Recent Articles | About Authors | About the Syndicate | Archives

To receive a plain text copy of this article by email, see info at the bottom of this page.

Real Answers™
tf41
Copyright: © 2007 Tom Flannery
700 words

SURPRISED BY HITCHENS' SUCCESS?

By: Tom Flannery

To hear Christopher Hitchens tell it, God is not great (the title of his new book), religion poisons everything (its subtitle), and there are a surprising number of people who hold to these beliefs.

That's the word that keeps coming up in media coverage of Hitchens' recent broadsides against God -- surprise.  His book is a surprise best-seller.  He has been surprisingly well-received on his book tour.  But is it really such a surprise that there are so many people in this country (or anywhere else, for that matter) who have rejected Christ?  Or that so many of them hate Him and have nothing but contempt for those who follow Him?

It certainly wasn't a surprise to Christ, as far back as some 2,000 years ago, when He told His followers:  "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

And should it be such a surprise to us today when there are actually several books attacking religion in general and Christianity in particular currently on the best-seller lists?

Not really.

Indeed, to look at the subject strictly from the perspective of our cultural landscape, you would think that faith in Christ were the most intellectually dubious prospect imaginable.

Yet the truth of the matter is that there is an abundance of evidence from history, archaeology, science and various other fields confirming that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be -- the Word of God.

Among the many infallible proofs for Scripture is the precise fulfillment of a host of Messianic prophecies, centuries after they were verifiably recorded (Isaiah's prophecy from the Old Testament that the Messiah would be born of a virgin, Micah's that He would be born in Bethlehem, etc.);  the precise fulfillment of so many endtime prophecies (the development of nuclear weapons portrayed in Zechariah 14:12 and referred to by Jesus in Matthew 24:22, the advent of satellite technology pictured in Rev. 11:9-10, etc.);  the precise fulfillment thousands of years after the fact of a body of prophecy relating to the rebirth of national Israel and regathering of the Jewish people to their historic homeland, along with the restoration of the land, revival of the once-dead Hebrew language and more;  and advanced scientific and medical knowledge revealed in Scripture, like God's revelation through Isaiah that the earth is round (Isa. 40:22).

God has, in effect, written history in advance in the pages of the Bible.  To combat it, all the skeptics can do is offer up anecdotes about the simple-minded religious people they've encountered (Hitchens' book opens with one such episode) along with some inherently flawed arguments.

Yes, you can find plenty of atrocities perpetrated by those who claimed to be Christians, but what did Christ Himself teach His followers?  He commanded them to "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44).

Moreover, this was how He said we would be able to distinguish true believers from false brethren:  "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God;  he who does not love does not know God, for God is love" (I John 4:7-8).  It's a distinction the skeptics apparently aren't able to grasp.

Such duplicity shows the problem is not one of the mind, but of the heart.  Jesus is the incontestable Light of the world, shining His truth and love and power into the hearts of all those who will receive it.  Yet we are told in Scripture that most people will run from the light because they won't turn from the sin that dominates their thoughts and desires, and consumes their souls.

John 3:19-20 declares:  "And this is the [unbeliever's] condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

It's a simple matter of men choosing temporal pleasures over eternal truth, something that is an age-old story.  Nothing surprising about that at all.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

Request this article:
To instantly receive a plain text copy of this article by email, enter your publication title, city and state, and email address, then retype the article number (shown in bold below). Then click the "Send It" button once.
Fields marked (*) are required

back to top