Exposing Myths About Christianity: A Guide to Answering 145 Viral Lies and Legends

Books by Jeffrey Burton Russell

Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages

Medieval Civilization

A History of Medieval Christianity: Prophecy and Order

Religious Dissent in the Middle Ages

Witchcraft in the Middle Ages

The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity

A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans

Medieval Heresies: A Bibliography 1960-1979 (with Carl Berkhout)

Satan: The Early Christian Tradition

Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages

Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World

The Prince of Darkness: Evil and the Power of Good in History

Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and the Historians

Dissent and Order in the Middle Ages: The Search for Legitimate Authority

Lives of the Jura Fathers (with K. and T. Vivian)

A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence

A New History of Witchcraft (with Brooks Alexander)

Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It

.

EXPOSING

MYTHS ABOUT

CHRISTIANITY

A Guide to Answering 145

Viral Lies and Legends

Jeffrey Burton Russell

www.IVPress.com/books

.

In grateful memory of

Léon-Ernest Halkin, Elinor P. Mansfield,

Marie-Louise Raffetto and Diana M. Russell

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chronology

Christianity Is Dying Out

Christianity Is Destructive

Christianity Is Stupid

Jesus and the Bible Have Been Shown to Be False

Christian Beliefs Have Been Shown to Be Wrong

Miracles Are Impossible

Worldviews Can’t Be Evaluated

What’s New Is True

Notes

Bibliography

Persons Index

Subject Index

About the Author

Praise for Exposing Myths About Christianity

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Copyright

Acknowledgments

My warmest and deepest thanks go to my beloved wife and vigilant editor, Pamela C. Russell. Next I thank Michael Gibson at IVP for his tireless support and many helpful criticisms. Deep thanks as well to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna and Brooks Alexander for the information and insights they have provided over time. I am also grateful to Joseph Amato, Giles Anderson, Stan Anderson, Art Battson, Michael Bowers, Klaus Fischer, Alan Green, Steven Gross, Hugh Feiss, Walter Kaufmann, John V. Kennedy, Steve Long, John Martinis, Tim Philibosian, Francesc and Kathy Roig, Douglas Thrower, Brian Thibeaut, Michael Tkacz, Joe Traynor, Tim Vivian and Gill Williamson. Special thanks are due to Norman Ravitch and Catherine Brown Tkacz, who each generously read an entire draft. Naturally, not all of these kind people agree with everything in the book, and factual errors are mine. Inevitably there will be errors in a book that covers so much territory, and I welcome corrections. But I hope that readers will consider the evidence as a whole.

Introduction

Currently there are two billion Christians—two thousand million—in the world, and the number is growing. At the same time, myths about Christianity are widespread among Christians, non-Christians and atheists. The result is that it has become difficult to discuss Christianity openly, knowledgeably and fairly. Because Christianity is an important worldwide phenomenon, it needs to be understood and engaged intelligently rather than either defended or attacked on the basis of prejudice or disinformation. This book is a guide to what is true and what is not. It presents what we think we know about Christianity, what really is so, and what is open to question, so that you will be able to choose what to accept or discard. I hope you will find this book relevant as a practical resource for sorting facts from fallacies. It presents a wide range of myths along with their origins and history from early Christianity to the present.

Myths often arise from bias, which is different from point of view. A point of view is open to discussion on the basis of evidence. Bias, on the other hand, is a prejudice that filters out everything that doesn’t fit a preformed conception. In a half-century of teaching the history of Christianity in a number of universities, I’ve encountered bias of all kinds. I’ve also discovered some of my own biases along the way and learned a lot from shattering them. I never attempted to force my views on my students, instead offering evidence for deeper understanding. Whatever view we hold must always be revised in accordance with evidence understood both in particular and in broad context. Imagine a spectrum between completely true and completely false: all of the myths lie toward the false end of the spectrum, and some of them are completely wrong.

This reference book lists 145 specific entries, one for each myth. This arrangement allows you to quickly locate a topic of your choice. Rather than constructing the book as a narrative divided into chapters, I’ve grouped similar entries under general sections, with the most common myths in the earliest sections. You might think of these sections as aisles in a market, where goods are roughly arranged by general category (though I can never seem to find the olives). One entry may lead you to another entry in the same section or, as with the olives, into another section altogether.

Some general notes as you make your way:

Dates are given in B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini, from the birth of Jesus).

The abbreviation r. means ruled or held office for the dates of kings, popes and other rulers.

When the dates of a person’s life are uncertain, the most probable are given.

Some Christians prefer the usage the Apostle Paul, while others prefer Saint Paul. To be inclusive, both are used in this book.

By varying capitalization I distinguish between truths and Truth, progress and Progress, Devil and devils, temple and Temple, Earth and earth, and Tradition and tradition.

Biblical quotations are based on the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Since statistics and polls change all the time, I recommend the reader consult these online sources for the most recent data: World Religion Database (www.brill.nl/wrd; subscription required) and The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (www.pewforum.org).

The table of contents provides a guide to the entries. Footnotes and a general bibliography will help if you would like to pursue any of the questions further.

The point of view of this book is nondenominational—or, more accurately, superdenominational. Few will agree with everything in it. I invite you, whatever your viewpoint, to a discussion of what Christianity really is. I present the evidence as clearly and openly as possible. If you are a non-Christian, you are invited to investigate. If you are a Christian, recall that no one ever served Jesus by suppressing the truth. If you are anti-Christian, here is an opportunity to sort fact from fiction. The goal is to dispel myths and promote reasonable understanding of the subject. Welcome all.

Chronology

(Some dates are closest approximations.)

B.C.

1200-1100: Moses

900s: Extant written fragments of Old Testament

640-609: Reign of King Josiah of Judah

600s-500s: Probable date of composition of most Old Testament books

570-495: Pythagoras, mathematician

535-475: Heraclitus, philosopher

384-322: Aristotle, philosopher

276-194: Eratosthenes, mathematician and geographer

200s: Septuagint: first complete Old Testament

200 B.C.-A.D. 70: Composition of most of Old Testament Apocrypha

200 B.C.-A.D. 100: pseudepigrapha; apocalyptic literature

106-43: Cicero, philosopher

100s (about): Dead Sea Scrolls

37-4: Reign of Herod the Great, King of Judea

25 B.C.-A.D. 45: Philo, Jewish philosopher

4 B.C.: Likely date of birth of Jesus

A.D.

35-107: Ignatius of Antioch, theologian

37-100: Josephus, historian

49: Council of Jerusalem

50-90: New Testament written

54-68: Reign of emperor Nero, persecutor

60-90: Gospels written

60-130: Papias, theologian

61-112: Pliny the Younger, correspondent

66-70: Revolt of Jews against Romans

69-155: Polycarp, theologian

70: Destruction of Jerusalem by Romans

81-96: Reign of emperor Domitian, persecutor

85-165: Ptolemy, geographer

90: Rabbis exclude Christians from the synagogues

100s-600s: Church fathers and mothers, Christian writers

100s: Rabbis exclude Apocrypha from Old Testament

110: Suetonius, Roman historian

115-200: Lucian of Samosata

130 (about): General agreement on canon of New Testament

130-200: Irenaeus, theologian

130s-200s: Christian apocrypha

150: Tatian, theologian

150: Theophilus of Antioch, theologian

150-250: Christian Gnosticism

150-215: Clement of Alexandria, theologian

156-157: The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, hagiography

160-225: Tertullian, theologian

160: Death of Marcion, heretic

161-180: Reign of emperor Marcus Aurelius

170-236: Hippolytus, liturgist

175 (about): Athenagoras, theologian

180: First known written use of the word Trinity

185-254: Origen, theologian

200s: Known manuscripts of substantial parts of New Testament

200s onward: Sign of the cross in universal use

200s-700s: Development of Apostles’ Creed

217-222: Reign of Pope Calixtus I

251-356: Anthony, monastic

258: Death of Cyprian of Carthage, bishop

284-305: Reign of emperor Diocletian

290-346: Pachomius, monastic

300s onward: Special veneration of Mary the mother of Christ

300s onward: Christmas becomes important holiday

300s: First known complete New Testaments

300s: Codex sinaiticus, manuscript of large parts of Old Testament

300s: Icons become common

300s onward: Assumption of Mary common belief

300s: Term pope commonly used for bishops

312-313: Toleration of Christians proclaimed in Roman Empire

325: First Council of Nicaea

325-381: Nicene Creed formed

330-395: Gregory of Nyssa, theologian

339-397: Ambrose, theologian

345-420: Jerome, translator of Bible

346-399: Evagrius of Pontus, theologian, psychologist

347-407: John Chrysostomos, theologian

354-430: Augustine of Hippo, theologian

367-382: Canon of New Testament finally settled

379-395: Reign of emperor Theodosius the Great

380-430: Athanasian Creed

381: First Council of Constantinople

395: Christianity declared official religion of Roman Empire

400s onward: Vast numbers of New Testament manuscripts in many languages

400s: Slavery terminally declines in Roman Empire

400s: Origin of seven deadly sins and seven gifts of the Holy Spirit

410: Sack of Rome by Visigoths

410-417: Pope Innocent I

431: Council of Ephesus

440-461: Reign of Pope Leo I the Great

451: Council of Chalcedon

481-511: Reign of King Clovis, who converts the Franks

500-545: Dionysius the Little establishes A.D. dating

500s onward: Immaculate Conception of Mary common belief

500 (about): Dionysius the Areopagite, contemplative

553: Second Council of Constantinople

570-649: John Climacus, contemplative

570-632: Muhammad, prophet

580-662: Maximus Confessor, contemplative

589: King Recared converts Visigoths to Catholicism

590-604: Reign of Pope Gregory I the Great

600s: Penitentials rank sins according to their gravity

600s: Most Christians live in Africa and Asia, which is conquered by Muslims

632: Muhammad’s conquest of western Arabia

661 (about): Muslims conquer Syria, Egypt and Iraq

673-735: Bede, historian

675-754: Saint Boniface, missionary

680: Third Council of Constantinople

700s-800s: Iconoclasts

700s: Few slaves in Europe

715-731: Reign of Pope Gregory II

731-741: Reign of Pope Gregory III

732: Frankish King Charles Martel stops Muslim invasion

750: Muslim empire stretches from present southern France to Pakistan

771-814: Reign of Charlemagne

787: Second Council of Nicaea

788: Pope Hadrian I declares Charlemagne the new Constantine

780-804: Charlemagne conquers the Saxons

800: Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne emperor

800s: Masoretic (Hebrew) texts of most of Old Testament

800-1300: Era of Muslim mathematics and philosophy

800s-1000s: Marriage gradually considered a sacrament of the church

800s onward: Partial translations of Bible into English

989: Prince Vladimir of Kiev converts Russia

1000s-1200: Numerous heresies

1000s onward: Title pope reserved exclusively in the West to bishop of Rome

1032-1045: Reign of Pope Benedict II

1033-1109: Saint Anselm, philosopher

1048-1054: Reign of Leo IX, who launches papal reform movement

1054: Schism divides Western and Eastern churches

1056-1106: Reign of German emperor Henry IV

1073-1085: Reign of Pope Gregory VII

1079-1142: Abelard, philosopher

1080s-1090s: Muslims close Jerusalem to Christians

1088-1099: Reign of Pope Urban II

1090-1153: Bernard of Clairvaux, contemplative

1096-1291: Crusades

1100s: Rise of cities, education

1100s: Private confession established in Catholic church

1115-1180: John of Salisbury, legal theorist

1135-1202: Joachim of Fiore, millenarian

1168-1263: Robert Grosseteste, theologian, experimenter

1181-1226: Francis of Assisi

1184: Pope Lucius III orders bishops to search out heretics

1198-1216: Reign of Pope Innocent III

1200-1280: Albertus Magnus, theologian, botanist

1204: Constantinople sacked by crusaders

1212: Children’s crusade

1215: Fourth Lateran Council

1217-1274: Bonaventure, contemplative

1225-1274: Thomas Aquinas, theologian

1233: Pope Gregory IX establishes papal inquisitors

1252: Pope Innocent IV allows inquisitors to use torture

1260-1328: Meister Eckhart, contemplative

1265-1321: Dante, poet

1275-1342: Marsilius of Padua, political theorist

1285-1347: William of Ockham, philosopher

1294-1303: Reign of Pope Boniface VIII

1296-1359: Gregory Palamas, contemplative

1300-1358: Jean Buridan, experimentalist

1323-1382: Nicolas Oresme, experimentalist

1330-1384: John Wycliffe, theologian

1340 (about): The Cloud of Unknowing, contemplative work

1342-1417: Julian of Norwich, contemplative

1372-1415: Jan Huss, dissenter

1377-1417: Great schism in papacy

1380-1392: John Wycliffe’s followers translate Bible into English

1400s-1800s: Christian slave traders

1400s: Conciliar movement in Catholic church

1401-1464: Nicholas of Cusa

1435: Pope Eugenius IV excommunicates Europeans enslaving Canary Islanders

1441: First African slaves imported to Europe by a Portuguese ship

1452: Pope Nicholas V gives permission to enslave Muslim and pagan prisoners

1453: Fall of Constantinople to Turks

1462: Pope Pius II condemns slavery

1462: King Henry IV of Castile requests Pope Pius II to authorize inquisition in Spain

1473-1543: Nicolaus Copernicus, mathematician

1478: Spanish inquisition established

1483-1546: Martin Luther, Protestant reformer

1491: Extant globe of Earth

1492: Columbus discovers America

1492: Muslim rule eliminated from Spain

1494-1536: William Tyndale translates Bible into English

1500s: Abuse of indulgences

1500s-1600s: Wars between Protestants and Catholics

1500s-1800s: Alliance of churches and monarchies in Europe

1500s-1700s: Witchcraft

1505-1560: John of the Cross, contemplative

1507-1549: Reign of King Henry VIII of England

1509-1564: John Calvin, theologian

1515-1582 Teresa of Ávila, contemplative

1517: Beginning of Protestant Reformation

1521: Excommunication of Martin Luther

1521: Radical Thomas Müntzer arrives in Wittenberg

1523-1525: Ulrich Zwingli preaches in Zurich

1534: William Tyndale uses the term popery

1536: John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion published

1537: Pope Paul III condemns enslavement of Native Americans

1538-1584: Charles Borromeo, theologian

1542: Pope Paul III centralizes a single inquisition in Rome as the Holy Office

1542-1621: Robert Bellarmine, theologian

1543: Publication of Copernicus’ work on the solar system

1545-1563: Council of Trent

1546: Word Puritan coined

1548-1600: Giordano Bruno, philosopher

1548-1617: Francisco Suárez, theologian

1552-1634: Sir Edward Coke, jurist

1556: Pope Paul IV orders Jews of Rome segregated in a ghetto

1558-1603: Reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England

1561-1626: Francis Bacon, philosopher

1582-1610: Catholic translation of Bible into English

1562-1633: George Abbot, a translator of the King James Bible

1564-1642: Galileo, mathematician and astronomer

1571-1630: Johannes Kepler, astronomer

1591: Pope Gregory XIV condemns enslavement of Native Americans

1600: Giordano Bruno burned as a heretic

1600s-1900s: Catholic Jansenism

1603-1625: Reign of King James I of England

1604-1611: Translation of King James Bible

1609-1611: Galileo’s astronomical discoveries

1611: Publication of King James Bible

1611: Galileo honored by Pope Paul V

1623-1644: Reign of Pope Urban VIII, who condemns all slavery

1618-1648: Thirty Years War

1619: First African slaves imported to British colonies in North America

1632: Galileo’s Dialogue published

1632-1704: John Locke, philosopher

1633: Galileo found guilty of heresy and placed under house arrest

1642-1691: George Fox, contemplative

1643-1727: Isaac Newton, mathematician, philosopher

1643: Presbyterian Westminster Confession

1686-1761: William Law, contemplative

1686: The Holy Office (the Roman inquisition) condemns slavery

1688: English Bill of Rights

1689: Baptist Confession

1694-1778: Voltaire, writer

1700s: Origin of phrase fairy tale

1703-1791: John Wesley, Protestant leader

1711-1776: David Hume, philosopher

1712-1778 : Jean-Jacques Rousseau, founder of Romanticism

1725: First appearance of the word science in a modern sense

1729-1781: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, biblical critic

1740-1814: Marquis de Sade, sadist

1743-1826: Thomas Jefferson

1750: Beginning of the Enlightenment

1752-1840: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, racist writer

1754: John Woolman leads Quakers against slave trade

1759-1833: William Wilberforce, antislavery advocate

1770-1831: Georg W. F. Hegel, philosopher

1771: Massachusetts outlaws importation of slaves

1772-1829: Friedrich Schleiermacher, theologian

1776: American Declaration of Independence

1787: Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in England

1789: French Revolution

1798-1886: Robert Benton Seeley, millenarian

1800s-1900s: Industrial revolution

1800: Term Caucasian invented for white people

1800-1882: John Nelson Darby, millenarian

1801-1885: Anthony Ashley Cooper Lord Shaftesbury, millenarian

1802-1885: Victor Hugo, writer

1803: Denmark outlaws slave trade

1807: United Kingdom outlaws slave trade

1807: Racist Short System of Comparative Anatomy

1808: United States outlaws slave trade

1809-1882: Charles Darwin, biologist

1810-1883: Thomas Rawson Birks, millenarian

1810-1888: Asa Gray, botanist

1815: Pope Pius VII demands abolition of slave trade

1818: Netherlands outlaws slave trade

1818-1883: Karl Marx, communist philosopher

1823-1892: Joseph Ernest Renan, biblical critic

1824-1881: David Friedrich Strauss, biblical critic

1825-1895: Thomas H. Huxley, Darwin’s publicist

1828: Washington Irving’s fictional Columbus

1839: Pope Gregory XVI sends pastoral letter condemning slavery to U.S. Catholics

1831: France outlaws slave trade

1833: American Anti-Slavery Society founded

1833: United Kingdom abolishes slavery

1833: First use of the word scientist

1842-1910: William James, psychologist

1844: Racist On the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races

1844: End of world predicted by William Miller

1844-1900: Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

1848: France abolishes slavery

1848: Assembly of Frankfurt declares full equality for Jews

1853: First woman ordained in America

1854: Independent Latin America completes abolition of slavery

1854-1941: Sir James Frazer, anthropologist

1854: Pope Pius IX defines doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary

1856-1939: Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist

1859: Charles Darwin publishes Origin of Species

1861: Racist Elements of Medical Zoology

1861: Seventh-Day Adventists founded

1865: United States abolishes slavery

1865: Term relativism appears

1869-1870: Catholic First Vatican Council

1870-1924: Nikolai Lenin, Soviet dictator

1870: Infallibility of the pope in faith and morals declared

1873: Term anti-Semitism coined

1880-1956: H. L. Mencken, satirist

1886: Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba

1886-1968: Karl Barth, theologian

1888: Brazil abolishes slavery

1889-1945: Adolf Hitler

1890s: Elizabeth Cady Stanton edits The Woman’s Bible

1892-1971: Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian

1893-1963: C. S. Lewis, writer

1895: Fundamentalist movement begins

1900s: Century of vicious dictators

1900s-2000s: Arab-Jewish struggles

1904-1990: B. F. Skinner, psychologist

1906: Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus published

1906: Pentecostalism begins in Los Angeles

1906-1945: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor and martyr

1914-1918: First World War

1915: Revival of Ku Klux Klan

1915-1968: Thomas Merton, contemplative

1918- : Billy Graham, evangelist

1920s: George McCready Price founds Young Earth Creationism

1924-1990: Penal codes against Christianity in the Soviet Union

1931: Term physicalism appears

1933: Hitler comes to power

1933: Concordat between Pope Pius XI and Hitler

1934: Barmen Declaration

1934-1996: Carl Sagan, scientist

1935: Nazis arrest seven hundred Protestant ministers

1937: Pope Pius XI issues encyclical denouncing Nazism

1937: Hitler’s new (neopagan) religion established

1938: Yuletide replaces Christmas in Nazi Germany

1939-1945: Second World War

1941-1945: Holocaust

1945-1946: Nag Hammadi manuscripts discovered

1947-1960: Dead Sea Scrolls discovered

1949: Paul Blanshard publishes American Freedom and Catholic Power

1950: Pope Pius XII defines doctrine of Assumption of Mary

1958-1963: Reign of Pope John XXIII

1960s: Civil rights movement

1961: The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris

1962-1965: Catholic Second Vatican Council

1962: Saudi Arabia abolishes slavery

1965: World Council of Churches declares anti-Judaism unchristian

1965: Mutual excommunications of Eastern and Western churches canceled

1970: The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey

1978-2005: Reign of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla)

1981: Mauritania abolishes slavery

1992: Rehabilitation of Galileo as orthodox

2005- : Reign of Pope Benedict XVI (Josef Ratzinger)

2008: Benedict XVI rejects all discrimination against Jews

Christianity Is Dying Out

1. Christianity is uncool and old-fashioned.

Fashionably elite people are supposed to be atheists. As a result, Christianity is uncool in much of contemporary Western society. Human beings are egocentric, and if God exists, one’s own ego is not the center of the universe. In many circles—the field of social psychology, as one example—someone who takes Christianity seriously can provoke mockery or even anger from others in the circle. Humans are very tribal, and religious belief is a good way to get oneself kicked out of certain tribes. When it comes to matters of religious belief, many people think they are making up their own mind when in reality they are simply going along with the group, whether the group is Christian or atheist. In a materialist, consumerist society, belief in the transcendent (something beyond our senses) is difficult to maintain, and people find it pleasanter not to believe than to be ridiculed.

Christianity is old-fashioned in the sense that it has been around for almost twenty centuries. On the one hand, that might indicate that it has something going for it and is always being renewed. On the other hand, the general revulsion against all traditional culture since the 1960s has produced a Western society contemptuous of the old and eager to consume whatever seems new. In an extroverted society that venerates change, there is a fear—almost an existential terror—of being left out. In school one is required to learn science but not critical thought, and that lack allows strident voices to demand assent to current orthodoxies and the suppression of dissent. ¹

To a thoughtful person, the question is not whether Christianity is unfashionable or old-fashioned. The question is whether it is true. At the very least, one must consider whether it is a system that is sufficiently coherent and evidence-based to be respected even by those who disagree with it.

2. Christianity is outdated and dying out.

Whether we think Christianity is outdated depends on our point of view, and our point of view is influenced by where we live. If we live in Europe or on the U.S. coasts, we are more likely to be unbelievers, and we coastal folk attribute that to our superior intelligence. If we live in Nigeria, Korea or China, Christianity seems a new and liberating idea. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s most religious area. The percentage of people who say religion is very important to them ranges from ninety-eight percent in Senegal to sixty-nine percent in Botswana, compared with fifty-seven percent in the United States and much less in Europe. ² Atheists attribute the growth of Christianity in Asia and Africa to the alleged ignorance of people in developing societies.

Point of view regarding religion also depends on age. In Western society, young people’s views of Christianity mostly range from indifferent to negative. ³ A survey of Canadian teens showed that about twenty percent read the Bible or other religious scriptures at least monthly, as opposed to forty-three percent who checked their horoscopes monthly. ⁴ Many people born and bred in a world of designer labels regard Christianity as just another brand name, along with Buddhism, New Age, humanism and so on. ⁵

In the United States, the American Religious Identification Survey indicates that from 1990 to 2008, the proportion of the population identifying themselves as Christians declined by eleven percent, while the proportion unaffiliated with any religion rose by seven and a half percent. The category no religion now exceeds every denomination except Catholic and Baptist. ⁶ That is a big change in less than two decades. However, the 2008 survey also shows that ninety-two percent believe in some kind of universal spirit, seventy-four percent believe in life after death, and seventy-nine percent believe in contemporary miracles. And though many are apatheists (from apathy) who don’t think it matters whether God exists or not, forty-one percent even of the unaffiliated say religion is important in their lives. ⁷ Most of the no religion respondents are of the I don’t care variety, while only four percent identify themselves as atheists or agnostics. ⁸

The term agnostic was coined in 1870 by Thomas Huxley, who came to be known as Darwin’s bulldog. It has two basic senses: I don’t know but I’d like to find out, and I don’t know, I don’t think I can know, and therefore I don’t care to examine the evidence. Unlike agnostics, however, most no religion people feel they just haven’t found the right religion for them. A recent Gallup poll of U.S. residents asked respondents whether religion was an important part of their daily life. Nationwide, sixty-five percent said it was. ⁹

In Western society overall, belief in God is declining. In Great Britain, only forty percent of people believe in God, and the figures are similar in Australia, Canada and continental European countries, with the smallest percentage of believers found in the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe (except Russia, where belief appears to be growing). ¹⁰ The so-called new atheists have gained attention in the last decade despite the fact that their arguments are not new but more than a century old. In elite circles in Europe and the United States it is considerably more respectable to be an atheist than to be a Christian. There has been a marked shift in the default position from belief in God to unbelief. This is particularly true in academia, law and mainstream media. Rejection of Christianity is considered sophisticated, and some just say, Well, I don’t believe it, and neither do my friends, as if that were an argument. This is surfing on the wave of atheism rather than looking under the froth and foam.

Also, many Christians belonging to elite tribes don’t dare admit their belief for fear of losing status, alienating friends, suffering job discrimination or being banished from the tribe. In some areas of the world, notably the Middle East, Christians undergo literal banishment and actual death. ¹¹

Christianity is dying in the sense that many Western Christians no longer believe in the historical, traditional Christianity based on the Bible and the creeds. ¹² Christian Tradition is the whole of the explicit and implicit truths contained in Scripture and transmitted through the church. ¹³ Society’s move toward inclusivity makes no distinction between Christianity and other religions—a position that is philosophically impossible no matter how warmhearted it may feel. The only way all religions can be equal is if all are equally meaningless. How much can we water down our beliefs without losing our identity? Are all stories equally true? When a community accommodates and includes every different belief, does it stand for anything at all? Saying that everybody has a different story and that no story is privileged over any other leaves every religion groping for the lowest common denominator, and it ends in evaporation. Inclusivity is empty fare for the spiritually hungry—which is an important reason why undemanding churches are fading.

Christianity is a way of life. People can be put off by it because it demands that they examine their lives both intellectually and spiritually—and then act. ¹⁴ As a result, most people in Western societies these days are practical atheists: they think and act as if there were no God. Those people who do say they believe in God have a variety of ideas about God’s nature and what their relationship to him is. Only a minority believe in the established Christian view of Jesus Christ as the unique Lord who is fully God and fully human. By repeatedly comparing Christian beliefs with belief in fairies and leprechauns, atheists have often been successful in intimidating those who do believe from speaking out. In short, Christianity has become the countercultural view in Europe, Canada, Australia and elite America. It requires both thought and courage to resist the materialist trend. It’s surprising that more people haven’t declared themselves atheists, for if one converts to atheism from Christianity, one doesn’t have to do anything, but converting from atheism to Christianity requires commitment and action. Atheism has been called tone-deaf, colorblind, even nature-challenged. Atheism is like the human eye, which sees only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum. For atheists, the rest of the spectrum is just not there. ¹⁵

Antitheism is a term describing outspoken opposition to God, as opposed to mere atheism, which simply posits that there is no God. ¹⁶ Antitheists regard moderates as cowards. They do not tolerate respect for belief in God at all. They regard religion as totally false and therefore evil. Anti­theists are atheists with an agenda. They put themselves in a privileged position, loading the burden of truth onto theists by assuming that atheism is right until proved otherwise. Phillip Johnson and John Mark Reynolds observe that theists are expected to produce proof, including proof that no naturalistic solution to the problem of creation is possible. Atheists need only to publish suggestions. ¹⁷ Antitheists, says Ian Markham, are fundamentalists with an unambiguous assertion of a worldview in which the authors are entirely confident that they are right. ¹⁸

Overt hostility to religion centering on hostility to Christianity has grown since September 2001, because antitheists claim that religious people are particularly prone to terrorism. ¹⁹ Antitheists oddly believe both that Christianity is dying and that it constitutes a frightening threat. This self-contradictory view stems mainly from the misconception that religion is in conflict with science. In fact, science is not at odds with religion; it’s only the metaphysics of physicalism that is at odds with religion. ²⁰

Metaphysics, according to Carlos Eire, is "thinking about what [lies] beyond (Greek: meta) the physical order and [gives] it its structure and its existence." ²¹ I use the term metaphysics in its primary sense: as the American Heritage Dictionary defines it, the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality. The fact that many people associate metaphysics with the occult is the result of the degradation of real metaphysics in the 1900s. Supernatural has also acquired connotations of weirdness, but basically it means anything beyond the ordinary course of nature.

Physicalism (a word coined in 1931) is a metaphysical view maintaining that all statements not relating to physical science are meaningless; every phenomenon in nature is known to be the result of a combination of physical/chemical causes and randomness. Atheists point out that ninety-three percent of the members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences espouse no religion. However, the percentage of American scientists as a whole espousing religion (forty-one percent to forty-five percent) changed little in the eighty years between 1916 and 1996. ²² The most vociferous attacks on Christianity have come not from scientists but from propagandists such as Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Shaw, Darrow, Nietzsche, Sartre and Ayn Rand. When one searches for concentrations of atheists in modern universities, one finds them disproportionately in the social sciences rather than in the physical sciences. ²³

At the same time that Christianity is declining in the West, it is rapidly rising in Asia, Africa and South America. Compare the more than eighty percent of Nigerians (Muslims as well as Christians) who believe in life after death with the less than twenty-five percent in Estonia. Almost fifty percent of sub-Saharan Africans are now Christian, compared with ten percent around 1900. The total number of Christians in the world is increasing rapidly, and there may be a hundred million crypto-Christians worldwide who do not dare declare their belief for fear of persecution. ²⁴ Thus the idea that Christianity is dying out is obviously false, and it can hardly be outdated if so many people keep coming to it. The view that it is outdated comes from the unfounded belief that new ideas are always better than old ideas, and also from a false analogy between religious knowledge and scientific technology. The analogy is false in a number of ways. First, scientific technology is a completely different way of viewing the world from theology, so advances in one do not necessarily affect the other. (It is also questionable whether the increased complexity, specialization and idiosyncrasy of theology since the Enlightenment is an advancement at all.) Second, fundamental Christian faith is more person-based than knowledge-based: it consists of commitment to the person of Jesus Christ.

Antitheists rejoice that disbelief is growing but fear that belief is growing faster. Christians rejoice that belief is growing but are concerned about its increasing departure from its roots. ²⁵

3. Christianity is boring.

Many people, especially younger ones, feel that Christianity is boring. Usually this feeling arises from weak impressions in church. Church seems boring if we don’t understand what is going on and don’t try to find out. It seems boring if the services use words or music we don’t like. However, there are many churches to choose among, from almost silent services to boisterous singing and dancing, and from the most conservative to the most radical, so that a person can almost design a church for himself or herself—and some do. New congregations keep springing up, and Americans switch churches at an increasing rate.

Many churches are not at all boring; one might, for example, sample Orthodox churches with their beautiful art and rich liturgies. When people say that church is boring they often mean they find other entertainment more fun. But church isn’t supposed to be a form of entertainment. Christianity is about what I can do for others. In the current me-oriented society, however, we demand instead what Christianity can do for us. President Kennedy’s exhortation Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country echoes as from a distant land.

Churches aside, is Christianity itself boring? Some congregations present bland versions of Christianity that are spiritually and intellectually undemanding. What is missing is not just beauty of language and music but something more fundamental: the loss of the expectation of God’s presence, or more precisely, God’s dangerous presence. ²⁶ Christianity is not a feel-good religion; its founder died in agony. The real meaning of Christianity is to transform our lives, and pastors know we tend to resist that. Another reason it may seem boring is that we imagine we already know all about it; we have heard about the baby in the manger once or twice too often. In my experience of college students and faculty, however, many people know virtually nothing about Christianity. A few years ago in my university there was an outpouring of sarcastic correspondence asking what Christ is risen means. Someone wrote, What, Moses is sleeping in and Muhammad hasn’t gone to bed yet? Still another reason is a widespread feeling of Why bother? There are lots of stories like that in other religions and cultures too. This ignores the fact that the Christian story is based on actual evidence.

Here are the basics of Christianity: One day a young woman who had not had sexual intercourse gave birth to a living, fully human being. He had powers beyond those of other people. He healed victims of incurable diseases and even brought some of the dead back to life. He told people that he had come to change the world and make them fully understand themselves so that they could be truly happy. He told them that God was more likely to prefer the poor and humble to the rich, powerful and famous. Jesus favored the poor and weak not because they were poor and weak, which is no virtue, but because the poor and weak were mistreated and oppressed by the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful people hearing Jesus were first suspicious and then enraged. They seized him and tortured him to death. They buried him. A few days after Jesus died he was truly alive again, walking, talking and eating. He went away, having promised that he would be present again at the end of the world. Many thought he must have had a unique connection with God; soon millions of people believed in him, and today nearly four billion Christians and Muslims are waiting for him to return.

We may choose to disbelieve Christianity, but it is not boring in itself. If it were, it could scarcely have persuaded billions of people over twenty centuries. Such people have not, for the most part, led boring lives. For example, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and professor in Germany who in his twenties stood up against the Nazis and those who were riding the Nazi wave; he went to England in 1934 but returned in 1935 to fight the Nazis on their home ground. He was fired from his professorship (excluded from his tribe), and his seminary was closed. When the war began, he was safely in America but chose to return again to Germany to continue his dangerous struggle; he was imprisoned in 1943 and hanged in 1945. The numbers of men and women who have suffered and died for Christ and continue to do so is vast. Obviously none finds it boring.

4. Christianity is a fairy tale.

The great psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) called Christianity a fairy tale. The phrase derived in the 1700s from the French conte de fées (story about fairies) and has now become shorthand for a story that is both false and silly. We hear remarks such as I don’t believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, or Jesus. Such a remark about religion is parallel to an equally childish statement about science, such as I don’t believe in intergalactic crab monsters or molecular biology. Christianity is based on historical evidence that is open to evaluation.

For me, Christianity is the opposite of childish. As a child I learned that God didn’t exist before I learned that Santa Claus didn’t exist. My parents told me at an early age that only stupid people believed in God, and I accepted that until I examined the evidence. Again, we should distinguish point of view from bias: point of view develops according to evidence; bias refuses to adjust to evidence. Whatever view we hold must always be revised in accordance with the evidence. Antitheists imagine that Christians believe in a big daddy or mommy who will be nice to them when they are good and punish them when they are naughty. Such people ignore the central event of Christianity—the life and death of God’s own son—and the multitudes of Christians who have painfully died for their faith. They also ignore the innumerable brilliant scientists, philosophers, writers and others who have believed and now believe in Christ. It’s true that some people are childish in their belief in Christianity, but others are childish in their belief in atheism.

Freud’s followers preferred the term folk tale to Freud’s fairy tale. Is Christianity a collection of folk tales? Some have claimed that the New Testament accounts are written versions of tales that gradually arose about Jesus before and after his death. The difference between the New Testament and folk tales is that the narratives about Jesus focus on a real person and were composed shortly after his death on the basis of eyewitness evidence. Folk tales are about fictional beings without known origins. Whatever the New Testament narratives are, they are certainly not folk tales. On the other hand, a number of fictional accounts about Jesus and his followers popped up in at least the second century and continue to proliferate today. Most make no pretense at being true and are accepted as fiction, like novels about other historical characters. Some claim to present the real, secret truth. The Christian community has always discerned between the fictional and the historical and between what is open and what is secret. Christianity has no room for secrets and is neither fairy tale nor folk tale. ²⁷

5. Christianity is confusing.

Christianity is often confusing to the outsider and even to the insider. We often hear different things in different denominations, different churches and different college courses. Where do we go for a straight answer? The evidence. Christianity is a relatively coherent system about which historical facts exist. Anything else isn’t really Christianity. If we plunge immediately into the deep end of the pool in the midst of diverse theological arguments, we quickly become confused and discouraged.

So here is the core: Christianity means faith in the person of Jesus Christ, who is both divine and human, who died to restore our free will, and who rose from the dead as evidence for his God-nature. Faith is dynamic interaction with God. There are two types of faith: one is intellectual assent to a proposition or system; the other is moral assent in personal trust. One type of