Letter to A Christian Nation 3

Posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 8:34 pm

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This is the third response to Sam Harris’s book Letter to a Christian Nation.  If you have not read the first two, you would be better off by starting to read from the first blog.

Why am I an atheist?  After all I am a seminary professor and a minister, how can I be an atheist? As Harris rightly points out I am a non-believer in all other Gods except the Christian one.  As to the god of the Church of Latter Day Saints, I am an atheist; the god of Islam is not the god in whom I believe; I am an atheist.

Harris, in the first part of the actual letter first defines his terms.  He lays out three things that he believes one must hold to in order to be a Christian (p.3).  The three are: you believe that the bible is the word of God; Jesus is the son of God; only those who place their faith in Jesus will find salvation after death.  Mr. Harris goes on to point out, correctly, that if a believer in these tenets is correct, then the atheist must be wrong.  He then deduces that if the Bible is correct, he has used his life in the worst possible way (p. 4).

Harris puts his finger onto the heart of the issue when he says, “Either Christ was divine, or he was not.â€? (p. 5) This is the central issue of Christianity and goes to the issues of the truthfulness of Scripture, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Jesus.  Given that Harris himself sees this as “the heart of the issue,â€? we will spend the next few blogs speaking about several important questions about Jesus.

Following this we will spend some time talking about the problem of evil and how a good God can allow such evil in the world.  Following this, there are a few other issues that Harris brings up which deserve to be spoken to.

Tomorrow, did Jesus exist?  Are there any outside sources (i.e., outside the NT) that speak of Jesus?  Find out tomorrow.

Dr. samlam