Did you know there are 7,487 promises from God to us in the Bible?
The 1956 Christmas Eve issue of Time magazine highlighted Canadian schoolteacher Everek Storms of Kitchener, who during his twenty-seventh reading of the Bible, took the time to count each and every promise. It took him eighteen months!1 Actually, he found a grand total of 8,810 promises in the Bible, including 290 promises by men or women to God, 28 promises from angels, and even 9 promises made by Satan.
Promises are important to God, and likely, they are important to you. We thank God for those trusted people in life who keep promises, and it is often hard to forget those who break them.
Of all the 7,487 promises God made to his creation, one stands like a mountain peak, because even though God made it to a pagan man named Abram some four thousand years ago, that promise still stands for us today.
Genesis 12 recounts the gripping story of when Yahweh (often translated Adonai or Lord—meaning the “One Who Is”) appeared to Abram in what is now modern-day Iraq. God promised Abram, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”2
This promise—that through Abraham (God’s new name for him, meaning “father of multitudes”) everyone on earth will be blessed—was so weighty that God repeatedly made the same promise. In Genesis 22:18, we hear more details: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”3 Then God repeats the promise to Isaac, Abraham’s son: “I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”4 Finally, Isaac’s son Jacob (whose name changes to Israel when God left him with a limp) was given this promise in a dream: “And in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”5
Turning to the New Testament, we see this promise in a central place in the preaching of both Peter and Paul. Early in the book of Acts, Peter is preaching on the eastern side of the temple in Solomon’s Portico, and he reminds his Jewish audience of God’s promise to Abraham: “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’”6 Peter declares the offspring and blessing promised about by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was indeed “Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied. . . . You killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.”7
For Paul, the significance of the Abrahamic blessing can hardly be overstated. The incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus had both holistic and global implications for all people: “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’”8 Similarly, in the nativity announcement, the angel (likely Gabriel) pronounced to the shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem that the presence of Jesus was “good news of a great joy which will come to all the people.”9
Certainly today, like in those early days of the Roman Empire, we need this good news.
The Value of Life and Human Dignity
Sadly, there are people who don’t see the good news of Christianity and wish for the day that America (and other countries) are completely secularized. A Pew Research study revealed that 63 percent of atheists and agnostics think houses of worship “contribute not much or nothing at all to solving important social problems.”10
So would doing away with Christianity and churches make society better? The clear answer is no.
My friend Byron Johnson is distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University and directs its Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR). The institute studies how religion (all religions) intersects culture and society. I had the honor of participating in a recent ISR roundtable at Baylor related to the creation of this book, and learned of a fascinating report they contributed to for the Republican Study Committee: “What Would America Look Like If We Were a Nation Without Faith?” Another noteworthy study in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, this one from Brian Grim and Melissa Grim, a father–daughter research team, makes further compelling points about the impact of faith in America.
There are an estimated 350,000 religious congregations in the United States, and a “vast majority . . . serve in some capacity as a community safety net for those in need.”11 Together with faith-based organizations, congregations help over 70 million Americans each year, fueled by a staggering $20 billion in donations.12 One key service is feeding the millions who are struggling with poverty and limited access to food. Over 60 percent of the 46,000 agencies working with food banks nationwide are faith-based organizations. Simply put, America would starve if the church vanished.
Churches and faith-based organizations are also vital in disasters. Hurricane Katrina took more than 1,400 lives and caused more than $15 billion in damage. In the midst of the devastation and after many sought escape from New Orleans (and understandably so), a committed group of local church pastors remained in New Orleans, “scouring housing complexes for survivors, running shelters out of their churches, helping residents rebuild. One group run by ministers in Louisiana used its network of more than fifty churches to distribute 62 million pounds of resources through the storm-stricken region.”13 A majority of the organizations (59 percent) providing relief services to the devastated areas were churches or faith-based organizations.14
What about the economic impact of faith in America? According to the Grim study, religion’s $1.2 trillion impact is more than the global annual earnings of Apple and Microsoft combined.15 Congregational spending on social programs continues to increase, with over $9.24 billion contributed in 2012 (compared with $3.17 billion in 2006 and $2.37 billion in 1998).16 A survey of the fifty largest US charities reveals that twenty are faith-based and receive $45 billion in annual donations.17
One section of the Baylor ISR study focused on the city of Philadelphia, which has “one of the densest concentrations of houses of worship in urban America, with an estimated 2,095 congregations.” Researchers found that the economic valuation of these voluntary and religiously motivated services in the City of Brotherly Love amounted to a replacement value of $247 million per year. What is remarkable is that when compared with corporations that on average donate just 1 percent of their pretax income for charity, the congregations in Philadelphia outpace the for-profit world by designating up to 40 percent of their annual budget to serve their community.18 Rodney Stark of Baylor University has ample evidence to persuasively conclude that “the total current savings to US society from America’s religiousness is $2,660,430,000,000—that is, $2.67 trillion per year.”19
The church is also filling a major gap in serving families with mental health challenges. People are often surprised when they learn that more US citizens kill themselves than kill one another each year. That’s stark evidence that we are more dangerous to ourselves than we are to other people. Globally, one person dies every forty seconds by his or her own hand. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics recently released a study documenting the surge in suicide rates in the United States—increasing at an epidemic level from 1999 to 2014 to a nearly thirty-year high of 42,773 completed suicides in 2014. Yet optimism should abound because the church is not ignoring the suicide epidemic.
Twin Lakes Church in Santa Cruz, California, for example, recently hosted a well-attended community gathering on mental health. I was honored to serve as one of the speakers. The goal for the event was not Christian conversion or proselytization, but rather to provide a forum for education and collaboration among community leaders to remove the stigma often associated with mental illness. (Speakers and participants included police officers, a former California secretary of state, the president of the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI), school principals, spiritual leaders, parents of children struggling with mental illness, and a university professor.) The event was not faith-based, but it was faith-inspired. Again, it was the church that spearheaded this forum for community, civil, and political leaders to have open dialogue on the serious issues of mental illness in their community.
With nearly ninety million Americans living in areas where there is a federally recognized shortage of mental health professionals,20 the Baylor ISR study quantified the vital role of the church in helping those afflicted with or affected by mental illness:
With approximately 353,000 clergy serving their communities in the United States, they dedicate roughly 10–20 percent of their work week to counseling individuals suffering from emotional or marital problems. This amounts to roughly 138 million hours of mental health services per year; services provided at little to no cost to those who seek them.21
The mental health crisis in America is grim, to be sure, but in less-religious countries, suicide rates soar. For example, while America has a suicide rate of 11 per 100,000 people, in Russia (where in earlier chapters we covered the impact of atheism) the suicide rate is 34.3 per 100,000.22 Clearly, a society that lacks faith also lacks hope. Commenting on this correlation, Baylor’s Rodney Stark estimates that “should all Americans become non-attenders [of church], mental health costs could increase by as much as $216 billion.”23
What about faith-based education in America? I readily admit my bias on this topic because I am the product of public school education, and proud of it. The first religious school I attended was at the university level. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence that students fare better in faith-based schools. In one measurement, the combined average SAT score of students from faith-based schools was 134 points higher than the average score of public school students.24 Another study found fewer instances of violent crime and bullying in religious schools.25 More than six million students are enrolled in US religious schools (or homeschooled)—Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish—and if these students were to enroll in public education in the coming term it would cost the government an additional $630 million.26
In big and smaller cities today, Jesus’ compassion for the sick and hurting lives is reflected in the names of hospitals, such as Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, St. Joseph’s, St. Luke’s, and so on. Christianity’s impact on medical care worldwide is profound. During my recent speaking tour in the United Kingdom, I stayed in the Bankside area of London. The Saint Thomas Hospital, which I was delighted to see houses the Florence Nightingale Museum, was located just a few blocks from my hotel. Nightingale, considered the founder of modern nursing, was only seventeen when she felt God call her to future service. For the rest of her life, she exemplified the Christian commitment to care for the sick and dying.
Today, health-care providers with an active religious affiliation (not just Christian in name) are a major part of our medical system.27 For example, the US Catholic Health Association’s 2017 report noted their mission is to “transform hurt into hope.” They operate more than 1,600 care facilities, including nearly 649 hospitals, as well as 156 clinics for low-income individuals and families. By their estimates, one in six American patients every day is cared for in a Catholic hospital.28 I hate to imagine what would happen if faith-based providers vanished from America’s increasingly secularized health-care system.
So why do Christians care so much about the sick, poor, marginalized, and dying? As discussed earlier, in ancient times, the Greco-Roman gods were not seen as loving; they felt no compassion for people. In the world of Jesus and the early church, to hear that God—any god—loved you would have been a completely foreign concept. That changed when Jesus began preaching and teaching “For God so loved the world . . .”
I have written extensively in academic circles on Jesus’ proclamation of the “kingdom of God.”31 At its essence, the kingdom of God was seen in this light: God is loving; human life (that is, all life—old, young, sick, healthy, disabled, afflicted) is sacred to God; and Christians continued preaching and believing the kingdom of God was coming and yet was already in their midst, so they prepared by caring for the sick, marginalized, and hurting, immediately.
Still today the kingdom of God is itself the gospel, the good news for the world: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel.”32 Jesus’ message of a new kingdom reflects the good news proclaimed in the book of Isaiah. The good news (or good tidings) is the appearance of God,33 the announcement of God’s rule and reign,34 and his saving, redemptive work.35
Study the Gospels and you will find the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven mentioned fourteen times in Mark, thirty-two times in Luke, and fifty-four times in Matthew. It can hardly be overstated how relevant and convicting Jesus’ message was not only for his immediate hearers but also for those generations of Jesus followers that came after. Consider the following verses:
He called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Luke 9:1–2, 6
He [Jesus] had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
Matthew 14:14
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 9:35–36
Over and over again, Jesus showed compassion for the sick, the hurting, the diseased, and the outcasts. His actions and message resonated in the first century because the Roman world was a culture of death. In the Roman mindset, life was cheap and expendable. One-fourth of the Roman Empire was sick, dying, or in need of immediate medical attention on any given day. It was against this contextual backdrop that the message of an altogether new life in Christ revolutionized the ancient world and continues to bless “all the families of the earth,”36 whether they express faith or not.
There is no qualifier with Jesus’ striking message, “For God so loved the world . . .” (John 3:16). Importantly, Roman leaders did not appreciate the way in which the early Christian movement cared for all people. In fact, they brutally attempted to suppress early Christianity, which they viewed as a disgusting superstition.
So what caused the Christian movement to be successful? Why did anyone convert to Christianity in the first place? What is it about this new hope that attracted so much hate and persecution? To these answers we now turn.