Dear Church Family –
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. By changing lives individually, Jesus changes society corporately. In the process of following Jesus, Christians have laid the foundation for a just and good society.
I was blessed and intrigued this morning to read that a prominent atheist announced on November 11th that she has now become a Christian. What led her to Christ was the realization of the “legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.” She came to see that the way of Christ is the way, the truth, and the life for human society.
Her name is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was raised a Muslim but lived, wrote, and spoke as an atheist. She is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute and a former senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She is a bestselling author and advocated for secularism as the answer to the evils of the world.
But she came to realize that secularism does not support the essential values of a free society and, in fact, undermines those values—values such as freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and economic freedom. That realization led her to discover, in the truth of Christ, the fulfillment of deep personal needs. It was seeing Christ as the way for society that led her to see Christ as the way for her personally.
In interviews she has talked about the story of Christ and its personal significance for her life and decision. But her first announcement that she had become a Christian set her decision in a cultural context. It was the cultural affects of Christianity that led her to realize the truth about Jesus. Here’s her own words:
“Western civilization is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilize a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fiber of the next generation….We can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: What is it that unites us? The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
She said that she turned to Christianity because “I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable—indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: What is the meaning and purpose of life?”
Her story emboldens us to not be shy about holding to the truth of Christ and sharing the truth of Christ. Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life. His truth penetrates deception and opens eyes.
Thanksgiving Day we get the special privilege and opportunity to thank the Lord for what He has done in our lives and in our world and culture. It’s a great time of year to tell others what God has done for you.
Because of Christ – Pastor Tim