DR. PETERSON’S LECTURE ON JESUS
NICK AND JESSICA were invited by Dr. Peterson to visit for a few minutes backstage before his lecture. With him were Mrs. Peterson, Jamal, and two reporters who had stopped by to ask Dr. Peterson a few questions. After spending ten minutes with the reporters, Dr. Peterson glanced up and saw a good friend walking toward him. “Clay! How are you?”
Nick forced a quick smile and glanced at Jamal, who wore a genuine smile. How does he do that? Nick wondered.
“Well, Bill Peterson, I never thought I’d see this day, but it’s great to see you!”
The vice president, Dr. Clark Price, poked his head in. “Dr. Peterson, the auditorium is packed and it’s time for us to begin. I’ll be doing the welcome, Dean Sanchez will follow with your biography, and then you’ll have approximately seventy minutes for your lecture. Try to wrap up by 8:15 so we can take fifteen minutes of questions.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Peterson began. “Thank you for that very warm and gracious introduction. My esteemed colleagues, students, and special guests, I am deeply grateful that you chose to come this evening. During our next few moments together I would like to share from my own academic and personal journey, and more specifically, recount for you how my beliefs about the historical Christ have changed.”
As Dr. Peterson started his lecture, Andrea noticed how quiet the room fell. She sat in the third row with Jessica, Nick, and Mina to her left, and Brett, Lauren, and Scott to her right. Even though she knew there would be some disagreement in the audience, she felt that her atheist club friends would respect Dr. Peterson’s presentation. She also knew Scott would not hesitate to ask a tough question or two at the end. Andrea wondered what her friends would think if she decided to place her trust in Christ. At this point she thought back to all of her conversations with Jamal, Nick, and Mina, and though not all of her questions were answered, it seemed that the case for Christianity was becoming more compelling than atheism. After reflecting on her own intellectual doubts, she focused on Dr. Peterson’s lecture.
“When I was a child, my mother took my sister and me to a Presbyterian church in New York. I initially believed in Christ during my early years, but I became a skeptic in graduate school as I became disturbed by the variances in the papyri manuscripts, or copies of the New Testament. As a student, I felt frustrated by the evil and injustice of the world, and asked myself why God would allow such evil. Looking back, I believe the philosophers I studied, such as Immanuel Kant, began to affect my views. I questioned whether we can know anything beyond the physical world. I was left with an agnostic view of God and told myself that if He existed, He was probably deistic, not all-powerful, and probably unable to solve the problem of evil. For a few years, I even turned to atheism and tried to turn my students against God. I would talk about the evils of Old Testament ethics, the hard sayings of Jesus, and killings led by religious people.
“Although I struggled with the so-called problem of evil, it was actually the admission of objectivity in evil and morality that began pointing me back to God several years ago. I wrestled with all of the various forms of ethics—quantitative and qualitative utilitarianism, relativism, as well as forms of deontological ethics—and I discovered that the best explanation for objective morality was to believe in a god who is the standard of all moral laws.
“Also a few years ago, after several conversations with an atheist philosopher friend who had turned away from atheism, I took time to study the theory of Intelligent Design from authors such as Francis Collins, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, and Michael Behe. I began to admit probability in intelligent design. However, I was still skeptical of the Scriptures and miracles in the New Testament.
“Unfortunately, not only did I experience doubts, but I continued to attack the beliefs of any Christian I came across. It was because of me that my wife stopped attending church. Not only that, but I convinced hundreds, if not thousands, of students to question the authority of Scripture. I fear I have undermined the faith of many. Actually, I know I have.
“Last winter, when I learned my sister Barbara had a brain tumor, I took a leave of absence from teaching and had my assistant, Jamal Washington, fill in for several of my classes. After taking multiple trips out to Portland, my wife and I decided to remain out there with my sister until she died.
“Those of you who knew my sister know that she not only believed in God, but she lived out her Christian faith. Nor was her faith blind. I remember Barbara reading N. T. Wright’s scholarly work on the resurrection and wanting to debate me on the subject. I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance against her.”
Several in the audience chuckled, and Dr. Peterson paused for a moment.
“At her funeral, I began to think more intentionally about the possibility of heaven and the implications of the resurrection on the afterlife. I was saddened by her passing, and the minister spoke on Paul’s words to the church of the Thessalonians. ‘we don’t grieve like those who have no hope,’ he said,66 and as I listened, I wondered whether or not I had any hope.
“At the end of the funeral, I was surprised to see one of my students in attendance. Nick was a freshman last year and had a voracious appetite for learning. Although he grew up going to church, he had drifted from believing in the deity of Christ largely because of my teaching. Thankfully, Nick wasn’t satisfied with my objections to Christianity. He investigated my claims on his own and eventually came back to the faith. Not only that, he had the gall to show up at my sister’s funeral and tell me that Jesus Christ loved me and died for me. Picture that, if you will. A freshman with no real theological training challenging me—a tenured professor of thirty years—to be intellectually open to the idea of the resurrection and afterlife! I didn’t care to admit it at the time, but his challenge lit a fire in me. For two months straight I reinvestigated everything. I reevaluated believing in God’s existence and the possibility of miracles, and I spent time refreshing my research and reconsidering the variances in the manuscripts. Finally, I had no choice but to acknowledge that the New Testament is historically true.
“Tonight I want to share why I believe the testimony about Jesus Christ in the gospels and writings of the New Testament is trustworthy.”
Dr. Peterson lectured passionately on the reliability of Scripture in regard to the abundance and early dating of the manuscripts of the gospels. As he did, Nick took Jessica’s hand. He knew she had been praying for Dr. Peterson and that she was probably praying silently for Andrea as he spoke. Jessica had winked at Nick when Dr. Peterson mentioned his name.