<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Dick Donovan </div></div><br>I know that this is a very busy time of year, and you are struggling to keep up.<br><br>However, I'll draw your attention to a Wall Street Journal article, "The Easter Effect and How It Changed the World." It attributes the rapid growth of the Christian church to confidence in Jesus' resurrection (and their own eventual resurrection).<br><br>You will find it on the first page of the Saturday, March 31, Review section of the WSJ. Your library will almost certainly have a copy.<br><br>Here's a link to the article online, which you might or might not be able to access:<br>https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-easter-effect-and-how-it-changed-the-world-1522418701?emailToken=20da7be9b530d4450a9d3f65c1c18a79WiVB5pKJiJvJrM0iFwMXDBVMp1Ed82UwnxOweDOuxu%2B8VeIuPTGfNubKUBFPCJlGs6y78kkeuqmMy6FGngN07tU6YOrut%2B7T1ZOa4wNAqCs%3D<br><br>I don't feel at liberty to copy the article to you, but the following quote will give you an idea:<br><br>"How did a ragtag band of nobodies from the far edges of the Mediterranean world become such a dominant force in just two and a half centuries? ....<br><br>"What happened to them was the Easter Effect.<br><br>"There is no accounting for the rise of Christianity without weighing the revolutionary effect on those nobodies of what they called �the Resurrection�.... As N.T. Wright, ...makes clear, that first generation answered the question of why they were Christians with a straightforward answer: because Jesus was raised from the dead."<br><br>The article goes on to give other reasons that contributed to the rise of Christianity--and they are all true. However, none of them would have been sufficient, except for the resurrection.<br><br>Dick Donovan<br>SermonWriter</body></html>