body, Manomaya Kosha here comprises your thoughts, emotions and all the mental processes, both conscious and unconscious. Pranamaya Kosha refers to life energy which powers and drives th Annamaya and Manomaya Kosha. Fourth layer of the self Vignanamaya Kosha means extraordinary knowledge. Last is Anandamaya Kosha means bliss body which is beyond physical nature.
These are just components that human beings are made up of. About the concept of origin of human, “It was not a story of creation but an emanation from Brahma. In the Puranas, we have this story, “Brahma’s first human creations were saints, who, immediately upon being created fell into deep meditation, finding no interest in the things of the world. Thus, through them, Brahma saw no possibility of propagation of their species. While he was meditating upon what course he should pursue, his own form divided itself, one half became man and the other half became woman.”[5] Again if we look into the Law of Manu, Brahma is a creator but also a created being by self-existence Lord. Patrick Olivelle writes, “As he focused his thought with the desire of bringing forth diverse creatures from his own body, it was the waters[6] that he first brought forth; and into them he poured his semen. That became a golden egg, as bright as the sun; and in it he himself took birth as Brahma, the grandfather of all the worlds.”[7] And again we look deep in other religious book of Hindus Puranas gives us different explanation about creation. In this account, “when the time for creation comes a lotus sprouts from Vishnu’s navel and opens to reveal the god Brahma, who begins the process of creation.”[8] There is actual no clear vision and trustable account of creation. It differs from person to person. And mostly, it is unknown to majority of Hindu. People follow their inherited culture, and religion without any question.
Another most arguable matter is caste system in Hinduism and judgement of sin is determined by one’s social place and rank. “A Brahmin committing a crime, for instance will not be punished in any way as strictly as a Sudra (person of the servant class) would be for the same crime.”[9] They are punished by their act. Why people sin is answered in the Law of Manu. “As they are brought forth again and again, each creature follows on its own the very activity assigned to it in the beginning by the Lord. Violence or non-violence, gentleness or cruelty, righteousness (dharma) or unrighteousness (adharma), truthfulness or untruthfulness- whichever he assigned to each at the time of creation, it stuck automatically to that creature.”[10] So there is no proper account for sin coming in humanity or about its source but humans were created in that way. Again there is a concept of rebirth according to their deeds and punishment too. Even gods are not in unity in Hinduism and lust is seen clearly. “According to an ancient Saivite myth, he (Brahma) was born with five heads, when he became interested in Parvati[11] (wife of Siva), Siva consort, the latter chopped one of the Brahma’s heads off.”[12] There is no truth in the gods of Hinduism. Many are found lying, lusting cheating, and many more.[13] So, one must understand that there is no proper doctrine and sources that can be trusted. It has many sources that paradox each other in core value. Whereas Christianity is clear in their doctrine about creation and sin entering humanity and there is truth in God and is perfect in unity.
2. Sinlessness of Jesus
Another significant essence of Christianity is the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. Many people in Nepal take Jesus as another god among many gods. As I was Hindu too I knew about the concept of incarnation in Hinduism which differs vastly from Christianity. People in Nepal accept Jesus as god-like other gods of Hindu but as only God or only way to the Father is resisted strictly. Incarnation (Avatara) is mostly done by Visnu. As Lochtefeld explained it this way, “Hindu draws a distinction between full avatars, which have the complete have the complete power of the deity, and partial incarnations, or anshavatras.”[14] Full deity in Hinduism doesn’t come to earth but his/her part that comes having his/their attributes in it. The Bhagavadgita explains that the Supreme One comes down to earth whenever dharma is in danger, to save the good and to destroy the wicked.[15] This core teaching differs in Christianity where Jesus came to save the lost because sick needs doctor not healthy people (Lk.19:10 c.f. Mk.2:17). We must understand this sin in Hinduism and Christianity though differs in some extent but are same. Lying, pride, ignorance, lusting, murder and so on are considered by both as sin and violation to God. So if that the case then we must understand we need saviour who came to save not to destroy the wicked because we all some who have one of these sin in us. Jesus is a perfect saviour of humanity as His character and essence fits perfectly to save the one who are lost.
2.1 Virgin Birth of Jesus
As predicted in Old Testament about virgin birth of Jesus (Isa.7:14), New Testament Christian paid with their life as they preferred to die then to forsake their faith in Jesus. This is very strong and one must critically evaluate that a people doesn’t give their lives if everything told by Jesus as written New Testament were false. Virgin birth which sounds awkward to the listener to this age was the same in New Testament time also. He was blamed to be an illegitimate child. Two gospel affirms us clearly about the account of the virgin birth (Matt.1:18-25; Lk.1:34-35; cf.3:23). According to Grudem, there three critical doctrinal implication of the virgin birth:[16]
It shows that salvation ultimately must come from the Lord.
The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person.
The virgin birth also makes possible Christ’s true humanity without inherited sin.
These characteristics made Jesus perfect for the sacrificial lamb who lived a life that was worthy of praise. Though the concept of virgin birth sounds awkward, still the writer of the gospels dared to write it because it is true.
2.2 Jesus Lived a Life without Sin
Jesus was born without the inherited sin as he was born from Virgin Mary but he also lived a life that no contemporary authorities were able to find any fault in Him (Lk.23:4; cf. Matt.27:1-2,11-26). Though he was tempted by Devil he didn’t commit any kind of sin in His lifetime (1Pet.2:22; 1Jn.3:5; 2Cor.5:21). Krishna as compared many times with Jesus had 16,108 wives with him in his palace and used to visit them taking 16,108 forms once at a time.[17] About the comparison between the two one can’t randomly claim Jesus to be an incarnation Krishna as claimed by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, founder of Rama Krishna Mission. He said, “Wherever I look I see men quarreling in the name of religion…but they never reflect that he who is Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of Primitive Energy, Jesus and Allah as well- the same Rama with a thousand names.”[18] This is claim is alleging because of Jesus’ statement to be the only way, the truth, and the life (Jn16:6). His claims are outstanding that no one before and after claimed to be so. Jesus lived a life that one can read and scripture doesn’t contradict each other like in other religions. He lived a blameless life while he was on this earth.
3. Humanity and Divinity of Jesus
The combo of humanity and the divinity of Jesus makes him a unique savior. He was and is 100% man and 100%God. Humanity and divinity of Christ are seen in the account of the gospels and even in other NT books or epistles. Disciples witness his humanity as they lived with him while he was on this earth.
3.1 Humanity of Jesus
Jesus was born of a woman (Gal.4:4). He grew like any other human being (Lk.2:16; Matt.2:11; Lk.2:42-50). He had brothers and sisters and even relatives (Mk.6:3; Jn7:5; Lk.1:36). He had human emotions (Jn.11:35; cf.Heb.5:7). He felt hungry, thirsty, and everything that a simple man faces. Apostle John writes in his epistle, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched–this we proclaim concerning the Word of life”(1 Jn.1:1). There is no doubt that Christ was human fully and his divinity is claimed by him and also by his followers prominently.
3.2 Divinity of Jesus
The divinity of Jesus is claimed by Him in the gospels account and proclaimed fearlessly by his followers. Personally, for me, two verses are very crucial and significantly portray Jesus to be God. First is in the gospel according to John where He asserted, “Before Abraham was, I AM” which is the first revelation of God’s personal name to Moses in Exodus 3:14 as YHWH. YHWH is only with constant and later Jewish added and made Yahweh. Jesus was killed as He claimed to be the Son of God for which Jewish crucified Him. Jewish knew what He was claiming and Jesus was not making a statement as we make as children of God. His claim was equal to God or God himself as the second person in Godhead. Second is the confession of Thomas the doubter in John20:28 where he says, “oh my Lord, oh my God.” In the original text, it’s “ho Kurios mou, kai ho theos mou”.[19] It is peculiar because he doubted the very deity of Christ. He knew Jesus is dead. When he touched the wound that Jesus had, he now knew He is the same Jesus who died on the cross and gave this profound statement. Again in many other accounts, Jesus accepted worship which only was given to God (Matt.8:2), He forgave the sin of paralytic man and rigid His claim by healing him (Mk.2:1-12). Lastly, as we see the martyrdom of Disciples of Christ, they paid with their life as they knew He is God. Justin Martyr said, “You can kill us, but cannot do us any real harm.”[20] They knew that they will be killed but still they didn’t forsake Christ and didn’t accept Caesar to be their Lord. Apostle Peter and Paul were killed during the reign of Nero.[21] They died as they knew that Jesus is God. It is well said by Foster while writing about Confessors and Martyrs, “Behind the use of these two words is the idea that the most convincing way of saying, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ’, is by being ready to die for Him.”[22] They gave up their life for the sake of Gospel and they were not lunatics to do so.
As Jesus is God-man He is perfect saviour who died for us as sinless human paying propitiation to God the Father. He being man is able to reach man and being God is able to reach God. And his attributes and claims are not seen or claimed by any other religious leaders’ world views.
4. Death and Resurrection of Jesus
Death and resurrection of Jesus are very significant in Christendom. If he didn’t die or stayed dead then the faith of Christian is futile. The death of Jesus was not man-made as we have enough pieces of evidence that are the primary source to prove the authenticity of this matter. And not only Christians claim this but this event was also recorded by other secular historians.
4.1 Prove of the Death of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus is central to Christian doctrine or theology. There is evidence of eyewitnesses that testify about the event of the crucifixion. Lockyer writes, “One-third of Matthew, one-third of Mark, and one-fourth of Luke are devoted to the account of His death, and one-half of John’s gospel to the last twenty-four hours of Christ’s life. One-third of the material in the four gospels has to do with the events of the last weeks of His life.”[23] All the Gospels and all the Epistles either state or assume the fact of Jesus’ death (cf. Matt.27:32-66; Mk.15:21-47; Lk.23:25-55; Jn.19:16-42; Rom.5:6; I Cor.15:3; II Cor.5:15; Rev.5:9). There are some extra-Biblical sources also that prove that Jesus was crucified. “Christus…suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate,” says Cornelius Tacitus.[24] The Jewish historian Josephus of the time of Christ, Julius Africanus (ca.22), Greek writer Lucian, The Letter of Mara Bar-Serapion (ca. AD 73), Roman writer Philegon and many more also wrote about it.[25] He was the Roman Historian not even a Christian but writes about the fact that Christ died. The death that Jesus died was very torturous. Brown writes about it saying, “Death came slowly after extraordinary agony, probably through exhaustion or suffocation. The body could be left on the scaffold to rot or provide food for predatory animals and carrion-crows. There is evidence that the body was occasionally given to relatives or acquaintances.”[26] So Jesus did die on the cross and it was with great agony.
4.2 Reasons for the Death of Jesus Christ
One must understand that the death of Jesus is not mythology created by His disciples but a fact that is supported by solid data written by both Christian and secular historians and writers of the New Testament. So if he died on the altar of the cross then we must raise a question, why he did so? To understand this clearly, we must know about the depraved condition of humanity which I have already dealt with, and about the attributes of God. Grudem while writing about the cause of the Atonement writes, “And here Scripture points to two things: the love and justice of God. The love of God as a cause of the atonement is seen as God gave His one and only Son (Jn. 3:16). But the justice of God also required that God find a way that penalty due to us for our sins would be paid. Paul explains that this way why God sent Christ to be ‘propitiation’ (Rom.3:25 NASB): it was to show God’s righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.”[27] Death of Jesus completes or fills the need of both sides.
As we have seen in Human depravity that all human beings are sinful and this brings consequences of both physical and spiritual death. God being perfect in holiness and a person with sin is not able to reach to God. Again God didn’t forgive the sin of Adam and Eve because it would have defiled His justice. So God in perfect time sends His Son who was without sin to die for sinful people like us which in vice allow us to come to God again and His justice is also not defiled.
4.3 The resurrection of Jesus Christ
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is very prominent because if He was not raised from the dead then Christianity could not have been unique in its account because there were and are many who claim to be God or came from God. There were and are many peopling who deny the resurrection of Christ. But there are many evidences that prove the physical resurrection of Jesus. They are as follows:
4.3.1 Eye Witness Account about the Resurrection of Christ
The Gospel contains abundant testimony to the resurrection of Christ (cf. Matt.28:1-20; Mk.16:1-8; Lk.24:1-53; Jn.20:1-21:25). Apostle Paul in his letter to Corinthians writes about the resurrection of Christ whom He died, raised, and appeared to many people (1 Cor.15:3-6). Paul was a person who tried to erase the very existence of Christianity who claimed that Jesus was raised from the dead. But when He encountered the glorified Christ on the way to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9) he started to preach it (Acts 9:1-9) and died for it. There were many people back then too who rejected the resurrection of Christ, like Apostle Thomas who doubted until he saw Him with wounds that were given to Him on the cross then accept Him as my Lord and my God (Jn.20:24-28). The resurrection of Christ has unambiguous evidence as we have the testimony of eye witness account as they doubted, examined, and they believed the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
4.3.2 Empty Tomb Tradition
All four gospel gives us an account of the tomb that was found empty (Matt.28:1-10; Mk.16:1-8; Lk.24:1-12; Jn.20:1-10). Quoting to Anderson, McDowell and Sterrett write:[28]
The empty tomb stands, a veritable rock, as an essential element in the evidence for the resurrection. To suggest that it was not in fact empty at all, as some have done, seems to me ridiculous. It is a matter of history that the apostles from the very beginning made many converts in Jerusalem, hostile as it was, by proclaiming the glad news that Christ had risen from the grave—and they did it within a short walk from the sepulchre. Anyone of their hearers could have visited the tomb and come back again between lunch and whatever may have been the equivalent of afternoon tea. Is it conceivable, then, that the apostles would have had this success if the body of the one they proclaimed as risen Lord was all the time decomposing in Joseph’s tomb? Would a great company of the priests and many hard-headed Pharisees have been impressed with the proclamation of a resurrection which was in fact no resurrection at all, but a mere message of spiritual survival couched in the misleading terms of a literal rising from the grave?
As Anderson said anyone could have visited the tomb of Jesus to counter-check the statement preached about the risen Christ. But many skeptics claim that body of Jesus was stolen by His disciples which are surely ridiculous because of the following reasons:
In all four Gospels, we read that Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb cut into a sock, and a large stone was rolled against the entrance.
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea prepared Christ’s body for burial which if not dead they would have known (Jn.19:38-42).
In process of burial, the corpse was clothed in grave vestments made of white linen. This might weigh between 117 and 120 pounds. Josh and Sean McDowell quote John Chrysostom of fourth century AD, “myrrh used was a drug which adheres so closely to the body that the grave clothes could not easily be removed.”[29]
The tomb was guarded as Jewish Chief priests and Pharisees were panicked because Jesus claimed that He will rise again. They thought that disciples might steal Jesus’ body and claim that. So they requested Pilate and secured the tomb of Jesus (Matt.27:62-66).
The tomb was sealed (Matt.27:66). Josh and Sean quote A. T. Robertson, “the stone could be sealed only in the presence of the Roman guards who were left in charge. The purpose of this procedure was to prevent anyone from tampering with the grave’s contents”. After the guard inspected the tomb and rolled the stone in place, a cord was stretched across the rock and fastened at either end with sealing clay. Finally, the clay packs were stamped with the official signet of the Roman governor.[30]
There was no attempt or chance to do so because of the reason mentioned above. The tomb was indeed empty. Philosopher Stephen Davis observes, “Early Christian proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem would have been psychologically and apologetically impossible without safe evidence of an empty tomb . . . in other words, without safe and agreed-upon evidence of an empty tomb, the apostles’ claims would have been subject to massive falsification by the simple presentation of the body.”[31] Disciples preached about the resurrected Christ without fear as they knew it to be true. And even there were many letters written to oppose the heretical teaching that Christ didn’t rise. Paul writes if Christ has not risen then our faith is futile (1 Cor.15:17).
Christianity claims about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ have very solid evidence. He died for us as we by ourselves are unable to reach to God as He is holy (Lev.19:2). God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that nobody will perish but have everlasting life (Jn.3:16). Christianity is peculiar as in all other religions, we have to work for salvation and there is Karmic Tendency which we can’t overlap. Humans have to reach to gods. Jesus is the only one who is God but came to earth to human beings. He can save the sinner but others who claimed to be gods came to destroy the wicked. Jesus’ claims are proven by His acts. He said when He was on the earth it is fulfilled which were supposed to be fulfilled till now. His claim to be the only Way is true because of all the above-mentioned reasons.
5. Dealing with some question raised to Christian in Nepal
Is not Jesus the same as other gods?
As Nepalese people believe in polytheism, Jesus is just another god for them. People are influenced by movements like Ramakrishna who convey that every way leads to heaven. But this claim is not true because every religion in their fundamental teaching differs from each other. From an Islamic point of view, Allah is the only true God and all others are false. In Buddhism, there is no God. Even in Hinduism, though they say that every religion is the same, still they are against Islam and other religion strongly. And even Jesus claims to be the only way to Father. So one can’t say that Jesus is the same as other gods as they differ in core value to each other. Jesus’ claim to only way to Father is valid because His words match His life. He was born of virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, died on the cross for the sinner, got resurrected on the third day which was witnessed by five hundred plus people, and had ascension to heaven. And all these were prophesized before He was born. No one else in religion history has these peculiarities, so Jesus’ claim to be God is unique and true and He is not like other so-called gods.
Isn’t the Bible written by human beings?
Many people in Nepal tells Christian that the Bible is also like other religious books which are written by human beings. Yes, the Bible is also written by human beings but it was inspired by God which is the significant claim that only Christianity makes. There are 66 books, 40 authors, overs 1500 years of period, and 3 continents where it was written but still, it has only one follow and theme. No other religious books are so interrelated to reach others though they are just a single book. About the reliability of the Bible historically, there are nearly 5,700 known partial and complete Greek Manuscript copies of the New Testament and are very ancient. If one adds into the mix over 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts and at least 9,300 other early version-including Syriac, Ethiopic, Slavic, Gothic, Armenian, and other versions-the total approximate 25,000 manuscripts that cite portions of the New Testament. This far exceeds the number of manuscripts available of other ancient documents, which, in most cases number less than ten copies. Bible is reliable and fully trustworthy, human written but inspired by God.
Some Christians or pastors do wrong and the whole of Christianity is blamed.
Many times people blame whole Christianity when they see some Christians or pastors doing wrong. They point to those people and say look if Christianity was true then they shouldn’t have done this. This is very sad of people that they blame the whole Christianity of some peoples act. One can’t say that family is bad if a son or father or a member of the family does wrong. We can’t judge anything from outside. When I confront these kinds of people I simply ask for forgiveness because it is true that many Christian and even pastor are wicked but still Christianity is true. Christians do agree that some Christians have defiled themselves but Jesus is perfect in every way. Bible never claims that Christians will be perfect. It writes to forgive each other when some sins and help them to come near to God again. There is the concept of forgiveness in Christianity which is significant. Yes, we do find some Christian who have lost their characteristics that Jesus demands but that doesn’t apply Christianity to be false. We don’t preach about Christians or pastor but about Jesus Christ. He was born with sin and lived a life without sin who was crucified for our sin and was raised from dead witnessed by many. He is the only savior of humanity and no one before Him or after Him is like Him.
Jesus was crucified because he was rebellious.
Abhishek Joshi is one of the lead opponents of Christian in Nepal. He posts many videos on YouTube[32] that opposes Christianity. He says that Jesus was crucified because He was a rebel. Joshi also says that Jesus misinterpreted OT saying that He is Savoir and God of OT and even His disciples did the same. And the Bible is written in the 4th Century AD. Finally, close it up by criticizing Christian misinterpret Bhagavad Gita[33] claiming that Jesus is found there also.
Joshi doesn’t deny the crucifixion of Jesus. He right when he says crucifixion was meant for wrongdoers. Criticize Jesus for misinterpreting OT scripture is wrong. As Joshi quotes from Mark14:16 onwards where it seems like Jesus rebelled against Jews but we must not forget that Jesus also knew that they will kill Him for that sake. We won’t die for what we are not. Jewish priests of that time thought that Jesus is a hypocrite. Many disciples like Thomas thought that Jesus was just a prophet or man from God until he saw resurrected Jesus. Apostle Thomas was the person who came to India and preached about a Savior who died for our sin and got resurrected and there is no one like Him and died for that sake. All the disciples we tortured and were killed as they preached about resurrected Christ who is the only way to the Father. So, what about those disciples who died for the sake of the Gospel. They were not lunatic to do so. And about the reliability of NT, sources are very near to Jesus’ time. There is no doubt that He was crucified and the reason was that Jews Priest thought He was misinterpreting Scripture but the truth is that He died for our sin and He was raised which was witnessed by 500 plus people. Finally about misinterpreting Bhagavad Gita Christian should do that because we say it’s human written and again we try to prove Hindu scripture also show Jesus which contradicts our views.
Conclusion
Humans are depraved which is seen even in kids as they are jealous, lie, etc though Hinduism denial it. According to Hinduism, we are created in that way. Some chose to do wrong and some do right. Salvation or Nirvana for them and Buddhism is by doing good works and it’s not sure whether we will achieve it or not. Gods of Hinduism came to wipe wicked from the earth (only their part comes to earth) and save righteous people. But it is the opposite in Christianity. In Christianity, we are sinful people who are not able to work out for our salvation and can’t reach to God who is Holy. We needed a savior who is sinless and lived a life without sin. Savior who is 100% man so that He can reach to man and 100% God who can reach to God. Old Testament prophesied about His birth, the life He lived and death He encountered. God. Though many before Jesus and still claim to be God or came from God they are no equal to Jesus. He was crucified for our sin as written and was resurrected which was witnessed by many and we have evidence like empty tomb tradition. His claims are all true. Though people criticize Christianity about the validity or reliability of the Bible we have sources that are valid and reliable that support that the Bible is trustworthy. We have many ancient manuscripts that dated to the 1st century. We have the historical evidence that supports the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ as written in the Bible and by other non-christian writers. All these things supports the claim of Jesus and He alone claimed these things and He is who He claims to be.
Bibliography
Brown, Colin. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (v. 1). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Pub. House, 1975.
Brown, David A. A Guide to Religion. Delhi: ISPCK, 2018.
Bruce, F. F. Paul, Apostle of the Free Spirit. U.K.: Paternoster Digital Library, 2005.
Chafer, Lewis Sperry. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1993.
Curtis, Kenneth A., Stephen J. Lang, and Randy Petersen. The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History. Hyderabad: Authentic, 2012.
Davie, Martin. New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic. Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016.
Foster, John. The First Advance Church History AD 29-500. Delhi: ISPCK, 2018.
Geisler, Norman L. The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide. Grand Rapids, MI: Bakers Book, 2015.
Grudem, Wayne A. Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014. Accessed October 18, 2020. http://rbdigital.rbdigital.com.
Grudem, Wayne A. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England : Grand Rapids, Mich: Inter-Varsity Press ; Zondervan Pub. House, 1994.
Jones, Constance, and James D. Ryan. Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Encyclopedia of world religions. New York: Facts On File, 2007.
Joshi, Abishek. Reasons of Jesus Christ Crucified, 2019. Accessed November 2, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-mCC3BWvL4&ab_channel=GohiraTV.
Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism. 3rd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Lochtefeld, James G. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism. 1st ed. New York: Rosen, 2002.
Lockyer, Herbert. All the Doctrines of the Bible. Hyderabad: Authentic, 2012.
Manu, Patrick Olivelle, and Suman Olivelle. Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Manava-Dharmasastra. South Asia research. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
McDowell, Josh, and Sean McDowell. Evidence for the Resurrection: What It Means for Your Relationship with God. Ventura, Calif: Regal Books, 2009.
McDowell, Josh, and Dave Sterrett. Did the Resurrection Happen– Really? A Dialogue on Life, Death, and Hope. Coffee house chronicles 3. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2011.
Pardillo, Urbano L. “Christianity and Hinduism on Human Existence.” Accessed October 18, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/9022229/CHRISTIANITY_AND_HINDUISM_ON_HUMAN_EXISTENCE.
Vasudev, Jaggi. Death: An inside Story : A Book for All Those Who Shall Die. Haryana: Penguin Random House, 2020.
Witherington, Ben. New Testament History: A Narrative Account. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic [u.a.], 2001.
Zacharias, Ravi. New Birth or Rebirth? Jesus Talks with Krishna. 1st ed. Colorado Springs, Colo: Multnomah Books, 2008.
“John 20:28 Interlinear: And Thomas Answered and Said to Him, ‘My Lord and My God;’” Accessed October 21, 2020. https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/20-28.htm.
[2] Wayne A Grudem, Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014), 307, accessed October 18, 2020, http://rbdigital.rbdigital.com.
[3] Martin Davie, New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic (Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016), 328.
[4] Jaggi Vasudev, Death: An inside Story : A Book for All Those Who Shall Die (Haryana: Penguin Random House, 2020), 49–51.
[5] Urbano L Pardillo, “Christianity and Hinduism on Human Existence,” accessed October 18, 2020, https://www.academia.edu/9022229/CHRISTIANITY_AND_HINDUISM_ON_HUMAN_EXISTENCE.
[6] Water is Nara here who is god Narayana in Hinduism.
[7] Manu, Patrick Olivelle, and Suman Olivelle, Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Manava-Dharmasastra, South Asia research (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 87.
[8] James G. Lochtefeld, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, 1st ed. (New York: Rosen, 2002), 157.
[9] Constance Jones and James D. Ryan, Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Encyclopedia of world religions (New York: Facts On File, 2007), 323.
[10] Manu, Olivelle, and Olivelle, Manu’s Code of Law, 88.
[17] Ravi Zacharias, New Birth or Rebirth? Jesus Talks with Krishna, 1st ed. (Colorado Springs, Colo: Multnomah Books, 2008), 49.
[18] David A. Brown, A Guide to Religion (Delhi: ISPCK, 2018), 74–75.
[19] “John 20:28 Interlinear: And Thomas Answered and Said to Him, ‘My Lord and My God;,’” accessed October 21, 2020, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/20-28.htm.
[20] Kenneth A. Curtis, Stephen J. Lang, and Randy Petersen, The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History (Hyderabad: Authentic, 2012), 19.
[21] F. F Bruce, Paul, Apostle of the Free Spirit (U.K.: Paternoster Digital Library, 2005), 435.
[22] John Foster, The First Advance Church History AD 29-500 (Delhi: ISPCK, 2018), 49.
[23] Herbert Lockyer, All the Doctrines of the Bible (Hyderabad: Authentic, 2012), 50.
[24] Ben Witherington, New Testament History: A Narrative Account (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic [u.a.], 2001), 156.
[25] Norman L Geisler, The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide (Grand Rapids, MI: Bakers Book, 2015), 109.
[26] Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (v. 1) (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Pub. House, 1975), I–393.
[27] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England : Grand Rapids, Mich: Inter-Varsity Press ; Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), 492.
[28] Josh McDowell and Dave Sterrett, Did the Resurrection Happen– Really? A Dialogue on Life, Death, and Hope, Coffee house chronicles 3 (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2011), 66.
[29] Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence for the Resurrection: What It Means for Your Relationship with God (Ventura, Calif: Regal Books, 2009), 167.
[32] Abishek Joshi, Reasons of Jesus Christ Crucified, 2019, accessed November 2, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-mCC3BWvL4&ab_channel=GohiraTV.
https://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Blog-3-cover-1.jpg12562400Guesthttps://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ce_logo.pngGuest2021-02-17 23:12:012024-11-11 10:02:52Defense of Essential Christian Doctrine in the Religious Pluralistic Context of Nepal
The senses recoil when you walk into a high-security prison. A pungent mix of mildew, old food, and rancid mop water buries itself in your nostrils. Drab cinderblock walls and cracked linoleum floors stretch to infinity, screaming of dehumanization. But the faces and body language of those who watch you walk by are the most painful part of the experience. A mix of contempt and bewilderment accompanies their silent stares. “What are you doing here?” Responding with a smile and a nod seems out of place when you know that the only reason you don’t share their despair is that in a little over two hours, you will walk back out.
Navigating The Bureaucracy
It took a year-and-a-half of applications, training sessions, interviews, background checks, watching videos, and signing waivers before the bureaucracy gave me permission to walk down that hallway. Only then was I allowed through the five sets of steel-barred doors, past the administrative offices and the mess hall (where that smell originates), and into the educational area. A prison guard checked my identification one last time before I was finally allowed to enter the classroom. And there, a group of men I would surely cross the street to avoid on the “outside” approached me to shake my hand and greet me … with a hug.
Before I experienced it, it would have been hard to imagine the level of gratitude and openness those men are willing to show someone who hails from a completely different universe. There is no façade of authenticity in a prison Bible study group. No questions held back to save a reputation. No Christianese words used to sound pious. Just a genuine search for answers and a yearning for someone to tell them why they matter – a concept they have rarely, if ever, heard someone apply to their lives.
The Abstract Becomes Personal
Even inside those walls, there are times I have to remind myself that I am among men who have committed serious, and in some cases, violent crimes. When they recite large swaths of the New Testament from memory, pausing only to point out the Old Testament references contained within the passage they’re quoting; when they provoke deep discussions about God’s nature and purposes; or when they display genuine humility and concern for us and their peers, all the stereotypes attached to their baggy blue prison garb disappear.
Montel is one of those men. A little over six feet tall, with a chiseled jaw, muscular, tattooed arms, and a stoic countenance, I was a little intimidated the first time he entered my personal space. In over a year of meeting him in that classroom since, I can never remember seeing Montel smile. I probably wouldn’t smile either if, at age 42, I had spent nearly half my life in prison. I don’t know exactly what Montel did to end up in the dreadful setting where I talk with him each week – we’re not allowed to ask. But I do know this.
Montel’s nickname is “Homicide.”
The Common Thread
Montel is not a unique character inside these walls. He shares much in common with the other inmates who attend our weekly discussion group. Each of them grew up in the inner city, engaged in criminal activity beginning in their teen years or earlier, were members of a gang, and were involved in both the use and trafficking of illegal drugs.
If you have them write down the names of friends they’ve had throughout their childhood, teen, and adult years, most of the names they list from each timeframe will be the same. There’s nothing unusual about that. But if you and then asked them to circle those who have been in trouble with the law, 85% of the names will get circled.
Bad company corrupts good character.
Missing Fathers
But it’s not just a matter of hanging out with the wrong people. There is a more fundamental issue that lies behind the criminal behavior that lands them there. It is a cancer that eats at the foundations of our society at every level but is most pronounced among those who end up inside those concrete walls. It turns out that none of the inmates in our study grew up with a father in his house.
Not one.
None of them recall stories of throwing a ball with their dad or wondering if they would grow up to be like him. None of them ever had a father who set boundaries they dared not cross. It turns out the drugs and the gangs are only substitutes and symptoms – the ill-conceived diversions of little boys trying to escape the pain, or fill the void, of never knowing a father’s love. They grow up without their fathers, then produce children who grow up without their fathers. The cycle has been repeating itself for generations.
The Relentless Turnstile
Before I made the decision to start visiting these prisoners, I was familiar with statistics about the war on drugs and violent crime, the allegations of racial injustice, and the high rates of recidivism among the incarcerated. For me, those were all facts I had attached to a group of people. But a strange thing happens when you actually meet those people and force yourself to listen with different ears. When you try to imagine inserting yourself into their stories — as the perpetrator.
The truth is that I cannot relate to the plight of the men I meet every Thursday. I have no context for it. And that’s the point. Having a father and being a father are foreign concepts to men who have never lived outside their vortex of hopelessness. Hearing the pain in their voices as they tell their stories has a way of softening your heart. It’s hard not to empathize with a man like that when you have to look him in the eye. When you know and understand that his community never really modeled other options for him. When you realize that you are the closest thing to an earthly father he has ever known.
Montel’s Dilemma
During one of our recent weekly discussions, Montel seemed more melancholy than normal. It took a while, but we finally prompted him to let us know what was bothering him.
“Some kids from my old hood are showing up on the block. I was talking to some of them on the yard a few days ago. They told me how much money they be makin’ and what kinda guns they wanna buy when they get out. But then they told me …”
His voice trailed off. His eyes grew red. Then he muttered, “They told me ‘Homicide’ was a legend.”
The room went silent.
“I kinda like bein’ a legend. Makes me feel big, you know? … But here’s the thing though … I don’t wanna be ‘Homicide’ no more.”
The tension was palpable. Montel was a living embodiment of Romans 7. This man, who had never seen his own status or identity as anything other than the parasitical echo of his own band of thieves, was wrestling with the image of God he now sees in himself as a reflection of his heavenly Father.
Montel is at war with Homicide, and Homicide is dying.
No Illusions
I am under no illusion that our efforts to reach the imprisoned are going to spark a revival in that place. The reality is that there are nearly 2500 inmates in the prison I visit, and less than twenty of them ever show up for our meetings. But for those few, the profound vision of being made in the image of a Father who loves and forgives them is a world-changing reality. In fact, the recidivism rate among those who participate in “long-term, intensive, faith-based training” is less than half what it is among those who don’t.
The last time I saw Montel, he handed me a piece of notebook paper on which he had carefully crafted a poem titled, Let It Rain God Love.
“Let It Rain God Love”
“I wrote this,” he said. “I want you to read it and tell me if it’s good.”
The handwritten poem filled a piece of tattered notebook paper. It included these heartfelt words:
“Who am I to tell you not to cry, but I suggest you let it all go,
because holding on to the past pain prevents you from seeing growth.
Even the heart needs sunshine, or darkness will prevent it from seeing joy.
If we don’t let God love rain, many souls will be destroyed.”
The verse continues in much the same way. It’s not polished or profound but the beauty of Montel’s poem is that it is something Homicide could never have conceived.
The Promise of Fatherhood
Montel is a sincerely repentant man. He sees himself as the unwitting beneficiary of his own flawed past. No one would choose the life he has lived so far. But Montel takes comfort in knowing that he may never have been driven to his knees without the circumstances that brought him to this place. One can only imagine how different the trajectory of his life would have been if Montel had had an earthly father to guide him from the beginning.
Each week Montel and his fellow inmates leave our meeting room and amble back down the halls to the drab, concrete confines of their cells. Each week they thank us profusely for coming to visit them. They hug us and tell us they will pray for us. And each week, I leave that place haunted by the stark reminder that, at its root, all the pain and tragedy these men have caused and experienced is not as complicated to cure as the sociologists try to make it.
Fatherhood is the answer. It always has been. Even in a place filled with the darkness of what seem to be hopelessly corrupted human souls, the Gospel – and the Father who offers it – still brings light.
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity – Episode 14 Video DOWNLOAD by Frank Turek (DVD)
Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.
With each passing year, science is providing more evidence that the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to support human life. Change any one of dozens of scientific parameters by even a small amount and life on Planet Earth would never have arisen. These findings provide strong support for the Christian argument that behind this universe lies an all-powerful, super-intelligent Designer who set this all in motion.
Many atheists try to sidestep the problem these scientific discoveries create for their worldview. Darwinism, after all, made belief in the possibility that life simply arose from inert matter a bit more respectable, so discoveries that make this seem unlikely, indeed implausible, cannot be ignored for long. After decades of Darwinism giving them false solace, atheists face a serious problem making sense of these discoveries, which challenge the wisdom of believing in random self-assembly over a long period of time as an adequate explanation for the magnificent complexity of the life we find on Earth.
A favorite way to dodge the issue goes something like this: there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about fine-tuning in the universe because, had it not been so, we would not be here to make any observations. We simply happened to arise because we just happen to be in a universe – probably one of an infinite number – that can support our form of life.
This is a clever argument because it makes the extraordinary nature of the universe seem, well, ordinary and in fact predictable. But the argument does not survive scrutiny, because it deliberately misses the point of the fine-tuning argument. It assumes that there is no designer, then asks to make sense of this fine-tuning we see all around. It does this by assuming that other universes exist, and with enough such universes, the existence of our particular universe, with its unique characteristics, becomes inevitable. But there is no evidence – at present anyway – that we inhabit one of a limitless number of other universes. In fact, since these other universes are separate and apart from ours, there is no way to even test for their existence, no way to establish whether they are there or not. The existence of this infinite number of alternative universes, this “multi-verse,” is assumed so that our presence in this one can be viewed as “no big deal.” It is apparent that the skeptic is assuming the conclusion he wishes to reach. Instead, the question we are trying to answer is whether such fine-tuning can truly be an accident – a true “billion to one shot” – or whether, by contrast, this evidence of design is the result of, well, a Designer. Because our existence is the result of the coinciding of hundreds of highly improbable events, basic probability theory tells us that to determine the cumulative probability requires that we multiply these probabilities. Increase the number of “just so” parameters and life becomes incredibly unlikely to have arisen by chance.
Some examples might help make the point. The Apollo 11 mission successfully landed men on the moon and returned them safely to Earth. Imagine that on his return, someone asked Neil Armstrong to comment on the stunning success of the mission. If he thought like the new atheists, he might have said: “There was nothing amazing about the mission’s success. After all, if something failed, I wouldn’t be here to discuss the effectiveness of the mission.” Such an answer is ludicrous; it simply avoids the question of what the odds were that each of hundreds of systems would work as designed. That such novel technology achieved its goals is a tribute to the intelligence and workmanship of its designers. To say that Armstrong just happened to live in the universe in which his mission succeeded is, in reality, to say nothing at all.
To this, the atheist will likely respond: your example is flawed, because we already know that the Apollo mission was designed by an intelligence, and we don’t know that about the universe. But this too misses the point. The Apollo mission was fine-tuned for success. If the universe shows signs of similar fine-tuning, then we can logically conclude that it too bears the marks of an intelligent designer.
Which leads me to a different example: a condemned man stands before a firing squad, awaiting the crack of rifles that will precede his demise. The signal is given, he hears the shots and feels the bullets whizzing nearby, but not a single round strikes him. He has survived the execution and is here to comment on the probability of so unlikely an event. Imagine if he answered: “there was nothing special about this execution. After all, I wouldn’t be here to comment on it if it had been otherwise.” But this too would be so much nonsense. The question is whether we can infer from this result that each of the marksmen just happened to miss, or whether the better inference would be that missing was “designed,” that the marksmen were following a plan to miss.
Following the evidence where it leads should cause skeptics to question their deeply held beliefs. But if they do, the odds are in their favor that they will eventually find the truth – the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned to support life because it was designed that way.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
God’s Crime Scene: The Case for God’s Existence from the Appearance of Design (mp4 Download Set) by J. Warner Wallace
What is God Like? Look to the Heavens by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek
God’s Crime Scene: Cold-Case…Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (Paperback), (Mp4 Download), and (DVD Set) by J. Warner Wallace
God’s Crime Scene: The Case for God’s Existence from the Appearance of Design in Biology DVD Set by J. Warner Wallace
Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he continues to work. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.
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One of the most common concerns about Christianity is its claim of exclusivity. In today’s world, it is considered evil to not be inclusive of everyone and everything. To show such intolerance is the epitome of arrogance. Many people use the presence of such intolerance and arrogance as a defeater for Christianity, meaning that they reject its truth claims because along with those truth claims comes the claim to be the exclusive way to God. There are a few things to consider when examining this challenge, though.
Arrogance is a characteristic of a person not a claim.
The first thing to consider is that the character of a presenter has no bearings on the truth of the claim he or she is making. The claim is either true or false, and that must be judged based upon how that claim matches up against the evidence provided by reality. A person can be arrogant, but their claim cannot. We must be able to separate a person’s claim from their character and test each accordingly. A person’s claims need to be tested against reality, and a person’s character needs to be tested against an objective standard of morality (impossible, if God does not exist, by the way).
A person can make false claims and be arrogant. They can make false claims and be humble. They can make true claims and be humble, and they can even make true claims and be arrogant. A person’s character can, indeed, be a powerful distraction, but we want to reject the false claims regardless of the person’s character, and we want to accept the true claims regardless of their character. So we must focus on testing the claim. We should allow our minds to accept what is true because it accurately reflects reality, and we should allow our minds to reject what is false because it does not accurately reflect reality.
Arrogance is mistakenly confused with falsehood.
The second thing to consider is that this challenge tends to come from an assumption that is not often at the forefront: that multiple ways to God do, in fact, exist. If multiple ways to God exist, then to claim that the other ways do not get to God would not necessarily be arrogant (see above), but they would definitely be false. In the context of multiple ways to God, then it could be accurately said that the Christian is making a false claim.
But, Christianity does not grant that multiple ways to God exist. And if Christianity accurately reflects reality, then multiple ways to God do not exist. Since it can be evidentially demonstrated that Christianity accurately reflects reality, then by necessary implication, reality does not permit multiple ways to God. This is not an arrogant claim; it is simply a true claim. A true claim that is true for everybody even if nobody believes it, regardless of the character of those who claim it.
Arrogant Christians exist and humble Christians exist. Some Christians can and do present the exclusivity of our worldview in an arrogant way, but if their character is too much of an emotional distraction, look for a Christian who will present the evidence humbly. Do not let a Christian’s obnoxious attitude deter your search for truth.
The distraction of an arrogant Christian could be a cover for our own arrogance.
The third thing to consider is that perhaps it is not the arrogance of the Christian or the alleged arrogance of the Christian worldview that is the distraction from investigating the claims of Christianity. Perhaps it is the arrogance of the person raising the challenge that is preventing them from being committed to truth. If we are arrogant in our rejection of God’s one option, then we will gladly use a Christian’s arrogant presentation of that one option as an excuse to reject that one option. Our rejection of the Christian’s claim based on their arrogance serves to distract ourselves and others from our own arrogance. However, if we are humble and committed to discovering the truth no matter the cost, then even a Christian’s arrogance will not prevent us from investigating their claims despite their character flaw.
God is neither intolerant nor arrogant for providing a way to Him.
A fourth thing to consider is that there is a problem with humans in general that undergirds this challenge: no matter how many options we have, we always want more. If God had given us ten ways to Him, we’d want eleven; if He’d given us one million ways, we’d demand one million and one. This is evident by the continuous invention of new religions throughout history. New religions wouldn’t be concocted if the available options were satisfactory to us. So, I am inclined to think that no matter what option was provided to a person who makes this complaint, it would never satisfy them. At that point they may then complain that God has made Himself impossible to reach, when the truth is that they have made God impossible to reach by not being satisfied with the options provided.
Conclusion
When a person raises this challenge, they need to consider the real possibility that they are not concerned with restoring a relationship with their Creator for eternity, but that they are concerned with their own desires for the few decades of this life only, many of which are likely contradictory to God’s moral nature. If a person is most concerned with restoring their relationship with God for eternity, they will gladly do so on God’s terms even if those terms do not align with their own short-sighted desires. It is only necessary that God provides one option for those who truly seek Him because that one option will be sufficient and embraced no matter the cost to a few short decades in this imperfect world. If God did not provide any way to Him, that would be intolerant and arrogant.
However, He has provided one way to Him: Jesus Christ. The facts that one way is available and that we can choose to accept it or reject it means that God has given us two options. It is time for us to deny ourselves (including any possible arrogance that we have), take up our cross and follow Christ- we must surrender our desires to the commitment to truth.
We are blessed that a way of restoration to God has been provided, even if there is only one way, there is still a way. This way is available to all who wish to be humble and not arrogant (the very claim they are complaining about) and accept their brokenness and the way that was provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If you are willing to judge the claims of Christianity by how its claims are supported by the evidence that is provided by our world, I encourage you to start with this post: Did The Historical Jesus Rise From The Dead? Be sure to check the links below to several scholars who have researched the evidence.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
How Can Jesus Be the Only Way? (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek
Cold Case Resurrection Set by J. Warner Wallace (books)
Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.
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I cannot help but think that a large majority of American citizens are very, very concerned about the current state of our union.
The increasing hostility and political protests that have roiled our society for the past few years seem to be reaching a crescendo in the events that have unfolded in the aftermath of an extremely acrimonious election cycle in which there seemed to be little common ground. Many people have blamed President Trump for this increasing level of incivility, but he was more a symptom and a product of the dissatisfaction and unrest of many citizens rather than its progenitor.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2020, numerous people were quoting the late, great Martin Luther King Jr., who had sought in 1967 to explain the phenomenon of “riots” without condoning them, observing that “A riot is the language of the unheard.” The left was quick to seize upon this explanation as a reason for the violent protests that wracked many of our cities in the summer and early fall of 2020. Mr. Trump, the first president to be elected without any prior political service, or alternatively just having won a war (generals Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower), was obviously a political phenomenon produced by a significant segment of the American population between the two coasts who felt “unheard” in their frustrations in being victimized by globalization and the consequent disappearance of their livelihoods.
How else do you explain a Donald Trump? Like most political observers, I would have said what Trump did in going straight to the White House in his first political campaign could not have been done – until he did it.
Unprecedented reaction to his victory in 2016, with significant segments of our media and political culture, never accepting the legitimacy of his victory, stating “He will never be my president,” and calling for his impeachment within hours of his taking the oath of office. It helped raise the temperature and rancor of political discussions at an alarming rate.
Now we find ourselves in the position where many Americans feel disenfranchised by President-elect Biden’s victory and the censoring of political speech by the High Tech Cartel (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.). Once again, I would not have believed such a denial of the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech until it occurred. Evidently, these vastly powerful entities have been so consumed by their hostility to President Trump they do not see what they are doing. How else do you explain Twitter condemning precisely the same behavior in a foreign country (Uganda), stating,
“We strongly condemn internet shutdowns – they are hugely harmful, violate basic human rights and the principles of #openinternet.” They further observed that “access to information and freedom of expression, including the public conversation on Twitter is never more important than during domestic processes, particularly elections.” I could not agree more. It’s true in Uganda, and it’s true in the USA, too.
And now, we’ve been treated to the spectacle of the U.S. House “impeaching” the president less than a week before he leaves office, with the earliest the Senate could take up the case being 1:00 pm on January 20, 2021, when Mr. Trump will have already been replaced by then-President Biden. This makes a mockery of the intended constitutional purpose of impeachment, which is to remove a sitting president, and reminds me of nothing quite so much as the British royalists who returned to power in 1660 disinterring Oliver Cromwell’s corpse from Westminster Abbey, where he had been buried in 1658, so they could hang his corpse in chains and then decapitate him. Cromwell’s head was displayed on a poll outside Westminster Hall until 1685.
It is well past time for all Americans of the goodwill of all political persuasions to listen to our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who in his first inaugural address in 1861 closed with this eloquent plea for Americans to turn aside from secession and looming civil war:
“I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The multiple chords of memory stretching from battle-field and patriot grave, every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, and by the better angels of our nature.”
Tragically, too many of our ancestors chose not to heed Lincoln’s urgent plea, and the entire nation reaped the whirlwind of a bloody civil war that ripped the country asunder and cost approximately 750,000 war dead (J. David Hacker) North and South and multitudes of widows and orphans in their wake. Let us all hope and pray that we heed the warnings and listen to the “better angels of our nature” this time.
In closing, I want to reference a powerful novel, Word of Honor, written by Nelson DeMille and published in 1980. Word of Honor is the semiautobiographical novel of a man who served as an infantry platoon lieutenant in the Battle of Hue in 1968 in a similar time of national division and recrimination in our country. Anyone who lived through that year remembers it well. Although the preacher parts of me are offended by some of the passages, it is a riveting read. The lieutenant is on trial in 1980 for his platoon, having purportedly committed war crimes in Vietnam. When he recounts to his attorney what actually happened, his attorney replies, “What else? Steal chickens, too?” The lieutenant replied,
“As a matter of fact, they were not bad. Not in the beginning. But you can only log so many miles on a man and imprint so many obscenities on his brain before he begins to malfunction.”
I am fearful that too many of us are heedlessly imprinting the equivalent of obscenities on our fellow citizens and on our society – which is a living, breathing thing – and it is beginning to malfunction.
It is the duty of every American to do everything we can to stop it before it imperils our country.
Richard Land, D. Phil, President of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, Professor of Theology (A.B., 1969; Th.M., 1972; D.Phil., 1980; Honorary D.D., 2009). Prior to becoming the Southern Evangelical Seminary president in 2013, Richard Land served as the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Currently, he serves as the Executive Editor of The Christian Post. Dr. Richard Land is a well-respected commentator on issues related to religion, politics, history, and culture and has appeared in thousands of media interviews in most major media outlets over the course of his career.
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Critics of Christianity like to suggest that a crucified victim like Jesus never would have received a proper burial. They point to cases where the Romans left victims on the cross for days while birds ate away at their flesh to serve as a reminder to everyone who walked by not mess with Rome. What’s more, the Romans usually tossed the remains into a common grave. The theory goes, in no case would Rome give permission for a crucified victim to receive a proper burial.
It’s no secret that crucifixion was a horrendous experience. It was so terrible, that ancients made up a new word to describe the agony of crucifixion — excruciating. Furthermore, Rome only crucified non-Romans guilty of the worst of crimes. When you consider this, it seems plausible that the Romans would have forbidden Jesus’ burial in a tomb. But just because something is plausible doesn’t mean that’s what actually happened.
Let me illustrate my point. A few years ago, the U.S. Navy Seals carried out a secret mission to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden. It’s standard procedure for United States special forces to capture the enemy and bring them back to a high security prison for interrogation. In this instance, however, they killed Bin Laden on the spot and dumped his body in the ocean. Now let me ask you this: Should future Americans one hundred years from now be skeptical that the U.S. Navy Seals killed Bin Laden since it was implausible — not an ordinary occurrence? No, of course not, because history is filled with implausible events.
Politics and Jewish Customs
So is it inconceivable that Jesus received a proper burial in a tomb? I don’t think so for a few of reasons. First, Pontius Pilate was a politician who wanted to keep his post. As the Roman governor, it was his responsibility to keep the peace in the region — the Pax Romana. Thus, it was in Pilate’s best interest to cooperate with the Jewish leadership and be considerate of their customs lest he instigate the masses. Jewish historian Josephus writes that emperor Tiberius had previously chastised Pilate for being insensitive to the Jewish culture when he placed pagan symbols inside the temple. This act, of course, led to a mob, which ultimately subsided when Pilate removed the artifacts. Pilate was down to his final strike; therefore, he had extra motivation to cooperate with Jewish leadership.
Now John’s gospel tells us why the Jews wanted to take Jesus’ body down from the cross instead of leaving it up indefinitely. We read in John 19:31, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.” In other words, Pilate needed to honor the Sabbath, and the text indicates that he did just that — although the soldiers didn’t need to break Jesus’ legs. Remember, Emperor Tiberius had already rebuked him once. Pilate needed to navigate this situation carefully.
Archeological Evidence
Second, we have archeological evidence that Pilate allowed crucified victims to receive a proper burial. Before I disclose what that evidence is, let me first describe ancient Jewish burial practices. When a Jewish loved one died, they were wrapped in a cloth, adorned with perfumes and spices, and placed in a tomb. After one year, the family members would return to the tomb to collect the bones of their deceased relative and place them in a smaller box called an ossuary. This allowed for more space in the tombs so that all the deceased family members could be near each other.
Amazingly, in 1968, archaeologists discovered an ossuary of a Jewish man named Yehohanan in the north-eastern quadrant of Jerusalem. This young man noticeably had been crucified. I say noticeably, because a six-inch iron spike was still attached to his heel bone with wood fragments from a cross still attached to the spike (see image above). Experts date the bones to the late 20’s — less than a decade before Jesus’ death and still during Pilate’s rule1. Here is evidence that Pilate permitted Jewish crucifixion victims to receive a proper burial. It seems, then, that Jesus’ burial in a tomb isn’t without precedent.
Joseph Of Arimathea
Third, each of the Gospel writers indicate that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus’ body in his tomb. This meets the criteria of multiple attestation which states that if multiple, independent sources report an event, it’s more probable that it happened.
More than that, it also meets the criteria of embarrassment because it makes a Jewish council member look more compassionate than Jesus’ disciples. If the gospel writers lied, why would they go out of their way to make themselves look bad? To be sure, they indicate that Joseph was a believer, but why give credit to a member of the council that was responsible for most Christianity’s early persecution? It’s hard to imagine that the early Christians wanted to give credit to the Jewish leaders for anything.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to credit a prominent member of Jewish society whom everyone knew and could be talked to — someone who could debunk the story if it was false. If the disciples lied about the story, it would have been more prudent to give themselves credit for the burial or invent a character that no one could question. The only reason, therefore, the early Christians had for giving credit to Joseph of Arimathea is that he must have, in fact, buried Jesus in his tomb.
Was Jesus Buried in A Tomb?
On the surface, the claim that Jesus wouldn’t have received a proper burial sounds compelling. Yet, when you dig a little deeper and understand more of the context, Jesus’ burial in a tomb makes the most sense of all the data. Therefore, I think we can confidently say that Jesus’ burial is not fake news.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)
Cold Case Resurrection Set by J. Warner Wallace (books)
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity – Episode 14 Video DOWNLOAD by Frank Turek (DVD)
The Footsteps of the Apostle Paul (mp4 Download), (DVD) by Dr. Frank Turek
Ryan Leasure holds a Master of Arts from Furman University and a Masters of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Currently, he’s a Doctor of Ministry candidate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.
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One of the most challenging objections to the existence of God is the problem of divine hiddenness. Closely related to the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness asks “Where is God?”; “Why doesn’t God make His existence more obvious?”; “Why does God leave any room for doubt?” Surely God, if He existed, would not need apologists to make the case for His existence — couldn’t He have made it more immediately apparent? Related to these concerns is the problem of unanswered prayer. Why do so many peoples’ prayers go unanswered, often despite years of persistent prayer? The problem is even connected to the problem of evil, since one may ask why God apparently fails to show up to put an end to evil and unjust suffering in our world. These are indeed difficult questions that deserve to be taken seriously and thoughtfully considered.
The Biblical authors also recognized and grappled with divine hiddenness. For example, the Psalmist asked “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps 10:1). Another Psalm likewise says “Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground. Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Ps 44:23-26). One could continue in a similar vein for some time. The problem of divine hiddenness is, in my judgment, one of the best arguments against the existence of God. It has its most articulate and erudite defense, to my knowledge, in the work of Canadian philosopher John L. Schellenberg (see his book The Hiddenness Argument — Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God).[1]
The problem is particularly difficult on an emotional level. Schellenberg draws the analogy of a friend describing his parents: “Wow, are they ever great — I wish everyone could have parents like mine, who are so wonderfully loving! Granted, they don’t want anything to do with me. They’ve never been around. Sometimes I find myself looking for them — once, I have to admit, I even called out for them when I was sick — but to no avail. Apparently they aren’t open to being in a relationship with me — at least not yet. But it’s so good that they love me as much and as beautifully as they do!”[2] This analogy should give a sense of the impact of this argument, rhetorically and emotionally.
While it may be admitted that the argument from divine hiddenness is one of the most perplexing issues for the theist to come to terms with, especially emotionally, the real question that needs to be addressed is that of whether it offers sufficient ground to overhaul the powerful cumulative positive reasons to believe that God exists and that He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. I will argue in this article that the answer is ‘no’.
A Lack of Obviousness Does Not Mean Poor Evidential Support
Why does God not make His existence more obvious? The first point I will make in response to this question is that God’s existence not being obvious does not entail that it is not well evidentially supported. We know from physics, for example, that a physical object like a table or a chair is comprised of mostly empty space. This is not at all obvious (in fact it would seem to be almost obvious that it is not the case) and yet we have good evidential support that it is so. One may reply that whereas we know scientifically that the chair is mostly comprised of empty space, we nonetheless still live our lives as if though it is not — our day-to-day choices and beliefs are not based on how we scientifically understand things to be, but how we experience them in our daily lives. However, I can think of counter-examples where we do act against what we feel in accord with the available evidence, even when we are putting our lives on the line. For example, despite being a frequent flyer, I get anxious about being on an airplane. Even though I know rationally that flying is the safest way to travel (statistically, your odds of being involved in a fatal plane crash are less than 1 in 12 million), flying – especially in turbulent conditions – just doesn’t feel like it is safe to me. Nevertheless, I frequently overcome my fear of flying by stepping onto an airplane, often for very long distances. In that case, I am literally committing my life to what my rational faculties tell me, and disregarding what my emotions and feelings tell me, because I know that generally my rational faculties are a more reliable gauge of what is actually true than my feelings.
Someone recently asked me why God cannot be more like the force of gravity, which we experience directly. However, while we do have direct experience of the effects of gravity, it is not immediately obvious what causes things to gravitate towards the ground. The law of gravity was not articulated before Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Indeed, in attempting to explain why unsupported bodies fall to the ground, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle put forward the idea that objects simply moved towards their ‘natural place’, the center of the earth (which in Aristotle’s cosmology was the center of the Universe), and that objects fall at a speed proportional to their weight. So perhaps gravity is less ‘obvious’ than one might think (though something which nonetheless enjoys strong evidential support). I would argue that the evidence of God is all around us, so we do in a sense experience God in a similar way to how we experience gravity. Just as we observe the effects that gravity has all around us but do not see the gravitational force that actually causes those effects, we also see the many things that God has made all around us, even though we do not see the being who actually caused those things to exist.
One may still object here that it should not take us a lot of work to discover that Christianity is true. Rather, the truth of the gospel, granting what is at stake, should be readily apparent. I shall return to this objection in due course. However, I will note here that I do not think God requires more than it is reasonable for a serious enquirer to give to an issue of this much importance. Some enquirers are better placed than others, and God looks for us to exert ourselves according to the light we have been given. I have heard, for instance, many stories of Jesus revealing Himself to people in dreams and visions in Muslim-majority countries, presumably since those are parts of the world where it is harder for people to otherwise hear the gospel. In the west, we have ample access to the gospel and to the tools needed to do our due diligence in investigating its claims.
I think we have to trust the goodness of God, since presumably God, in his omniscience, knows what every person would have done had they had more evidence — i.e. whether they would have chosen to enter into a relationship with God or to reject Him. We know from plenty of Biblical examples that not everyone who is presented with conclusive evidence for God (whether by miracles, predictive prophecies, or direct manifestations) submits to Him. If God knows that a given individual is not going to enter into a good, lasting relationship with Him, then why would God ensure the person believes? Furthermore, Scripture also indicates that people are judged in accordance with the amount of light they have rejected (e.g. Mt 11:21-22; Jn 12:47-48). Even many contemporary public atheists have essentially said that no amount of evidence could change their mind. For example, Richard Dawkins was asked in a conversation with Peter Boghossian what it would take for him to believe in God. Dawkins said that not even the second coming would be enough evidence. When Boghossian asked him whether any amount of evidence could change his mind. He replied, “Well, I’m starting to think nothing would, which, in a way, goes against the grain, because I’ve always paid lip service to the view that a scientist should change his mind when evidence is forthcoming.” It could, therefore, be seen as an act of mercy for God to withhold from them more evidence if they were going to reject it anyway and thereby bring upon themselves greater judgment. This adds yet further plausible motivation for God not to ensure that everyone had greater access to evidence for His existence, which would thereby render them more culpable. This point has been independently made by Travis Dumsday in a paper in the journal Religious Studies.[3]
This last point may be challenged by the skeptic by pointing to the existence of non-resistant non-believers. As Schellenberg puts it, “If there exists a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then no finite person is ever nonresistantly in a state of nonbelief in relation to the proposition that God exists.”[4] However, I would contest that there is such a thing as long-term non-resistant nonbelief. My own view is that the evidence for Christianity is such that anyone who is fully informed and takes it upon himself to impartially examine it — with a heart open toward accepting God as Lord — will, in the long term, come to find Christianity to be true and well supported. In any case, human psychology, particularly at the subconscious level, is so complex that I doubt that it is demonstrable that any nonbeliever is completely nonresistant.
Couldn’t God Have Given Us Stronger Evidence?
A related objection is that it is possible for the evidence for Christianity to have been stronger than it in fact is. Surely, if God existed, He would have given us the strongest possible evidence. However, I do not think that we need expect something that goes beyond perfectly adequate evidence for the serious inquirer. Many atheists are under the mistaken impression that God wants people to believe in Him no matter what they are going to go on and do with that knowledge. It is never contended anywhere in Scripture that it is a commendable thing to believe in God yet reject a relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, the Jews had no doubt that God existed – they had seen many miracles performed before their eyes – and yet they went off time and again into idolatry. Even those who saw Jesus’ miracles before their very eyes didn’t believe in Him (e.g. John 12:37) and wanted to put Him to death – e.g. see the reaction of many after Jesus raised Lazarus (John 11:45-53). The eighteenth century lawyer and Christian thinker Joseph Butler (1692-1752), in his Analogy of Religion, put forward the idea that our time on earth is a period of probation.[5] For some people in particular the form that that probation may take is a form of testing whether they are willing to engage in the intellectual inquiry that is necessary to give themselves a fair examination of the evidence.
An objection I sometimes encounter is that, if God exists, then there should not be any reasonable arguments against His existence at all. However, this complaint, it seems to me, boils down essentially to the dubious claim that, if Christianity is true, there cannot be any puzzles that require mental effort to work out. Another point to bear in mind is that many people are not even presented with these as puzzles that seriously compromise the evidence that they already have. For some people, working through the problem of evil is part of their probation here in this life. And if they are diligent, they will work through it. Even if they cannot find adequate and satisfying answers to why there exists so much suffering in the world, they can learn to trust in the goodness of God, and find in the problem of evil insufficient ground to overturn the positive confirmatory case for Biblical theism. Either they will find adequate answers, or they will find enough positive evidence to make the fact of their inability to find those answers not, in the end, sufficient to undermine their faith.
Why Does God Require of Us So Much Work?
I often hear the objection that in order to really be compelled by the evidence for Christianity, one has to take a very deep dive into esoteric scholarship. Surely, if God were real, the truth of the gospel should be a lot more self-evident. Indeed, this is actually also an objection to my epistemology that I frequently encounter from some Christians as well – namely, that my hard line evidentialism implies that Christians cannot be rational in believing the gospel unless they become an academic and invest hundreds of hours in the study of the evidences for Christianity. Since not everyone has the aptitude and access to resources necessary to undertake such deep study, so the objection goes, this cannot be God’s normative way of imparting rational confidence to believers that the gospel they have entrusted is indeed true.
However, I want to be careful here to draw a distinction between what I call an explicit rational warrant and what can be called an implicit, or tacit, rational warrant for Christian faith. Every Christian, I would argue, can have at least an implicit rational warrant for believing that God exists and that He has revealed Himself in the Bible. Romans 1:20 teaches that God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” The Greek word translated “without excuse” in this verse is ἀναπολογήτους (literally, “without an apologetic”). Furthermore, the Psalmist wrote that “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” (Ps 19:1). I do not think the Scriptures are envisaging people having to do PhDs in astrophysics or molecular biology, or master probability theory, in order to see the hand of God revealed in nature. Every time we step outdoors and behold the things that God has made – especially living organisms – we intuit that things have been made for a purpose, even if we couldn’t explicitly express why that is the case. Indeed, throughout history, the vast majority of people who have lived have been theists.
This implicit or inarticulate sense of the case for theism explains, I think, why some people come to believe that there must be a God when they hold their newborn child in their arms for the first time – they see the incredible design and elegance that is inherent in the process of development from a fertilized egg to a new born infant. They recognize, even if only implicitly and intuitively, that this is a process that required a high level of foresight to bring about – since it involved a high-level objective – which points to the involvement of a conscious mind in the programming of developmental pathways.
Those with an implicit rational warrant for belief in God may not be able to hold their own in a debate with a learned atheist scholar. This is why we hear so many ill-formulated attempted arguments for God that are along the right lines but not sufficiently nuanced to pass for sound argumentation. But I would argue that they nonetheless have sufficient rational warrant for their belief that God exists. Over time, as a believer matures, I would argue that the rational warrant for belief that was in the first place implicit should become more and more explicit and articulate.
In fact, even a biologist as staunchly atheistic as Francis Crick (co-discoverer with James Watson of the double-helical structure of DNA) said that “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved,”[6] Richard Dawkins similarly said at the beginning of The Blind Watchmaker that “Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose,”[7] Dawkins then spends the remainder of the book trying to argue, in my opinion unsuccessfully, that this design is not real but only apparent.
People also have a moral compass and have an implicit sense that there are objective moral norms and duties in the world – something which makes much better sense if theism is true than if atheism were true. Besides general revelation (i.e. what may be known about God from the created Universe), this sense of objective moral norms and duties also provides people with an additional witness, even if only implicit, to the existence of God.
People can have a similarly implicit rational warrant for believing that God has revealed Himself in the Bible. This is not something that you need a PhD in Biblical Studies to discover. I think for many believers they read through the Bible and encounter the cumulative force of various prophetic passages like Isaiah 53, recognizing Jesus in them. They might not be able to express the argument explicitly enough to debate a learned Rabbi. But they nonetheless, I would argue, have an implicit rational warrant. Likewise, they might read through the New Testament accounts and perceive implicitly some of the hallmarks of verisimilitude, such as the criterion of embarrassment, or unexplained allusions, or undesigned coincidences. They might begin to recognize the evidential value of the testimonial evidence we have in the New Testament in regard to events such as the resurrection. Many of those categories of evidence are actually not at all hard to grasp and may be perceived through common sense.
This is what, I suspect, many Christians in fact are talking about when they say that they just know that Christianity is true. I think often-times Christians can confuse an implicit rational warrant for belief in Scripture (which is based on evidence) with some sort of mystical inner-witness that Christianity is true. For example, one may have an inarticulate sense of the power of the whole case for Christianity without realizing that it is, in fact, a rational response to a cumulative case argument.
So, where am I going with this? I would argue that discovering evidence for God is not actually that hard. Rather, it has been made artificially hard by bad scholarship and poor standards that insist that the simplest answer cannot actually be the correct answer. This is true in science as well as Biblical scholarship. A lot of the ink spilled on these issues, therefore, is ink spent answering really bad arguments that should never have gotten traction to begin with but, because they provided an excuse for unbelief, they have become widely accepted and highly esteemed, even among academics who should know better.
Where is God?
A common objection to God’s existence is that, if the God of Scripture exists, then He would be reasonably expected to still be working in the world today. The skeptic reasons, then, that the failure to observe God working in a tangible and detectable way in the world today should be taken as not merely evidence against Christianity but, more than that, as a defeater of any evidence that may be offered from ancient documents. I wonder though what sort of evidence the skeptic would accept as sufficient reason to think that God is still working in the world in a tangible way. Would it need to be a direct personal experience, or would he or she accept reliable testimony from others that they had the sort of direct personal encounter that he or she is seeking for?
Testimony, popular atheist protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, is a valid form of evidence. When any person makes a claim to have witnessed an event, there are three – and only three – categories of explanation for that claim. Those are (a) they deliberately set out to deceive; (b) they were honestly mistaken; and (c) their claim was actually correct. I think those broad categories of explanation are mutually exhaustive (though I can imagine some situations in which they might be at work in combination). As either one of the two former claims becomes less plausible as a result of the evidence one adduces, this leads to a necessary redistribution of the probabilities, leading to option (c) becoming more probable than it was previously. This, then, provides evidence confirming scenario (c). The greater the extent to which options (a) and (b), in any given case, are disconfirmed by the evidence, the greater support is enjoyed by option (c). This method can be applied to modern claims just as well as it can be applied to ancient ones. An individual’s track record of habitual trustworthiness and reliability can count as evidence against the hypothesis that they were deliberately setting out to deceive. The plausibility of the hypothesis that they are honestly mistaken will depend on the particulars of the case.
I am not talking here about testimonies of healing that are easy to explain by some kind of sensory illusion or sleight of hand, or that plausibly would have gotten better anyway. I am talking about cases that seem to defy naturalistic explanation. Dr. Craig Keener has compiled a two volume set on claims of such miraculous occurrences.[8] To take one example, he discusses a friend of his, Leo Bawa, the former director of research at Capro, a prominent Nigerian missions movement. One intriguing miracle (of several) that he told Dr. Keener about is that “among some tribes in Adamawa and Taraba State, I had instances where no interpreter was available and the Lord gave me understanding and ability to speak the people’s languages, a feat I never performed before or since after that incident.”[9] Keener notes that “Other accounts of this phenomenon exist, though many of these are secondhand”[10]. In a footnote, Dr. Keener elaborates[11],
“I have direct accounts in which others recognized the languages from Dr. Derek Morphew (Nov. 12, 2007); Pastor David Workman (Nov. 12, 2007); Pastor David Workman (April 30, 2008); Dr. Medine Moussounga Keener (Aug. 12, 2009, secondhand about Pastor Daniel Ndoundou); my student Leah Macinskas-Le (April 25, 2010, regarding her Jewish mother becoming a believer in Jesus because she understood the Hebrew prayer of an uneducated pastor’s prayer in tongues); Del Tarr, personal correspondence, Sept. 30, 2010 (noting three cases he has witnessed, including a recent one involving Korean; cf. also Oct. 5, 6, 2010).”
I have heard about this sort of phenomenon from others as well, and it does not seem to be the type of thing that could be explained naturalistically. I trust Dr. Keener and I presume that he trusts his sources since these are personal contacts of his (the fact that the phenomenon is multiply attested helps as well). So, it seems unlikely in these cases that Keener’s sources are all lying to him, and these also seem to be phenomena about which it would be quite hard to be honestly wrong.
Now, one might object at this point that in this case the testimony is coming from someone whom they do not know personally. With public figures such as Dr. Craig Keener, though, one can, to a certain degree, evaluate whether this is someone who is likely to make stuff up. This is true especially of high-profile scholars such as Dr. Keener since one can get a sense, through careful reading of their academic work, whether they are careful and reliable in their reportage of information. Dr. Michael Brown (another public figure and Biblical scholar) has also told me (on public record) about similar events to those described above, both that he was a witness to and testimonies of friends of his (including one individual, who was a cessationist and therefore not predisposed already to believe in miraculous events, who reported the incident to Dr. Brown in shock). The fact that this sort of occurrence is multiply attested by different credible sources leads me to think that something miraculous is indeed going on here. I chose this particular category of miracle claim as an illustrative example since this is one type of phenomenon that seems to defy naturalistic explanation and also seems to be something that it would be very difficult to be honestly wrong about having witnessed.
There are also accounts from sober-minded people whom I trust of radical experiences of the presence of God (e.g. see this one from Paul Washer).
My question, then, to the skeptic is, as I said above, is the only type of evidence that may be admitted for God acting in the world today a direct personal encounter, or would one be prepared to accept testimonial evidence from other people? If one is only prepared to accept a direct personal encounter but not testimonial evidence, I would argue that that is not a rational approach. On the other hand, if one is willing to accept testimonial evidence that such encounters do indeed exist, then I would ask what the qualitative difference is between the testimonial evidence that is available in the present day and that which is present in the 2000 year old documents we know as the New Testament. Presumably the same principles of evaluation would pertain to those.
What About Unanswered Prayer?
As for unanswered prayer, this is a recurring thing that comes up in my conversations with ex-Christians – that is, that answered prayers do not seem to be distinguishable from chance and the act of prayer often feels like talking to the wall or the ceiling. This feeling during prayer is something I can relate to myself experientially, so it is not simply a theoretical issue for me. If Christianity is true, however, this entails that prayer is legit. Our belief in prayer should not be predicated on our evaluation of our feelings while praying or on our later examination of the result of prayer. To do this is not to evaluate prayer in a manner consistent with what Scripture teaches us concerning prayer. Nowhere in Scripture are we promised that prayer will be accompanied by an internal sense of being heard. Rather, prayer is supposed to be accompanied by a conviction that our prayers are heard in Christ, since it is through Him that we have access to God.
We are also not in a position to determine whether something is providentially caused by God or not. The Biblical view is not to look around for obviously miraculous causes and give God credit for those only, while presuming non-miraculous events would have happened anyway. Rather, we should view God as sovereign and credit Him with providential control over all things. So greatly has a twenty-first century naturalistic bias permeated our thinking that we in fact often fail to give God sufficient credit for His daily providence.
Prayer, then, should not be evaluated on the basis of a mystical sensation of being heard, or our impression of miraculous divine action in response to prayer. To do so is to judge prayer by a criterion which we were never given by God. How, then, should we evaluate the validity of prayer? We should evaluate it by the validity of the work of Christ and our faith in Him. If we are trusting in Christ then we have true and valid prayer. There is more that can be said, of course, about limiting our appreciation of prayer to when God says “yes” to a request, but my point here is simply that evaluating prayer by these standards is a problem from the start. Our belief in prayer stems from our beliefs in Christ and the two should never be separated. If we believe in Christ because of the evidence for His resurrection, then we are being inconsistent to fail to believe in prayer.
Another thing I will say about prayer is that there is, I think, what I would call an epistemic asymmetry when it comes to prayer. An epistemic asymmetry is where making an observation might be strong confirmatory evidence for your hypothesis but not making that observation is only weak, or even negligible, evidence against it. To take an illustration, imagine I see a spider crawling along my desk as I sit here and type this article. That would be excellent evidence for the hypothesis that, somewhere in my apartment, there is a spider. But suppose I do not see a spider in front of me. That is only very weak, even negligible evidence, that there is no spider in my apartment (since there are many other places where a spider might be). That is an example of what I call epistemic asymmetry.
So, how does this relate to prayer? I would argue that specific answers to prayer are relatively strong confirmatory evidence but apparently unanswered prayer is only comparatively weak disconfirmatory evidence. The reason for this is that there could be many explanations for why your prayer went unanswered. Perhaps God, in his omniscience, said ‘no’ because He knows (better than you do) that what you asked for is not good for you. Or perhaps there is unconfessed sin in your life. Both the Old and New Testaments teach that sin can hinder our prayer life. For example, Proverbs 28:9 says, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.” 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.” There could thus be any number of reasons why your prayer was not answered and it is not necessarily particularly improbable that, if Christianity is true, many of your prayers will not be answered in the way that you desired. We have plenty of Biblical examples of prayers going unanswered. David’s prayer for the life of his illegitimate child by Bathsheba was unanswered (or answered negatively, depending on how you prefer to classify it). The same is true of Jesus’ prayer that the cup might pass from him in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the latter example, Jesus’ prayer included the qualifier “If it is possible…” And the answer was, “No, that can’t happen.” It would probably be classified as the most spectacular unanswered prayer of all time by the atheists, except for what happens afterward with Jesus being raised from the dead.
The answered prayers, on the other hand, depending on their level of specificity, can in principle be relatively strong confirmatory evidence for Christianity. Even if you cannot point to specific examples in your own life, there are writings by other people that would potentially document such examples (presuming them to be accurately reported). For example, George Müller (1805-1898) was a Christian evangelist and the director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. There was a time when the orphanage at Bristol had run out of bread and milk.[12] Müller was on his knees praying for food when a baker knocked on the door to say that he had been unable to sleep that night, and somehow knew that Müller would need bread that morning. Shortly after, a truck carrying milk broke down, directly in front of the orphanage door. There was no refrigeration. The driver begged Müller to take the milk, which would go bad if it were not consumed. It was just enough for the 300 children in the orphanage.
Conclusion
To conclude, while the problem of divine hiddenness is, on first inspection, a thorny issue, further analysis reveals it to be not as weighty a concern as it first appeared. Given the existence of plausible explanations of divine hiddenness (e.g. God’s knowledge, in His omniscience, of how different individuals will respond to the evidence of His existence), I would argue that the problem of divine hiddenness, though a complete answer eludes us, is not sufficient to overturn the extensive and varied positive confirmatory evidences of Christianity.
Footnotes
[1] John L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
[12] Roger Steer, George Müller: Delighted in God (Rosshire: Christian Focus, 1997), 131.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
What is God Really Like? A View from the Parables by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)
What is God Like? Look to the Heavens by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)
How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek
Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.
https://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Blog-2-cover-3-1030x539-1.jpg5391030Jonathan McLatchiehttps://crossexamined.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ce_logo.pngJonathan McLatchie2021-02-01 06:43:242024-11-11 10:08:17Grappling with Divine Hiddenness: Why Does God Not Make His Existence More Obvious?
