I saw this link below in my Facebook feed, and was curious. Ravi Zacharias is brilliant. Like many from his generation however, he responded to a truly “postmodern” question with a truly “modern” answer. The room applauded in satisfaction.
I did not applaud, nor did, I think, the young man asking the question. It was not the balm this young man or millions like him seek.
Ravi’s answer was good, just not fitting to the question behind the young man’s question.
The young man was asking why God in Christ was as not clearly evident (the Hiddenness of God question) to the Olmecs, or Mayans, or other cultures in history.
There are good answers I believe, wrapped in great mystery; unfortunately, Ravi’s was not one of them. At least, it didn’t cover the kind of ground that sit’s behind the question. It roused the room, but was unsatisfying to any thinker in the room.
My fear is this; the “moderns” will soon pass away, who answer questions like this in a devotional, evangelistic manner, while a generation hungers for a more macrocosmic, anthropological answer. A satisfying answer does not just hinge on your encounter with Christ or mine. I stay in the game because of those encounters, and they are one of the answers, but they are not the only default answer.
Mind you, Ravi is brilliant, and this was moving, but the young man’s question was not satisfactorily answered. I am slowly formulating my own.
There is a more compelling answer lingering in our present and future.
Ravi Zacharias answers young man’s question on the “Hiddenness” of God.
