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SundayReview

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?

Nicholas Kristof

DEC. 23, 2016

What does it mean to be a Christian in the 21st century? Can one be a Christian and
yet doubt the virgin birth or the Resurrection? I put these questions to the Rev.
Timothy Keller, an evangelical Christian pastor and best-selling author who is
among the most prominent evangelical thinkers today. Our conversation has been
edited for space and clarity.
KRISTOFTim,IdeeplyadmireJesusandhismessage,butamalsoskeptical
ofthemesthathavebeenintegraltoChristianitythevirginbirth,the
Resurrection,themiraclesandsoon.SincethisistheChristmasseason,letsstart
withthevirginbirth.Isthatanessentialbelief,orcanImixandmatch?
KELLER If something is truly integral to a body of thought, you cant remove it
without destabilizing the whole thing. A religion cant be whatever we desire it to be.
If Im a member of the board of Greenpeace and I come out and say climate change
is a hoax, they will ask me to resign. I could call them narrow-minded, but they
would rightly say that there have to be some boundaries for dissent or you couldnt
have a cohesive, integrated organization. And theyd be right. Its the same with any
religious faith.

ButtheearliestaccountsofJesuslife,liketheGospelofMarkandPaulsletter
totheGalatians,dontevenmentionthevirginbirth.AndthereferenceinLuketo
thevirginbirthwaswritteninadifferentkindofGreekandwasprobablyadded
later.Soisntthereroomforskepticism?
If it were simply a legend that could be dismissed, it would damage the fabric of the
Christian message. Luc Ferry, looking at the Gospel of Johns account of Jesus birth
into the world, said this taught that the power behind the whole universe was not
just an impersonal cosmic principle but a real person who could be known and
loved. That scandalized Greek and Roman philosophers but was revolutionary in the
history of human thought. It led to a new emphasis on the importance of the
individual person and on love as the supreme virtue, because Jesus was not just a
great human being, but the pre-existing Creator God, miraculously come to earth as
a human being.
AndtheResurrection?Mustitreallybetakenliterally?
Jesus teaching was not the main point of his mission. He came to save people
through his death for sin and his resurrection. So his important ethical teaching only
makes sense when you dont separate it from these historic doctrines. If the
Resurrection is a genuine reality, it explains why Jesus can say that the poor and the
meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). St. Paul said without a real resurrection,
Christianity is useless (1 Corinthians 15:19).
Butletmepushback.AsyouknowbetterthanI,theScripturesthemselves
indicatethattheResurrectionwasntsoclearcut.MaryMagdalenedidntinitially
recognizetherisenJesus,nordidsomedisciples,andthegospelsarefuzzyabout
JesusliteralpresenceespeciallyMark,thefirstgospeltobewritten.Soifyou
takethesepassagesasmeaningthatJesusliterallyrosefromthedead,whythe
fuzziness?
I wouldnt characterize the New Testament descriptions of the risen Jesus as
fuzzy. They are very concrete in their details. Yes, Mary doesnt recognize Jesus at
first, but then she does. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24) also
dont recognize Jesus at first. Their experience was analogous to meeting someone
you last saw as a child 20 years ago. Many historians have argued that this has the

ring of eyewitness authenticity. If you were making up a story about the

Resurrection, would you have imagined that Jesus was altered enough to not be
identified immediately but not so much that he couldnt be recognized after a few
moments? As for Marks gospel, yes, it ends very abruptly without getting to the
Resurrection, but most scholars believe that the last part of the book or scroll was
lost to us.
Skeptics should consider another surprising aspect of these accounts. Mary
Magdalene is named as the first eyewitness of the risen Christ, and other women are
mentioned as the earliest eyewitnesses in the other gospels, too. This was a time in
which the testimony of women was not admissible evidence in courts because of
their low social status. The early pagan critics of Christianity latched on to this and
dismissed the Resurrection as the word of hysterical females. If the gospel writers
were inventing these narratives, they would never have put women in them. So they
didnt invent them.
The Christian Church is pretty much inexplicable if we dont believe in a
physical resurrection. N.T. Wright has argued in The Resurrection of the Son of
God that it is difficult to come up with any historically plausible alternate
explanation for the birth of the Christian movement. It is hard to account for
thousands of Jews virtually overnight worshiping a human being as divine when
everything about their religion and culture conditioned them to believe that was not
only impossible, but deeply heretical. The best explanation for the change was that
many hundreds of them had actually seen Jesus with their own eyes.
Sowheredoesthatleavepeoplelikeme?AmIaChristian?AJesusfollower?A
secularChristian?CanIbeaChristianwhiledoubtingtheResurrection?
I wouldnt draw any conclusion about an individual without talking to him or
her at length. But, in general, if you dont accept the Resurrection or other
foundational beliefs as defined by the Apostles Creed, Id say you are on the outside
of the boundary.
Tim,peoplesometimessaythattheanswerisfaith.But,asajournalist,Ive
foundskepticismuseful.IfIhearsomethingthatsoundssuperstitious,Iwant

eyewitnessesandevidence.ThatstheattitudewetaketowardIslamandHinduism
andTaoism,sowhysuspendskepticisminourownfaithtradition?
I agree. We should require evidence and good reasoning, and we should not
write off other religions as superstitious and then fail to question our more familiar
Jewish or Christian faith tradition.
But I dont want to contrast faith with skepticism so sharply that they are seen
to be opposites. They arent. I think we all base our lives on both reason and faith.
For example, my faith is to some degree based on reasoning that the existence of
God makes the most sense of what we see in nature, history and experience. Thomas
Nagel recently wrote that the thoroughly materialistic view of nature cant account
for human consciousness, cognition and moral values. Thats part of the reasoning
behind my faith. So my faith is based on logic and argument.
In the end, however, no one can demonstrably prove the primary things human
beings base their lives on, whether we are talking about the existence of God or the
importance of human rights and equality. Nietzsche argued that the humanistic
values of most secular people, such as the importance of the individual, human
rights and responsibility for the poor, have no place in a completely materialistic
universe. He even accused people holding humanistic values as being covert
Christians because it required a leap of faith to hold to them. We must all live by
faith.
Illgrudginglyconcedeyourpoint:Mybeliefinhumanrightsandmorality
maybemoreaboutfaiththanlogic.Butisitreallyanalogoustobelieveinthings
thatseemconsistentwithscienceandmodernity,likehumanrights,andthosethat
seeminconsistent,likeavirginbirthorresurrection?
I dont see why faith should be seen as inconsistent with science. There is
nothing illogical about miracles if a Creator God exists. If a God exists who is big
enough to create the universe in all its complexity and vastness, why should a mere
miracle be such a mental stretch? To prove that miracles could not happen, you
would have to know beyond a doubt that God does not exist. But that is not
something anyone can prove.

Science must always assume that an effect has a repeatable, natural cause. That
is its methodology. Imagine, then, for the sake of argument that a miracle actually
occurred. Science would have no way to confirm a nonrepeatable, supernatural
cause. Alvin Plantinga argued that to say that there mustbe a scientific cause for any
apparently miraculous phenomenon is like insisting that your lost keys must be
under the streetlight because thats the only place you can see.
CanIask:Doyoueverhavedoubts?Domostpeopleoffaithstruggleattimes
overthesekindsofquestions?
Yes and yes. In the Bible, the Book of Jude (Chapter 1, verse 22) tells Christians
to be merciful to those who doubt. We should not encourage people to simply stifle
all doubts. Doubts force us to think things out and re-examine our reasons, and that
can, in the end, lead to stronger faith.
Id also encourage doubters of religious teachings to doubt the faith
assumptions that often drive their skepticism. While Christians should be open to
questioning their faith assumptions, I would hope that secular skeptics would also
question their own. Neither statement There is no supernatural reality beyond
this world and There is a transcendent reality beyond this material world can
be proven empirically, nor is either self-evident to most people. So they both entail
faith. Secular people should be as open to questions and doubts about their positions
as religious people.
WhatIadmiremostaboutChristianityistheamazinggoodworkitinspires
peopletodoaroundtheworld.ButImtroubledbytheevangelicalnotionthat
peoplegotoheavenonlyiftheyhaveadirectrelationshipwithJesus.Doesntthat
implythatbillionsofpeopleBuddhists,Jews,Muslims,Hindusareconsigned
tohellbecausetheygrewupinnonChristianfamiliesaroundtheworld?That
Gandhiisinhell?
The Bible makes categorical statements that you cant be saved except through
faith in Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:11-12). Im very sympathetic to your concerns,
however, because this seems so exclusive and unfair. There are many views of this
issue, so my thoughts on this cannot be considered theChristian response. But here
they are:

You imply that really good people (e.g., Gandhi) should also be saved, not just
Christians. The problem is that Christians do not believe anyone can be saved by
being good. If you dont come to God through faith in what Christ has done, you
would be approaching on the basis of your own goodness. This would, ironically,
actually be moreexclusive and unfair, since so often those that we tend to think of as
bad the abusers, the haters, the feckless and selfish have themselves often had
abusive and brutal backgrounds.
Christians believe that it is those who admit their weakness and need for a
savior who get salvation. If access to God is through the grace of Jesus, then anyone
can receive eternal life instantly. This is why born again Christianity will always
give hope and spread among the wretched of the earth.
I can imagine someone saying, Well, why cant God just accept everyone
universal salvation? Then you create a different problem with fairness. It means
God wouldnt really care about injustice and evil.
There is still the question of fairness regarding people who have grown up away
from any real exposure to Christianity. The Bible is clear about two things that
salvation must be through grace and faith in Christ, and that God is always fair and
just in all his dealings. What it doesnt directly tell us is exactly how both of those
things can be true together. I dont think it is insurmountable. Just because I cant
see a way doesnt prove there cannot be any such way. If we have a God big enough
to deserve being called God, then we have a God big enough to reconcile both justice
and love.
Tim,thanksforagreatconversation.And,whatevermydoubts,thisIbelieve
in:MerryChristmas!
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AversionofthisopedappearsinprintonDecember25,2016,onPageSR19oftheNewYorkedition
withtheheadline:Pastor,AmIaChristian?.

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