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Oxford Professor's Brave Stand with John Lennox · The Becket Cook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: You are listening to The Beckett Cook Show with your host,
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  Speaker 2: Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and his ministry,
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  Speaker 2: visit his website at beckettcook.com. To help support the podcast,
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• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Hey guys, welcome to the show today. I have a
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  Speaker 3: very special guest, Dr. John Lennox, and he's coming to
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  Speaker 3: us from Oxford. He is an emeritus mathematics professor from Oxford.
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  Speaker 3: And I discovered him years ago when I started watching
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  Speaker 3: his debates, his public debates with the new atheists, like
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  Speaker 3: Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and others, which we'll get into.
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  Speaker 1: And he's written a.
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  Speaker 3: New book called My Story, and it's an autobiography. And
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  Speaker 3: It's stunning. When I read this, he basically was a
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  Speaker 3: full-time missionary and a full-time mathematics professor at Oxford. So
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  Speaker 3: I am excited to get into his story. It's fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: Some of the things he did in the former Soviet
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  Speaker 3: Union and the spies were spying on him. And there's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of amazing intrigue in this book.
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  Speaker 1: But first, a word from our sponsor. Please welcome Dr.
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  Speaker 1: John Lennox.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
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  Speaker 3: It's so good to have you on. Your book, My Story,
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  Speaker 3: is incredible. I had no idea that you were basically
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  Speaker 3: a full-time missionary and a full-time mathematics professor.
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  Speaker 1: You've had quite a life. God used you in incredible ways.
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  Speaker 3: In the introduction of this book, you say that this
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  Speaker 3: is a book that for many years I refused to write.
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  Speaker 4: Why now? Well, because autobiography contains the word auto, which
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  Speaker 4: means self. And although over the years many people have
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  Speaker 4: encouraged me to write my story, I've felt reluctant until
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  Speaker 4: I was reading the book of Acts where Paul came back,
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  Speaker 4: I think, to Antioch. And it says, Luke says, that Paul...
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  Speaker 4: told them what the Lord had done with him. And
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  Speaker 4: it suddenly struck me that if Paul could share for
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  Speaker 4: the encouragement of Christians in the first century what he
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  Speaker 4: believed the Lord had done with him, then surely I
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  Speaker 4: could do something similar in the 21st century. So that
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  Speaker 4: is when I began to start really thinking of doing
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  Speaker 4: something seriously. And you're holding in your hand the results.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, and it's wonderful. And you were born, you grew
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  Speaker 3: up in Northern Ireland. I think both of your parents
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  Speaker 3: were Christians. What was that like growing up there with
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  Speaker 3: your amazing parents?
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  Speaker 1: And when did Christianity become your own faith?
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  Speaker 4: When you're looking back, I'm 82 now, that distance in time,
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  Speaker 4: It's very hard to precise time of when things happen,
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  Speaker 4: but my parents were credible Christianity, so my first encounter
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  Speaker 4: with Christianity was seeing them live according to what they believed.
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  Speaker 4: They taught scripture in the home, but they loved me
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  Speaker 4: enough not to force it down my throat and encouraged
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  Speaker 4: me to think, which was remarkable for a country which
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  Speaker 4: is not known for its generosity of spirit those were
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  Speaker 4: the times when there was a lot of tension between
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  Speaker 4: the two communities into which the country was divided Catholics
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  Speaker 4: and Protestants and so our home was a haven of
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  Speaker 4: what I call true Christianity in that my parents lived
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  Speaker 4: lived it and we could see that how they lived
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  Speaker 4: was credible and I responded to it almost like a
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  Speaker 4: flower responding to the sun. There never was a time
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  Speaker 4: when I would have said I did not believe, but
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  Speaker 4: I'd been very clearly taught that one is born a
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  Speaker 4: creature of God and not a child of God, so
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  Speaker 4: one had to become a child of God by consciously,
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  Speaker 4: deliberately trusting in Christ. And I suspect that There were
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  Speaker 4: various steps along that journey, but I took it as
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  Speaker 4: a child. And by the time I was nine or ten,
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  Speaker 4: I was clear that I was trusting Christ. And what
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  Speaker 4: was very important to me was I very rapidly came
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  Speaker 4: to the conclusion that Christianity was true. I think that
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  Speaker 4: was mainly because my parents, in particular my father, had
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  Speaker 4: opened the Scripture up as a treasure trove of fascinating things.
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  Speaker 4: Rather than mind-closing, it was mind-opening. And he introduced me
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  Speaker 4: not only to Scripture, but to books that illuminated Scripture,
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  Speaker 4: its history, its geography, its philosophy, and all the rest
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  Speaker 4: of it. So that I became an avid reader in
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  Speaker 4: my teenage years. And In that sense, I owe them
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  Speaker 4: an enormous debt for shining light on the path that
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  Speaker 4: I very rapidly knew that I was to follow.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, and who was David Gooding and what impact did
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  Speaker 3: he have on you and your faith?
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  Speaker 4: David Gooding was a professor of Greek and he came
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  Speaker 4: to Belfast to be a lecturer there. And my father
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  Speaker 4: heard him expound scripture in a way that he'd never
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  Speaker 4: heard anyone expound scripture before. And he said to me, son,
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  Speaker 4: you need to listen to this. And when I heard
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  Speaker 4: him speak, I realized this is how I want to
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  Speaker 4: learn to get into scripture. It was a revelation to
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  Speaker 4: hear the way he approached scripture and from his background
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  Speaker 4: as an expert in Latin and Greek. And later on,
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  Speaker 4: in my mid-teens, he essentially took me on as a mentor,
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  Speaker 4: and he mentored me for about 50 years. I'm a
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  Speaker 4: slow learner, you see. And we became friends, and we
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  Speaker 4: did a lot of speaking together, and in the end,
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  Speaker 4: writing together, traveling together, and all this kind of thing.
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  Speaker 4: But he was the one who opened my mind to
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  Speaker 4: the treasure of Scripture and showed me that you could
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  Speaker 4: take Scripture as seriously as I was taking my mathematics
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  Speaker 4: when I became a mathematician. And it was hugely important
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  Speaker 4: because I became convinced of the truth, the inspiration, the
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  Speaker 4: authority of Scripture, not by reading about Scripture, although that
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  Speaker 4: was important, but by actually coming to understand what it
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  Speaker 4: said and how it worked.
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  Speaker 3: And a man called Wilfred Hutchings was instrumental in helping
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  Speaker 3: you decide to apply to Cambridge, right?
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  Speaker 4: That's right. He was the headmaster of my school. Very
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  Speaker 4: strange man. Quite austere. And he'd been at Cambridge many
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  Speaker 4: years before. And he said, look... You might have a
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  Speaker 4: chance to get it to Cambridge, but only if you
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  Speaker 4: do mathematics. Because I'd gone through a whole series of interests.
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  Speaker 4: First of all, I thought I would like to study
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  Speaker 4: Latin because I liked the language and its structure. Then
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  Speaker 4: I saw the value of modern languages. And then I
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  Speaker 4: became what's called a ham radio operator at the age
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  Speaker 4: of 14 and discovered a way of getting in touch
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  Speaker 4: with the world. through radio. And I thought electronic engineering
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  Speaker 4: would be the way to go. And I had set
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  Speaker 4: my mind to do that and actually got a good
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  Speaker 4: scholarship to do it in the local university in Belfast.
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  Speaker 4: But he said, look, you might have a chance to
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  Speaker 4: go to Cambridge, but only if you do mathematics. But
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  Speaker 4: I could teach you that because I've been at Cambridge.
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  Speaker 4: So I stayed an extra year at school. and to
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  Speaker 4: my amazement, got into Cambridge, and the rest is history.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this short break. Well, I
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  Speaker 3: think this was while you were at Cambridge. What was
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  Speaker 3: Operation Mobilization?
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  Speaker 4: It's not what it was, what it is. Operation Mobilization
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  Speaker 4: still exists.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: It was started by a young American who.
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  Speaker 4: I think at the time at Wheaton College or somewhere
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  Speaker 4: like that and had a real vision for taking the
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  Speaker 4: gospel with a bunch of young people. I think they
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: started going down to Mexico and it was pretty primitive
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  Speaker 4: but they really believed the gospel and they used literature
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  Speaker 4: to do so and eventually they came to Europe and
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  Speaker 4: a number of us at that time were very impressed
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  Speaker 4: with what they were doing and I was challenged at
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  Speaker 4: one point in my life as to whether I was
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  Speaker 4: really being consistent as a Christian because I was thinking
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  Speaker 4: a lot about it, reading a lot about it, but
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  Speaker 4: not actually witnessing. And the challenge was to get involved
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  Speaker 4: in something that would help me with that. So I
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  Speaker 4: went on one of these trips to Austria in 1962,
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  Speaker 4: came back to Cambridge and started what was common in
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  Speaker 4: those days, a prayer group. for OM. OM still exists.
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  Speaker 4: George Verwer died a couple of years ago, but they
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  Speaker 4: now run missions in many countries and run mercy ships,
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  Speaker 4: of which you've probably heard, the Logos and the Hope
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  Speaker 4: and so on. In fact, in a couple of weeks' time,
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  Speaker 4: I'm going to Cardiff where the Logos is docking, and
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  Speaker 4: we're going to have a celebratory talk in memory of
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  Speaker 4: George Verwer. So it's very active, and I learned some
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  Speaker 4: important lessons of the importance of not simply having my
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  Speaker 4: head in the Christian faith, but having my heart and
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  Speaker 4: my witness.
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  Speaker 3: And during this time, is this when you learned German
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  Speaker 3: and Russian as well?
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  Speaker 4: I started learning German at school, using the radio mainly,
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  Speaker 4: and I started learning Russian later on. When I'd done
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  Speaker 4: my PhD, actually, I was a lecturer in Cardiff. It
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  Speaker 4: was my first appointment. But there was an anomaly in
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  Speaker 4: the payment system, and I didn't get paid enough what
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  Speaker 4: I should have been. The scale I should have been
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  Speaker 4: was very small, and I had a family growing. I
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  Speaker 4: asked my colleagues, was there any way of earning something
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  Speaker 4: on the side? And they said, yes, there is. translating
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  Speaker 4: mathematics from Russian into English. And I said, how do
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  Speaker 4: you do that? And they said, well, you buy yourself
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  Speaker 4: a Russian-English mathematical dictionary and you write to the American
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  Speaker 4: Mathematical Society in Providence, Rhode Island. And you offer your
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  Speaker 4: services as a translator. So I did that. And it
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  Speaker 4: was very hard work, but the few dollars help us
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  Speaker 4: helped us as a young family. Little did I know,
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  Speaker 4: of course, that Russian was actually going to be a
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  Speaker 4: way of opening doors in Russia and Ukraine in later years. Yes.
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  Speaker 3: And then you tell the story about being seated at
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  Speaker 3: high table at Cambridge beside a scientist who had won
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  Speaker 3: the Nobel Prize.
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  Speaker 1: And he said to you, Lennox, do you Tell us
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  Speaker 1: why he said this to you.
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  Speaker 3: He said, Lennox, do you want a career in science?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'd been chatting to him at the meal. I'd
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  Speaker 4: never met a Nobel Prize winner before. And so, of course,
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  Speaker 4: I talked to him about the work he'd done to
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  Speaker 4: win the prize. And then I dropped in the question,
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  Speaker 4: did he ever think that when he was studying the
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  Speaker 4: that won him the prize, that there might be a
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  Speaker 4: mind behind the universe to account for the nature of
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  Speaker 4: its complexity and so on. And he got very stiff
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  Speaker 4: and reacted quite badly and said, no, I didn't. And
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  Speaker 4: I could tell immediately he was being disingenuous and he
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  Speaker 4: turned away and continued his conversation with other people. So
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  Speaker 4: I thought that was the end, but it wasn't. At
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  Speaker 4: the end of the veil, He essentially commanded me to
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  Speaker 4: come to his room and there were several other senior
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  Speaker 4: people with him and they sat me down and he said,
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  Speaker 4: do you want a career in science? And I said, yes, sir. Well,
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  Speaker 4: he said, in front of witnesses tonight, you need to
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  Speaker 4: give up these naive ideas of God because I tell you,
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  Speaker 4: if you stick with this, you will never make it.
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  Speaker 4: You will suffer by comparison with your peers. And of course,
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  Speaker 4: it was an absurd pressure. He was abusing his position massively.
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  Speaker 4: I remember thinking later, if he'd been a Christian and
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  Speaker 4: I'd been an atheist, he would have lost his job
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  Speaker 4: almost immediately for doing what he tried to do. But
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  Speaker 4: I asked him, I said, tell me, what have you
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  Speaker 4: got that's better than what I have in Christ? And
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  Speaker 4: he said, well, there's the evolutionary philosophy of Henri Bergson.
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  Speaker 4: And because I had read C.S. Lewis, I knew about
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  Speaker 4: that philosophy. It was a very bad choice, actually, for
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  Speaker 4: other reasons. And I just looked at him and said,
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  Speaker 4: if that's all you've got, I'll take the risk. I'll
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  Speaker 4: stick with Christ. I got up and walked out. That
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  Speaker 4: was a very important moment for me. I'm glad it happened,
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  Speaker 4: very glad, because it made me resolve certain things that
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  Speaker 4: if ever I got the kind of post I hold
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  Speaker 4: now as a professor at Oxford, I would never use
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  Speaker 4: it to abuse people intellectually like that. And what I
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  Speaker 4: would try to do is to give the public case
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  Speaker 4: for the truth of Christianity and allow people to make
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  Speaker 4: up their own minds. I wouldn't try and make up
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  Speaker 4: their minds for.
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  Speaker 1: Them Yeah, that was very bold of you, and that's amazing.
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  Speaker 3: And tell us about, I think when you were a
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  Speaker 3: graduate student, you met Bishop, who was Bishop James Pike,
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  Speaker 3: and you had a conversation with him about liberal theology.
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  Speaker 4: Well, Bishop James Pike was an American very well known.
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  Speaker 4: I think he was related to the Coleman family. the Mustard,
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Coleman Mustard family. And he was extremely liberal. And he
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  Speaker 4: came to our college to give a talk. And I
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  Speaker 4: will never forget it because I was invited to go
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  Speaker 4: to it with a friend of mine who'd just become
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  Speaker 4: a Christian. And when we went in, Pike started his
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  Speaker 4: talk by saying, I deny Christ. the pre-existence of Christ.
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  Speaker 4: I deny the virgin birth. And he went through a
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  Speaker 4: whole list of the basic doctrines of Christianity. And there
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  Speaker 4: was an appalled silence. And I said to him, because
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  Speaker 4: nobody else wanted to speak, there was a choking atmosphere.
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  Speaker 4: I said, sir, what do you affirm? And he said,
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  Speaker 4: the sacraments. I said, what? You mean Holy Communion, the
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  Speaker 4: Lord's Supper? He said, yes. But I said, I don't
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  Speaker 4: understand you. Because in the Holy Communion, we have bread
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  Speaker 4: and wine that speak of Christ's body and blood being
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  Speaker 4: separated as a sacrifice for our sins. That is meaningless
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  Speaker 4: if he isn't the divine son of God, etc. So
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  Speaker 4: he said, what you're affirming implies all the doctrines you've
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  Speaker 4: just denied. And there was great silence after that. And
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  Speaker 4: then he said, you know, young man, he said, if
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: I'd started... with the Gospels instead of the history of
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  Speaker 4: the early church, I would be a different man today.
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  Speaker 4: Six weeks later, he was discovered dead in the Judean desert,
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  Speaker 4: having perished in some way because he tried to recapitulate
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  Speaker 4: the experience of John the Baptist in the desert. It
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  Speaker 4: was a tragic case.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, I forgot about that part.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, so Then you become a lecture, a junior lecture
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  Speaker 3: at the University of Wales. And there's a story, and
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  Speaker 3: this is when, I think, correct me if I'm wrong,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: but this is when you really start traveling a lot
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  Speaker 3: to Eastern Europe and teaching the Bible, teaching mathematics, but
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: also teaching the Bible and preaching. And there's a story
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  Speaker 3: about you in Hungary, and you say that Something occurred
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: the like of which you had never experienced before. Tell
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: us that story of what happened at that church. I
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  Speaker 3: think a German man said you will speak after this.
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  Speaker 4: I know exactly what you're talking about. That was my
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  Speaker 4: introduction to Eastern Europe. And it occurred in 1976. I'd
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  Speaker 4: already been there. in Wales as a lecturer for six
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  Speaker 4: years at that time. And I had spent one of
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  Speaker 4: those years in West Germany, at the University of Würzburg,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: and I'd learned to speak pretty fluent German. And at
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  Speaker 4: the end of the year, through a long chain of circumstances,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: I was invited by a Hungarian believer to come to Hungary.
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  Speaker 4: And I felt I had to go. And I drove
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  Speaker 4: there on my own. Very hot summer, 1976, impossibly hot.
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  Speaker 4: And I eventually found his little flat house. in a
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: very dark area of the city. There was very little
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  Speaker 4: electricity and very poor lighting. And I turned up at
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: his door and rang the bell. And eventually a woman
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: came out who was obviously not pleased to see me
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: at all. She turned out to be his wife. And
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: she said, he's not home yet. You'll have to wait.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: So she just closed the door. And eventually he turned up.
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  Speaker 4: And he said, oh, you've come.
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  Speaker 2: Good.
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  Speaker 4: We're just in time for church. And I was exhausted
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  Speaker 4: and I didn't want to go to church. And they
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: didn't even offer me a glass of water. And I
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: thought this has all been a terrible mistake because it
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: was obvious that his wife probably wasn't a believer at all.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: But anyway, I followed him to the church and it
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  Speaker 4: was an L-shaped room. And as we walked in, it
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  Speaker 4: was packed, absolutely packed. And in the angle of the L,
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  Speaker 4: there was a Romanian preaching in Hungarian. And, of course,
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  Speaker 4: I couldn't understand him. But as we walked in, something
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  Speaker 4: happened that had never happened to me before since. A
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  Speaker 4: man pulled me down and spoke to me in German.
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  Speaker 4: How he knew I spoke German, I don't know. And said,
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  Speaker 4: you will speak after this man speaks. You will not
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  Speaker 4: speak on any topic. You will speak where he finishes. Well,
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  Speaker 4: I was pretty well paralyzed with fear. But I went
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  Speaker 4: to the front, sat down, and somebody came and sat
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  Speaker 4: and translated a bit. The man was speaking about the
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  Speaker 4: tabernacle and the lampstand in the tabernacle. Now, I use
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  Speaker 4: the tabernacle to teach Christian truth, but I certainly wasn't
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  Speaker 4: going to make my debut in Hungary by talking about it.
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  Speaker 4: So I pulled out the only piece of paper I
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  Speaker 4: could find, which was a traveler's check, and wrote on
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  Speaker 4: the back of it, lampstand, light, Jesus shining as the light, transfiguration.
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  Speaker 4: That's all I got written down. And suddenly, the man
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  Speaker 4: stopped dead in the midst of his flow. I thought
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  Speaker 4: he'd never stop. And he changed subject totally in the
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  Speaker 4: middle of a sentence. And he said, and then there
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  Speaker 4: is the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, but I'm not going
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  Speaker 4: to say anything about that. And he sat down and
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  Speaker 4: it was like an electric light being switched on. I
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  Speaker 4: had perfect freedom. I knew I was the right place
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  Speaker 4: at the right time. And that opened up several years,
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  Speaker 4: many years, in fact, of visiting Hungary and and teaching scripture,
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  Speaker 4: usually a week at a time, three hours every night
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: in German with three translators because it's hard work translating.
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  Speaker 4: So that was the memory.
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  Speaker 3: There was an experience on the train from Budapest to Vienna.
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  Speaker 3: And I think you were speaking to some non-believers and
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: they said, look, we have three hours on this train together.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Neither of us has ever heard a detailed explanation of
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: what Christians believe.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And then this is what I was bringing up. You
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: sketched out this photo.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: And tell us about this interaction and what this diagram is.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Well, they wanted to understand the difference between Christianity and
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: their religion. So I decided to illustrate the difference between
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Christianity and other religions. And I drew the wavy line
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: and said, religion usually is a path. And there's an
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: entrance at the beginning, at the bottom. I sketched a doorway.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: And then at the end, there is a judgment with
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: the scales of justice and another doorway into heaven or
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: nirvana or whatever it is. And there are various gurus, priests, imams, rabbis,
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: and so on. who will teach you the path on
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: the way. And those are symbolized by the little academic hats.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: And the way goes up and down. But the crucial
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: thing about it is that you are weighed for your achievements,
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: what you've done in your life. And if you merit
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: acceptance at the end, you will get in. And these
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: two men said, yes, that's exactly what we believe. And
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: I said, it's not what I believe because Christianity is
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: not a system of merit. And what I then added
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: was a cross at the door on the bottom left.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: And I said, the unique thing about Christianity is the
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: acceptance comes not at the beginning, not at the end,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: but the beginning. And then I explained how Christ had
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: died for us to take upon us, upon him. our sins,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: and so therefore we could know in this life, long
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: before the judgment, that we had been accepted because it
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: doesn't depend on our merit. And they got the point.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: And it is so important to get this across to
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: people because I meet many professing Christians that think that
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: Christianity is like that. If you ask them, about are
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: they Christians? Well, they say, I hope I do the
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: best I can. I hope that God will accept me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: That's not Christianity. That is religion of the usual kind.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yes. I love that diagram.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: And so tell us about, you spend a lot of
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: time in Eastern Germany teaching the Bible and.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: Evangelizing.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: What was, I mean, How was it even legal to
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: do that at that time? Because obviously it was part
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: of the Soviet Union. How was it legal?
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: And there were spies spying on your hotel. Tell us
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Well, it was legal to go as a tourist. And
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: it was legal to go to the churches. And so
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: long as you weren't involved in taking Christian literature in,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: which I never did, The people in East Germany wanted
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: me in there and wanted my teaching. And of course,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: you had to be very careful not to talk politically,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: but I didn't want to do that. I simply wanted
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: to share scripture. And they responded to it big time.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, I would go to a village and nearly
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: the whole village would come out to hear me speak.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: And I suppose they had a choice whether to see
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: whether I would keep within acceptable norms or whether I
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: would abuse them. And I heard of several people who
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: abused them and started to talk nonsense politically and got
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: themselves deported. But that never happened to me. And so
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: I was extremely careful to concentrate on encouraging these people
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: by expounding scripture, Bible teaching. And I'm amazed looking back
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: that nothing untoward happened to me during those years. I
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: really believe the Lord protected me.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: And who are the Jungen Weihe?
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: The Jungen Weihe was, it literally means youth dedication, was
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: a communist.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Sorry, go ahead.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: It was a communist ceremony which young people had to
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: take at the age of 13 or 14 to publicly
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: pledge allegiance to the atheistic state. And if a young
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Christian refused to do that, they couldn't have any education
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: any higher than 13 or 14, no matter how bright
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: they were. And that was, to my mind, intellectual murder.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: And there was a.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: There was a young girl named Esther. She was 14
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: years old and she was weeping because she was.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Yes, she was denied education. And I asked her what
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: she said to the teacher. And she said, I told
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: him that one day he would answer to God for
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: what he'd done to me today. Immensely courageous thing to say.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: We were very moved. And that gave me an insight
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: into the evils communism and we let communism depart far
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: too quietly without really telling the public what it was
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: all about. So when neo-marxism comes up these days people
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: walk into it innocently not realizing how virulently atheistic it is.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you say in the book that Solzhenitsyn says, I
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: think you quote him, he said that a positive hatred
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: of God was the main driver behind Marxist-Leninist worldview.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's right.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: And militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: communist policy. It is not a side effect, but a
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: central pivot.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: And there was a moment where you spoke to a
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Jewish woman in Budapest and she asked you about the
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Holocaust and she began crying after you talked about it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: What did you say to her?
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Well, this was in a synagogue in Budapest. And in
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: the synagogue, there was an exhibition of photographs from Auschwitz
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: and also a mock-up of the gate of the concentration
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: camp with the words on it, the famous words, Arbeit
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: macht frei, work will set you free. And she just
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: stood in the mock doorway and And I'd been telling
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: her about my faith quietly in Christ. And she said,
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: what does your religion make of this? And she wanted
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: an answer. And I said, this is going to be
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: difficult for you. She was Jewish. But I said, you
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: know that Jesus died on a cross. And I said,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: it'll be hard for you to hear this, but the
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: claim is, and I believe it, that he was God incarnate.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: And that raises the question, what is God doing on
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: the cross? And I said, it certainly at least shows
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: us that God has not remained distant from our suffering,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: but has become part of it. And at that point,
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: she started to weep and said, why has no one
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: told me that about my Messiah before? That was a
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: very moving moment. And it's the suffering of the cross
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: that gives us a window into any hope in connection
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: with the large problem of pain and suffering.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's leave it there. And people can get the book,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: My Story. Thank you, Dr. Lennox, for coming on the
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: show and sharing this. This is a wonderful book, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: I highly commend it.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: So thank you.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Wait, don't touch that dial. Please like and subscribe. And also,
• 32:23
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• 32:27
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• 32:29
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• 32:32
  Speaker 3: so appreciate it.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Beckett
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes
• 32:44
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• 32:48
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