To me, one of the strongest arguments in favor of the Christian worldview has always been the historical one. In other words, look at the civilization that follows the belief system, and you have a good idea of the nature of the system itself.Basically you can phrase it this way: Is the belief system anthropically sound? That is, does it work on the human level? Would there have been a Michelangelo without a St. Patrick, a Mozart without a Charlemagne, a Jonas Salk without a Newton? Would any of these, and the aggregate of humanists that comprises Western civilization, have come into being apart from a tradition that embodied, to some degree, the divine Incarnation?
I am painfully aware that there are thousands of Christians who (1) have no interest in -- and a great deal of impatience with -- this ancient discipline of justifying the faith, traditionally called “apologetics,” or (2) who are aware of this old discipline, but now consider it irrelevant at best, or impolite and divisive, at worst. To both groups, and any others whose faith seems something more to be consumed or politicized than to be passed on, I would ask: What did Jude mean when he spoke of “contending for the faith?”
Now, I know that Christian civilization is loaded with ambiguities. Still, I have to ask, would the normal "Western world citizen" prefer to be beamed down at random somewhere in Europe or North America, or, on the other hand, in Africa, the Middle East, Asia or Siberia? We instinctively know, in spite of our white liberal guilt, that some cultures are better than others. There is a reason for that, rooted in our faith, and we needn’t be unnecessarily equivocal about this.
(Dr. Jack Niewold, American pastor and educator. Remarks from Jack's Facebook page.)
