Last November, Eastern Washington has an unparalleled wind storm. The hurricane force winds ripped into Spokane and killed two persons. Hundred’s of thousands of people lost their electricity because multitudes of trees came toppling down. The neighborhood I lived in was hit the worse. The South Hill is known for its huge trees amidst early 20th century homes and steep windy roads. Lofty Ponderosa pines came up from the roots knocking over power-lines and crashing into roofs. Some trees just cracked in two, falling upon cars and roads. When travelling around the South Hill a few days after the storm, it looked like a huge bomb had exploded. Streets were still closed; electric lines still draped dangerously across the roads, and trees looked like they had been haphazardly tossed everywhere by an invisible giant hand. It was a mess, and it was cold.
When the electricity goes out the gas furnaces no longer work. My roommate had a fireplace insert in her house upstairs in the livingroom which I visited frequently during our weeklong adventure of no electricity. I live in the daylight basement apartment downstair - the pilot light on my gas fireplace stayed on, but the thermostat wasn’t working, so the temperature stayed about 45 degrees. Fortunately the gas hot water heater stayed on, so we were alway able to take hot showers.
The first day or two of living with candlelight and cooking over a tiny propane stove was fun and a little romantic. However, by day four, the thrill had gone. Hauling firewood up to the second floor was tiring. The cold and darkness of my apartment was starting to get to me. It was difficult to do much cooking on our tiny propane stove; I was tired of eating cold food. And what to do at night. Reading without electric lights strains my eyes. Of course there was no tv, and I can only take so much radio. The mornings were the worst. Crawling out of my huge pile of blankets to visit an ice cold bathroom is no way to start the day. Finally, after six days, our electricity was back on. We were so tremendously grateful to the line men for working 24 hours a day to get everybody’s power back on, and we were grateful just for light, heat, and warmth.
Our pastor this Ascension Sunday reminded the congregation about that storm during his sermon. How we appreciated our electricity so much more after a week of going without it. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” he asked, “if our world could go a week without the benefits we have reaped from the life of Jesus Christ? What would our world be like,” he continued, “if Jesus had never been born? Wouldn’t our appreciation of him grow, if we all went a week without his influence in our lives?”
I know the rest of the sermon was about the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, but this question of his totally resonated with me. What would the world be like, our governments, our cities, everything be like if Jesus had never lived?
It seems unlikely that Judaism would have taken over as the most prominent religion around the world. Like it or not, Jesus is certainly the most famous of all the Jewish prophets and without the Christian disbursement of the bible, it seems unlikely that
The Old Testament alone would be the most widely read and published book of not only all time, but also the most bought and widely read book every single year. The number one purchased and read book has been the Bible - since - the invention of the printing press.
Whether Islam would exist without Christianity is hard to tell? If it had, it certainly would be the major contender for world domination. Armed Islamic forces conquered the mostly Christian countries of North African and the middle East within a few hundred years of their prophet’s birth. Without Charlemagne and the Christian forces in the West, Europe would have certainly also fallen. And who really thinks that a world dominated by Islam would be a good thing except for a hundred million or so crazy Jihadists?
It is not hard to imagine a Medieval Europe without Christ when we have a tv series called Game of Thrones that does it for us. Take out the dragons, giants, zombies, and magic, and you have a Medieval world without the supremely important benefits of the church. (Martin’s Faith of the Seven is a pathetic and weak caricature of the medieval church.) The Game of Thrones world is filled with violence, revenge, and unbridled lust. A similar HBO show from a few years ago, Rome, also demonstrated what a cruel and decadent culture Rome had become by the first Century AD. with its rampant paganism, widespread slavery and lust for world domination. I thought how exciting the series could actually become if it showed the Christians entering this culture, refusing to burn a pinch of incense to the emperors and paying for this refusal with horrific deaths. Now that’s a series worth watching, but I rather doubt that HBO wants to show that kind of story. I have even wondered if that’s why the series was cancelled after Brutus’s reign. It sort of spoils the historicity of the whole thing if you pretend that Christ and Christians never existed. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Christians bought the rights and the sets to this series and finished it properly? But I digress.
There is a wonderful book by the late great James Kennedy called What if Jesus Had Never Been Born? This is a nice introduction to the profound influence Christianity has had on education, healthcare, government, science, economics and the Arts. But perhaps these recently released series of early history without the effects of Christianity make more of an impact. I have no doubt that a world which had never been influenced by the teachings of Jesus Christ would be a much less pleasant place to live. A world without Christ is like a world without electricity: cold, brutal, and dark.
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