I don't want to base my life on a symbol, he said resolutely. I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality. What's not rooted in reality is the faith of liberal scholars. They're the ones who are following a pipe dream, but Christianity is not a pipe dream.

Second, if you disbelieve in the reality of good and evil spirit agents, you fundamentally change the narrative of Scripture. The motif of spiritual warfare is a through-line of both the Old and New Testaments (NT). And in the NT, the meaning of what Jesus was doing in his life, ministry, death and resurrection is fundamentally tied up with the belief in spiritual warfare. Take away Satan, and you take away one of the most fundamental reasons Jesus came to earth!

Adolf Hitler is simply the dark-side of Mother Teresa.

So these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history. He's merely a symbol. But listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he's rooted in history. The Nicene Creed doesn't say, "We wish these things were true." It says, "Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and the third day he rose again from the dead,' and it goes on from there.

I'm sensitive about the criticism [for not producing new playwrights], yes. But I'm hip to it as well. I read 500 new plays a year, and 99.99 percent of them are not good. I see no reason to do a new play just because it's new. It's like kissing your sister, a virtue, but so what? It seems to me more worthwhile to take a proven playwright and say, Write something for us.

The violent portraits of God in Scripture have become one of the biggest obstacles to believers coming to faith. When we can show how these portraits bear witness not to a violent God, but to the non-violent loving God revealed on Calvary, these obstacles to believing in the inspiration of Scripture become one of the most compelling reasons for believing in the inspiration of Scripture.

I don't want to base my life on a symbol, he said resolutely. I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality. What's not rooted in reality is the faith of liberal scholars. They're the ones who are following a pipe dream, but Christianity is not a pipe dream.