Question:

If the Bible/Christianity is so obviously the truth and the correct
religion, why isn’t the whole world Christian by now? Or, why aren’t
there more articles in the newspaper or more things on TV about it? I
mean, when the whole thing with DNA was figured out, most people knew
within …a few years??

Answer:

There is a reason that not everyone is a follower of Jesus, and that
reason has nothing to do with the evidence. The reason people do not come
to believe in Christ is one of the three:

1. They do not know of him,

2. They do not understand him, or

3. They are not willing to accept his message.

The first reason has become fairly rare in the modern world. There
are very few people left who have not at least heard of Jesus, and are not
aware that he is an important religious leader.

The second cause of lack of belief in Jesus is that many are not
aware of the true Jesus and of the evidence for him. It may well be
obvious that Jesus is who he claimed to be, based on the evidence of his
miracles, fulfilled prophecies, etc…. However, it is true that a lot of
people have been totally misinformed about Jesus. A lot of people have
been exposed to lies and distortions as well as a lot of really bad human
examples of people who ought to represent Jesus to the world. Bottom
line, a great number of people have not been exposed to the real Jesus and
the evidence for him. If something is true, but people in general are not
aware of the evidence that it is true, it should not be surprising that
many do not believe in that thing, even if the evidence is overwhelming.
It is true that I am a chemistry professor, but most people do not know
it. Most people do not believe I am a chemistry professor. Just because
something is obvious and convincing, based on the evidence does not mean
that everyone has been exposed to that evidence.

There is a third reason many do not accept faith in Jesus. This
group may very well be the largest group, but I have not studied the
question carefully. This is the group who are well aware, or at least
sufficiently well aware of who Jesus is and the evidence for the Bible and
for the deity of Christ, but who are unwilling to accept the implications.
If Jesus is Lord and master, then I am his servant. If what Jesus said
is true, then I am in trouble over my sin and need to repent of that sin.
For a great number of people, the requirement of Jesus that we repent of
our sins and turn our life over to him is sufficient reason to not be a
Christian. What a great number of people do about this fact is that they
choose not to believe. To believe is to necessitate change. We
rationalize our unbelief. The way Paul puts it in Romans 1:18,19 many,
because of their unrighteousness, “suppress the truth, since what can be
known about God is evident…” The way Jesus put it, “This, then, is the
judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness
rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” The people in
Jesus’ day had plenty of reason to believe in Jesus. The resurrection of
Lazarus spoke for itself. Yet, many refuse to come into the light. What
these people end up doing is they find a way to rationalize away belief in
Jesus. They manufacture logical arguments, twist or ignore data to
justify not believing in Jesus. I have read a great number of books by
skeptics and critics of Christianity. Most of their arguments are so
obviously false as to be silly, yet these writers are convinced of their
arguments. It is my experience that what people believe has more to do
with emotion than evidence. When belief in something challenges our
security, our pride, our desire to seek pleasure, we are more than willing
to conveniently ignore the evidence and to construct a belief in something
that is not true. I believe that if you think about it, you will be able
to think of many personal situations of people you know who blatantly
ignore obvious truth because they cannot handle the implications.

So, there are a variety of reasons people do not believe. One thing
for sure, it is not for lack of evidence or due to lack of time for the
evidence to have gotten around. Our job as believers is to try to help
all three groups of non-believers to come into the light through our
personal example and careful instruction.

The reason you do not see the evidence for Christ on TV or in the
media in general is that Satan and non-believers in general have control
of the media. The reason information about DNA has spread whereas the
gospel has not is that people, in general, do not have an emotional reason
to reject belief in DNA.

John Oakes