We constantly hear the refrain, that the Bible is outdated, myth, symbolism, irrelevant.
By JIM FLETCHERJim Fletcher 88 224(photo credit: )
Against the backdrop of our rotting culture, here's an interesting question: "What if the Bible is true?"
One doesn't often hear that. Rather, we constantly hear the opposite refrain, that the Bible is outdated, myth, symbolism, irrelevant.
Mantras (or propaganda, as Nazi uber-liar Joseph Goebbels liked to call it) are often repeated until the masses somehow come to believe them. The worst one today, in my opinion, is that the Bible has been discredited. People like Marcus Borg and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens do this all the time. But are they correct?
Hitchens' new bestseller, god is not Great, is a real disappointment, not only because he is attacking the very foundation of our civilization. Hitchens' effort is disappointing simply because it's beneath him. Unlike many Bible-believing Christians, I am a Christopher Hitchens fan. He is a brilliant thinker and a courageous commentator who has lost many friends on the Left because of his discernment about Islam.
With his latest book, though, Hitchens badly misses the mark.
"It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events described in Exodus ever took place," Hitchens states in his book.
None? Wow, that's a maximalist position, and one that I contend cannot be defended. And do you see how this undermines modern Israel by relegating their ancestors to a mythical people? He also says later that the Bible is among the sacred writings whose "foundational books are transparent fables." The discerning reader will note that this is the bias and opinion of an atheist. Nothing more.
Dawkins, too, makes the same mistake his ideological predecessors Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Thomas Huxley made: he simply hates the God of the Bible. His spiritual ancestors didn't embrace the philosophy of naturalism because they came to scientific conclusions that the earth is very old (in contrast to the Genesis account). They developed and promoted Darwin's theory of evolution because it gave them a rationale to reject God.
All these men, by the way, shared a common tragedy: their fathers destroyed them by teaching them to hate Christianity. Darwin's father and grandfather (Erasmus) were already familiar with ancient concepts of evolutionary theory. They simply passed it on to a young Charles, who in turn handed it to unfortunate generations that came after him.
It always amazes me that thinkers like Christopher Hitchens and John Shelby Spong claim to fight against injustice, such as anti-Semitism, when in fact they promote the single worst anti-semitic line anywhere: the Hebrew Scriptures are myth. You can't get any more anti-Jew than that.
Cultural cancers like Yasser Arafat have used that propaganda and bias to erode support of Israel. U.S. diplomats like Condi Rice and Madeleine Albright should slap the Arafats of the world and walk out, rather than chase after them (as Albright famously did).
Everywhere in the Land of Israel, the "Jewishness" of the place defies the hateful contention that there was no Temple in Jerusalem, there was no Exodus, there was no David or Solomon. To allow this hate speech to be propagated is unconscionable and unacceptable. Everywhere we look, we see evidence that the Bible is true. Predictive prophecy is but one example.
And if the Bible is true, then it provides hope to a dying world. The Bible is a lifeline for a world that has been taught there is no hope. The alternate universe of Darwin and Dawkins is a cold, random void that is scarier than anything Stephen King could come up with. But the world that is coming, thanks be to God, is the opposite.
People of faith should take every opportunity to challenge the acidic biases of haters like Arafat, Huxley, and Spong. Truth is on the side of the faithful.
It's time we started acting like it.
Jim Fletcher is a member of the executive committee of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI). He can be reached at jim1fletcher@yahoo.comPrevious Entries By the power of God Religion and academiaNot enough good teaching materialOur Jewish Roots - Educate, educate, educate
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
