It is not a particularly strong or convincing lecture, in my view, but it had considerable impact at the time. Russell, like a good many others in the 1950s when he delivered the address, suffered from a poor understanding of biblical theology and a questionable hermeneutic.
I fear, however, that I won't be any better at explaining why it is best to become a Christian than Russell was at arguing why one shouldn't. My former colleague Dr. Paul Chamberlain has done some pretty good work in this regard. He has just published Why People Don't Believe: Confronting Seven Challenges to the Christian Faith, Baker Books 2011.
But these gentlemen have doctorates in philosophy from first rate universities. I remind you again that I am but a humble business professor. So I can offer only a plain man's take on the subject that has divided scholars for centuries.
I'll leave the debates on the existence of some kind of supernatural Being to those better versed in the arguments. Suffice to say that the majority of Canadians are convinced of the reality of the Judeo-Christian God, a conviction we share, by and large, with people in North and South America, Europe, much of Africa other than the Islamic countries, and a good deal of Asia as well. Our monotheistic colleagues in Muslim countries worship a God who is similar in some ways to ours, but is very different in others.
I think, however, that there are two different items which are quite essential to anybody calling himself a Christian. The first is one of a dogmatic nature -- namely, that you must believe in God and immortality. If you do not believe in those two things, I do not think that you can properly call yourself a Christian. Then, further than that, as the name implies, you must have some kind of belief about Christ. The Mohammedans, for instance, also believe in God and in immortality, and yet they would not call themselves Christians. I think you must have at the very lowest the belief that Christ was, if not divine, at least the best and wisest of men. If you are not going to believe that much about Christ, I do not think you have any right to call yourself a Christian.
I find the evidence and the arguments for the divinity of Christ to be overwhelming. Interestingly, I wouldn't believe in the Holy Spirit at all were it not for Jesus' own affirmation of his existence. I could easily understand the activities attributed to the Spirit to be those of the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, Jesus differentiates between himself, his Father, and this third figure, and I accept his word on it.
[In passing, I just want to say that William Young does a marvelous job in his controversial little book The Shack in depicting the Spirit in his mysterious but significant role.]
If the Christian understanding of God, his character, will, power, love, justice, creativity, tolerance, mercy, grace, and so on are correct, then those who ally themselves with him have the clearest understanding of how we should then live. We have the assurance that what we are doing makes sense, not just for us as individual believers and our families, but for society as a whole. We know to take advantage of God's power and his gifts. We see the impact of Christianity on the development of the liberal democracies of the west, giving us that further confidence that our faith is transformational in positive ways. The teaching of Scripture, understood aright, frees us from fear and confusion and opens up for us a confident window; no, door; in fact, a shining path upon which to tread (I don't mean this in any sense of a blueprint to follow). We are committed to social justice.
In addition, having placed ourselves in God's capable hands, we are far less likely to want to jump out of them and run the risk of forfeiting membership in the Kingdom of God. [That is not to say that people don't.] This is not the same thing as saying that the alternative to staying in those celestial hands is eternal punishment in a literal lake of fire. This was one of Dr. Russell's major objections to being a Christian--the necessity of believing in the traditional view of Hell:
Then you come to moral questions. There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence.
But you know from earlier posts that this is not my understanding of the meaning of Hell. Nor do I believe that all non-Christians will end up in that horrible place.
For all of these reasons, I believe that the best thing that can happen to anyone is that they become a Christian. Obviously this does not rule out goodness, creativity, commitment to justice, etc. on the part of non-Christians. We are all made in the image of God. I simply believe that the life that Christ labeled as abundant is best realized through faith in him. While St. Paul warned us that presently we see through a glass darkly, we can experience the fullest expression of God that is available to humankind.
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