Heaven Without Her

All Scientists Believe in Evolution

2010-05-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

At least that would seem to be the case, wouldn't it? Except that it's like saying all Germans were devout followers of Hitler. Neither statement is true ... but there are good reasons that they may appear to be true.

The assertion that all scientists believe in evolution is the more dangerous of the two, because of its eternal ramifications: If science has proven evolution beyond the shadow of a doubt, then this universe could have popped into existence without the help of God. In fact, God may not exist at all, according to this line of thinking. And my goodness, if all scientists are in agreement on this thing, we'd be dumb to stick to our outmoded superstitions, wouldn't we?

Ah, but what if there are literally thousands of world-class scientists out there who reject evolution? That would be a different kettle of fish, wouldn't it?

A respected scientist named Dr. Jerry Bergman has now put that kettle on display for all to see. And Discerning Reader has just published my review of it, a remarkable book entitled Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth about Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters. It's an important book, and I hope you'll check it out:

Slaughter of the Dissidents

What I Learned in Journalism School

2010-01-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

I graduated from college back in the dark ages of the 1970s, when you would think most subjects were relatively harmless, and most teaching was still truth-based.

Not so – but I realized how deceived I’d been only recently.

First, there was history: I spent almost all my electives on this subject, particularly modern American, German and Russian history. And except for a German history class taught by a very tough refugee from someplace like Munich, I earned mostly As and Bs. (The German gave me a C – my only sub-B at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Nevertheless, since he’d said up front that to earn a C, you had to demonstrate a mastery of the material, I was pretty proud of that grade.)

But I was shocked to learn recently, in reading a firsthand account by a very trustworthy woman in my church, that the Soviets were busy invading southeastern countries like Romania in the early days of World War II. They had not, as I’d been taught, waited patiently for Allied permission to “rescue” eastern Europe after the war. Somehow my professors failed to mention this little matter of early invasion, just as they hadn’t bothered to teach us that Stalin’s bloodbaths extended far beyond his own political enemies. Nor did they ever mention that Mao was anything but a great guy – but then, I suppose Chinese history wasn’t their specialty.

Perhaps even worse, because it has impacted every generation of Americans since, were our journalism studies. This was in the heyday of Watergate, so you’d expect that we were well-taught in the art and science of objective investigative reporting, wouldn’t you?

But no. I was amazed to come across some of my old college papers and exams not long ago, and to see that my journalism training had shoved me firmly away from my Christian upbringing and towards agnosticism and finally atheism.

For instance, these fading papers and exams demonstrated how we J-school students venerated the “scientific method.” What’s more, I apparently thought it called for rejection of Authority – and yes, I spelled it Authority with a capital A, perhaps subconsciously rejecting the Creator Himself.

Another example: We were taught that reality is the product of the observed PLUS the observer, and that there is no reality or truth apart from this combination – in short, no objective, absolute truth. Reality is all shaped by our unique perspective, we were assured, and anyone who claims to know absolute truth is a buffoon or a liar (not that there is anything wrong with being a liar, mind you, unless you are claiming to know a little something about truth).

And another example: We J-school students studied General Semantics. I found an all-too-familiar definition of this field on Wikipedia: It’s “a form of mental hygiene that enables practitioners to avoid ideational traps built into natural language and 'common sense' assumptions, thereby enabling practitioners to think more clearly and effectively.”

My main takeaway from General Semantics was that we should reject labeling people. We should never say “I am a liar” or “he is a thief.” Instead, we should only describe a specific event, if we really must: “I am a person who lied when confronted by capitalist pigs,” or “he is a person who stole because his family was starving.”

In other words, anyone who would use biblical terms to describe a person would be thinking very fuzzily! Which meant we should NEVER repeat a passage such as Revelation 21:8, which says, “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Perhaps this explains in part why it would’ve been quite impossible for a go-with-the-flow UWM journalism student in the ‘70s to embrace the Bible, even if he or she could be bothered to read it. It contradicted all we were learning!

Instead, we embraced all these cool General Semantics ideas such as “the Ploggly Theory,” created by a professor of speech pathology. (Don’t ask me why something developed by a speech pathology professor was part of the journalism curriculum. I haven’t a clue.)

The Ploggly Theory is a cute name for some eternally fatal thinking, because it says that anything we can’t see is a Ploggly – a figment of our imaginations. And that includes everything from fairies, demons and devils to, of course, gods. Plogglies were a contemptuous dismissal of Christianity and the Bible, which tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

There you have it – yet another example of our tax dollars at work, educating the very people charged with making sense of the world around us. And Plogglies are still out there on the internet, being presented by smug intellectuals as proofs against what one person called “that giant Spook in the sky”!

All these General Semantics concepts were presented in high-falootin’ abstract language. It fooled me into thinking this field oh-so-intellectual and smart compared with ”prescientific” teachings like “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” I would say it’s all just silly blather, but that wouldn’t be true – because it was definitely Satanically designed to change our worldviews from what’s now scornfully called the “Judeo-Christian ethic” to an entirely relativistic worldview.

And here we are, nearly 40 years later, a culture tolerant of all viewpoints but one, with a citizenry incapable of even imagining absolute truth, let alone tolerating anyone who proclaims it.

On Critters and the Creator

2010-01-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

A girlfriend emailed me this little essay this morning:

THE BUZZARD: If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and Is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner or life in a small jail with no top.

THE BAT: The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

THE BUMBLEBEE: A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

PEOPLE: In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up! That's the answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem! Just look up.

Our Creator has given us so many clues in creation about our relationship with Him. I’m not sure how well the BUZZARD and the BAT fit the writer’s particular PEOPLE conclusion. Seems like the BUZZARD and the BAT wouldn’t gain anything by looking up. But maybe there’s a different message with them. The BAT, for instance, may hint that we must suffer a fall in self-esteem before we can approach His throne as He commands, in humility.

But assuming that it could fly upwards in such confinement, the BUMBLE BEE may fit the “look up” advice perfectly – and may be a beautiful reflection of Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He shall direct your paths.

In our pet-full household, I think often of cats and dogs and their relationships with us as metaphors for our relationships with God.

Mindy our Persian has nothing to do with us unless she is hungry. She would be happiest if we left her totally alone, which is a real problem with a cat with a cottony coat; we have to comb her and cut out the mats for her own good, in spite of the fact that it is torture for her to be held and touched. She considers herself supremely independent, and us, food dispensers at best.

When she is awake, Lucy the Basset has separation anxiety even if we simply close a door on her. A real surprise, considering how she ignores our commands when anything more interesting is going on around her.

Sir Wally the Oriental Shorthair follows us around, sleeps on us, sleeps on my desk all day long, and comes running when we call him. He talks to us constantly. He has no use for the other pets, except he seems to like Shad the yellow lab. Shad is very similar to Wally, in that he sticks close to us and obeys us even when he’d rather not. Shadow's only flaw is his fear of nail trims, fallout from a traumatic trim a few years ago, but of course we have no choice – he just can’t bring himself to trust us to be doing what’s best for him.

I think the lesson is that God wants us to be like Wally and Shadow – always with our hearts turned towards Him, responsive, obedient, and wanting to be near Him more than anything in the world.

I don’t know anyone else’s heart, but I’d guess that most authentic Christians are probably more like Lucy, wanting to be close to Him but wandering far away during the course of most days; perhaps that’s why He set aside Sunday as a day for us to concentrate on our relationship with Him.

And I’ll bet that most cultural or cafeteria Christians (those who pick what they like out of what little they know about God, and ignore the rest) are more like Mindy -- turning to Him only when they have an immediate earthly need for Him, and otherwise thinking of Him as someone entirely different from who He really is.

Maureen and me

2009-08-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

It’s funny how the first person you knew with a certain name can influence your feelings about that name forever. Thanks to memorable characters from the distant past, my list of favorite names includes Emily, Alison, Cathy, Sam, Joe, and Fred … and of course there’s a counter-list of names that give me the creeps.

And then there’s the name Maureen.

In the early 60s, when I was around 10, my daddy the civil engineer was doing some business with a fellow named Jack DeWitt. One day Mr. DeWitt brought his wife and little girl to visit us in Green Bay from their home in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, over 150 miles away.

Maureen was just my age, although much taller and neater than I, and she must’ve been awfully nice. Her visit has been etched in my memory by a couple of snapshots and a thank-you letter from her that has somehow survived nearly a half century of household moves and spring cleanings.
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For some reason, I never came across another Maureen in the decades that followed – until a sunny Saturday afternoon in August of 2008, when I came home from the grocery store to find a lovely message waiting on voice mail. It had been left by a woman named Maureen Enriquez. She lived not far from us, she said, and had just finished reading Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008), a first-person account of my journey from feminist atheism to unshakable faith in Jesus Christ in the wake of my beloved Christian mother’s death.

“I’ve never called an author before,” the woman said, “but I just wanted to let you know how much I identified with your story!”

I picked up the phone and called “Maureen II,” as I’d already dubbed the bold Mrs. Enriquez. Learning that she and her husband were new Christians with a great interest in the Bible, I invited them to my Bible-teaching New Testament church. They showed up the following Sunday and have never left.

Once die-hard feminist career junkies, Maureen and I still work long hours. So it was that nearly three months passed before we were able to do anything more than chat before and after church services. But finally, in early November, she and I met in a rustic 19th century farmhouse restaurant for sandwiches.

Over the next hour, we found to our astonishment that our lives had been practically mirror images in key respects: We’d been born in the same year and had known the joy of storybook childhoods lived out in small Wisconsin towns. We’d both been well-raised (and well-churched) by loving parents against whom we had rebelled early, often and finally completely. Our dads had both been self-made men, well-respected in their professions and communities. We’d even both been crazy about everything from dogs, horses and tiger lilies to dirndl dresses straight from Germany.

As we were finishing up our sandwiches, Maureen said something that prompted me to ask her maiden name – a non sequitur, it would seem, but for some reason the question just popped out.

“DeWitt,” she said hesitantly, apparently finding it an odd question herself.

I gasped. “Maureen,” I said, almost unable to breathe, “is your father’s name Jack?”

She literally did a double-take. “How did you know?”

“Did you grow up in Mt. Horeb?”

“I never told you that!”

And so it was that I discovered Maureen II was actually one and the same as Maureen I, the little girl who’d come to visit nearly a half century ago.

So unbelievable was this discovery that she even called her 90-year-old father to see if it could possibly be true. Jack not only remembered my dad, who had died in 1970; he said they’d traveled to Germany together on business back in the 1960s.

Maureen and I jabbered until the restaurant closed for the day, then parted reluctantly. It wasn’t until later that I realized I’d forgotten to tell my new old friend one of the most amazing facts of all: that in chapter 27 of Heaven Without Her, I’d named another long-ago little girl Maureen, because I flat-out couldn’t remember that little girl’s name.

This in spite of the fact that she had been my best friend during the remarkable summer of 1961, when my parents had left me, then eight, with family friends while they headed off to Europe. It was the summer that would, 40 years later, help me see the world with eternal eyes, as a heaven-bound child of God whose beloved parents have simply gone on ahead.

It was such a heartfelt story for me that I emailed Maureen to tell her about it, inserting a little passage from chapter 27 to jog her memory:

Arlene even found a playmate for me. Her name was Maureen. She was my age and lived up the hill from Arlene’s house. Her house was exotic, too: it had no upstairs, and her backyard was all wooded, and there were these beautiful flowers in front, in a bed framed by split-rail fencing. I remember in particular stunning orange blossoms with freckles, which my new friend called tiger lilies.
“Imagine that,” I typed. “You had such an impact on me that I even named this wonderful little girl after you!”

A little while later, Maureen emailed me back.

“My parents just about killed themselves,” she’d written, “laying down that split-rail fencing.”

Then, to make sure I didn’t miss her point, she added, “It completely escaped me that while reading chapter 27 I was reading about myself!”

I read these things through tears of joy, overwhelmed by a God who loves us enough to let us see His hand on our lives.

Perhaps that was His sole purpose in arranging this reunion. Or perhaps there are many others that Maureen and I will discover some happy day, now that we’ve both bounded through the narrow gate that leads to eternal life. Imagine how astounding it will be when we are able to examine the tapestry of this world and see the threads that have brought each of us into His kingdom forevermore!

There’s a post-script to this story. A few weeks later, right before Christmas, Maureen and I drove through a snow storm to visit her parents for a joyful reunion. We were even able to solve a final mystery: how she’d come across Heaven Without Her in the first place.

It turned out that her older brother had seen a review of my book in Acts & Facts magazine, a publication of the Institute for Creation Research in Dallas. It’s an outstanding magazine, but not one you’d find at your local newsstand. Yet he had stumbled across it, read the review, and was intrigued enough to seek the book out. Then, liking the story, he took the unusual step of sending it to his sister Maureen.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Looking for the perfect Mother's Day gift?

2009-04-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

What better gift could you give your mom than the promise of spending eternity together in heaven?

Just a decade ago, I was a feminist atheist who laughed at those who thought we could even know for sure that heaven exists.

If your mother is like I was then, it’s my fervent prayer that you’ll give her the tools she needs to begin investigating this question. I recommend as a good starting point my own book, Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008). In fact, I wrote it in large part to persuade rational skeptics that absolute truth does exist, and to provide a solid itinerary for discovering it.

If you don’t think she’d be interested in my story, I hope you’ll check out my bibliography, and consider giving her one or two of the 40+ books highlighted there. Among those I recommend most highly is The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog by James Sire. If it weren’t for this outstanding volume, I might still be floundering around in search of the truth.

Evangelistic Icebreakers

2009-03-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

We all want to share the Gospel, but it can be tough to swing a conversation to the things of God. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be difficult; we just have to train ourselves to spot opportunities and apply the appropriate evangelistic icebreakers. Here are some idea-starters.

Pets. Try animal talk to reach the hearts of pet-lovers. I often share this thrilling fact: “In the original Hebrew, the book of Genesis uses the word nephesh, or ‘living soul,’ for both man and vertebrate animals. Our pets seem to have souls, according to the Bible -- which means they may go to Heaven!”

Prophecy. Turn the topic to current events in Israel, and you can drive it to God’s word. Chatting with a long-retired general and lifelong agnostic recently, I showed him what the 2500-year-old book of Ezekiel says about Persia conspiring against Israel in end times. “Persia is Iran,” he said, obviously stunned. “And Persia was always a friend to Israel.” He looked at me through tears. “Until now.”

Opinion. To cut to the chase, try this: “I’m doing an informal survey. Could I ask you what you think it takes to get into heaven?”

Awe. Start collecting and sharing God-glorifying facts. Here’s a gem I’ve used to get people thinking about our origins: “Did you know that all the DNA in your body would fit into an ice cube, but if you could stretch it out it’d reach at least 10 billion miles? Talk about evidence for intelligent design!”

Culture. Our culture may ignore the Lord, but you can use it to glorify Him. I recently saw a dreary but acclaimed movie about Alzheimer’s. The theme? Our utter hopelessness. I now share the story with local nursing home residents, emphasizing that for the Christian, just the opposite is true: A joyful eternity awaits born-again children of God!

Once you start looking for potential icebreakers, you’ll find them everywhere – in the books you’re reading, in the creation around you, in art and music, history and science. In short, everywhere.

Once you start using them, you’ll become adept at steering conversations straight to the Gospel whenever you have a receptive audience. For instance, the pet example could lead to something like this: “Of course, we have to make sure we get there ourselves. Are you certain that you’ll go to heaven when you die? Have I got good news for you!”

What's the real reason for digital TV?

2008-12-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

Last night I turned on WVCY-TV, our wonderful local Christian station, and saw a message to this effect: "Do you receive TV via antenna? Call this number for information about digital TV ..."

I have been wondering for months why we need digital TV transmission. Don't we have more pressing needs in this country? Never mind that this change could be financially crippling for non-profit, non-gov't-supported stations like WVCY-TV; most people don’t care about that. But aren't children in this country going to bed hungry? Aren’t people going without medical care because they have no health insurance? Aren't we all just one paycheck away from being homeless, as Bill Clinton famously warned?

Our federal government's DTV web site gives the following reasons for mandating this enormous expense and, for many Americans, not-so-minor inconvenience:

1. To give us a clearer picture (It's more important to have a clear picture of the latest greatest slasher and sex shows than it is to allow small independent stations to survive? Besides, we now have a digital TV picture in our home; it looks no different to me and the Packers are still losing, so what good is it?)

2. To give us more programming options (I thought the goal was to get Americans, kids especially, to watch less TV? Why do we need more programming options?)

3. To free up airwaves for use by emergency responders (Hmmm. I'd never heard we had a problem with this. Are we running out of frequencies?)

It certainly can’t be a question of reliability, as anyone with digital phone service will be happy to tell you.

I have toyed with the idea that this mandate was designed to crush Christian TV, but that doesn’t really make sense – our government’s going to do that much more easily and cheaply by restoring the Fairness (sic) Doctrine. Once that passes, it may be all over not only for Christian TV, but also profitable (i.e. conservative) talk radio. Welcome back, Carter!

What sense does this make?

But now, having seen this notice about "Do you receive TV through antenna?" it becomes a little clearer: Antennas use the airwaves ... and no one can really control the airwaves, as Radio Free Europe proved.

So now we will get all our televised information via a new kind of transmission infrastructure.

How tough would it be for a democratically-elected tyrant to get control of this new system, at the first whiff of national crisis? And is it true that whoever controls the news controls us?

Consider what Pravda did to the Soviet Union, with its “truth is whatever is good for the Party” approach to news reporting; could that happen to us?

It's not that I think this is a conspiracy of men -- I don't. I think that it’s all Satan, and that he is using, for his own purposes, gullible people who don’t have a clue what they’re really promoting.

Suddenly Revelation 11:9 becomes even clearer: For three-and-a-half days, the whole world will see the dead bodies of the two witnesses in Jerusalem – because there won’t be anything else on TV, and most of us just can’t bear to turn it off!

And as my niece just reminded me, this may give new illumination to Ephesians 2:2’s description of Satan as the prince of the power of the air.

Crazy idea? Or a germ of the truth? Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Witnessing to the feminist baby boomer

2008-10-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

Step # 4: Share the Gospel

"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord,
"Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.

--Isaiah 1:18

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes,
for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

--Romans 1:16

It has become fairly easy for me to bring up the things of God with just about any lost person, and to wonder aloud over the amazing truths of the Bible. I find it much more difficult to share the Gospel with him or her, because I’m in effect confronting him with the only choice that matters in this life: heaven or hell.

Yet tell him we must, if we want to obey our Lord. And we can’t put it off indefinitely; we don’t know that we’ll ever see him again (something that has become abundantly clear to me over eight nears of visiting residents of a nearby nursing home).

I’ve taken James Kennedy’s “Evangelism Explosion” class at church, and have studied the Way of the Master techniques taught by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron (www.wayofthemaster.com) -- they’re each excellent for specific situations. In essence I try to convey these facts:

We’re all sinners, having spent our lives rebelling against a perfectly holy and perfectly just God and deserving death – which means eternal punishment in hell.
Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.
Eternal life is a free gift of God; we don’t deserve it and we can’t earn it.
To receive this gift, we must repent (turn from our sins) and trust in His sacrifice to have covered our sins – in short, to rest assured that “Jesus paid it all.”

What if we fail to share the gospel with someone? Well, I suppose the Lord will send in someone else to do this all-important job … and then we can explain to Him later why we found it so difficult to talk about His supreme sacrifice, why we thought there was anything more important than bringing Him what one preacher so poignantly called “the reward of His suffering.”

Witnessing to the feminist baby boomer

2008-10-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

Step 3: Draw the conclusions

Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

--John 17:17

During my personal journey to Jesus Christ, I found myself amassing an amazing amount of scientific, historical and prophetic evidence pointing to the Bible’s accuracy. But I was so busy looking at the details that it took me ages to sit back and survey the big picture.

Which is too bad, because once I did, I came to the most stunning conclusions of my life – to wit:

The Bible is true from first word to last.
It is the word of the God who created the entire universe and everything in it, and He was perfectly capable of giving us a “life manual” that was, at least in its original manuscripts, entirely accurate. Infallible, in fact.
I can trust what He said about Himself, about us, and about where we came from, what we’re doing here and where we’re going.

I might have come to these conclusions weeks or even months earlier had someone presented me these claims as something to challenge or prove. So I suggest sharing them with anyone we’re witnessing to – especially if it’s a feminist baby boomer who has been well-schooled to believe the opposite.

Witnessing to the feminist baby boomer

2008-09-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Step 2: Gather the evidence

For since the creation of the world
His invisible attributes are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
even His eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse …

--Romans 1:20

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal
but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
casting down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God …

--2 Corinthians 10:4-5a

Salvation is of the Lord, of course. No one comes to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ apart from the Holy Spirit of God transforming his heart.

But I’m convinced that many of us have spent our lifetimes erecting intellectual and emotional obstacles to belief – obstacles that can delay our accepting the gift of faith, or maybe prevent it altogether (I’m sitting solidly on the fence on this particular issue).

That’s why Christian apologetics may be so important. It seems to me that they can be like bulldozers capable of destroying “every high thing that exalts itself again the knowledge of God,” as the apostle Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 10 – bulldozers capable of clearing the way for the faith that’s prerequisite to eternal life.

Here’s a high-level overview of the evidences that convinced this feminist atheist of the truth of biblical Christianity. Maybe one or more of these subjects will help you make the case to the lost feminist baby boomer in your life.

Bulldozer #1: Science

It was just after the turn of the millennium that I started my personal journey from atheism to faith. For me, a technical copywriter with an interest in science and a long-held conviction that science had proven God at best unnecessary, perhaps the most important leg of my journey was the scientific path.

It was here that I learned about the Darwinism-busting truth of the anthropic principle and irreducible complexity. Here, that I learned that additive genetic mutations are only a myth, incapable of providing evolution with that raw material it would need to transform one sort of creature into another.

Once I’d taken off the blinders and looked at the facts, I quickly came to the only logical conclusion: Even a fairly superficial study of the issue would show any objective observer that there’s no way this universe, or life itself, came into being through time plus chance. There has to have been an intelligent designer – AKA God.

The question then became: Which God?

I spent a year on this question, searching far and wide for evidence that might prove any of the non-Christian religions true. (I did not want to become one of those dreary Christians, you see; I did not want my good times permanently put to rest.) But I discovered no such evidence – just a bunch of statements like “Buddhism is true because there are so many of us” and “Hinduism is true because we have a sacred book.” These statements didn’t even approach truth.

At last, there was only one religion left standing: biblical Christianity. Once again, science came to my rescue, showing me the rock-solid proof I’d been looking for over the past 12 months.

The vehicle was my realization of the Bible’s stunning scientific accuracy. While it’s not a science book, its enemies have yet to point out a single biblical passage related to science (or anything else, for that matter) that’s inaccurate. What’s more, the Bible contains scores of scientific that could not possibly have been known by any of its 40-some writers -- many of them confirmed only in recent centuries or recent decades. Just to cite a couple: the fact that the earth hangs on nothing (Job 26:7, written about 4000 years ago) and that the sun has an orbit of its own (Psalm 19:6, written about 3000 years ago and confirmed in 1999).

These evidences took me very close to having absolute confidence in the existence of a Creator God, and the Bible as His infallible revelation of Himself to us. And I’m not the only one; I’ve heard testimonies from many other scientifically minded people who took this route to the Lord. Perhaps some of the lost people you know would find this line of reasoning persuasive; for an overview of the proofs I found most persuasive, see chapter 18 of Heaven Without Her. And for much much more, visit http://www.answersingenesis.org/ and http://www.icr.org/ .

Bulldozer #2: History

Like many of my contemporaries, I was quite the history buff when I was younger. Even though I’d always had a totally human-centered view of world history, this was what ultimately closed the case for me.

Here’s what happened.

When I finally started reading the Bible at the turn of the millennium, I was surprised to learn that it’s all based on history. I was amazed when I found out that not one spec of its history has ever been proven inaccurate, and that every year more and more of it is instead confirmed. And I was astonished when I eventually discovered that it purports to be the history of the universe from first day to last – and that Genesis and Revelation are as historically reliable as the accounts of Moses, King David and Jesus Himself.

That’s the big picture. What was really shocking to me was the close-up view of the Bible’s prophetic accuracy – especially when I learned several things that put these truths into perspective:

First, that only the Bible among sacred books even offers prophecies.
Second, that there’s nothing to Nostradamus’s predictions, which were mostly vague and have been artfully re-arranged and re-interpreted to mimic prophetic accuracy.
Third, that the “psychics” of our day have been largely abysmal at soothsaying, wrong more than half the time even about events in the near future.

Not so with the Bible, which contains thousands of detailed and specific prophecies. As the Lord said via the prophet Isaiah, recorded in Isaiah 42, “I will tell you the future before it happens.” And that is exactly what He did: About 80% of these prophecies have already been fulfilled with 100% accuracy; the rest refer to the end of time.

Take, for example, the Old Testament predictions about the Messiah – there are hundreds written over many centuries, and Jesus fulfilled every last one. Mathematicians have calculated the likelihood of one man fulfilling just 48 of those prophecies at a number beyond our imaginations. In a word: Impossible – unless those prophecies were written about Jesus, by Someone outside of time who knew exactly what would transpire.

Or consider the prophecies about the nation of Israel – how the children of Israel would be scattered all over the world, but would ultimately have their land restored to them along with their ancient language. Every last one has come to pass, down to the smallest detail.

Bulldozer #3: Logic

Logic has never been my strong suit. When I try to follow it personally, I tend to take the long way around logical deductions and then forget how I got there, which doesn’t make for very confident conclusions. Or, when I read someone else’s solid argument, I wind up doubting their conclusions, not being confident in my ability to detect logical fallacies.

Still, most people are clearer thinking than I am in this area, so don’t neglect logic as a witnessing tool.

Consider C. S. Lewis’s argument about Jesus’ claims to deity: He was either:

A liar, falsely proclaiming Himself to be the Son of God and God the Son.
A lunatic, believing Himself to be the Son of God and God the Son.

(If either of these explanations were true, then just about every other religion has joined in the charade, too, by calling Him a great teacher or a prophet.)

Or He really was the Son of God and God the Son.

Or think about what I consider the best argument for Jesus’ resurrection: His apostles spent a great deal of time with Him after He rose from the grave. They couldn’t have been fooled. Nor could they have been lying: All but John died martyrs, proclaiming to the end that Jesus had risen from the grave. People will die for a lie when they think it’s the truth; but they will not die for a lie if they know it’s a lie.

Prepare your defense

There are no doubt many other areas of investigation that might help a feminist baby boomer find her way to the truth. There’s manuscript evidence, for instance. Biblical responses to today’s psychobabble. And great analogies and explanations for the toughest questions, such as those beginning, “How could a good God …?”

I think it’s important for us all to have at least this top-level understanding of such logic … and then know where to look for the details that can help clear away the obstacles standing between a lost feminist baby boomer and God’s truth.

Witnessing to the feminist baby boomer

2008-05-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Pray without ceasing

Salvation is of the Lord.

--Jonah 2:9b

It should be obvious, right? But oh, how often I forget to turn to the Lord for help when I’m witnessing to a woman who is like I was: a feminist, agnostic-might-as-well-be-atheist who thinks Christians are, at best, wishful thinkers.

I’m always well-armed with reasons for the hope that is within me – the very same reasons that convinced me less than a decade ago that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God, His revelation of Himself to His creation and the truth about where we came from, what we’re doing here and where we’re headed.

But nothing good ever comes of it when I am relying on those reasons alone – or on my own stumbling presentation or hazy insights into exactly what might persuade this particular friend to crack open the door of her heart to the Lord. Only He knows precisely what should be said at what moment; only He can prompt conversation that will lead to delivery of just the right message; only He can soften the human heart to hear that message.

And so especially when I am preparing to share the Good News with someone who is not eager to hear it, I try to remember to take it up with Him before, during and after the meeting – to “pray without ceasing,” as the apostle Paul advised in 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

Are you ready to defend your faith?

2008-05-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

--1 Peter 3:15-16

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself, be sure of that.

-- Charles Spurgeon

Much to my regret and often to my sorrow, I did not become a Christian until I was in my late 40s. This was true even though I was raised in a Christian home and experienced only one serious, “how could a good God allow that?” heartache along the way – the sudden death of my wonderful father when I was just 17. (I managed my grief as many children of the ‘60s and early ‘70s managed their own: with several seasons of recreational substance abuse. Thoroughly numbed pain is roughly equivalent to no pain at all.)

My story has a happy ending: Today I’m a joyful and heaven-bound follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. But now that I’ve passed through that narrow gate, I do look back with wonder about a couple things.

Like, how I could have been so blind for so long?

I guess my story is the same as any other lost person’s: I loved my sin. Until the Lord broke me, making me see that something far more important than my pleasure and happiness was at stake, I simply did not want to stop idolizing the things of this world, or murdering others in my heart, or coveting the possessions and adventures of everyone I knew.

But there was one other factor that kept me clinging to the things of the world – and that was my ignorance. While I was fairly sure that absolute truth existed, I was even more sure that we couldn’t possibly know it in this life.

Which is, it turns out, among the vilest of lies, because it prevents us from doing what we must do if we ever hope to see heaven: to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where were all the Christians?

The Bible clearly tells followers of Jesus Christ that it’s the Christian’s obligation to make disciples of all the nations, to preach the gospel, to “be ready in season and out of season,” as the apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy. “Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching,” he explained.

And yet: As far as I can recall, no one except my mother, whose death ultimately drove me to seek God, ever approached me about these things. And I’m positive that no one ever attempted to persuade me that Christianity was anything more than a waste of Sunday mornings.

Which meant that I was left to my own devices when the Holy Spirit finally spurred me into action.

“Are you sure Christianity is true?” I would ask a professing Christian.

“Yes, pretty sure,” she would say.

“Why? What’s your proof?”

Whereupon the professing Christian would look at me like I was crazy.

“Proof? I don’t have any proof. I just believe.”

Lost in a fog

In retrospect, there was one person I could’ve asked, and I’m fairly certain she could have helped. But on the rare occasion that I saw her in those months, it didn’t occur to me to ask her these questions; when I did see her, I was too busy asking her things about Christian theology, as in “what’s the significance of baptism?” and “who exactly is going to heaven?” and “what is it exactly that a Christian is supposed to do?”

She probably never suspected that I was far from committed to Christ in those days. I don’t think I could have even articulated the depth of my confusion; if you’ve been stumbling around in the dark your entire life, stepping into a daytime fog can make you think you’re seeing everything clearly now.

Not so.

Unfortunately, I inadvertently limited my direct requests for proof to people who couldn’t tell me why they believed. They just did, they said.

Maybe they couldn’t see the fog I was in, either. Maybe some of them were even in it themselves.

What only strangers could tell me

In the end, I spent well over a year neglecting my business, my friends, and even my sleep in search of that elusive absolute truth. What I didn’t get from the Christians I knew personally, I got from strangers who loved the Lord enough to go to a lot of effort on His behalf.

And oh, what they gave me! An avalanche of scientific, historical and prophetic evidence for the truth of Christianity – and for the falsehood of every other worldview, from atheism to Zen Buddhism, existentialism to the New Age. I found enough evidence to destroy all the lies and delusions that had kept me, for my entire adult life, from doing what the Bible says we must do to see heaven, to repent and believe.

I found these evidences in various books, and through the lectures of Bible-loving teachers on VCY America’s TV and radio stations. And unfortunately without the guidance of a real live Christian, which meant that I wasted quite a bit of time and credulity on apostate and pagan books that were filled with red herrings, wild-goose chases and rabbit trails.

But by the grace of God, I was absolutely driven to pursue the truth. I had to know, for the reasons outlined in my book Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008), and I had to know now, and I wasn’t going to let anything that had once been important to me stand in my way.

What if I hadn’t been so obsessed?

What if I’d had a real job instead of my own business, and hadn’t had time to pursue the truth?

What if I’d just been your average, garden-variety seeker?

I’ll tell you what if.

I probably would have remained confused for 7.8 months and then given up. Or I might have taken up with some apostate mainline church and left as soon as its liberalism became apparent or I realized I was still starving to death spiritually. Or I might have fallen into some branch of New Age mysticism because it might have seemed, experientially, to be true.

I am quite sure that I would not have become a born-again Christian.

Fortunately, the Holy Spirit didn’t allow any of these things to happen. He lit a fire for the truth in me that has yet to be quenched.

But I wonder: Weren’t all those professing Christians supposed to be helping me see that their faith was not just nice, but true?

Can you give a reason for your hope?

It’s distressing to me – and should be to every Christian – that so few of us share our faith at all, according to survey after survey. And it’s equally distressing that so few of us have equipped ourselves to give a reason for the hope that is in us, the hope that means not wishful thinking but, biblically speaking, confident expectation that the Lord will fulfill every last promise He has made to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The proof is still readily available to any American – and will be for at least a while longer.

Looking for proof?

Stay tuned! My goal is to post the evidences for Christianity that I found most persuasive, and suggested resources for further study.

If you can’t wait, then don’t: If science is your thing, go immediately to http://www.answersingenesis.com/ and have a look around. More interested in history and prophecy? Check out a site like www.100prophecies.org/. Then consult my Heaven Without Her bibliography and consider reading those books that best match your own particular interests; I put it together specifically to help seekers avoid the wheel-spinning I engaged in as I pursued all those red herrings, wild geese and rabbit trails.

May the Lord give wings to your efforts!