Salvation and Judgement Prophecies Fulfilled in Jesus

[0:01] Just a brief prayer to introduce today. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight.

[0:15] O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. We do many interesting things at Learners Exchange.

[0:25] And we base the program on this quadrilateral. The Bible, Christian character, the Anglican heritage, and, quote, issues that are in touch with the world.

[0:46] Whether it's true that the Bible and Christian character and Anglican heritage are not in touch with the world is a debatable point. But hopefully not.

[0:59] So today we are in the Bible section of the quadrilateral. And what I am doing is reporting to you, and I am reporting back to some of you who have contributed to this Bible study, the results of meetings held in this room during the spring of this year, in which we looked at a whole series of examples of ways in which Jesus depended upon the Old Testament for his understanding of the world and the context of the world and the context into which he had come.

[1:44] And there are three parts to this. One is looking at the question of judgment. Another, looking at the question of salvation.

[1:58] Small topics, you'll agree. And the third part is to look at the implications of these realizations in Jesus' life for us as Christians today.

[2:13] So it's trying to look briefly at the context in which Jesus' consciousness is expressed in the Bible of the Old Testament, and then move on to the practical implications.

[2:31] Now these are very non-Canadian kinds of topics, aren't they? And certainly not West Coast topics.

[2:45] The whole idea of judgment. The whole idea of salvation. The whole idea that somehow judgment is a reality.

[2:57] The whole idea that somehow or other people need salvation is quite alien to the common language of our society. Particularly in West Coast, British Columbia.

[3:13] So it seems to me that we do need to look carefully at these concepts of judgment and salvation in order to translate them into the context of our lives here.

[3:27] So starting with the topic of judgment. And the definitions of judgment are manifold.

[3:40] At one level it is defined as common sense. At another level it is defined as a judicial decision. At another level, the judgment.

[3:53] That of the judgment of God upon a sinful world. To be completed at the end of time is the huge example of the way in which a just God has to deal with the question of sin.

[4:15] But as we look at the way in which Jesus approached the question of judgment, quite a number of different ways in which he actually used it.

[4:27] And most spectacularly, interestingly, in John's Gospel. In which he started off by saying, For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.

[4:47] This is one kind of judgment that his very presence amongst ordinary people produced. It's a startling expression.

[5:03] And that's in John chapter 9. But you move on into subsequent parts of John's Gospel in which he is referring more specifically to the last judgment.

[5:13] But I want to ask us about this matter of a judgment for which Jesus did come into the world, so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind.

[5:30] The sermons during this month and the Bible studies in Luke have given us remarkable illustrations of the way in which those who are blind are made to see as a result of Jesus' presence.

[5:51] It is a wonderful Gospel in the sense that it provokes judgment, the judgment of Jesus' presence to such an extent that people are either converted from blindness to light, or they are converted as in the case of the Pharisees from thinking that they are able to see to actually not recognizing that they are blind.

[6:27] This judgment that is exercised by simply the presence of Jesus in the midst of people is a kind of judgment that I think is so relevant and so important to us as a Christian community.

[6:48] Although the judgment of the last day is very much a reality, the judgment of the day-to-day experience of Christian walk in a non-Christian society is a much more day-to-day kind of experience.

[7:08] So Jesus, simply by his presence in the society of this first century, judges by his presence and by the comments that he makes, simply healing, simply providing sight, simply coming to the aid of the least worthy and the least respected people of his day.

[7:41] And we'll say more about that when we think of the practical implications. But I wanted to say that before going to the classic example of the way in which Jesus fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy in the context of the cleansing of the temple grounds.

[8:00] The example comes from Mark chapter 11, in which you'll recall he says to the money changers my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves.

[8:19] This is a specific fulfillment of prophecy from the 56th chapter of Isaiah. If I may read to you from chapter 56 of Isaiah, this is what the Lord says, Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

[8:44] And moving to verse 6, the prophets and foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

[9:10] The prophecy which specifically brings all people into the realm of salvation, Gentiles and Jews alike, is thereby a specific reason for Jesus' extraordinary judgment on the traitors in the temple grounds.

[9:37] He expresses the judgment in an apparently violent way by overturning the tables of the money changers. And very often I think this example is misquoted.

[9:53] The reason for his concern and for the exercising this specific kind of judgment was because the presence of these money changers in the temple grounds was inhibiting the possibility of people from all backgrounds coming into the presence of the Lord in the temple and expressing their commitment to the God of the universe.

[10:24] And so Jesus becomes very concerned sufficient to become violent in the context of overturning the tables of the money changers because of the way in which so obviously compromises the work of the gospel.

[10:44] It's not that he was concerned about cleaning up the tables and making it look tidy. It's not that he felt that the temple grounds needed to be swept clean.

[10:58] It is that the simple presence of those money changers expressed the opposite of what was intended. The bringing into the universal community of God the Gentiles from all over the place, the foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, those who hold first to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

[11:32] So there are two aspects of judgment that are expressed in Jesus' life. The mere presence of Jesus amongst people, provoking that sense of their sinfulness, their inability to deal with someone who is so holy.

[11:59] You remember Peter's response, depart from me, I am a sinful man.

[12:11] That was the first aspect of the judgment of Jesus. And that's, I suppose, the clear example for us today that we have to be so sensitive, so aware of how much we owe, how sinful we are, and how much debt we owe to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[12:39] But the second example, the one of the cleansing of the temple grounds, is another rather specific way in which judgment is exercised upon the people of the time.

[12:54] And so these are two quite distinct aspects of judgment. The third aspect, which we won't deal with today, because it's really a very different scale of judgment, the judgment of the end of the time, is another topic, which of course we found many, many examples of Old Testament prophecies.

[13:28] So my point about judgment is that we should not avoid the topic because of its cataclysmic implications at the end of time.

[13:39] We should consider the importance of judgment in our everyday lives as Christians, the way in which the presence of Jesus is a litmus test in speaking to others.

[13:55] It's not the depth of the conversation so much as the presence of Jesus in our conversation, which is the focus of judgment.

[14:06] judgment. And people respond either with a welcoming response because of their sense of need, or they reject, they laugh, or they think it irrelevant, which is a response of judgment in itself.

[14:29] the second point is that those specific prophecies that Jesus knew inside out, which related to the worship of the broader community of Jews and Gentiles, provoked a different kind of judgment, a specific and direct correction of the behavior of the den of thieves.

[15:06] Turning then to the topic of salvation, in Canada no one needs to be saved. We don't really think we need anything beyond the comforts of our daily lives.

[15:32] And so the idea of salvation provokes a certain amount of humor, a certain amount of comic refrain when people are asked, are you saved?

[15:47] Very often very frivolous responses are generated. and yet we live in a context in which terror and corruption and lack of salvation is very evident.

[16:16] by which I mean that in the last few months terror has struck not just from the Middle East and the Far East but terror has struck from Wall Street.

[16:32] this is seems to me rather significant in terms of the Christians witness to the need for salvation.

[16:48] the fact is that we are as a regular citizen of this country in very great need of salvation not just for the fundamental experience of salvation through the blood of Jesus but salvation in terms of the experience of the saving grace of God and our sense of the unworthiness and the inadequacy of the way in which we live.

[17:33] It seems to me that salvation is not just preservation from calamity but it's an act of saving deliverance and this act of saving deliverance we know most fundamentally is an act of saving deliverance from sin but it's also a more common day-to-day experience than that of the deliverance from sin in a apocalyptic sense but it's the experience of saving from calamity of alienation from God it's the experience of salvation which needs to be put into contemporary terms as the need of every single person the fears from terrorism the fears from insolvency the fears from well wickedness in high places as we have seen in context of the scandals in Wall

[18:52] Street all these are simply illustrations at a grand scale of our need for salvation so my thinking here is that in our conversation with our friends the topic of salvation is not one that is irrelevant it's not one that has to be immediately raised to the level of the absolute salvation from sin which is the fundamental truth to which we as saved sinners adhere but the conversation can start at the level of salvation from the terrors and the inadequacies of the society and the structures under which we live salvation now you may feel that that's not the best way to go at it but it does seem to me to open up so much conversation with people who are literally terrified at what is happening in the world around us now Jesus understood his mission and the relationship between salvation and his mission is most dramatically expressed in the passage which we all looked at in Luke chapter 4 a few weeks ago you will remember the context in which

[20:37] Jesus is addressing the synagogue and in which he is quoting from Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 to 3 and in which he is declaring that today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing you will remember the scripture the spirit of the sovereign lord is on me Isaiah chapter 61 because the lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners now I wonder how many of you can recall sermons from when you were 13 years old anybody no very poor performance well to tell you the truth

[21:42] I can't either however I can remember a homily that was presented by my school master and so important has this been in my thinking and in recovering some of that thinking as we went through Luke chapter 4 recently I thought I should share it with you even in Wales it was not permitted to evangelize in class in the grammar school so there was no overt bible teaching going on but the schoolmaster who was in charge of us had this very wise approach that he would quote from literature and from the bible as a start to the day's proceedings now I was used to hearing sermons that were exactly the same every Sunday they were gospel very good gospel sermons but they were identical from week to week somehow or other the spirit declared that we should have no innovation so here was the shocking thing sitting in class in my grammar school at the age of thirteen and the teacher says

[23:14] I want to read to you from the gospel of Luke chapter four and I'm not going to explain it but I'm telling you that this is one of the most significant events that has occurred in history and he proceeded to read the passage which you know so well now that to me was a wonderful wake up call to the fact that the Bible spoke outside the local church church and the fact of Jesus fulfilling these remarkable prophecies in the Old Testament was something that actually changed the world from a broader secular point of view as well as from the perspective of the insiders such as ourselves who understand the importance of the event but it wasn't until

[24:21] I heard it from a dispassionate statement from a school teacher without commentary the word spoke to me in such a way that it just stayed with me and a couple of weeks ago when we had an extraordinary sermon from one of our Artizo students it just came back to me as being the most remarkable experience of an understanding of what salvation meant in the broadest context salvation bringing of sight to the blind the healing of the sick the proclaiming of the acceptable year of the Lord the presence of Jesus among his people the fact that from this point on we were without excuse in terms of the way in which we thought about and responded to the

[25:27] Lord Jesus Christ was something of a wake-up call for me at that time and I think it's a wake-up call for us at this time also that we see how important that completion of the prophecy from Isaiah actually was now some of you who are more technically expert than I will point out that Jesus missed out the part of the prophecy that talked about vengeance and you might say well was he just speaking about salvation and not including the whole question of judgment well my thoughts on that and I'm sure there are experts in the room who have more understanding of it but simply that he was talking about salvation and the here and now and he was not talking about the day of vengeance of our

[26:32] God which was essentially the prophecy to the end of time of the completion of the judgment of the world at the end of time and that therefore it would have been inappropriate for him to quote that second part of the second verse of Isaiah 61 so the fact that today the scripture of prophecy about salvation is fulfilled in the hearing of the people is in itself not any dramatic from a Christian perspective but also from a history of the world perspective that Jesus once and for all transformed our understanding not only of judgment but also of salvation so there's a lot of reflection in that and I can recall that our group of whom some of the most brilliant members are sitting in the front row just reflected on this and gave us a great deal of encouragement and a great deal of reflection as a

[27:49] Christian community now there are two particular examples of salvation and the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies which are particularly exciting intriguing the first one being the case of the Roman centurion and the second one being the case of Zacchaeus you will recall that in Matthew chapter 8 Jesus declares that he has not found anyone in Israel with such great faith as the Roman centurion why was he at liberty to make this point well he observed that the faith was there that's sufficient but there was also this very explicit prophecy which comes from Isaiah 59 in this case from the west people will fear the name of the Lord and from the rising of the sun they will revere his glory for he will come like a pent up flood that the breath of the

[29:11] Lord drives along the redeemer will come to Zion and as for me this is my covenant with them says the Lord my spirit who is on you and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on the reference to people coming from all parts of the earth which was a shocking thought to the Jewish establishment of the time that there might be folks added to the children of God and specifically in the interaction between Jesus and the Roman centurion there is this freedom that Jesus has directly from the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah to declare that he has faith greater than anything he's seen in this mainstream house of

[30:21] Israel not only is there salvation for the Roman centurion but of course incidentally judgment is expressed on the house of Israel similarly in the case of Zacchaeus where Jesus declares today salvation has come to this house Zacchaeus the tax collector the least respected member of the society of the time is warmly welcomed and the salvation comes to his house that is a fulfillment of a prophecy from Ezekiel which you will doubtless know and read something like this this is what the sovereign lord says

[31:29] I myself will search for my sheep and look after them as shepherds look after their scattered flocks when they are with them so will I look after my sheep I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries and I will bring them into their own land I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land I will tend them in a good pasture and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land then they will lie down in good grazing land and they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel I myself will tend my sheep and have them sit down and lie down declares the sovereign Lord I will search for the lost and bring back the strays I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak but the sleek and the strong

[32:32] I will destroy and I will shepherd the flock with justice this passage from Ezekiel talks about the seeking out the lost members of the house of Israel and in a sense Zacchaeus represents that person who is part of the lost house of Israel in which he is obviously depending upon his tax collecting as his false deception of the society of the time for his well-being but the experience of Zacchaeus' conversion and Zacchaeus' salvation is one which is a fulfillment of another aspect of an Old Testament prophecy and these two together the Roman centurion coming from outside the house of

[33:33] Israel and Zacchaeus coming from inside the house of Israel but having lost his way express again the fundamental truth of the way in which salvation has come to all people and it comes to these individuals first and not to the establishment of the house of Israel and all along you have this sense of the way in which the establishment misses the boat time and time again Jesus presence is judgment in itself upon the establishment and their unwillingness to listen so these two aspects of judgment and salvation which in another context we would be discussing as the cataclysmic events of the salvation from sin and the judgment of the world at the end of time not that these are in any sense to be downplayed but they represent another level and we can actually

[34:50] I think communicate this issue of judgment and salvation at a more ordinary day-to-day level through the lives of these individuals the way in which the den of thieves operated in the temple grounds and the ways in which the Roman centurion and Zacchaeus experienced salvation these are everyday kinds of experiences of salvation and of judgment so those are the two substantive points and it seems to me that we need to think about some practical implications which I've hinted at but which we need to pull together there are of course many other examples of prophecies of judgment and salvation which we could look into but these are enough to illustrate

[35:54] I think the point so the first kind of conclusion I think is that Jesus learned his mission through studying the Old Testament that sounds like a curious thing the God of the universe who came down to become an ordinary person well he became flesh and dwelt among us somehow learned his mission through studying the Old Testament maybe that's overstating the fact some would say well he was God and therefore he didn't need to learn anything but it seems to me that quite clearly he was tested in all things as we are and if he was tested in all things as we are then it seems to me that there must have been a learning process and that this learning process was based on the pillars of the

[37:07] Old Testament so that when he stood up in the temple the first time as a public speaker and a public debater then he immediately quoted from Isaiah as the basis for his understanding of his mission and this was quite separate from the experience of judgment from just his presence among the people so it seems to me the second point is that Jesus expressed his mission by contrast with learning his mission by healing and bringing sight and cleansing the temple he expressed his mission much more by those activities than actually by giving sermons the number of sermons that Jesus preached was relatively small the amount of philosophy that he communicated was relatively simple and uncomplicated and he expressed the presence of God through the way in which he healed brought sight and acted in relation to any transgression of the

[38:39] Old Testament prophecies that he had learned and thirdly it seems to me then Jesus experienced his mission either by the way in which he was followed or by the way in which he was despised and being crucified and rising from the dead so these three points seem to me to be cumulative Jesus learned his mission through his reading and reflection on the Old Testament prophecies expressed his mission by healing and bringing sight and cleansing the temple and he experienced his mission by being followed by being despised and by being crucified and rising again for us now if that is a correct interpretation and I blame as I say the members of our study group for any theological inadequacies here but if that is the case there is this tremendously close connection between the learning which we need to do from the

[40:01] Old Testament I'm not suggesting we shouldn't learn from the New Testament don't misunderstand me but there is a trend I think in many places to say let's forget about the Old Testament but no the Old Testament is at the root of the whole issue so we need to learn how that Old Testament prophecy connects with the realisation of salvation and judgement through Jesus and then if that learning is followed by the expressing of this mission to communicate the fact of salvation and judgement then it seems to me we should be more prominent in supporting those missions that are concerned with healing or bringing sight to the blind of helping those who are in prison and the extent to which we do this seems to me to be a fairly strong condemnation at least of myself in the sense that I haven't been inside a prison to try to help anybody but again that's not the completion the completion is the experiencing of the mission so we learn and we express and we experience the mission we are not crucified literally and we don't rise from the dead that's not the mission of Christians but the experience of dying to self and rising to an awareness of Jesus

[41:56] Christ in our lives is that experience which promotes the expression of what salvation and judgment is all about so I've deliberately tried to suggest that we talk about salvation and judgment with our friends with our neighbors not in terms in the first instance of the cataclysmic events at the end of time but in terms of our day-to-day experience and that seems to me to be the real point of much of the way in which Jesus went about his mission learning reflecting on the Old Testament reflecting on what it was that he had been predestined to do and then going about expressing that mission in ways in which even though these were wonderful things that he was doing they divided the audience quite squarely between those who responded in faith and those who reject it so again this activity of expressing the mission in practical ways itself produces judgment and salvation simultaneously we were reminded this morning at the 7.30 service and I hope

[43:47] I'm not spoiling the 9 o'clock service for the late sleepers here but we're reminded of the extraordinary experience of the woman who was a sinner coming into the home of Simon and the dining occasion when there was a serious conversation going on between Jesus and Simon and others and this woman who was a sinner breaks into the party and the point that Ben made in his sermon was most helpful I thought he said a tremendous silence fell upon that party they'd been going at it presumably quite vigorously debating points of theology with Jesus well we can pretend there were points of theology but certainly there was an active discussion and there was an active celebration going on but this woman comes in and from the time she comes in to the time that she left she did nothing but weep wash the feet of

[45:07] Jesus and embalm his feet with this most precious ointment and she expressed love for Jesus in a way that was quite dramatic as a woman who was known as a sinner she was one of the people who was on the outside and yet she expressed this need for salvation and she just it's not reported that she said anything particularly but she just expressed her love and poured out her love upon the Lord Jesus Christ well over and over again in Luke's gospel it's the person who is outside the mainstream who is the person receiving the salvation and it's the people on the inside in the establishment who are receiving the judgment because there was total skepticism not only about Simon but also amongst the disciples as to what on earth

[46:20] Jesus was doing allowing this woman to anoint her feet it seems to me there there's another just dramatic illustration this is not specifically a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy but it just came so forcibly this morning and I think you should be looking forward to the experience of reflecting on this at the nine o'clock service so as I say this is a reflection from a part of our community here at St.

[46:57] John's which I feel it's my obligation and my privilege to share with you what some of us are thinking but this is a learner's exchange and if we're on the wrong track we need to have some correction and some further discussion and some further enlightenment and so that's why this is learner's exchange and that's why I invite you to comment on these comments and as I say it's a very small but I think significant experience for those of us who had the opportunity thank you so please share your Bill the phenomenon of unbelief out there seems awfully shrill why is it that people say I don't believe and walk away but they don't they have the opportunity they can broadcast mockingly things to make the events in scripture sound ridiculous why do you think they are so shrill about mocking and trampling on the

[48:40] Bible record the way they do why don't they just walk away from it what do you think is behind that when the advocate has come he will reprove the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment to come so the advocate or the Holy Spirit is active in the world today so it seems to me that under those circumstances it's likely that the response will be shrill if one is determined to maintain the fact that one doesn't need salvation and the judgment will never come about look at all the horrible things that are going on there's no justice happening so that's one direction it seems to me that the shrillness has increased in the last little while and

[49:50] I'm not sure whether that's a good sign in the sense that people are becoming panic stricken it may be that it's a deepening in the atheistic culture of our time but I've had some interesting experiences recently in preparing for the visit of a distinguished scientist at UBC and it's fair to say that people are terrified by the fact that there's a Christian who is going to be presenting information about paleobiology which is grounded in a theistic understanding of creation there's a shrill response that's happening to that and I think it's going to be quite an interesting experience in January when this person comes he will be the person I'm talking about is a man called

[50:50] Simon Conway Morris who is coming at the end of January to give a presentation on what he talks about as the presence of convergence in the evolutionary record he talks about the inevitability of people in the whole of the evolutionary record fundamentalists about the possible undercutting of some of the mainstream perspectives shrillness what produces shrillness it's fear isn't it so I think that there is a climate of fear for a number of reasons and it may be that some of these terrible things that have been happening have been happening for a purpose

[52:10] I think that's as far as I can go on that topic yes is there a possibility that that fear might be coming from the inability of the justice system to deal with things properly and as we see the justice system disintegrating being liberalized so that nothing means anything that brings up a tremendous fear inside us there's seriously a crisis on that front yes did you hear the question whether this fear and so on just results from the failure of the justice system and I think there is a very important element there but I think that in itself is just a symptom

[53:10] I would suggest it's a symptom of the fact that we don't take judgment and salvation seriously in other words this issue of the importance of correct judgment is scarcely an important issue if there's no such thing as an absolute judgment and an absolute salvation so I think that's a symptom but I think you're right there's no confidence or there's a limited confidence in the justice system at this point just to follow up the theme of justice and judgment I think those two concepts are often linked in the scripture and justice is not here now it's going to come it's going to come with Messiah it's going to come with God's kingdom etc we often listen to those things

[54:12] I think thinking aha those guys are going to get it without looking at the fact that we are going to be judged as well perhaps because we don't want justice to be thought of in terms of our own behavior behavior but we are living in a much more frightening world as Traff has pointed out it isn't just the stock market but we've got piracy back again we've got chaos all over Africa and breaks out one place and starts in another we've got different kinds of crime in our streets but it's here and we expect somebody else to do something about this we often do not examine our own hearts I think and the scripture does kind of expect us to do that I believe take it down to the first person singular yep I agree with that Phil thinking of our people genuinely see no need of salvation isn't the case that Jesus actually restricted his ministry to those who did see their need now take your point about

[55:35] Wall Street certainly a number of my friends are very upset now where does the Christian testimony come there is it simply in showing that even if Wall Street never recovers will not be devastated well I think there's more to it than that isn't there I think that the nature of the principalities and powers of this world is so fundamentally skewed so that it seems to me that one of the ways of tackling this question is to say well that is what one might expect from the fact that there is this talk in our characters so that it seems to me there's so many different ways in which one might approach that issue

[56:53] I think the hopeful sign is that there is an individual who claims to be a Christian who is attempting to make some improvements in this situation but I think we really it will take a long time for West Coast Canada to really wake up to some of these realities we are so sheltered and have been for a long time sorry that was not a very good answer what was the question again what was your thrust on that how we respond to our friends who seem to see no need well I guess the gist of what I was trying to say was that these evidences are in fact rather strong confirmation that we do need salvation and that judgment is just around the corner even if the legal system doesn't seem to be responding that well at this point surely is a dispassionate assessment of this situation which shows that judgment is necessary and salvation is a universal need so that that seems to me to be the opportunity in the conversation it seems to me that the computer world has done a disservice to Christ and evangelism and thinking about young people particularly in our family who love debates and are persuaded very gently on the side of Dawkins and his like and listen to the videos on the computer and of these people speaking so it's a shocking affair of the heart for us who are

[59:25] Christians in fact and to see how it's taking over you know between the 20 to 30 age group they think it's a great thing to have these debates they don't look at the justification part of justice that Christ will be dealing with especially those who have known Christ education in many respects seems to do a disservice to Christianity in many ways so you've probably given them a copy of the Dawkins delusion have you I've read every book you're not persuaded to follow Christ no well the person who has been forgiven much loves much and I guess that's the problem we don't see that the need for forgiveness is there consequently the whole controversy is pushed into an intellectual corner which allows one to carry on with business as usual

[60:45] I think it's important to point out that a large number of my atheistic and agnostic colleagues think that Dawkins has done a great disservice to the cause of atheism that it is dishonest it is absolutely ignorant in many respects oddly enough for such a great scientist but there are many cases of great scientists who have made very serious blunders he is what you might call a fundamentalist atheist and he has a cause and he may seem to be winning in a short term but in the long term it's unlikely in my view that it will carry because it is so fundamentally dishonest now there are many more subtle problems than Dawkins but it seems to me that people who take refuge in Dawkins are just avoiding the fundamental issue and that's one of the fact that they don't see any need for salvation and I see

[62:02] I was going to say I think the story of the woman who met and entered into the debate I thought that was a lovely thing to bring to mind because we've all been there you know and it's a good reminder for us somehow but I would say that we're not to be we're not to be too distressed by Mr.

[62:32] Dawkins I think there's a much more serious problem which is in our own community as well and that is the whole question of secularism and I think that we are much more vulnerable as believing in secular standards than we are in fighting the battle of science it seems to me that science well done and well taught by honest people can only be helpful there are but there are fundamentalists on all sides of the game but I mean from a well I shouldn't go too far into this but I mean the whole question of scientism which amongst respectable thinkers is a thing of the past is raising its head again in people like Dawkins scientism being the belief that science holds all the answers to life's problems there was a time when scientism

[63:45] I guess in my undergraduate days scientism was in fact rather a strong position in philosophical as well as other circles but really it's no longer regarded as a very respectable position by serious minded thinkers so I think I mean I understand what you're saying Betty about the educational process being unhelpful and there are many ways in which it is but I think we can be more optimistic about that I think we need to be more on the guard against secularism secularism dictates so much of what we do not only as agnostics and atheists but also has permeated so much of our activity as Christians so I would think we need to sort out problems within our own house first and not get too worried about

[64:51] Mr. Dawkins Amen