Charles Templeton died today. You might not know who he is, but in the 1940s, he was a very well-known evangelist and a close friend of Billy Graham. Eventually he went on to become a respected journalist and writer here in Canada. What happened to the evangelist? Well, he lost his faith. He even wrote a book a few years back called “Farewell to God.” I picked it up and found his reasons for rejecting Christianity a little bit silly, to be honest, but the man certainly must have gone through a lot of personal turmoil to come to his decision of unbelief. Ironically, if Charles Templeton still exists somewhere, he knows more than he ever did about God.
14 thoughts on “Charles Templeton”
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What’s this? C. Templeton still exists somewhere? May I ask you a question? Are you concerned about the fact that you did not exist before you were born? No? Then why can’t you accept the fact that you will no longer exist after you die?
Messages from 12 Journalists representing 120 World Journalists
The following was received by Kim Young-soon at Asan Campus on 14 May 2002. Dr Lee Sang-hun in the spirit world described this as an “on-the-spot report from the spirit world seminar.” He explained that the theme was “The Divine Principle and Unification Thought are the New Gospel of Peace for all Humankind: The Messiah appears in the New Millennium.”
8. Charles Templeton 1915-2001. Died at age 85. Canada’s legendary newspaper and magazine reporter. CTV News director. Received two ACTRA awards and the B’nai Brith award in 1967. As a young man, he quickly rose to the top of protestant evangelism together with his close friend Billy Graham in the 1940s, but later went to the seminary and came out an agnostic. In 1995, he published a book entitled “Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.”
“I am inspired by the greatness of the Divine Principle in its ability to unite the Four Great Saints as one.”
There seems to be no accepted theory as to the world of the human soul. I, Charles Templeton, am now sending a message from the heavenly world, that is, the world after death. It would give me utmost pleasure if this message were to aid people on earth in improving their understanding of the world after death.
I am now in the Divine Principle lecture facility in the heavenly world. I will report to you on the unique life and incidents here. In the earthly world, there are many religions and denominations, and sometimes there is confrontation and friction among these. Here, though, there is no such thing. What is particularly surprising is that the Four Great Saints of the four major religions – Christianity (Jesus), Confucianism (Confucius), Buddhism (Buddha) and Islam (Mohammed) – are together here. I don’t know if I will ever have another opportunity here to meet such great saints. Despite my humble position, I ventured to ask them, “What is it that made you one?”
Jesus answered me, saying, “The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the Savior, Messiah and True Parent of humankind. So it is only natural for us to accept the philosophy and guidance of the Messiah. I, Jesus, was the Messiah of the New Testament Age, but the Messiah of the Completed Testament Age is the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Yet my mission and his mission from the viewpoint of God’s will, are one and the same.” I still do not understand the meaning of Jesus’ words. I do know that most of what the saints said is the same as what Jesus said.
Confucius said, “God is the vertical True Parent of humankind, and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the horizontal True Parent. Also, all people belong to one brotherhood and sisterhood. The Divine Principle has made this clear from many aspects. All people, without exception, must become one with one another centering on the True Parents.” I do not understand what Confucius meant when he referred to vertical and horizontal True Parents.
Buddha answered me, saying, “Until now, the teachings of Buddhism were very vague on the fundamental reason for God’s creation of the universe. Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Messiah of humankind, has now taught us this through the Divine Principle. He has also taught us clearly about what human beings are and about human life. It should not be strange at all that we have become one with each other through the new truth.” Buddha’s reply made me feel that I had asked a very obvious question.
Mohammed spoke to me as follows: “The Divine Principle makes it completely clear that Allah (the absolute God of Islam) and God (the absolute God of Christianity) are one substantial Being. So the teachings of Christianity and those of Islam are fundamentally one. The teaching with the greater realistic meaning is that which says that God is the Parent of humankind, and that all human beings are His children.Also, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the Savior, Messiah and True Parent of humankind. With the appearance of this new truth, we can but only move toward oneness. We always belonged to one brotherhood and one sisterhood, but we did not know this until now, and this is the reason so many religious bodies and denominations came into being. We have all become one in God’s love and truth. Now that we have done so and experienced resulting peace and happiness, we wonder why we were not able to do this before. The earthly world must become one, too, in the same way as the heavenly world. We human beings can become one only when we live in attendance of the True Parents.”
In any case, these were their answers. I have yet to grasp the true meaning of their statements. I am merely reporting to you their replies as they gave them. They were all very gentle and humble. More than anything else, it was the Divine Principle that brought them together as one. I would like to emulate their character. I hope this will be of assistance to your lives in the earthly world.
Charles Templeton, 16 May 2002
It always amazes me how violently non-believers react to Christianity. Would one be so vehement toward believers in say, black holes or cosmic dust? The violence I think rises from desire and fear. The soul desperately wants there to be more than life seems to offer; at the same time, it is so frightened there might not be anything more or that it might not be able to access and experience that fulfillment of desire that it reacts in anger. The depth of the anger, its viciousness, reveals the desperate hunger of the soul. Greed for what the believer has and the unbeliever has not inspires open hatred in the less polished population and a pseudo intellectual boredom in the so called elite. Not to worry, God does not cease to exist because of unbelief; He is unchangingly available even to the most ardent of unbelievers.
The story of Charles Templeton is a tragedy. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. He lost faith because he refused the authority of the Holy Scriptures.
Mr.Templeton certainly does not speak with any more validity in his death than he did in his life.
Spiritualistic hocus pocus from the lunatic fringe conributes as much soul damning influence as did the apostasy and rebellion of Mr. Templeton.
Amen, Judith and Michael. God’s peace to you and all who submit to the Savior of the world, Jesus the Christ, as He is presented to us in the inerrant Word of God (The Holy Bible).
The life of Charles Templeton is a very sad, tragic story of human fraility. Humanity is forever trying to be like God and to know everything. We lose tract of the true meaning of FAITH. Charles Templeton in trying to know everything about God (and therefore be like God), lost tract of what he did know. Very sad
I hope that we (believers) will pray mightily for all of those struggling with their faith and exhort and encourage those who have questions. That we might rightly divide the Word of Truth. Knowing that Satan, the deceiver, roams about seeking to kill, steal and destroy; but Glory be to God – Jesus has come to give life and life abundant. I pray right now that the Holy Spirit will come and bring illumination to the seekers of Truth. AMEN
You can debate if the Bible and Christianity is real all your life. There are alot of dark corners in life and often we find ourselves in them. Sometimes by means we never brought on ourselves. However despite the world’s sufferings and the history of poor moves by the Church, the bottom line is that the Bible and following Christ is all about changing lives. Now how much of yourself are you willing to give up? No matter what science or our natural born view of the world reveals to us. The number one reason people often react with passion against Christ is because he’s asking them to give up something, theirselves.
Good thing we don’t put our trust in man. “Follow me as I follow Christ’
I ran across the name of Charles Templeton today, a man I never heard of, probably because he was mostly famous in Canada. A fascinating life, all the more interesting because he was able to abandon the evil of christianity in spite of having so much invested in it. Millions of people call themselves “christians” because they are still desperate to believe in something larger than themselves. There may indeed be something, but it is certainly not the depraved deity of the ancient Hebrews, nor the touchy-feely quasi-deity of the New Testament, the ridiculous rumors of a resurrection notwithstanding. I shall have to read more about this remarkable man and his life.
Hi, I’ve been browsing the net as I’m writing a paper (well researching it at the moment on forgiveness) and I saw the comment by MJHucks posted on the 8th april, 2005. I’d like to know more about your thoughts.
If you see this please email me.
[email protected]
Kind Regards
Jessica
Mr Templeton had more knowledge about Christianity than most people here have together. He is/was correct on the fact that Christianity is false. Time is slowly proving him correct.
Well, that works as well why there are atheists who convert to Christianity =) while its true that we didnt heard much of it as much as Templeton as he was famous at that time. But consider an unbeliever who converts to Christianity. Wow, we’ve seen lots of them… like on crusades by the world’s famous evangelists.
Even Judas in the Bible who KNOW Jesus, I bet he knew more about Templeton abt Jesus. Positive light though, there are still 11 other diciples who arent like Judas and who had seen and believe and died as martyrs of their faiths.
I just finished the book ‘Case for Faith’ by Lee Strobel. In it, Lee interviews Templeton, and in the remaining chapters strives to find ‘truth’. VERY interesting. Lee, who had been an atheist, could not disprove Christianity, although this was his goal, and is now a Christian.