Skeptics Answered by D. James Kennedy

Author:D. James Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Apologetics, Religion & Spirituality, Christian Books & Bibles, Theology
ISBN: 9780307807069
Publisher: Multnomah Books
Published: 2011-10-05T10:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

Answers

to Common

Objections

CHAPTER 9

Is Jesus

the Only Way?

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

JOHN 14:6, NIV

Dr. R. C. Sproul, one of the greatest contemporary theologians and apologists, was on the hot spot. Part of the problem was that he wasn’t Dr. Sproul but rather just R. C. Sproul, a lowly freshman in college. Another part of the problem was that he was a relatively new convert to Christianity, with neither a deep understanding of his faith nor the ability to defend it. Most of the problem was that he was being ridiculed by an angry, militant, anti-Christian professor.

Sproul was sitting innocently enough in his freshman college English class. Perhaps he was daydreaming. Right in the middle of class, the professor—a former war correspondent hostile to Christianity—looked at R. C. and asked, “Mr. Sproul, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to God?” Now, what this had to do with Shakespeare, Joyce, T. S. Eliot, or any other great writer of English literature is anybody’s guess, but there it was—a hand grenade tossed into Sproul’s lap.

R. C. was shaken by the question. “I gasped,” he said of the moment, which he believes to be one of the most humiliating in his life. “I felt the weight of her question, and I knew that every eye in the room was on me. My mind raced for a way to escape my dilemma. I knew if I said yes, people would be angry. At the same time, if I said no, I would be betraying Christ.”

Sproul muttered almost inaudibly, “Yes, I do.”

The teacher responded with unmitigated fury. In front of the class, with a voice as loud as a rocket launcher, she yelled at Sproul, “That is the most narrow-minded, bigoted, and arrogant statement I have ever heard in my life! You must be a supreme egotist to believe that your way of religion is the only way.”

Sproul, thoroughly embarrassed and taken aback, slouched meekly in his chair without saying another word.

Even the great ones like R. C. Sproul have failed to defend Christianity. As Sproul grew as a Christian, he learned how to be an effective spokesman for the faith. (If he were back in that classroom now, he would have that professor for lunch and still have room for dessert!) I share this story to encourage you. Even if you may have failed in the past, you also can become better prepared to give “a ready defense” for your Christian faith.

THE CULTURAL CLIMATE: “TOLERANCE” AND “INTOLERANCE”

The professor’s charge is one with which you will have to learn to deal. The question will come in various forms: “Well, all religions are the same, so why insist that yours is the only right one?” or “Why would you be so narrow-minded as to believe Jesus is the only way to God? Isn’t that the height of bigotry?” Whatever the form, this question is always embedded in the idea of tolerance.

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