One of our topics will be the upcoming National Conference on Christian Apologetics, coming up in Charlotte, NC in mid-October. I’d love to see you there! (Check out the list of speakers.)

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Watch all the way to the end.

Hat tip: Challies

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My thesis was in the first sentence: “Evolution—the naturalistic kind—is dangerous.” In support of that I referred to a blog piece by evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering on the moral implications of evolution. (He did not use the word “naturalistic” but it’s clear from the context that was what he meant. For the remainder of this post, when I speak of evolution I am specifically referring to naturalistic evolution.) I went on to discuss what it was about evolution that made it dangerous. Maybe instead I should have just trotted out the clear prima facie evidence.

We can discuss all week whether evolution entails moral nihilism, or whether evolutionists generally adopt that view. The fact remains that Bering could “get on board with this” intellectually:

There’s a strange whiff in the media air, a sort of polyamory chic in which liberally minded journalists, an aggregate mass of antireligious pundits and even scientists themselves have begun encouraging readers and viewers to use evolutionary theory to revisit and revise their sexual attitudes and, more importantly, their behaviors in ways that fit their animal libidos more happily.

Much of this discussion is being fueled by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá’s scintillating new book Sex at Dawn, which explores how our modern, God-ridden, puritanical society conflicts with our species’ evolutionary design, a tension making us pathologically ashamed of sex. There are of course many important caveats, but the basic logic is that, because human beings are not naturally monogamous but rather have been explicitly designed by natural selection to seek out ‘extra-pair copulatory partners’—having sex with someone other than your partner or spouse for the replicating sake of one’s mindless genes—then suppressing these deep mammalian instincts is futile and,

He can believe, based on his evolutionary suppositions,

that we live in a natural rather than a supernatural world, then there is no inherent, divinely inspired reason to be sexually exclusive to one’s partner. If you and your partner want to … [multiple suggested acts, omitted for reasons of decency] … then by all means do so (and take pictures). … Right is irrelevant. There is only what works and what doesn’t work, within context, in biologically adaptive terms….

He can tell the world that there’s nothing holding us back from this except that evolution has placed within us a restraining empathy response. I won’t take time here to draw out the weaknesses of Bering’s position on that, but I did address it in my last post, and I have more to come soon on the same.

He can get a hearing for his virtually pornographic promulgations through a highly regarded science magazine—because it is, he insists, a scientifically based viewpoint.

So one result of naturalistic evolution is that books like Sex at Dawn get scientific endorsement: cautious endorsement, perhaps, but supportive nonetheless; and “liberally minded journalists, an aggregate mass of antireligious pundits and even scientists themselves have begun encouraging readers and viewers to use evolutionary theory to revisit and revise their sexual attitudes and, more importantly, their behaviors in ways that fit their animal libidos more happily.”

It may not be every evolutionist who says this, but it’s not on the bare periphery, either. It’s at SciAm’s website this week. It’s at Princeton, by way of Singer’s influential (and evolutionary-based) opinions on infanticide and “speciesism.”

That’s dangerous. The thesis is demonstrated.

I know what the first objection to this will be: “Christianity is dangerous, too!” It certainly is. Much evil has been done in its name. The question in the case of both evolution and Christianity is whether their evils fit within them, or whether evil has co-opted them by distorting their true nature. It could be that overthrowing morality is really foreign to evolutionary theory. It could be that violent heresy-hunting is foreign to Christianity. If you have thoughts on that, there will be a thread coming soon to discuss it. (Which means that if you say something about it here, I’ll save my response for the coming blog post.)

So I stand firm on my belief that naturalistic evolution is dangerous. The facts speak for themselves.

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There’s a strange whiff in the media air, a sort of polyamory chic in which liberally minded journalists, an aggregate mass of antireligious pundits and even scientists themselves have begun encouraging readers and viewers to use evolutionary theory to revisit and revise their sexual attitudes and, more importantly, their behaviors in ways that fit their animal libidos more happily.

… the basic logic is that, because human beings are not naturally monogamous but rather have been explicitly designed by natural selection to seek out ‘extra-pair copulatory partners’—having sex with someone other than your partner or spouse for the replicating sake of one’s mindless genes—then suppressing these deep mammalian instincts is futile and, worse, is an inevitable death knell for an otherwise honest and healthy relationship.

If you believe, as I do, that we live in a natural rather than a supernatural world, then there is no inherent, divinely inspired reason to be sexually exclusive to one’s partner. If you and your partner want to … [multiple suggested acts, omitted for reasons of decency] … then by all means do so (and take pictures). … Right is irrelevant. There is only what works and what doesn’t work, within context, in biologically adaptive terms….

This is bound to provoke revulsion in any decent reader, and rightly so. Anger, too—rightly so. Even fear—rightly so. But not the kind of fear that some have mistakenly ascribed to some of us, like Stuart Kauffman, who wrote earlier this year,

I suspect the fear of evolution is also based in the view of many that God is the author of our moral laws. Then if the Bible is God’s literal word, and yet evolution is true, the Bible, the very word of God, is false, and our morality falls to the ground….

But evolution, in fact, is no enemy of morality.

Or Michael Shermer, who wrote in the blurb for his book, Why Darwin Matters,

Evolution happened, and the theory describing it is one of the most well founded in all of science. Then why do half of all Americans reject it? There are religious reasons, such as the fear of atheism and the perceived loss of ultimate meaning; there are psychological reasons, such as the ego-deflating realization that we are mere animals; and there are political reasons, such as the equation of evolution with moral relativism on the right, and the connection of evolution to eugenics and social Darwinism on the left.

No, this is not “I’m-afraid-of-evolution-therefore-I-can’t-accept-it’s-true.” In fact I reject naturalistic evolution because I believe it is incoherent, impossible, and contradictory to other things I know to be true. The fear of evolution of which I speak is based on a reasoned knowledge of its actual dangers.

Some readers will jump in and say it’s weak for me to be motivated by fear. I have a story about that. Last summer my wife and I encountered rattlesnakes on three consecutive hikes. It’s never happened to me before. The first one was just off the path, it was a little one, and we stopped and took the picture you see here. The second one was stretched out fully across the path in our way. I chucked some stones toward it and waited till it slithered out of the way; then we walked on by. The third one we heard but did not see. Some other hikers were ahead of us in the trail, and they were on the same side of the shrub it was on. We heard it rattling. I asked, “is it coiled?” They said it was. Now, that was intriguing to me. I’ve never seen a coiled-up rattler in the wild. But we got out of there anyway.

Fear of the second snake caused us to move slowly. Fear of the third one, coiled and ready to strike, drove us away completely. To act based on fear of genuine danger is both good and wise. Ideas have consequences, and in the case of evolution, one of those consequences is that (as Bering said), “Right is irrelevant.” That’s a perfectly sound conclusion from naturalistic evolutionary premises. Do you think that idea has no consequences? Would you marry someone who believes right is irrelevant? Would you let your daughter date someone like that? If so, your lack of fear is a morally and intellectually reprehensible lack of wisdom.

Bering thinks he can get past all that. In spite of the “polyamory chic” of which he speaks at first, he goes on to say evolution gives us something to hold relationships together in something like sexual faithfulness:

And that is simply the fact that we’ve evolved to empathize with other people’s suffering, including the suffering of the people we’d betray by putting our affable genitals to their evolved promiscuous use.

Heartbreak is every bit as much a psychological adaptation as is the compulsion to have sex with those other than our partners, and it throws a monster of a monkey wrench into the evolutionists’ otherwise practical polyamory.

“Practical polyamory”?! Do I fear sexuality being taught that way? Of course I do. What kind of idiot wouldn’t? It’s a coiled snake—even if there’s empathy in the evolutionary mix, as you’ll see as we continue. Bering goes on to describe heartbreak in both social and chemical detail, include his own despair after being rejected by his gay lover.

All this is to say that I reacted the way I did because, at an unconscious level, I didn’t want my testiculared partner getting impregnated by another man. I don’t consciously think of him as a woman, mind you; in fact, if I did, I assure you I wouldn’t be with him. But tell that to my gonads and amygdalae.

HIs heart was broken. There’s only one reason we don’t do that to each other every chance we get: empathy. That’s what Bering says holds human morality together.

By no means would I diminish the value of empathy. It certainly does guide and restrain human behavior. When I wash the dishes or fold laundry at home, it’s not because I love those jobs, but because I love my wife, and out of empathy I prefer that she not have to do them. Obviously empathy informs much larger decisions as well. Of course empathy is better explained on theism than naturalism.

For Bering and other naturalistic evolutionists, empathy is a chimera, genetic self-interest masquerading as selflessness. Empathy dances a dialectical pas de deux with promiscuous sexuality, a duet with (pardon the anthropomorphism) just one purpose: to produce multiple generations of babies. They’re equal partners in their evolutionary art, says Bering, and together they perform very well.

There is no right or wrong in that. It is what it is. It propagates genes. There’s no logically defensible way to identify one partner in this dance as morally better than the other. They’re both behaviors adapted for species survival, and neither could do it without the other. If you label empathy more respectable or praiseworthy than rape or wanton promiscuity, your labeling it so is just another behavior evolution has cooked up to join the dance. (It’s more of a pas de trois.) Oh, and one more thing: it’s not your dance. “Tell that to my gonads and amygdalae,” Bering says. He knows that evolution means he’s a puppet on their string. If you think it’s your dance—that you’re anything but a puppet toy in the propagation game—that’s another labeling behavior that evolution has found effective to get us all to reproduce.

I despise that teaching—even though it makes perfectly good sense on naturalistic assumptions. Because even though Bering thinks nothing can speak to his gonads and amygdalae, I know that people actually can think about their behaviors, and based on thinking they can actually make choices. I can see that if young people are taught a pervasive philosophical system that denies the roots of right and wrong, and that glorifies procreation, they’ll decide to do exactly what they’re doing. Hooking up at every chance they get. Cohabiting. Practicing serial marriage, divorcing right and left. Glorifying immorality of all sorts, both hetero- and homosexual.

And killing themselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually in the process.

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Our big social concern in the 1990s was abortion. Another steamroller social issue was bearing down on us then, though: the homosexual attack on marriage, family, and sexual morality. If we had been paying attention we could have seen it coming. They gave us fair warning, after all: a 1987 article laying out their strategy for “The Overhauling of Straight America,” including these steps:

• Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible
• Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers
• Give “protectors” a just cause
• Make gays look good
• Make the victimizers look bad
• Solicit funds
• Getting on the air with advertisements, celebrity endorsements, and more

The authors followed up this short article with an influential book, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90′s. (One of the authors wrote under a different name when the book was published.) Springboarding off the article, the book lays out a brilliant strategic plan for social change. It wasn’t very honest. It was highly manipulative (read the linked article). But it worked. It worked partly because we weren’t paying attention. They handed us their strategy on a silver platter, and we could have countered it with truth against their rhetorical manipulations. But we didn’t even see it.

We’re making the same mistake again today. The big social issue for Christians in the 90s was abortion. That hasn’t gone away, but it was virtually eclipsed in the 2000s by homosexual rights activism. That’s not going away soon either, but it’s about to be overtaken in the 2010s, I believe, by Islam in America.

Islam in America means we’ll be facing more issues like the symbolism and/or reality of a proposed mosque near Ground Zero, or Rifqa Bary’s fate. It raises questions about alleged honor killings in Muslim families, or freedom to share the Christian message at an Arabfest in Dearborn. For all we know it could involve more Islamist violence.

How many of us reading this feel prepared to face those issues from a clear knowledge of Islam’s beliefs and the Islamic world’s intentions?

Not nearly enough of us. And it matters.

Let me illustrate. A pastor friend of mine told me he thinks the Ground Zero mosque issue is easy: it’s a simple matter of freedom of religion. If the government can start dictating where Muslims can build their places of worship, then it won’t be long before it will restrict Christian churches in the same way. If we want our freedoms, we have to allow them the same.

This is but one of many perspectives on the Ground Zero mosque. We could swap opinions on that mosque all day long and miss the far more important question: do we even know what we’re talking about? My pastor friend’s position illustrates the problem nicely. He views Islam as a religion that deserves the same rights and privileges as any other. That’s questionable, to say the least. The following quotes come from Islamic websites.

In general, one can see that Islam is a religion which not only governs the private religious life of an individual, but also mandates and regulates all aspects of public life. (Islam and Democracy)

Religion and politics are one and the same in Islam. They are intertwined. We already know that Islam is a complete system of life and politics is very much a part of our collective life. (Political System of Islam)

Since the Islamic conception of life is a co-ordination between the body and the soul, it was natural that a very close relationship should have been established between religion and politics, between the mosque and the citadel…. As we have just seen, the caliph inherited from the Prophet the exercise of the double power, spiritual-temporal, and he presided over the celebration of the service of worship in the mosque, and he was the head of the State in temporal affairs.  (The Political System of Islam)

The West makes a natural mistake in their understanding of Islamic tradition, assuming that religion means the same for Muslims as it has meant for most other religious adherents ever since the industrial revolution, and for some societies, even before that; that is: a section of life reserved for certain matters, and separate from other sections of life. This is not the Islamic world view. It never has been in the past, and modern attempts of making it so are seen as an aberration….

Islam is a “total way of life.” …

Throughout history, being a Muslim has meant not only belonging to a religious community of fellow believers but also living under the Islamic Law. For Islamic Law is believed to be an extension of God’s absolute sovereignty….

As we have mentioned, in Islam God is acknowledged the sole sovereign of human affairs, so there has never been a distinction between religious and state authority.   (The Basics of the Political System in Islam)

It’s not a simple matter of freedom of religion, is it? Islam, according to what we read here, is not simply a religion. It implies a political system of its own, one that historically has been very much at odds with freedom of religion.

There is an important lesson to be learned here about Islam, but first I’m more interested in the lessons we Christians need to learn about ourselves. We failed to do our homework on homosexual activism, and look where it got us. Islam is even less familiar, more foreign to our way of thinking, and the issues it will present to us are going to be more complex. Are we ready for them?

How shall we, for example, understand the relation of religion and politics in Islam? How accurately do the quotes above describe Islam? Do most Muslims think of Islam this way, or only a minority? If it is both religion and political system, how does the First Amendment apply to it? Shall we grant religious freedom to a system that historically has created Islamic states almost everywhere it went—states whose nature has been to deny religious freedom?

If you think the Ground Zero mosque comes down to a simple matter of symbolism, or of religious freedom, then you don’t understand the issues deeply enough. I don’t know them well enough myself. Karen Armstrong has made a very persuasive case in her book The Battle for God that much of the trouble the world is in today can be traced to not understanding Islam.

I asked a friend of mine in Josh McDowell Ministry for a good introductory guide, and he recommended Answering Islam: The Crescent In Light of the Cross by Geisler and Saleeb. Having read it now, I’m eager to pass along the same recommendation to you.

I was surprised at how little I knew of the Muslims’ faith, especially their view of Allah, the Qur’an, and Muhammad. Did you know Muhammad is not considered to be the founder of Islam—yet it is far more acceptable in Islam to blaspheme Allah than Muhammad? This sheds light on the riots following the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, doesn’t it? Is it confusing nevertheless? It certainly is—which should motivate us to study and to understand better than we do now.

Consider again: do you remember the uproar when copies of the Qur’an were reportedly mistreated at Guantanamo? Consider this from Professor Yusuf K. Ibish:

I have not yet come across a western man who understands what the Qur’an is. It is not a book in the ordinary sense, nor is it comparable to the Bible, either the Old or New Testaments…. If you want to compare it to anything in Christianity, you must compare it with Christ Himself.

None of us in the West understand, he says. If Islam is going to be as potent a force in our part of the world as I think it is, then we ought to begin understanding. (We need to respond spiritually, too; another topic for a later discussion.)

I’ve just acquired Kenneth Cragg’s The Call of the Minaret, a classic on the topic, so I’m told, and I’m beginning to look into it. I’ll be studying more and blogging more on this in weeks to come. But you’re not going to get what you need from me. I’m but a beginner—a beginner who is convinced we all need to study up on the next huge social/cultural/religious issue facing the Western world.

I don’t want us looking back twenty years from now and saying, “We had our chance, but we blew it off completely. They told us who they were and what we were doing, but we paid no more attention to it than we did to the homosexual activists before them. And now look where we are.”

Also posted at First Things: Evangel

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Christian-Oriented Libraries on the Internet
Some people in my generation can remember having to drive to the library to find an answer to a question. Sounds almost quaint now, doesn’t it? In this blog post I want to steer you toward some of the better libraries for Christian thinking. This list won’t be complete, you can guarantee that. I’m almost certain I’m having a momentary memory lapse, and I’m not even including all of my own favorites. Please use the comments to add to the list, and accept my advance apologies for missing some of the best.

• The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview: a project to gather the best from all over the Internet
• Last Seminary: An academic resource for Christian research and education
• LeaderU: Thousands of popular and scholarly articles on a wide variety of topics
• Library of Historical Apologetics: Thousands more articles, with an emphasis on classics; under development but with much promise
• Reasonable Faith: William Lane Craig’s home on the Internet, with hundreds of articles
• Summit Ministries: More excellent articles
• BeThinking.org: And even more, both popular and semi-scholarly
• Bede’s Library: A resource not widely enough known, from James Hannam, historian of philosophy
• Apologetics 315: My favorite source for up-to-the-minute audio and reading resources
• Jesus.org: “Your Questions, Real Answers”

Genuine Internet Libraries (thousands of public domain books in electronic format)

• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Project Gutenberg

Contrary Views

Thinkers engage contrary views. Here are three of the better places to do that. I endorse the process of studying these views, not the views themselves (or in many cases, the attitudes), mostly because in the end they don’t stand up to good evidence and analysis.

• Infidels.org

• Naturalism.org

• Common Sense Atheism

There are thousands more like these, but this will keep both you and me busy for a good long while.

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A “Judgmentalism Inspector” just popped up on my computer. It scared me half to death. It may be blank now, but it’s watching. It’s inspecting my judgmentalism. It’s going to judge my judgmentalism.

Okay, you’re probably wondering where it really came from. I’m writing a passage on judgmentalism in my book (which is about two-thirds done now, by the way.) The software, Scrivener, includes an “Inspector” window where I can write summary information on each passage. In full-screen mode it shows up as a floating window, which is what you see in the image here. I don’t use it much—you can see I didn’t enter a synopsis. That’s one reason it surprised me when somehow it showed up there.

This just occurred to me: suppose someone says, “You’re being awfully judgmental!” Is that any different than being a Judgmentalism Inspector?

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Would you recommend this new emergency contraception to your patients?

She replied,

You know, I would. I think it’s great that women have one more option if there is, you know, an unintended event that occurs, you have have one more option.

The new “emergency contraception,” just approved by the FDA, is EllaOne, a “morning-after” pill that is actually an abortifacient.

Other than cases of rape (including those involving date rape drugs), no woman is pregnant on account of an unintended event. If Reddy were recommending EllaOne just for those instances, I would still have significant problems with it, but I’ll let others write on that. She isn’t just recommending it for those cases, though; and what I want to draw your attention to here is the way she stated it. Reddy was apparently searching for some euphemism for unwanted pregnancy. She came up with a telling one: “unintended events.”

Undeniably the vast majority of pregnancies result from intended events. The man and the woman intend to remove their clothes and they intend to do the sort of thing that can make babies. To call it an unintended event is to dehumanize the participants, to count their actions on the same level as those of irrational beasts. Sure, there are “animal” passions involved—I’m very well aware of that, thank you. But that’s not all there is to it. Rational thinking may be stressed under the pressure of the moment, but it is not erased.

To treat it as unintended is both to brute-alize it and to trivialize it horribly. It could be so much more than that; it was intended to be.

I was in a news stand at the old John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California many years ago. A man dressed in what I call “California Creative” style (think Hollywood director) came up to me and directed my attention to a rack of magazines whose covers were mostly hidden: Playboy, Playmate, etc. He said I really ought to buy one. (Strange, but true.) I told him I wasn’t interested. He said, “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

I wish I had answered him better than I did, because I missed a real opportunity. What I said was, “No thanks, I’m happily married.” What I should have said was, “No, you don’t know what you’re missing! You don’t know what it’s like to be with a woman who loves you fully and forever, total commitment, with no regrets from past relationships, no hiding, no pretending. You don’t know what it’s like to give yourself to someone fully that way. You don’t know how empty your idea of sex really is!”

I had a different kind of encounter on this topic about six or seven years ago. I was teaching a group of teenagers in our church about moral purity. A girl about fourteen years old said, “Well, I don’t get what’s the big deal about just a kiss.” I couldn’t believe my ears. “What?!” I shot back. “Not a big deal? I’ve been married sixteen years now, and every kiss I’ve shared with my wife has been a big deal! I like that it’s a big deal! Why on earth would you want it not to be a big deal?”

It’s supposed to be a big deal, not an “unintended event.” Our culture has lost track of that. Intimacy between a man and woman has meaning just in proportion to the meaning invested in it; and there is only one investment with the capacity to carry that full meaning: the lifelong commitment we call marriage. Anything less is, well, less.

But that’s what we’ve come to expect. Since the 1960s sex has been openly exalted, yet its exaltation has become its emptying. What was intended as a glorious expression of deep commitment, joy, life, and oneness, has been reduced to “an unintended event” with “options.”

Those who purvey this drained-out version of sex commit a detestable and horrific crime against humanness, against life, joy, intimacy, and even genuine pleasure—a crime that has victimized an entire generation.

I grieve for those who don’t know what they’re missing.

Also posted at First Things: Evangel

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The book is titled Choosing Your Faith In a World of Spiritual Options. Thankfully Mark Mittelberg, who wrote it, knew where to begin, for the first question that’s bound to come up is, Why choose any faith? It’s a good question, but I won’t take credit for it; I borrowed it straight from the title of his first chapter. Why write about choosing a faith? Is it any more relevant than a book about, say, Choosing Your Sword in a World of Knighthood? Well, yes, of course it is. Mittelberg cites evidence that religion’s influence remains strong in North America (if he had ventured into the rest of the world he could have shown the same, even more so).

Faith is a fact of life apart from religious belief. Mittelberg says of atheist extraordinaire Richard Dawkins (p. 11),

Whether the chances are large or small, the important thought to catch here is that Dawkins doesn’t know there is no God—and he even concedes the possibility that some kind of God might actually exist. Rather, he takes it on faith that there actually is no God….

That’s just the way life is. We all live by some form of faith. Which leads us to the central question: Is ours a well-founded faith? A wise faith? A faith that makes sense and is supported by the facts? One that works in real life and is worth hanging on to?

More personally, is yours a faith you’ve really thought about, carefully evaluated, and intentionally chosen—or did you just slide into it at some point along the way?

That question is directed at all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike. The next six chapters expose common ways people choose their faith: pragmatism and relativism, tradition, authoritarian sources, intuition, the mystical approach, and “logic, evidence, and science,” with an emphasis on “I’ve gotta see it to believe it.” Chances are you’re going to find yourself described in one of those chapters or some mix thereof. Chances are especially good if you’ve never given your faith much thought. Faith, after all, is a synonym for belief; and how many of us really pay attention to why we believe what we believe?

So it behooves each of us to reflect on where we’ve come from in choosing our faith. Mittelberg prefers a version of the logic, evidence and science path, renamed the Evidential path in chapter eight:

It’s the one path that tests—and ultimately supports or undermines—all the others. Its two key elements, logic and sensory experience, are God-given tools we must use to gain the vast majority of our information, to test truth claims, and ultimately to decide what to believe.

The other faith paths do not necessarily lead to the wrong destination, but within them there is little or no means of testing, nothing to correct us if, for example, we rely on tradition for tradition’s sake. (“Your parents could be wrong,” he says. I suppose that even applies to my kids’ parents.) Going on,

The Evidential approach tells us logically and empirically that there is one set of truths—based on actual, what is reality—that we need to discover and let inform our choice of faiths. We can use these tools to test traditional teachings, religious authorities, intuitive instincts and hunches, and mystical encounters, so we can know which ones are worth believing and holding on to.

On another thread I’ve been debating whether it’s conceptually possible for God to reveal himself to us just through direct impressions (the sensus divinitatus) such that we could reliably know that the encounter we’re having is with God. Clearly if there’s a God, it’s unreasonable to assume that he could not do that. I’ve had many experiences I would describe that way. For purposes of that discussion, it’s logically sufficient to establish that if there is a God, then God could do that. But that’s a very limited point, for a very limited purpose. (I wouldn’t have brought it up here except I knew it would be brought up for me if I didn’t.)

The fact is that even though I know God can convince me of his reality any way he wants to, nevertheless when I have an experience that seems like God, I want some way to check whether I’m getting it right or if I’m mistaken. We’re not left only to our impressions, as it turns out, nor are we stuck in a morass of doubt where we have nothing to turn to besides tradition, authority, feelings, or the science of the laboratory. All of these have checks and balances coming from a most useful source: objective reality. Mittelberg explores logical, scientific, and historical criteria for choosing one’s beliefs, along with ways to assess the biblical and historical evidences for Jesus Christ.

Like his friend (and author of the foreword to this book) Lee Strobel, Mittelberg writes on a very accessible level. I recommend this book highly for the seeker in your life (including yourself, if you are that seeker). For church study groups, it could provide good discussion material for assessing various worldviews. (Mary Jo Sharp recently recommended this book for the same purpose.) I especially appreciate that Mittelberg emphasizes how to think about spiritual questions rather than telling us what to think. Of course he lands on his own solid conclusion: that faith in Jesus Christ is an excellent choice, the only one that makes good sense. But he gets there through a thoughtful path that should help readers think thoughtfully about their own paths.

Choosing Your Faith In a World of Spiritual Options by Mark Mittelberg. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008. 254 pages plus endnotes. Amazon price US$13.59 hardcover.

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Indeed, it does exist. It is the Congressional Prayer Caucus (CPC). Whether you’re an American or a citizen of another country who cares about America’s role in the world, I think you’ll want to know about it, to be encouraged by it. I see it as one of the bright hopeful lights on our horizon.

It’s not about politics, and it’s not just for politicians. The non-profit, non-partisan Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF) is calling on you and me to be informed and to get involved in multiple ways: in building a prayer wall around our nation and its leaders, getting connected with our state level leaders, and building prayer efforts in our churches. The Foundation’s mission is expressed in its commitment to:

• Protecting the public expression of prayer and faith in God
• Communicating the constitutional truths that establish America’s freedom
• Sustaining and equipping leaders who believe in prayer and uphold Judeo-Christian principles

… and in its dedication to:

• Establishing a network of ceaseless prayer, and initiating a Wall of Prayer around America.
• Working with legislators to create an architecture within federal and state governments to protect religious and individual freedom for future generations.
• Sustaining, supporting, and equipping existing and emerging leaders to live and lead with a Biblical worldview.
• Sparking an intellectual awakening regarding prayer and God’s role in America’s foundation and our future.

Lea Carawan, President of the Foundation, says that

CPC and CPCF are mounting a strategy to restore and renew our great nation, and are uniquely position to stand above political parties, religious affiliations, and entrenched agendas; and unite all God-fearing Americans under one banner — In God We Still Trust.

Join in supporting this bright light for our country!

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Alexandra Gill tells why she is marrying herself, along with six other women who are doing the same:

a celebration of womanhood and a toast to our independence…. In our minds, it is essential to find happiness and fulfilment on your own before committing to another.

This absolutely begs for commentary, some of it in the category of easy pickings. The most obvious, which I will not spend much time on, is that it’s another example of the slippery slope from the homosexuals’ drive to re-define marriage. Gill wrote:

We are not opposed to the institution of marriage or trying to make a mockery of it. But let’s face it. Traditions are changing — for the better…. We are fortunate for the opportunity, which many of our mothers never had, to live life to the fullest and not feel compelled to define ourselves by a man. But let’s not get too serious. For the most part, this is also a good excuse to throw a fabulous party.

Note the trivialization of a once-sacred ceremony. But I have a different question to pursue. If one of these women decides later to marry a man, will she have to divorce herself first? In a very practical sense, the answer is yes.

Thankfully this is (for now, at least) not a legal issue. Symbolically, though, this is a powerful solemnization of self-centeredness. This is exactly what marriage was never meant to be.

Marriage is most successful when it is more about the other than about the self. Real marriage is about mutual self-sacrifice, about finding the joy in giving that is far deeper than what comes from seeking one’s own. The Bible tells men to lay down their lives for their wives as Christ did for the church (Ephesians 5:25-28). Elsewhere (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) it says,

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Marriage is an antidote to self. (Raising children is a multiplied dose of the same.) As such it is increasingly counter-cultural, which is one of the reasons it needs defending so vigorously. You can research the tenor of our culture in a moment at a supermarket checkout stand. Scan the magazine covers there and observe how often the word “you” is used. “You can have better sex!” “How you can make more in investments.” “Doctors’ mistakes put you at risk!” This is not a sign of editors’ caring for you. It’s the result of research that shows they sell more magazines by getting us to focus on ourselves.

Nothing could be more foreign to Christ’s call to love one another, to give ourselves up for one another, to find our life by not seeking it. Ms. Gill believes “it is essential to find happiness and fulfillment on your own before committing to another.” Jesus Christ says the one who seeks his own life will lose it.

So it’s unlikely these women could live happily in a real marriage, without divorcing themselves from what they are entering now. And without a change of heart, even on their own, they are not destined to live Happily Ever After.

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I am speaking from long, hard experience, therefore, when I say that there is something toxic about conservative evangelicals’ stance toward academe. This stance is informed by what can only be called a thorough-going persecution complex. In the rhetoric of prominent conservative evangelical leaders, the secular world is not merely a realm that exists alongside Christianity. Instead, it is in active opposition to Christianity, seeking its destruction. The theory of evolution, for example, is not simply a scientific theory that happens to reach conclusions at odds with a literal reading of Genesis — it is a conspiracy aimed at discrediting belief in God.

I’m not in the academy now, but I’ll never forget the way a philosophy prof reamed me out for thinking there was anything in Christian thought or history worth giving two minutes’ attention. The specific issue is not worth rehearsing today, but time has proved he was wrong on it. The main thing I learned at the time was to keep my head down. He was wrong, but he was a full prof and I was a freshman. That was all I needed to know.

More recently I’ve edited two books about secondary school, college, and university instructors/professors being forced out of their positions because of their Christian beliefs. Speech codes mandating Christians shut up about certain beliefs abound. Is Christian belief under pressure in the university? Absolutely yes. Is the theory of evolution a “conspiracy aimed at discrediting belief in God”? That depends on who’s expounding it; there are some in whose hands it has exactly that purpose.

But these things depend partly on local circumstances. Business school students experience very little academic pressure. Biology and humanities majors get a lot more. These are based on national averages in the U.S., so it could be very different from one school to another. When I teach on staying Christian in college, I encourage students to be prepared for both the good and the bad. College was, by the way, the very best thing that could have happened to my spiritual life.

On every front, the conservative evangelical community perceives itself to be under siege, particularly its children, since indoctrinating children in secular ideology is the most effective means of undercutting Christianity.

There’s truth in that. Look, we are in spiritual battle. Isn’t that obvious? The university, along with the media, is the most important battleground in that conflict, and undercutting Christian belief is certainly the opposition’s main mode of attack.

Believing that evangelical students are under continual attack, conservative evangelical leaders encourage them to boldly defend themselves whenever possible. Overall, the attitude their most prominent leaders promote in conservative evangelical students is a combination of extreme paranoia and defiance (conceived as self-defense).

Not being there in the classrooms, I don’t know if Christian students are exhibiting irrational fears. I don’t know if their defense of the faith looks more like “self-defense,” “defiance,” or just being present intellectually and refusing to swallow whole everything that gets spoon-fed to them. I don’t think there’s any call for irrationality or fear. There’s hardly ever anything good to be gained by being disrespectful, so if that’s what he means by “defiant,” I hope it’s not happening; it shouldn’t be.

If Christianity is what we believe it is, then it’s strong enough to stand up to attack. If God is God, and if we’re following him, then we’re in good hands. There’s no need for fear, and no call for rudeness or disrespect. Still, when someone says something untrue or misleading about God, the faith, or morality, then what’s wrong with speaking the truth in love?

Conservative evangelicals as a group, therefore, are not just one among many excluded groups. Rather, they are sui generis insofar as they have constantly been encouraged, from a very young age, to expect and create conflict in the classroom.

It takes two to fight.

Above all, parents and pastors need to stop giving a blank check to anything that professes to be “Christian.” Conservative evangelicals have long been skilled at sniffing out what they consider to be pseudo-Christian liberals — developing some discernment on the other end of the scale would be a welcome shift.

I agree wholeheartedly. There’s some really soft stuff out there, and even some wrong stuff, that claims to be Christian. We need to be far more discerning.

Rejecting the more radical leaders must also mean rejecting their paranoid and frankly made-up ideas. For instance, evangelicals need to reject the fantasy of America as a “Christian nation” and recognize that it is precisely America’s secular state and prohibition of an established church that has allowed American Christianity to be such a dynamic, grassroots-powered religion instead of the empty formality it often is in European countries. Even if conforming to secular culture seems disadvantageous or constraining in the short term, treating it as an enemy is amazingly shortsighted. Evangelicals should be American secularism’s biggest supporters!

There’s a lot of truth in that, and a lot of confusion, all mixed up too thoroughly for me to treat it in the time I have today. In short, if secularism means giving equal opportunity to competing beliefs in the university, letting them all duke it out until the best one wins, that’s great, especially for academic settings. Sometimes, though, secularism means advantaging secular beliefs above Christian beliefs, which creates an unequal playing field. That’s not fantasy, that’s not a “persecution complex,” it’s reality in some settings.

That’s not to say Christian students should walk in to class convinced they’re about to get stoned and thrown out of Lystra. That’s a persecution complex. No, they should enter confidently, secure in who they are and who God is. If something comes up that opposes their beliefs, they should listen, learn, and respond on the basis of well-studied and developed knowledge, including the relevant knowledge from both the Christian side and the opposing view. That’s good, healthy interactive learning.

Similarly with evolution: Christians have always absorbed the best of worldly knowledge and literature. If Christians in the past have found it acceptable to learn about the carousing of pagan gods through studying the classical literature, surely learning about the theory of evolution can’t be a huge problem. Just as previous generations could study classical literature to learn grammar and rhetoric without thereby worshiping pagan gods, so too can contemporary evangelicals benefit from the practical medical knowledge that has resulted from evolutionary theory without denying their belief in God. And in fact I have never met an evangelical who would reject medical treatment from a doctor who believed in evolution — if modern biology, founded as it is on evolutionary theory, can be relied on in a life or death situation, objecting to its use in the low-stakes environment of the classroom seems misguided.

I agree that Christians should learn, study, and thoroughly understand evolutionary theory. I’m all in favor of us knowing what we talk about before we talk about it. But please, let’s not treat “evolution” as if it were univocal. Depending on the context, it means change over time, within-species variations of populations, descent with modification, universal common descent, and/or naturalistic universal common descent. To agree with evolution in the sense of within-species variations, and to accept medical treatment that’s been built upon knowledge of that form of evolution, does not commit one to accept evolution in all senses.

If conservative evangelical parents and pastors focused on encouraging their children to simply get as much as they can out of their education and had the courage to speak up against leaders whose extreme views only bring their community into disrepute, no one would have the occasion to ask if conservative evangelicals are discriminated against and no one would need to develop strategies to cope with the unique pedagogical challenges they represent — instead, they’d be among the most sought-after students. Professors can and should do more to work toward that future, but ultimately the responsibility lies with the conservative evangelical community itself.

Here Kotsko shifts from talking about the nature of the university to the character of Christian students. I’m in agreement with him on this, but not because I endorse his analysis of the situation. I agree because what he’s describing is the way Christian students ought to be regardless of circumstances. I think all of us should focus on getting the most out of our educations (in school or out). I think we should raise our voices in opposition to extreme, false views, both within and without our community. Christian students should be the most studious, the most respectful, the most inquisitive of all. They should also be, in the best sense of the word, the most demanding: they should demand excellence of themselves, and they should expect to be educated with excellence—which includes being taught the truth as well as having freedom to challenge respectfully what is not true.

Oh, for more Christians who will enter the university and stay there, committed to truth, committed to learning, committed to demonstrating excellence and love!

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In preparing this issue, First Things has been conducting ground-breaking research, and now we’re asking our readers for your insights. The Students of Faith Survey, for current students and recent graduates, will help us polish our research on the religious currents in academia today.

[From Students of Faith Survey » Evangel | A First Things Blog]

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If science wants to redeem itself and regain its place with the public’s affection, scientists need to come out every time some politician says, “The science says we must…” and reply, “Science only tells us what is. It does not, and can never tell us what we should or must do.” If they say that often enough, and loudly enough, they might be able to reclaim the mantle of objectivity that they’ve given up over the last 40 years by letting themselves become the regulatory state’s ultimate appeal to authority.

[From Science Turns Authoritarian — The American, A Magazine of Ideas]

Three years ago in “Servants of a Twisted God,” I noted the priestly and idolatrous character science was taking on, and observed,

Yet if scientists are still our priests of the god of knowledge, priests ought to be pure and chaste. Their purpose is to speak for their god, to represent him (or it) disinterestedly and accurately. When priests seek other goals—especially power—their authority soon dissolves….

[Matthew] Nisbet and [Chris] Mooney would have scientists do more of this: to present persuasive arguments rather than pure science. They want scientists to spend less energy on telling the public the full truth, and more on being politically effective. They are encouraging scientists to follow the fatal path that too many clergy took in the past: to become priests of power, servants of a twisted god.

Green and Alaghebandian see the same thing continuing to happen:

While nobody would dispute the value of a good PR department, we doubted that bad or insufficient PR was the primary reason for the public’s declining trust in scientific pronouncements. Our theory is that science is not losing its credibility because people no longer like or believe in the idea of scientific discovery, but because science has taken on an authoritarian tone, and has let itself be co-opted by pressure groups who want the government to force people to change their behavior.

I predicted in 2007,

The public will lose its religion over this.

Though these authors do not employ the same metaphor, they certainly seem to agree.

Also posted at First Things: Evangel

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I met Nabeel for the first time last November. Part of our conversation that day was about whether it was safe or prudent to blog about Islam. By his answer that day I knew that he knew he was taking significant personal risks. This threat came to him as no surprise, I’m sure; as David Wood wrote, “In case anyone didn’t notice, we’re not scared of dying.”

For this I commend Nabeel and David. They are persuaded that the Lord Jesus Christ is watching over them in life and in death. I pray for their continued perseverance and trust.

Let us now suppose the worst happened, that one or both of them were to die at the hands of some Muslim. It could happen; it would not be uncharacteristic of some segments of Islam. How would the church respond?

Here is what I see in the Bible and in church history: Christians facing persecution with trust in Christ and love for their persecutors—not a mushy kind of love, but one that confronted error while speaking truth and life. See for example Stephen in Acts 7:51-60. He spoke boldly; he was stoned. His dying prayer was “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” In this he was echoing his Savior on the cross, who prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Throughout the latter half of Acts, Paul defended his innocence and his message boldly, yet he showed constant love toward the authorities. See for example his regard for the soldiers and sailors escorting him as a prisoner to Rome, and his witness to his jailers as recorded in the first chapter of Philippians.

To be persecuted is to be blessed (Matthew 5:11-12):

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And it is to share in the sufferings of Christ (Philippians 3:7-14, John 15:18-24).

These things we know, if we have studied our Scriptures. But are we ready for it? Most urgently, are we ready to obey Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:44-45?

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

As I have observed the Internet response to the arrests in Dearborn, I’ve seen distressingly little of that. I am not at all confident we in the church are prepared to love our enemies.

I have given David and Nabeel the opportunity to preview the following message, which I wrote as a sort of open letter to them. Nabeel responded appreciatively and expressed no objection to my posting it publicly. Though it is addressed to them, it is the kind of message that could be of value to all of us.

My friends, you are strong. You show great confidence in the Lord and in the truth of his gospel. Christians and Muslims are paying close attention to you; you are thus gaining prominence at the troubled interface between Christianity and Islam in America. Consider well where you are leading us. You have said you are willing to die gladly for your faith. Are you as willing to be arrested and go to court, gladly and with great joy and trust? That would be an important message for you to emphasize from the platform God has granted you.

If you were to die—and we know it is not just an academic question—you would become leaders in death more than in life. What would your legacy be? I believe you would want it to be a message of the absolute, resounding truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and of his love for all, including Muslims, who need to experience his truth, his grace, and his life.

Based on what I read in various blogs, though, that’s not the message others are hearing. I am concerned for you about this, because I think you want love to live alongside truth at the center of your message. But what people are hearing instead is, “Dearborn is wrong and we’re going to prove it.” Now, it may well be true that you were arrested improperly. Your video messages certainly support that opinion. But in the long run, that is much too small a matter for you to make it your primary message. Consider your position of leadership. Consider your opportunity. You could be showing both Christians and Muslims what the love of Christ looks like under pressure: visibly praying for your enemies, openly doing good to those who persecute you.

David and Nabeel, we need that kind of Christlike example, because a lot more of us are going to be experiencing that pressure in years to come. You may see Dearborn as crucial to the battle for religious freedom. Perhaps so, but only in a small way; for consider this: If you lose there, pressure on Christians will increase. If you win, it will increase anyway. Our future as Christians in America does not depend on Dearborn. Our future does depend on how we follow Christ.

So I encourage you to stand firm with the truth of your message as you have been doing. I affirm you for your strength in that. I urge you also to strengthen significantly your visible demonstration of love for Muslims—not for Islam, which is a false and oppressive way, but for fellow human beings, loved by God and for whom our Savior died, who are walking the Islamic road toward spiritual death.

I am praying for you, with love, with respect, with concern, and with hope.

To all of us I close with this, written by one who was “not ashamed of the gospel” (Romans 1:16), who argued for its truth and ultimately gave his life for it. While living for that gospel in Christ, he wrote this reminder (from Romans 12:14-21):

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all….“if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink…. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I expect we’ll all have more opportunity to practice that in years to come.

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Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate. (p. 132)

California’s obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to “mandate [its] own moral code.” (p. 133)

The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8 uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples. (pp. 133-134)

Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples. (p. 135)

Is there now a wall of separation between morality and state? Where in the Constitution (or even in Jefferson’s letters) do you find that?

Also posted and open for discussion at First Things: Evangel.

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From:

UNITED NATION

To:

undisclosed recipients

Title:

IS IT TRUE THAT YOU ARE DEAD?

Body:

Dear Beneficiary,

We are writing to let you know that one Mr Gumanti R. H. Sihombing MM from Jl. Sunggal 157, Kompleks Perumahan BPKP, Medan, Indonesia came to our Office today to claim your fund ($6.5Million) that is with our custody and said that you are dead, that he is your brother , you gave him Authority to claim your fund in case if you die. We are writing to find if it is true that you are dead so that your fund will be released to him.

If we did not hear from you within three working days that means you are dead true and your fund will be release to him.

Best Regards,

Mr. Sam Daws
Executive Director of United Nation Office In Uk
Postal Address United Nations Association of the UK 3 Whitehall Court
London

… etc.

My son’s friend says I should answer, “Yes, I’m dead. You’re lucky heaven has wi-fi or I wouldn’t be able to confirm this for you.” Anyway, this leads to some very important questions. Most of them are pretty easy:

• A “United Nation” is a very good thing. I wish ours was more united. But which nation is it from?
• It’s very personally addressed to “undisclosed recipients.” How many rich brothers does Mr. Gumanti R. H. Sihombing MM have?
• Who else died and made me the “Dear Beneficiary”?
• If I reply within three working days and tell them I’m dead, does that mean I’m not dead?
• Would that mean I could keep the $6.5Million I never knew I had?
• Does the United Nations really manage probate in the U.K.?
• Even if they did manage probate somewhere, would the U.N. turn over $6.5 million to someone who just walked in and claimed he was my brother?
• Why does “Mr Sam Daws” identify himself on one line as working for the “United Nation Office in the Uk,” and on the next as working for the United Nations Association (also listed on a website in the “etc.”)? Whatever the “United Nation” may be, it’s not the same as the United Nations Association—which is also not the same as the United Nations.
• Maybe he really works for an oil company. In the “etc.” I deleted from above he lists his “mobil” phone number.
• Does letting an email go unanswered for three days really mean I am “dead true”? If so, then I’ve been “dead true” a thousand times over! (I’ll bet you’re “dead true” too, if that’s all it takes.)
• Does “Best Regards” really fit as a closing after “that means you are dead true” and we’re giving away your fortune?
• Does anybody ever respond to messages like this?(I mean, other than for a laugh.) Why??
• More seriously: there’s no phishing in this, no fake web address to steal personal information. What’s its purpose? My guess is that it’s to harvest gullible responders’ email addresses, possibly for sale to email con artists. It would make for quite a premium list for their evil purposes.

Actually by God’s grace I am dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:1-11). That’s worth more than $6.5 million any day!

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