Reading in History and Christianity this week. The book’s author, John Warwick Montgomery, was one of the gifted apologists who helped to secure the foundation of biblical faith in my early faith. Montgomery, now in his 80’s, continues to write and defend the faith, is an intellectual giant of almost superhuman achievement. The holder of eleven (!) earned degrees and the author of over 40 books in three different languages, English, French and Latin. (How?) He is also a powerful debater, quite intimidating, and one that I am glad is on “our” side.
The quote below is from a section of History and Christianity where Montgomery is presenting and examining what some have termed the LORD, LIAR, LUNNATIC argument for the divinity of Christ. The question at hand,
“Does, the New Testament picture of Christ sound like a lunatic or someone who is somehow mentally unstable? Does that option make any sense at all when we examine the character and teaching of Jesus in the New Testament documents?“
“If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene, if you were to combine them and refine them and cleave out the excess verbiage, if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and an incomplete summary of the Sermon on the Mount. And it would suffer immeasurably through comparison.
“For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding in its hands the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearning. Here rests the blueprint for successful human life, with optimum mental health and contentment.”
— A Few Buttons Missing: The Case Book of a Psychiatrist, by J.T. Fisher, M. D., and L.S. Hawley
cited in History and Christianity, by John Warwick Montgomery, 65
The psychologist recommends Christ. To those of us who follow Him, it is no surprise.
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