I am sure you have heard the adage: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Some people talk about it in terms of ‘an inconvenient truth.’ For many, the truth can be incredibly shocking. This is when someone has the audacity to introduce facts and truth into a largely emotional, subjective debate. Well, I am about to do just that in a big way here!
If you have been awake and observant over the past decade you will have seen a significant shift in public opinion against the Church. We have always been a minority voice, but there was a time when that minority was respected and our opinion held significant weight in the world around us. Not anymore!
We have endured multiple child abuse involving Catholic priests and other Church leaders; we have had the hugely polarising same-sex marriage debate and government decision to completely re-define marriage and reject the long-held view of Christians for centuries; we now find ourselves embroiled in a world-wide conflict between Islam and the Jewish faith, which involves all Christians whether we like it or not because of our relationship to Biblical Israel. All of this has marginalised and demonised Christianity to an unprecedented level in our lifetime.
So, into that cesspool of hate, rejection and antagonism, allow we to drop some very inconvenient truth bombs!
> Modern science as we know it is essentially the result of the Christian message. Every founder of every major branch of modern science was a Bible-believing Christian.
x
> Modern medicine as we know it is essentially the result of the Christian message. Hospitals themselves were a Christian ‘invention’ in response to the healing ministry of Jesus.x
> Modern education as we know it is essentially the result of the Christian message. The concept of the university itself, and the great early universities of Europe, were all created in response to the Christian message that, as revealed by Jesus Christ, God was both knowable and rational, and so was His creation.x
> The concept of ‘atheism’ was only possible because of the Christian message of human free will and liberty. Before Christ, although some people chose to mock or ignore the gods, there was no philosophical option to be an atheist. “Atheism” exists because of Christianity.x
> Therefore, western civilisation as we know it today is essentially the result of the Christian message.
That last statement, though verifiably true, is not likely to have much support from the world around us and is probably surprising to many Christians as well.
Tragically, we are becoming a generation that is uninterested in history, uninterested in facts, and uninterested in reality. As a result, we are constantly floundering as we seek some kind of identity, while all along we had our true identity in Jesus Christ and the gospel.
Just some food for thought …
But be careful who you share this with, you are likely to receive a very strong response from most people in the world today!
The truth is always confrontational.