Unique Jesus

Happened to stumble across Ravi Zacharias' book "Jesus among other Gods" while we were visiting Shoba (Tara's cousin) and Vikram's place in Pittsburgh, PA. I pocketed it and brought it along home!

I got introduced to the field of Christian apologetics (Wikipedia definition - Christian apologetics is a field of Christian theology that presents a rational basis for the Christian faith, to defend the faith against objections and misrepresentation, and to expose error within other religions and world views.) via this book which i found fascinating because i didn't know that such a field existed! It certainly is a good-read and handbook for those Christians who tend to think about their faith in rational/scientific ways.

Ravi Zacharias, a leading Christian apologist of our times, beautifully brings out the uniqueness of Jesus among other prophets/religious persons (Buddha, prophet Mohammad) and the uniqueness and truth of Christianity among other religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam) in the various chapters of the book. The author's arguments for Christianity are well-balanced and convincing (to me at least). I found the tone used by the author when critiquing other religions and their leaders very respectful and felt an instant respect for the author. In essence, he makes the point that all religions, plainly and simply, cannot be true. He passionately presents the Passion of Christ as the one truth to be embraced by one and all.

It was particularly interesting for me to read the well-constructed argument against Hinduism's concept of pantheism. Pantheism has been a fascinating topic for me all along and in my limited readings had never read about anyone arguing against it.

Having read Stephen Hawking's "The Grand Design" recently, in which scientists' quest to find the nature of reality thru mathematical equations and their efforts to arrive at a "theory of everything" are explained in great detail, the following lines of Ravi Zacharias jumped out at me:

"Jesus reversed the process. He told us that the only way we could understand who we are is to cast our gaze not on the equation that binds it all together, but on the relationship toward which we move in the sum total of our being. It is the assemblage of an object that gives it its purpose, not the reduction of it. In the words of Jesus to Nathanael, our amazement will know no bounds when we understand all that the realm of God's existence means."

I finished reading the book and decided to place it on top of "The Grand Design"!