Thinking Christian

Darwin’s Doubt: Too Hot for Science To Handle?

Tom Gilson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:01:28 +0000

Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer.

Book ReviewThirty or so years ago I smuggled some new Christian media into a closed Communist country. I remember the thrill vividly: the sense of risk, the satisfaction of completion. I’ve had a similar sensation lately reading Darwin’s Doubt. It’s the book the evolutionists won’t want you to read. It’s too hot to handle: it might cause you to question whether evolution happened the way they say it did.

This risky volume Stephen Meyer’s latest challenge to theories of undirected/unguided evolution. I have to admit, though, that it took a few hundred pages for me to warm up to the adventure of reading verboten material — and that’s because the first 80 percent or so of the book contains nothing but mainstream science. Sure, it raises serious doubts about unguided evolution’s explanatory power, but where do those doubts come from?

They come from Charles Darwin, to start with.

The title of the book refers to the difficulty he had in explaining the “Cambrian Explosion,” the vast proliferation of new animal body plans (new “phyla” or major animal groupings) that appears in fossils in the Cambrian strata, deposited some 530 million years ago. These animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, without any plausible predecessor such as Darwin’s theory predicted. Darwin wrote,

The difficulty of understand the absence of vast piles of fossiliferous strata, which on my theory were no doubt somewhere accumulated before the Silurian [i.e., Cambrian] epoch, is very great. I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the same group suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks.

Darwin saw this accurately as a challenge to his theory. It remains one still. The animals appear too quickly in the record to be explained through his gradualistic theory.

And it remains a challenge from the perspective of mainstream science. Various theories have been proposed in explanation of the suddenness with which these new phyla came on the scene. Perhaps selective fossilization caused their predecessors to disappear from paleontologists’ view. Mainstream science casts serious doubt on that view. Statistical paleontology renders it deeply improbable. The soft-body hypothesis appears unlikely to succeed, since the evidence shows soft-bodied organisms have been frequently fossilized.

Or maybe the Cambrian animals’ precursors really are there in the record, in the form of exotic Ediacaran fossils. But these organisms are not clearly animals of any sort, and what they are is so in confusion that they could hardly be considered evidence for anything. Further,

As Nature recently noted, if the Ediacaran fauna “were animals, they bore little or no resemblance to any other creatures, either fossil or extant.” … This absence of clear affinities has led an increasing number of paleontologists to reject an ancestor/dependent relationship between the Ediacaran and Cambrian fauna.

Scientists have proposed genetic histories for these phyla, but as Meyer pointedly puts it, these scenarios all “assume a gene.” And a lot more besides. That is to say, they beg the question of evolution’s explanatory adequacy by assuming that it must be true. From there they suggest pathways according to which genes “must have” evolved. But there’s no evidence of it in the record.

I could go on summarizing chapter by chapter, but even in summary form it would lengthen this review beyond reason, and besides, the pattern remains the same: the hypotheses for explanations of the Cambrian explosion have been rejected — by mainstream science.

That’s the account Meyer gives of it. I’m no expert in the field, but I have to admit it’s convincing. The Cambrian Explosion remains unexplained on any standard terms.

So if it’s all basic science, what makes this book so hot? It’s Meyer’s suggestion that explanations need not be limited to standard terms; that the data might point to a Designer who intelligently guided the world to be the way it was 530 million years ago — and by extension, today as well.

That’s a tough one for mainstream science to swallow. I think I can see, or almost rather feel, why that might be. I’ve written about it previously, in the context of another ID-related passage on the Cambrian Explosion; I called it ”What’s Wrong and What’s Right About Intelligent Design.” There’s a definite weirdness to the idea that God (yes, I’ll identify him as the designer, even though that conclusion doesn’t derive from ID) did something like that in our world. One almost wants to shout “Hey! Quit meddling with our world! Stick to your own reality, would you?” — as if our reality were not first and above all God’s.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if that same feeling might explain the anger that ID provokes. I get the sense from Lawrence Krauss that he doesn’t want God meddling in his world.

That anger was evident when Meyer’s last book, Signature in the Cell, was published. Some time after its release I ran a quantitative study of Amazon.com reviews of the book. Here’s some of the analysis.

Negative (1-star) reviews were significantly more likely to come from reviewers who definitely (31 percent) or likely (43 percent) hadn’t read much of the book. Only 26 percent of 1-star reviews came from people who had definitely read it.
Theological considerations clearly motivated just 8 percent of 5-star rating reviews, but 51% (!) of 1-star criticisms.
Only 9 percent of 1-star reviewers were able to avoid black/white, simplistic dogmatism in their statements, while 75% of positive reviewers avoided that kind of language.
And 86 percent of 1-star raters used personal pejorative language (accusations of stupidity, unthinkingness, or worse) with respect to Meyer or ID proponents generally.

It adds up to a general response that could far better be characterized as emotional rather than reasoned; reacting rather than thinking; stereotyped rather than reflective. I’ll be interested to see how the same kind of analysis pans out with this book.

Signature in the Cell was too hot to handle; or at least, its Amazon.com critics handled it poorly. Darwin’s Doubt promises to be just as hot to the touch — even though most of it is really quite mainstream. It’s that suggestion of a meddling Designer that bothers people:

One almost wants to shout “Hey! Quit meddling with our world! Stick to your own reality, would you?” — as if our reality were not first and above all God’s.

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Teaching Apologetics at Home: Yes, You Can!

Tom Gilson — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:11:32 +0000

Maybe I was just searching the wrong way, but I was surprised this morning to see how few web pages discuss parents’ role in teaching apologetics. There’s one outstanding page at CARM. I’m sure there are others, but the general theme of the search results I received was that parents should make sure their churches are teaching apologetics.

The fact is, you can teach apologetics at home. Yes, you!

Whose Responsibility?

I am sure that one reason parents have assigned their apologetics teaching responsibility to the church, rather than sharing it with the church, is because they think it’s beyond their capability. Isn’t this a specialty area? Isn’t it asking a lot to expect this of parents?

I have three answers. One is that the better your church teaches reasons for confidence, the less you have to do; although see below for an important additional thought on that. The second is that either way, if your child leaves home someday without reasons for belief, he or she won’t have a reason to believe. Most children in that condition leave the faith. I don’t think you want that to happen to your child!

My third answer is that you can do it.

Yes, You Really Can Teach Apologetics at Home

It need not be complicated.

Here’s what you can do. Buy an entry-level apologetics book, like any of Lee Strobel’s books, or possibly Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace. Read it where your kids can see you reading it. At dinnertime or in the car, mention something interesting you’ve learned (I guarantee there will be plenty of that). You don’t need to teach, it in any formal sense, just bring it up in conversation. But this you must do: ask your child(ren), “what do you think about that?”

Could something that simple make a difference? Absolutely!

Suppose your church isn’t teaching anything about apologetics: you’d be surprised what an impact this could have on your child(ren). It might be the first time they heard there were actual reasons for confidence in Christianity!

What then if your church is teaching apologetics? You’d be surprised again to know how deeply it could encourage your child(ren) to know that you have reasons for your own faith. If they see your Christianity as something you “believe” or do just because you’ve always done it, there’s not much to keep them from breaking the tradition. But if they see you believing because there are reasons to believe, then they’ll have reasons, too.

(Leave the book lying around, and they might just start reading it themselves!)

Resources

The CARM page I linked to above has some more suggested resources for parents. Sometime before long, I’m planning to review these books for younger children by William Lane Craig; for now I’ll just mention them as additional resources.

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Christianity Preserving and Advancing Knowledge

Tom Gilson — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:22:27 +0000

“What saved rationality after the Greeks gave it up?” Vishal Mangalwadi asks that question and answers it at length in his wide-ranging The Book That Made Your World,. He says,

It was the Bible's teaching that eternal life was to know God and Jesus Christ. That Jesus was someone in who were hidden the treasures of wisdome and knowledge. An entire section of the Bible is called Wisdom Literature an teaches that wisdom and understanding are far more important thatn rubies and diamonds.

The Bible, the Greeks, and Knowledge

There is an astonishing misconception out there that the “Dark Ages” came about because of Christian antipathy to knowledge. Nothing could be further from reality. Perhaps the chief cause for civilization's slowdown in Europe was the fall of Rome to barbarian military conquest, but as Mangalwadi explains, the Greeks had become “suspicious of logic” long before then. Sophist rhetoric made it seem more intended for manipulating belief than for knowing truth. Skepticism arose and flourished.

But the book of John introduces Jesus as the logos, the Word of God (John 1:1). I've found in my own study that words relating to knowing, studying, and learning occur an average of twice in every chapter of the New Testament. It could hardly escape notice (except it may be too obvious to see!) that God gave his primary revelation to us in the form of a book. God's word calls on us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1,2) and to love God with all our minds (Matt. 22:37-29).

St. Augustine Advancing Knowledge

And so it was that St. Augustine (AD 354-430) and the St. Boethius (ca. AD 480-524) “played the most important roles in preserving logic and laying hte intellectual foundations of medieval and modern Western civilization,” according to Mangalwadi.

Augustine saved the intellect from the skeptics' attack because he understood the biblical revelation to imply that our minds were God's most precious gift to us. They enabled us to be God's own image, to know him, and to love him.

He wrote prolifically himself, and exercised such influence that some still consider him the most important Christian thinker since the apostle Paul.

Boethius Preserving and Advancing Knowledge

Boethius's book The Consolation of Philosophy has likewise been influential for centuries. Mangalwadi tells us that he

translated philosophical, medical, and scientific works from Greek into Latin and also wrote philosophical and theological treatises. He inspired medieval scholars to continue developing their philosophical tradition until the “dawn” of the early Renaissance and Reformation.

Mangalwadi quotes historian Edward Grant,

Boethius guaranteed that logic, the most visible symbol of reason and rationality, remained alive at the lowest ebb of European civilization, between the fifth and tenth centuries.

John of Damascus Encouraging Knowledge

John of Damascus (AD 676-749), one of the late Church Fathers, taught that

to be spiritual was to cultivate the life of the mind…. John's work The Fount of Knowledge reinforced the belief that orthodox, biblical Christianity was a religion of rationality…. This is how he opened his first treatise: “Nothing is more estimable than knowledge, for knowledge is the light of the rational soul.”

These are but a few early examples of Christianity preserving and advancing knowledge. The Church has always been made of humans, and it would be false to oversell its intellectualism and rationality down through the centuries. It would be more false yet, however, to hold it responsible for holding back the progress of knowledge. Whatever might have been holding it back, men and women of the Church held it up so it could move forth.

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Run to the Battle — With Wisdom

Tom Gilson — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:35:55 +0000

Tuesday Pastor Focus

Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells
But I want to run a mission a yard from the gate of hell
And with everyone you meet, take them the gospel and share it well
Look around you as you hesitate, another soul just fell
Let’s run to the battle

Steve Camp, Run to the Battle

I love that song. To hear a good online rendition try this youtube video only please don’t take the intro and the visuals too seriously. Someone got over-enthusiastic with the “battle” imagery, in my opinion. Close your eyes and think of it instead in terms of the spiritual battle we’re engaged in, which is conflict enough.

Within the Sound of Chapel Bells?

The opening lines aren’t Steve Camp’s. They came originally from C.T. Studd (1860-1931), a champion rugby player who gave his life as a missionary in Africa. ‘

It is a stirring call. But it’s dated. I don’t think anyone could or would say that today. The times were already turning when Camp wrote this song about thirty years ago (I’m working from memory there, since I can’t find the exact date). There was a time when “within the sound of chapel bells” seemed safe from the gate of hell, but they were beginning to come to an end even then. Now they’re long gone.

I doubt that feeling of “chapel” safety was ever real. Every church in every city has always been a missions post. Yes, there is something unique about cross-cultural missions, where the missionary leaves the familiar behind, and takes the good news of Christ to previously unreached peoples. This is the ministry by which the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) will be fulfilled.

Every Church Is a Mission Outpost

There was a period of time, though, when the church thought crossing cultures with the gospel meant going “over there.” And it seems that because of that, we forgot what it meant to reach out to others unlike ourselves back at home. We built our churches (their architecture and organizations) for people who were comfortable in churches. We did our best to get people to come to where we were comfortable. We produced our programs, played our sports, had our Vacation Bible Schools, saw some fruit from it all, and thanked God for what he was doing if one person came to Christ — as well we should have done.

We thought “within the sound of chapel bells” meant we could reach our neighbors with “chapel” ministries, and we did reach a few. We lost many, though; and I think it’s largely because we forgot we were still just a yard from the gate of hell. We forgot to think like missionaries.

Thinking Missiologically Everywhere

Missionaries know that when they travel to a new culture they have to learn the local language, and they have to speak the gospel in that language. They know they must learn the local culture, and “incarnate” (live out) the gospel in a manner that is true to the timeless reality of the gospel, while also connected with the culture where they are. This is Missions 101.

No one is a missionary who is not a student of local culture and language. No one is a missionary who is not discovering the principal local objections to Christianity, and discerning how best to answer them. No one is a missionary who is not, in addition, learning how to answer those questions in terms that the local people can make sense of.

C.T. Studd traveled thousands of perilous miles to plant the gospel flag “a yard from the gate of hell.” God is still calling people to travel thousands of miles for the same reason. But your church is just a yard from the gate of hell right where it is. Run to the battle? You’re in it! j

Thinking Missiologically In Your Neighborhood

“With everyone you meet, take them the gospel and share it well.” That’s good advice. What then does “share it well” mean where you are?

What questions are your neighbors asking? Do you know? What are their principal objections? Do they have intellectual issues? Or do they need to see the good news lived out more clearly before them? Is “everyone you meet” ready to hear the whole how-to-receive-Christ gospel message, or do they need to see its authentic reality on another level first? The answer to that will differ from person to person. Do you know what to do for each person or each neighbordhood around you? Are these not standard missionary questions?

Run to the Battle: Yet With Wisdom

“Run to the battle.” I love that song. Maybe there should have been another verse in it, though. It has to do with recognizing that “chapel bells” don’t mean everyone around you is “chapel-ready.” I won’t try to make it rhyme or scan; I’ll just give you the sense of it. Equip yourself for the battle. Study the battle. Fight the real battle: not the one that your predecessors fought thirty years ago, answering questions from thirty years ago, but the one that matters to your neighbors today.

Camp says, “look around you as you hesitate, another soul just fell.” I’m here to tell you that taking time to for equipping, study, and preparation are not “hesitating.” I don’t think Steve Camp would say they were, either. I think he’d say they were expressions of wisdom in action.

And I think that’s what the Lord would say, too, which is what really matters.

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Summer Listening

Tom Gilson — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 01:18:03 +0000

Monday Student Focus

I've been talking about summer reading in this space; how about summer listening instead?

I heard a podcast today with Dr. Mike Adams, a criminology professor at UNCW, on his book Letters To a Young Progressive: How To Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand

Frank Turek is the interviewer, on his Cross-Examined radio program. You can hear their conversation here (mp3 file). I haven't read Mike's book yet, but you might see it showing up here later as another summer reading suggestion.

It’s a lively discussion, and it got me thinking about some of the other great podcasts out there. My friend Brian Auten has compiled a list of his sixteen favorites, and I couldn’t do much better than to steer you his way. If too much reading is too much reading, you can always listen!

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Naturalism is a Strange Belief

Tom Gilson — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 05:01:09 +0000

Naturalism is a strange belief. It's one thing to hold that it might be true, and quite another to say that it's definitely true, or almost certainly true. Yet there are committed naturalists, just as there are committed Christians.

I understand there is a kind of symmetry here: naturalists think Christianity is a strange belief. On one level I have to agree: we take it as true that everything in all history turns on the life of a wandering teacher and miracle worker who lived two thousand years ago. If it weren't for a confluence of completely unique and remarkable facts about Jesus Christ, the whole idea would be quite unbelievable.

But nowhere near as much as naturalism, by which in this context I mean the idea that nothing exists in all reality but matter and energy, interacting according to necessity (what we call natural law) and chance (according to the most common interpretations of quantum theory). Now there are other varieties of naturalism that do not take this strict physicalist view and I am not speaking of them here.* To believe in naturalism requires believing in a truly preposterous menagerie of ideas that go with it.

For example, it requires believing that personality, rationality, consciousness, identity, purpose, meaning, worth, and the moral significance of life all came out of a reality that excludes every one of these.

We look back at pre-Copernican views of the cosmos, and we smile at the naïveté of thinking the earth was at the center of everything. But that error has nothing on naturalism today: for naturalism requires believing that the things that make us human are absolutely and completely different from anything that is true of anything else anywhere in all reality. We are absolutely different from everything else that exists, and markedly higher, too, for no discernible reason whatsoever.

Either that, or else naturalism takes unguided evolution to be a “reason;” but there is no reason for evolution. If unguided evolution is true, then it is an explanation, but an explanation is not always a reason, especially when it is driven entirely by randomness and chance, as evolution is: for evolution is only randomness plus natural selection; and natural selection is no creative force: it is only a conserver, never an inventor. It is the survival and reproduction of that which survives and reproduces, and the demise of that which doesn't. It is nothing else but that. To reify natural selection as some kind of creative force would be almost as misguided as to assign to it a sense of purpose.

There is no reason to randomness. Evolution could be an explanation, but it could not be a reason for anything. There is especially no reason for evolution to have made a species like ours. Humanness — that which makes us truly distinct, as already mentioned above — would be a strange thing indeed for randomness to have produced.

Either that, or else naturalism requires believing, as many naturalists say they do, that some or all of these things are not real but illusions. Our conceit of being the highest animal is, as Peter Singer puts it, a disreputable sort of “speciesism.” Consciousness is an illusion, say Paul and Patricia Churchland. Morality is a fraud perpetrated on us by evolution, says Michael Ruse. Free will is fake, says Sam Harris. Thinking doesn't exist, thinks Alex Rosenberg.

And yet Rosenberg thinks. Sam Harris chooses. Michael Ruse has moral values he upholds. The Churchlands wake up in the morning, arising to consciousness. And Singer writes his books and articles to humans as if we have a responsibility for our species and for others: he doesn't make the same demands on dolphins and chimpanzees.

Naturalism requires one to believe humans are special for no reason at all, or else to deny that we are special at all. Either option is odd. Naturalism is a strange belief. It's one thing to hold that it is possibly true (though that strains credulity beyond my personal reach). It's another thing altogether — and one can only pause to contemplate what might be the reason for it — for anyone to think it's definitely true, or almost certainly true.

*I could have used the word physicalism throughout, but I find in my reading that naturalism is the more frequently used term. And to write “strict physicalist naturalism” every time would be awkward.

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Phil and Alex Discuss “Hate the Sin But Love the Sinner”

Tom Gilson — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:54:24 +0000

Remember Phil and Alex? After a long time away they’re back again. By way of reminder, they’re good friends even though they disagree deeply about one very important topic: homosexuality and marriage for gays. They’re at the coffee shop, as usual.

ALEX: You know what I hate, Phil? It’s the way Christians label and patronize gays with “hate the sin but love the sinner.” Frankly I don’t think you can separate them out that way anyway. If you hate my homosexuality, you hate me. It’s who I am.

PHIL: Well, I always appreciate how we can get things out in the open, Alex. I think there are problems with that saying, too. I’ll bet they’re not quite the same problems you see in it, though.

ALEX: Really? Like what?

PHIL: Well, first of all, there’s a pretty serious miscommunication going on most of the time when Christians say it. You see, we know that the word sinner applies to us, too. It’s almost a synonym for human being, because every human being is a sinner. But I’ll bet you don’t hear it that way.

ALEX: I’ll say. You call me a sinner, and you’re labeling me. It’s offensive.

PHIL: It must feel that way, and I don’t blame you for it one bit. The thing is, you and I aren’t living in a time when you could count on everyone knowing that sinner was almost interchangeable with human being. So I shouldn’t assume you hear it that way. I should assume that it comes across as a label, whether I intend it to or not. I really prefer to say hate the sin but love the person instead.

ALEX: Well, fine — you’ve taken away the label. It’s still patronizing, and I still don’t think you separate my sexual orientation from who I am. I don’t think you can hate the sin but love the person.

PHIL: You don’t? Then what are we doing meeting here for coffee like we do?

ALEX: Oh, right. I don’t know. You’re an exception. You’re different. I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

PHIL: It certainly is more rare than it ought to be, I’ll agree with that! But I want to ask whether you realize all that you’re saying. What if I were to re-phrase it this way: Hate the wrong the person does, but love the person. That’s the same thing only with a more contemporary wording. Do you think that’s impossible?

ALEX: It’s pretty judgmental: you’re saying the person is doing wrong. And whatever name you put on it, I don’t know how you separate out the person’s actions from their identity.

PHIL: Then that makes you quite the exception, too, Alex. Here you are sitting enjoying coffee with an unrepentant wrong-doer like me. How do you do it?

ALEX: What? I never judged you. I don’t put my values on you that way!

PHIL: You don’t? Do you remember the first thing you said? “You know what I hate, Phil? It’s when Christians say they ‘hate the sin but love the sinner.’” You’ve just identified something you think Christians do that’s wrong. And you hate it. So you’re hating the wrong you think we do, but you’re getting along with me anyway. You’re hating the wrong you think I do, but loving me as a person. I guess you’re pretty rare yourself!

ALEX: But you know that’s not something gays ever say, Phil! It’s a Christian thing!

PHIL: I wish they would say it. You know how you don’t like being judged and labeled. We get judged and labeled, too.* And look, I can understand the part about people disagreeing with us. There are two sides to this dispute, and each side thinks the other is wrong. Not just factually wrong, but morally wrong. Isn’t that so?

ALEX: I think your morals are wrong, yes; and you think mine are wrong.

PHIL: So we both think the other side is practicing some kind of wrong-doing. As Christians, from our side we have a tradition that says we can love wrong-doers. God did it for us; Jesus died for us when we were wrong-doers. It’s in Romans 5:6-8, if you ever get a chance to take a look at it; but that’s just the clearest single statement; it’s all over the Bible, actually.

ALEX: Well, are you saying you can do it but we can’t? There you go judging again!

PHIL: Me? No, you’re the one who said it’s hard to hate the sin but love the person.

ALEX: Sure, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I certainly don’t think Christians are the only ones who can do it.

PHIL: Right. We’re not the only ones who can do it, though I think you’ll have to agree we’re the only ones whose beliefs are built totally upon this idea of God giving himself up in love for wrong-doers. That makes a real difference, though I don’t think I ought to take time to go into it here.

ALEX: Good; you don’t need to go off on theology with me here. I’m just saying it’s hard to do what Christians say they do, to hate the sin but love the sinner.

PHIL: And I’m saying that if you correct some unfortunate miscommunications in the phrase, and you say hate the wrong-doing but love the person, it amounts to the same thing, and if there’s a problem with it, that problem applies just as much to gays as it does to Christians. So if you think that most Christians hate gays as people because they hate what gays do, what will you do with the fact that gays hate what Christians do?

ALEX: I don’t know, Phil, what do you think I ought to do with it?

PHIL: I think that if you believe that principle, then you have to believe a whole lot of gays are haters. They hate the wrong that Christians do, and if you hate the wrong-doing, it’s really hard not to hate the wrong-doers, the persons doing it. And if you hate the person, you’re a hater, right?

ALEX: Whoa, hang on! Are you calling me a hater?

PHIL: No, I’m saying you and I are both proof that it’s not impossible to love another person you disagree with, or who you think is doing something really wrong. But I’d urge you to remember that it’s possible for people on both sides of this issue to be haters. I could go off on another topic about how the gay PR machine has distorted reality by saying only their opponents are haters, but —

ALEX: — but I think we’d better be moving on.

PHIL: Right. Until next time!

*Judged and labeled? Yes. “History will judge.” “You’re as bad as the slaveholders, full of bigotry and oppression.” “You’re ‘professional homophobes.’” “You’re ‘extremists,’ ‘haters and liars,’” and on and on.

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Motivate Men to Contend for the Faith

Tom Gilson — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 01:40:42 +0000

It’s not easy to get men fully engaged in church. Maybe it’s because we’ve made it too easy. I want to encourage you, as a pastor or teacher, to motivate your men to contend for the faith.

How Do You Motivate Men?

How do you do that? Here’s some of what we know about motivation (a mish-mash of theory from grad school days). People tend to be more motivated to do something when:

They can see its benefits for themselves or others they care about
They can see themselves succeeding in it
They have the support of friends or others who are important to them
When the challenge is proportionate to their sense of their capacity
When they have a definite sense of ownership or autonomy

Or in a more memorable format: I can do some good.

I — It’s up to me; I have some control, authority, autonomy.
can do — I have what it takes.
some good — I can see how this really matters, how it helps, how it makes a difference.

And there’s a powerful alternate version: We can do some good: the same thing, only working in unity with other men.

Adventure and Equipping at King’s Domain

Here’s what we’re working on at King’s Domain in southwest Ohio. King’s Domain is an adventure camp with a ropes course, obstacle course, and a mud run under construction. It’s also becoming a worldview center. What a great combination for men! Part of the weekend is spent toughing out the outdoors together. Part of it is about hard-hitting discussions on why their families and our culture need them to step out to the plate as Christians, and how they can become equipped to contend for the faith.

Join Us! Or Borrow the Idea for Yourself

If you’re anywhere near our corner of Ohio and you’re interested, you can bring a group of men for this retreat. Just let me know. Somewhere else? You can still motivate your men to contend for the faith. Teach them yourself, bring in a speaker — from Ratio Christi, perhaps — and get them equipped.

Remember, you’ll need to show them how it benefits themselves or (better yet!) others they care about. You’ll need to equip them well enough they can see themselves being basically competent. You’ll want to do it in a group, so they get the support of their friends. You’ll want to challenge them — don’t make it too easy, or they’ll give it up as “boring as usual.” But the challenge can’t be so great they won’t be able to imagine living up to it.

And then you’ll want to get them thinking through what they can do with it. Give them an opportunity to own it for themselves. Let them lead with what they know. Give them a chance to fail, even.

Motivate men to contend for the faith. Then don’t be surprised if you see them fire up for Christ like never before.

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Atheist Bullying: Three Perspectives for Christians

Tom Gilson — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 00:24:59 +0000

Anti-Christian, atheist bullying has been a roiling American undertow whose waves are surfacing ever more often into plain view. Mikey Weinstein is belligerently beating up on the world's most powerful military, some of whose leaders (not all of them!) are yelling “Dive and hide!” when he speaks a word to them. Jerry Coyne and others of his ilk are trying to swamp a fellow professor's boat — that of Ball State's Eric Hedin — because he dared to teach something they disagree with. These represent only the froth on the waves. The current underneath it all is running continually stronger.

For much of Christian history, and in much of the world still today, this is familiar business. Right now, in 2013, men and women are dying for the faith every day. Nik Ripken wrote of this at length in the ill-named but otherwise excellentThe Insanity of God, one of whose themes was the utter ordinariness of persecution.

Three Questions in the Face of Atheist Bullying

It's not ordinary in America.* Not even in the relatively mild form in which it's being practiced today. We're not ready for it, and we don't know how to handle it.

I want to suggest three ways to think about it, in the form of three questions:

1. From whence does our help come?

2. Who's really most at risk?

3. What's our best line of defense?

1. From Whence Does Our Help Come?

Often it seems our first reflex is to run to the Constitution. Yes, the Bill of Rights was written to protect religious liberty, specifically in the Establishment Clause, but additionally in its guarantees of free speech and assembly. As courts increasingly discount the public relevance of religious beliefs, however, as for example in the Prop 8 case, the Constitution's protection is becoming thinner and thinner.

I'm starting to wonder whether we've put too much trust in it.

I'm not suggesting we disband any Christian legal defense societies. When the apostle Paul had the opportunity to appeal his case to Caesar, he took it. We can do likewise in the courts.

But as we do so, there ought to be in us a clear and palpable sense of trust in God and joy in his unchanging provision. Think of how the New Testament instructs us with regard to persecution: “Count it all joy.” “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial.” “Rejoice and be glad, for so they persecuted the prophets before you.” “Let endurance have its perfect result in you, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” “I do not count the trials of the present age worthy of comparison with the glories of the age to come.” “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Do we believe this?

Now I want to be clear: I am not Eric Hedin. I don't know what his experience feels like right now. I doubt I could imagine how crushing the pressure might seem. As far as I am aware, on the other hand, he could be living Christ's promises as joyfully as any saint ever has.

So this is in no way directed toward any individual. It's for American Christianity. Is the pressure heating up on us? God can handle it. We're just fine in his good and gracious hands. But the way things are trending, we had better get accustomed to resting in his protection and deliverance, because simply being American isn't going to accomplish that for us the way it used to.

Who Is Most At Risk?

When Jesus was facing his week of trial, torture, and execution, he wept for the city. He knew he would come out victorious, but that some of them would die in their sins, as he told the Pharisees in John 8.

It may seem that Christianity is under pressure, but really, now: the way of Christ has lasted thousands of years, and it will outlast this present age. Christ has already secured victory for all time. Christianity has nothing to fear. American church-ianity may totter and in some places fall, but that's a small thing. The faith will stand.

No, what's most at risk are the lives of our spiritual opponents, who have put themselves in harm's way with the God of the universe. They are our fellow human beings; thus Jesus' instructions to pray for them.

Next most at risk are those they will influence, including many people whom we love, especially our children but also the children of many other parents.

And next are those among us whose faith rests on a weak foundation, and who may be swept away with the changing tides.

If you are in one of these groups you are vulnerable. I think it's possible any of us could be in the third, even if we think our faith is strong. And so the question becomes,

What's Our Best Line of Defense?

What indeed is our best defense? It's not in the courts. Sure, the courts are fine as far as they go (less every day, or so it seems), but we have something far better. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (ESV) reads,

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

To unbelievers that may sound bellicose, but clearly they have nothing to fear from it. Our not-of-the-flesh weaponry starts with prayer, continues with the word of God, and proceeds through to the destruction of arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. We believe there is power in prayer and in God's word. We believe Christianity's arguments carry the strength of truth. If we're wrong, then we have nothing but a wisp of foam to bring against the unbeliever.

If we're right, though, and if there is a good God who has spoken and who answers prayer, then unbelievers would do well to let that God win them over with his goodness. Far better that their arguments and opinions be destroyed than their lives.

To Fight For What Really Matters

Suppose then we lost everything in the courts, the legislatures, the executive offices, and the plebiscites. It would indeed be a loss, a tragic one — but not a decisive one. We still have prayer. We still have the truth of God in his word. We still have God himself on our side. Let us not fear for ourselves, except that we would waver in unbelief.

Besides that, let's fear for our opponents' destiny. That includes Mikey Weinstein, Jerry Coyne, and any of the other new atheist bullies. Let us fear also for those they may carry down with them. And let us contend for them as God would have us contend.

Maybe God will turn everything around with widespread awakening and revival, which is one thing for which all believers ought to pray. If not, then it looks like we have a lot to get accustomed to in a changing America. Remember, God is not surprised. His arm is not shortened so that he cannot save. We may come to know him through this in ways we never dreamed. May it be so: but may it also be that many will be rescued and will find life in him.

*Readers from other countries, please accept my apologies for speaking to the situation I know best, here in the United States. I trust you'll know how to translate this into whatever fits your own country.

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Religious Beliefs as Mental Illness?

Tom Gilson — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:04:47 +0000

Kathleen Taylor, neuroscientist, was quoted today in the Huffington Post as suggesting it might be a good idea to treat religious beliefs as mental illness.

“Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology — we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance,” Taylor said. “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage.”

Reading to the bottom of the article, one finds that Taylor voices caution concerning this kind of recommendation, in view of possible abuses. I’ve learned that when an article opens with a lede like this one’s (“…one day religious fundamentalism may be treated as a curable mental illness”), it might be the journalist more than the researcher whose voice we’re hearing.

I don’t know, then, which of them is more to blame, but the suggestion is dangerous.

I agree there are some incredibly damaging religious beliefs. To treat them as “some kind of mental disturbance,” however rather than “a result of pure free will,” is to place the believer’s freedom of will in the hands of others wielding great power on them involuntarily.

The Soviets did this, I’m told.

As for “beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage,” consider one professor’s view

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

The study mentioned there is a widely discredited one by Gregory S. Paul. The philosophy professor responsible for the website seems to affirm Paul’s conclusions regardless.

Consider the Ohio attorney, formerly serving in state government, who writes at length of “Christianity’s Social Harms.”

And consider the much more prominent person who said,

I think that, particularly as somebody who’s now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there’s an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

Do you see where Taylor’s (reported) recommendation could take us?

Sure, religious beliefs can be harmful. To use neuroscience to deny freedom of belief, however, would be horrendous.

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Students Debating Teachers In Class: Not Usually a Good Idea

Tom Gilson — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:33:07 +0000

Friday Parent Focus

Last time here I wrote about what to say to your child when their teachers contradict Christianity. There’s one more point I need to add. I’ll mention it in the student pages next August, but since I’ve already begun the topic, I’ll preview it for parents here. If a teacher contradicts the faith in the classroom, how should Christian students respond? How should you coach them as a parent? For students to debate teachers on Christianity isn’t often wise. There’s a better way to respond.

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason has excellent advice on this in Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. He wrote it with college students in mind, but it could apply at any level. I’ll quote him at length:

Well-meaning believers sometimes take up the challenge and attempt a head-to-head duel with the professor. Don’t make this mistake. It’s right-hearted but wrong-headed [I love that line! -- TG]. This approach rarely works because it violates a fundamental rule of engagement: Never make a frontal assault on a superior force in an entrenched position. An unwritten law of nature seems to govern exchanges like these: The man with the microphone wins. The professor always has the strategic advantage, and he knows it. It’s foolish to get into a power struggle when you are out-gunned.

There’s a better way. Don’t disengage. Instead, use your tactics [which Koukl explains at much more length throughout this book, which you really ought to read!]. Raise your hand and ask a question. For starters, you might ask, “Professor, can you give us a little more detail? What kind of fable are you talking about [the Bible being]? Do you think nothing in the biblical documents has any historical value? Is everything in the book a fanciful invention of some sort? What’s your opinion?”

Let the professor explain himself…. listen carefully…. take notes…. ask further clarification questions if necessary….

When you are satisfied that you have a clear take on his view… ask him how he came to his conclusions…. Make the teacher, the one making the claim, shoulder the burden of proof for his own assertions.

And then if the instructor says something like, “What are you — one of those unthinking fundamentalists who believes the Bible?” Koukl warns, “Don’t take the bait.” The student’s best answer is, “I haven’t made any claims here. I’m just asking you to explain yours.” Koukl goes on,

If he gives an answer, think him for explaining himself and either ask another question or let it go for the time being. You have done the best you can under the circumstances.

There may come a time when the student can raise more serious questions about the teacher’s position — maybe in the teacher’s office, or maybe in conversation with classmates, when the teacher isn’t there. But the classroom isn’t the best place. For younger students in particular, it’s hard to contest the teacher’s position without being disrespectful. And it’s even harder to come out ahead in the debate. Better to “stay engaged while deftly sidestepping the power struggle.” Better if necessary simply to cut your losses.

And who knows: maybe when the teacher is asked, “What’s your reason for saying that?” he won’t have an answer. It could happen.

Koukl has much more to say about this, but this gives you an idea. Did I mention that I recommend his book? I do — strongly.

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New Role with Ratio Christi Beginning This Summer

Tom Gilson — Wed, 29 May 2013 21:43:05 +0000

It's just been announced at RatioChristi.org: I've accepted a position with Ratio Christi as National Field Director, beginning in mid-summer.

I have just a couple words to add here about that. I'm very grateful to God for building an organization and movement like Ratio Christi, and now for the opportunity to be a part of it

My wife, Sara, and I have been with Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) since 1979, and we carry great memories of great experiences in ministry with great people in Cru. We have much, much to be thankful for there. I could go on at great length about that, but I'll save that for another time and place.

Over the past couple of years I've been watching the growth of Ratio Christi, from just a handful of campuses in 2011 to more than 100 today. I've had many encouraging conversations with RC's leaders Rick Schenker and Blake Anderson. God has used them and their nationwide team in a mighty way.

I think everyone involved in apologetics has been excited to see what God is doing through Ratio Christi. I'm humbled, pleased, and very grateful to be able to be a part of it. I look forward to what God will do.

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Apologists in Church

Tom Gilson — Tue, 28 May 2013 23:23:11 +0000

Tuesday Pastor/Teacher Focus

I made a new friend over lunch today, the missions pastor at the church my brother attends, about half an hour from our home. Among other things we talked about the up and down sides of dealing with apologists in church. There are both.

The Apologists' Vocational Hazard…

I was the one who stated the down side, ironically enough. Shawn kept coming around to why it was important anyway. The problem as I see it is not with apologetics but with how it's presented. We apologists like to have answers. It's a vocational hazard of our business. And that's okay when it's connected with the right questions.

What's annoying, in contrast, is the person who comes along and tells the pastor, “I have the answer to your problems — and by the way, I know what your problem is, too: not enough apologetics.” I asked Shawn if he had encountered that, and sad to say he had to say yet.

… and the Pastors'

Where this approach goes most obviously wrong is in forgetting that every pastor has as many bosses as he has church members (maybe even more!), and most of them think they know his job better than he does. It is a hugely difficult task, probably even impossible, to tailor a message to the wide range of people in most congregations, or youth groups, or whatever part of a church any pastor may be responsible for. Compare that to how easy it is to criticize, and to tell a pastor something is missing, and you get an idea what a pastor's job must be like.

So for someone else to come along with some bright idea for apologetics isn't likely to impress most pastors — especially if that person has been inflicted with that other great apologists' hazard of thinking he's smarter than others.

Working To Help One Another

Still, as Shawn insisted (and of course I didn't disagree!) apologetics must be part of a church's ministry. It's crucial to members' strength of faith. It's vital to youth. Presented rightly, they love it! I don't recall exactly how he put it, but the idea was that if we put good questions before them, they're all over it. Parents are key to students' growth in this area, too, he said, and I strongly agree.

I asked him whether there was anything I could do to help in his church, and he had some ideas that we worked through together.

A Word of Encouragement

This is the kind of conversation I could wish were going on in churches everywhere. It's not that apologetics is some universal cure for what ails Christianity; far from it. Rather it's that every Christian expresses different gifts and callings, whereas every church of more than just a few members ought to have ways to express many of them. That means it's okay for someone other than the senior pastor to offer deep teaching. It doesn't mean it's okay for that someone to come in as a know-it-all.

This Tuesday space is for pastors and teachers, and here I am mostly telling you how I wish the would-be apologist in your church would approach you. If you have such a person around, you might be wishing the same thing already! Or maybe you've been blessed with a teacher who can help you help your congregation become more confident in the faith. If so, I pray you'll give them all the room to maneuver you possibly can, because your people need that kind of help.

I guess if there's any message I would want you to glean from this, it's that even though I've never held your job, I think I can appreciate something of its challenges and frustrations, including those difficulties as they relate to apologetics. I hope I can be some encouragement to you.

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Summer Reading: To Grow and Thrive

Tom Gilson — Tue, 28 May 2013 01:22:25 +0000

Monday Student Focus
So school is over for the summer now, unless you live or study where it continues into mid-June. Last time in this space I gave a recommendation for summer reading . Maybe the idea of summer reading is interesting to you, maybe not. I think back to my student days, and I remember people saying, “If you want to grow as a Christiyou have to read.” They were right. But the world has changed since then throughout the West, and I would have to add this now: If you want to survive as a Christian you have to grow. Reading is less of an option, more of a necessity than ever. The word is this: read to grow, read to thrive.

In the Form of a Book

There’s something about Christianity that’s so obvious almost everyone overlooks it: God gives us his primary revelation in the form of a book. He calls on us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2). We are to love God with all our minds (Luke 10:27). Among other things this means study. We grow in knowledge of God in many ways; one of them is by growing in knowledge.

Never So Necessary As Now

Here’s what’s changed now, though, compared to when I was in college: it used to be a lot easier to coast. It was never the best thing; it was never complete discipleship; it was never fitting in response to how God loves us: but it was at least possible to fit in church as a Christian without having to dig too deep in knowledge.

That was then. That was before Christianity’s goodness was challenged the way it is now. It was before the rise of rampant relativism, and the tyrannical ethic of tolerance. It takes much deeper understanding now to live in Christ and to demonstrate his goodness to a world looking at us askance.

Read to Grow

I don’t mean that knowledge is the only thing. There’s much more to mission than that. There’s more to relationship with God and with others. There’s even much more to knowledge than book learning.

But it’s summertime. Your school studies have let up for now. It’s a great time to dive into something that will help you grow spiritually — and not just to survive, but to thrive.

I’ll have more book recommendations coming.

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Why Faith?

Tom Gilson — Mon, 27 May 2013 02:08:52 +0000

I was taking part in a worship time at King’s Domain this evening when I had a new insight into the question, “why faith?”

What I have to share here isn’t the whole answer to that question, but for me it’s a new way of looking at it that adds to what I had previously thought about it.

The Skeptics’ and Believers’ Question

In one form it’s a skeptic’s question: why is it that no matter what else I get right or wrong, all it takes is to get this one thing right and I’m in, and if I get it wrong I’m out. Why faith? Why not something bigger than that, or more ethical?”

In another form it’s a question I’ve asked as a Christian. What is it about faith, that God should like it so much in us?

Something Different About Faith

We were singing about God’s love, and I thought, I could never in all eternity get there: I could never appreciate God’s love for all it’s worth.

We sang about God’s beauty, and I thought, I could never get there: I could never grasp the full beauty of God for all its reality.

We sang thankfulness to God, and I thought, I could never get there: it would take beyond forever to thank God for all he has done for me, much less to thank him for all that he is.

But when we sang about faith, I thought, In eternity, everyone who trusts God in Christ at all now will know how to trust him fully. And though it’s a challenge, it might be possible even on earth. I think maybe I could get there. But even if not, still it’s worth going for!

I realized then that when it comes to attitudes toward God, there’s soemthing different about faith.

Defining Terms

There are many definitions of faith. The ones that atheists tend to use, where faith is something counter-intellectual, “believing what you know isn’t true,” or “believing what you have no evidence for,” are all basically atheists’ inventions. Or if not, then they are at least not Christians’ use of the term. Here’s one that I think fits what I had on my mind this evening: Faith is taking God at his word and acting accordingly.

Taking God at his word is simply a matter of trusting that what God says is true. This trust can and often does come through evidence and investigation, among other things God does to lead us to understanding. Acting accordingly is about living our lives in light of God’s truth, in spite of everything that might lead us to think otherwise about reality.

Faith is a gift from God, according to a widely accepted reading of Ephesians 2:8-9, as well as the doctrine of sin regeneration, which I will not go into here.

Taking God At His Word: Jesus’ Teaching

There’s a great passage in Matthew 6 that illustrates what belief in action. Jesus is speaking, and he says,

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:25-33, ESV)

Here faith is recognizing —and acting accordingly — that as we pursue God’s kingdom and righteousness, God will supply our physical needs. Not to recognize that — not to believe it — is to deny the reality of who God is. It is therefore actually to contradict the way he made his creation to be, as a reflection of himself. It is to be wrong about the very structure of reality

So there’s something seriously flawed in us when we don’t trust God. What positive thing happens, though, when we do trust him? Why has God chosen that to be the means by which we enter into relationship with him?

What We Cannot Do In Fitting Response To God

Tonight at King’s Domain, as I said, we were singing about God’s holiness, his love, his compassion, his wisdom, his beauty, and more: all things whose full reality are beyond human apprehension. No one can grasp God’s greatness for what it is. It is unreachable. I think that it will remain that way even if we keep growing in knowledge of God throughout eternity; for he is infinite, and the infinite cannot be contained in finite minds.

And so it is that the way we can appreciate God’s greatness is only an infinitesimal fraction of what his reality calls for. What then can we do that fits his grandeur, his grace, and his love?

I cannot comprehend God fully. I cannot know God fully. I cannot appreciate God fully for who he is.

What We Can Do In Fitting Response To God

But it is at least conceivable that I could trust God fully. I could take him completely at his word, as far as I know and understand it. And by his gift of grace (Eph. 2:8-9 again), it is at least conceivable that I could act accordingly.

That’s the only thing I can think of that approaches fittingness in our response to God. It’s the only thing we can return to him that approaches something like the comprehensiveness that’s appropriate to God’s comprehensiveness.

God’s greatness is worthy of a total response. Worship must always fall short of totally appreciating God. But faith can be total. I think this is one more answer to the question, “why faith?” And it motivates me to live with that kind of total faith that fits the reality of God.

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Worldview and Marriage Debates: Differences Run Deep

Tom Gilson — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:38:19 +0000

No wonder the debate is so difficult: When it comes to worldview and marriage, our differences run deep. See my most recent Worldview and You column at BreakPoint.

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Grayling’s Hypocritical Humanism

Tom Gilson — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:46:02 +0000

Book Review

The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and For Humanism by A. C. Grayling

There’s a short section in A. C. Grayling’s The God Argument where I was cheering him on. It was near the start of the book’s second part, after he had finished his argument against religion and was opening up his case for what unfortunately turns out to be Grayling’s hypocritical humanism.

It wasn’t right at the beginning of Part Two, where he offered up nonsense such as, “the major religions influential in today’s world … derive ultimately from the superstitions of illiterate herdsman living several thousand years ago.” Such a silly thought.

A Grand Vision of Humanism

No, it was in the next chapter, where he said,

Humanism is above all about living thoughtfully and intelligently, about rising to the demand to be informed, alert, and responsive, about being able to make a sound case for a choice of values and goals, and about integrity in living according to the former and determination in seeking to achieve the latter.

And again, from Plutarch,

The duty of a guest is to be a good conversationalist — that is, someone well-informed, who can articulate his views, express and explain them, make a case for them, and be prepared to change them if offered better arguments and evidence; but who is also a good listener, who hears what his interlocutors say (not what he thinks they have said), can engage with their views, discuss them, debate them, challenge them if necessary; but along with them seek clarity, understanding and truth.

There was once a tradition of Christian humanism, which may come as rather a shock to readers who have grown up with humanism being attached at the hip with atheism. But if these two descriptions really do “beautifully illustrate the humanist ideal,” as he goes on to say (on page 110 of the Nook version), then there is no reason for Christians not to aspire to the same.

Grayling Against Religion

Grayling’s vision is not always so broad as that, however, for though he requires that our understanding of the good be “in accord with the facts of humanity as these are shaped and constrained by the world” (p. 111), and though most thoughtful Christians would certainly agree with that, nevertheless he concludes that “this entails that humanism rejects religious claims about the source of morality and value.”

Thus he sets “religion” at odds with the good. His problem, however, is that he hasn’t heeded his own advice. He is not a good listener, he has not heard what his Christian interlocutors say, but what he thinks we have said. Thus when he thinks he is engaging with our views he is engaging instead with a straw man. Though he champions clarity, understanding, and truth, he presents a very poor model of those virtues.

Hypocritical Humanism

Let me illustrate with some examples. The page numbers are all from the Nook version, and my perspective throughout is that of a Christian. If what he says is true about any or all other religions, I neither know nor care; but these things are misrepresentations of Christianity.

Page 8: “Throughout history the religion-inspired suppression of women has robbed humanity of at least half its creativity and genius.”

Rubbish. The suppression of women throughout history has been the result of a completely different universal human flaw: the powerful domineering over the weak. Men’s physical power over women, and throughout most of our labor-intensive history, men’s economic power as well, explains it well enough.

The early Christian church, archaeology shows us, was heavily populated with women. In a time and place where women were hardly more than children or chattel, Jesus Christ gave them dignity far beyond culture. Today sexism is arguably at least as great a problem in the atheist movement as in any Christian circles.

And where have women’s freedom and dignity been most freely championed? Atheist Russia or China? Not a chance. No, it’s been where Christianity has had its deepest influence. As David Marshall argues at length, Christianity is the best thing that ever happened to women.

Page 9: “And indeed, everywhere that science and education have advance, so religion has dwindled in influence”
…
Page 16: “The major reason for the continuance of religious belief” includes “ignorance — of science, of psychology, of history in general, and of the history and actual doctrines of religions themselves.”

He labels these “considered facts,” but he cannot have considered the centuries of Christian leadership in education, right from the fall of Rome until the Western world was ready, not too many decades ago, to take it over from Christianity. Christianity is anything but a religion of ignorance.

Page 12: “That religion has survived so long is remarkable evidence of how effectively it inculcates a mindset in which criticism or questioning, and the recognition of contradiction or unacceptability, is suppressed.”

Really? I wonder if Grayling were to take a survey of all the high-schoolers studying rigorous logic in America, where he would find the great majority of them? In Christian home-schooling and in Christian schools, I am quite confident.

Not so sure about that? Never mind. I can offer a book-length refutation of atheism’s claim to superior rationality.

Page 21: Jesus “is not unique, for in the mythologies pre-dating Christianity many heroic figures underwent apotheosis and joined their fathers or fellow gods in heaven or on Olympus.”

Supposed parallels between Jesus and other gods and heroes are wildly overblown. And the idea that this could be sufficient to nullify Jesus’ uniqueness is silly in the first place. It would be like suggesting that Barack Obama is not unique, for there have been dozens of other presidents. Sure: but isn’t he the first black president? Some similarity does not negate all uniqueness. And Jesus was indeed one of a kind in many ways, at least one of which even a Grayling could assent to, for it doesn’t require believing the New Testament record.

Page 59: “Having faith — holding beliefs and accepting doctrines either without evidence or even in the face of countervailing evidence — which most religious people actually regard as a virtue …”

This is the grainiest straw man in the atheist’s barnyard.

Page 86: “Religion took the view that it was right and science was wrong, and anyone who disagreed might be killed (for example, Giordano Bruno) or obliged to recant under threat of death (for example, Galileo).”

The Bruno story is false. He was killed, yes. That was not good. But it wasn’t for his science; it was for pagan mysticism. Galileo, a believer, was not threatened with death, and he was not sentenced with anything worse than house arrest. His troubles had as much to do with his impolitic mockery of the pope as with his science.

But suppose the Galileo story were as bad as Grayling claims, or even worse. Grayling calls it an example. An example of what? Can you name one other person persecuted by Christians for the sake of science? (I thought not.) The scientists of Galileo’s day and for centuries before and after were mostly churchmen. Christianity welcomed and nurtured science (one exception does not deny centuries of truth on that point). Augustine cautioned centuries earlier against the view that religion must always be right and science always wrong.

Page 139: “The claim that the greatest moral problems in our world are human rights violations, war, injustice, and poverty hardly needs justification. What is unjustifiable is the way the problems continue, even indeed grow, because the self-interest of the parties who might be able to resolve them trumps everything.”

If this is an argument against a philosophy founded on self-sacrifice and built on agape love, it misses badly.

Page 156: “It is to the dead hand of oppressive institutions such as religion that one must look for an explanation of why [freely practiced sexual] love can be a problem: which generally speaking, it only is when rationed and starved.”

Grayling crows the virtues of science; I wonder if he knows science has left Freud long behind? There is no evidence that a surfeit of sexual practice does a person any more good than any other indulgence. One of the tragedies of pornography is the way it’s ruining real relationships. Cohabitation degrades marriages. Hooking up denigrates the glory of sex by making it impersonal and common.

Page 186: If Christianity had gone the way of other mythologies of its time, Plato’s and Aristotle’s academies would not have been closed down in 529 ce because of their ‘pagan’ teachings.”

The academy in 529 was neo-Platonist, which was highly amenable to Christian theology at the time, if I understand correctly. I searched for any hint that Grayling’s charge here was true, and found none. I’m open to correction on this if anyone has any.

Page 189: When it was proposed by Copernicus, and empirically demonstrated by Galileo with his telescope, that the Earth is one modest member of a vast swarm of astronomical bodies, occupying an insignificant corner of a huge universe, the affront to human self-importance, and with it to the primacy of theology, was incalculable.”

Prior to Copernicus, most people believed the Earth was at the most unworthy place in the universe, at the center, closest to hell. After Copernicus, God’s glory was magnified: a huge boost to theology! Humans’ place in God’s plan was never determined by our geographical location in his cosmos anyway; it was in Christ’s incarnation.

Conclusion: Publish, Then Duck

I’ve gone on long enough, and I am bracing for the inevitable flurry of outrage from atheists objecting to every one of these points. There’s enough controversial topics here for a month of blog posts. The point is, Grayling is hypocritical with respect to his treatment of religion. He gives it the most uncharitable and (frequently) documentably false presentation possible.

This is humanism? Not according to Grayling’s definition.

The post Grayling’s Hypocritical Humanism appeared first on Thinking Christian.

“I, Charles Darwin” Interview

Tom Gilson — Wed, 22 May 2013 01:21:22 +0000

This episode of ID the Future is more fun than ever: my friend and former York County neighbor (I moved, he didn't) John Romjue is on the air, talking about I, Charles Darwin, his most imaginative book on what Darwin might say if he returned today.

“To confront the thinker with the consequences of his thought,” says the interviewer.

The post “I, Charles Darwin” Interview appeared first on Thinking Christian.

Taking a Break From Weekly Posts

Tom Gilson — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:34:06 +0000

This is a week for a lot of other writing, and I won’t be posting the usual Monday, Tuesday, and Friday focus posts for students, pastors, and teachers.

The post Taking a Break From Weekly Posts appeared first on Thinking Christian.

When Teachers Contradict Christianity: What To Say To Your Child

Tom Gilson — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:14:12 +0000

Friday Parent Focus

Last Friday I spoke on dealing with the schools when they undermine the faith. There’s one more person involved that I didn’t mention: your child. What do you tell your child when teachers contradict Christianity?

Suppose your child were in a classroom where the teacher said the Bible is a book of fables. Suppose also the teacher retracted that statement, strictly on the grounds that it’s illegally discriminatory for him to say that in class. Your child would still wonder whether the Bible is a book of fables, wouldn’t she?

So far in this series I’ve dealt with relational aspects of dealing with your children and with schools. I trust you’ll keep that in the back of your mind and the forefront of your relationships. From this point on, though, I’m going to transition this series to the point of discussing specific questions.

Is the Bible a book of fables?

The Bible is a collection of books of varying genres, from poetry to wisdom literature, from laws to history and biography, from instruction on life to apocalyptic prophecy. There are some elements of fable in there: stories that are meant to serve as illustrations rather than as instruction in what really happened. But they are few.

What causes people to think the Bible is a book of fables, anyway? Its antiquity? Many documents from antiquity are considered reliable history. Lack of corroboration? The Bible is the most massively corroborated set of documents in all ancient history, through archaeology, other written sources, and the flow of history. Genre? Those who know literature know that the Bible doesn’t read like a fable; it reads like it’s intending to tell truth. Those who know ancient myths know that the Bible is not one of them.

Misconceptions

There are some severe misconceptions out there, such as, “the Bible has been through so many versions and translations, you can’t know what it really started out to be.” This is simply false. We have so many early copies of the New Testament that scholars have no doubt at all about what it said, except in limited ways that make no difference to the meaning of the text, and which are footnoted in most good Bibles anyway.

Some people think the Bible is just one book among many; that there are lots and lots of conflicting books like it, and that they all contradict and undermine each other. Not so. The Bible is unique for placing its major claims squarely in history where they can be examined along with all other history. Take all the other religious books in the world and call them fables if you will; you still have to recognize that the Bible is very significantly different from them, in that it places its claims squarely in history. It’s not just philosophy or wisdom, it’s an historical account.

Frankly I think there are two things that drive most people’s conclusion that the Bible is a book of fables. The first is misinformation. Lots of people, teachers included, believe what they’ve been told without checking the facts. They’re stuck in the kinds of misconceptions I just mentioned.

Circular Reasoning

And then there are those who jump to the “fable” conclusion because it’s a religious book that contains stories of miracles. Miracles are impossible, they think, therefore any book that tells about them must not be telling the truth. How do we know miracles are impossible? Because they never happen. How do we know they didn’t happen in the Bible as it claims? Because miracles are impossible, therefore any book that tells about them must not be telling the truth….

Parents, you could illustrate the circularity of this by handing your child a piece of paper that says “see other side,” on both sides.

To Respond in Class?

Chances are your child won’t have a chance to share any of this in class. I don’t recommend they try it unless they study it first, and study it deeply enough to hold their own in discussion with a teacher. Even then, that kind of debate probably wouldn’t be welcome, and students should respect that. It’s usually not their place to correct their teachers, and it’s very difficult to win.

There is a way, though, for students to help show that teachers’ claims about Christianity aren’t always based in fact. It just takes one simple question. I’ll share that next time.