Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary

by Kenneth W. Daniels

Though I was long troubled by many aspects of the Bible and the Christian faith, I could not find a more reasonable alternative. Islam, as I perceived it, seemed violent and (apart from Sufism) lacked the Christian emphasis on a relationship of love between God and humanity; Hinduism was polytheistic and far-fetched; Buddhism was distant and culturally alien and lacked the concept of a transcendent god with a will; Mormonism was historically shaky; Jehovah's Witnesses had falsely prophesied Jesus' return in the early twentieth century; deism lacked any anchor or way of knowing God's will; and atheism could not account for the origin of the universe, life, or human consciousness and morality. In short, though Christianity had its difficulties, it was less difficult than the alternatives, all of which were fatally flawed. There was simply nothing better than Christianity.