RZIM

I just attended a three-day apologetics conference this weekend, titled, “What does it mean to be human,” organized by Ravi Zacharias International Ministry (RZIM). The sessions I attended explored how Christianity is fundamental to our understanding of the human nature and subsequently, human rights. Without Christianity, there is no value in humans, and human rights would be non-existent. I really appreciated the fact that even though it was an apologetics conference meant to be intellectual and thought-provoking, each speaker always brought the issues back to the gospel. They had an outreach night open to the public and they made an effort to reach out to the non-believers and made altar calls. They kept the main thing the main thing.

Here are some of the things I learned and reflected upon:

One thing that makes the Christian worldview unique is the fact that humans have intrinsic worth and reflective glory of God. This intrinsic worth comes from the fact that we are created entities; we were not created by chance. There is a higher power that valued us. And God created us in a way that was reflective of His image. Because we are created in His image, we have intrinsic worth. We are beautiful because we reflect God’s glory.

I always struggled to understand my intrinsic value because we are often taught that we are valued based on external things.  Or it just seemed like a selfish notion in the Chinese culture, for some reason.  It is even harder to convince someone who had no hope in life and wanted to end his/her live. I remembered telling my client with mental illness that that he had inherent worth as a person, and that was why he should try to live and there was hope.  But I could not explain where this inherent worth came from—not without the gospel.

Many philosophers have tried to understand where our worth and dignity as humans came from. They came up with three conclusions: human agency (the ability to make decisions), human capability, and human rationality. But this definition will inevitably exclude those with dementia or mentally incapable. How should I treat the schizophrenia patients who had little emotional responses, and had little motivation to and pleasure from engaging in social activities?

But the gospel empowered us to love everyone because we are serving God by serving the most insignificant person, as we are all made in God’s image. This is a good enough reason. And every good that we see in people is a reflection of God’s goodness.

Another thought I had was the deep spiritual need of our generation in the post-Modernism era. Ravi Zacharias said that there is no truth, no meaning, and no certainty in this post-Modern world. Interestingly though, there has be a wealth of research on meditation and mindfulness in psychology. Connecting to our present feelings and body, accepting them as they are, will improve our mental health. In fact, meditation will change your brain. What an interesting coincidence that the therapy literature used to focus on behavioralism and conditioning (very concrete concepts), but now has a huge focus on mindfulness (a much more elusive concept). This speaks to our deep spiritual need…