Bøker av Phil Hinsley

A hundred years ago most people were familiar with the characters and stories contained in the Bible. Today, 2023, the opposite is true. Due to the freedom from social pressure to conform to church attendance a great number of people have little or no interest in those stories and events recorded so long ago in the pages of the Bible. That collection of books has lost credibility, justifiably so, for the majority, who see it as an irrelevancy to today's pressing needs. There is even a natural reluctance to read anything that is connected with the Bible, so if you want to go against a natural reaction be prepared for some surprises and perhaps some new understanding because the Bible is not the irrelevant and anachronistic book that so many people think it is.

The long history of Christianity is, to a large degree, a dark and bloody account of coercion, violence and persecution. That began early by the religious zealot Saul, who became the apostle Paul. But later, as antisemitism grew, the state supported church became the persecutor. The unseen force that directed leaders into sentencing people to death as heretics and rejecting teaching that they labelled Jewish turned the church into something very different from the way it started. The god of the age is very real and is still with us. He is God's enemy and is an accuser and a slanderer. His influence will end soon.

The history of Christianity should have been written as a slow and steady growth that spread to villages, towns and cities until one country after another became Christian and the world would be a place of peace and all wars would cease. But that never happened. Wars, disasters, famines and crime are still with us and there is no peace on earth, no matter how many Christmases we have or large revivals we plan. What did Jesus say would happen to his disciples? Why is the world the way it is? And what is to come?