The Historical Undergirding of Christianity

I suppose in some respects this is just a follow up on the preceding post.  Having a conversation at work this morning regarding different religions, though, reminded me of how important history is to Christianity.  While it's true that both traditional Judaism and Islam are Abrahamic religions and therefore rely to a degree on the historical underpinnings of the Old Testament, Christianity stakes its entire validity on the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

This is not the sort of thing that went over well in my conversation, but I think it bears repeating and understanding.  Christianity has nothing to offer without the resurrection of Jesus.  Certainly there are similar moral principles in other religions, at least of a sort (although I think Jesus was the first person to tell us to love our enemies).  For the kind of person who wants to lead a moral life, Christianity really doesn't seem to do much more than does Judaism or Buddhism.

We can actually make the case a bit stronger.  If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then Christianity is a horrible, horrible hoax, perpetrated by people who were deceived (at best) by someone who appears to be a raving lunatic.  (Try telling your friends, "I saw Satan fall from heaven," and see how they react; cf Lu 10.18.)  While the liar, lord, lunatic trilemma is a bit trite and overused, there's a reason for it.  If he's a liar or a lunatic, you're certainly better off with a different religion.

Dr John Lennox Lecture

Dr John Lennox, a noted Irish apologist, recently gave a lecture at Proclamation Presbyterian Church.  My folks were in attendance and sent along the link to the lecture.

There are some good things in here.  I noted that he does a good job of distinguishing between philosophical materialism and science itself.  Giving credit where it's due, he points out well that science owes a great deal of its advancement to theism.  Lots of good stuff there.

The talk is about half an hour, and 20 minutes are dedicated to Q&A.