12 Spiritual and Life Transformation

While the prior considerations typically dealt with ancient evidence, this chapter focuses on past and present data. The reason for this is that if the radical teachings of the New Testament are true, then we would expect to see their impact on the lives of individuals. Indeed, it would be a strange thing if the New Testament was completely true and there were no substantive impact in the world. In other words, if Jesus was who he said he was and his subsequent followers were filled with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, we would expect to find people, families, communities, and countries transformed. Is this what we find? In this chapter, I will briefly highlight examples of believers and nonbelievers testifying to the transformative effects of the New Testament.

To be clear, I am not arguing that simply because a book has made an impact, it is reliable, nor am I saying that transformation equals trustworthiness. I want to stress that the argument here is one of consistency. Clearly, a book could have an impact and be false, untrustworthy, unreliable, and so on. Effect or impact does not confer trustworthiness but is consistent with it. The point here is that if the New Testament teachings specifically are true, then individuals and communities will feel their effects.

A final point worth noting is that while the other aspects of reliability we have examined typically focus on zoomed-in or zoomed-out aspects, this aspect has to do with the one holding the map. When seeing the map, one may recognize more than just the roads and mountains but also the beauty of a kingdom in the map. Perhaps there is such beauty in the map that the one looking at the map has decided to go to the kingdom depicted and become a citizen (like in The Pilgrim’s Progress). Others may see the same kingdom on the map and think it provides a nice picture but are, for one reason or another, uninterested in going there or becoming citizens. The point is that in this chapter I will identify transformed lives that are, as noted above, consistent with the New Testament being reliable.

DIRECT IMPACT (BELIEVERS)

Several New Testament texts affirm that people will be directly affected personally by its message. The truths of the New Testament are not merely abstract truths unconnected from the real world, nor are they merely intellectual truths for us to simply agree to (see Jas 2:19). Rather, as Hebrews 4:12 states, “The word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (see also Jn 14–16 and 2 Tim 3:16-17). Within the New Testament, there are truths that confront not only the mind but also the heart, soul, and strength of a person.

For example, when the New Testament speaks about sin, judgment, and immorality, this prompts readers to assess their own morality, including moral failings. Several psychological, philosophical, and historical studies recognize humanity’s overly optimistic moral evaluations. Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke point out, “Decades of research on moral character suggest that we aren’t as virtuous as we think we are.” Self-righteousness is a temptation we are all confronted with. Despite the fact we often think of ourselves as “good” or more moral than most, we are faced with a different reality and moral standard in the New Testament. As we read the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7, esp. Mt 7:1-5), our self-proclaimed self-righteousness is confronted by what Jesus did and taught.

Indeed, although we may frequently overestimate our moral goodness, we can nevertheless recognize our moral shortcomings and wrestle with feelings of guilt. While not everyone follows Jesus, the focus here is on those who have been directly convicted and subsequently committed themselves to Jesus.

Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) is a helpful example of such a person. Augustine was a promiscuous pagan who had several worldly struggles. One day, as Augustine was in a garden wrestling with sin and temptation, he heard the voice of a child say, “Tolle lege, tolle lege” (“Take it and read, take it and read”). At this comment, Augustine picked up one of Paul’s writings, and the first thing he read was from Romans 13:13-14: “Let’s behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and debauchery, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” Upon reading these words, Augustine comments, “I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.”

Peter Hitchens, brother of the late atheist Christopher Hitchens, relates a somewhat similar experience. Though he grew up in a Christian environment, he strongly rebelled against it, to the point of even setting his Bible on fire. However, after becoming disillusioned with his rebellion, he came across Rogier van der Weyden’s portrait of The Last Judgment. Hitchens’s reaction to this image was, “I had a sudden and strong sense of religion being a thing of present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. A large catalogue of misdeeds . . . replayed themselves rapidly in my head.” Hitchens realized he stood condemned for his immorality and was confronted with a strange fact he had been unaware of until that point. Specifically, he had “no idea that an adult could be frightened, in broad daylight and after a good lunch, by such things.” Yet, he goes on to argue that such a fear was proper and can be “an important gift that helps us to think clearly at moments of danger.” The conviction of his sin and fear of judgment led him to repent and turn to Jesus for forgiveness, such that his life was radically transformed.

Augustine and Hitchens each had an experience that appears to have encompassed more than just their mind but the entirety of their being. Such transformations (i.e., conversion and commitment to Christ) led to changes in their thinking and actions. In fact, immediately after referring to the gospel message, Paul states in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Believers are now a “new creation” in Jesus to do the will of God by walking in the good works prepared for us.

Vishal Mangalwadi is a Christian from India who became a believer, in part, by reading the Bible. He was struck by the impartiality found within the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. He comments, “Literature is something we interpret. Revelation [the Bible] also interprets and evaluates us. It stands above us, judges us, and calls us back to sanity.” He read more and more about the God of the Bible before asking whether this God was in fact seeking to bless the nations, especially India.

What answer did Mangalwadi find to his question? He writes the following:

My investigation of whether God had truly blessed India through the Bible yielded incredible discoveries: the university . . . the municipality and democracy . . . the High Court . . . the legal system . . . the modern Hindi that I spoke . . . the secular newspaper . . . the army cantonment . . . the botanical garden . . . the public library . . . the railway . . . the medical system I depended on, the Agricultural Institute across town—all of these came to my city because some people took the Bible seriously.

Throughout his work, Mangalwadi identifies several missionaries, reformers, scientists, and others who were dramatically transformed because of the gospel. He provides helpful examples and accounts of how these blessings were manifested through the love and efforts of believers. We should add Mangalwadi to this list as well, since he was himself arrested for trying to help poor farmers whose crops had been destroyed by a hailstorm.

These are just a few accounts of those who experienced a direct encounter with the teachings of the New Testament. Each was led to repentance and commitment to Jesus. Commitment to Jesus led them to grow in Christ as a new creation by putting on “a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience . . . [and in] addition to all these things . . . love” (Col 3:12, 14).

INDIRECT IMPACT

If believers claim to have experienced the direct impact of the New Testament personally and experientially, agnostics and skeptics have been indirectly affected in some way as well. The focus here is on how nonbelievers can see how the New Testament teachings have affected those around them, not whether they have had these experiences themselves. In other words, even those who are not Christians have indirectly recognized and experienced the change in others caused by the teachings of the New Testament.

There is a broad spectrum of labels that non-Christians can hold. Accordingly, I will not try to label these thinkers except to note that they have not made any explicit commitment to Jesus (Rom 10:9-13) that I am presently aware. Rather, they appear to respect aspects of Christianity in one way or another.

One quite surprising person who recently made some positive remarks is prominent atheist Richard Dawkins. In 2019, he wrote, “It does unfortunately seem plausible that, if somebody sincerely believes God is watching his every move, he might be more likely to be good.” This comment was in response to a recent experiment that involved an honesty box and decisively concluded that those who believed someone was watching acted more honestly than those who did not.

For Dawkins, this confirmed that most people are far less honest than he thought or even wanted to think. He writes, “I must say that I hate that idea. I want to believe that humans are better than that. I’d like to believe that we are honest whether anyone is watching or not.” Yet as we saw above and across multiple disciplines, people overstate their moral goodness, and we ought not to be as optimistic regarding our morality as we, or Dawkins, think. In any event, Dawkins’s views are presented even more provocatively in an article titled, “Ending Religion Is a Bad Idea, Says Richard Dawkins.”

Tom Holland, an agnostic historian (not Spider-Man), recently wrote a large history of the Western world called Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. In this work, he acknowledges that although he grew up in a Christian home, his faith had been diminished to the point that he was reluctant even to think that his values, and those generally present in the West, “might be traceable to Christian origins.” He shares his fascination with famed leaders from Greece (Leonidas) and Rome (Caesar), believing that his values were likely derived from these sources much more so than anything Christianity ever offered.

However, he describes how the alternative he found to Christianity was much more frightening. He writes,

The more years I spent immersed in the study of classical antiquity, so the more alien I increasingly found it. The values of Leonidas, whose people had practiced a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics and trained their young to kill . . . were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls, and enslaved a million more. It was not just the extreme of callousness that unsettled me, but the complete lack of any sense that the poor or weak might have the slightest intrinsic value. Why did I find this disturbing? Because, in my morals and ethics, I was not a Spartan or a Roman at all.

Holland recognized that his values were not those of the ancient Greco-Roman world but those of a civilization that had distinctly Christian roots. One reason for this is how Jesus’ death on the cross challenged the authorities of that day and instilled intrinsic value on all of humanity. Throughout the work, Holland identifies a wide variety of valuable contributions of Christianity throughout Western society (socially, scientifically, etc.).

AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY

Bart Ehrman, an atheist/agnostic New Testament scholar, states, “Anyone who follows such teachings [e.g., Sermon on the Mount] is obviously going to do real service to the human race and work to make society better.” While he recognizes how genuine believers contribute positively to society, Ehrman then goes on to highlight others that have used Christianity to justify evil actions. While it may seem clear that many of these instances are obvious abuses of Jesus’ teachings rather than their logical outworkings, the New Testament itself references the reality of impostors and wolves in sheep’s clothing who will pretend to be followers of Jesus (e.g., Mt 7:15-23; 24:24-25; Rom 2:24).

William Lecky (1838–1903) was aware of the issues facing Christianity because of various theological disagreements. While he is often considered a skeptic, he was apparently not an atheist when he wrote his earlier publications. Nevertheless, he provides a particularly strong comment regarding Jesus and authentic Christianity. He writes,

It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest incentive to its practice; and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.

Like Holland and others, Lecky recognized the impact that Jesus’ life had throughout the next several centuries. Many other philosophers have tried, but none have been able to soften humankind with anywhere close to the influence that Jesus has had. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection offer humanity a chance for forgiveness, redemption, and hope.

CONCLUSION

I close this chapter with a reminder that I am not arguing that the influence of Christianity confers trustworthiness on it. Instead, its impact is consistent with its trustworthiness. If Christianity is true, we would expect it to have the effects Lecky describes. Yet, as Mangalwadi points out, as we read the New Testament to understand it, its teachings confront and challenge us as well. Millions of people have read these writings, recognized their sin, turned from immorality, and followed Jesus. These direct experiences have led to lives so radically transformed that even those around them can indirectly attest to the positive change.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: SPIRITUAL AND LIFE TRANSFORMATION

■The power of the New Testament to transform individuals and provide both direct and indirect evidence adds only a very limited level of reliability. The reason for this is that it does not actually confer reliability but it is consistent with the New Testament being a reliable source. I am not arguing that because people are transformed, the New Testament is reliable.

■Believers may find direct evidence of the reality of the events of Jesus’ life in their own lives. Dramatic transformations of both individuals and communities are important.

■Nonbelievers will find indirect evidence insofar as they see the transformation in their family, friends, and communities around them.

12 Spiritual and Life Transformation