Our value is built into us, and nothing and no one can take it away.

In matter-ism (materialism), there can be nothing wrong with the world since there is no right way for the world to be in the first place. Everything is just matter in motion and that's that. In Mind-ism (monism) there's a different route to the same problem. There cannot be a problem of evil, even in principle, since in Mind-ism even morality is maya; illusion. In neither story, then (if we're to be consistent with their principles), can the issue of evil be raised. But in real life the problem comes up all the time. That's the difficulty.

Christianity is actually "true Truth," as Francis Schaeffer used to put it. God really does exist, Heaven actually is real (along with Hell), Jesus really did live and He did the things the historical records - the Gospels - say He did, the resurrection of Christ really happened, and there really is hope each of us can count on for "the kind of perfect world our hearts have always longed for."

Nowadays, people have a habit of relativizing religion, reducing it to "your truth" versus "my truth" versus "their truth," and that's the end of it.

Our reasons for believing Jesus existed and also that He was who He claimed to be - the God who came down - are the same reasons for believing any fact of history: the documentation is substantial and it passes all the tests of historical reliability. Scholars - both liberal and conservative - overwhelming agree that Jesus of Nazareth was a man of history and the Gospels, on the main, tell His story accurately.

Two things have been bothering me for a long time. The first is the tendency of people in general - and that includes Christians - to "relativize" religion. Any religious belief is only "true for," so to speak - true for you or true for me or true for those people on the other side of the world. Second, I've been bothered by how poorly believers understand their own Story. They have bits and pieces, of course, but they're missing enough that they can easily become prey to ideas that sound spiritual, but end up being foolishness in the end.

In the Christian Story, mind and matter - invisible things and visible things - are both real. The Christian view is not the only way of viewing the world, of course. It has competition.