Told You About Church History

(Written Transcript Part 3)

There’s kind of a Catholic view of scripture, which is we have this Bible, but you don’t just pick it up and interpret it in a vacuum. Just like there are genealogies of scriptural documents that radiate outward from the center, there is also a tradition of interpretation that also radiates outward from the center.

Just like you can go back here as early as you can go and find out, “All right, the Septuagint says this, but this other version or other scroll says this, or the Dead Sea scrolls and all that” – just like you do that, you also do that with any question of doctrine or belief about anything.

Well, you know, did Jesus really rise from the dead? What about communion?” and all these different kinds of things, there’s a tradition. Before you go off making up your own thing, you should go find out.

G.K. Chesterton said, “Conservatism is simply giving your dead grandparents a chance to vote too.” It’s not denying people a vote just because they’re dead. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?

What if we give Augustine a vote? What if we give Aquinas a vote? What if we give Luther a vote? What if we give Jonathan Edwards a vote? What if we give Pope so-and-so a vote?

As I began to explore the Catholic church, here’s what I found. What I found was, as far as the average man on the street is concerned, they have a serious quality control problem. You go to the typical Catholic church on a typical day and it’s a fairly mediocre experience. We know the scandals and all that kind of stuff. Most people are like way out at the fringe.

But as you go closer in, you will find that there is extraordinary scholarship, there is extraordinary concern for what the Bible says, for what everything says. They are very meticulous. They have kept records very carefully and have immensely talented thinkers.

You do yourself a disservice if you know nothing about them. If you know nothing about Augustine, if you know nothing about Anselm or Aquinas or some of these guys, you’ve missed out.

Audience: They probably have had the most benevolent organizations in this country serving thousands and thousands of children in foster care, hospitals, humanitarians, and they never base it just for Catholics. Protestants also do too, but Catholics have had huge – like St. Francis of Assisi – and they’re very, very humanitarian movements.

Audience: What about pre-Catholic Churches? What about the early New Testament church and Judaism?

Perry: I don’t totally know where you’re going with that, but let me talk about that.

Audience: What was the question?

Perry: What about the early church and Judaism?

Audience: Like, Melito of Sardis which is the earliest [inaudible]writing known. He wrote it on the passover.

Perry: What’s the date of that?

Audience: It’s 120? 70? It’s real early.[inaudible]

Perry: I don’t know that author, but here’s what I can tell you. The Catholic church is the original mother ship. I’m going to give you the best that I know. I might be wrong, but I’m going to give it as best I know.

In church history, we have 0 AD and 2,000. In 1052 you have a split between the orthodox, which was five churches, and the Catholics, which was two churches. In 1517 you have the Protestant Reformation and then the Protestants go outwards from there.

You might be saying that there was some other thing way back when. I don’t know about it. Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. What I can tell you is you can pick up a book like this, and the Catholics can trace back all the way to Polycarp, who was John’s disciple, who Catholic tradition says when Jesus said, “Let the children come to me,” and he put a child on his lap, that the child was Polycarp.

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: That might be, and Roman Catholic – yeah, sure. You’re beyond my knowledge if you want to parse somebody at 150 AD and whether they were a Roman Catholic or not. My understanding is there were seven churches, and Rome was one of them, and there’s debate. I don’t know. If it was somebody else’s church history class they could probably answer that a whole lot better.

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: That’s a whole debate about the Pope and all that. I don’t really want to get into that, because I’m not in a position to really defend anything. You can trace the Catholic church all the way back to 100 AD with Ignatius, for whatever that’s worth.

Audience: What I hear you saying is that you’re looking at the scholars going all the way back to the days when you would Catholic church as a distinct movement. The real issue that the contemporary Catholic church has roots going all the way back to the original church, which was the universal church, but its roots are right back there to the very beginning. It’s not an issue of Catholicism that you’re talking about. You’re not arguing about any of that. You’re saying that the stewardship of scholarship goes all the way back to the very beginning, whether they were called Catholics or not, because they weren’t called Catholics back then. But that’s not what you’re saying.

Perry: Right. I’m really not wanting to get into the political aspect of it. It’s exactly what you said. It’s the scholarship. They have preserved the history and they’ve done a very good job of it.

Audience: To take the controversy out of it, I think you’d go [inaudible]…..

Perry: Yeah, I think you could definitely say there are a lot of little spurious belief systems that grew up….

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: That may be, and I would suggest to you that if you have any confidence in humans to sort things out as history moves along, then there’s reason to be confident that the version of Christianity that we practice today is what Jesus taught.

The thing is, you pick up this book and you read it. Read the stuff that was written in 90 AD. Read the stuff that was written in 120. Read the stuff in 150, 170, 180, 200 – it’s not that different. It’s really not different at all.

You want to get into an argument about Mary and Popes and all that, you can do that. But the first few hundred pages of this book, there’s not a bunch of stuff about that. It’s like how to live the Christian life. These letters to these different churches, they read a lot like Paul’s letters. It’s like be patient, have forbearance, be honest with people, worship Jesus, meet with the brethren every Sunday.

There’s this modern evangelical idea that that Bible you hold in your hands has to be perfect, perfect, perfect, and that you have to know what it says to 12 decimal places of precision. I don’t think the early church really looked at it that way. That’s a very modernistic way of looking at the Bible.

The Catholic church was more comfortable with ambiguity, and Martin Luther was less comfortable with ambiguity, so he got rid of it. But I think he made a mistake in getting rid of it, because there’s some really good stuff there.

I want to point to one of the most important things. Wisdom of Solomon 11:20. By the way, Wisdom of Solomon is a great book to read. It’s really good. If you like Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon is excellent.

Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.”

Now I submit to you that is the first scientific statement of the ancient world. You know an earlier one?

Audience: The Persians, the Islamic people had all the mathematics and all this stuff and led the people out of the Dark Ages. There’s a whole different set of cultures that are not parallel with the normal one.

Perry: This is 1000 BC. This is Jewish. This is not Rome.

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: The Jews had this long before there was a church. This was 3,000 years ago. I want you to kind of meditate on this. “Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.” You can weigh, count, and measure everything. If you’re trying to explain why it rained this morning, this is a big hint.

Now here’s a question for you. Science got started in Persia, and then it kind of sputtered out.

Audience: Almost all of the things the west call Persian are actually Islamic inventions.

Perry: Well, science got started in Islam.

Audience: [inaudible]…go back to Babylon and pre-Babylonia: Mesopotamian History.

Perry: Just follow me where I’m trying to with this. If you trace those developments, they go along – let’s say it was 1000 BC, and it goes along and then some civilization crumbles and all you’ve got is their scrolls, and the scientific inquiry stops.

Audience: You’re talking about Western Culture. Western culture had a science base string going on during the dark ages. They had a very limited science going in the Western Culture during that time. Basically the only unrestricted was East.

Perry: But let’s say this is the east. Stuff would get started and it would go along and then it would stop. That’s what I’m saying. Science and Chinese medicine didn’t get started and then go and go and go, and then here we are with all the science that we got from China.

Audience: Yes we do. Its just now making its way back into western culture.

Perry: But they lost it.

Audience: No they didn’t. We ignored it.

Perry: They ignored it! They didn’t have cars. They didn’t have computers.

Audience: They did have computers. [inaudible]

Perry: Where are they?

Audience: Neglected by western culture.

Perry: I’ve been to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan and I didn’t see any computers in there.

Audience: I’ll concede on that one.

Perry:Okay, that’s fine, but where did we get the science we have? Bits and pieces came from the Chinese. Bits and pieces came from the Egyptians. Bits and pieces came from the Romans. Bits and pieces came from the Greeks. There might be bits and pieces from the Mayans.

But when did science actually get going and not stop? In western Europe. Why? Because they had a theology for believing that there was a mega-explanation for how the universe operated, and it wasn’t a little bit of mysticism and a little bit of science, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

The Greeks believed that if there was a thunderstorm it’s because Zeus was having a snit with Apollo. Their theology couldn’t support a scientific worldview. Jewish theology supported a scientific worldview. It said God made a world that obeys fixed discoverable laws.

So it gets started in China and then it kind of levels out or gets lost or never really gets accepted. It gets started in Egypt and they do amazing things, but then it gets lost.

Audience: So many people were trying to conquer each other. When one would conquer the other, then their whole history and libraries and everything burned or got destroyed.

Perry: Right, and the Jews are the oldest civilization that survived, and the Christians are the second oldest civilization that survived. All the other civilizations crumbled and fell. Rome – gone. Greece – gone. The ancient Chinese dynasties – gone. The Egyptian dynasties – gone.

Audience: Muslims?

Perry: Well, the Muslims did okay. They didn’t do great. No insult to anybody, but Islam is not characterized by high standards of living. I don’t want to get into Islam. That’s like a whole other thing.

Now let’s switch gears a little bit. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French writer. Back in the 1820’s or 1830’s, the French aristocracy was watching the U.S. The U.S. is 50 years old and they are nervous. They’re like, “What is going on over there? We like our castles and we like our aristocracy. We’re not sure about this democracy thing.”

So they got the brightest guy they had, Alexis de Tocqueville, and they sent him to America and he wrote a book called, Democracy in America. If you go take like a freshman American history class, you’ll probably be given the book, Democracy in America by de Tocqueville, and it’s brilliant. It’s well worth reading, very interesting, and he describes the United States.

He describes it very accurately, and here’s what he says:

Nothing struck me with more force than the general equality of condition among the people…A great democratic revolution is going on amongst us…It is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.”

In other words, the idea of equality, and you and me being equal, and you and me being equal, and you and me being equal, is a juggernaut. It’s an unstoppable force.

He says from 1100 AD to 1835: “We shall scarcely find a single great event which has not promoted equality.” And then he goes through the list –

• The Crusades and English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions.

• The invention of the gun made the peasant and the king equal on the battlefield.

• The printing press opened the same resources to the minds of all the classes.

• The post office brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and the gate of the palace.

• Protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to heaven.

• The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power.

Is the idea of democracy, or more generally the idea of equality, an unstoppable force? He says –

• Everywhere we look, the same revolution is going on throughout the Christian world. Every event has turned to the advantage of democracy.”

• Whether people consciously fought for its cause, or even if they opposed it, all have been blind instruments in the hands of God.”

• The gradual development of the principle of equality is therefore a Providential fact…it is not necessary that God himself should speak in order that we may discover the unquestionable signs of His will.”

I think he even observed that equality was a manifest destiny in the world, that it was going to happen whether you liked it or not. It was going to roll over everything in its path.

Since de Tocqueville in 1935:

• >Democracy has spread to almost all the Western world.

• The invention of the steam engine and the train created a nationwide marketplace for all goods.

• Henry Ford’s ambition was to make automobiles available to everyone.

Audience: I’ve got just one little problem to pick. Democracy was invented in England in about 1000 AD or something and spread this way.

Perry:That’s totally fine. You know Rodney Starks says that Italy had democracy going on in 1000 AD too, so it’s not a new idea. De Tocqueville is not saying that it started in the U.S. It’s the power of it.

Now here’s what’s interesting.

• Mass communications brings the world to every home.

Just yesterday Laura was reading me this article about these poor people in India starting to get TV, and as soon as they start watching TV they’re watching shows in one language with sub-titles in their language, and literacy is going up. Women are not accepting from abuse from men because of the influence of what’s coming through the TV.

• The internet gives equal opportunity for all who own a computer to express their views.

• “Fast food” is for everyone – the CEO stands in line with the homeless person at McDonalds.

I realize there’s problems there

• All technological developments are natural consequences of equality and individualism.

There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength.

The Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

What de Tocqueville does in his book is he goes, “Where did this idea of equality come from?” and he goes back and lands on Galatians 3:28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

De Tocqueville says before Paul, nobody ever made a statement like that. Where did Paul get the idea?

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but Jesus also said to the woman, “Why would I give to the dogs….” because she’s a Gentile, right? The wall between Jew and Greek had not been broken yet, because the cross hadn’t happened yet. But Paul says because of the cross, all are equal.

Now you can go earlier in China and find a guy named Mo Ju saying, “Hey, you know, we’re all equal. We’re all under God, and we’re all so small compared to God that our differences between each other are trivial,” and he suggests an idea of equality, but it’s just like the science stuff. It doesn’t become a juggernaut and take off in this unstoppable force.

But when Paul wrote this, and he makes a similar statement in Colossians, this idea began to seep its way into the soil of humanity and grow and become an unstoppable force, like you can’t stop it.

Audience: Are you saying Christianity is the author of democracy?

Perry: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

Audience: Sorry. I totally disagree! You stood up there and said, “Oh those Muslims, we were against the Catholics.”

Perry: What did I say?

Audience:Just in general you have the feeling of – that’s one of the reasons I left the Christian church. I got so tired of the baptized and the holy ones and the believers in Jesus, that this little Hindu mother over here isn’t as loving and kind as the Christian mother over here.

Perry: I didn’t say that.

Audience: I just don’t think you need Jesus Christ and I think democracy is as old as when Judaism came, which probably started in India when they looked out at the stars and believed that the heavens were for everybody, that the moon and the sun shone on the world, on all the peoples of the world. When the pastoral people came over India and they started the caste system, the Jews left because they’d organized ….

Perry: The English exploited the caste system. They did not start it.

Audience: No, I’m talking way before England. I think that original Judaism, and the Kabbalah and the Jewish religion, started in India. Along came the lighter-skinned people from pastoral countries and bounced down through Tibet, came down through India and whatever, and they started the caste system.

They decided that God loved lighter people better than darker people. God loved the richer people better than the poorer people. Read the Old Testament, just the very first several chapters. It came from the notion of examining the heavens and seeing that we were this little place in this vastness that God shone over everyone. I think democracy came from a lot of sources. It’s all just bundled up under Jesus? No.

Perry: If you want to tell me that equality started in India, show me an ancient Indian document that makes a statement that bold. You can email me later or we can talk about it later, but I challenge you to find a statement from the Indians….

Audience: But what about the people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ?

Perry: They have a caste system, don’t they?

Audience: Oh, I think you’re the one with the caste system.

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: Let me be careful about what I’m trying to say. I’m not trying to anoint democracy itself with some holy water. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is democracy is built on an idea of equality, and equality came from Galatians.

Audience: So this celebration of democracy came from that?

Perry: Right, so don’t over-interpret what I’m saying. I’m not saying that a two-party system…I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is this idea of equality in various ways that it’s been manifested has borne enormous fruit. It’s created technology. It’s made people equal. It’s given people human rights. It’s incredibly powerful, and nobody said it like that before Paul.

Audience:Look at the human rights they gave to the American Indians. Kill everybody.

Perry: And how do you know that was wrong? How do you know that was wrong?

Audience:Because they’re fellow human beings!

Perry: Yes, because would Jesus have killed the Indians?

Audience:I don’t know.

Audience: [laughing]

Perry:

Audience: You want to talk about equality, God took it from man and woman from the beginning so that right there….

Perry: Individualism is a word coined by de Tocqueville to describe Americans. He saw individualism and equality as being these two forces that pull back and forth. There’s like a force of gravity that makes us all equal, but everybody has this desire to express greatness, and as you express your greatness, inevitably it benefits all the people around you.

Here’s a question that makes people squirm. Can you name five Protestant countries that are characterized by poverty, illiteracy, and human rights abuses? Can you name five?

Audience: Australia. [laughing]

Perry: Can you name five Hindu countries, Muslim countries, atheist countries, Buddhist countries – five countries of any of those other religions that are not characterized by poverty, illiteracy, and human rights abuses?

Audience: >Japan. Jordan. [inaudible]….

Perry: >No disagreement there, and how do we know that oppression was wrong? By what moral standard?

Audience: What about from Plato or basically any greek philosopher?

Perry: How do we know people have human rights? Where do human rights ultimately come from? They come from God. Human rights come from God.

We can go to the Ten Commandments. We can go long before Paul, but I’m just saying in the laboratory of reality in 2010, when you look at the cumulative history of the world, where has the most benefit and productivity come from?

My argument is it’s come from Jesus much more than it’s come from Aristotle or Plato or Buddha or any of those people. I’m not saying those other guys are bad people. I’m just saying. I say, “Name five Protestant countries that have all these humongous problems,” and nobody can think of five – characterized by poverty, illiteracy, and human rights abuses.

Audience: [lots of comments]

Perry: Have you ever been to Brazil? Have you ever been to Africa? Have you ever been to China?

Audience:Have you ever been to east St. Louis?

Perry: Yes. I’m not saying we don’t have any, but you know even in east St. Louis a single mom’s getting fed.

I hope I’m challenging you to think. It’s okay if this makes you mad, that’s fine.

Audience: I think you have a very western-centric view of history that’s a little dated, that’s all.

Perry: Well, that’s fine. Go to some other countries. I’ve been all over the world. I want you to go too, and you see what’s there. You go to China. You go to the Phillipines. You go to Mozambique. You go to South Africa. You go to Brazil. Go to eastern Europe. Go to western Europe. Go to Russia. How good are things there?

Audience: And they’re the product of orthodox Christianity.

Perry: Notice I said Protestant. I didn’t say Catholic. Now laboratory of reality, here’s what I see. I see Protestantism has done very well. Catholicism is generally better off than most of those other cultures, but they’ve got problems, especially Central America and South America. There’s a lot of corruption and a lot of problems. Southern Europe is characterized by a lot of problems.

Now orthodox – there’s cool stuff in orthodox. I’ve got a very good friend who converted from evangelical to orthodox about ten years ago. We sat up three nights in a row and talked all night, absolutely fascinating, but you know the orthodox weren’t able to save Russia from the Communists. It’s comparatively weak.

Catholics put a high priority on unity, which is very valuable. Every time Protestants get in an argument they go start another church – First Baptist, Second Baptist, Third Baptist, this Baptist – just as soon as someone gets miffed, off they go.

Catholics don’t do that, and there’s a lot to admire in that Catholic desire for unity, and I respect it. I also see in the laboratory of reality that you get up to the 1500s and Catholics were not cleaning house. They’re still having problems.

I’ve got my own particular biases. I’m a white male in the United States, yada yada yada, and I admit all those biases. You can believe me or not believe me, but I think competition has been better for the church than complacent brotherhood. Maybe there’s problems with it, but the fact that I could go start a church tomorrow and attract whoever I can attract, and I have to make it good –

Like here at this church, if they don’t make it good for three or four months and it’s really lousy, people are going to start finding something else to do. Viva la competition. That’s the world we live in.

Just one last thing. I talked about my brother-in-law, Allen, who got his Ph.D. in church history, and he had to write a Ph.D. thesis. Not only did he have to do that, but he went to Iowa State, where most of the professors were actually atheists. There’s this kind of weird thing that happens in academia, where somehow or another all the theology departments eventually get populated by atheists.

Anyway, he had to defend this thesis in front of people that really don’t like Christianity at all, is what he had to do, and that’s a good way of working them chops. His thesis was on the interpretation of the Reformation.

There are two interpretations of the Protestant Reformation. The secular interpretation is that Luther finally stuck his knife in the heart of the church, and he finally hit the main ventricle or whatever, and that was the beginning of the end of the church.

As soon as the church started to die, within 50 years we got the whole industrial revolution and the scientific revolution, and Newton came along and Copernicus and Galileo and Boyle and Maxwell and Einstein and steam engines and automobiles and everything.

That all that was the beginning of the end of the church, and that’s why all this was possible, which goes back to that whole dark ages argument. The printing press finally released everybody from the dark ages.

There’s another view, and the other view is it unleashed the church. It put the Bible in the hands of the individual. “Hey, here’s the book. Guess who’s responsible for knowing it? You! Guess who’s responsible for their relationship with God? You, not a priest, not a parish, not a bad quality control system. You.”

I embrace the latter view. I’m glad we had some arguments and debate here. I think if you guys didn’t argue with me you’d have to be sleepwalking. Nobody said this was going to be perfect or infallible, and you’re welcome to disagree, but your job is to think. Your job is to figure stuff out.

Rodney Stark, the guy who wrote The Victory of Reason, said something really interesting, and this is the last point. I said there was going to be disclaimer #2 and I’ll save it for the end. It’s kind of a point and kind of a disclaimer.

There’s a funny thing. Every church has a doctrinal statement, right? “We believe XYZ. You don’t believe that? You’re out. You believe this? Okay, you’re coming with us.”

You don’t find those in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible do you find, “This is the checklist.” You have to crawl inside the story and read it, and then you have to deliberate and debate and work things out and have the late night college dorm room conversations and all that kind of stuff.

Rodney Stark says, “The Bible doesn’t say slavery is wrong. It says all men are equal. Slave or free, they’re equal.” Then people begin to think about that and they’re like, “Okay, so you’re my slave but you’re actually equal with me.” And eventually people go, “Well, if we’re equal, how come you’re a slave?”

So if there’s neither slave nor free, then why do we have slave and free?

Audience: [inaudible question]

Perry: Yes, slavery in the Old Testament is a totally different deal than Alabama in the 1840’s, believe me. That’s a whole conversation we don’t have time for. Slavery in the Bible was community service, that’s a good way to put it.

It’s like you introduce this idea, and then the seed grows, and you wrestle with it, and you wrestle with it, and you wrestle with it. Stark says, “Theology is ten times a bigger enterprise in Christianity than it is in any other religion,” like the amount of bandwidth that it takes in Christianity is much greater than the bandwidth it takes even in Judaism, not to mention Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. It’s a much smaller slice of the pie in those other religions.

What Stark says is it’s the process of planting those seeds and working those questions and working those muscles that built the Western intellectual tradition. If the Bible was just a list of rules telling us what to do, we would have never learned to think.

That’s why Disclaimer #2 is that you’re not here to agree with me. I mean I’m going to try as hard as I can to get you to agree with me, because I’ve thought about this really hard, but I can make mistakes. I’m not the Pope.

Audience:[laughing]

Perry: Disclaimer #2 is it’s not about having the exact answer, it’s about the process of working it out. It’s about thinking through it.

I had a professor come to me last year and she says, “You know, I’ve never really figured out what I think about the whole homosexual issue. I really feel like God is telling me, ‘I want you to figure this out now. I want you to wrestle through this. I want you to think it through,’” and she’s like, “Wow, this is hard work.”

Yeah, it’s hard work. It’s good work. This is why we have steam engines and computers and libraries and all that stuff, because people think, and it takes courage to think.

Every time you take whatever you believe and you go, “All right, I’m going to put this on the anvil and I’m going to hammer on it, and what’s going to be left?” it’s a humbling process and it’s a good thing.

I’m really glad that you guys came today. I appreciate you listening to this go on for three hours, and I hope we can do it some time again. Thanks.

(Transcript Part 1) (Transcript Part 2) Transcript Part 3

Told You About Church History

(Written Transcript Part 2)

The Destruction of Jerusalem

It’s mentioned 78 times in the gospels. Here are some instances of that.

Luke 2:38

Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Matthew 23:33

You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.

And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you truth, all this will come upon this generation.”

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’

And you know what comes next? New chapter.

I don’t know how you can possibly argue that the gospels were written after the temple was destroyed. If you have a theological understanding of the book of Matthew, you know that it was written to Jews. If Matthew was written to Jews after 70 AD, where are the Jews it was written to?

The gospels were written before 70 AD. They don’t mention any events that happened after that.

Q” & Mark Theory

There are some theories about how the gospels were put together. One theory is called Q theory, which is that there was a document which Matthew and Luke copied, and then Mark copied all three. There’s another theory that Mark was first. This theory did not appear until 1786.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the phrase “early church fathers.” I think it’s one of the most important concepts in church history, which is that there were a group of people who were the leading lights in the early church.

Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and Augustine – all of these guys say that Matthew was written first, all of them. In order to come up with a theory that Mark or something else was written first, you have to dismiss the most reliable early authors in regards to the early church. What kind of historical scholarship is that?

You go, “Oh, well, they were biased, so we’re not going to listen to them,” but I want to show you what they said. Here’s what Irenaeus said. Irenaeus lived from 130-200.

So Matthew brought out a written gospel among the Jews in their own style when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome and founding the church. But after their demise, Mark himself, the disciple and recorder of Peter, has also handed on to us in writing what had been proclaimed by Peter. And Luke, the follower of Paul, set forth in a book the gospel that was proclaimed by him. Later John, the disciple of the Lord and the one who leaned against his chest, also put out a gospel while residing in Ephesus of Asia.”

So a guy writing in 150 or 170, somewhere in there, this is what he said. He said Matthew was first, and then Mark, and then Luke, and then John. Guess what? That’s the order they’re in the Bible. There’s a reason for that.

Clement of Alexandria in roughly 200 AD says –

Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter was publicly preaching the gospel at Rome in the presence of some of Caesar’s knights and uttering many testimonies of Christ, on their asking him to let them have a written record of the things what had been said, wrote the gospel, which is called the Gospel of Mark, from the things said by Peter; just as Luke is recognized as the pen that wrote the Acts of the Apostles and as the translator of the Letter of Paul to the Hebrews.

Origen’s a really interesting guy. By the way, it’s not hard to go read what these guys wrote. I’ve got a great book here called Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens. This particular book goes from 80 AD to 400 AD. Then there’s another book, volume 2, which goes from like 400 AD to 800 AD, then there’s volume 3. It’s all the most important writings of the early church fathers all collected.

One of the things you find if you open this is on page 7 is a letter to the Corinthians from St. Clement of Rome. This is dated somewhere between 80 and 90 AD. When you go to the end of this section, it’s got references to all the Bible verses he quotes.

This is proof that the Bible was already there. Constantine didn’t write it. And you know what, even if we did not have the New Testament at all, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the New Testament just from commentaries written before 300 AD. There’s a paper trail.

The paper itself goes all the way back to before the second century, and then we have the evidence within the text. Acts does not describe anything that happened after I think 62 AD or so, and that’s how you come up with a date. This stuff is early.

My father-in-law has a book called Return of the Enola Gay by Paul Tibbets. The Enola Gay is the airplane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Paul Tibbets dropped the bomb in 1945, and in roughly 1990 he wrote an autobiography of what that whole experience was like – getting on the plane, “Good grief, I’m going to drop an atomic bomb,” and the whole thing.

The reason he wrote the book was there were all these people starting to say, “Hey, you know, we were too mean to the Japanese. We should have just talked to them a little longer and we should have had some negotiation,” and he’s like, “I’m telling you, they couldn’t be negotiated with, they couldn’t be reasoned with, we had no choice. We had to do that. I have to write this book.”

He wrote the book and I think it was published in the late 90’s, so he wrote the book almost 50 years after this stuff happened, and he died not too long after that.

Now is anybody reasonably going to doubt that he remembers what happened? I think he can remember what happened. Some of the details might be a little off, but he’s got the story straight.

If Paul Tibbets can remember dropping a bomb on Hiroshima 50 years later, is it at all unreasonable to think that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John can tell you what happened 30-40 years later?

Audience: What are you trying to say actually, that the gospels were written sooner than that and they’re more valid

Yeah, I’m saying the gospels were written before 70 AD. Secular scholars will always try to pull the date – “Oh no, it’s 80, it’s 90, it’s 100” – but their arguments are based on Jesus making a statement about the temple. “Jesus couldn’t have known that.”

That’s the whole premise of secular scholarship. “Jesus couldn’t possibly have known that, because we know there’s no such thing as prophets.” That’s the whole premise of secular scholarship. “He couldn’t have possibly known that,” so they put that in later.

But when you look at how stories are told, you look at the structure, how is the foreshadowing handled by the authors – compare Judas to Jerusalem and you’re like, “These guys didn’t know Jerusalem was destroyed when they wrote this. There’s no way.” So the gospels date between 60 and 70. That’s what I’m saying.

Audience:Why do you suppose the Jews were so hated?

Great question. Why were the Jews so hated? You mean by the Romans? I want to read you a verse from the Apocrypha. I’m going to talk about the Apocrypha.

Audience: The Jews were making Jesus very uncomfortable.

Look, they said, “The blood of his head be on us and our children,” right? He also said, “All of the blood from Abel to every prophet you’ve ever killed, all the judgment for that is going to be poured out on this generation.” Jesus said that.

This is from Wisdom of Solomon, and I’ll talk about the Apocrypha in a little while. This is chapter 2, verse 10, a prophetic statement about Jesus, and I want you to hear what it says. It’s very insightful. This is the voice of Jesus’ persecutors.

Down with the poor and honest man. Let us tread him underfoot. Let us show no mercy to the widow and no reference to the gray hairs of old age, for let might be right. Weakness has proved to be good for nothing.

Let us lay a trap for the just man. He stands in our way, a check to us at every turn. He girds at us lawbreakers. He calls us traitors to our upbringing. He knows God, so he styles himself as the servant of the Lord.

He is a living condemnation of all our ideas. The very sight of him is an affliction to us because his life is not like other people’s and his ways are different.

He rejects us like base coin, avoids us and our ways as if we were filth. He says, “The just die happy,” and boasts that God is his Father. Let us test the truth of his words. Let us see what will happen to him in the end, for if the just man is God’s son, God will stretch out a hand to him and save him from the clutches of his enemies.

Outrage and torment are the means to try him with, to measure his forbearance and learn how long his patience lasts. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for on his own showing he will have a protector.

So they argued, and very wrong they were, blinded by their own malevolence. They did not understand God’s hidden plan. They never expected that holiness of life would have its recompense. They thought that innocence had no reward.

But God created man for immortality and made him the image of His own eternal self. It was the devil’s spite that brought death into the world, and the experience of it is reserved for those who take his side.

This is Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 2, verses 10-24, which is in the Catholic Bible.

What this is saying is they reason, “If this is the son of God, God will save him,” and God’s logic was, “No, I’m not going to save him. I’m going to show you what meekness does.” Meekness is strength under control, what a human being under complete control of the Holy Spirit can do. And of course they didn’t expect a resurrection either. We’ll get to that.

I want to give you some lowest common denominators of the gospels. The next section is stuff that almost all scholars agree on, regardless of their point of view or their religious orientation.

• The gospels differ too much in their details of the resurrection to have been deliberately harmonized.

There is an argument out there that the gospels contradict each other about the empty tomb. Depending on what assumptions you make, you could argue that there’s contradictions, or you can harmonize them by making a few assumptions, but they’re clearly and obviously not deliberately harmonized, which means it is four independent accounts of the resurrection, not one but four.

You could throw out one, but you can’t throw out four, especially when you know that they don’t completely agree. You can argue that the gospels are contradictory, or you can argue that they’re dependent on each other, but you can’t make both arguments at the same time, so pick your poison. Either way, the skeptic has a real problem with his view.

• All four gospels tell the same essential story.

• All four gospels explicitly speak of an empty tomb.

• Nobody ever produced Jesus’ body.

Established Facts

• Paul’s letters are dated 40-55 AD. Acts is dated 65-80 AD.

• Belief in the divinity of Christ is found in the earliest known Christian creeds.<

And here’s another thing. People will often say, “Jesus is never mentioned outside of the Bible.” Wrong.

• Classical historical references to Jesus outside the New Testament include: Thallos, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Mara Bar Serapion, Lucian of Samosata, and Celcus.

• Jewish references to Jesus outside the New Testament: Josephus, rabbinic tradition, Toledot Yeshu, and they describe Jesus as a cult leader and a magician.

• All early sources treat Jesus as a real historical person. There’s not one single ancient document that says that Jesus was some kind of myth, not one.

Resurrection of Jesus

Almost all scholars, regardless of their orientation, agree on six things.

1. First century Jews expected a Messiah, but did not expect a dying/rising Messiah.

2. Jesus died and was buried.

3. After this happened, the disciples were discouraged and dejected.

4. Soon after Jesus’ burial, the tomb was claimed to be empty, and some disciples had experiences they took to be encounters with a risen Jesus.

5. These experiences caused them to believe Jesus rose from the dead.

6. They started a massive worldwide movement based on the idea that Jesus rose from the dead.

All scholars agree on this pretty much. Now the question is, what is the best explanation? We have the explanation that Jesus really did rise from the dead, and then you have no other single explanation that has ever gained widespread acceptance.

Oh, Jesus was nourished by the cool air of the tomb, and because of the amazing healing technology that they had at the time from the Egyptians, which we don’t really have any more, they were able to heal him and he rose from the dead.”

Well, Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. There’s a long history of guys who survived crucifixions and went on to do great things.”

Come on! Do you really believe that? Have you ever seen a crucifixion? There is actually a report of a guy who survived a crucifixion. He was already crucified and somebody goes, “Wait a minute! He’s not guilty!”

“He’s not?”

They take him down and he died a week later or something, adding insult to injury, but yes, we do have a record of a guy who survived a crucifixion. He didn’t inspire a worldwide movement and hope in the hearts of people, like, “Boy, Jesus. You really look like you need to get some rest.”

I got this from the world’s #1 atheist website. This is an article written about 15 years ago. Just before this paragraph he says, “Okay, there are people in the world who reject miracles and there are people in the world who accept miracles, and that’s a whole philosophical argument and it’s not settled,” – he’s just being real honest – “so how you see the resurrection depends on which camp you’re in.”

Then he says,

I think it’s rational to both accept and reject the resurrection. I think there are strong historical arguments for the resurrection, like William Lane Craig [and if you want to read about it, read William Lane Craig, he’s great], but I also think there are good reasons to reject such arguments. I realize this may sound like a cop-out to some, but I think it’s quite reasonable, especially when the issue of prior probability is taken into consideration.”

He’s basically admitting that if your worldview allows for miracles, then the resurrection of Jesus is a very logical conclusion based on the facts. If your worldview excludes the possibility of miracles ever happening, then you’ll find a way to explain it away. That’s what he’s saying.

Audience: What do you think?

Perry: I absolutely think Jesus wrote from the dead. Jesus stepped into the world and split time in half: BC and AD. You can’t go to his grave. He’s the most written about, most talked about, most argued about, most controversial person in human history, and it’s the only resurrection story that stuck.

Audience: But what about all the TV shows now or all the notions now? People are seeing dead people everywhere and we’re having TV shows about it and all kinds of things. Now all kinds of people are seeing dead people. They’re even solving problems.

Perry: You mean dead people risen from the dead?

Audience: Yeah, like the guy who goes across the country, I forget what his name is, and tells all the relatives, “Oh, it’s your grandma…”

It’s one thing if people say they’re communicating with the dead. It’s another thing if somebody got crucified and tortured to death and they’re walking around and giving people fish and having conversations and appearing to 500 people and inspiring a worldwide movement where everybody is absolutely convinced that he rose from the dead.

You have to explain how did Christianity just become this tsunami force overnight?

Audience: Why does it matter if he rose from the dead or not?

Perry: Because if he rose from the dead, he was the Son of God and Christianity is true. Christianity rests on the resurrection. If the resurrection didn’t happen, then Christianity is BS, and if the resurrection happened, then Christianity is legit. It all stands or falls on that.

Audience: I’ll tell you why I left seminary. If he rose from the dead or not, [inaudible] but whether you believe he did – I’ve met a lot of people who’ve cared less about anything who did believe he rose from the dead. I guess I’m with, “If you have not love, it profits you nothing.”

Perry: Oh, I’ll agree with that.

Audience: If you can’t live what Jesus did, because there’s so many people putting faith in the resurrection without doing the work of God on earth, and that just gets scary for me.

Perry: Absolutely. James said, “Faith without works is dead.” Yeah, I’m with you.

Now I want to talk about the Apocrypha. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in the Apocrypha. How many of you have a level of familiarity with the Apocrypha? How many of you honestly have never read any of it and hardly know a thing about it? Most people.

The Protestant Bible has 66 books and the Catholic Bible has 78. The stuff that the Catholics teach and the Protestants reject is called the Apocrypha. In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his objections to the door in Wittenberg and he started this huge movement. He started the Protestant Reformation. We’ll talk about that a little later, but Luther rejected the Apocrypha.

He said, “This does not make the cut. It’s not good enough.” So he got rid of it and Protestantism took off like a rocket, so now most people don’t really know anything about the Apocryphal books.

A few years ago I started reading them, and it was like, “Dang, there’s some really interesting stuff here, really interesting, so why did they get rid of this?”

I’m going to give you a flavor for some of the stuff that’s in the Apocrypha. The ideas about purgatory are in the Apocrypha. They’re in Macabees. I’ve never made a study of the whole purgatory thing. I don’t really have much of an opinion about it. It’s one of the reasons why Luther didn’t like it. He’s like, “This doesn’t make sense to me.”

Also there’s something you have to understand. I think most Catholic scholars would tell you that Catholics do not necessarily consider the Apocrypha to be infallible. As a matter of fact, let me talk about this idea of infallibility, and this is definitely the Planet Perry department and you decide what you think.

The idea of infallibility, the idea that the Bible is perfect or that it is without error – you’ll find a lot of Protestant churches will have a doctrinal statement that says something like, “We believe that the Scriptures are inerrant or infallible in their original documents.” You’ll find a lot of churches that say that.

So here’s a question. Do we have the original documents? No. Do we know that there are some problems in the documents we have? Yes. So the Bible we actually have is fallible, not to mention it was translated from Greek into English or Hebrew into English, and translations are never perfect, so this is not infallible.

Now can we be okay with that? Can you live with that? What happens if you pretend this is infallible, but it’s got some stuff that you’re not quite sure about?

Islam has a very interesting view of infallibility with the Koran. The Koran was written in Arabic, and Muslims believe if you want to believe the Koran you have to read it in Arabic. As a matter of fact, they don’t really go to that much effort making really good translations into English or Spanish or all these other languages because they want you to learn Arabic.

They want you to go to Mecca, they want you to do the pilgrimage, they want you to go to mosque, they want you to say prayers in Arabic, they want you to read the Koran in Arabic – the beauty of the Koran in Arabic is held out as one of the evidences that it is inspired by Allah, and they have a very brittle definition in infallibility.

Now Christianity has never viewed the Bible that way. Nobody’s ever said, “You’re really probably not even a legitimate Christian until you learn Hebrew.” When has anybody ever told you that? The Bible is freely and indiscriminately translated into everything.

I think if you really go back to the church fathers, I think it’s because in the way that Christianity has expressed itself, we believe in the inspiration of the ideas, not so much the inspiration of this particular word on page 874 that was translated into English.

Now my brother who I referred to, when he was in seminary he takes this New Testament Greek class. Now these are tough classes. You’ve got to learn this language, and then they’re going to give you, “Here’s this Greek text and here’s this other one and here’s this other one and here’s this other one. There’s differences between them and you have to figure out what you think the original actually said, based on this one, this one, this one, and this one,” and doing that kind of funnel thing I was talking about.

So they’re in class and the professor is talking about how you piece it all together. One of the students goes, “Professor, what are you saying?” and he’s like, “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean by this?”

“Well, we have to take the documents that we have and figure out what we think the original said.”

And this guy’s worldview is just blown apart, because he’s like, “I thought it was all on an Excel spreadsheet with 12 decimals of precision and it was all figured out!”

If your belief system is that brittle, sooner or later somebody’s going to change one of those entries in the spreadsheet, and it’s going to change this other one, and it’s going to change this other one, and your whole belief system is going to fall apart because you have no sense of, “These things are central and really important and non-negotiable, and then we have these other things.”

You get into wider and wider circles, and you’re less and less willing to die on some hill over some issue.

You all know the Nicene Creed? “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus his son, only begotten, born of the virgin Mary….”

The Council of Nicea in 300 AD said, “That’s the hill we’ll die on. That’s what we believe. That’s the innermost circle right there.”

You get further and further out, and you get all these denominations, and some denominations sort of do this, and some denominations do this, and some of them do this. But unless you’re a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon, pretty much you hold to this. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, or Episcopal.

I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and I went to this independent Bible church that had Mennonite roots, so they were just a little to the left of ladies wearing white hats on their heads. It was really conservative, and it was a very intellectually-exacting environment.

When my pastor went through Romans, which is the most theologically sophisticated book in the Bible, the first sermon was Romans 1:1, or maybe 1:1 and 1:2, and he references every word.

This word appears in this scripture, this scripture, this scripture,” and you turn to all of them and you read all of them, and you go back and forth through the Bible, and he preaches for 50 minutes on Romans 1:1 and 1:2.

By the time he’s done, you have this whole hyperlinked picture of this refers to this, this refers to this, this refers to this, this refers to this, this refers to this, and next week you come back and he does verses 3, 4, and 5.

It took him five years to get through Romans. That’s my education. That’s what I grew up under. What they basically told me there was Catholics are baaaad.

I was on vacation someplace on the east coast and we’re walking through this town and there’s all these posters and some guy’s handing out flyers like, “The Pope is the anti-christ and the Catholic church is the horror in the book of Revelation. They’re all evil!” and all this Catholic paranoia. “Bad, bad, bad!”

Now I’ve got this theological education and I go to school, and to me Catholics are like little rabbit foo-foo. You go bop them on the head, and we’re so much better than them, and we rock! You know how that is. “We’re better than them!”

My brother-in-law, Allen, Laura’s brother, got his Ph.D. in church history, so he knows all this stuff. If he was giving this lecture, who knows what he’d tell you about. I’m giving you the sort of Perry Renegade Guerrilla version of church history. Allen would give you the official one.

But it was really interesting because we like to talk and we’re always having a philosophical conversation – “What about euthanasia or what about this or what about?” – and every time you’d bring up a subject, he would say, “Oh, well, it was the monks in northern Italy in 750 AD that were the first people to really study that issue really hard, and they wrote all these books.”

Then you bring something else up and he’ll go, “Well, you know there was a monastery in 1346 in Serbia and they studied that, and St. Anselm said blah blah blah.” And what you start to figure out is there’s hardly been an original idea in Christianity in at least 500 years. There’s nothing new under the sun!

Audience:Not only that, but before it ever got to be, the rabbi I had said when they first started transcribing the Bible, he said Jewish vowels depending on where you put the dots to make a word, and then the letter and the dots make the vowels. He said they’d transcribe them and it got dusty in those old caves and they’d go [blow] and he said that that’s spelled somewhere else and then their meaning is…[laughing]

Perry: Right. So people have been wrestling with this stuff for years. There’s this modern idea that because we have this technology and we have all this sophistication, we confuse information and knowledge with wisdom and insight, and they’re two completely different things. So I began to develop an appreciation for the church fathers.

(Transcript Part 1) Transcript Part 2 (Transcript Part 3)

7 Things Yo’ Momma Never

Told You About Church History

(Written Transcript Part 1)

I’m really glad that you’re here, and it’s been brewing for a very long time. There’s a little story behind this whole talk that I want to tell you about; how this whole project was born.

About seven years ago, I put up a website called CoffeeHouseTheology.com. There were a number of motivations for me doing this, but one of them was I needed a punching bag.

I’m a pastor’s kid. Many of you know that pastor’s kids are trouble-prone, dysfunctional, and all that kind of stuff, so I lay claim to all of those characteristics.

I’ve kind of been the “scenic path through life” kind of guy – a little bit of this and a little bit of that – and my younger brother, Bryan, was straight down the party line. He did it exactly the way they told him to. He did not vary.

He gets to be about 30 years old and all the sudden – kaboom! He goes from being the hardcore man of the cloth to nearly atheist in a space of about a year or two. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, seriously. He’s very sharp, and he has more ability than most people to take the dagger and stick it right into the core issue. So Bryan’s asking really intelligent questions, and I’m not necessarily finding good answers to all these questions.

That’s even more significant when you consider that for 10 years I went to Willow Creek Community Church out in the far northwest suburbs. Willow Creek is a seeker-sensitive church. You could be an atheist, you could be a Buddhist, you could be whatever, and you’re welcome to go there. It doesn’t mean they’re atheists, it doesn’t mean they’re Buddhists, but it means they welcome everybody and they’re not afraid to mix it up.

I was actually a pioneer in something they started there called seeker small groups. A seeker small group is like me and maybe an apprentice leader, we’re Christians, and then we get this small group and everybody else at the table is not a Christian. We’re going to have some kind of Bible study or some kind of discussion, and I’m supposed to somehow steer this thing, and it’s crazy.

You say Bible study and people picture a really well-behaved group. They’re sitting there in dresses they made themselves and they’re reading their Bibles and everybody’s being really submissive.

Well, you get a bunch of non-Christians that show up from anywhere at Willow Creek, because they like the jazz or whatever, and it’s careening all the time. And I did that for ten years and I got pretty good at it and I got pretty comfortable.

But then my brother comes along and he’s got a Ph.D. in theology. He’s studied Greek, he’s studied Hebrew, and he’s like, “I don’t buy any of this.” What he would do is he would ask me questions, and when I would try to argue with him he wouldn’t answer, and it really shook me up.

I’m feeling like, “I think there’s good answers to these questions,” so there’s a whole variety of reasons, but what I did is I set up this website called CoffeeHouseTheology.com, and this is what it looks like now.

It used to be a little simpler, but basically this website said, “I’ve got this email series called 7 Great Lies of Organized Religion. You’ll get one message every day. Sign up for it and see what it’s all about,” and people out of curiosity would do this.

If you read it, it’s definitely spun to appeal to the skeptical angry person, not the happy submissive person. The way this worked was anytime a person would reply to an email I would get it, and for the last seven years I’ve had anywhere from 50-100 people a day subscribing to that. Between that website and another one called CosmicFingerprints.com, which is about science stuff, I had 300,000 people subscribe to these emails.

What I decided to do was I will take all comers. I will not back down from any question, and I’m going to see, “Can Christianity stand up to this?” Because you know what? If it can’t I’m going to find out, and that is the background for what I’m going to share with you today.

Christianity absolutely does stand up. It stands up scientifically, historically, philosophically, and every other way. I put a lot of stuff on the anvil and I’ve had a lot of conversations. I bet I’ve had 10,000 conversations with people via email, a small percentage of them going on for a very long time and very intense.

Just to name one example, there was one guy where it turned into a Microsoft Word document that would go back and forth and back and forth, and every time it was a new thread it would be a new font or a new color so everybody could figure out where we were at, and it got to be 100 pages long.

He was an atheist, and finally after eight months he said uncle. He said, “Okay, you know, you’re very smart, you’re very polite, I can’t explain everything, but I’m tired of arguing. You’re not as dumb as I thought you were,” basically.

So this has gone all kinds of different directions, and here we are. It’s “7 Things Yo’ Momma Never Told You About Church History.”

This isn’t your typical chronological church history thing that you would get at a seminary or Bible college or university. You do that and they will answer a whole lot of questions that nobody’s asking. What you’re going to get today is the questions that everybody’s asking. This is what you actually get when you go out there and have conversations with people.

If you’ve ever felt squeamish about defending what you believe, and not just defending but advancing what you believe, that this is the truth, I think this will help you.

I also think it will help you internally, because one thing I know about just about anybody who would show up at something like this is that you have questions too. And you know what, that’s okay. Questions are good and it’s okay to venture into that dangerous dung.

There’s a disclaimer that I want to give to you, and here’s the disclaimer. What you’re getting here today is Planet Perry. It’s not the church necessarily. I’m not going to claim by any means that it’s perfect or infallible. I expect you to show up and think.

If you disagree, that’s fine, but you should have good reasons. You should not accept whatever I tell you just because I told you. You shouldn’t accept anything that way.

What I think is lacking in the church and lacking in our culture is people who are willing to do the hard scary work of thinking, so that’s the disclaimer. This is not perfect, it’s a work in progress, but it’s the best I can give you after basically 15-17 years of duking it out with people and having these kinds of conversations.

Disclaimer #2 I’ll do at the end. Somebody remind me, “What’s disclaimer #2?” and I’ll tell you what it is.

Let’s start with one of the bullets here.

What ancient people really believed about the earth, science, and astronomy

How many of you have ever heard the story, “Christopher Columbus’ men threatened mutiny because they were afraid they would sail over the edge of the earth”? How many of you have heard that? Most people. How many of you think it’s true?

You know what, there is not a shred of truth to that – not a shred. There is a popular idea out there that people 500 years ago thought the earth was flat. People have not believed that for 2,500 years at least.

Why is that rumor out there? What is that all about? In 1828 a guy named Washington Irving wrote a book called, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, and it was this highly-fictional story that had people in it, like priests, who said, “Mr. Columbus, the Bible says the earth is flat and you’re defying scripture and you’re going to sail off the ends of the earth,” and all this kind of stuff.

There became a whole genre of authors in the 1800s who began to portray medieval people as being stupid, and a term was invented, called The Dark Ages. What’s The Dark Ages? Isn’t like somewhere like 800, 1000 or 1200 AD when the world was plunged into superstition and witches were being burned at the stake and they were running around killing people, and the Crusades, and Galileo was almost burned at the stake, and astronomers – you’ve all heard that stuff, right?

There’s a grain of truth to that, because people always resist new ideas and, yes, churches resist new ideas, and there’s all these kinds of dogmas, but for the most part it’s not true.

Well, get on the internet and look up a term “conflict thesis.” The way you find out is you read what people were saying 600 years ago. You can read the theologians, you can read the astronomers. All this stuff is preserved and there was not some big conflict between reason and faith. There was not some big conflict between the church and science. It’s largely a fabrication.

Audience: I don’t agree with you, but….

Look up “conflict thesis.” The conflict thesis says that for hundreds or thousands of years there’s been a war between science and religion. There hasn’t been a war between science and religion until science started becoming atheistic 150 years ago. It really started with Darwin. That’s really when most of the conflict started.

Technologies Invented During the “Dark Ages”

• The Indians made a cotton gin

• Toilet paper

• Distillation

• Wind powered gristmill

• High purity glass

• Hang glider

• Chemotherapy

• Metal block printing

• Corrective lenses

• Oral anesthesia

• Surgical rod

• Magnifying glass

• Pinhole camera

• Geared mechanical clock

• Flow control regulator

• Programmable analog computer

• Torpedo

• Eyeglasses

All these were invented between 500 and 1300.

There are two views. One view – and this is the conflict thesis view – is that after the fall of Rome, the world was plunged into this sea of ignorance that lasted for 1,000 years, and then when philosophers began to resurrect Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy, the Renaissance began and pulled us out of this dark superstition. Then the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution and all this stuff happened. That’s the conflict thesis.

My thesis says after the fall of Rome there was a steady drip-drip-drip-drip of uphill improvement of science, philosophy, technology, and human rights. Augustine lived in 400 and he wrote about the Fall of Rome, and he’s got a chapter in his book, The City of God, and he says people blame the Christians for the fall of Rome because they turned Romans into these soft, compliant people.

He goes, “No, that’s not really true. The Roman empire caved under the weight of its own ego.” He said, “The thing you need to give Christians credit for is the fact that when Rome fell, all the women and children weren’t slaughtered. They were put in churches where they would be safe, and they were fed by their enemies,” which never happened before that.

Before that, if you have a war, you either sell everybody into slavery or you just kill them all or torture them to death. So there was this steady, steady improvement.

A good book for you to read is,Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark. Actually, any of Rodney Stark’s books are great. He’s a sociologist at the University of Michigan. He documents this exhaustively.

He says the windmill was invented because the church was frowning on slavery in 600 AD, and technology was a result of people saying, “We’ve got to get rid of slavery. There must be some way that God has for us to grind this grain or to farm this land.”

On a similar note, here’s something to think about. Is it just a coincidence that slavery was outlawed in the United States in 1865, and within 20 years technology went kaboom! Is it just a coincidence that that happened? You can decide for yourself.

So Stark chronicles in details early forms of democracy in Italy in 1000 AD in Florence. Later, towards the end of my presentation, I’m going to talk about the idea of equality and how that idea grew from the time of the New Testament to the present.

One of the things I want to spend a lot of time talking about today is next.

How We Got the Christianity We Have Today

When you bring up this topic, a lot of people will say things like, “Well, Christianity was invented by Constantine in 300 AD when they all got together and they voted which books were going to be in the Bible. So Jesus was basically turned into God somewhere in the middle there, and this nice prophet who unfortunately got crucified in Jerusalem somehow got turned into this God-Man kind of guy, and then it was institutionalized and, boy, the world’s been screwed up ever since.” That’s the secular story.

There are so many documents, so much literature, so many scrolls, so much history you can study, that by the time we’re done we will completely lay that notion to rest, because it’s completely not true.

The centerpiece of Christianity in the Bible is in the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Pretty much everybody agrees that Paul’s letters were written first and the Gospels were written after that. This is how they’re normally dated.

Matthew: 70-100

Mark: 60-70

Luke: 70-80

John: 90-100

That’s the kind of the typical secular story that you get.

There are a lot of ways that we arrive at dates like that. Some of it is from manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts that we have of the New Testament date back to typically the middle of the second century, like the actual piece of paper dates to 150 AD.

That is not how scholars date ancient documents. If we use that method, then Homer would be 700 years old or something. We date things based on what’s inside the documents, like what’s included and what’s not included, and based on what other people who were close to the time said.

And here’s another thing. These documents have genealogies. There’s a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, and the New Testament exists in all kinds of languages. If you go to between 200-300 AD, you’re already finding 15-20 different languages that the New Testament has been translated in, so you can start tracing the genealogies.

They all point to documents that we no longer have copies of, and there are differences between them where you see, “Oh, there was a copying error,” and then you see it in this one, this one, and this one. “Oh, here’s this other little copying error over here,” and it’s in this one and this one, and you start working down, and they point to an epicenter.

I want to go through an exercise with you that I think will help you see an argument for the dating of the gospels that’s maybe a little different.

Matthew says when Jesus was standing before Pilate,

When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said, “It is your responsibility.”

All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

I want to read to you some Jewish history from 70 AD. This is by Josephus, a Roman historian, very respected. As you can see, this book is rather thick. This is a combination of Josephus’ interpretation of Jewish history and then Roman history during his time, where he reports in great detail what was going on in his day.

In March of AD 70, Passover was held in Jerusalem, so Jerusalem would swell to two to three times its normal population, and everybody is eating and feasting and celebrating Passover.

While Passover was going on, the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem and began a siege, which meant they wouldn’t let anything in or out, and they were starving the city to death. Happy Passover.

Josephus describes what it was like. I’m just going to warn you, this is kind of gruesome, but there’s a reason why I’m giving this to you. There’s a very definite reason why.

Famine now raged in the city and the rebels took all the food they could find in a house-to-house search, while the poor starved to death by the thousands. People gave all their wealth for a little measure of wheat, and hid it to eat hastily and in secret so it would not be taken from them.

Wives would snatch the food from their husbands, children from fathers, and mothers from the very mouths of infants. Many of the rich were put to death by Simon and John, while the sufferings of the people were so fearful they could hardly be told, and no other city endured such miseries.

Not since the world began was there ever a generation more prolific in crime than this bastard scum of the nation who destroyed the city.

Meanwhile, as Titus’ earthworks were progressing, his troops captured any who ventured out to look for food. When caught, they resisted and were then tortured and crucified before the walls as a terrible warning to the people within.

Titus pitied them. Some 500 were captured daily, but dismissing those captured by force was dangerous and guarding some numbers would imprison the guards. Out of rage and hatred the soldiers nailed their prisoners in different postures, and so great was their number that space could not be found for the crosses.

This describes Titus, who was in charge of the Roman army in the temple.

Rushing out, he appealed to his troops to put out the flames, ordering one of his centurions to club anyone disobeying his orders, but respect for their general and fear of punishment were overwhelmed by their raging hatred of the Jews and hope of plunder.

Seeing that all the surroundings were made of gold, they assumed the interior contained immense treasure. When Titus ran out to restrain the troops, one of those who had entered with him thrust a firebrand into the hinges of the gate of the inner temple, and flames shot up in its interior. Ceasar and his generals withdrew, and thus, against his wishes, the sanctuary was burned.

While the temple was inflamed, the victors stole everything they could lay their hands on, and slaughtered all who were caught. No pity was shown to age or rank, old men or children, lady or priest. All were massacred.

As the flames roared up, since the temple stood on a hill, it seemed as if the whole city were ablaze. The noise was deafening with war cries of the legions, howls by rebels surrounding, by fire and sword and shrieks of the people. The ground was hidden by corpses and the soldiers had to climb over heaps of bodies in pursuit of fugitives.

The Jewish brigands forced their way through the Romans into the outer court of the temple and then into the city. Some of the priests at first tore up spikes from the sanctuary and hurled them at the Romans, but afterwards retreating from the flames they withdrew to the wall.

Before the siege, portents had appeared foretelling the impending devastation, but the Jews had disregarded these warnings of God. A star resembling a sword hung over the city, and also a comet, which lasted a year.

Just before the revolt, when the people were coming together for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a bright light shone around the altar during the night and brightened the sanctuary for half an hour. The people thought this was a good omen, but the sacred scribes told them the contrary.

A cow gave birth to a lamb in the temple court, and the eastern gate of the inner court, which was fastened with iron bars so heavy it took 20 men to move it, flew open on its own during the night.

Another portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, while the city was enjoying prosperity and peace, a rude peasant named Jesus, son of Ananias, came to the Feast of Tabernacles.

He stood up in the Temple shouting, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against bridegrooms and brides, a voice against all the people.” Day and night he walked the streets with this cry.

Some of the leaders arrested the fellow and beat him, but he only kept on shouting as before. The magistrates brought him before the Roman governor, who had him whipped to the bone, but he neither begged for mercy nor shed a tear, only crying at each stroke, “Woe to Jerusalem!”

When Albinus the governor asked him who he was, where he came from, why he uttered these cries, he did not reply, but only repeated his dirge, “Woe to Jerusalem!” for seven years and five months.

Continuing through the war, he maintained his cry, until making his rounds on the wall during the siege, he shouted with his piercing voice, “Woe once more to the city, to the people and to the temple.” Then he suddenly added, “And woe to me also,” and was immediately struck dead by a stone hurled from a ballista.

But what most incited the Jews to war was an ambiguous oracle which predicted that someone from their country would become ruler of the world. This they interpreted as someone from their own race, but the oracle actually signified Vespasian, who was proclaimed emperor on Jewish soil.

Then this describes the end of the fall of Jerusalem.

As Titus entered the city, he was astonished at its strength, and especially the towers which the tyrants had abandoned. Indeed, when he saw how high and massive they were and the size of each huge block, he exclaimed, “Surely God was with us in the war, who brought the Jews down from these strongholds, for what can hand or engine do against these towers?”

Josephus reports the total number of prisoners taken during the war was 97,000, and those who died during the siege was 1,100,000. Josephus reports that Jerusalem was utterly decimated. It was burned to the ground. It was unrecognizable.

He said a few years before it had been a beautiful place with gardens and properties and farms and orchards and flowers. It was a beautiful city with a beautiful temple. He said after it was all done you couldn’t even recognize that there had been a city there. It was completely obliterated.

This is the most significant event that happened in that part of the world that century. This is the equivalent of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Bam!

What I want you to think about is if you went to Hiroshima in 1950, in what way would people speak of the previous 20 years? Wouldn’t the atomic bomb sort of overshadow everything that you talked about? Could you even talk about Hiroshima or Nagasaki without mentioning, “Oh yeah, well, before the atomic bomb there was a beautiful Buddhist temple over here,” right?

With that in mind, I want you to look at some stuff. I want you to consider how foreshadowing is handled by the gospel writers.

Foreshadowing in the Gospels: Judas

Matthew 10:14

Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him

Mark 3:19

and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him

Luke 6:16

Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor

John 6:17

(He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the 12, was later to betray him).

John 12:4

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected.

It’s almost like somebody’s telling a story, and every time somebody says “Judas,” a guy named Anthony goes, “Traitor!” It’s like, “Yes, Anthony, I know. Judas was a traitor. Can I go on with my story now?” It’s like they can’t even mention him without saying this.

How about a different foreshadowing?

Foreshadowing in the Gospels: Death of Peter

John 21:17

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.

It says what He meant. It sounds like He already knows what happened and He’s explaining it to them.

Let’s look at how the temple is discussed in the New Testament.

Foreshadowing: Destruction of the Temple

Matthew mentions the temple 17 times. The only reference to destroying it is in Matthew 27:40.

The people were saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!”

That is the only reference in the book of Matthew to destroying the temple.

Mark mentions the temple 12 times, with two references to destroying it.

Mark 14:58

We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this manmade temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.’”

He’s not even talking about the temple.

Mark 15:29

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days…”

Luke mentions the temple 21 times, with one reference to destroying it.

Luke 21:5

Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

You know what he says next? He says new chapter. He goes on to something else and he never says, “And he was right.”

Judas is like, “Judas, who betrayed him. Judas, who betrayed him. Judas, who betrayed him,” and the temple….it never says. Which was a bigger event in the history of the Jews? Judas betraying Jesus, or 1.1 million people being murdered and a city being destroyed beyond recognition?

John mentions the temple 25 times.

John 2:19

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.” The Jews replied, “It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

They are more interested in Jesus’ body than they are in the city and the temple.

Transcript Part 1 (Transcript Part 2) (Transcript Part 3)

Power Point Presentation in PDF

Written Transcript

In this talk Perry Marshall selects 7 huge “anchor points” – 7 monumental ideas and events that changed civilization. You’ll see with new clarity how the world has been transformed in a positive way:

1. What ancient people really believed about the earth, science and technology (this one’s a big surprise – it’s NOT what you’ve been told!)

2. Robust evidence that the gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – were written before 70 AD – well within the lifetimes of Jesus’ closest friends.

3. Faith and Science in 1000 BC, 1000 AD, and 2000

4. The true story behind those “extra” books the Catholics stuck in the middle of the Bible… and the Most Powerful Bible Verse they never taught you in Sunday School

5. The #1 idea in the American constitution came from the Bible. Trace the history of the world’s most dangerous idea

6. How we got the Bible we read today – a list of urban legends, and the truth of what actually happened

7. The printing press, the protestant reformation and the evolution of technology

MP3 Audio File (2 hours 3 minutes)

Written Transcript

Power Point Presentation in PDF

Off we slid while
gloves off kid
manners false escaping
the torrid faults line
all the way around
epic centers creating the
momentum quiet place in
the midst of spinning like millions
of waves atmospheric measure
caves into the crest of
crescendo peaking the likes of
all we’d hold fundamental
if the problem was known
solution sown gathered from the
reaches of sound and light manifested
in just one word
syntax spawn sealed to hearts
interest waived
breakthrough saved
from an undertow threatening
to walk alone.

In a community all is healed
hurts are unmasked
forgiveness peeled
stickers stuck to a body
all united in Him.

-Nathan Stanton

Where I grew up, they said: “Miracles don’t happen anymore. They ceased with the disciples.” I believed what they told me.

Dozens of personal experiences and medically documented cases have caused me to do a 180 on this. Miracles are REAL. The idea that miracles are fake is literally the 8th lie of Organized Religion. (Fake miracles masquerading as real ones are the other side of that coin, by the way… and there are many fake miracles.)

Miracles are far more common than many would have you believe. Today, I share several of my own personal experiences. And several thoroughly documented events.

Before we dig in, I need to tell you a conversation with a very close friend I grew up with. He’d gotten a Master’s Degree in Theology at a very conservative seminary. He’d spent time in the ministry. Because of mounting doubts, he was bailing on the whole thing.

He says to me:

“Perry, I’ve studied the New Testament inside and out. I’ve studied Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. And you know what? There is NOTHING in the Bible whatsoever to suggest that miracles should stop.

“So… WHERE’S THE MIRACLES???”

I rifle through my mental file folders. I’ve heard lots of stories 3rd hand. No personal experiences of my own to report.

(Gulp.)

He continues: “Every single supposed ‘miracle’ can be explained by sleight of hand, placebo effect, or wishful thinking. There’s no such thing as a medically documented miracle.”

He was definitely right about the New Testament part. Nowhere is there so much as a hint that the miracles were going to go away. In fact miracles are held out as proof of the authenticity of Jesus as the Son of God. From healing the paralytic to forgiving sins to feeding the 5000 to rising from the dead, all are offered as things only God can do.

I was quite concerned that he was right about the placebo effect and the wishful thinking. Made me queasy.

Felt like a sucker. A mark. Gullible.

Plus, when you turn on the TV and see the faith healers plying their trade, most of us run out of the room screaming. Educated people are way too smart for that, right?

What if all this stuff about miracles is hocus-pocus and Santa Claus? What an icky, shameful feeling.

My eyes were suddenly wide open for information that would either confirm or deny this.

For several months I was almost persuaded that he might be right.

But little by little things started happening. The evidence began to point the other way.

Experience #1: I had lunch in Cincinnati Ohio with an old co-worker named Charlie Keck. September 2003. Charlie was an engineer who lived in Tipp City Ohio. His wife was named Geri, and she’d had lupus.

She’d *had* lupus. But she didn’t have it anymore.

She and Charlie had treated it for years, prayed for years that it would be healed, and it wouldn’t budge.

Then one morning at her Bible study, a woman suddenly stood up and said, “God just told me to pray for you, to be healed, RIGHT NOW.”

So they did. And Geri felt this warm sensation flushing through her abdomen and the lupus was healed. Just like that. No more doctor visits, no more treatments. The whole chronic disease, gone.

Experience #2: I got to Rajahmundry, India in June 2007 with the customer service manager at my company, Jeremy Flanagan. Jeremy, as it turns out, has been having experiences like this himself. Healing people.

At a church service one Sunday, the pastor, Isaiah Gottimukkala, invites anybody who wants any kind of healing prayer to line up in front of Jeremy. Jeremy calls me over to help him and we start prayin’ for people.

One woman, maybe 60 years old, had fallen a year ago and hurt her arm. She could not raise her elbow past the middle of her chest. When she moved her arm up and down she complained that her shoulder would crack and pop and Jeremy and I could feel that too, when we put our hands on her shoulder when she’d move it.

He started praying for her. Probably spent 15 minutes. By the time Jeremy was done both shoulders felt identical, there was no cracking and she could raise her arm above her head on her own strength.

I asked her to do it for me and I snapped a picture. She said it didn’t hurt anymore and both arms were equally good.

Another lady, Mary, maybe 30 years old, had somewhat recently had brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. She pulled her hair back and I could tell just brushing my hand over her head that there was a big piece of her skull taken out and a large indention on her head.

She complained that she’d been having seizures since the operation, and she has had no feeling anywhere in her left arm.

Jeremy started praying that God would heal her entire skull and put everything back. We prayed for her and prayed for her. After about a half hour her head hadn’t changed but she started feeling tingling on her skin and by the time we were done, she said she could feel everything with her left arm exactly like her right arm.

No success on her skull filling in. Not yet anyway. But she was VERY excited about the feeling come back in her left arm!

We go home, and 2 months later I email Pastor Isaiah’s brother, Ananth. I want to know if these people are “still healed.” (Or did the problems come back? It sometimes happens.) Here’s his reply:

Respected Mr. Perry Marshall,

Greetings from India!

Thank you very much for your prayers.

Your trip to India was amazing. Many were healed and increased their faith in God.
They are sharing their testimony to many people. Many times they are asking about you and Mr. Jeremy for prayers. We told them that next year definitely they will come to pray for you and for many.

I would like to share the testimony of my Grand mother(My father’s mother). Her name is Mrs. Suvarthamma and her age is 75. She was suffering from severe headache and neck pain from so many years and also if she takes anything from her mouth she will be feeling pain in her throat.

After your prayers She is completely healed. She is very happy and doing all the works easily irrespecitve of her age. God did miracle in her life through your prayers.

Another women named Mrs. Mary, Her age is 30. She had operation on her head. Hair was fully sworn and the head was like smooth sponge. She used to have pain on her head daily. and also her hand is not working and she doesnt have any feeling on her hand.

After your prayers she bacame healed. She feels her hand and she can do works with that hand normally as another hand. Praise the Lord.

Every one hearing of her witness, asking us about you and requesting us to bring you back to India.

These are some of the Miracles happend because of your prayers.

My brother Pastor Isaiah and his wife Surekha and all the boys of the Rajah Boys Home and Pastors in the Deep Forest are sending their greetings to you.

Thanking you Sir,

Yours faithfully,

Ananth

I’ve told you about two people there in Rajahmundry India. There were many more – most got some benefit, some didn’t seem to get any. These are the most dramatic examples of what happened. But I’ll tell you one thing: I learned that prayer CHANGES things. Especially when administered the way the apostles always said to.

I fully understand that a lot of people reading this are very, very skeptical.

As well you should be.

After all, you weren’t there, were you? No you weren’t. You only have my word to go on.

Well, I forgot to bring my portable MRI machine on the plane so I could do before / after scans of all these people, and as concerns this particular event, my own eyewitness testimony is about as good as I can provide right here.

If you’ll stick with me, later in this article I’ll give you information on publicly documented miracles that you can investigate for yourself. Meanwhile I’ve got more personal experiences to share.

Todd Bentley: A crazy, controversial guy, but some of his miracles were real.

Experience #3: In the spring of 2008 a “revival” broke out in Lakeland Florida. Hugely controversial. A guy named Todd Bentley, a Canadian Harley-riding preacher guy with jeans and cowboy boots and covered with tattoos started healing people in this crazy tent meeting. 

It grew and grew until 5,000 to 10,000 people were showing up every single night. This went on until August 2008. The whole thing caved in when Bentley was found to be having an affair with one of his staff members.

(Hey, I told you this thing was controversial. Wait, there’s more…)

I jumped on a plane and flew there to see the whole thing for myself. I was there May 27, 2008.

On the hotel shuttle bus to the meeting I met a woman from Hong Kong who had flown to London to pick up her daughter, a college student who had severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The daughter was skinny as a rail and looked like the walking dead. They were there to get healing.

I get there and the whole place is a freaking nuthouse. Loud music, crazy people dancing and singing, and rolling around on the floor. This Todd Bentley guy is marching around the stage, shouting, kicking people, slapping them, proclaiming them healed.

Across the stage the people go. Bentley is yelling all kinds of proclamations. At one point he stops and says:

“I’m telling you right now, somebody in here has been deaf in one ear for 34 years. Who is that? Thirty-four years deaf. The Lord just spoke to me. Come up here.”

I’m in the center section near the back. About 20 feet from me, over my shoulder and to the right, a guy raises his hand. “That’s me. I went deaf from a gunshot 34 years ago today.”

Bentley prays for him and he’s healed, instantly.

The man’s name was Brian Burgee. He’s pastor of Rock Church of Tampa Bay.

Brian’s story was reported in the Charlotte Observer on June 19, 2008. You can read it here.

I met Charles Chandler, the reporter who wrote it. We have a mutual friend who lives in North Carolina.  Chandler followed up with the people described in the article personally and checked their stories.

This story is no longer on the Observer website but it has been copied on dozens of blogs, including this one.

I was there that night. I saw it happen with my own two eyes.

This article is referenced on Wikipedia. My neighbor is the editor in charge of the Todd Bentley page on Wikipedia. The healings in Lakeland were such a hot potato, most of the mainstream media wouldn’t touch it.

When people are really getting healed and things are happening that the establishment claims are impossible, mostly what you get is silence. Or irrational protests from people who still insist it’s impossible.

(Not all that different from atheists trying to tell me DNA isn’t actually a code.)

Jeronimo and Noemia Cessito, Beira, Mozambique

Experience #4: I have a friend named Noemia Cessito. She and her husband Jeronimo run a school, church, AIDS hospice, medical clinic and feeding program in Beira, Mozambique. I went to visit them in the summer of 2003.

Mozambique is extremely poor. Luxuries that westerners take for granted are simply unheard of there.

Noemia tells this strange story:

When I arrived in Mozambique in 1984, the country was in the middle of a 15 year civil war. It was a hard time. A lot of people were dying not just from the fighting but from starvation.

One evening our church met for prayer. People started to pray for things like shoes, a chair, a shirt, a loaf of bread. I never heard anyone pray for a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread before. I had always prayed: “Lord, please provide for my needs.”

So, I was sitting beside this little six year old girl and we divided into pairs to pray. That little girl began to pray, “Oh God, give shoes to my brother, Carlos. Oh, God, give some some bread to my sister Maria. And I said “Amen” to each of her requests.

Later at home, I got down on my knees to pray some more and when I was kneeling, I was trying to pray for the war because I had heard about a terrible battle on the Zamebezi river.

In the middle of thinking about that, I got this desire for some ice cream. I thought, “Good Lord! How could I possibly think about ice cream now when there is so much war and starvation?” But yet, deep in my heart, I heard a voice saying, “Ask for some ice cream from God.”

I ignored the thought. How could I possibly ask for ice cream when so many people are starving and are in so much need? I continued to pray. But my mouth started to water because I so wanted to have some ice cream. And then I began to cry. I didn’t have the courage to say, “God, please give me some ice cream.” I knew that I could, but I didn’t have the courage.

But, then at the end of my prayer, I said to God, “God, I would sure love to taste some ice cream.” And then, I cried some more. I thought, how selfish can I be! There are so many suffering and starving. I was crying because I was homesick for Brazil, and I so wanted a taste of ice cream.

About noon the next day a truck from Zimbabwe drove up to the door where I was staying and the driver got out and knocked. He wanted someone named, Naomi. I didn’t understand English at that time but he kept saying Naomi, Naomi and I finally realized that Naomi must be my name in English.

So I took the package and when I touched it my heart froze. I knew right away what it was because the box was cold.

So I asked the driver, “Who sent this? Where did it come from?” He didn’t understand me but finally through gestures I got out of him that someone at the airport gave him that box to deliver to “Naomi.” It had been flown in on a plane from South Africa. To this day I have no idea who sent it or where it came from.

Well, I put that little carton of ice cream in the freezer of the refrigerator with a sense of overwhelming gratitude. It was then that I began to understand that I can ask from God even the most insignificant things.

Since then I’ve faced a lot of hard times. I’ve nearly died of malaria, and I’ve gone hungry. But, as the many difficulties arose, I would remember that carton of ice cream. It’s the biggest lesson of my life.

Experience #5: I’ve got a friend named Jess Smiley. She and her husband Sam live about 2 miles from my house. We go to church together.

Jess feels the sorrow, but sings anyway

The last 7 years have been HARD on Jess.

7 years ago her husband Jamie contracted leukemia, a form that is lethal. After a 2 year battle she lost him.

In the fall of 2007 her son Alex was 11 years old. He had started developing bruises on his skin and a doctor’s appointment revealed that he too had leukemia.

Wow. An 11 year old boy with leukemia. Imagine facing that.

Alex went through 9 months of brutal chemotherapy treatments and it went into remission.

18 months later, it came back. With a vengeance.

More chemotherapy. More prayers. More desperation.

Alex chose to stand up and FIGHT.

Since Alex was losing his hair, several of his friends, including Dylan Fancher, all decided to shave their heads as a sign of Solidarity with Alex during his healing and recovery process.

Below is a video of Alex shaving Dylan’s head in the restroom of Alex’s hospital room:

Alex Smiley shaves Dylan Fancher’s head: Solidarity, and Friends Forever

Just the day before, Alex had begun his Chemo treatments. (The joy of shaving Dylan’s head sorta made up for the first day of chemo.)

That was July 6, 2009.

On Wednesday, October 14, 2009, an infection raged out of control and Alex died. A young man full of promise, gone at age 13.

Jess had remarried since Jamie’s death. She lost both her husband and first-born son to leukemia.

She made it through Alex’s funeral under the care of friends, lots of prayer and a couple pints of vodka.

Words cannot express how grieved we all were. We all prayed so hard. For Alex to be healed. For this curse to be lifted. But Alex lost the battle. For whatever reason, rescue did not come.

Jess soldiered on.

It just so happens that we were with Jess at a church conference in Toronto. On the night of January 20, 2010, God SPOKE to Jess and in a moment of laser clarity, showing her that He was pushing a “reset” button on the destiny she thought she had lost. He was restoring to her what she thought was no more.

That night God also gave her an impartation of JOY and LAUGHTER.

The bitterness and the grief melted away and she began laughing with delight. For weeks she was almost giddy and exuberant.

It was like nothing I had ever seen.

All I can say is, you had to see it for yourself to fully appreciate it. I’ve told you some miracle stories. People getting healed of lupus, deafness and paralysis are all remarkable. But being healed from aching loss and sickening sorrow over a lost husband and dear son – that one takes the cake.

It’s not that she doesn’t miss Alex or Jamie. It’s just that the bitter sting has been taken out. Jess experienced a literal impartation of the beautiful scripture of Isaiah 61:

For those who grieve in Zion— 
to bestow on them a crown of beauty 
instead of ashes, 
the oil of gladness 
instead of mourning, 
and a garment of praise 
instead of a spirit of despair. 
They will be called oaks of righteousness, 
a planting of the LORD 
for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins 
and restore the places long devastated; 
they will renew the ruined cities 
that have been devastated for generations.

My friend, I do not know why Alex and her husband were taken from us. God alone knows the answer to that question.

But God did minister to her in her sorrow in a most profound way.

YOU have also lost loved ones.

YOU have also had unanswered prayers. We all have. I know the feeling of exasperation and desperation when you pray and it feels as though those prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.

Jess Smiley knows that feeling too. Believe me, she does.

You pray for the uncle or aunt or grandpa or child. Your prayer doesn’t get answered the way you want it to. It’s bitter and dark.

But you know what…

You only have to experience ONE undeniable miracle and then you KNOW. After that, there is no going back.

And that’s what happened to me. I’ve only shared a small collection of stories. There are others. They’re real and I’ve seen them with my own two eyes.

I solemnly attest to you that all these people and experiences are true and I have reported them to the best of my ability.

I will never again be at the mercy of theories from someone who thinks miracles are fake. Cuz I know they’re real.

But they are my experiences not yours.

Do you want God to show up in your life?

Then right now I give you permission to ASK HIM. If you seek God you will find Him.

But there’s something else I wish to offer you as well.

And that is:

Documented evidence of other miracles.

I direct your attention to two things:

1. The book “Real Miracles” by Richard Casdorph, M.D., medically documents 10 miracles. Each chapter is a case study of one miracle, including doctors reports, xrays, etc. It reports ailments like huge tumors, Multiple Sclerosis and cancer vanishing completely, with medical documentation.

If you’re the least bit curious about this, just go ahead and buy the book. It’s on Amazon.

2. In Catholic circles, the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13, 1917 is very well known and has been exhaustively documented.  Literally 70,000 people including all kinds of newspaper reporters and people of every age and background testified to what happened near Fatima, Portugal. The event was predicted in advance on July 13, August 19 and September 13 that same year by three children. Which is why thousands of people were there to witness it.

Wikipedia does a good job of summarizing what happened. (Yes, I understand, if you’re a protestant you probably don’t relate to the “Virgin Mary” stuff. That’s OK. There’s no rule that says you have to.) I encourage you to study the event for yourself and see if there isn’t substantial evidence that something miraculous occurred.

Finally there are some things that need to be said about miracles. Quoting 1 Corinthians 12:28:

“And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

“Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts.”

If you’re a Christian, I challenge you with this:

Most of the church, the protestant church in particular, has been actively disobeying this command. These verses clearly present a hierarchy of authority and gifts:

1. Apostles

2. Prophets

3. Teachers

4. Workers of Miracles

5. Healers

6. Helpers

7. Administrators

8. Those who speak in tongues

The protestant church has amputated #1, #2, #4, #5 and #8. The teachers and administrators have been left in charge.

Paul said to desire the greater gifts.

The church has been banning them.

I know pastors and seminary professors who’ve been fired from their jobs because they believed in miracles. How tragic and anti-Christian that is.

And we wonder why the church is anemic. We wonder why there’s an atheistic bias in the western world. We wonder why church has become a flaccid, legalistic, boring institution. A dreary way to kill an otherwise enjoyable Sunday morning.

It’s because 5 out of the 8 spark plugs have been yanked out. The engine is coughing and sputtering on 3 of its 8 cylinders.

The church has sliced off one of its testicles and thrown it in the garbage. No wonder it doesn’t feel like a man.

My friend, let me assure you: When the church begins to operate on all 8 cylinders, it becomes a force to be reckoned with. As all my friends who’ve been healed will attest. The atheists and cynics and religious gestapo can whine and moan all they want to, but real people are being set free every day.

(Oh, and I haven’t said a single word about the awesome power of prophetic people. I’ll save that discussion for another post.)

You’re invited. If you’re ever in Chicago, come to Vineyard Oak Park, 705 Jackson Boulevard, Oak Park Illinois on a Sunday morning and I’ll introduce you to some of these dear friends. They’ll look you in the eye and tell you their stories and you’ll know it’s all for real. If you need healing, they’ll pray for you, too.

The same thing is happening in every city and town in the world. It’s seldom in the newspaper and it’s not on TV. But maybe that’s for the better. Cuz it’s going on just the same.

In Matthew 11, Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist was in prison. He was depressed and discouraged. Nothing was going the way he’d planned. He had grave doubts because his prayers weren’t being answered.

John sent a message to Jesus.

When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

Amen.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: There’s a popular atheist jingoism these days: “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?” It’s often stated with spitting anger and venom. The assertion is made that there’s no such thing as an amputee whose arm grew back. This held up as proof positive that miracles don’t exist.

To date I haven’t personally met an amputee whose arm has grown back. Today I told you what I have seen. The closest I’ve come is my friend Yosef Bender from Chicago. Yosef was at a Kathryn Kuhlman healing service many years ago. (Casdorph’s book “Real Miracles” investigates 10 of Ms. Kuhlman’s healing incidents.) Behind Yosef was a woman who had one arm that was too short with a single finger at the end instead of a hand.

From the stage, Kuhlman called out that there was someone up in that section whose arm was deformed. A few seconds later, Yosef heard this intense commotion and loud crying behind him. He turned around and this woman’s hand had fully grown back. She was so happy she was crying hysterically.

That is as close as I’ve personally gotten to a healed amputee.

I rather suspect there are at least a few healed amputees out there. Will the skeptics listen to their stories? I don’t know. Will they change the skeptics’ minds? I don’t know. But if you want to think for yourself investigate these things on your own, I recommend that you start by reading “Real Miracles” by Richard Casdorph, M.D.

Every week I get on conference calls and say hi to everyone and barely think twice about the fact that I’ve got 17 people from Texas, four from Perth, one from Amsterdam, one in Alaska, one in Lebanon.

Ever heard Thomas Friedman’s “McDonalds theory of world peace”? He observes that with only one exception, no two countries with a McDonalds have ever gone to war with each other.

Can you imagine, say, the US going to war with Australia? Think of all the emails the senators and congressmen would get: “Hey, stop trying to kill my customers! And by the way, here’s a list of 115 blogs from people who are trapped in the Siege of Sydney right now!”

The world is truly a strange and wonderful place. Just before I went on a trip, I loaded the first season of The Dukes of Hazzard on my video iPod so my 10 year old son would have something to watch while we trucked down Interstate 80.

That TV show ran in 1979 – the year that *I* was 10 years old. I said to Laura, “Who would’ve thought that 25 years later you’d be able to download an entire season of the Dukes of Hazzard onto a device that’s half the size of a pack of cigarettes, and our kids would watch it in the car with headphones and a 2″ screen?” We shake our heads in amazement.

OK, so what does all this have to do with spirituality?

Equality and technology… They have everything to do with spirituality.

Let’s start with equality.

The United States Declaration of Independence makes a world-shattering declaration that transformed the modern world:

“We hold these things to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

In his book “Democracy in America” (1835) Alexis de Tocqueville carefully traces this statement and its idea of equality backward through history and lands at Galatians 3:28, the words of St. Paul:

“In Christ there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. All are equal in Christ Jesus.”

Before Paul said this, no one had ever made such a bold and sweeping statement. No one. Not the Jews or Babylonians, not the Egyptians, not the Greeks, not the Chinese. The concept of equality came first from Paul.

This idea got planted in western civilization and began to grow and develop, little by little dismantling slave trade, sowing the seeds for democracy and spurring technological and political progress. Tocqueville says that from 1100 AD to the present, every major development led to more equality, not less. The Magna Carta. The invention of the horseshoe. The invention of the gun and the post office and the printing press and democracy.

If you live in a democracy and you’re thankful for the ability to vote, if you’re thankful that people generally consider you and themselves to be just as good as anybody else, then thank Paul. And his Rabbi, Jesus.

Because – despite what the Declaration says – equality really is NOT self evident. At least it wasn’t to any of the ancient world prior to 2000 years ago. On the surface, we’re all different. Some are stronger. Some are smarter. Some have more money. Some are politically connected. Some are more savvy.

And some people get the scraps.

You have no principle to guide you but winners and losers. Which, divorced from any overriding sense of equality or individual dignity, is a cruel master.

But when Paul said this, he was declaring that there is an underlying *spiritual* reality, that yours and my true identity doesn’t come from accomplishments or money or power but from our Heavenly Father. That once we know that true identity we’re no longer slaves to money and power and accomplishments and the ‘natural’ order of things.

If you’re thankful that Western Civilization today considers all people to be intrinsically equal, be thankful that a young couple in Bethlehem gave birth to a baby who was to become the most loved, most hated, most argued about, most written about, most influential person in the history of the world. One who taught that the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. One in whom there is no male or female, no Jew nor Greek, no slave nor free.

So then how about technology?

Science itself is, at its core, a presumption of discoverable underlying order. A belief, an assumption (which cannot be proven in advance, by the way) that when an apple falls from a tree it does so because of some law of nature that caused it to do so. That there was a string of cause and effect that can be traced back to explain why this happened.

The apple did not fall from the tree because, say, Zeus was having a snit with Apollo and that’s why there was the lightning storm which is why there was a wind that caused the apple to swing back and forth and fall from the tree…. no, it happened for rational discoverable reasons. That God made a world which could operate consistently on its own without Him constantly making corrections from the outside.

So far as I can tell, the inspiration for this belief first came from Wisdom of Solomon 11:21:

“Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.”

(The Protestants omitted that book, but our Catholic friends thankfully left it in.)

If a scientist does not presume that there is a rational reason for what he is about to investigate, there is nothing for him to investigate at all. Belief in rationality comes from belief in a rational God. A God who wants us to discover His universe. For whom such discovery is an act of worship.

If you read the history of science over the last 500 years, the only reason science succeeded in the West – after getting started but failing in Greece, Rome, China, Egypt and in the Arab world – is that Christian theology understood God to have created the universe to operate according to fixed discoverable laws.  Theology made that prediction, then people had a philosophical basis for having a scientific method.

In his fascinating book “The Victory of Reason” historian Rodney Stark further explains that the forward march of technology began after the fall of the Roman Empire and has marched steadily forward ever since. Equality implied that slavery was wrong, so people had to develop technology in order to free their slaves and still get the work done.

So… part of the inspiration for inventions like water wheels was a belief in dignity and freedom and the rights of the individual.
Technology is supposed to empower people, not enslave them. Because, as Paul said, in Christ, all are equal.

If you trace these ideas back through history, equality and technology and even iPods and Democracy have everything to do with our very beliefs about the universe and about God. And yes, even Jesus.

Case in point: it’s politically incorrect to say “Merry Christmas” cuz it’s too religious. Instead you get a tepid, watered down “Happy Holidays.”

It’s because Christ is offensive. When a guy smashes his thumb with a hammer, he doesn’t say “Krishna” or “Buddha,” he says Jesus Christ. Because that’s the most loaded, most powerful word in the English language.

There’s no name you can invoke that’s more powerful than the Son of God.

~~~

Do you know what the most important invention in the history of the world was?

It wasn’t the computer.  And it sure wasn’t the light bulb or the telephone.  (Or even the electronic voting machine.)
It was the printing press.

In 1445, Johannes Gutenberg invented the world’s first movable type printing press.  He didn’t know it, but he was unleashing a revolution that continues to this day.  Even the mighty Internet in the 21st century is just an extension of Gutenberg’s original, revolutionary machine.

The first book he printed was the Bible.  And that led to controversy, too, because Luther translated it into German, the people’s language, instead of Latin, the lingo of the religious elite.

Suddenly, ordinary folks could not only afford a copy, but they could read it for themselves instead of getting some guy’s slanted interpretation.  Soon the cat was out of the bag–there were copies scattered all over Europe.

It’s no coincidence that the scientific enlightenment and industrial revolution began in earnest within 50 years of this.  Not that it wasn’t already underway (it had already gathered considerable momentum) but now that ordinary folks had access to knowledge and the freedom to pursue it, the possibilities were limitless.

The printing press took the handcuffs off of knowledge and spirituality, and the world has never been the same.  Equal access to knowledge empowered people everywhere, and it was only natural that the Renaissance, and in time, democracy too would follow.

Every year at Christmas we celebrate the person who inspired these revolutions. Jesus’ teachings were radical and scandalous. He claimed to be the Son of God. He said he would rise from the dead, and according to the historical accounts, he did. He stepped into the world and split time in half: BC and AD. And his words still resonate throughout the earth today.

Still rolls the stone from the grave.

In the spirit of what Jesus taught us, I hope that you’ll use our 21st century printing press, the Internet, to not enslave but empower individuals. To bring more equality, to make the world a better place for your fellow man.

Thanks for reading.

Perry Marshall

1. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
2. “The Jesus story just is an accumulation of myths of legendary people, all rolled into one über nice guy.”
3. “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. Separate realms that should be kept separate.”
4. “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
5. “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300AD.”
6. “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a nice rabbi named Jesus into a god.”
7. “Evolution disproves God.”
8. “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
9. “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
10. “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”

This story starts with my brother Bryan, a tough-questions seminary student. He got a Masters degree in theology at a very conservative seminary where they work them real good, and he toed the line and he learned all the stuff that he’s supposed to learn, and he moved to China.

He’s in China for a couple of years and he basically turned into an agnostic and came within spitting distance of becoming an atheist, which really shook me up.

Bryan is a very smart guy, and one of the questions that he asked was this.

He goes, “Okay, Perry, I’ve been to seminary. I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I know Aramaic, and when I read the New Testament I do not see any reason whatsoever from the text why we should not have miracles today. So where are they?

1. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”

And I’m like, “Uh…let me ask my sales manager and get back to you.” I hate it when people ask ‘elephant in the room’ questions.

Now, if you’ve been in any strand of Christianity for any length of time, you will encounter miracle stories. For example, “We prayed for my sister Debbie and she had cancer, and all of a sudden she didn’t have cancer anymore.”

Every now and then, I don’t care where you are in Christianity, you will hear those. I’ve heard a few of them, but I was in very short supply of such stories and I hadn’t thought about it much. I had always been taught that those miracles went away and they either don’t exist anymore, or at least never happen “on command.”

And Bryan’s cutting to the chase; he’s like, “Well, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.” And I knew he was right. So what’s the deal? Let’s start in on this.

I went looking and I’ll teII you that one interesting book that I found along the way was by Richard Casdorph, who is a medical doctor. He wrote a book in the 1970s called Real Miracles. This is an older version of the book. It’s called, The Miracles – A Medical Doctor Says Yes to Miracles.

What this guy did was there was this lady back in the 1970s named Catherine Kuhlman and she would do these healing services. He followed her around and he documented what happened to these people. He documented the “before” and the “after” and he did so with X-rays, medical reports, letters from doctors, all of that kind of stuff. This book is 10 case studies. I’ll tell you what some of the chapter names are:

• Malignant Brain Tumor
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Atherosclerotic Heart Disease
• Carcinoma of the Kidney
• Mixed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis

And he goes through, one by one, with X-rays, doctor’s reports and everything and says, “This guy had this before and it’s gone now. Here’s the X-ray, here’s the letter from the doctor, and there it is.” This is not by any means the only such book, but they exist.

Another example of this is God and The Sun at Fatima. Catholics will know what Fatima is (probably most Protestants won’t) but I think back somewhere around 1913, just before World War I, some children were playing and they had a vision of the Virgin Mary. She said that something really amazing is going to happen here at this certain date and they told everybody. Everybody showed up and they all saw it.

This book is by Stanley Jaki, who is a physicist and a Catholic priest and a science historian. He goes into 360 pages of interviewing people and documenting all this. This is as close as you can get to a scientific investigation of a miracle.

Another book that I ran across that I found real interesting that isn’t really about miracles but is about the metaphysical world is called Margins of Reality, by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne.

They worked at the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. The lab was closed in 2007, but for almost 30 years there was a lab at Princeton and they would investigate paranormal phenomena. And they proved to five 9’s of statistical confidence (that’s almost six Sigma) that people could deflect falling objects by concentrating. They proved that they could send and receive telepathic messages.

Now, most of the scientific community does not know what to do with this stuff. It freaks them out, but it’s there. This is a fascinating book. So I started investigating this, and I also started looking for personal experiences.

A couple of years ago I was in India with my friend, Jeremy. He has spent a lot of time doing healing and practicing Biblical healing. We were at a little church service and Jeremy goes up to the pastor and says, “Tell these people that if they want healing prayer at the end of the service, I’ll pray for them.” So the pastor tells all the people and everyone was like, “Well, okay, I’ll go over there!”

Jeremy was like, “Perry, Perry, come over here and help me!” I’d never done this before. There was a woman whose whole left arm was paralyzed. She had had brain surgery a year and a half before. She had an indentation in her head from the surgery. She had been having seizures ever since the surgery and she had no feeling in her left arm. She wanted us to pray for her.

So Jeremy’s like, “Okay, Perry, start praising God, start praying for this lady!”

I’m like, “Okay, me Robin, you Batman, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” and we started praying. He would poke her on the hand – “Can you feel that?”

“No, can’t feel that.”

He’d pray some more and ask, “Can you feel that?”

“I’m starting to feel something!” So he would pray some more and at the end of 20 minutes, all the feeling was back in her left arm. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

A guy came in with a broken wrist, holding it like that; by the end, he was jumping up and down, he was so excited.

There was another lady who had a severe shoulder injury and she couldn’t move her shoulder past about here. I put my arm on her shoulder and I could feel this crunching going on in her shoulder and we prayed for her for about 30 minutes. The crunching was all gone and she was moving her shoulder and she was all excited.

Then I go home and I’m like, “I wonder if this actually stuck. I wonder if it did.” So I emailed this guy and I asked him, “How are these people doing, anyway?”

He said, “In the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Mr. Perry Marshall, I am so excited to tell you, they are telling everybody they can’t wait for you to come back!”

I said, “Wow, this is great!”

Now, I’ve got to cover 10 of these things in 50 minutes, which is kind of insane, so I don’t have time to go any more. The church that I attend, a Vineyard Church, we practice this.

I of all people know what it’s like to sit here and pray for someone and go, “I feel really stupid! What if this doesn’t work?” You know, sometimes there’s no obvious result, but sometimes there is. You know what?  It’s less risky than going to the emergency room.

I have a few friends who actually go to the emergency room every Tuesday night and they pray for people, and trippy stuff happens sometimes. If you want to read some more of these stories, go here. You can read the whole India story in more detail.

This brings up another thing. You know a lot of the people talk about Christians living by faith. Well, I totally understand and agree with that, but I also think that as you mature as a Christian, you live more and more by experience. That faith leads to results which gives you experience, and there’s kind of an upwards spiral and it’s not just like, “Well, you know, life is miserable, but by and by in the sky, someday God’s going to make the world a better place.”

No, it can be now. I think the Kingdom of God is now. I think a lot of Christians kind of have this, “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the higher gifts, and I guess the question that I’d like to raise for people that want to take that approach is, well, if we took the New Testament and took all of the miracle stories out, what would we have left?

I think my brother was right. I don’t see any place in this book that says these miracles are supposed to stop. There’s a little challenge for you on that.

2.   “The Jesus story is just an accumulation of myths of a legendary people, all rolled into one über-nice guy.

Let me expand on that a little bit. People say, “The God and the Jesus that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a virgin birth, a burial in a rock tomb, a resurrection after three days, eating a body, drinking blood, had nothing to do with Jesus.

“All those things were already in other myths and legends before that, so they just took them all and they kind of rolled them into these Jesus stories. So Christianity is a snowball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions and as the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts.”

By the way, I got this verbatim from an email that a guy sent me, so I just went and fished one up, and there you go. This is a very common thing. Well, I would like to reduce this to a question, so let’s look at the logical question behind the question.

I think the question is this:

“If a myth precedes a fact, does that make the fact a myth? Does it logically follow?”

Well, let’s take 9/11 as an example. On 9/11/01, as we all know, two planes flew into the Twin Towers.  The Last Jihad by Joel Rosenberg, on the first page puts readers into the cockpit of a hijacked jet, on a kamikaze mission into an American city, but it was written nine months before 9/11.

Does that make 9/11 a myth? Or how about Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy. 1996 – a Japanese 747 crashes into the Capitol, killing most of the top functionaries in the U.S. government.

Or here’s a good one – The Lone Gunman TV series. The pilot episode was about an attempt to crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. It was a government conspiracy to increase defense spending by making it look like a terrorist attack. It aired in March 2001.

So the next time someone tells you that Jesus was a myth, ask them this question: “Name one other resurrection story that stuck. Just one.” I don’t know of any. I think there’s a reason for that.

3.   “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. They are separate realms that should be kept separate.”

I’ll tell you a little story. Back in the early 20th century there was a great deal of optimism in the mathematical profession that we were closing in on a theory of everything. What mathematicians were looking for was a set of constructions that made all of the propositions of mathematics form a nice, tidy, complete circle.

Let me explain what I mean by this. How many of you took high school geometry and it was stuff like, “This triangle has three equal sides; therefore, it is an Equilateral triangle.” And then you do all these proofs and you work all this logic from it.

Well, if you take that high school geometry book, there are always four or five things that the book starts with as premises that everybody knows are true but no mathematician has ever been able to prove are true.

For example, “We know this is true, no one has ever been able to prove it. We know it’s true because it works and it’s all consistent, but we can’t prove it.” And they were like, “Someday we’re gonna prove it!”

Well, in 1931 a guy named Kurt Gödel proved that it would never happen. And actually, I think that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is just as important as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Most people have never heard of it, but let me explain what his Incompleteness Theorem says.

This is the kindergarten version. It says, “Anything you can draw a circle around requires something on the outside to explain it, which you cannot prove.” This applies to everything. It applies to a bicycle; if you build a bicycle, the fact that it’s there relies on something outside of the bicycle.

It’s true of a geometry book, a software program, the English language, or the universe. Gödel’s Theorem was a crushing blow to mathematicians. It was as if they realized, “You mean, we’re never going to make everything flow into a perfect circle?” No. Can’t be done.

Actually, the universe is like an MC Escher painting where you climb up the steps and all of a sudden you’re at the bottom again. There’s a book called Gödel Escher Bach, which takes Gödel’s Theorem, Escher’s paintings, and Bach’s music and shows how they’re all basically the same.

For instance, in Bach’s music the notes escalate and they go up and up and somehow all of a sudden it starts with bass notes again and you didn’t even notice. What does this have to do with the question, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking”?

Gödel’s Theorem says that you cannot do science without faith; it’s impossible. You start with a fact – “I know this because of this, and I know this because of this,” you always go back to some fact that you can’t prove.

Now, what does science do? Science says, “If I drop this cup from my hand onto the ground, it’s going to fall every time. Only past experience shows that to be true. I cannot prove that it’s going to fall again. I always have to rely on some assumption that I can’t prove in science.”

One little extra thing I want to throw in here; the statement that, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking, separate ways of thinking that should be kept separate,” is that a scientific statement?

No, it’s a philosophical statement.

Even a statement about keeping science and philosophy separate requires philosophy. And the statement itself presumes that philosophy gets to say something about science.

That’s exactly what Gödel was talking about.

I’ve written a much more thorough treatment of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem here: http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/incompleteness/

4. “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”

I want you to think about something:

Where did science come from?

If you study the history of science, you’ll find out that it got started in Greece and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in Rome and it fizzled out and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in ancient Egypt and in China – didn’t really go anywhere there either. It got started in Islam, and every time in those places, it stalled.

Why did it succeed in Europe after failing everywhere else? We all know it launched there and took off like a rocket.

Here’s why I think it happened. In the Apocrypha, the part of the Bible that the Catholics read and the Protestants don’t, Wisdom of Solomon 11:21 says:

“Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.”

I submit to you that this verse is where science started. That all things are weigh-able, measurable and countable. That there’s a systematic explanation for what goes on in the universe. So far as I know, no one else in the ancient world made a more definite statement about science than Solomon did right here.

Western Christianity believed that the universe was governed by fixed, discoverable laws, and that’s what gave birth to science. The reason that science succeeded in the West and failed in all those other places was that in all those other places, there was no theological basis to believe this.

If you believe that it rained today because Zeus is in a snit with Apollo, how are you going to come up with a systematic explanation that doesn’t invoke some kind of arbitrary, whimsical source?

Christian theology believed that God could create the world and then on the seventh day that He could rest and the universe would continue to do what He told it to do. Therefore, the great scientists viewed the study of science as a way of studying the mind of God.

I would rewrite the question to say this: “The history of science is a story of faith in a harmonious universe being rewarded in weight, number, and measure.”

1,000 years ago you couldn’t take that for granted. Now we all take it for granted, because we figured it out.

5.  “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300 AD.”

People make a lot out of this. Constantine got everybody together and they hammered out what they agreed was going to be the Bible. “You know, we just don’t buy these books, we’re going to keep them.” A lot of people have this idea that this is when the Bible that we have today came to exist.

I want to show you a book that will correct that notion. This is called Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens. I have to mention here that this is another Catholic book. I was raised Protestant. I was a preacher’s kid. We were uber-studious Protestants. We took ourselves real seriously. Some of you know what I’m talking about – “Oh, that kind…starchy!”

We thought that Catholics were bad people. You know, “Go tell them how bad they are!” Well, then I grew up and my brother-in-law, Alan, studies church history. He gets a Ph.D. in church history at Iowa State, not some conservative place.

He went to Iowa State because they had the biggest and best library he could find on church history.

It turned out that most of his professors were atheists. To get a dissertation pushed through these guys was a Herculean task. But he and I would talk about theological stuff, and it was kind of funny because every time I would raise some theological question, he would always say something like, “Well, yeah, the first people to probe that question in detail were the monks in Western Italy in 800 AD and what they said was…” and he’d go off on something.

Anything you could come up with, someone had already thought about it and written about 1,200 books on it. I thought Christianity started all over again with Martin Luther after this burned-out period…oh, come on! Heavens, no.

So this is a Catholic book. I have great respect for Catholics and Catholic theologians and all that. I know somebody will probably want to get in a fist fight about that with me at the end, but I’m telling you anyway.

This book is a collection of all of the earliest writings, and actually there’s three of them. I just brought the first one. It starts at about 80 AD and it’s letters from all these guys that ran churches. Letters from pastors to their congregations, and letters to disciples from their mentors, and it ends somewhere around St. Hilaire of Poitier and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. I don’t know what year this was, probably about 400-500 AD, and it starts at 80.

It goes in order, so you can read 80 AD and then you can read 110 AD and then you can read 125 AD and 300 AD and so forth. In every chapter there are footnotes of the Bible verses they’re quoting. It’s exactly the same.

Pastor Bill Hybels at Willow Creek could use this to preach a sermon out of any page in this book and it would be just fine. It would be scriptural and it would be original Christianity, no different than we have today. Most of these early letters sound an awful lot like the New Testament letters that Paul wrote.

Anyone that tells you that Christianity started in 300 AD is just as ridiculous as saying it started in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door.

6.  “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a rabbi named Jesus into God. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were just later fabrications.”

Obviously, the book that I just talked to you about does speak to that, because you can go all the way back to 80 AD and you have a whole body of literature that’s already telling a consistent story.

What’s usually said is that Paul wrote his letters in 40-50 AD and the Gospels were written in 60 – 90 AD and that’s too long. All of these myths would have accrued, so yes, Jesus was probably just this radical guy and he had these radical teachings and then they wanted him to be God and so they made the story about Him being God, and the people were so desperate and oppressed by the Romans that they found it believable – well, let’s do a comparison.

Paul Tibbetts was the pilot of the Enola Gay, which was the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He wrote a book in 1998, shortly before he died, called Return of the Enola Gay. How many years after 1945 is that? Fifty-three years after the bomb was dropped.

I found this book at my father-in-law’s house because he’s into World War II. You go over there and he always has The History Channel on. I started thumbing through this book, and the reason Tibbetts wrote the book was to correct revisionist history.

Revisionist history said, “If we had just been a little nicer to the Japanese, we should have just gone over there and talked to them, and they would’ve…”

Tibbetts is saying, “No! Let’s get this straight.” He goes into extensive detail about the political situation and all this stuff that was going on behind the scenes. He tells what it was like to get in that plane, what it was like to let the bomb loose and go into a 135 degree angle and feel the shock wave from  the bomb and the brilliant flash of light and think, “Oh my word, what did I just do?” and all that.

Now, does anybody doubt that his autobiography tells you more or less accurately what happened? Is anybody going to reasonably doubt that he doesn’t remember what happened, 53 years later? I don’t think so!

So if Jesus died in 33, what’s 53 years out from 33 – isn’t that 86? That’s like getting to the outside limit of when they said the Gospels were written.

Is there any reason to think that the Gospels were any less reliable?

Considering there are four of them and considering they don’t all perfectly line up or quote everybody verbatim the same way, they don’t all tell stories the same way – four independent accounts – can anyone reasonably think that the Gospels are any less reliable than his story? I don’t think so.

And if you compare it to other things in history, a lot of those things were written even further after the fact than that. I would like to point to the consistency of early teachings about Jesus and raise the question: Why do substantially different teachings about Jesus only appear after 150-200 years? Isn’t that kind of what you would expect?

I rest my case.

7. “Evolution disproves God.”

That’s a good one. I like that one. I have a question for you. Who knows what that is? DOS – how many of you have used DOS somewhere in your early childhood? This is a screenshot of DOS 3.0, 3.3, which is about 1985. You all remember DOS:

C:> dir

C:> dir /w

C:> format c:

When you tried to format the hard drive, did it say “Are you sure?” I don’t remember. Early versions did.

Now here we have Windows XP with Internet Explorer, which is about 2005. Let me ask you a question: let’s say that DOS never got modified by the guys in Redmond, Washington and it evolved into Windows XP all by itself.

Imagine that DOS adapted, that it had a capability built in to where it would sense that it needed an Internet connection and it needed a web browser and it needed Outlook, and that it needed a mouse and updates and antivirus software. And let’s say that it would rearrange its code and then test different versions with some version of natural selection until the pieces started to work.

Did that happen? No. If DOS had actually evolved all by itself, off without any exterior tampering, tinkering or code writing from any software engineers, and it had just done that, would you be more or less impressed with the person who wrote the first DOS program?

You would go, “How did you do that?” You could go to China and for $2 you can buy a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of Windows. All those versions, especially the ones in China, they don’t have the little 3D thing on them. It’s grey and it has Magic Marker on it ‘Windows XP’.

Now, the copies of copies of copies of copies, they all had mutations, didn’t they? And the marketplace had a chance to select them. Does anyone know of copies of Windows that were better because of the mutations?

No.

Now, I just tried to apply the usual theory of evolution to DOS and everybody got a chuckle out of it. First of all, everything that evolves that we have any experience with, evolves because of some ability to do so or some kind of design or something acting upon it.

At the very least, if we’re going to even imagine that DOS could have evolved into Windows XP, we have to imagine that it has some kind of special program inside that’s ready and willing to rearrange all the pieces.

You know what? I am totally open to the possibility that God planted a cell in the ocean and that cell had some kind of magnificent program that could eventually evolve into everything that’s on Planet Earth. I am open to that.

And if that happened, then God is even more impressive than the version of God that says, “Well, OK, now we need apes, so let’s put an ape there, and now we need people, so let’s put a person there..”

I’m not trying to get into some debate about Genesis 1; this is simply an engineering argument. If evolution is true, then God is even more impressive than they thought God was before anyone thought of evolution!

8. “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”

Let’s get the most riling questions out on the table. I want to point some scriptures out to you. Little things are kind of tucked in there that are easy to miss.

John 15:22 – Jesus says, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.” Hmm, that’s interesting.

Luke 11:30 – Jesus said, “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom and now one greater than Solomon is here.”

Let’s look at this again. “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them” – so what does this tell you about judgment? This isn’t like some cowering guy staring at God, getting pounded; this is anybody who has anything to say about what he knew, didn’t know, did and what he did not do, and what they did perhaps in a comparable situation.

Let’s look at this one. Matthew 11:21 – “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”

Well? That’s a statement about two people, now, isn’t it? “Tyre and Sidon would have believed if they had Me.” Do you think that gets taken into consideration? I think so.

Acts 17:29 – Paul refers to idol worship and he says, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.”

Now, this always comes up, somebody always says, “Well, what about the guy in Africa that never heard about Jesus?” They’re like, “I have to get this guy figured out before I decide if I’m going to go for this Jesus thing. I’m not sure if this is fair. I think this is all a setup. What about all these people?”

Here’s my concern: If you’re that guy, I’m not real worried about him. Not that the missionaries shouldn’t go talk to him and all that. In the Great Commission – “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” – God told us to do that for a reason.

This is just my opinion, but I suspect that guy in Africa, he has no missionary, Bible, or anything, I think if he looks up in the sky and goes, “Somebody made all this, whoever You are, I’d like to know you,” I think God can respect that prayer.

What I’m concerned about is that guy will rise up in the judgment and testify against the guy who used him as an excuse. If you look at all of these verses, the theme is, “Hey, guys, you knew an awful lot. What did you do with it?”

“If Tyre and Sidon had seen what you have seen, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” The people he was talking to saw a lot. They saw the dead raised, they saw the blind see.

9. “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”

I’m going to take an interesting approach with this. I brought with me three different versions of the Bible. I’ve got a King James New Testament, a New Living Translation Bible and a New American Standard. I could have brought an NIV, but all you guys probably have one, because that’s kind of the popular Bible translation.

Do they all read the same? No.

I had to sign this thing before I came that I understood that Willow Creek has a doctrinal statement. One of the things in the thing that I had to sign was that I understand that Willow Creek says that the scriptures are inerrant in their original writings. That’s a very common thing that you’ll find in the Protestant church, that scriptures are inerrant in their original writings.

Do we have the originals? No. What we have are thousands of Greek manuscripts and there are slight differences with some of them. You could make a whole little tree of this copying error and that. You could put it all together and we could open all three of these Bibles up to John 5 or Ezekiel 34 or Revelation 12 or any book and we could read them side by side.

And rather than getting 12 decimal places of precision, I think what we get is more like there’s an outer edge on one side or the other on how you can interpret something, and then there’s something sort of in the middle.

Maybe the King James seems to be here and maybe the NIV seems to be here, and maybe the Catholic Bible seems to be here. But they’re all kind of within this range of variation. So there’s some wiggle room, not like 12 decimals of precision, but more like maybe two.

No matter what Bible you read, did Jesus rise from the dead in all of them? Is adultery a sin in all of them? Is it not all right to lie, cheat, and steal in all of them? Is there a debate between predestination and free will in all of them? Yes.

I had this realization one day; “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t have to sit here and nitpick every last verse that some skeptic wants to pick a fight with me about and make me explain everything that doesn’t quite seem to fit together, because you know what? This is like a puzzle that you’re trying to put together and some of the edges are fuzzy and I can’t put it perfectly together. And that’s all right.”

I was emailing back and forth with an atheist and he’s quibbling about the different tomb stories of the Resurrection. I don’t think they contradict each other, but in order to make them fit, you have to make a couple of assumptions before they fit.

He’s trying to duke it out and I said, “I don’t feel like defending the idea that the Bible is infallible. I’ll just say for today that I have four stories that were pretty close! So what do you think?”

He didn’t know what to do.

I said, “Well, Jesus died on the cross, you are a sinner, God created the world, 12 disciples went out and preached. The story’s pretty clear. How many of these little nit picky things from the New Testament that you brought up because you found them on some website do you have to get all straight before you get the big picture here?”

Try this on for size; the Bible is the word of God with a lower case w. But if we’re going to use a capital W, what is the Word of God? Jesus! Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is the written testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit, testifying to the Word of God. There’s a verse that says, “No one can confess Jesus Christ is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit.”

Let’s not put the Bible above the Holy Spirit.

You realize if you want to sort out all those puzzle pieces, you need the Holy Spirit to help you do it. And a person who does not have the Holy Spirit is not even going to be willing to do that. That’s why they’re arguing with you.

So when I get in these debates, I say, “Let’s just assume that this is like any other piece of history. Someone wrote it down as best they could, and here we have it. Let’s make a judgment from what’s in front of us. So what do you think?”

Did they just make all this up? Like perhaps, Jesus didn’t really die; they pried him off the cross and he was almost dead and then he was in the tomb, and people in the Middle East had these clever ways of reviving almost dead people and then he popped out. He looked so good, he looked like Superman, and everybody said, “Wow!  You’re the Son of God!” Yeah, that’s what happened! Sure, that’s what happened!

Guys that are pulled off crosses when they’re almost dead always inspire people three days later to like change the world! That’s what happened!

Sorry, I’m getting a little sidetracked… here’s a fun one:

10. “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”

Let me show you a book, called The Black Book of Communism. How many of you think this is cheery? Oh, yeah, if you’re feeling a little too good today, just read this one. This book documents the genocide of 160 million people in the 20th century alone – mostly by atheist governments.

Remember the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao? Well, that was a great period in China’s history, wasn’t it? How about Stalin? Oh boy, Stalin loved children. Yep, that guy just loved puppy dogs and children. He was such a nice man. 160 million people! Do you realize that’s more people than all the religious wars of the whole history of the world put together?

Some people say, “Well, it was just a coincidence that they were atheists.” All right, well, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but there does seem to be a correlation. Let’s recognize the question behind the question.

First of all, I don’t think you can overstate just how dangerous a worldview atheism actually is. I’m sure there are atheists here, and I’m glad that you’re here and you’re welcome.

When my brother slid into his faith crisis, I wanted to argue with him and he wouldn’t; and I’m not sure that would have been the healthiest thing if we had argued. I think it was probably a good idea that he declined, but I was ready to go. In truth, he was dragging me with him. I was scared because he was raising all kinds of questions.

I started going to Willow Creek 15 years ago and I started leading Seeker Small Groups. Those groups are where people who do not necessarily believe the Bible or Christianity get together at a table, and so every other Sunday for a couple of years I got seekers in there pummeling me with questions, and I thought I’d heard everything. Well, when Bryan and the Internet came along, I had no longer seen everything!

It was intense. Bryan was asking all kinds of penetrating questions and I was going to all these websites and it was like walking into machine gun fire. One of the things that I did was decide that I had to duke this out. So I started this website, www.CoffeehouseTheology.com, and it has emails that you can sign up for and see what it’s all about, if you like. If people replied to the emails, the emails came back to me.

The reason I did that was that I wanted to know if enough people came through the website and sent me emails, if Christianity cannot stand up to the test, I was going to find out! I decided that I was going to take everyone on and I was going to see if someone can punch a hole in this thing. And there were some scary moments. I was like, “Oh my goodness, these are big questions!”

I probably answered 10,000 emails during the last 6 years. There have been a LOT of people and a lot of conversations. The first thing I’ll tell you is that nobody’s punched a hole in Christianity. I think it stands up very well. If you have a question, there’s a book or website or something that has a good answer to it.

Here’s the other thing; nobody comes out swinging like the new breed of atheist like followers of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and all of those guys. These guys are furious! People talk about Muslims being extreme? Well, I get emails from a lot of Muslims and none of them come out swinging like the atheists do. They’re angry. And Richard Dawkins says things like, “Teaching your children that there is a God who would reward or punish you, people that do that are worse than child molesters.” That’s what he says.

It’s a war. What’s the track record? 160 million dead people. Now, this is not a battle of guns, because the pen is mightier than the sword. This is a battle of the pen. This is a battle of truth and belief systems. I think Christians have a moral obligation to know what’s going on, because if you don’t know what’s going on, you’ll get picked off by a skeptic.

The reason we have science today is because Christianity said there is a logical rational universe that was designed by an intelligent Creator. And the reason we have democracy is because Paul said, “There is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; all are equal in Christ Jesus.”

The most cherished Western values come from Christianity. Don’t surrender them to someone who has an axe to grind.

Kind of reminds you of certain religious institutions,
doesn’t it? Short little insecure men, hiding behind
names and titles, sending everyone on Mission Impossible
while they themselves indulge in secret sin. The
preacher stands in front of thousands and shakes his
finger. Nobody else knows that he had a stripper
in his hotel room last night.

Somebody tells you, ‘Here, follow all these rules and be
the best person you possibly can, and you might have a shot
at being accepted by God someday.’ Then they string you along
and get you under their thumb.

No wonder people are cynical.

Well it’s no accident that Jesus’ own biggest enemies 2000
years ago were precisely those same self-righteous hypocrites.
When Jesus showed up, they were terrified of losing their cushy
jobs and political clout. Eventually they murdered him for
exposing their racket.

True spirituality had been buried in a big pile of bureaucracy,
and the religious establishment used it to gain leverage. To have
power over people, to get priority seating in expensive restaurants,
and to line their pockets with cash.

They had everyone thinking that pleasing God was a never-ending
performance marathon.

Well Jesus painted a totally different picture. He told this
story:

‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a holy man and
the other a tax collector.

The holy man stood and prayed, ‘God, I thank you that I am not
like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like
this lousy tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes
of all that I get.’

But the tax collector, standing far away, would not even lift
up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be
merciful to me a sinner!’

Jesus explains: ‘I tell you, this tax collector went home
forgiven, rather than the holy man; for every one who praises
himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be praised.’

Beware of the proud holy man who hangs a bunch of rules
around your neck.

That humble tax collector had it right. He was doing the only
thing you and I can do to be accepted by God. He just asked, with
humility.

Tomorrow I’m going to attack Lie #2:

‘God is huge and unapproachable, and He wants you to labor, struggle
and live in guilt.’

Thanks for reading!

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall
www.CoffeeHouseTheology.com
www.CosmicFingerprints.com

The whole story about the Tax Collector is in Luke 18:9-14:

Listen to the Live “Uncut” version of 7 Great Lies:

But Jesus had his own words for God, and he used them freely.
They were controversial, even scandalous.

His words for God:

‘Daddy.’

And ‘Your heavenly father.’

So when the Religious Gestapo condemned him for hanging out
with ruffians and women of ill-repute, he told an even more
scandalous story:

‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to
his father, ‘Dad, I wish you were dead. Why don’t we pretend you
are dead, and give me my share of the family estate.’ So the
father divided his property between them.

A few days later, the disrespectful son packed his bags and
headed for a distant land. He squandered his inheritance on wine,
women and song. And when he had spent everything, a great famine
arose in that country, and he got hungry.

So he got a job feeding pigs. (Jewish people considered pigs
to be utterly repulsive.)

This young man would gladly have eaten the pods that the swine
ate; but no one gave him anything.

But when he came to his senses, he said to himself, `How many
of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but
I’m here starving! He went back to his father. But while he was
still far away, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and
embraced him and kissed him.

The son said, `Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his servants, `Go get the best robe,
and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his
feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and
have a huge party; for this my son was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found.’

Jesus sums it all up like this: ‘I tell you, there will be
more joy in heaven over one sinner who comes back than over
ninety-nine people who are already good.’

The father in the Prodigal Son story was not concerned with
his dignity. He was not concerned with what was ‘fair.’ When
his son wanted to go his own way, he let him go. But he was
watching out the window the whole time, hoping he would come back.

That’s Jesus’ picture of God – just like the father in this
story. Loving. Forgiving. Approachable. And that was radical.

In fact his very first public speech was scandalous because
he was talking to the hometown boyz. Luke tells the story in
chapter 4, like this:

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling
it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the
attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the
synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by
saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled
in your hearing.”

This is not a guy who’s afraid to rock the boat.

Tomorrow I’m going to attack Lie #3:

‘You are not smart enough or good enough to think for
yourself. We will do your thinking for you.’

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall

Get the whole story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:

Hear the Live “Uncut” version of 7 Great Lies: