{"id":4537,"date":"2013-07-11T12:43:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T18:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/?p=4537"},"modified":"2013-07-11T12:43:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T18:43:38","slug":"why-has-christianity-survived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/why-has-christianity-survived\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Has Christianity Survived?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One answer to this question is because Christianity\u00c2\u00a0is falsifiable.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the flurry of sensory verbs in the first two verses of 1 John 1:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That which was from the beginning, which we have <em>heard<\/em>, which we have <em>seen<\/em> with our eyes, which we <em>looked<\/em> upon and have <em>touched<\/em> with our hands, concerning the word of life \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the life was made manifest, and we have <em>seen<\/em> it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. (emphasis mine)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This kind of language is a reminder of the historical nature of our faith. At the heart of what we believe as Christians are things that happened in real time in history. The incarnation, the death, and the resurrection of Christ <em>happened<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Here are two images from a helpful article, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reclaimingthemind.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/christianity-the-worlds-most-falsifiable-religion\/\">Christianity, The World&#8217;s Most Falsifiable Religion<\/a>,&#8221; illustrating the contrast between how Christianity started and how other religions started:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reclaimingthemind.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/How-Christianity-Started-final.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reclaimingthemind.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/How-Other-Religions-Started.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"520\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Read the whole article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reclaimingthemind.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/christianity-the-worlds-most-falsifiable-religion\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One answer to this question is because Christianity\u00c2\u00a0is falsifiable. Consider the flurry of sensory verbs in the first&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/why-has-christianity-survived\/\">Continue Reading &rsaquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4537"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4544,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537\/revisions\/4544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertspringschurch.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}