GOOD FRIDAY

PERHAPS THE MOST GALLING SWIPE AT CHRISTIANITY EVER UTTERED WAS UTTERED BY MAHATMA GHANDI, WHO SAID "I WILL BECOME A CHRISTIAN WHEN I MEET ONE." His implication, of course was that a Christian must be a perfect human being, according to what he percieved as Christian standards. His snide little remark has allowed who-knows-how many people to deny God the chance to forgive their sins. Some of them have no doubt died in their sin.

"Perfect human being" is the mother of all oxymorons. It is because of this that we have Good Friday.

Good Friday of course commemorates the day when God, who had taken the form of a man, died by the horrible method of crucifixion. He then was entombed and rose from the dead three days later. He, being the ONLY perfect human ever to walk the face of the Earth, in dying in such a manner; ABSOLUTELY INNOCENT of any wrong before Man or God; shed His Blood in a sacrifice for every sin; past, present, and future; of ANYONE who accepts the pardon by confessing with his mouth that Jesus is LORD GOD and that God has raised Him from the dead.

Christians do change their ways. Some gradually and some radically. But this change is not a requirement of Salvation but rather its inevitable final result. And everyone remains unto death in some measure imperfect.

Christians disagree on what this perfection is. I don't think drinking alcohol is a sin, but many of my bretheren and sisteren do. (I smoke and gamble, too; but I can't dance worth a hoot). Even so, there's always room for improvement, and I could use a little. Readers of this blog will be the first to point out that I use some pretty ripe language to get my point across, and I have a tendency to be cynical.

Perhaps Mahama Ghandi thought himself perfect, and assumed that a true Christian would agree with him on all points. But if Ghandi himself were perfect, then there would have been no need for God the Son (not "son of God" but "God the Son", and it isn't a fine distinction) to have lived sinlessly in a sea of temptation for 33 years and then die a horrible death by torture - being first brutally beaten and then whipped with a Roman knout with lead and sharp metal woven into the braids, having his beard pulled out by the roots and having a "crown" of 2-3 inch thorns pressed down on His head, then stripped naked and nailed through the wrists and ankles to a cross that was then raised and dropped into a post-hole, there to suffer for three hours; finally feeling the ultimate pain of Hell, abandonment by God.

It is not a perfect life that makes anyone a Christian. What makes a person a Christian is the bloody Cross and the empty Tomb.

Ghandi met many, many Christians. I hope in his last moments he realized it and joined them. If he didn't, his fate is horrible and will get even worse at the Judgment.

Ash Wednesday: Practice Truth-Telling

A great article to help us in our Lenten journey.

Ash Wednesday: Practice Truth-Telling

This is a review of Wright's "hate-filled hypocrites" book

This passage in the review is especially interesting from the point of view of some of the things we have heard of late. 

Fourth, there is a modest apologetic aspect to Wright's book. Wright does not try to persuade people to convert to Christianity. He does not gloss over the many shortcomings he finds in the way Christians think and act. But he does not hesitate to debunk the myths—David Bentley Hart would say delusions— proffered by critics of Christianity. Is it true that "everyone knows" Christianity is dying? Are Christian claims widely discredited? On the contrary, Wright's findings suggest Christians in the United States need not panic or overhaul everything they are doing. He cheekily includes this summary judgment in the conclusion. "You know, I'm kind of enjoying this oversimplification, so let's take it a step further. That's right, after about a year of reading the scholarly literature and analyzing scores of data sets, I am distilling my evaluation of Evangelical Christianity to a single grade. I give American Evangelical Christianity a B." The reports of Christianity's demise continue to be regularly exaggerated, as Books & Culture readers will be well aware (cf. John G. Stackhouse, Jr.: What Scandal? Whose Conscience? July/August 2007. Jon A. Shields: A Scandal of the Secular Conscience? January/February 2008. Andy Crouch: Transmission Routes: World Christianity and American churches. January/February 2010). What stands in the way of fruitful Christian life? Not massive problems that defy all efforts by Christians, but rather unsurprising obstacles (like institutional bureaucracy and people's penchant for sin), perennial problems that individual Christians and churches empowered by the Holy Spirit continue to faithfully address.

A list of former atheists

Oh wait. There are no ex-atheists.

Christians are gaining in numbers, not atheists

I am redating this post. 

According to this report from Inside Catholic.

HT: Bob Prokop

Some Confusions from Loftus on Methodological Naturalism

I was away from the computer yesterday, so I didn't see John's comment.

And you are being extremely disingenuous Vic, to the point of lying (yes, lying. You are at least lying to yourself).
Look at Walter Martin's book on the cults. Listen, I am not stupid. You are. Martin and all others assume there is a natural explanation for every other religion but their own.

I have never seen such utter stupidity before.

I am not subscribing. Anyone with a brain can read Martin's books or Geisler's or McDowell's.

Listen, if you wish to engage me take a basic primer in apologetics.

Sheesh. Is this the level or ignorance it takes to believe?

I think so, and that's why I want nothing to do with it. I am a thinking person. Critique this all you want but with such a buffoonish post as this it is MORE obvious than the nose on your face.

 I am going to ignore Mr. Loftus' unfortunate tone here, and proceed to the logical point I think he has missed. Martin, Geisler, and McDowell, I take it, believe that the founding of other religions can be explained naturalistically. Of course, it is critical only in Western revealed religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, etc. to have supernaturally explained founding events. Christians believe that God was active in the founding of both Judaism and Christianity, but they do not think God participated in the founding of the Islam, or the founding of Mormonism. It is certainly open to Christians to accept a supernatural explanation for the founding of these religions, namely a demonic explanation, but Martin and others don't ordinarily go that way, and I am inclined to suppose that they are right to do so. I heard a Christian caller to Hank Hanegraaf's show say that Moroni was an angel, but he was a fallen angel. Richard Abanes, a Mormonism expert, said that he didn't think that this was the case.

The obvious point, which seems to have escaped Mr. Loftus, is that explaining something naturalistically is not sufficient to make one a methodological naturalist. Here is the definition of methodological naturalism, provided by Paul Kurtz here. 

First, naturalism is committed to a methodological principle within the context of scientific inquiry; i.e., all hypotheses and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events. To introduce a supernatural or transcendental cause within science is to depart from naturalistic explanations. On this ground, to invoke an intelligent designer or creator is inadmissible....

In other words, before investigating some phenomenon, a methodological naturalist decides that whatever explanations are to be given it cannot be a supernatural explanation. Someone who adopts methodological naturalism assumes from the outset that no supernatural explanation can or will be given. What that means is that if an event in fact has a supernatural explanation, the investigator, who has committed himself to MN, will miss that explanation.

Now, people who believe in miracles explain many, indeed most things non-miraculously.  When Catholics canonize saints, they have to verify the miracles. They can conclude that the prospective saint didn't produce any miracles, in which case he (or she) is not canonized. That doesn't mean they are methodological naturalists, that means they didn't find enough evidence to support this particular prospective saint's miracle claims.

Now, look at the structure of the arguments in the comparison between the founding of Islam and the founding of Christianity, which I linked to in the previous post. I'm not even vouching for the argumentation in defense of Christianity here, I am just making the case that that site compared the manuscript evidence, the documentary evidence, and the archaeological evidence for the Bible as opposed to the Qu'ran. No doubt the author of this site thinks that the founding of Islam is in fact to be explained naturalistically, but there is nothing on the site that I can see that says it must be explained naturalistically. The central characteristic of methodological naturalism is a necessity that the subject matter be explained naturalistically, and that any supernatural explanations, even if true, be overlooked. In fact, by presenting this kind of evidence, the author of the website is implying that if the evidential situation were reversed, them we ought to seriously consider the Qu'ran, and not the Bible, is divine rather than human in origin.

Martin, Geisler, and McDowell do not assume that there is a naturalistic explanation for the founding of Islam. I contend that they argue that, in this case, there is a naturalistic explanation for the founding of Islam. 

So Mr. Loftus is making a leap from

1) Martin, Geisler, and McDowell in fact explain the origins of Islam naturalistically,

to

2) Martin, Geisler, and McDowell are employing methodological naturalism in their explanation of the founding of Islam.

And this, I submit, does not follow. Only be conflating the acceptance of a naturalistic explanation in a particular case with the acceptance of methodological naturalism can Mr. Loftus make his case that my last post was stupid. Once the distinction between these is clarified, his criticism falls flat.

The upside and the downside of Christianity

Yes, I don't like the idea of hell one bit, and I hope universalism is true.


The doctrine that any aspect of my character which I have not submitted to Christ is sinful is no fun. The fact that God isn't going to listen to all my self-justifications is no fun. There are many other things I would prefer to do on Sunday morning than attend church. All that stuff about giving to the church, yeah, I'd wish that away, too. The idea that there is someone superior to me judging my actions and not grading on the curve is something I would wish away, even if forgiveness is available. I'd like to say that my good deeds are my achievement, but, no, can't say that either. I like thinking that having a higher level of education makes me somehow better than other people, but nope, can't say that, either.

The idea that pride is a sin, or as Lewis has it, The Great Sin, is pretty tough doctrine for me. If I were an atheist I could think that my freedom from the superstitions of most of my fellow Americans makes me better than them, but since I'm a Christian, I can't say that.

The hope of an everlasting life with God is, of course appealing to me. God's love for everyone (which some Calvinists deny) is appealing as well.

So, it's a mixed bag, which is all that I have been saying all along.

A debate between Christianity and Islam

HT: Bob Prokop

More on comparing the evidence for Christianity to other religions

For starters, there seems to be a lot of archaeological confirmation of, especially, some of the details in the book of Acts. Whoever wrote it knew precisely what forms of government were in place when Paul was supposed to have gotten to those cities. So that really places the author of the text close to the time and place of the events, because actually, those forms of government changed from time to time.

The reported events took place in public and involved leading figures of the time like Pontius Pilate. The Book of Mormon is about things that happened centuries before in the Americas, and archaeology is an embarrassment to Mormonism, but mostly helpful to Christianity. http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/11/teresa-nielsen-haydens-critique-of.html

You have several people writing the accounts of the whole thing, as opposed to just one persons statements. You have evidence of people engaging in extremely risky behavior to support these beliefs.

The events are more public, there is considerable more archaeological support, and you also find people taking martyrdom risks almost from the beginning and making fundamental changes to a time-honored religion based on what happened to Jesus.

And you find a lot of failed attempts to explain it all away. I mean, what's up with all these swoon theories, and theft theories, and wrong tomb theories, etc. You don't find that in Islam.

So even if you reject Christianity, I think it puts up more difficulties for the skeptic than does the founding of Islam or the founding of Mormonism. These are just a few things off the top of my head, but I think they suffice for my purpose.

Why are all the naturalistic explanations of the founding of Christianity such nonstarters?

I'm not going to make confident assertions about what would change my mind. There are too many factors. But I can tell you something that would, in my eyes, decrease the probability that Christianity is true.




One thing that would hurt the probability of Christianity for me would be if skeptics could come up with a halfway convincing story about how Christianity arose. Swoon theory? Come on. Jesus stripped on 100 pounds of grave clothes, pushed that gigantic stone out of the way, and put a flying tackle on the Roman guard, after being left for dead because of a crucifixion? Hallucination theory? Lots of problems. The disciples stole the body? Why? So they could get martyred for something they knew was false. Legendary development? Why does Luke know so much about all the city governments in the Mediterranean world? Jesus never even existed? How come nobody has come up with the theory that Socrates never existed? Jesus' evil twin took over after he was crucified? Getting desperate aren't we?



Of course, I know all about the Humean argument that anything's better than accepting a resurrection. Yes, rationally, one could be a skeptic about the supernatural origin of Christianity while admitting that there isn't much out there in the way of naturalistic explanations of the founding of Christianity. But why do all those theories have such ghastly problems?

Reply to Loftus on faith and evidence

John Loftus wrote: What would proof look like to an outsider?



I have already said what would convince me Christianity is true.


Now YOU be reasonable. What would proof look like for you to reject your adopted faith due to the accidents of birth? I was reasonable in that link. Be reasonable with us.

I don't think accident of birth carries a whole lot of weight here. I'm a Bayesian subjectivist: we come into our thinking lives with a set of antecedent probabilities, and we adjust them as the evidence allows.


It is an accident of birth that I grew up in a Methodist family, but it is equally an accident of history (unless God was in on it), that I encountered good, strong, defenders of Christianity who took the relation of faith and intellect seriously, who took my questions with the utmost seriousness, and showed a kind of intellectual integrity that I thought was often lacking in the sort of glib unbelief I encountered in the academic community.

If my reading of Bertrand Russell had not convinced me of the value of free thought (though maybe not quite as he defined it), how would my thoughts be different today? If Russell had made more of an effort to understand the Christian beliefs he attacked, how would my beliefs be different today? If Craig Bustrin from my home church in Phoenix had not introduced me to the writings of C. S. Lewis, how would my beliefs be different today? If Bob Prokop (an occasional commentator here) and the late Joe Sheffer had not talked me through my period of disaffection as an undergraduate with Campus-Crusade style literalism while remaining a profoundly orthodox Christian, how would my beliefs be different today? If Keith Parsons had not moved in to the same house with me when I was in seminary and challenged me from a skeptical standpoint, how would by beliefs be different today? I don't know, and neither do you.

Your own experience with Christianity and with Christian thinkers was different from mine, but it is just as laden with historical accident as mine was.

I am trying to counter a simplistic picture in which believers all believe "on faith" (even if they have apologetic pretensions) and unbelievers, quite rationally, are waiting for PROOF which is not forthcoming. I would like to substitute a different picture for this one, one in which we enter with intellectual predispositions which we cannot fully avoid, but which we can and must modify in response to the evidence. It's called critical rationalism, and it is to be contrasted with fideism and strong rationalism.

In the original post I was responding to people who make heavy weather out of the fact that religious believers don't have PROOF for their position, by asking what proof would look like if we had it.

At the same time, changes in belief are cumulative, and big paradigm shifts need big evidential shifts in a various areas of thought. That is just how life is when we think. If you read the life of serious converts and de-converts, you don't find ONE BIG THING that PROVES Christianity, or atheism, or what have you. It's always a lot of things.

Chesterton wrote:

But this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to do what I now have to do, to describe this accumulation of truth. It is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase . . . and the coals in the coal-scuttle . . . and pianos . . . and policemen." The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.

Who is a real Christian? A Scriptural answer

Biblically, the term is used by hostile outsiders. So in the Bible, you qualify as a Christian if you get people who hate Christianity to call you one, as this Wikipedia entry indicates.

THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY: WHY BELIEVE?

IN DISCUSSIONS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, I HAVE ASKED VARIOUS FOLKS WHY THEY BELIEVE AS THEY DO. I HAVE HEARD ANSWERS SUCH AS "BECAUSE I PREFER TO BELIEVE IN A GOD WHO IS KIND" OR "BECAUSE (INSERT NAME OF RELIGION) PROMOTES (INSERT IDEAL OR IDEALS). I SCARCE EVER HEAR SOMEONE GIVE THE ONLY VALID REASON FOR BELIEVING ANYTHING, Which is "because it is true".

Now, Christianity consists of the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is Jehovah God; that He became a human being born of a virgin and the Holy Spirit; that He lived and died as the perfect Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world; and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, and lives forever and will soon return.

So the question must be "why do I believe this is true?"

Since today is Easter, I think it a fine time to answer that. The linchpin of Christian belief being that of the Resurrectiion. Without the Resurrection the rest is mostly just twaddle and adages. With it, you have the Truth. To arrive at the Truth, you must have evidence. Here it is.

EXHIBIT A: JESUS TOLD EVERYONE HE WOULD DIE AND RISE FROM THE DEAD. This was as well known in that day as Barack Obama's election is in ours. People were looking for this event.
EXHIBIT B: JESUS'S ENEMIES PLOTTED TO KEEP THE RESURRECTION FROM HAPPENING. They did this by sealing the tomb and posting a guard of Roman soldiers on it, in case Jesus' disciples tried to steal the body and point to the empty tomb. What chance would a collection of unarmed fishermen, townspeople and women have against Roman Legionnaires?
EXHIBIT C: IF JESUS'S ENEMIES WANTED TO DISCREDIT HIM - WHICH THEY VEHEMENTLY DID - ALL THEY NEEDED TO DO WAS PRODUCE HIS CORPSE AFTER THE THIRD DAY. They could not, because He had risen.
EXHIBIT D: JESUS SHOWED HIMSELF ALIVE AFTER HIS DEATH. The evidence for this is in the next Exhibit:
EXHIBIT E: ("E" stands, of course, for "Easter"). Jesus's Disciples went far and wide telling everyone of having seen, first hand, His Resurrected Self. This did not sit well with those who hated the new religion, Notable among these was the Roman Emperor Nero. Nero offered St. Peter and St. Paul a choice: Either renounce their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead; and in that case go free as wealthy men; or else maintain that they had seen Jesus alive after the Crucifixion, in which case they would die horribly by torture. Now if you had been confronted on a lie and given the choice of sticking to the lie and dying slowly and painfully OR publicly admitting that you had been putting everyone on, well, if you say you would die under torture for a frivolous con game, you are either lying or you are nuts. Peter and Paul were not the only ones, either.

So that is why I believe in Christianity. The evidence that it is true is absolutely irrefuteable.

Religious Pluralism

Whether we like it or not, whether we are ready or not, religious pluralism is part of our world, of our country. Here is my response to the following scenario.

Sarah, one of the high school youth in your congregation comes up to you after service on Sunday and says she needs to talk. She has a good friend who is Muslim who invited her to worship with her last Friday. Sarah went, and really enjoyed the service, but when she came home and told her parents that she had participated fully in the service, they told her she had committed idolatry, and forbade her from going back. Sarah was really upset, because the service had been very meaningful for her, and she really felt drawn to go back and learn more about Islam—was that a bad thing? Could she do that and still be a Christian? How would you answer her?

I would express my understanding of Sarah’s feelings. Islam is an impressive faith when someone is a pious, good Muslim. Particularly if one’s own faith is lukewarm or lacking, Islam is very appealing. When I lived and worked with Muslims in Palestine, I was challenged by their piety. It is natural that she should be drawn to it, especially through a friend.

Islam is definitely not idolatrous. No images of God are permitted. Christians may be viewed as idolatrous by Muslims because of pictures in stained glass windows and elsewhere in churches. We may also be viewed as polytheistic because of the doctrine of the trinity. Muslims believe in the same God we do, the God of Abraham. We all believe in the one true God.

When Muslims bow down toward Mecca, they are not worshipping idols but are simply facing east. Similar prayer positions are found throughout the Old and New Testaments with meanings such as “worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully”[1] There is certainly nothing wrong in this approach to God almighty. The Islamic view of God is very high, one of reverence.

Christians often think that Allah, the Arabic word for God, is a false god, different from the God we serve. In the Arabic Old and New Testaments, this is the word used for God the Father. Arab Christians use this word in prayer and Scripture reading. Allah is none other than the same God we know and serve.This misunderstanding of who Allah is may be why Sarah’s mother thinks she has committed idolatry. Reassuring Sarah is no problem, but it is important that there be significant dialogue with her mother as well. I certainly do not want to put a wedge between Sarah and her mother. In talking with Sarah, I would want to have some one on one time with her mother regarding her concerns.

This is not to downplay real differences between the two faiths. The centrality of the meaning of the cross is a huge difference. There is also the issue of Jesus’ divinity, his death, burial, resurrection etc. This is not what should be focused upon however. The Quran says things about Jesus with which we disagree, but there are also teachings from which bridges of understanding may be built.

As Christians however, we need to realize that we are called to relate to those beyond our circle of church friends, beyond other Christians, knowing that God by the Holy Spirit is already at work whether we recongize God’s presence or not. Our desire in relating with those of other faiths should be to break down those barriers that divide us, to see the “other” as one made in the image of God, to understand that not all Muslims are right wing, fanatical terrorists, any more than all Christians are out to support Israel and destroy Islam and Arab peoples.

Sarah could certainly learn about Islam and remain a devout Christian. The Quran has much to say about Jesus. In exploration of what it says, it would be helpful to compare the Quran and the New Testament concerning Jesus—to see similarities and differences. Working from the commonalities, we can discuss the differences frankly. Sarah and her friend could perhaps work on this exercise together. Her friend could bring to the conversation what the Quran teaches of Jesus and Sarah, what the Scriptures teach.This way they can both learn from and teach each other.

In my previous experience with Muslims in Palestine, what made dialogue and understanding viable between Christians and Muslims was mutual respect of each other as persons. Friendship and trust was the basis of religious discussion. Involvement in such relatioships did/does not mean we set aside our own beliefs for the sake of pluralism.

David Teeter, head of Project Redemption wrote concerning such interfaith relationships, “They came to respect Jesus as they saw him in our lives, and we came to respect their devotion to God as they understood him in their faith [Islam].”[2] When we see each other’s humanity, the dividing lines that erect enormous barriers between us blur. When I first moved to Bethlehem, the Islamic call to prayer from the nearby mosque was at the very least an annoyance, something that at the time even seemed demonic. By the time I left, it was a welcome reminder of the devotions of my friends to God as well as a challenge to me to be as faithful as they were in prayer. Sarah, as I did, could certainly learn more about Islam and still be a Christian. Ignorance and Christianity are not synonomous terms.

How would you respond?

---

[1] Gingrich, BibleWorks 8.

[2] David Teeter. Following Jesus in a Muslim Community. Online: http://davidteeter.org/following.aspx [3 May 2009].

flickr foto of God's name in Arabic.