In some countries of the world the Bible is contraband. Smuggling operations exist with the sole aim of getting them secretly across closed borders and into the hands of those who want to read it. I will never forget getting off a train in an Asian country at four o’clock one morning and making my way to a rendezvous with three indigenous church leaders. A team of us were delivering bags filled with Bibles that were to be distributed amongst the churches farther north. When our friends unzipped the bags and looked inside, the tears began to flow down their cheeks. These books were so precious to the Christian believers that they were prepared to risk imprisonment and persecution in order to get hold of them. I found it intriguing that the Bible should inspire such sacrifice and courage in the hearts of those who want to read it. But why is the world’s bestselling book rubbished by so many? Have you ever had the experience of someone turning to you and saying, “You don’t honestly believe all that stuff, do you?”.
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“If God exists and takes an interest in the affairs of human beings, his will is not inscrutable,” writes Sam Harris about the 2004 tsunami in Letter to a Christian Nation . “The only thing inscrutable here is that so many otherwise rational men and women can deny the unmitigated horror of these events and think this is the height of moral wisdom”. Ironically, Harris’ first book is entitled The End of Faith, but it should really be called The End of Reason as it demonstrates again that the mind that is alienated from God in the name of reason can become totally irrational.
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