CityView Magazine

8 | April 2018 P U B L I S H E R ' S N O T E A bout four years ago, my wife and I went to alian Hall in Wilmington to see the famous actor Hal Holbrook do his rendition of Mark Twain. I saw Holbrook recently on television and was reminded of this past event. e man has won a Tony award, performed as Mark Twain for more than 60 years and was still amazing in his performance. We also saw him perform the same act live 25 years ago but I was not as sensitive then to his irreverence. His performance was broken into two segments. e first, before intermission, was all about making fun of politicians and Congress, which received much applause especially since it was during a time of government shutdown. e second half mostly criticized Christianity in a very irreverent way. I have some background on Mark Twain because I did a term paper on him in school. A unique piece of information I remember (and it was mentioned in the play) was that Twain (Samuel Clemens) was born when Halley's Comet passed by the earth and he died 75 years later during its return. I also remember that he was an agnostic or maybe an atheist. e criticism in the performance was mostly old, worn-out clichés about Christianity having to do with subjects like the crusades, slavery, Christians not loving their neighbors and the story of Adam and Eve. Most well-educated Christians have the answers to these criticisms, typically spread by secular people, and this is not the place to review them. I will say that Adam and Eve did occur and the fall of man is real; one can look at the evil in the world to see the reality of the fall. If Adam and Eve are not true, there is be no reason for Christ to have come and died on the cross. In my opinion, Holbrook went far beyond comedy with some of his comments, especially about God not even existing. I wasn't the only one concerned about this aspect of the show. e audience of several thousand people was deadly silent and did not cheer or clap during this part of the show, whereas they did when Holbrook made fun of politicians and Congress. Christians expect to be persecuted for their beliefs because the Bible promises us it will happen. One of the ways persecution occurs is the way it happened that night at alian Hall. What these people don't understand is that the retribution for these actions against Christ will have eternal consequences. Christians just celebrated the greatest event in history – the resurrection of Jesus Christ – and that is worthy of praise, not ridicule. SAVE THE DATE BUSINESS BREAKFAST CityView A Business Forum 7:30 a.m. ursday, June 14th HIGHLAND COUNTRY CLUB 105 Fairway Drive Fayetteville, NC 28305 SPEAKERS & TOPICS: Candy Sugarman PlayBig Online Marketing How to use social media to market your business Jamie Kight JK Premier Marketing Use new technologies to brand your business Jaron Cayton TeamLogicIT e importance of cybersecurity in your business For more information or to purchase tickets visit CityViewNC.com Mark Twain and God

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