That newspaper account read like this: "In the role of a clergyman, Lewis stood in the pulpit, struck a defiant attitude, and with a sweeping gesture publicly defied Divine Power to strike him dead on the spot. He shouted, 'If there be a God, I defy him to strike me down in the next ten minutes.' Dramatically, he pulled out his watch--and waited Of course, nothing happened and thus Mr. Lewis proved to his own satisfaction that there was no God."

A week later, a column appeared in a Chicago newspaper, written by one of its own reporters, Arthur Brisbane. Making it clear that he had read of Sinclair Lewis' challenge to God, he wrote the following article:"W. B. Storey, of the Santa Fe Railroad, manages railroads from Chicago to the Pacific. The trains pass over hundreds of railroad ties, and between those ties there are thousands of ants, everywhere busy making a living. One ant says to another, 'They tell me that a mysterious Mr. Storey runs this railroad. I don't believe that there even is a W. B. Storey, nor has there ever been a W. B. Storey. Just to prove my point,' says the ant, I defy him, if he does exist, to come down here in the next ten minutes and step on me and kill me.' At the end of ten minutes, that ant would feel as proud as Sinclair Lewis. But that would not mean that Storey could not step on the ant and kill it, if he wanted to; nor that the Ruler of the universe could not strike Lewis dead if it were worth while. The point is; it just is not worth while."

Annie Besant was engaged in promoting a weird doctrine called "theosophy." In London, she also struck a defiant pose before the working men of that city. Taking her watch in her hand, she would shout dramatically (and I quote another newspaper article): "'If there be a God in heaven, I give Him five minutes in which to strike me dead. 'There was complete silence as the minutes ticked slowly away and nothing happened. At the end of the allotted time, she turned to her audience and cried. 'Where is your God?’, and the men sat silent."

Two days later, a London preacher named Parker gave the following response to her: "If upon your return home this morning, your little boy, just learning to talk, were to surprise you by lifting his head up from the pillow to say, 'You say you are my mother. I do not believe you. If you are my mother, I give you just five minutes to prove it by crushing the life out of me,' what would you do? Would you prove yourself the great being that you are and take your child by the throat and crush him to death? No, you would place the little fellow's head back on the pillow, rock the cradle a while, and say, 'Sleep, sleep, my little one. Some day when you have grown older and learned a few things, you will know that I am your mother.' Then, in a whisper heard throughout that auditorium, Parker said, ' There is your God!'"

These accounts are of people and events that border on the absurd. Today's challenges will not likely be as outlandish as these. Modem doubters may not strike the defiant pose, and they may not look at their watch. They can, however, chip away at our convictions and our faith.