Ismael Rammal
"When I became a teenager, I began to doubt the importance of religion in general, and I did not believe that God was real. I figured that religion was no more than a way for powerful people to control the minds of the masses. I believed it to be no more than a cynical plot to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do. I rejected the idea of God, and became a die-hard acolyte of the Dawkins Revolution. This, unfortunately, led me to be a materialist. I was lost, unable to truly understand the world around me. Human existence seemed futile to me. I believed that we were all just purposeless bags of flesh wandering the Earth with no real reason to be, or at the very least, any reason for meaning. Human relationships and engagements were nothing more than chemical reactions and synapse firings in the brain. And when we would die, our bodies would return to the Earth to be decomposed by maggots, and our souls would dissipate into thin air, if they even existed in the first place. Needless to say, this made me quite depressed.
"It was only until 2016, at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, when I, at the age of 24, began to realize that the arguments against the existence of God weren’t working anymore. Why? Until then, the musings of George Carlin and Bill Maher made so much sense to me. I had all but absorbed the teachings of liberal secularism, and used them to explain the world of morality. However, I discovered that liberal secularism could never clearly define the foundation of morality in the Western world. This ideology, which was and is still pushed by popular culture, could not connect me to a deeper understanding of the world that satisfied the argument that human beings should be moral. It was an ideology that had filled me with so much despair and apathy for my life. Thus, I began to turn away from the vain and destructive ideas of materialism, and searched for some other idea, a logos, that animated people to create the civilization that we live in today.
"Only a short time later, I met Scott. He caught my eye, while he was doing some open-air preaching at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, right outside the University Center. I sat on a bench and listened, curious and attentive. He had noticed me watching, and struck a conversation with me afterwards. I had explained to him my interest in his preaching, and he invited me to study the Bible with him on certain days of the week. I accepted his offer, motivated by my thirst for new knowledge and an answer to my questions about moral foundations that liberal secularism, atheism, and materialism simply could not answer. Questions such as: “Can society rationalize its way to the concept of Human Rights?” We studied the Book of Mark, and he quickly became a good friend and mentor.
"Since then, after watching many debates on religion featuring people like Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris, listening to educational podcasts, and being in sporadic yet consistent communication with Scott, I am convinced, and strongly believe, that God is implicit in Western Civilization. In order for one to believe that we, as law-abiding people, deserve equal treatment under the law, we must first accept the crucial, foundational axiom that we are all made in God’s image. To me, it is impossible to rationalize the concept of human rights except to imply the existence of God. I have broken free from the hollow mindset that accompanies atheism, the hopeless and fatalist doctrines of materialism, and the downright depressing conclusions of liberal secularism.
"By July of 2024, not only did I believe that both God and religion were vital in the creation of Western Civilization, but that Christianity itself is like the central logic that holds it all together. One day, in August, Scott invited me to attend Redeemer Presbyterian Church with him. I thank God every day that he asked me, for this simple invitation would change my life forever.
"I had never been to church. I was nervous about standing up and singing with the room. And so, for the first few weeks, I wouldn’t sing. I didn’t know the melodies, anyhow. However, as the weeks went by, and as I experienced this celebration of life and Christ in the church, a feeling stirred within me. Being in a big room filled with so many like-minded individuals praising God and expressing a kind of joy I had never seen made me feel a kind of joy in myself.
"I was pleasantly surprised to discover just how relevant the Bible is to our lives. If the lives of Jacob and Judah as written in Genesis are true, then that is not only an accurate reflection of the kind of world we live in today, but a grand lesson in how one can become a better person after living a life full of brokenness and deceit. I learned from 1 Corinthians the importance of exposing those who engage in immoral acts within the church and expelling them. Not out of hatred or punishment should we reject those who sin openly and unapologetically, but out of love, so that they may confront and rid their wrongdoings and return to the church with a cleaner spirit, and out of mercy for the other members of the church, who may become influenced by such behavior. Every sermon at Redeemer seemed to fill my heart with content, my head with wisdom, and my spirit with joy. God was revealing His heart to me through the Bible, and could feel the Holy Spirit moving in me as I read from it.
"In the end, everything finally made sense to me. The answer to all of the questions that plagued my mind like a haze years ago, and the spiritual malaise that crippled my soul for my entire life was, inevitably, the Triune God. And, on the morning of the first of December, 2024, I decided to officially reject the false idols of this world and give my life to Christ, my Lord and Savior. Praise be to God!