Still the majority of people, ninety-nine percent, are not bothered by the question. How can they be bothered? They easily find consolation from the dead past. To them it is not a dead past.

I have told you about Bishop Jenkins of England who declared that there was no resurrection, that it is a myth; that there was no virgin birth, it is an absolute lie, and that there is no need for anybody to believe in all these mythologies to become a Christian. Of course, there he is not right because he says, “I don’t need all these things – I can still believe in God.” I can’t see what reason he can give for his faith in God.

Christians were not fools to go on believing in absurdities for two thousand years. The reason was, without those absurdities, you cannot support God the ultimate absurdity. Now, it is like taking your legs and your hands and your head and everything away and saying I still believe in you. Nothing is left behind.

All the theologians, from Thomas Aquinas to any modern preacher, understand perfectly well that God needs support.

Every lie needs support.

Only truth can stand on its own feet.

The lie cannot stand on its own feet. It needs borrowed legs, a borrowed head, a borrowed heart – everything borrowed. If you go on taking things away piece by piece, and then you say in the end that all these things are not needed, that you still have faith in God…. So for a Christian, according to Jenkins, these things should not be required as a fundamental part of Christianity. I don’t know whom he is befooling. Certainly he is befooling himself, because these are the supports, and if you have taken all the supports, the house will fall down. And he has not given a single reason now for faith in God.

But I have remembered him again today because a few days ago lightning struck one of the most beautiful cathedrals in England, York, and almost the majority of the masses believe that it is not a coincidence: it is God punishing the church for installing a man like Jenkins as a bishop. He was the fourth in the hierarchy; he had just to pass two people to become the archbishop of England. And it would not have been difficult to pass these two people. Life is so full of accidents – they may die or something – one can always hope. And he was not so far away, just close.

But all over England now, it is believed that God has punished the church. But this is a strange God, and a strange punishment, because Jenkins was not the bishop of this cathedral. This is strange. Jenkins was two hundred miles away. Your God is such a great shot – he missed him by two hundred miles! A master archer.

And what has the cathedral of York to do with Jenkins’ statement? Lightning should be on Jenkins or on the cathedral or church where he was the bishop, or on the archbishop of Canterbury because he had appointed him. But this cathedral in York is in no way connected.