The Intimidated Christians

If you Christians,” the skeptic might well argue, “really believe that Christ rose from the dead, the Resurrection was infinitely, yes infinitely, the most important event in all recorded history. But do you Christians consistently treat it as such? In your schools, for instance? How many of your pupils could hold their own in later life in an argument with an atheist?”

It is no valid answer to such an attack to cite the exceptional school or university which does make a serious effort to produce laymen who in later life can make a real contribution to the reconversion of countries once Christian. Of such educational institutions I have personal experience, for shortly before the Second World War I spent three semesters on the faculty of Notre Dame University, Indiana, which in those days was concerned to produce laymen who in later life would make some contribution to the Christian counterattack on the secularism which was advancing as rapidly in America as in my own country. I was appointed to teach modern apologetics. When I first met my pupils I asked them to put on paper how they would defend the Resurrection in an argument with an atheist. Their replies were, with one exception, lamentable and yet all these boys had been educated at Catholic schools. When I congratulated the pupil who had produced the only creditable answer he said, “Well, there was a convert on our faculty last year, Christopher Hollis, and he made the Resurrection sound really interesting!”

SL

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Sir Arnold Lunn

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If you Christians,” the skeptic might well argue, “really believe that Christ rose from the dead, the Resurrection was infinitely, yes infinitely, the most important event in all recorded history. But do you Christians consistently treat it as such? In your schools, for instance? How many of your pupils could hold their own in later life in an argument with an atheist?”

It is no valid answer to such an attack to cite the exceptional school or university which does make a serious effort to produce laymen who in later life can make a real contribution to the reconversion of countries once Christian. Of such educational institutions I have personal experience, for shortly before the Second World War I spent three semesters on the faculty of Notre Dame University, Indiana, which in those days was concerned to produce laymen who in later life would make some contribution to the Christian counterattack on the secularism which was advancing as rapidly in America as in my own country. I was appointed to teach modern apologetics. When I first met my pupils I asked them to put on paper how they would defend the Resurrection in an argument with an atheist. Their replies were, with one exception, lamentable and yet all these boys had been educated at Catholic schools. When I congratulated the pupil who had produced the only creditable answer he said, “Well, there was a convert on our faculty last year, Christopher Hollis, and he made the Resurrection sound really interesting!”