SOMETHING IN THEIR EYES...
A prominent atheist named Matthew Parris wrote in a 2008 essay about a strange phenomenon that he had observed in Africa. Amazingly, as an atheist, he wrote an essay for The Times titled, "Why Africa Needs God." Although Parris made it clear that he does not believe in God at all, he admitted that Christianity made a tangible difference in the lives of people he knew in his boyhood home of Malawi and in other countries across Africa. Not only did he admire the good work that Christians were doing to care for the poor and sick, but he also liked the way they looked.
"The Christians were different," he wrote. "Their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world. ...Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes."
From a sermon by Freddy Fritz, Use Wisdom but Know Its Limitations, 10/31/2010