The Return of God

My title comes from an article in Saturday's Telegraph by John Humphrys who recently chaired a debate in Westminster Central Hall ,before a capacity crowd, on the existence of God and not long ago, in a radio series, invited distinguished faith leaders to help him in his personal search for God. These experiences have led him to suspect that currently there is some kind of religious renaissance in progress.

This past week a Hollywood director, James Cameron, claims to have found the bones of Jesus but this doesn't seem to be creating any upsurge of unbelief in those who previously believed in God and in the Incarnation.

On the other hand Dr Eric Kaufmann of Birbeck College has recently written a piece entitled "God returns to Europe" claiming there is a religious revival in progress "that may be as profound as that which changed the course of the Roman Empire in the 4th century".

More than 8 million people have now experienced the Alpha Course, begun at Holy Trinity, Brompton.

The pro God debater at Westminster, William Craig, said "The average Christian does not realise there is an intellectual war going on in the universities and in the professional journals and scholarly societies. Christianity is being attacked from all sides as irrational or outmoded and millions of students, our future generation of leaders, have absorbed this viewpoint. This is a war which we cannot afford to lose."

In this battle we are not looking for the conviction of proof but rather the confidence of faith. "Without God life is absurd, without ultimate significance, value or purpose" says Prof Craig.

All this surely keys in to the Lent course "4O DAYS" and the encouragement of prayer for revival which I wrote about in an earlier blog. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of".