Objection Five: It's Offensive to Claim Jesus is the Only Way to God, Ravi Zacahrias, DD, LL.D.
This is a bit of a strange chapter, at least in comparison to Strobel's others. Gone are the attempts to make his subject appeal to Strobel's American-centric readership - indeed, he positively stresses the fact that Zacahrias is Indian by birth and grew up in a multicultural environment. There is a little of the drama-queen language ('I pulled my notes out of my briefcase and immediately zeroed in on the topic'), but it is dramatically toned down. Even poor CS Lewis doesn't get a mention.
Perhaps this is because of the nature of the subject. When I read that title, my first reaction was: 'Probably, to some people. Some people are determined to be offended by any challenge to their religion. So what?' And really, the chapter never moves much beyond this.
Of course, you can't allow an apologist to witter on unchallenged for any length of time without them eventually spouting something demonstrably untrue or morally appalling (I'm thinking of trying to get Giford's Law established as an internet meme). Since there is no issue worthy of debate here (even Strobel can't feign challenge in his questions, or surprise at the answers), all that is left for me to do is to note some of the bloopers among a spiel that, broadly, is entirely uncontroversial.
Only once does anything intellectually interesting happen. As I have said, I would not have raised this question, but there is a similar one of much more interest, to do with double standards. Christians frequently use faith as evidence for their beliefs, but of course reject the faith of others as evidence for conflicting beliefs. Strobel raises a point like this early in the interview: 'Why do Christians think they're justified in asserting that they're right and that everybody else in the world is wrong?' This would have been a much better chapter title - given he leads with the question, I wonder whether that was Strobel's intent. Zacahrias does not answer this point, instead pointing out that Christianity is not the only religion to claim this, which is true but irrelevant. Perhaps Strobel realised that and changed the chapter title accordingly - but I speculate without evidence. (Must have been reading too much apologetics.)
Zacharias contends that 'Clannish and political conflicts aside, I know of no Christianized country where your life is in danger because you are from another faith.' Unless Zacahrias is claiming that religion cannot feed conflicts that are also (or become) political, he must be sadly uninformed. Northern Ireland (and Old Firm matches) spring to mind, as do the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, or Orthodox Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia. There are lesser-known Christian-organised pogroms also, such as those in Ivory Coast, Chechnya or the Philippines.
There is also the very relevant point that most of the countries Zacahrias is thinking of as 'Christianized' are also secular, liberal and tolerant. Historically, that was not so and even in the UK you could be burned at the stake for being the wrong kind of Christian. A little earlier than that, and English Christians were setting aside their political differences with bitter Christian rivals to persecute Muslims in their homelands. Jews have not always fully appreciated the hospitality extended to them by certain Christian leaders over the period roughly from 1096 to 1945. Martin Luther's On The Jews And Their Lies calls for such tolerant actions as burning Jewish books and schools and confiscating their money. So it seems that it's secular liberalism, rather than Christianity, that is the force of toleration here. If Zacharias is trying to claim that Christianity is better than other religions because of the behaviour of its followers, the best he could say is that non-fundamentalist Christians are better - if only he weren't a fundamentalist himself.
Aside from that, we're back to tired insistence that 'the historical record concerning the Resurrection is extremely compelling', and some spectacularly poor understanding of other faiths from someone who is billed as a great understander of other cultures: Buddhists and naturalists have no explanation for morality, Hindus can't explain what people were 'paying for' in their first reincarnations, and so on.
In the final section, some of the incoherence he rails against in other religions begins to show through in his own words. Gandhi was not a good man, because he was not redeemed. Berkowitz, the American serial killer and Christian convert, on the othr hand won't go to hell, but that is not unjust because he is suffering in 'the hell of the heart'. (One wonders whether his suffering is significantly greater than that of the relatives of his victims.) 'There are things much worse than death or murder [...] the worst thing is to say to God that you don't need him,' declaims Zacharias, which is at least consistent with his belief that he doesn't care if his religious views upset other people.
So Zacharias is led from the assumptions of his Christian faith to a series of morally outrageous conclusions. And they are not done yet. Strobel's gentle prodding continues with another obvious question, the fate of those who have never heard of Jesus and thus never had the chance to accept him as their saviour. This is a problem for Christians because it seems unjust to condemn such people to Hell, yet allowing them into Heaven would undermine one of the central tenets of the religion, that faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation. Zacharias' answer has the sole redeeming feature of being novel - he denies that anyone exists who has never had the opportunity to hear of Jesus. 'God knows where we will be born and raised, and he puts us in a position where we might seek him.' So Zacharias is forced to conclude that everyone has heard of Jesus, or at least had the opportunity to hear of him, even those in Muslim countries where Christian proselytisation is illegal, and any who reject Jesus 'fail the test of truth' and are not 'sincere'. (Of course, who cares about being an insincere liar when you have also done something 'much worse than death or murder' by failing to reject the religious faith of your entire culture?)
Zacharias makes no attempt to disguise the fact that he himself has followed in the faith of his Christian parents, despite his much-vaunted multi-cultural upbringing, which makes his complete lack of sympathy for those who live in non-Christian cultures all the more surprising. He also freely admits that the most effective way of being converted is contact with a Christian, which would seem to further undermine his case. He never directly addresses the fate of those who died before Jesus.
Strobel devotes an entire section to why people would reject Jesus, never once considering whether any of the points he raises might cut both ways. People might become Muslims 'because of geopolitical considerations.' Hinduism is 'rich in philosophy'. Whereas Christianity - presumably neither of those things according to Zacharias - 'calls you to die to yourself.' (unlike, say, Buddhism or fundamentalist Islam in their various ways.)
He closes with a similar Biblical quotation to the one Craig referred to, 'You will find me when you seek me' - and again, my answer is the same. I can guarantee from personal experience that Zacharias is wrong. He can call me a liar and worse than a murder if he wishes - but making his views offensive does not make them true any more than it makes them false.
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