Download Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias In these days of

Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias
Editor's note: Here is the first of a series of reviews based on books that are available now in the new
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Library. See also the Top-10 Countdown of Reasons to Love Our Library on this page.
In these days of darkness and doubt, when so many so-called “cradle Catholics” have “cut the
nerve of spirituality at the neck, so that it never filters down to the heart, hands, and feet,” (1) I
wondered why a “cradle Hindu” by the name of Ravi Zacharias would write a book called Jesus
Among Other Gods. I found out that this totally readable and accessible volume cuts to the chase, not
only about how the Creator is viewed by the four major religions, but also how Jesus the Christ stands
alone by nature of the Creator-driven, and therefore perfect, fusion of His divinity and humanity. As a
leading apologist for the Christian faith, Zacharias stands up to the international encroachment of
atheism, hedonism, minimalism, and materialism, stating that “our world has strayed so far
from God's will for us that we have made ourselves wretched by measuring ourselves in terms of race
or power or progress or learning...(a)ll of the privileges of birth and possession become destructive
when they are unhinged from our Creator's moorings.” (2)
The author shakes his head over his birth religion, Hinduism, with its pantheon of so-called
gods that has aggregated over the centuries to around 30,000 entities, thus making the whole idea of
“god” somewhat meaningless. He relates that even Hindu scholars are “embarrassed” by the sexual
exploits of one of their major gods, Krishna. In considering how Buddha stacks up as a god, Zacharias
points out that Buddha endured rebirths, implying that he lived “a series of imperfect lives” in
search of the answers to life's mysteries. Jesus came to us knowing all the answers, because as God
himself, He shared the mind of the Father-Creator. The great rallying cry of Islam may be “there is no
god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet”, but apparently Islam could have used a few more
prophets. Without successive prophets, as the Hebrews had, to continue bringing the Muslim faithful
back to the tenets of their faith, Islam degenerated after the merely mortal Muhammad died, eventually
developing the “death to the Infidels” mind-set of violence that we know and not love today.
Zacharias readily admits that “(o)f all the enterprises in which the human heart engages, none
lends itself more to abuse and manipulation than the activities of religion...(i)t is a tragedy that the
history of religion, Christianity included, is filled with so much abuse that skeptics are very often
justified in their 'rational rejection' of the message.” (3) It is the “message” which Zacharias exhorts us
all to find and adhere to, at the same time pulling away from the pursuit of power, wealth, nationalism,
and hedonism, in which the “allurement is great, and the disappointments are proportionate.”(4)
Of all the world's religions, only Christianity, with its message based on the two Greatest
Commandments as outlined by Our Lord, flows through the world like a spiritual Gulf Stream,
bringing the warmth of God's love to everyone who is willing to bathe and bask in its purifying
baptismal waters.
(1) Zacharias, Ravi, Jesus Among Other Gods, W. Publishing Group, c 2000, 188 pages, pg. 52.
(2) Ibid, pg. 43.
(3) Ibid, pg. 51.
(4) Ibid, pg. 43.