On the influence of media and technology, discussions abound.   “Is Google making us stupid?” “Is Twitter bad for the soul?” “Is Facebook changing the way we relate?”   In fact, there seems a recent upsurge in articles questioning our faltering minds, morals, and communities (ironically reaching us through the very mediums that are blamed for it).  Some note the shifting of thought patterns, attention spans that are beginning to prefer 140 characters or less, information gluttony, news addiction, and so on.

Among my toughest audiences in apologetics are undoubtedly my two little boys.  From the time words started forming on their lips, questions of various kinds have been a staple around our home—the most formidable one being, “Why, daddy?”  More than any other of our appetites, I strongly suspect that thirst for knowledge and the occasional thrill of discovery have played the greatest role in shaping human history.  From the vast machinery of the news media to the intricate systems of the educational enterprise, from specialized research institutions to the multifaceted world of religious devotion, human hunger for knowledge is the oil that greases the mill of civilization.

Spring cleaning in my house is rarely completely finished.  Year after year, though I have forgotten about them until they are dusted and put back on a closet shelf, I still can’t bring myself to let go of them.  They are books by the late cartoonist Charles Schulz.  As a child I treasured his picture paperbacks, reading them over and over, and eagerly awaited his holiday television specials.  Yet “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” evoked mixed emotions in me—and does so to this day. 

The following message was delivered in Chicago, Illinois, in November 2008

I recall a story about a man who used to manage a bank. When he retired at the end of the 1980s, the chairman of the bank remarked, “Thomas, you’ve been with the bank for forty-five years. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in that time?” The man paused and then replied, “Air conditioning.”

Interview with Ravi Zacharias by Richard L. Schoonover, associate editor of Enrichment journal. Used with permission of Enrichment journal.

 Website: http://enrichmentjournal@ag.org. This interview appeared in the Fall 2008 issue.

Attacks on Christianity and the church are rampant in today’s society. Unbelievers once revered the church and its teachings, but today they scorn them. Films such as The Da Vinci Code and organizations such as The Jesus Seminar attack the credibility of Jesus and the Bible. But how do Christians answer these attacks on Christianity?

It was strange walking down a hospital corridor with a growing sense of foreboding, getting closer to the consultant’s office and wondering what he would say. I was fifteen years old and had the afternoon off school to receive the results from the operation I had undergone the week before. A mole on my leg had begun to turn dark, and my doctor had decided to remove it as a precaution. My mother and I entered the office together and sat down. The consultant leaned over the desk and said, “I’m afraid it’s cancer.”

It seemed like yet another routine border crossing in what was then Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia. The year was 1981; Leonid Brezhnev was the head of the Soviet Union, and half of Europe languished under the Communist vision and control. As a young, enthusiastic, and eager Christian, I had joined a mission whose primary task was to help the church in Eastern Europe. This involved transporting Bibles, hymn books, and Christian literature to believers behind what Winston Churchill called the “Iron Curtain.”

Ravi Zacharias was the 2008 Honorary Chairman of the National Day of Prayer. He delivered the following keynote address at The Cannon House in Washington, DC, on May 1, 2008.

Though the chorus of voices decrying belief in God has been humming in the ideological background for centuries, it seems to have reached a crescendo with the emergence of a movement that has been dubbed the new atheism. The trademark of this new brand of atheism is its vitriolic attack on religion. To its advocates, religious beliefs are not only false; they are also dangerous and must be expunged from all corners of society. The pundits of the new atheism are not content to nail discussion theses on the door of religion; they are also busy delivering eviction notices to the allegedly atavistic elements of an otherwise seamlessly progressive atheistic evolution of Homo sapiens.