Our Foundation

In reading his book, The God Delusion, I learn that Richard Dawkins assumes the Christian Religion was founded by Paul.

I know that there are some people out there who say the same, suggesting that Paul’s religion is different from a small Jerusalem sect who followed Jesus. The Jerusalem sect posed a threat to Rome and therefore Paul, supposedly a Roman official, served to destroy them. While the Jerusalem sect essentially died off, Paul’s church movement grew to become the foundation of the church we know today.

There are A LOT of questions attached to this claim…

Paul persecuted the church. It doesn’t matter whether you believe his motive was to protect the Jewish Law or to protect the State. Pharisee or Roman official, he breathed murderous threats against Christ’s church.

Why then would Paul later start a religion which glorifies Christ’s Name?

If that small Jerusalem sect which belonged to Christ really was so insignificant that it ceased to exist within the first century, was it really a threat to any authority–State or Jewish Law?

Shouldn’t the name of Jesus Christ their founder also have evaporated with them into forgotten history?

Shouldn’t we now be called the Pauline church? Or the church of Rome? (oh wait that was Peters’, church…)

How come (for the love of Pete) nobody swears by Paul’s name?

Paul is a convert. He persecuted the church. And then he joined (not founded) the church. God had appointed him to preach God’s Name to the Jews and the Gentiles. If Paul founded his own religion then he made it all up. And if he made it all up would he go to prison three times and eventually give his life for it?

The Church wasn’t founded by Paul, nor even by Peter the rock. The Church is built on Jesus Christ. God established the church, way back in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. The Old Testament continually points to Christ. The rituals and prophesies are fulfilled in him. Even to this day, our faith rests on his Resurrection, not on the letters of Paul.

This is not a man-made faith. The apostles are eye-witnesses to the risen Christ. No human would start a religion on something so bogus. (who in their right mind would follow it?) Nor would the apostles hold on to the lie even unto cruel death. Peter was crucified upside down for his faith!

Roman guards were stationed at Christ’s tomb to make sure nobody would steal the body and say Jesus rose from the dead. They were first-hand witnesses to the empty tomb. The chief priests, however, paid them to lie about what they actually saw. Of course their false-witness would testify to their failure to protect the tomb successfully, and the governor would not like that! Their lies would mean severe punishment! So it is a good thing the chief priests also promised to satisfy the governor in order to protect the guards from such punishment. Their combined efforts were futile.

If there was ever a time to stop such a ridiculous “rumor” of Christ’s resurrection, it certainly was then. Yet even as completely unbelievable as the resurrection is, it spread like wildfire! And it cannot be stopped. Why? Because it isn’t man-made. Even the Sanhendrin understood this much in Acts 5:38-39.

I honestly think it takes more faith to believe that the Resurrection is a made-up story (a very ridiculous made-up story at that) and as such could not be stopped! No legend or tabloid has ever thrived like the story of the Resurrection. And to believe the disciples or apostles would fabricate such a story, even attempt to steal the body in order to fulfill the prophecy, and then die for what they know to be a lie. That’s actually more unbelievable than the Resurrection!

People who claim that this religion is man-made or a hoax, have an awful lot of explaining to do.