Historical Truth

2/10/13       Ray      about 45

After church today I stopped at a McDonald’s to share the Gospel.  A man there named Ray told me he didn’t believe in God or any kind of existence after we die.  “For that matter, I don’t believe much about any part of history.  I’m not even sure much of what we believe about Abraham Lincoln is true”.  As Christians who base our whole belief system on our history book – the Bible – this may sound completely paranoid and illogical.  But I believe that a mistrust of any historical truth is a growing trend in our time.  I meet more and more people who believe in various grand conspiracies on the part of secret government or religious groups to promote their own agendas.  Not surprisingly, Ray admitted he believes in the “Illuminati”, a supposed secret society that controls world events such as the economy, religions, governments, and our view of history.  In talking with him about it, I could tell that part of what attracts him to this belief is the ability to have a scapegoat that he can blame his personal problems and the problems of the world on.  Another reason is because he doesn’t want to be a sucker that gets taken advantage of by such an organization.  The attraction of believing in a secret society is that one is “in” on the secret.  I also think this trend is being fueled by a dependency on sensationalist internet videos for information.  Recently a girl at the high school I teach at emphatically claimed that the Sandy Hook tragedy never actually happened – that it was all a government conspiracy to advance the gun control agenda.  How did she know?  She saw it on the internet.  What does all this mean for the Gospel?  Peter wrote in his first letter “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (ch.3)   In our time this includes being able to explain why we trust the historical accuracy of the Bible to people who are more and more doubtful of any type of historical truth.  It doesn’t mean we have to be experts in apologetics, but it does help to know enough to remove the cheap excuses people give to discredit and ignore Gospel truths.