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Eternity in their Hearts: The Untold Story of Christianity among Folk Religions of Ancient People

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The thesis of this book is that God has prepared the cultures of the world for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This idea may sound bizarre to many people. But since I first read the book about seventeen years ago, I have found confirmation on three levels. First, Scriptural. Richardson's idea of "redemptive analogies" indirectly echoes the teaching of Jesus that he came "to fulfill" rather than to "do away with" the (Jewish) Law, and, more directly, the approach the apostles John and Paul in speaking to Greeks about the divine "Logos," or about altars "to an unknown God." Second, historical. In Augustine's City of God, Christ was preached as a fulfillment of the truest elements in Greco-Roman culture in the early church. This is in fact a large part of "How the West Was Won" to Christ, and a large part of the East, as well.

The third form of confirmation was psychological, from the mouths of skeptics. Humanist Huston Smith complains of Christianity that "If God is a God of love, it seems most unlikely that he would not have revealed himself to his other children as well." Buddhist Thich Naht Hanh agrees: "Sharing does not mean wanting others to abandon their spiritual roots. . . People cannot be happy if they are rootless." Both are quite right, as far as they go. But Richardson shows that God has revealed himself to "all his children" by planting a root for the Gospel within each culture, so when we call people to Christ, we call them to the deepest truths within their own cultures. I remember the first time I visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China, 16 years ago. Who was this "Heaven" whom the Chinese worshiped? Why did the emperor come once a year, just like the high priest in Israel, to sacrifice for the sins of the people? As I stood in the most sacred spot in China, it seemed as if a Voice spoke to my heart. "Do you think I just came to China with the missionaries? No. I have been here all along. I made China."

Many years of research in China confirmed this to me. Among the tribal cultures of southern China and Taiwan, the Polynesians, and China itself, I came across many examples that confirmed Richardson's thesis. Later, I wrote a book called True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture, and spoke around the Pacific Rim on the subject. People in the audience often pointed out further examples of this thesis.

Eternity in Their Hearts has been tremendously influential among missionaries. But I think it is a book that everyone should read, including non-Christians who ask questions like those of Smith and Hahn. Read the book, and pass it on to a friend.

If you are interested in a more philosophical approach to the issue, try Chesterton's Everlasting Man and Orthodoxy. "Redemptive analogies" are also a latent theme of many of C.S.Lewis' books: Surprised by Joy, Mere Christianity, Pilgrims Regress, and most intriguing of all, Till We Have Faces.

I've also just finished writing a book called Jesus and the Religions of Man. The book is not exclusively about redemptive analogies; mainly, it is a general argument for the Christian faith. But if you're interested in learning more about how persistent and coherent the idea of God is in the pagan cultures of the world, you'll find some interesting examples in there. I also give more examples of redemptive analogies that center on the person of Jesus and on his work on the cross. Many of these come from the more civilized cultures of Asia, and also Marxist, psychologist, feminist, and tribal sub-cultures of Western civilization.

d.marshall@sun.ac.jp

Who were the Magi who brought gifts to the Baby Jesus, and how did they know that a Messiah was coming? Who was Melchizedek, the contemporary of Abraham who was a priest of the one high God? Who was the Greek prophets who Paul recognized as having spoken God's words to the Greek people? How did a King in South America before the coming of the Europeans recognize that there was only one true God? For the answers to these and many other questions about people who knew about God before they were ever visited by Christian missionaries or had contact with the people of Israel, read "Eternity in Their Hearts". It is a truly great book. The thesis of the book is simple-- God is the One God of all the earth. He has made himself known to all people in some fashion. He has prepared the way for the message of Christ. When Paul approached an altar to The Unknown God in Athens, he declared that God to be the one true God. Who had built the altar, and what did the builder know? There is now a novel that works with a premise similar to that of "Eternity in Their Hearts". It's about a pagan spiritist who recognizes that there is design in the Universe so he sets out to find the purpose of all things and finds God in the process. The novel is titled "Castle of Wisdom," and it is by an author named Rhett Ellis. It's a great read too.

Excellent study of tribal and ethnic traditions and myths that point to the true God of Creation and His Son the Messiah of Israel. Don Richardson shows stories of people who said that they once knew the true God, but somehow either lost the Book, or lost contact with Him. One tribe said that they were sure that a light-skinned messenger would come someday to tell about the Son of God. So sure were they that they had appointed people to watch for these messengers. This paved the way for the actual missionaries to share Christ with them, which was accepted eagerly. Other examples are people who had lost a Book, and were waiting for someone to restore it to them. One example was recorded in the Bible where Paul preached on Mars Hill to the Greeks about the unknown God. Richardson goes back further to tell about the story of Epimenides and the sacrificing of "dedicated" sheep to ask the "unknown God" to cure the city of a deadly plague, after they had offered atoning sacrifices to all of the gods that they had to no avail.

Very interesting reading. One disappointment is that in the last chapter he promises a book showing the spreading of Christianity in the last 2000 years, and the missionary fervor of the "World's First Bible Belt" (a 7,000-mile one completely encircling the Mediterranean Sea), but I can't find that this book has ever been published. This book leaves you wanting to find out more, so I recommend the author's "Peace Child" and "Lords of the Earth" talking about the people and customers of Dutch New Guinea (Irian Jaya), and how these people came to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

I found this an exciting book because it is filled with numerous historical examples of peoples from diverse cultures the world over whose lives have been blessed by the missionary spread of the Gospel.
If you've ever been challenged, confused or concerned that the Gospel is something exclusively white, European and male that for primarily greedy, arrogant and condescending reasons has been imposed upon other cultures this is a book you may want to read.
I loved it. I've read it several times and found it easy to read and to understand.
The author himself is a missionary. He presents numerous factual examples of what he calls 'redemptive analogies'. These are "hidden keys" within the very fabric of non-European cultures that have wisely been recognized and utilized by many (but of course not all) missionaries over the centuries.
In contrast to seeing the Gospel as something illegitimate and disrespectful imposed upon the unsuspecting, ignorant, gullible and uncivilized 'heathen' the beautiful and respectful truth of God's redeeming love for all humankind is shown to have blessed millions. Have you only heard about the wolves in sheeps clothing? Read this book and hear about some amazing stories of blessings.

This book, carefully documented, is the account of dozens of incredible cases of peoples untouched by the West and Christianity who, whether buried deep within their own religious myths and culture, or by some other way, knew about the God of Heaven as told in the Bible, and sometimes were even waiting for their own copy to arrive! Evidence exists that the Judeo-Christian God reveals Himself to all mankind...enough to surprise missionaries who arrived to tie up some loose ends later on... If you want a challenge to the traditional "man created religion" view, this book is sure to rise to the occasion!

Mr. Richardson does an excellent job of explaining the difference between General and Special Revelation along with explaining how God uses both to spread his Word. The author provides many examples of how God is active in spreading His gospel. It is humbling to realize that God does not "need" man to spread His Word, but rather chooses to share the experience with us.

This book starts out amazingly and goes down from there. But the book starts out amazing. Don begins with earth-shaking insights into the unknown God that Paul preached off on. Learning this background to a fairly well-known story of Paul is worth the book alone. But the first half is an in-depth look at how YHWH, God, has been revealed in cultures from Africa to SE Asia to India to South America, long before European or Middle Eastern Christians arrived. It was a new and enlightening answer to me on why monotheism is so prevalent throughout the world. This book would be a great companion with Peace Child, also by Don Richardson, and Till We Have Faces, by Lewis- a fictional account of how someone can come to YHWH, the Judeo-Christian God, without ever having known Jewish culture or Christianity. It offers hope to see how YHWH is present in Islamic belief systems as well.

The last third of the book is less helpful. It deals with discrediting ideas of evolution by folks like Hitler and Neitzsche, ideas which have largely never been believed by biologists or were long ago discredited. In the process Don repeats a lot of popular but inaccurate misconceptions of evolution, demonstrating some rather poor scholarship. He then moves on to demonstrating that the Bible is a document designed for sending out people. This is certainly a good idea to investigate, and Don does a good job of it, but it is really a different subject from the first half and not tied to it by the author, and it would have been better as a separate book.

However, though the quality at the end is not always the best, I would with all my heart recommend for any reader to pick this up and chew it. If you are Christian, it will show you the presence of YHWH everywhere. If you are Muslim or Jewish, it will show the idea of monotheism is certainly nothing new. And if are not Christian, it will force you to grapple with some very amazing coincidences.

This book is a must-read for every Christian who has a burden for missions. The approach is the one most likely to succeed in opening hearts to the Gospel, to the extent that a human being has any influence over such a task. The basic premise is that God, in His mercy, has permitted every culture in the world to retain a portion of the truth. If the missionary goes into the region searching the culture for its grains of truth, and then affirms that these ideas ARE true, and then presents the Gospel as the REST of the truth, he will be received. The book is heavily documented with specific examples. It will hearten anyone who agonizes over the question of God's justice in regard to people who have never heard the Gospel, and demolish the idea that God is unjust for condemning people to eternal hellfire because of their ignorance.

Eternity in their hearts gave me insights into my own Bible and answered questions I dared not ask in college for fear of breaching topics my professors never tapped into - namely, what about those who have "never heard." This book lends incredible weight to the reasons why those people are "without excuse." I work in China, and so I found those passages in the book especially interesting that dealt with Chinese history and culture, but even more interesting was the fact that just such evidence of God that exists in all cultures was the hammer-stroke that confirmed that all peoples do have access to God, and that He has not left Himself without witness. Overall, it is very compelling evidence. In talking with a skeptic of the reality of God, I came across this book, devoured it in a day and a half, and felt empowered to answer his questions like: "Why would a loving God send people to hell if they have never heard?" "How do you know God is not just an invention of the mind?" "How can you discount the validity of all the other religions of the world?" Dr. Richardson explores these issues, though lightly, and sent me on my own path of research for more information and discovery of how God was working with Chinese people since the beginning of time. Eternity in their hearts, may not answer every hard question, but it certainly gave me a direction to begin to look for answers. If truth is what you are really seeking, it will do the same for you.

Great book. This book pulls the rug out from under atheist college professors who falsely teach unsuspecting students that Christianity sprang from ancient pagan religions. Excellent and well written.