Comedian Steve Martin once joked, "It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. If it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch, I wouldn't believe in anything."

Martin's words at once communicate the comedy to be found in nonsensical beliefs. But if Shakespeare’s quip holds any truth--that jesters oft do prove our prophets--then Martin's words also say something alarming of what may now be our nonsensical approach to belief itself. In a world where we are given a spiritual cafeteria full of choices, it is no wonder that many find it hard to believe and express belief, and harder still to decide even what to believe in the first place.

The discipline of apologetics attempts to speak into the modern difficulties surrounding belief with words of hope, transparency, and clarity. In the introduction to Jesus Among Other Gods, Ravi Zacharias writes, “We are living in a time when sensitivities are at the surface, often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true. Morally you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a 'better' way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it.”(1) This is the mood of the century, notes Zacharias, and a mood can be a dangerous state of mind. For moods are far too often given the authority under the marching orders of feeling to trample anything that gets in the way of “whim.”

In fact, a recent article reports that over a quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhoods for other religions.(2) The report, which was titled “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” did not find a decline in religious interest, but a certain fluidity among religious options. In the endless options of the spiritual cafeteria we are urged to make our choices based on whatever spiritual provision for which we might be in the mood. Hence, whether it is comfort we seek, or mysticism, the right choice is seen as somewhere out there, ready to suit our changing dispositions.

C.S. Lewis did not speak out of our postmodern era, but he knew it was coming and scholars unquestionably agree his mind was ahead of its time. In an essay called "Modern Man and His Categories of Thought," Lewis complains that humanity is “becoming as narrowly ‘practical’ as the irrational animals.” He writes, “In lecturing to popular audiences I have repeatedly found it almost impossible to make them understand that I recommend Christianity because I think its affirmations to be objectively true. They are simply not interested in the question of truth or falsehood. They only want to know if it will be comforting, or ‘inspiring,’ or socially useful."(3)

The world has changed since Lewis penned those words, but the truth he diligently pointed to has not. Lewis reminds us that if a religion is to be treated with intellectual respect, then it must stand the tests of truth, hope, and integrity, regardless of the shifting moods of history. The remarkable hope of the Christian is that there is a religion that is able to stand the test of time, the swaying of appetite, and the scrutiny of reason. There are indeed countless choices among us; might we arrive at our verdict by means of the unchanging road of truth and light that will not fade away.

Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000), vii.
(2) Neela Banerjee, “Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds,” The New York Times, February 25, 2008.
(3) C.S. Lewis, "Modern Man and His Categories of Thought" in Present Concerns: Essays by C.S. Lewis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 65.

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