Just a note before I copy out my favorite quotes: A few months ago, I was talking to a trusted friend about religion and how hard it is to reach beyond the barrier it sometimes creates. We talked about the loneliness of being the only Christian among close friends, and the desire/wariness to share your faith. A while later, I got a lovely snail mail package from her that contained a book called The Case for Christ. I finished it in 2 days--the fastest I've read a book since those good ol' Harry Potter days. The author was an atheist (Chicago Tribune journalist from Yale) setting out to disprove Christianity through archaeological and biological evidence. After 21 months of research, he came to accept Jesus as a real man who not only changed lives, but who existed/exists as the son of God. I think this book addresses the skeptic in all of us, believer or non-believer...to some degree, everyone needs logic and proof behind their beliefs. It hurts and angers me when people turn away from Christianity without bothering to learn more about it. At the same time, I don't think it's right to latch onto a religion without knowing its history and reliability first. Faith is such a huge determining factor in your life, that none of us should claim to have it figured out until we know a whole lot more about it.
I don't write this entry or recommend this book to change someone's mind. I don't expect atheists to listen to me and say, "You're right! I'm convinced!" What I do hope is that people will take initiative and find the information for themselves before turning away.
Favorite Quotes:
There are religious symbols that are quite meaningful to people--the symbol of Jesus being divine, of the cross, of self-sacrificial love, of the Resurrection. Even though people don't really believe that those things actually happened, they nevertheless can inspire people to live a good life, to overcome existential angst, to realize new potentialities, to resurrect hope in the midst of despair--blah, blah, blah...So these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history. He's merely a symbol...but listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he's rooted in history...The theological truth is based on historical truth. I don't want to base my life on a symbol. I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality.
It's like this: if you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but it's rooted in the facts about that person. For example, you love your wife because she's gorgeous, she's nice, she's sweet, she's kind. All these things are facts about your wife, and therefore you love her. But your love goes beyond that. You can know all these things about your wife and not be in love with her or put your trust in her, but you do. So the decision go beyond the evidence, yet it is there also on the basis of the evidence. So it is with falling in love with Jesus. To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it's rooted in the historical facts about him.
If you do something against me, I have the right to forgive you. However, if you do something against me and somebody else comes along and says, "I forgive you," what kind of cheek is that? The only person who can say that sort of thing meaningfully is God himself, because sin, even if it is against other people, is first and foremost a defiance of God.
I go through the books that people write to try to tear down what we believe. That's not fun to do, but I spend the time to look at each objection individually and then to research the context and the wording in the original language...And every single time, the prophecies have stood up and shown themselves to be true.
So here's my challenge to skeptics: don't accept my word for it, but don't accept your rabbi's either. Spend the time to research it yourself. Today nobody can say, "There's no information." There are plenty of books out there to help you.
Jesus intentionally walked into the arms of his betrayer, he didn't resist arrest, he didn't defend himself at his trial--it was clear that he was willingly subjecting himself to humiliating and agonizing torture...So when you ask what motivated him, well, I suppose the answer can be summed up in one word--and that would be love.
And this one is C. S. Lewis, another former skeptic:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say....You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
