The more lies that we’re exposed to, the more difficult it is to believe anything. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes probably told herself that it was just a matter of fake ‘til you make it, but the false claims that she made about revolutionizing blood testing had billion-dollar implications. Bernie Madoff convinced people that he was worth trusting, but his Ponzi scheme robbed investors of $20 billion and earned him a 150-year prison sentence. The Fyre Festival, the Tinder Swindler, and Anna Delvey, the Sinfluencer of Soho, have all put the spotlight on people’s capacity to perpetrate fraud and lie if it’s to their advantage. Could that be how Christianity’s claims of miracles and a Messiah were first spread? Did Jesus and His disciples set up a Ponzi scheme and lie their way to religious prominence? There was a time when I would have thought so, but Watergate convinced me otherwise.

Chuck Colson was once known as Nixon’s “hatchet man” and one of the “Watergate Seven.” He was convicted in 1974 for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglaries and went on to serve time in federal prison. As his arrest was pending, Colson visited Tom Phillips, a friend whose life had seemed to change since becoming a Christian. As they talked about what had happened, Phillips read to him a portion of C. S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, that dealt with the sin of pride. Colson recalled later, “A proud man is always walking through life looking down on other people and other things. As a result, he cannot see something above himself immeasurably superior – God.” Colson tried to act cool as he listened. He was, after all, a former marine captain and notorious White House tough guy. But afterward, he said this: “When I got in the car that night, I couldn’t drive it out of the driveway … I was crying too hard, calling out to God. I didn’t know what to say; I just knew I needed Jesus, and He came into my life.” Colson’s conversion was remarkable as was the way that he committed the rest of his life to prison reform and ministering to prisoners by proclaiming hope and putting in place structures that affirm their dignity and provide for their restoration. But it wasn’t the story of how he came to faith that changed how I saw Jesus and His followers.

Colson reflected on how he and his colleagues in Nixon’s inner circle responded to the Watergate cover-up. He said, “Here were the 10 most powerful men in the United States. With all that power, and we couldn’t contain a lie for two weeks.” Now, to clarify, they could contain a lie as long as it was in their best interest to do so. Elizabeth Holmes could contain a lie as long as it made her successful and Bernie Madoff could contain a lie as long as it made him rich. But what Colson was saying was that as soon as there was a hint that holding to the lie might adversely affect them, Nixon’s aides were tripping over themselves to get their story out and so reduce their liability. Applying his experience in Watergate to suggestions that Jesus’ resurrection was a fraud deliberately spread by Jesus’ disciples, Colson said this. “Take it from one who was involved in a conspiracy, who saw the frailty of man firsthand, there is no way the 11 apostles, who were with Jesus at the time of the resurrection, could have ever gone around for 40 years proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection unless it were true. … The apostles would have sold out to save their skins.”

This doesn’t deal with all of the objections. The disciples could, of course, have been sincerely wrong. But the fact that they endured persecution, imprisonment, and death, all the while declaring that Jesus Christ died and rose from the grave makes it very difficult to believe that they were just spreading a lie. Who would continue to lie about something that cost them so much and gained them so little? And if they are credible witnesses of such a remarkable event, don’t they deserve to be heard?

If this is new to you and you think it’s something you’d like to explore, I’ve written a free 12-week course called The Unstuck Life that walks you through the essentials of Jesus’ teachings in daily bite-sized messages that you can read or watch by video. To learn more, go to www.gracebc.ca/getunstuck.

May God guide you as you seek the truth!

In awe of Him,

Paul