REV DAVID FAREY: There's considerable proof that Jesus existed

The Church has been talking about the need to evangelise and the Church of England is launching new digital media resources to reach out to the younger generation. But is it too little, too late?

We are now several generations down a slippery slope which does not acknowledge God and Jesus. I

s it all Darwin’s fault who undermined the Church with his studies on evolution?

The belief in the creator God was shaken and the backbone of practice of the Christian faith began to erode.

I personally have no problem with evolution and can still believe that God is the ultimate source of life.

Even scientific beliefs like those expressed by Hawking in his famous Brief History of Time, which I have just reread acknowledges that the behaviour of particles breaks down at the Big Bang and there is still a great unknown about how the universe came into being.

It’s not unknown if you have faith in God! There’s not such a wide gulf between science and religion.

But we have had generations who have questioned the existence of God and the claims of Jesus. Whilst our culture is built on a Christian foundation the beliefs of society are a long way from there now.

As a result we have significant groups of people who cannot even accept the existence of a man for whom there is considerable historic proof that they existed.

Of course grasping the claims of being Son of God and his act of salvation for the whole human race by dying on the cross is another ball game.

But if people don’t even believe he existed we have got a long, long way to go!

So every year churches offer refreshers often at this time of year.

Lent is a good time as it fills that gap between the joy of Christmas and prepares us for what the Easter story is actually all about.

Churches have groups meeting in houses and often follow a course of some kind.

In our church at Hellingly we have four groups following a Christianity Explored course which helps to cover the basics in an entertaining and informative way.

So as best as we can we are trying to help people to understand a bit more about what Christianity is all about.

It’s only when people are open to learn that there is any sort of a chance of stopping the slippery slide down into total ignorance!