By D. James Kennedy (1930–2007)
Evangelist, broadcaster, author, and for many years senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (Fort Lauderdale, FL), Dr. Kennedy responds to the anti-Christian sentiment in our culture by emphasizing the positive impact Christ has made upon human history. In his book What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (Nelson Books, 1994), he imagines what our planet would be like if Christmas had never happened. The following abridged and slightly edited article is taken from the first chapter, “Christ and Civilization” (1–8).
Some people have made transformational changes in one department of human learning or in one aspect of human life, and their names are forever enshrined in the annals of human history. But Jesus Christ, the greatest man who ever lived, changed virtually every aspect of human life—and most people don’t know it. The greatest tragedy of the Christmas holiday each year is not so much its commercialization (gross as that is), but its trivialization. How tragic it is that people have forgotten him to whom they owe so very much.
Jesus says in Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I make all things new.” The word “behold” means, “note well,” “look closely,” “examine carefully.” Everything that Jesus Christ touched, he utterly transformed. He touched time when he was born into this world; his birthday utterly altered the way we measure time. Now, the whole world counts time as bc, Before Christ, and ad. Unfortunately, in most cases, our illiterate generation today doesn’t even know that ad means anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord.” It’s ironic that the most vitriolic atheist writing a propagandistic letter to a friend must acknowledge Christ when he dates that letter.
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which is tiny in and of itself, but, when fully grown, provides shade and a resting place for many birds. This parable certainly applies to an individual who embraces Christ; it also applies to Christianity in the world.
Christianity’s roots were small and humble—an itinerant rabbi preached and did miracles for three and a half years around the countryside of subjugated Israel. And today there are more than 1.8 billion professing believers in him found in most of the nations of the earth! There are tens of millions today who make it their life’s aim to serve him alone. Napoleon said: “I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel . . . . Nations pass away, thrones crumble, but the Church remains.”
Despite its humble origins, the Church has made more changes on earth for the good than any other movement in history. To get an overview of some of the positive contributions Christianity has made through the centuries, here are a few highlights:
- The rise of hospitals and universities.
- Literacy and education for the masses.
- The abolition of slavery.
- The beginning of modern science.
- The elevation of women.
- Benevolence and charity; the Good Samaritan ethic.
- High regard for human life.
- The inspiration for the greatest works of art.
- The eternal salvation of countless souls.
The last one mentioned, the salvation of souls, is the primary goal of the spread of Christianity. All the other benefits listed are basically just by-products of what Christianity has often brought when applied to daily living.
Many are familiar with the 1946 film classic It’s a Wonderful Life, wherein the character played by Jimmy Stewart gets a chance to see what life would be like had he never been born. In many ways this terrific movie directed by Frank Capra is the springboard for this book. The main point of the film is that each person’s life has impact on everybody else’s life. Had they never been born, there would be gaping holes left by their absence. My point in this book is that Jesus Christ has had enormous impact—more than anybody else—on history. Had he never come, the hole would be a canyon about the size of a continent.
But some people wish Christ had never been born. Not all have been happy about Jesus’s birth. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth-century atheist philosopher who coined the phrase “God is dead,” likened Christianity to poison that has infected the whole world. “I condemn Christianity,” he wrote in his book The AntiChrist. “It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions . . . . it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie.”
Many of the ideas of Nietzsche were put into practice by his philosophical disciple, Hitler, and about 6 million Jews died as a result. Both Nietzsche and Hitler wished that Christ had never been born. Others share this sentiment. My purpose in writing is to say to Nietzsche and to Hitler, as well as to Freud, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the ACLU, anti-faith college professors, leaders in Hollywood who constantly denigrate Christianity, and anti-Christians of the past and present, that the overwhelming impact of Christ’s life on Planet Earth has been positive, not negative.
The next twelve chapters will look at a dozen areas where Christianity has made important contributions to world civilization. Then, we will also deal with the negative aspect of the Church’s track record in history. We’ll deal with the sins of the Church, trying to come to grips from a Christian perspective with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and anti-Semitism by the Church. But we will also look at the sins of atheism. We will show how the post-Christian West ventured into a much more bloody history precisely because the restraints of Christianity were removed. We’ll also put to rest the myth so often repeated that “more people have been killed in the name of Christ than in any other.”
Dr. James Allan Francis puts Christ’s life and influence into perspective so well in his famous narrative One Solitary Life, which concludes with these words:
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today he is [still] the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life.
This article first appeared in The High Calling, November-December 2018 issue.