A REPORTER INVESTIGATES

A reporter for a Christian magazine toured the streets of New York, sampling public opinion about the relevance of Christianity in the modern world. He was shocked by two responses that day.

The first came from a college-age student who said, "Why should I believe in Christianity or the Bible, when preachers can't even tell you what happens to people when they die? I went to my uncle's funeral recently, but beforehand checked the Bible (which I rarely read) to see what it says about the dead. With the help of a concordance, I found that when people die they stop living, feeling and thinking until Jesus comes and awakens them. At least that's what the Bible says, if you want to look at it objectively. But sure enough, the preacher said that Uncle Frank was looking down on us all now and smiling, and Frank's little granddaughter was an angel floating around in heaven. The Bible says one thing, preachers and churches say another Why should I regard Christianity as relevant when churches can't even go by their own sacred textbook?"

The reporter then found a young man who seemed easygoing, and asked him the same question. "You expect me," he retorted, "to call any religion relevant that makes God into a more brutal tyrant than Hitler, by forever tormenting His enemies in blistering fire? I don't know or care what the Bible teaches, but I have no use for a religion that portrays God as so vindictive and vengeful. Do you?"

Dazed by these answers, the reporter decided to reexamine the assumptions of his own church and become better acquainted with the Bible's true teachings.