Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Are Atheists Autistic?

    Joe Carter has a post at the evangelical outpost [Note: Evangelical Outpost is showing a warning about browser exploit from McAfee Site Advisor. As I was admonished in the comments, I need to give warning. I’ve used the site for years, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe in doing so. Use the link at your own risk.] in which he proposes, with some caveats, that atheists may tend to be less socially aware, particularly aware of other minds, and may tend more toward Aspberger’s Syndrome. He invited readers of his blog to take a test here, which I did, scoring a 30. Since I’m a theist, that puts me close to a counter-example for his thesis.

    I commented there that I thought this approach is more polarizing than helpful, though I would admit is is no more polarizing than the suggestion some atheists have made to me that I hallucinate any experience of God. I don’t mind them doing that.

    In a reply to my own comment there, Joe states [see warning above]:

    About 95% of the atheists I have met seem to be “quarrelsome, socially challenged men.”

    His experience is different from mine. I’ve found Christian apologists to be much like this. I have also found atheist apologists to be like this. In fact, apologists in general tend to be in your face and somewhat quarrelsome. I think that goes with the territory, though I do know some counter-examples in each and every group. Personally, while Dawkins gets on my nerves, I don’t think it’s because he’s socially challenged. I’ve only read his work, and seen him on TV, but he seems reasonably personable for an advocate of a controversial position.

    If there is a correlation, and the problem is a type of “mind-blindness” then it should not be surprising to find that reason-based arguments are ineffective when trying to change their opinion of God. We Christians tend to treat atheism as if it was some form of Enlightenment-era rationalism and provide arguments that appeal to their reason.

    I’m afraid I have seen atheists as much more interested in discussing the arguments for the existence of God than most Christians. I would suggest that, rather than the intellectual arguments being ineffective because of a psychological failing on the part of atheists, they are ineffective because, as proofs of God’s existence, they are, in fact, flawed.

    In my experience, practically all of the arguments for God’s existence make more sense from the position of faith, i.e., I believe I can learn something about God through them, but they are not water-tight. Belief in God involves faith, which does not mean it is totally immune from intellectual examination, but I believe it does mean it’s not totally subject to it.

    I’ve always thought atheism was mostly psychological rather than epistemological. This potential correlation only strengthens that opinion, which is why I think it is worth exploring.

    Again, I would have to disagree. On a purely intellectual level, atheists do quite well. There’s no need to seek psychological reasons. They simply don’t find the arguments convincing. I wonder why that’s so hard to accept?

    For me, while there are pieces of the puzzle provided by arguments for God’s existence, at the core there is a serious leap of faith. That leap was not easy to take, and so I’m not at all surprised that some don’t take it, and some others don’t even believe there is a leap to take, and that I imagined both chasm and leap. Those are all things on which different people can have different views.

  • Incarnation and Women in Ministry

    I am a strong supporter of the inclusion of women in all aspects of Christian ministry. Sometimes I skip over the theology. Monastic Mumblings has a good post that covers some of the theological aspects very effectively.

    Check it out!

  • Selling Christianity

    Laura has an excellent post on this. She links back to an earlier post I wrote, but that’s not why I’m calling it excellent. She also makes a number of good points, and links to a number of good posts.

    Some Christians make the assumption that if you’re not “in your face” about your faith, you’re not serious about your faith. After all, how can you be quiet when people are going to hell? That’s one reason a number of people complain when I call myself a moderate Christian. How can one be moderate about Christianity? You’ve got to be on fire!

    But regarding your faith as important does not mean you need to embrace ineffective or unethical methods of witnessing. Under unethical I would include any means of witnessing that doesn’t recognize the person to whom you witness as a child of God, endowed with the ability to make his or her own choices. Thus a Christian witness should try to look at God’s children the way God does, and God not only cares about us, but respects our choices.

    Any approach to witnessing that drives people away is ineffective. I recall one teacher saying once that we should make sure that when we are done conversing with someone that it will be easier, not harder, for the next Christian to talk to that person. Sometimes that will mean that I have to shut up completely, because anything I say will make things worse.

    The most important thing to remember, I think, is that God is responsible for conversions. You are not. I am not. God is responsible for heaven and hell. You and I don’t get to make those calls. God is also sovereign, and he doesn’t need our help running the universe. What does that leave us? Well, we simply are called to give witness.

    There’s always the “gospel offends” excuse. Now I do believe that the gospel offends. Grace is unfair. God’s grace is going to let people into heaven that I don’t really like all that much. But much of the actual offense people have against Christians is not due to the gospel. Often it is something precisely the opposite of God’s grace that offends them. When Christians are unforgiving and judgmental, when they arrogate to themselves God’s prerogatives of judgment, when they treat non-Christians with disrespect, those people are offended. Even though Christians have done the offending, the gospel was not at issue.

    There are two elements to a Christian witness. First is a Christian life. Not a perfect life, mind you, but a life aimed at discipleship. Second is the confession. The reason I put the confession second is that a transformed life will draw questions. The confession comes in answer.

  • Enthusiastic for Everything

    Adrian Warnock has written an interesting and challenging post titled I DON’T WANT BALANCE, I WANT IT ALL!. There is a great deal in that post with which I not only sympathize, I empathize–I’ve been there.

    For me one place I want both is in the intensity of much charismatic worship. I have experienced that in many places, including the Brownsville Revival here in Pensacola. It’s an interesting feeling, however, to realize that many of the people with whom you are worshiping would regard you as questionable at best for your theological views.

    I also have enjoyed the theological footwork of the reformed. Since I mentioned a charismatic place by name, let me just mention McIlwain Memorial Presbyterian Church (PCA) here in Pensacola. At a conference they hosted I enjoyed listening to folks like James Boice and John Blanchard, and even sang Charles Wesley’s “Oh for a Thousand Tongues” with that reformed congregation. It was both intellectually and spiritually stimulating. Their pastoral staff has been friendly over the years, and I’ve enjoyed working with them. Yet at the same time I knew I would be questionable as a church member and would certainly never teach there because of their doctrinal standards.

    That’s why when an opponent dubbed me a “liberal charismatic” I adopted the term, at least partially. I prefer “passionate moderate,” but “liberal charismatic” has always seemed to catch something of that which drives me.

    I was thinking of one of my normal long posts in response, when I encountered this post by Dave Warnock, which says what I wanted to say, and does it better. Check it out.

    I’ll add just a note to commenter GlennSP, who accuses Dave of bring in a subject that has no reference in the post. To me, however, it does. I want all those things Adrian wants, and I also want them for my wife, my daughter, and for all the women I’ve encountered in the church, many of whom are struggling to find a place they can use the gifts God has given them. I want it for a newly ordained United Methodist pastor whom I’ll leave nameless, who only entered ministerial candidacy when she was into middle age because when, as a young child, she heard God’s call to be a pastor, and was told by a respected elder, “Girls can’t be pastors.” It does have reference, because when I say I want it all, I mean that I want it all for everybody.

  • St. John Chrysostom Quote

    I’m reading the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Volume X, Hebrews, and I found this interesting quote from St. John Chrysostom:


    St. John Chrysostom

    We ought to receive all things with faith and reverence, and, when our discourse fails through weakness and is not able to set forth accurately the things that are spoken, then we ought especially to glorify God, in that we have such a God, surpassing both our thought and our conception. For many of our conceptions about God we are unable to express, and many things we express but do not have the strength to conceive. For instance, that God is everywhere we know, but how we do not understand. There there is a certain incorporeal power, the cause of all our good things, we know, but how it is or what it is, we know not. We speak and do not understand! I said that he is everywhere, but I do not understand it. I staid that he is without beginning, but I do not understand it. I said that he begot from himself, and again I know not how I shall understand it. And some things there are that we may not even speak–as, for instance, that thought conceives but cannot utter. [p. 13]

    Perhaps we could all (me especially) do with a bit of humility regarding our knowledge of God and divine things.

  • Churches other than Roman Catholic are not True Churches

    I always knew I was a heretic:

    Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. (From MSNBC.com)

    Well, actually, I never regarded the Catholic church and the pope as having any authority over me in any case, but I expected this kind of nonsense when this pope was elected, and here it is.

  • Congratulations David Warnock

    . . . who is now ordained and received into full connexion by the Methodist Church of Great Britain. I very much enjoy David’s blog, and truly could link to it much more frequently than I do. He will be a great asset to the Methodist church and to the church universal.

    Rejoice with and for him!

  • A Visit to the St. Gregory Palamas Monastery

    Kevin at Everyday Liturgy is beginning some reflections on his visit to St. Gregory Palama monastery. This caught my attention, since my recent discussions of the atonement led to some discussion of the Eastern Orthodox view of the atonement, and thence to some articles on St. Gregory Palamas, and I now have a plan to acquire a copy of a book about him.

    Here’s a taste:

    I went to the monastery partly expecting to see a different world of great and explicit spiritual feats – what I found was a community of simple men, living simply, working out their salvation by simple means. I think I might have been able to deal with the realization of my former misconcieved expectations, for if their world was so incredibly different from my own, I might have been better able to excuse my personal entanglements in wordly concerns. But, since their lives were made up of all the elements as mine, I found myself without excuse and felt somewhat exposed by the light the monastery shone on my life. Since returning, I have been wondering how I can better live the life of the Gospel in my own place, how my desk job can be an obedience, how I can pray more, how I can respect and serve others, keep silence when necessary and speak words of love when possible.

    Check it out!

  • Update on Muslim-Christian Episcopal Priest

    Thanks to Hot Air with hat tip to Pursuing Holiness, I found an update on the episcopal priest who wants to be a practicing Muslim at the same time she is an Episcopal priest.

    I blogged on this previously, noting at the time that I was a big tent person, but that too large a tent would lead to a crash. I thought this represented way too large a tent. Redding can pursue some interfaith path if she wants, but it should not be as ordained clergy in a Christian denomination.

    It seems now that the bishop with disciplinary authority, the one who ordained her, has determined that the combination doesn’t work. According to the Seattle Times,

    The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a local Episcopal priest who announced she is both Muslim and Christian, will not be able to serve as a priest for a year, according to her bishop.

    During that year, Redding is expected to “reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam,” the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to Episcopal Church leaders.

    Redding was ordained more than 20 years ago by the then-bishop of Rhode Island, and it is that diocese that has disciplinary authority over her.

    This sounds appropriate to me.

  • New Philophronos Blogroll Member

    I join with Laura in welcoming Discovering the Heart of God as a new Philophronos Blogroll member. Go check out his blog.

    I’m going to link to a specific post from the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter to which I’m the primary contributor.