D. James Kennedy - What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?

THE POSITIVE IMPACT
OF CHRISTIANITY IN
HISTORY

D. JAMES KENNEDY

AND JERRY NEWCOMBE

Copyright 1994 by D. James Kennedy and Jerry New combe

Revised edition published 2001.

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION of the Bible. Copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations noted KJV are from THE KING JAMES VERSION.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kennedy, D. James (Dennis James), 1930
What if Jesus had never been born? / D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-7852-6577-5 (hc)
ISBN 0-7852-7040-X (sc)

Jesus ChristInfluence. 2. Church historyMiscellanea. I. Newcombe, Jerry. II. Title.

BT304.3.K46 1993

232.9'04dc20 93-42372

CIP

Printed in the United States of America

01 02 03 04 05 RRD 18 17 16 15 14

Dedicated to Jesus Christ
King of kings and
Lord of lords

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION
A Quick Overview of Christs Impact on World History

Chapter 2 IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
Christianitys Impact on the Value of Human Life

Chapter 3 COMPASSION AND MERCY
Christianitys Contribution to Helping the Poor

Chapter 4 EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE
Christianitys Contribution to Education

Chapter 5 GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, FOR
THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE 57
Christianitys Impact on the Founding of America

Chapter 6 FREEDOM FOR ALL
Christianitys Contribution to Civil Liberties

Chapter 7 THINKING GODS THOUGHTS
AFTER HIM 91
Christianitys Impact on Science

Chapter 8 FREE ENTERPRISE AND THE
WORK ETHIC 107
Christianitys Impact on Economics

Chapter 9 THE BEAUTY OF SEXUALITY
Christianitys Impact on Sex and the Family

Chapter 10 HEALING THE SICK
Christianitys Impact on Health and Medicine

Chapter 11 THE CIVILIZING OF THE UNCIVILIZED
Christianitys Impact on Morality

Chapter 12 INSPIRING THE WORLDS GREATEST
ART 172
Christianitys Impact on the Arts and Music

Chapter 13 AMAZING GRACE
Lives Changed by Jesus Christ

Chapter 14 THE SINS OF THE CHURCH
Negative Aspects of Christianity in History

Chapter 15 A CRUEL WORLD
What Happens When Christian Restraints Are Removed

Chapter 16 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Fulfilling Our Purpose in the Twenty-First Century

T here are numerous people to thank for their contributions to this book. We are grateful for our loving wives and families who patiently endured the tedious process of writing and rewriting. Special thanks go to Kirsti Newcombe for her invaluable help with this project. Also to be thanked are my secretaries, Mary Anne Bunker and Ruth Rohm. Additionally, thanks are due to Robert Folsom, who edited an earlier version of the manuscript, and Dr. Charles Wolfe, who has helped answer many specific questions of content. Thanks for computer help go out to Robert Newcombe and Alan Harrison. We are also grateful to all those on the Thomas Nelson team (past and present) who have made this book possibleincluding Dan Benson, whose faith in the project helped convert it from an idea to reality, Larry Hampton, and the cclson pullishers.

W e live in an age in which only one prejudice is toleratedantiChristian bigotry. Michael Novak, the eminent columnist, once said that today you can no longer hold up to public pillorying and ridicule groups such as African-Americans or Native Americans or women or homosexuals or Poles, and so on. Today, the only group you can hold up to public mockery is Christians. Attacks on the Church and Christianity are common. As Pat Buchanan once put it, Christianbashing is a popular indoor sport.

But the truth is this: Had Jesus never been born, this world would be far more miserable than it is. In fact, many of mans noblest and kindest deeds find their motivation in love for Jesus Christ; and some of our greatest accomplishments also have their origin in service rendered to the humble Carpenter of Nazareth. To prove that truth is the purpose of this book.

CHRIST
AND
CIVILIZATION

A Quick Overview of Christs
Impact on World History

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took andsowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

Jesus Christ (Matt. 13:3132)

S ome 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 lifeand most people dont 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. (Behold! [idou in Greek]: Note well, look closely, examine carefully.) Everything that Jesus Christ touched, He utterly transformed. He touched time when He was born into this world; He had a birthday and that birthday utterly altered the way we measure time.

Someone has said He turned aside the river of ages out of its course and lifted the centuries off their hinges. Now, the whole world counts time as B.C., Before Christ, and A.D. Unfortunately, in most cases, our illiterate generation today doesnt even know that A.D. means annoDomini, in the year of the Lord.

Its ironic that the most vitriolic atheist writing a propagandistic letter to a friend must acknowledge Christ when he dates that letter. The atheistic Soviet Union was forced in its constitution to acknowledge that it came into existence in 1917, in the year of the Lord. When you see row after row of books at the library, every one of themeven if it contains anti-Christian diatribeshas a reference to Jesus Christ because of the date.

THE GROWTH OF THE
MUSTARD SEED

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which is tiny in and of itself, but, when fully grown, it 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.

Christianitys roots were small and humblean 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 on earth! There are tens of millions today who make it their lifes aim to serve Him alone.