In
The Year of Living Biblically A.J. Jacobs, general editor of
Esquire magazine, writes, “Julie [his wife] always told me that things happen for a reason. To which I would reply, Sure, things happen for a reason. Certain chemical reactions take place in people’s brains, and they cause those people to move their mouths and arms. That’s the reason. But, I thought, there’s no greater purpose.”
We all long to know where our lives in particular and history in general are going. Does everything happen by chance? Or is God directing the course of human events with purpose? Are our lives part of a larger story (a meta-narrative) that’s going somewhere?
A.J.’s view of purposelessness reflects a modern, secular worldview: chance mutations and natural selection are the driving forces of history. With all species competing in the great race of life, all evolving like blind drunks with no direction or purpose in mind, history turned out to be the chance story of human progress—the “ascent of man.” Had earth’s climate favored gigantic rodents, history might have been written only in fossils, not books.
The difference between religion and life in Christ, which is what God intended in Christianity, can be summed up in one word, RELATIONSHIP.
Many Christians have negative attitudes toward Muslims. The violent actions of a few, as well as economic pressure, have led to these attitudes in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Americans have negative sentiments as well. Pew Research documented these in 2014*. The months of bitter dialogue in the U.S. during and after the 2016 presidential election have likely made these feelings more extreme. Yet the majority of Americans do not know even one Muslim. I suspect this is true in many other countries as well.
