What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? The Vikings

The next installment in a series I began some time ago (and unfortunately have gotten away from recently) centered around the book What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? authored by Dr D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, concerns one of the most fierce group of people to ever walk the face of the earth, the Vikings. While intellectually honest, internet skeptics will credit the impact of Christianity for making the world a better place, the so-called "new atheists" are less likely to do so and are either forgetful or selectively ignorant to the great service that Christ's church has contributed to mankind over the years. Concerning the Vikings, in Chapter 11 of the book titled The Civilizing of the Uncivilized, Kennedy and Newcombe wrote......

"In the ninth and tenth centuries the Vikings, who were marauding adventurers, terrorized much of the coastline of Europe in their quest for plunder. They would plant crops in the spring, then go raiding, and then return for the harvest. The Christians in the pillaged lands would pray, "God, save us from the Norsemen [Vikings]." Religious institutions (e.g. monasteries) were a particularly favorite target of the Vikings because they often housed treasures and were often poorly defended. The Vikings pillaged, raped, and killed men, women, and even children! They would systematically put to the torch what was left. Their fighting men, berserkers, were so fierce in battle that our word beserk comes fom them. What changed this horrible scourge of humanity? Jesus Christ did. The gospel managed to penetrate even the Vikings-not without some resistance-and not even without some violence on the part of the new converts who didnt know better! Nonetheless, over time, many of the Scandinavians became true Christians, and so the Vikings stopped their terrible raids. Virtually every Norwegian, Dane, Swede, and even many British people are descendants of these formerly fierce and warlike people.


In A.D. 1020, the Norwegians had their first national assembly in their history. At this gathering, presided over by King Olav, Christianity became law. "At the same time," writes Norwegian historian Sverre Steen, "old practices became illegal, such as blood sacrifice, black magic, the 'setting out' of infants', slavery and polygamy."

Kennedy and Newcombe then go on to quote the following from history professor Dr. Joseph Reither (NYU) in his book, World History at a Glance who wrote on page 144...

"When we contemplate the violence and chaos which attended the disruption of Charlemagne's great empire, and we recall that distracted and disunited Europe was beset upon all sides by enemies-Vikings to the north, Saracens to the south, Magyars and Slavs to the east-we marvel that out of this confusion there arose a great civilization. Throughout these early centuries of turmoil one institution above all others patiently and persistently labored to combat the forces of disintegration and decay. During the era that has long been known as the Dark Ages, it was the Latin Christian Church which succeeded little by little in restraining violence and restoring order, justice, and decency. A distinguished and critical student of the Latin church has acknowledged that in all the history of mankind no other institution "has exercised so vast an influence on human destinies."

Should anyone be interested in further reading about the conversion of the Viking people(s) click here. If any skeptics would be willing to argue that the conversion and subsequent wholesale change of the Vikings was much more related to some type of organic, secular causation, I would be glad to see them cite their source here. Although I am not aware of anything specific on this topic, the wide range of atheist apologetics explanations never ceases to amaze me and if there is something more substantive than the odd "witch burning" reference, feel free to mention it on this thread. Though somehow I think that the existance of such material would be scant at best.