Atheism, Feminism, and the Bible

[Music] one of my closest friends is an atheist and I've asked her why she is and she told me that she's read the doctrines of many theologies including Christianity and as soon as she got to the part in the Bible where she read about Adam and Eve and they said or it said that woman shall suffer the pain of childbirth for the sin of Eve she told me I stopped reading because I refused to believe in something that doesn't believe in me what would be your response to her okay when a person rejects a certain worldview you have to respect if they're being honest why they reject it and if I were sitting across a table with her I would think she's one with a tender conscience a woman who has personal worth and a woman who says if this is the way I'm described there's no place for me here so if her deduction is correct one can validate the objection but of the discussion if the deduction is incorrect then she has to change her view first she has to know what it is she has adopted while she has rejected something else I remember I was speaking at the Center for geopolitical strategy in Russia full of atheists full of atheists and God gave me the privilege actually I've seen the general come to Christ so he invited me to speak there but he says they'll be pretty hostile and they sure were they were going like this the whole time I was talking and and at the when at the Q&A time one guys the fellow kept going like this shot his arm up in the end stood up and he said you've been talking about God the whole time so what on earth you're talking about well the question logically to answer him was are you an atheist yes what is it you're denying what is it you deny so when a woman or a man says they are denying the existence of God what are they affirming in its place she is actually affirming that this God our religion is not true atheism is but if atheism is true she has no value if atheism is true there's not even a point of reference for her words we are the product of primordial slime time plus matter plus chance the accidental collocation of atoms here we are a blip on the radar scream on a screen of time that's exactly what Bertrand Russell said that this whole edifice is doomed to extinction we are here by cosmic accident so that's the first thing the second thing is first she reduces her own word to nothing but material secondly she's making a moral judgment but in an amoral universe how do you invoke a moral judgment if this is a naturalistic framework why is it morally wrong for God to say you're not of any worth but is because she is invoking a moral law and she's invoking words which basically tells me she's actually borrowing from the judeo-christian worldview in order to debunk it all right now here's the point you never take a word out of context you always put it in this larger context you know when Jesus saw the woman who was taken in adultery he really let him have it where's the man where her accusers go guys never brought the man he was gone somewhere she obviously didn't commit adultery with herself you were living at a time in a culture then where this kind of thing happened so often he writes some letters in the sand and he says to her neither do i condemn you go and sin no more the woman with the alabaster ointment in that culture for her to have even touched him was audacious and yet the Pharisee sitting there said of Jesus only knew who this one was he would not have had her do you have any part in him and he said to them you know guys what she has done to me he is going to be told all over the world where the gospel is preached and he received her gift when I was in Albania last year they sat me down in the museum and brought the Greek translation of Chrysostom of the New Testament and I looked at the passage where this woman with the alabaster ointment poured it on Jesus her story is stole where the gospel is all over the world when he revealed himself in the resurrection he went completely against the climate and the culture of the time he revealed himself first to the women who had come to the tomb whose testimony was not even valuable in court at that time so have you see the special place he gives to womanhood and the glory that he has crowned the charm and the mystique of womanhood is both in its intellect and in its mystique today if you were to take women writers they touch the nerve of reality much better often than men did I think of people I am women like Dorothy Sayers and all the brilliant brilliant writers what has happened unfortunately is the way our cultures have oppressed always find somebody to oppress and as a result we read that verse in a vacuum and we don't read it all the way in the rest of the way when you see him highlighting people like Sarah people like Ruth people like Deborah and in the New Testament you see the names of Phoebe and the names of Mary and all writ large you see that he tells a man to love a woman the way Christ loved the church that is the greatest compliment he ever paid you or me that you were as valuable and you are as valuable as humanity is to him there is neither Jew nor Greek nor male nor female the Apostle Paul writes so tell her please don't read that out of context read the whole thing your reaction would be right in that soul that it's what it says there is this remember where there is a plurality of the miracle in physical acts there is also a plurality of judgment in physical expression you will see this in Exodus you'll see this in Genesis where there's dramatic miracles there are dramatic judgments as well and that sin has a cost and we always remember through this from whence we came and the glory is through the seed of that woman he was going to bring the Redeemer ultimately and I think that is what race is all about she should not read it in a vacuum tell her to take a good look at Christ and see his treatment of women and I think she'll find out that there is no other world view again I repeat no other world view that gives the respect of womanhood that Jesus does okay you [Music]

Channel: Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

Views: 684,027

Rating: 4.8406081 out of 5

Keywords: Ravi, Zacharias, Penn, State, apologetics, Jesus, Christ, RZIM

Id: Fpmu42g6mDs

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2008

Reddit Comments

[u/tractgildart]

I quite liked his answer, though I'm not sure why you've framed it was "against feminism". It seems to me that Ravi has just painted God as a feminist.