Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • TVC is at it Again

    The TVC is generally bummed about their week, and one of the major downers for them was California Representative Peter Stark declaring his unbelief in God on the floor of the house.

    I’ve commented on this sort of attitude before. What did they want him to do? Lie? What about all those Christians and others who have declared their faith?

    I’m fully in favor of people declaring just what they believe about anything that is central to their life. I think a major problem is that much religious rhetoric from politicians is simply put there to attract particular groups of religious voters. It’s hypocritical. But if a candidate is a person of faith, he or she should express that faith. It’s part of who the candidate is and the voters should be able to decide. If I were ever to run for office, an event which will occur right after hell becomes an ice-skating rink, the cameras would have to follow me to church on Sunday morning if they care that much. Why? Because that’s where I am on Sunday mornings and you’re not going to stop me.

    When a Muslim was elected to congress I believed and continue to believe that he should express his faith as a candidate and as a congressman. Since Congressman Stark does not believe in God, it is appropriate for him to express that. I don’t know if he attends a Unitarian-Universalist Church, but if he does, that is where he should be at the appropriate time. That’s who he is.

    But consider this quote, taken from the same article:

    Christian Seniors Association Executive Director James Lafferty notes: “It is sad but not surprising that the current Congress has produced this historic first – one of its members has denied God. The liberals in Congress want to throttle any school child who bows his or her head in prayer but they want to establish a right for liberals to bash Christians and berate God around the clock.”

    Lafferty continued, “Congressman Stark’s statement is a very sad benchmark for America. It could be the moment which defines the decline of our country or it could be the spark which marks an important day. That would be the day that religious Americans stood-up to the liberal bullies who are so determined to use the power of government to silence prayer and every other religious expression of free speech.”

    This stuff makes me crazy! The man says he’s an atheist and it becomes an attack on free speech? Just how did they get there? Talk about unbalanced reporting–this stuff has capsized. The religious right needs to get it through their heads that prayer in schools is already legal. Your child can pray. Your child can form prayer groups with other children. If you modeled prayer at home and taught your children how to pray, there would be nothing in their way. The problem the religious right has with prayer in schools is that the government doesn’t sponsor it. Apparently parents can’t get their kids to pray enough so they need teachers to enforce state sponsored prayers.

    And yes, it definitely is alright for liberals or anyone else to “bash Christians and berate God around the clock.” God will remain undamaged by being berated, and Christians who once faced lions in the arena for their faith should be able to take a little verbal bashing. Any time either the left or the right wants to silence people they don’t like it’s an attack on free speech and needs to be fought.

    And that’s one of the big problems with this article. If the TVC wanted to support traditional American values they could take the following approach and appear much more sincere. They could announce that they welcome the honesty and openness of Representative Peter Stark, and they are glad we live in a country where not only can an atheist express his views publicly, something that would be illegal in Saudi Arabia, for example, but he can be elected to congress. That’s a wonderful example of freedom of speech. We intend to support that just as we support the right of those Christians who oppose homosexuality to express their views, or those who believe abortion is murder to express theirs. Hallelujah and pass the free speech!”

    But instead they choose not to follow the path of free speech, something they ask for themselves, but instead they simply try to change who it is the target of silencing.

  • American Civilization, Christian Faith, and Cultural Clashes

    How’s that for a broad title? 🙂

    I’m going to annoy quite a few people with this post, but I have noticed for a number of years that Christians in America often conflate Christianity and American patriotism. This goes to extremes with certain Christian reconstructionists who actually believe that America is the new chosen nation, destined to accomplish God’s will in the world. This manifests itself in a determination to make America a home of “Christian” values, meaning their particular brand of Christianity, and not anything actually having to do with Jesus. Further, it manifests itself as we identify America’s interests with Christianity’s interests.

    One of the most disturbing aspects of this was those American Christians who regarded the invasion of Iraq as advancing God’s kingdom, because the American and UK troops paved the way for Christian missionaries. Christians who move in on the heals of invading forces should give serious consideration to the damage done to God’s kingdom when it is attached to the sword of a state. Christianity has spread best when it was carried by persecuted missionaries, and it has deteriorated quickly when backed by the sword (or gun, or tank).

    I grew up as the child of missionary parents. About half of my childhood and youth was spent overseas. I grew up watching cricket, and not baseball, and knowing soccer as football, and not American football. In fact, when I first watched American football I couldn’t comprehend why it was called “football” as they only thing people seemed to use their feet for was to run. The rare occasions on which someone actually kicked the ball produced less points than running.

    Now many Americans look at me immediately with pity, regarding my childhood as deprived. No baseball? No football? You poor thing, missing the essentials of childhood! Well, I disagree. I recall as a teenager riding around town in Georgetown, Guyana, and arguing with a very good Guyanese friend about the recognition of the People’s Republic of China as the proper holder of the Chinese seat on the security council, and not the Republic of China on Taiwan. “You Americans don’t understand how the world thinks,” he told me. And he was right.

    On the other hand I learned a great deal by growing up that way. I was the only white kid in my youth group, and I have never since been able to look at being a minority in quite the same way. I now love baseball, mostly because my two stepsons, one of whom is a professional pitcher, dragged me into it. But I can truly understand how the subtleties of the game drive a newcomer wild. I also understand how non-American Christians can look at us and wonder how we can regard some of our attitudes as “Christian” when to them they appear purely American and somewhat unChristian.

    Early during the war on Iraq I was on a mission trip in the transcarpathian region of the Ukraine, and I found that there were young ethnic Hungarians being pressured to sign up as “volunteers” to be sent to Iraq. Their perspective and that of their families on the internationalization of that war was quite different. Now I’m not trying to blame any particular person(s) for the plight of those Hungarian young men, but it was wrong, and they had a very different perspective from most Americans at that time.

    This morning I read a post by Peter Kirk at Speaker of Truth. Peter and I have generally agreed on the war up to now, but I can see from this post that his opposition to the war is even deeper seated than mine. I don’t intend to debate those points, but rather I’d like to ask American Christians to go and read the words of a dedicated British Christian in opposition to our war on terror and the way it is being conducted. I noted also in my mornings blog feeds this agreeement from another Christian across the pond.

    I think it is important and fair for me to point out, however, that this was a response to another blogger from across the pond Adrian Warnock, with whom I have frequently disagreed. His post was a response to a human interest story from Chuck Colson. To his credit, Colson does admit that there are moderate Muslims and that the cultural clash he describes is with “radicals.”

    All of this brought back to me the issue of just who is a terrorist. I have no problem at all regarding those who flew aircraft into the twin towers as terrorists. They were evil people and they committed an evil act. I do believe there are evil people, you see. Those who train their young people to go out as suicide bombers qualify, in my view, as evil.

    But there is a state of desperation that makes people vulnerable to becoming victims of such evil people. Now here’s where people are going to say that I’m making excuses for terrorists, and blaming American victims for the evil deeds of terrorists. But let me use the analogy of rape. If a woman I love were raped in a bad section of town, I would not blame her as the victim. The person who committed rape committed an evil deed. Rape is not the fault of the victim.

    But at the same time I can do several things that might prevent such an event. I can get training for those I love in how to keep from being a victim of crime. I can advocate improved law enforcement in the community where this action happened. I can advocate better education and better opportunities in that neighborhood to improve their lives, increase their realistic hopes, and reduce the likelihood that they will turn to crime. (Since someone is sure to point this out, let me add that I don’t believe rape is some kind of manifestation of low income level. What would make the community safer would be a population that was willing to help prevent crime and keep their own neighborhood safe. On the other hand, I believe robbery is often the result of an absence of hope.)

    Now taking action to prevent an attack does not mean that I blame the victims. It means I want to make it less likely for the victims to be victimized. This applies as much or more to terrorism. Noting that there are causes of terrorism does not blame the victims. It might just point the way to improving our chances in the war on terror.

    Somehow many of us in America have gotten the idea that if you just kill enough terrorists, terrorism will end. People often point me to Israel as a specific case. “We need to respond to terrorism like the Israelis do,” they tell me. But the Israelis are still living under constant threat of terrorist attack. Now I don’t want the Israelis to give up and go away. I think they have every right to defend themselves. I don’t blame them for going after terrorists on their home ground or taking security measures. But it’s important to notice that those measures alone have not brought an end to terrorism.

    I am not one of those who believes that we don’t have to fight a war on terror. But I think that as a duty to ourselves we need to be very careful how we fight such a war, and precisely who gets injured and killed. Families in Iraq and Afghanistan are not generally going to distinguish carefully whether their loved ones were killed by an act of terror, or by an act of war by a legitimate government. They’re going to be angry. I’m fairly certain it’s impossible to conduct a war without errors, and that someone is going to get killed who is not supposed to. But doesn’t that make it even more critical to be very careful where and when you go to war or take any violent action and make sure that the violence is intelligently aimed at a good end?

    If this is a cultural war, we aren’t winning it, except in our own minds. I think it’s funny that some pro-war folks here in the United States accuse me of not realizing we’re in a cultural clash, while at the same time acting as though we’re in a purely physical clash. Do you believe you will win a cultural war solely through physical violence? Do you think that we’ll win a cultural war by randomly attacking various countries?

    There are Muslim radicals based in many other countries of the Middle East. If we have a cultural clash, we should include Saudi Arabia on the other side. Surely their treatment of their own people qualifies as just plain wrong. Yet they are our allies. Bluntly, we aren’t behaving at all as if it’s a cultural clash. People in a cultural clash use ideas, and when they do use violence, they use it very carefully.

    One last point–if this is a cultural clash, we need cultural allies. We need physical allies as well. I have been told repeatedly by supporters of the war on Iraq that if those wimps in other countries, especially Europe, who don’t want to stand up to terrorism don’t want to support us, #*%$ them! We can take care of it ourselves. But that view is simply idiotic. Look at what’s going on now. Our reserve and guard troops are exhausted. Yes, they’ll keep going and going like the energizer bunny, but it will be harder and harder to recruit and eventually we’ll be past the point where even a substantial draft will take care of it. Beyond that, there are still other military powers in the world. We’re not up to being a world empire, either physically or morally.

    If we think this is a cultural clash, we need to arm ourselves to act in the cultural arena. Right now we’re failing. A good start on that would be to listen to some folks in the rest of the world. They don’t see us as we see ourselves.

  • Freedom of Speech Rights Tangled

    Here’s an interesting freedom of speech issue again brought to my attention by Breaking Christian News and this time referring me to this LifeSite article. It appears that at a minimum there is confusion about the facts of the case, including the professor’s intentions and when the paper was graded, as comparison of the LifeSite article with this article on the Southern Illinoisian web site.

    I am uncertain of where the law would stand on this, and would certainly welcome comment that might clarify it for me. This whole story bothers me because of what it means for education. A professor’s beliefs do have something to do with what they teach and what they are going to find acceptable in a paper. I can imagine, for example, a person who wants to be a social worker, but who believes that the entire course of treatment should consist of prayer and Bible study. Should such a study be granted a degree in social work, essentially the university saying that this person is qualified to perform the functions of a social worker? If it’s a free speech issue, then the validity of the contents would not be relevant. I’m not suggesting that Christine Mize did not provide a reasonably competent, faith-based program, but it seems dangerous to me to apply free speech standards to the grading of college papers.

    To take an example from a field with which I’m more familiar, suppose that a biology student wished to write a paper on origins for biology class that claimed that all species appeared fully formed and without genealogy, and proposed to demonstrate this from the Bible. I would have to say that there should be no requirement that such a paper be accepted for biology credit. The student has free speech, and can go home and post his paper on his blog if he wants, but I don’t think the first amendment guarantees, or should guarantee a passing grade. Of course the level of competence required would depend on the level.

    There’s a subjective line here between thoroughly incompetent and competent but challenging prevailing attitudes. I must say that while it seems excessive to me for the professor to refuse any inclusion of faith based options in a treatment plan, considering that there is substantial disagreement on the value of such elements, it also seems to me that applying first amendment rights to the acceptance and grading of assignments is questionable, and I wonder what the courts may have ruled on this in the past.

    As I have time I will look it up, though it’s likely that brilliant readers will have straightened me out before I get the time to do that.

    Brilliant readers, where are you?? 🙂

  • Example of Doing Dialogue

    I comment from time to time on dialogue and diversity (most recently here), a pair of topics that I regard as particularly important. It’s important amongst Christians because we have much in common, but we often focus on difference. It’s important in general, because we do share a home planet, however much we might think some other folks come from interstellar distances.

    A couple of the requirements that I believe are important for effective dialogue is knowing what you believe yourself, along with a willingness to search out both the common ground and the major differences, and then express those politely.

    This morning I read a post on the evangelical outpost, titled What Evangelicals Owe Catholics: An Appreciation. Now what precisely interested me about that article, seeing as I’m neither Catholic (nor even ex-Catholic) nor am I evangelical? It was an excellent demonstration of precisely what I’m talking about in terms of dialogue.

    I recommend going and reading it, for content, yes, but especially for method.

  • Time for Church Accountability

    Quite frequently I receive appeals for funds from various ministries. This is probably because I head an all-volunteer ministry, Pacesetters Bible School, Inc. and thus am readily connection with Christianity, non-profits, and thus charitable contributions. Now I have no problem with charitable organizations making appeals for funds, though my group limits appeals to people who have attended an event we sponsor or in some way asked to be on the mailing list.

    I got one of these appeals today, and the thing that bother me about it, and triggered this post, was that the pledge card inside invited me to pledge some tithe to go to support pastors in this group’s various mission locations. The question comes to mind immediately as to just why I should send tithe to them, and since I have no personal or business connection with them, other than their mailout, why I should regard them as trustworthy. In fact, reading their magazine I’m pretty sure I would not support them were I to make a full investigation. Since my default is to support things I know about, I won’t bother with that lengthier investigation.

    Now I’m not a really strict person about tithe. I do believe it’s a good general standard of stewardship, but I believe each person must deal with their own conscience on charitable giving and service. But I also think that the local church is potentially a wonderful institution for giving and carrying out charity. Here’s a group of people you meet with every week (hopefully), and get to know (ideally), and trust (possibly). You can get the idea over a period of time of how they will spend your money.

    In principle, it seems to be that a great way to do your basic charitable giving is through a congregation or local group. Taking that principle and asking you to apply it to essentially random people far away, without accountability is questionable at best. I’m assuming that most people who receive such solicitations treat them as I do. But inevitably, just as a few people get caught by “African dictator” scams in e-mail, so some people get caught by various ministries asking for money.

    But as a follow-up thought, I have to ask just how accountable your local church is. Do they, in fact, spend your money in a way that you would regard as good stewardship? I’ve written recently about authority and accountability (Why Authority Issues are Important), and like many, I spoke more of accountability from above. But I think the focus needs to be a general accountability to the members–the people who produce the cash and suffer through failures of leadership.

    In Christian churches we have too long lived with the idea that the pastor and the elders are above the rest, and should not be questioned. Even in churches with very democratic structures you will generally find a group of people in leadership who are informally considered above reproach and questioning. I believe that there should be no such time. Everyone should be accountable in what they do, whether they have served the church for 5 minutes or 5 decades.

    This is true of financial accountability, of one’s moral life as a church leader, and of teaching and doctrine. In one church I attended I found that people were running around passing on things that I had said about the Bible. Now the fact was that I did have the strongest credentials in Biblical studies in the church, and I had often been able to provide answers and references. I was criticized for giving too carefully qualified of answers (people don’t want all that detail, just give them the answer). Some people even misquoted me back at myself, so that I was the authority behind something I never said.

    I would regularly say, “Don’t take my word for it. Study it out and come to your own conclusions.” Some people in the church leadership told me I was unreasonable. Why shouldn’t folks depend on the Bible “expert” among them? Well, there is a simple problem there–accountability. There was nobody else in the church who knew Biblical languages, or who had studied the history of the ancient near east, or Biblical exegesis, or a number of other fields as I did. If I was in a seminary setting, there would be someone questioning what I said all the time, and justly so. I should be prepared to defend what I say. But in that local congregation, it was just one man–me–and my errors were getting perpetuated. I might correct them later, but they were already a tradition for some people.

    The same thing happens with the finance committee. It’s too complicated and time consuming to check up on what they’re doing and to see how my money is being spent, so I just assume it’s being done well. But I think that’s irresponsible, and it denies accountability to those leaders.

    Check your chuch budget. Find out, for example, how much is being spent on service to the community, and how much on maintaining the church structure. Consider whether those are appropriate numbers and what might be done about it. Consider how much is spent on children and youth, the future of the church, and how much is spent entertaining the older members. (As a grandfather approaching age 50, I think I can say that!) Don’t forget that taking care of the church facility and existing members does cost money, but consider how the church can maximize outreach and service.

    One last thing–this isn’t a call for whiners and complainers. Quite the opposite! Whiners and complainers don’t hold people accountable, they just have fun complaining and gossiping. The difference is in who you talk to and how you do it. If you go to your finance committee to talk about the budget with some specific point in mind and a suggestion for positive action, that’s accountability. It’s still accountability if you go to them with a specific problem, along with evidence to support your claim. If you go to them just to say, “I hate this budget,” but don’t have anything concrete to suggest, that’s just complaining. No matter what you have, if you gossip about it around the table at Wednesday night dinner, that’s whining and complaining. Don’t do it. If you hear it happening, hold people accountable. Say, “I don’t think we should talk about this here and in this way. Let’s take any issues we have to the right people.”

    That’s enough time on the soapbox for me today.

  • Two Stories about Prayer in School

    . . . but they supposedly recount one incident.

    The first came to me via the Traditional Values Coalition alert e-mail, which is generally quite strident. It referred me to this story on Alain’s Newsletter, which tends to make the TVC alerts look calm, collected, and irenic.

    Now here’s another story, this time from The Columbian. You need to read both stories to get the picture here. I’m not going to quote extensively from them.

    I think one can get most of the facts out of these stories, if one ignores the hyperbole and possible reconstructions. But if you look at what is reported and what is emphasized in each story, you will see an excellent example of how to slant news. It’s not by actually concocting facts from thin air. I think completely fabricated data is quite rare, but creative selection is quite another matter. Rather, it’s by means of reporting certain specific things.

    You see, if a group of students were refused permission to pray outside of class time and without disrupting the activities of the school, in other words, in good discipline, I would certainly be angry at the school. This sort of thing does happen, but it’s generally the result of ignorant school officials, lacking good judgment and sometimes fearful of lawsuits, though if they’re that stupid they should be subject to lawsuits. On this point everyone from the ACLU to the ACLJ can agree.

    I’m firmly in favor of prayer. I’ve written a couple of books on it, though only one is still in print. I teach weekend seminars on prayer. I’m not against prayer. Got that? So if the facts were solely as stated in the Alain’s Newsletter report, then no problem. Reinstate the students and let them pray.

    But there were certain things that defied probability, and so I looked for other stories to see if things would clarify themselves just a bit. I was doubtful of the claim that complaints came from “one Satanist” student. That’s one of those elements of a story that’s just too good (for the side of the writer) to be true. It might be, but I doubt it. Note that the offer of a classroom in which to offer prayer is missing from the Alain’s report.

    Now constitutionally I’m not 100% on the boundaries, but if the facts are as The Columbian reported them, I think the school officials will turn out to be within their rights, even though their reaction sounds excessive to me based on the provocation. Other facts could change my mind on that. On the other hand, if the disruption of traffic resulted from hecklers, and not from the actions of the praying students, I would be opposed to the actions of the school officials. The problem is that it is precisely key facts such as that one that are hard to dig out once emotions are high.

    I think the following facts are key:

    • The offer of a classroom and the appropriate supervision
    • Was it the praying students or hecklers who were disruptive (or a little of both)?
    • What was the response of the praying students to the school’s authority? If that authority was properly exercised, and yet resisted, that would explain greater sanctions.

    But more important than the legal issues, which are not my forte in any case, are the issues of Christian values. When we pray publicly, what message is it that we are trying to send? There is a good point here in Matthew 6:5-6. I don’t think we should read such a short message as condemning public prayer, as I have heard done, but the purpose of prayer should be questioned. If the purpose of the prayer is to make a show, to shove it in people’s face, then I think we need to reevaluate our actions. For example, if a classroom was indeed offered, as the school spokesman indicated, then the question would be why pray in the commons?

    Again, I think it is quite possible that more facts need to be brought out in this case, but based on what I have seen I would have serious concerns, both about the actions of the students and the sanctions imposed. I’ll have my eyes open for more clarification.

  • Could I Be the Antichrist?

    I found this article via WorldNetDaily: Pope is warned of a green Antichrist.

    According to Cardinal Biffi, who gave the Lenten message this year, the antichrist could be “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.

    OK, I resemble that remark. Of course, I’m not nearly important enough to be the actual antichrist. Probably I could just encourage and support him:

    Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 78, who retired as Archbishop of Bologna three years ago, quoted Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the Russian philosopher and mystic, as predicting that the Antichrist “will convoke an ecumenical council and seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions”.

    So I can’t convoke an ecumenical council, but I can really wish one would happen, and pray for it regularly. I can be pretty green on environmental issues, and I can pursue peace. Does that count?

    For further proof that one need not be intelligent to be a cardinal, consider this:

    Cardinal Biffi said that Christianity stood for “absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty”. If “relative values” such as “solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature” became absolute, they would encourage “idolatry” and “put obstacles in the way of salvation”.

    I’m glad to hear that “beauty” is a more absolute value than say “love of peace.” Got that.

  • Why Authority Issues are Important

    Via Pandagon I found this story, also reported here. These are serious accusations, and more and more people are coming forward.

    Such a story should emphasize several things to those of us who are in ministry, including how transparent our ministry practices should be. Teach and behave in such a way that an accusation such as this would be implausible in your ministry. In my view that includes not claiming excessive authority over the spiritual lives of others, and in fact teaching them to use their own discernment with respect to claims of spiritual authority. It also means practicing accountability, both to let the congregation know that you really mean it and to make sure that the opportunity doesn’t arise.

    Christians should also be very conscious of efforts to force them to give up their judgment to another person. Even demands that one “prayerfully consider” something that you have already rejected (for good reason), can be efforts to break down your own good sense and rational judgment in favor of a church leader. If you haven’t prayerfully considered something, of course, it’s a good idea to do so. But when you have, remember that your decision is between you and God and don’t let yourself be pushed around.

    All of this reemphasizes the point I made a few days ago about the dangers of authority, especially the type of church teaching that makes women spiritually inferior in authoirty to men, such as the teaching that a woman can never have authority over a man in the church. I discussed these issues in Women in Ministry: A Shock and Gifts Ministry and Blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

    Note what I wrote in the first of these entries:

    God doesn’t like his children lording it over one another.

    I have taught this repeatedly. Authority, especially spiritual authority, is dangerous. You create the potential for abuse as soon as you place them in charge and insulate them in any way from accountability. This is true in the home when a man is made “head of household” answering only to God, with his wife answering to him. It is true when one of the church offices is placed above all others. There are a number of teachers who emphasize that the pastor is the final authority in the church and insulate him from challenges because one cannot touch God’s anointed. But all of these options fly directly in the face of the gifts teaching of 1 Corinthians 12-14. God gives the gifts as he wills. They are all important, they are all needed in the church. None of them are to make one of us Lord over another. To fail to recognize this will ultimately result in abuse. If you’re teaching it, though you may not be abusing anyone yourself, you’re opening the door. [Emphasis from original.]

    Now notice the teaching that was apparently involved in this particular pastoral abuse, from The Dallas Observer Blog:

    Allen’s practice of paddling adults has been widely known in local COGIC circles for years, but a common teaching in black Pentecostalism is that a church member should never make an accusation against a man of God. Instead, he or she should pray privately that God deals with the minister’s sin. The two women I interviewed, in fact, each cited this teaching, which is apparently based on a biblical statement, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm,” that is mentioned twice in the Old Testament.

    I don’t by any means believe that everyone who teaches a questionable view of authority is engaging in this type of abuse, but I do believe that any teaching that tends to remove accountability from someone in spiritual leadership is terribly, terribly dangerous and must be vigorously challenged by all Christians.

    Unfortunately, in some charismatic and pentecostal circles, the belief that God’s Spirit can come upon everyone in the church and that God can speak to anyone sometimes gets perverted into the idea that God puts an unaccountable authority on certain church leaders. When you have that teaching, abuse of authority, whether spiritual, emotional, or finally physical will not be far away. (Note that I do not mean that the abuse is limited to or especially bad in charismatic and pentecostal groups; rather, that in those groups it is this particular doctrine, and related doctrines about “anointing” that are often abused in this way. Other groups have their own avenues into sin.)

  • Diversity, Tent Ropes, and Tent Pegs

    I have mentioned before that I’ve been writing some of the devotionals for my wife’s devotional list, and yesterday I wrote one that relates closely to some things I’ve written here about tolerance for diversity and yet having identity and anchor points. It’s titled Extend Ropes, Strengthen Stakes.

    For those who may be interested, Jody’s devotional goes out every weekday morning. It used to be an e-mail list, but now it’s a blog with the option to subscribe via e-mail. Being a blog, it now also allows RSS subscriptions. We keep it clear of administrative and personal things, we go very light on the advertising material in the sidebar, and likely no more than once a quarter we might mention an event where she is speaking or a book by one or the other of us, so it’s a pretty safe subscription. You get just a devotional in the morning. Speaking of diversity, as fair warning, it’s distinctively Christian in tone.

  • Plantinga on The God Delusion

    Ben Witherington alerted me to Plantinga’s review of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion on Christianity Today. Now I must be frank (well, no, I don’t have to, but I will!) and say that I find philosophers provide the most annoying of reading. They seem to me to be the world’s best rationalizers, providing excellent reasons to believe what they already believe. I have previously commented on some other work by Plantinga in my post An Evolutionary Understanding of Kinds, and I found his arguments in favor of a theistic science pretty seriously unconvincing. Other philosophers regard him as a heavyweight, however, so I suppose he must be.

    In this case, I haven’t read The God Delusion because I suspect it’s largely going to annoy me. I truly love Dawkins when he is writing about scientific topics, and I note that Plantinga expresses much the same sentiment for many passages on biology. Dawkins is a gifted science writer. But I find his hostility toward theism, and particularly liberal theism as kind of gratuitous. Having discovered that complexity can come from simplicity without any demonstrable guidance (a point on which Plantinga disagrees with him), Dawkins seems anxious to move forward and make claims about things he can’t possibly know.

    Of course, making claims about things you can’t possibly know is a time honored religious tradition. So if Dawkins were to admit that he is speculating, I would generally have no problem with what he does. As it is, I just avoid reading those portions of his writing. I’ve already heard the argument. I’m still a theist. I shrug my shoulders and go on.

    Now I’m not going to quote more than a few lines of the lengthy review. You really should read the whole thing to get the flavor. But Plantinga seems to believe that the evidence is solid for his viewpoint, and Dawkins is on thin ice. I think they’re both well past the ice, and just waiting, like cartoon characters, for the law of gravity to notice. As a theist, I look back at the chasm over which I have leapt in a classic leap of faith, and I have great understanding for those who shake their heads and call me an idiot. I think my concept of God works well with the universe as it is, but I know the evidence I see admits of other explanations.

    Arguments like fine-tuning sound so good in philosophy classrooms, but when it comes right down to it, I know I have to start my argument from the point of view of a universe that was capable of producing me to think about it. In practical terms, astronomical odds against my being here are irrelevant. I’m here, after all. (Yes, I know, philosphers don’t think that’s a good answer, but I think it’s a real answer.) Even more, though, all arguments about the probability of one type of universe existing over another are founded on nothing. Nobody knows just how a universe comes into existence at all, nor at this point whether there is one universe or many, or if many, in what relationship they are to one another. We cannot even imagine what creatures might inhabit a universe substantially different from ours, and who might speculate on the existence of God because their universe was precisely designed for them.

    The thing that really gets me about Plantinga’s argument, and Dawkins’s, if Plantinga has characterized it accurately, is that it places both Dawkins and Plantinga in the position of claiming their own position is true, because it hasn’t been disproven. In other words, Plantinga wants us to default to his position, Dawkins to his. Plantinga summarizes what he thinks Dawkins’s argument amounts to:

    We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
    Therefore
    p is true.

    But to me, both arguments push beyond the bounds of science, and both questions should be answered with a form of “I don’t know.” And here Plantinga has the upper hand. He is a philosopher, and is thus doing the stuff he is supposed to be doing. When he starts talking about theistic science elsewhere, I think he transgresses in the other direction, but here he is on the ground appropriate to his field. (I am an interloper in either direction, but it’s my blog and I get to interlope!) Dawkins, on the other hand, whether he intends it or not, is seen as a spokesman for science saying that there is no God, no supernatural. And science is simply not capable of testing that. It can see the effects, but it can’t track them back.

    All of this leaves me in pretty much the same place I was when I started. But Plantinga’s review is interesting and well worth reading.