My Personal Story: A Final Response to 'Religulous'

It has been said that a person with an experience is not subject to a person with a good argument. In other words, you might have a very convincing-sounding argument that strawberries are a healthy food and should be included in the diet, for example, but that argument means very little to a person who goes into anaphylactic shock every time he or she even tastes a strawberry.

Similarly, I am a Christian not only because it makes intellectual sense to me, but moreover because I have had experiences that are beyond anyone’s ability to explain away, such as the fact that God seemed to invade my life in my late twenties when I was anything but spiritual. I was an extremely immoral person who cared for nothing but fulfilling my own selfish and fleeting desires. I was violent and brutal, dishonest, sexually deviant, and an abuser of chemical substances. But in one overwhelming moment one spring afternoon in 1992, I knelt on a bedroom chair and asked God to take control of my life, and I have never been the same since. Virtually overnight I was different, and have been in a process of radical transformation ever since.

Those who knew me prior to 1992 know that a miracle happened, because it wasn’t a near-death experience that made me take inventory of my life. It wasn’t the death of a loved one, and it wasn’t a traumatic experience of any kind. It was simply a manifestation of God reaching down and taking notice of a messed up person who He wanted to make His own.

I don’t mean that I saw lightning bolts and heard claps of thunder. I didn’t feel warm sensations all over my body. I just came to the realization over time that I was a sinner and needed a Savior, and one day I called on the God Who provided a way for my sins to be forgiven through Jesus Christ.

Since then I have experienced amazing answers to numerous prayers that can only be attributed to supernatural intervention.

Trying to convince me that Jesus and the Bible are for intellectual weaklings is like trying to penetrate the hull of a battle ship with a BB gun. I know that I know beyond all doubt that God has intervened in my life, and that belief is bolstered by the common sense of following the example and teachings of Jesus, and the scientific and historical evidence proving the veracity of the Bible and the claims of Jesus Christ.

All that aside, however, let’s say just for argument sake that Christianity is just another religion thought up by some group of religious zealots. Let’s say that there is no life after death, or that all belief systems lead to the same place….some everlasting nirvana or something. If I discovered today beyond all doubt that the Bible is all a fairy tale, I’m not sure I would live any different, because my life today is so much more blessed – radically so -- compared to my previous life, that I would never consider for a moment going back. In fact, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone I know who is not a Christian. Following the principles of the Bible have proven to me to be a smart way to live if you want to be blessed. As Jesus said, “I have come to give life, and that more abundantly” (John 10:10), and as Proverbs 10:22 says, “The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and He adds no sorrow to it.”

So why then would Bill Maher and those like him fault me for following the principles of the Bible and placing my faith in Jesus Christ? Why is that distasteful to so many people? Is it because I hold beliefs that are in opposition to their worldview? Why should that bother them? I’m not attempting to ram my beliefs down their throats, and I’ll bet that most of the Christians they know and you know are not trying to force their beliefs on anyone either.

Bill Maher and other non-Christians hold different beliefs than me, but that shouldn’t be an issue of divisiveness should it? Isn’t it the concept of tolerance that so many people today hold so dear? Do they mean tolerance toward everyone and everything except Christians? It certainly appears that way. You don’t make movies vilifying the beliefs of people who you want to be tolerant with. You vilify people who you want to portray as the scum of society. That’s what Maher has done, and sadly many non-Christian people who preach tolerance are giving Maher attaboys. Seems like an incredible hypocritical double-standard to me.

But friends, that’s the way it has always been. Christians have been vilified and persecuted in every continent on the planet for the last 2,000 years. Yet interestingly, the more the persecution, the more Christianity seems to thrive. The severest persecution seems to be like throwing gas on the fire. It just ignites a grassroots growth that nothing seems to be able to stop. If those in opposition to Christianity were smart, they would leave us alone and let us remain happy and lazily silent in our comfort and prosperity. But when the resistance gets hottest, that’s when the sleeping giant awakes.

China, for example, has the largest underground church in the world amidst a government that commonly imprisons, tortures, and executes Christians. Yet it has been reported that Christianity in China is growing faster than in any place on earth.

So go ahead. Ridicule us. Persecute us. Vilify us. Arrest us, imprison us, and execute us. It won’t stop us. We will only multiply. You may have achieved your goal of controlling the government, the media, the entertainment industry, and the schools and universities, but you cannot stamp out Christians. We are uniting. We are growing stronger. And it is your persecution, the very thing you hope will exterminate us, that is causing us to unite and grow stronger. So do your worst Bill Maher and all like him. Even if you drive us underground, you will not stop us. God’s Kingdom is advancing among people of all different backgrounds, ethnicities, and social, educational, and economic statuses across every nation on earth, and it will continue to do so.

"The Bible is Myth and Fairytale": Response to Religulous, Part 5

In continuing with our discussion on rebutting Bill Maher’s assertions on Christianity and religion in general, let’s take a look at just a few issues pertaining to the veracity of scripture.

The Bible claims to be the only inspired Word of God. But so do many other religious writings. From the Book of Mormon to the Koran, pretty much all religious writings claim to be divinely inspired. So what makes the Bible unique?

One of the most compelling evidences of the Bible’s divine origin is the fact that it contains hundreds of prophecies about future events. Consider the fact that including prophecies in a religious writing is a foolish thing to do if the person(s) compiling the writings are concerned at all about maintaining a following. If any of those prophecies ever prove to be inaccurate or false, the religious writing has just been soundly invalidated. However, not one of the prophecies ever written in the pages of the Bible have ever found to be inaccurate. Hundreds have already come true in uncanny accuracy, and more are unfolding before our eyes at this very moment.

Since my last post dealt with the Lordship of Jesus Christ, let’s visit the prophecies concerning the Messiah in order to prove the point.

The Old Testament was written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. The Old Testament contains about 300 prophecies concerning the birth, life, and death of the promised Messiah. Many of these prophecies were things that someone could never have arranged themselves. For example, someone who read that the Messiah would move from one place to another could easily go from that one place to the other and proclaim that he had fulfilled that prophecy. But many of the prophecies concerning Jesus were things that He never could have arranged, such as what town He would be born in, what family line He would be born into, the fact that He would be betrayed for a specific amount of money, the fact that none of His bones would be broken at His crucifixion, soldiers gambling for His clothes at His crucifixion, etc. In all, there were more than 300 detailed prophecies that spoke of the coming Messiah.

A few years ago a team of over 400 mathematic professors and students at Westmont College analyzed the prophecies concerning the Messiah in order to determine the mathematical probabilities of someone coming along in history who could have by chance fulfilled even six of the prophecies concerning the Messiah. They determined that it would be one chance in 10…..to the 27th power! That’s a number with 27 zeroes behind it. There’s not even a name for a number that big. Then they analyzed 48 of the prophecies concerning the Messiah, and determined that for someone in history to come along and fulfill just that many was one chance in 10 to the 157th power!!!

Now, Jesus didn’t fulfill just 6 or 48 of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. He fulfilled every single one of the over 300 prophecies down to the last detail. The odds of someone just accidentally fulfilling even 6 of those prophecies is mathematically impossible, yet Jesus fulfilled every one!

In an attempt to demonstrate the chances of that happening by accident, author Josh McDowell offers this scenario:

Imagine the state of Texas blanketed from one end to the other with a covering of silver dollars four feet high. One of those trillions and trillions of silver dollars has a distinguishing red mark on it, but no one knows where it is. Now imagine someone parachuting into the state of Texas blindfolded and picking up the silver dollar with the red mark on the first try. There’s a better chance of that happening than for someone to come along who could by random chance fulfill just six of the prophecies concerning the Messiah. Again, a careful review of history against Old Testament prophecy reveals that Jesus Christ fulfilled every one of the prophecies, more than three-hundred of them!

If there is any fairy tale here, it is the fairy tale that Jesus is just one of the many paths that lead to God and the Bible is a book of myth and folklore. Any reasonable person can see that Jesus was no ordinary man, and that the Bible is no ordinary book. The Bible is the only collection of religious writings that is clearly divinely inspired, and Jesus is the only religious leader Who is clearly divine. It is foolhardy to bet your eternal destiny on the Bible not being true and Jesus not being your only hope of salvation.

I’m not brave enough to bet against odds like that and stakes that high. Are you?

"Jesus is Simply One of the Many Ways to God": Response to "Religulous," Part 4

Josh McDowell (pictured) never intended to be a defender of the Christian faith. In fact, his goal was just the opposite. As a young man Josh considered himself an agnostic, and viewed Christianity as worthless and Christians as out of touch. But while attending Kellogg College in Michigan, he was challenged by a group of Christian students to intellectually examine the claims of Christianity. He accepted that challenge and set out to prove that Christ's claims to be God and the historical reliability of Scripture could be neither trusted nor accurately verified. The evidence he discovered, however, changed the course of his life. He discovered that the Bible was the most historically reliable document of all antiquity and that Christ's claim to be God was true. That brought him to the inescapable conclusion that Christ loved him and died to redeem him from God’s judgment against sin. Josh then trusted in Christ as the Son of God and his personal Savior.

Since then, Josh McDowell has spoken to more than ten million young people in eighty-four countries, including more than 700 university and college campuses. He has authored or coauthored more than one hundred books and workbooks with more than forty-two million in print worldwide, including his most popular works, The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, More Than a Carpenter, Beyond Belief to Convictions, and his latest release, The Da Vinci Code—A Quest for Answers.

Josh McDowell’s original attitude toward the veracity of Christ’s claims to deity and the only way to reconciliation to God was not too unlike most of today’s skeptics. The only difference is that he set out to validate his position by investigating the evidence, and when the evidence pointed him in a different direction, he did not stubbornly cling to his original opinions, but humbly called upon the Savior. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that most people who doubt Christ’s claims of being the only way to salvation base their opinions on little more than what seems reasonable to them, but they have never bothered to investigate the matter in any depth.

The Loftiest Claim Ever Made
Many people believe that Jesus never claimed to be God or claimed that He was the only way to salvation. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament, however, shows otherwise. (Stay tuned for a discussion on the reliability of scripture in a later post.) On numerous occasions, Jesus made incredible claims, such as “I and the Father are one,” “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,” and the most incredible of them all, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” It is clear that Jesus considered Himself God and to be the only way of salvation for mankind.

So what do we do with those claims? As Josh McDowell points out in his writings, you cannot say that Jesus was just a good man who meant well, or that He was a good religious teacher, if His claims about Himself were not true. Because if Jesus was NOT God as He claimed, then He was either a madman or a charlatan and cannot be trusted.

Was Jesus a Lunatic?
Perhaps Jesus’ claims to deity were the ravings of a madman. History records, however, that Jesus did not display the kind of behavior we normally associate with a madman. Even some of the most charismatic lunatics always display their insanity at some point. But Jesus always conducted himself with poise, had a commanding knowledge of scripture that even stumped the religious elite of His time, possessed incredible skills of reason that quieted his highly-educated opponents, and spent himself on behalf of the poor and needy. His recorded words have been the most quoted in human history, and have been the source of encouragement, peace, guidance, and wisdom to millions of people for more than 2,000 years.

Jesus could not have been the only way to salvation and the manifestation of God in flesh if He was a lunatic. But since the historical record rules out that possibility, we have to consider the next possibility.

Was Jesus a Charlatan?
There have been no shortage of pied-pipers leading unsuspecting followers to do their bidding for all manner of selfish and perverted motives. Many of these have been religious leaders who pervert the teachings of scripture for their own purposes. If Jesus was not the only way to salvation as He claimed, and if he was also not a madman, then that leaves only one other possibility. He must have been a lying charlatan.

The fact that Christ spent his entire ministry caring for the poor, ministering to the outcasts, and teaching His followers to love others even at their own expense, is evidence of the fact that His motives were not selfish ones. But for further proof in determining whether or not Jesus was a charlatan, we have to look no further than the testimony of his disciples. Having followed Jesus closely for more than three years, they were in the position to know whether or not Jesus was on the level or not. Yet all but one of those disciples were put to gruesome and torturous deaths for their testimonies about Christ. They were willing to face being boiled in oil, beat to death with clubs, skinned alive, sawed in two, and crucified upside-down on a Roman cross rather than to recant their testimonies. If the claims of Jesus were not true, the disciples were in a position to know it, and they would have never allowed themselves to be put to barbaric deaths for what they knew to be a lie. Many people are willing to die for a cause as long as they are convinced their convictions are true, but no one willingly dies for a lie. The disciples were obviously convinced that what they believed about Jesus was true.

Perhaps, however, the disciples were thoroughly brainwashed and deceived into believing that Jesus was God and that He was raised from the dead. That is a legitimate point, and so we must examine some of the evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus in order to determine if the disciples were brainwashed or involved in a cover-up.

Jewish tradition holds that Jesus’ disciples stole the body of Jesus and then claimed He had been raised from the dead. But a study of the times in Jerusalem during Jesus’ life and death indicates that this story is highly unlikely – indeed, probably impossible.

During this time in Israel’s history, they had been conquered by Rome and were now occupied by and under Roman control. Thus, when Jesus was crucified, the Jewish leaders approached the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and asked for a squad of Roman soldiers to guard Jesus’ tomb for fear that the disciples would steal his body. They remembered Jesus’ prophecy that He would rise from the dead, and they wanted to prevent a hoax. Pilate granted the request. So a squad of highly-trained Roman soldiers guarded Jesus’ tomb to prevent any tampering or theft.

After Christ’s resurrection, the Jewish leaders paid off the Roman soldiers and told them to say that they all fell asleep at their posts – a mistake that would have cost a Roman soldier his life. The Jewish leaders said if this report got back to the Roman officials, they would intervene and keep the soldiers out of trouble. So the soldiers agreed, and that was the story that was circulated in an attempt to quiet the hysteria surrounding the resurrection.

There are a number of problems with this story that make it difficult to accept.

First and foremost, Roman soldiers were highly trained in the art of warfare, and falling asleep at one’s post would be grounds for immediate execution. No Roman soldier would be that careless.

Secondly, even if by some remote chance the entire squad of at least a dozen soldiers would have fallen asleep at the same time, which in itself seems impossible, it seems equally impossible that the disciples could have rolled away the huge stone from the mouth of the tomb without waking anyone.

Thirdly, the cowering disciples, all but one of whom had scattered and abandoned Christ at the time of His arrest, had gone into hiding and were frightened about being associated with Jesus for fear that they too would be arrested. It seems likewise impossible that they could have mustered the courage to risk taking on a squad of Roman soldiers in order to retrieve Christ’s body.

Even so, the tomb remained empty, without any plausible explanation. All the Jewish leaders needed to do to put the issue to rest once and for all was to exhume Jesus’ body and parade it around the streets of Jerusalem for all to see. But there was no body to retrieve. And the hysteria about the resurrection gained ground as over 500 people reported seeing Jesus alive!

If the resurrection of Jesus was a hoax, the disciples were in a position to know it, and they would have never allowed themselves to be put to gruesome deaths for something they knew to be a lie. When you are faced with either recanting your story or being boiled in oil, logic says that recanting would make more sense than having your skin burned off of your body for something you know to be false. It also seems likely that at least one of the disciples would have caved in to this kind of pressure. But each and every one of Christ’s disciples died unimaginably horrible deaths because all of them refused to recant.

Thus, the lives and deaths of Jesus’ disciples are evidence that Jesus was not a charlatan. So if Jesus was not a madman, and he was not a charlatan, then the only other option we have left is that He was exactly who He said He was – the manifestation of God in flesh, the only way for mankind to be saved. You cannot say that Jesus was just a good man who meant well and one of the many ways to God if He was a madman or a charlatan. But if He was neither, then that leaves us with the only other logical conclusion: His claims about Himself were true, and He represents the one and only path God has chosen in order to reconcile mankind to Himself.

More on this in the next post.