There’s a saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. With Christmas just around the corner some of us will soon be putting that saying into practice. The truth is that there are Christmas puddings and there are Christmas puddings. Some will be a sheer delight to eat but others we’ll probably eat just to avoid someone being disappointed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Of course this proverb wasn’t concerned merely with Christmas puddings. The idea that this proverb brings home is that the real value of something can be judged only from practical experience or by its results – and not merely from appearances or theory.
There’s a sense in which that also holds true for religion. It’s been fashionable among some outspoken atheists to say that religion is bad for us. They point to the world’s long history with wars and claim that most of them were driven by religious ideologies. In 2007 the late British-American author, Christopher Hitchens, wrote a book with the title, “God is not great”. In that book Hitchens makes a case against organised religion. The claim is often made these days that in a modern scientific world we don’t need religion. What people forget is that there is good religion and bad religion – just as there is good science and bad science. Religion, like so many other spheres of life has its lunatic fringe that gives religion a bad name. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Jesus once said something similar. He was responding to people who make false claims of religious truth. He may even have been reacting to some on the lunatic fringe. He said, “By their fruit you will know them.” The words are found in Christ’s Sermon On The Mount: “Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? … Every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus by their fruit you will recognise them.”
Jesus might as well have said: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When a religion causes murder and mayhem then we should question whether it’s a good religion. But when a religion builds hospitals and schools then we should be careful about dismissing such religion.
Recently I attended a missions conference on behalf of an organisation that I represented there, Crossroads Prison Ministry. Crossroads arranges Bible studies for people who are incarcerated. We are constantly hearing stories of people whose lives have been changed as they have come to understand the good news about the Lord Jesus Christ. One particular story drove home to me the truth that Jesus spoke about: by their fruit you will know them.
The prisoner attending the chapel service was somewhere around 50-years old. He was a hardened criminal who had spent some 30 years of his 50 years in jail. The prison chaplain confided that he was in for armed robbery. But then an amazing story came out. The man had begun to do Bible lessons with Crossroads. He came to the point where he understood that Jesus had died for his sins on the cross on Good Friday. The change was profound. Soon afterwards he phoned his lawyer to tell him to inform the police that he wanted to own up to several other unsolved armed-robberies. His lawyer told him he was crazy. The prisoner insisted and told him that he had become a Christian and wanted put his conscience to rest. His lawyer hung up on him. Well, that didn’t stop the man. He phoned the police himself and they came to the jail to take his statement. The upshot was that the man had another 11 years added to his sentence – thankfully, to be served concurrently due to his confession. When the chaplain asked him how he felt at being handed another 11 year sentence he remarked that he felt wonderful that at last his conscience had been set free.
Here was a man who embraced the Christian faith. Was his religion genuine? Absolutely! The proof of the pudding was in the eating. Or as Jesus put it: By their fruit you will know them.
John Westendorp