A compelling imaginative portrayal of humanity's final state can soften Christianity's most hostile critics. We often make the mistake of thinking that the most hard-boiled atheist's arguments against Christianity are all exclusively intellectual. Or we rush to accuse the non-believer of avoiding Christianity for moral reasons. While we cannot ignore these aspects of the question, we often neglect another side. Has Christianity been presented so that it represents hope? What if the unbeliever never gave Christianity a chance because it looked hopeless? The unbeliever hears of doom and gloom from us, yet sees a hopeful immediate future for him or herself, and decides that Christianity is too bad to be true. This is the real possibility that we forget to consider. Yet thankfully there are examples of Christians who have managed to communicate the historic Christian teaching of the end of the age in such a way that they won a hearing even from the greatest skeptics. We can learn from them.
If you have a current subscription or current on-line account please log-in here to read the rest of this article.
Rick Ritchie resides in Southern California and is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.
Issue: "So What are We Waiting for: Christ's Return or Our Escape?" Jan./Feb. 1999 Vol. 8 No. 1 Page number(s): 30-34
You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. We do not allow reposting an article in its entirety on the Internet. We request that you link to this article from your website. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Modern Reformation (webmaster@modernreformation.org).
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: This article originally appeared in the [insert current issue date] edition of Modern Reformation and is reprinted with permission. For more information about Modern Reformation, visit www.modernreformation.org or call (800) 890-7556. All rights reserved.