Real Christianity in Action: Path to Conversion of Heart is Through Actions Inspired by Love

I'm staying off the internet for the most part until after Easter, but wanted to drop in to share this story.

You may recall last week I pointed out a story about an atheist who was dumbfounded by Christians who offered to help pay for his vision problems despite the fact that he'd been on the opposing side in a struggle over having a Nativity scene at the local courthouse.

It has borne fruit in a most unexpected way. Thus does God work in hearts when we have done our part to show His true nature through our actions.

A few months ago Patrick Greene was an atheist who was threatening to sue Henderson County, Texas, if the county didn’t remove a Nativity scene from its courthouse lawn. Today he is a believer in Christ who underwent a radical change of heart that was catalyzed by the compassion of one Christian woman.

In late 2011, Greene joined the fight against a Nativity scene that had been set up outside the courthouse in the town of Athens, Texas, threatening to file a lawsuit over it. Shortly after he made his threat, however, he discovered that his ability to see was rapidly deteriorating and he would soon be blind, so he withdrew his threats and left the Nativity alone.

That’s when Jessica Crye, a Christian woman from Athens, asked her pastor, Erick Graham of Sand Springs Baptist Church, if they could help Greene. As a result of her kindness, thousands of dollars in donations have gone toward helping Greene, who has reconsidered his view of God as a result.

“There’s been one lingering thought in the back of my head my entire life, and it’s one thought that I’ve never been able to reconcile, and that is the vast difference between all the animals and us,” Greene told The Christian Post on Tuesday, as he began to explain his recent transformation from atheist to Christian. The theory of evolution didn’t answer his questions, he says, so he just set those questions aside and didn’t think about them anymore.

But when the Christians in a town that had reason to be angry with him showed him a gesture of love, he began reconsidering his beliefs altogether. He eventually began to realize that evolution would never have the answer to his questions, he says, and it was at that time he began to believe in God.

“I kind of realized that the questions I [was] asking you just had to accept on faith without doubting every period and every comma,” he said. He later began studying the Bible, both the Old Testament and the Gospels, and also discovered his belief that Jesus is the Son of God.

Read the whole story. Again, this is via The Deacon's Bench.

Today is Good Friday when Christ showed his love for us through His own self-giving and sacrificial love, even unto death. We are called up on to follow in His footsteps for thus shall others know our Master.

This is the Christianity that made  Romans say, "How they love one another."

Truly actions speak louder than words. May we all translate our love into such self-giving action as Holy Week ends and Easter comes.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs -- Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers

Much thanks to Mike Aquilina for pointing out this good natured and clever song. I laughed out loud but, then, Steve Martin usually has that effect on me.

When Atheism Backfires

Michael Coren (found via Brandywine Books) writes about the "banality of atheism" pushing him to investigate faith to see if there was something more worthwhile to be found. Lo and behold, he has been a Christian now for 20 years. With the advent of the so-called new crop of atheists, he hasn't found their arguments much different than the old ones.

Then, just recently, the tarnished old arguments from the flimsy and trendy were re-published in new editions by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and we were all supposed to run away and hide. So I read them. Then began to laugh. It's the emperor and his new clothes. Naked, quite naked.

Nothing new here. Nothing clever or challenging, either.

Busting with errors, hysterical, clumsy, nasty and obviously incredibly frightened. Suddenly, I realize what's going on. It's that God again, helping to strengthen my faith. "The best they can do," He's saying, "is blast you with the same old nonsense they threw at you when you first thought of coming my way."

We have all heard the objections to Christianity that are continually trotted out by those who fancy themselves the first to pose such questions. Heck, I used to believe a couple of them myself. However, I wish I'd have had someone on hand who could have disposed of those objections with the simple logic shown by Coren. I especially appreciated his responses to the questions of "If God were good, He would make Himself obvious" and "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Go see what he says.

All this made me realize that I tend to store up what I consider the deal-breakers for doubters' objections to faith. Coren now has provided what will become my first salvo to those particular questions I mentioned above.

As to the question of Christianity being an invention and necessity for the weak to be able to get by in life, my favorite is still that comment by former atheist John C. Wright:

To those of you who think religion is a self-delusion based on wish-fulfillment, all I can remark is that this religion does not fulfill my wishes. My wishes, if we are being honest, would run to polygamy, self-righteousness, vengeance and violence: a Viking religion would suit me better, or maybe something along Aztec lines. The Hall of Valhalla, where you feast all night and battle all day, or the paradise of the Mohammedans, where you have seventy-two dark-eyed virgins to abuse, fulfills more wishes of base creatures like me than any place where they neither marry nor are given in marriage. This turn-the-other cheek jazz might be based any number of psychological appeals or spiritual insights, but one thing it is not based on is wish-fulfillment.

An absurd and difficult religion! If it were not true, no one would bother with it.

As to the supposedly scandalous accusations about the crimes committed in the name of Christianity, we all wish those were not true but it is undeniable that the Church is made up of people, which is to say ... sinners. Which always turns my thoughts to this quote which says it all.

The church is always God hung between two thieves. Thus, no one should be surprised or shocked at how badly the church has betrayed the gospel and how much it continues to do so today. It has never done very well. Conversely, however, nobody should deny the good the church has done either. It has carried grace, produced saints, morally challenged the planet, and made, however imperfectly, a house for God to dwell in on this earth.

To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers and hypocrites of every description. It also, at the same time, identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race and gender. To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of the soul ... because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion, God hung among thieves.

Ronald Rolheiser