faith statement

[GBTWC]

I must say you guys know an extrordinary amount about church history. This chalenges me to know more.

 

[Hoankan]

That's a good thing I think. There is so much there in the past 2,000 years that God has done.

 

[rusmeister]

Hey, GB - have you read GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man"? It's the book that caused CS Lewis to abandon atheism. For me a startling thing about it was that GKC took history that I had been taught in school (esp. regarding the Punic Wars and the Roman Empire) and basically just connected the dots of obvious conclusions that it seems the typical history books carefully avoid. Facts of history are one thing, interpretations are another, and usually it is the historians that get in the way. For me (personally) the part about Carthage was just a mind-blower. It is so obvious, and yet no one ever sees why on earth these two nations fought to the death, when the typical practice was to conquer and enslave. The impressions I had gotten from middle school were that it was economic competition. Psh'aw - right! (sarcastic note)

 

[Hoankan]

Alright Rus, I'm blind. please fill me in on the cause.

 

[rusmeister]

Alright Rus, I'm blind. please fill me in on the cause.

Really, Hoankan, you should read the book. But if you insist, I'll narrow it down to one chapter: http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/everlasting_man.html#chap-I-vii
You need to slog through 5 or 6 paragraphs of prep work before you get to the good stuff (imo).
The basic effect is that you HAVE been taught the facts, all right. It was just the interpretation you were given (if at all) that is highly lacking. Again, you could always see the dots. Now you can see that they really DO form a picture that ultimately points to Christ.

The best results are guaranteed by reading the whole thing.