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08/02/2011 Think Again One of the tragic casualties of our age has been that of the contemplative life—a life that thinks, thinks things through, and more particularly, thinks God’s thoughts after Him. One might surmise that thinking is a dying art. 07/28/2011 Bridging the Heart and Mind As Christians we want to believe what we cognitively affirm—that God is sovereign and good—and yet sometimes we struggle to make sense of the emotions that we feel when we encounter difficult passages of Scripture. How do we begin to bridge the heart and mind when dealing with hard issues? 06/21/2011 A Transformational Encounter Over coffee at the ubiquitous Starbucks, my friend shared the story of his departure from his Christian faith. He did not leave his faith over a whim or because of some intellectual crisis he couldn’t resolve with his dearly held beliefs. 06/17/2011 Things Unseen “Things unseen” is a motif that runs throughout Scripture—and what is not visible to the eye often presents a significant challenge to those unable to discern God’s presence and purpose when God seems silent. 06/09/2011 Why Truth Matters At first sight, the biblical view of truth is obscene to modern minds. But on a deeper look, the biblical view is profound, timely, and urgent for today, even for those who reject it. 11/23/2010 Stephen Hawking and God In his latest book, the world’s most eminent physicist Stephen Hawking challenges belief in the divine creation of the universe. According to him, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on earth came into being. The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws: “because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. 11/23/2010 Jesus: God’s Tangible Sign No one embraces faith in Jesus Christ based solely on factual evidence. Equally, no one rejects Christianity or loses their faith solely because of a lack of facts. A combination of intellectual, personal and social factors is at work. I would ask readers, whether Christian or not, to explore the life of Jesus fully aware that we form our views on the big questions (and the small ones) through a range of factors. 07/08/2010 Does Prayer Make Any Difference? Prayer is far more complex than some make it out to be. There is much
more involved than merely asking for something and receiving it. 07/08/2010 Avatar’s Unfilmable Secret Avatar’s imagery is James Cameron’s attempt at pointing toward something that no budget in the world can furnish, and that no filmmaker, no matter how intrepid, could hope to capture within the scope of his or her lens. The kaleidoscopic frenzy filling each frame is little more than a signpost pointing toward something the sight of which would confound even the most inspired of poets. 04/28/2010 Has Christianity Failed You? My struggle came between fifteen and seventeen. In India, you’re forced to be much more mature in your thinking because life hits you in the face, especially as far as religion is concerned. You can’t escape it;
04/28/2010 Of Parables and Paradigms: Encountering the Unexpected You’ve probably seen the commercial. A businessman sits at a child-size table across from two young girls. He offers one girl a pony and she is excited when he presents her with a plastic one from his pocket. He offers the other girl a pony too— 04/28/2010 Mining the Gaps It is that sense of unease when we encounter something that contradicts what we have held to be true. We often experience this tension in the course of academic training as we learn new ideas. 12/29/2009 Room For Me He had given them so much. He had asked for so little. Yet they had failed him. And what was Jesus’s response to them? 12/29/2009 Apologetics : Why your church needs it It is often said that ideas have consequences. Such a maxim can only
benefit us as we determine not to allow it to degenerate into a
meaningless cliché. 12/29/2009 A Window Into the Heart of God As we approached our destination, my friend began to carefully make
adjustments to my head covering to ensure that only my eyes could be
seen. 07/02/2009 Hyperseeing and the Towers of Babel 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. 07/02/2009 Of Isms and Rabbit Trails 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. 07/01/2009 Inseparable Companions 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.
01/26/2009 An Uncompromising Faith Lived Out with Grace 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.” 01/26/2009 Defending Christianity in a Secular Culture 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? 09/19/2008 Is Believing in God a Psychological Crutch? 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.” 09/19/2008 At the Border Crossing of Doubt and Hope 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.”
06/09/2008 National Day of Prayer Address 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. 06/09/2008 The New Atheism and Morality 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. 02/01/2008 An Apologetic for Apologetics The word apologetics often creates immediate discussion. To the uninitiated in the discipline, the common line is “What are you apologizing for?” To the one who knows and understands the discipline, simply raising the topic evokes debate. 01/01/2008 The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual Transformation It is a sad fact that the doctrine of the Trinity has been believed in but rarely preached on in our churches. Living these last few years in Singapore, sandwiched between the two Islamic countries of Malaysia and Indonesia, I have half-humorously, half-seriously commented to Christian leaders, “We all believe in the Trinity, but we pray to the Trinity that nobody would question us about the Trinity!” 11/01/2007 The Test of Trust "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6 were some of the first Scripture verses I memorized as a child. For some reason, the words seemed to bounce with joy, energy, and a sense of lightness as I learned them. 10/17/2007 Our Disappointments Matter to God I want to look at the theme of God as the Grand Weaver. When I was a teenager growing up in Delhi I was really not doing very well. I was failing at everything. For those of you who have read my story in Walking from East to West, you’ll know failure was writ large on my life. My dad basically looked at me and said, “You know, you’re going to be a huge embarrassment to the family—one failure after another.” 10/01/2007 Tiny Beginnings When I was a little girl, my father would affectionately call me kaduku, which means "mustard seed." Since most of my friends were called the more common food-inspired nicknames of honey and sugar, I never understood why I was compared to such a strange item. Years later, I described my bewilderment to a friend as we were preparing a curry dish—mustard seeds in hand. 04/01/2007 Your DNA Matters My father-in-law passed away a mere three months before I began to pen these words. His downward slide had begun a few weeks before, when what started as an ordinary day ended with life’s sunset in sight. 04/01/2007 Misplaced I ran away once as a kid. I was mad about something ten year-olds get mad about--mad enough that I had to step up my normal fit or else risk being interpreted as only typically mad. The most untypical thing I could think to do was to pack a backpack of snacks and books and run away. So I ran to the backyard, climbed into my tree fort, and sat fuming in the snow. 04/01/2007 Keeping an Eye Growing up in my grandmother's house was anything but dull. She is extremely superstitious, and we had to comply with her many interesting but puzzling ways around the house. For example, no one is allowed to give a compliment directly. Instead, to pay a compliment one must utter the opposite of what one means. 07/01/2006 The Pressure of Novelty I recently concluded a tour of several Christian colleges where I had various conversations of a similar ilk. In discussing the church and the relevance of many contemporary expressions of it, I realized on reflection that for many people, words like “history” meant something the individual may have become aware of in just the last two or three weeks. 06/22/2006 Doubt and the Vain Search for Certainty Deep within all of us lies a longing for absolute security, to be able to know with absolute certainty. We feel that we should be absolutely sure of everything that we believe. Surely, we feel, we ought to be able to prove everything that we believe. 04/01/2006 Evening Prayer There are stories that shape our lives for a season or, in hindsight, frame them for the future. They speak to us from where we are, or especially, from where we wish to be. The stories of Scripture are rooted in history and some come readily to mind: of Joseph, Daniel, Mary. Their lives provide perspective and their prayers nourish trust. 12/18/2005 The Origin and Meaning of Time “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NKJV) 12/10/2005 You Don’t Honestly Believe That! In some countries of the world the Bible is contraband. Smuggling operations exist with the sole aim of getting them secretly across closed borders and into the hands of those who want to read it. I will never forget getting off a train in an Asian country at four o’clock one morning and making my way to a rendezvous with three indigenous church leaders. 12/01/2005 The Silence of Christmas and the Scream of the Tsunami: Soul-Speak in a Suicidal Culture The very first Christmas card that I received this December was from a Sikh friend in Thailand. He and his family fondly wished my family and me a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year. As the cards continued to come in from all over the world, I realized that some were from Buddhists, some from Hindus, and yes, there were even similar greetings from Muslims.
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