My whole life I’d been an aggressive atheist. Jesus was just some delusion that I was “too mature” to fall for. I didn’t just reject Christ, I wanted others to reject him too.
But Jesus decided that He was going to have the last word. God saw all the hate and anger I had towards Him, and He transformed it into something Good.
He started by sending strong Christians into my life. Suddenly, my dismissive glance and hyperbolic statements were getting me nowhere. God let me take my best shot at dismissing Him, and I failed.
What’s a young atheist to do when his best arguments run up against genuine faith? Get more ammunition. I started reading the Bible, not looking for truth, but for more absurdities to use in the next day’s arguments. Of course the Gospels were wholly unsuitable for that purpose, so I read Numbers, Judges, and Chronicles instead.
But here’s the thing. I went in expecting to judge the Word. Instead, the Word judged me. The Bible held up a mirror of beauty and truth, and I recoiled at the selfish and dead person I saw in the mirror. When I went back to my Christian friends, the dismissiveness and hyperbole slowly faded away. I wanted to learn what was really going on in their lives, and how this book played a part.
Still, I thought I needed all my questions answered before I could be a Christian. After all, it was still ridiculous wasn’t it? God quickly disabused me of that notion.
One night, after I asked my hundredth question, my friend stopped me. God said, through her, “Do you really want to believe in a religion I can explain to you completely in twenty minutes?
This whole time I’d had an overwhelming need to be right and know everything. First as an atheist, and then as a seeker. Jesus would have me, but only if I let Him have the answers. He showed me that I already knew everything I needed to trust him. And I hadn’t even read all the Gospels yet!
That night, I got on my knees and prayed for the first time. I admitted to God that I didn’t have all the answers, but that I was a sinner and I needed him to save me. That night, I became a Christian.
That was three years ago. Today, Jesus has changed me more than I’ve ever dreamed He could, and I’m happier than I had ever thought possible. He’s healed that God-shaped hole in my heart. I know He isn’t done with me yet.
When I look back on coming to faith, I think of the Parable of the Sower. None of my friends thought that Nick Letts, the village atheist, would be the good soil that accepts Christ. I certainly didn’t. But they sowed the Word anyway.
If we sow the Word wherever we can, we don’t have to stare and judge if it’s growing. God’s grace makes the seed grow even as the farmer sleeps. If God could do it for me, I know He can do it for more of this campus too.
Nick Letts is a former “radical atheist” who converted to Protestantism as a senior in High School, and then converted to Catholicism as a Junior in college. He studies philosophy in the Morrissey College, and loves nothing more than to curl up with a good book. He is engaged to his lovely fiancée Katherine Brown.
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I really enjoyed this article, with its account of how the deep-dyed atheist Nick Letts found faith in Jesus.
Particularly interesting was the importance that the written word – in the Bible – had in Mr Letts’ conversion. Friends and mentors referred him to the Bible, and then he turned to it himself, first to challenge it and later to learn from it.
In all this process a standard version of the Bible seems to have been fully successful.
Let me suggest, however, that a different text may be more generally useful for reaching out to people who are new to Christianity – either for themselves or for others.
A better text for this sort of initial read may be a consolidated version of the gospels – something that takes the four accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and edits them together into a single narrative in chronological order. Such a book would present the core story of Christianity, the most important part of the Bible for Christians, but would do so in a format that is easier for most people to follow.
That’s exactly what’s needed in a program of outreach.
The Bible actually has qualities that most readers find daunting. In some translations the text is archaic and hard to follow; in others it is so contemporary that it does not hold the imagination as scripture. Most fundamentally, the most important part of the Bible for most readers– the gospel – is divided into four accounts that must be simultaneously held in mind and mentally assembled.
This complexity may be meat and drink to professional theologians, but it is a problem for ordinary churchgoers.
What’s needed is a new arrangement of the gospels that is specifically designed for the purposes of reading and familiarization. A number of these are available in the market.
The best would be a fully consolidated text. Such a text would use all the words and only the words of the four accounts, but would present this material in a fully integrated form. It should weave together the texts at the level of individual phrases or even individual words when the accounts overlap sufficiently. This genre is sometimes referred to as a “radical harmony” of the gospels.
Some traditional shortcuts should be avoided. We don’t want to select just one gospel’s description of each particular event, because that would leave out too much. Nor do we want to present the four gospels in separate parallel columns, because that would still impose too much of the burden of integration on the reader.
A properly consolidated linear text should be easy reading. The annunciation to the shepherds and the visit of the magi will then follow one another in a natural order. Other events become more understandable by having all their details brought together in one place. This is especially useful with complex stories such as Jesus’ climactic interview with Pilate, or the crucifixion, both of which are covered in all four accounts.
A good teaching version of the gospels will also come in a new translation. This will be someplace in the King James family, because one of the purposes is to place the Bible in its context in Western civilization. However, the wording should be inconspicuously updated, not so much to maximize the accuracy of the translation, as to maximize its self-explanatory qualities. The reader should know immediately what is being said and should not be distracted by mechanics.
This process leaves some room for editorial choice. I have prepared my own consolidated gospel, called The Single Gospel (published by Wipf and Stock), and in it I made a further choice to trace the cultural influence of the Bible. Such a translation will make a special effort to identify familiar turns of phrase — from the original King James, or from common idioms — and to be sure that those are present in the traditional wording.
So, for example, a culturally-sensitive translation will retain the traditional Christmas greeting of “peace on earth, good will to men,” rather than the current literal translation of “peace to men on whom his favor rests.” Similarly, some current idioms are slightly misremembered phrases from standard editions, but can still be legitimately used as the basis for alternative translations. In this category are the classic “turn the other cheek” or “cast the first stone.”
A consolidated gospel has its limitations, of course. For one thing, a consolidated gospel is not scripture. The authoritative texts are still the four individual gospels, and the consolidated text is a companion or study guide to them.
Nonetheless, a consolidated text provides a sort of ideal platonic form of the gospels – the Bible story as everyone thinks they have remembered it all along, and as it lives in our contemporary culture.
Neil Averitt