Lessons from Hitchens

Atheist Christopher Hitchens died two and a half months ago, and like so many deaths, it is a big news item briefly, then life moves on, and most people forget the person and their impact. Therefore, I do not feel it is a bad thing to pull out of my electronic file cabinet this article reminding Christians what we should learn from Hitchens’ approach to life.

The author, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., argued five lessons, and I will add a sixth that is implied, and is probably the most important lesson for those desiring to be intellectual Christians, that is, Christians who desire to think clearly about how our faith interacts in the real world with real world problems.

1)      “Hitchens understood the power of ideas, and he never left a field of intellectual combat without giving his best.”

Strategic Impact

From a colleague, I became aware today of a newly compiled list…of the “50 Top Atheists in the World Today,” as compiled by atheists. It is a remarkable list with a couple of surprises:  Richard Dawkins is not number 1 (he’s #7), and Woody Allen is on the list (#35).

What is also remarkable is that nearly half of them (24) are academics; that is, they are current or former faculty members. In fact, 17 of the top 20 are. The first non-academic on the list is #10, Christopher Hitchens. Most of the rest are novelists or other professional writers. The vast majority have advanced degrees, even if they are not faculty.

P-L-A-N-S

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD, “Plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

Proverbs 19:21

“The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
                He thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
                the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Psalm 33:10-11

In our family, the joke is that “plan” is a four-letter word. I say “plan” the way Fonzie would say “wrong”—like a car trying to start with a bad battery. The word is stuck, firmly, hooked on the epiglottis, with severe tissue damage when it at lasts rips free.

Vibrant Dance 2: The Implications of My Position on the Core Christian Doctrines

{RJW Note:  The second “panel” discussion was really each speaker taking 10 minutes to address the title issue. So this session was not a lot of back and forth but just a serial lecture by each panel member, again moderated by Craig Blaising (CB). The panel members were:  TB(eall), JD(uncan), WK(aiser), JR(eynolds), BW(altke), JW(alton). Also Genesis 1 and 2 are abbreviated as G1 and G2 respectively. Again, this post will be in the form of a pseudo-transcript. Not everyone took the full ten minutes, so some are shorter than others.}

CB:  Looking at the core Christian doctrines, is your view essential to the faith? In other words, if someone holds or does not hold your view, are they missing a core doctrine of faith?

WK:  Look at the Apostle’s Creed and as long as we stick to that, we’re fine. Yet a real implication of having an eternal God is a demand for non-eternal matter. Genesis IS important because it sets up the meta-narrative of the whole of Scripture. Atheists begin with a eternal universe, but the Bible begins with an eternal God, which offers meaning and gives the origin of universe. The universe cannot explain itself. Beliefs about age of earth and length of days are secondary to the fact that God created. By naming things, in ancient times, you claim authority and ownership of them. So therefore speaking things into existence, God claims ultimate authority and by creating us in His image, He imparts special status to us. Other (ancient near east) ANE creation accounts are very different and more materialistic, more like us, than the Bible. The God of the Bible is continuously active, not a Deist or Scientific God that winds things up and steps back to watch it unfold. The Bible makes enormous claims—Christ claims to have created the universe and now rules it. Creation was created for us—its pinnacle. Other ANE views are without purpose for the universe.

Sophomorisms

Tuesday I was walking on campus and came upon a co-ed standing at the top of some steps and reading out loud from some document, much like some campus preachers read Scripture to passers-by. There was a guy with a camera filming her, and another guy who shoved a leaflet in my hand entitled, “What is a Free Thinker?”

Under that was the following:

“free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Free thinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.”

“No one can be a free thinker who demands conformity to a bible [sic], creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”

Happy Birthday!

I am very excited to celebrate one year of The Scholar Redeemer. There have been readers from 72 countries totaling nearly 11,000 views of 349 posts. By far, the most popular topic was the Professor Martin Gaskell court case. Topics have ranged from meditations, devotions and random thoughts, to observations of education in general and higher ed in particular, to government interactions with education, to the educational culture to apologetics to science/faith issues and so on.

It has been a faith journey for me personally as well. Many have asked how I am able to write something every day. Often I’d sit down, usually late at night, wanting nothing more than my pillow, to face a blank screen. Without any ideas jumping to get out, I’d simply pray for God to direct my thoughts and show me things from the day that might inspire, encourage or challenge folks.

Vibrant Dance Revisited: Faith: Able or Willing?

I spent most of the posts back in November summarizing the Vibrant Dance Symposium on Faith and Science that occurred here in Austin back in October. One of the speakers was Alister McGrath, the British scientist and theologian, who, though unable to travel to the symposium sent a video presentation.

While an overall excellent presentation, he did make a point I wanted to visit at a later date. Turns out that’s today. At one point, McGrath argued that some people (mostly scientists) are trapped within reason, and unable to make the leap to faith.

I largely disagree with that statement philosophically. They are presupposing a purely naturalistic universe—but they do demonstrate faith in daily life, but it is faith based on reason, not blind faith.

Who's In Control?

In our modern, highly technologically advanced age, it is easy to assume self sufficiency and the ability to make our wishes come true. There is an attitude in this age that if an idea sounds good or works on paper, then it should work in real life.

While some humans have always been tempted by such thoughts throughout history (mostly the young, the powerful, the rich), in today’s America and the developed world, it is easier for more people to think this more successfully more of the time, and all the more so as we have moved into climate controlled urban areas that provide readymade food, water, sanitation and other creature comforts.

There’s just one problem.

Speaking, Swimming, Striding: Saviour sans Self

Tonight, I saw “The King’s Speech” for the first time. Without spoilers, it’s about Prince Albert, (current Queen Elizabeth II’s father) who had a severe speech impediment, and his speech therapist. Like many speech impediments, it was not due to mechanical deformities in his body, but a psychosomatic disability due to early childhood (emotional) trauma. When he sang, was empassioned, or couldn’t hear himself, he was able to speak without stammering. In short, when he was too busy mentally to think about how he sounded, he sounded fine.

Knowing When to Quit

On the side, I sometimes tutor high school students, usually in chemistry, but have done most subjects. I usually get a call a day or two before a test and the student needs to review the whole unit, so it turns into a marathon session.

It is amazing to watch the moment when the student shuts down from overload. They are unable to figure out each next step of a problem without coaching, even on problems they know how to solve. They make dumb mistakes. Their eyes are glazed. When you hit this point, it is time to stop, mid-problem even, tell them to go to bed, get rested and tackle that problem from scratch in the morning.

Patrick's Lorica

Lorica means ‘breastplate prayer,’ or a prayer of protection, a call for God to place a hedge about oneself. This one, attributed to St. Patrick, is particularly beautiful, has always been a favorite of mine and appropriate for the day.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever.
By power of faith, Christ's incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;*
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the cherubim;
The sweet 'well done' in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors' faith, Apostles' word,
The Patriarchs' prayers, the Prophets' scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,
Against the wizard's evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

_______________________________________

* Note: "day of doom" is an Old English term meaning "Day of Judgment."

Source:  The Prayer Foundation

_______________________________________

SDG

Religion versus Christ

Today in Sunday School, we looked at the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan. The thing that stood out to me as a good reminder was that the two folks who passed the wounded man represented the religious establishment.

One of the struggles we face in the academy is that our colleagues, students and even, sadly, other believers fail to distinguish between the trappings of religion (‘organized’ or otherwise) and the radical life and gift of our Lord.

Our faith is meant to be a way of life, lived both individually and corporately, not some impersonal institution—an organism, not an organization.

SDG

Faith and Fear

Continuing yesterday’s discussion on faith and fear, I’d like to suggest that faith is a muscle or tool to be used and strengthened through that use, not a porcelain trinket that must be protected and hidden away.

When we protect our faith from all attacks, real or perceived, we run the risk of actually turning it into an idol, lifting it above the God with whom our faith is meant to be the vehicle of relationship. It is like sleeping with a marriage license and keeping the spouse in a file cabinet.

Paul called our faith a shield for quenching fiery darts, and sometimes believers seem to prefer to keep it polished in storage so it won’t get scratched. Then, logically, if we are not carrying it with us, we become afraid to come out.

There is a second mistake believers make with our faith shield. We hunker down behind it because the rest of our armor is missing or we don’t feel we know how to use it. We are afraid to use the sword of Scripture because we feel we aren’t prepared for the clever tricks of the enemy attempting to disarm us, so we curl up and let our faith get beat on or run from the engagement.

Again, this is all summed up in the one word, fear. Robert Kiyosaki of “Rich Dad” fame calls fear, “False Evidence Appearing Real.” Not bad, even with the strong whiff of aged cheddar coming off of it. But that is exactly why Paul talks about Scripture being a sword, testing for truth versus falsehood. Faith without truth is under siege. Faith with truth advances.

In college, I took a fencing class and loved it. I’ve always been fascinated by swords and swordplay. One thing about swordplay, you are limited by the number of strokes or moves you know. If you only know one way to block an attack, then your opponent will use others and you become defenseless. If you only know one type of lunge or slash, your opponent quickly learns how to block you completely. To become proficient, you need different teachers who teach different styles, you need to spar with different opponents, you need to be familiar with different types of blades, and so on.

It is the same with our study of the Bible. Most of us do not speak ancient Hebrew or Koine Greek. We don’t understand the different approaches to translation and the effect of the translator’s theology on the nuances of translation. We listen to just a few Bible teachers and come to rely on them rather than critically evaluating what they say. We don’t spend time in commentaries or reading theologians with whom we disagree. We don’t discuss with each other the hard things and examine them in a safe, controlled environment before facing them in life.

As a result, we become very one-dimensional in our ability to apply Scripture to the challenges of our lives and the challenges by our culture and education, and thus have less proficiency in addressing difficult issues. We become afraid, and our faith shrivels or becomes the only tool we have and try to make it do more than it is meant to. This is not the abundant life to which Christ calls us.

The solution? Practice with your sword like your life depends on it. It does.

SDG

A Different Trumpet Call

In some ways, this is a difficult post to write, because I feel the need to address a room-filling elephant in the American church. In surfing the web this week, I came across this chart on an atheist website. After a little hunting, I found the original source, a blog evaluating various aspects of data from a dating website. If you are interested in what it says, scroll down nearly halfway to where it tells you how to circumspectly find out if your date is religious, and you’ll be able to skip the parts about how preference for beer correlates to sex on the first date. Hardly a scholarly site.

So why am I giving it any credence at all? Simply because it is consistent with empirical evidence I have observed as well as that observed by folks with whom I shared the chart this week. So rather than being the authority on which this post is based, it was merely the spark that ignited my concern into action (or at least into the words of this post).

If the suspense hasn’t yet driven you to either of the links to see what the chart says, I applaud your fortitude. Basically, the chart indicates that the more religious you are, the less likely you are to be proficient in reading and writing. The chart compares different religious viewpoints and degree of self-reported devotion to one’s faith and their literacy grade level. If you are atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, or agnostic, you were the most literate. It goes downhill from there, in order: Hindu, Muslim, Catholic and finally Protestant.

Apparently, the ‘researcher’ compared the proficiency of spelling and grammar of all of the folks using the dating site and correlated it with stated faith and how seriously the person claimed to adhere to it. That’s about as much detail as was given in the article. I have no idea how they assessed grade level to the quality of writing, so don’t know the validity of the assessment. So why give it my attention?

Again, it is because it is consistent with my empirical observations. It grieves me to realize that the portions of our country that are associated most strongly with our faith strongly correlate with the worst educational statistics. When this country was founded by predominantly Protestant folks seeking religious freedom, one of the first and most important (in their view) things to do was to establish schools and universities so that their children could be educated in order to understand and advance their faith. Get that? Their faith was the goal of their education, not its enemy.

My friend, Dr. Robert Woodberry, a subject of a recent Scholar Redeemer post, is a sociologist who has found extraordinarily strong correlations between the work of Protestant missionaries around the world and a profound increase in the standard of living of the native population.

And yet, and yet, I see evidence all around me of folks who fear ‘secular education,’ and see faith as separate from and superior to anything the ‘world’ has to say on topics, and who see anyone who doesn’t hold to their interpretation of Scripture as deceived, wrong, evil, or of Satan, and therefore will not engage with them but retreat into holy huddles.

Why?

Bob’s the sociologist, not me. However, I think the Big Event that did the most to shatter the Protestant (and to a lesser extent, Catholic) confidence was Origin of Species. Basically, someone floated a plausible theory that casts doubt on the special Creation of humanity, and we crumbled. Why? One possible reason is that Christians had grown accustomed to their dominant role in American society and grew intellectually lazy, and thus their faith was more cultural than living and vibrant. They lifted their understanding of what the Bible says above other possible interpretations. They failed to read and appreciate the wealth of diverse interpretations of difficult passages by 1800 years of church thinkers, limiting themselves to rather simplistic interpretations. Thus, many were ill-equipped to intellectually engage evolutionary theory on a scientific, academic, or even logical basis, and surrendered the discussion with blind insistence on their interpretations. They had already ceded the intellectual rigor of the academy and hadn’t realized it, so perceived an attack rather than an attempt to fill the vacuum of quality scholarship.

What was the result? Christians as a rule began to advocate ‘blind faith’ (a term I despise), and that the truth of our faith trumps any evidence apparently against it. When this should have emboldened them to seek out data all the more strongly, instead they turned inward and suspicious, discouraging the brightest among them from pursuing those studies. Ignorance and fear multiplied, causing the church to stop trying to answer the difficult questions raised by science (and other academic fields) and insist on spiritual platitudes. The result was almost a Hindu like dualism—the physical world was deceptive illusion and the spiritual one the only reality. Yet, the Bible is the holy book that is one of the most grounded in the real world. The Jewish and Christian faiths are meant to be lived in the daily grind, not divorced from it.

When our young grew up in this environment, then went ahead and entered the secular educational system, the rationality God put into their brains received a shock like falling into an icy river and they realized they didn’t know how to swim, so they succumbed to the philosophy that their faith didn’t have the answers and was empty. They had been discouraged from asking questions in church, and in the academy, not only were they encouraged to ask, they were given answers that made sense of the information given, not knowing there was more out there to be discovered that would bolster their faith as reasonable. Their faith was revealed to be weak and powerless, and therefore God must be also, if He even existed after all. When word of this falling away reached home, folks just held on tighter in panic, their fear reinforced, and a vicious cycle began.

The church in effect agreed with the naturalist philosophy that faith was irrelevant and couldn’t be defended in the marketplace, so it exiled itself underground. Is this the picture of the church Christ painted to Peter of a force tearing down the gates of Hell? Are these the believers in whom perfect love casts out fear? Or is it the picture of those who hold to the form of religion but deny its power? Instead of the Church victorious, we have the Church anemic, afraid of getting bruised, afraid the atheists might actually be right that God does not exist and their faith is in vain.

I didn’t realize until seeing that chart how deeply I was aware of this phenomenon. Ever since high school, I was passionate about not wanting to study at a Christian college because I knew I needed my faith to be challenged in the world in which I would spend my career and life. I was passionate that I would send my kids to public school so they would be equipped to engage their culture from the beginning—I would train them in the faith at home and through church in such a way that they would be prepared for what they would face and they would get immediate practical application of it with their peers.

There are some truly wonderful Christian schools at all academic levels and some truly backwards ones. Within each category are faculty who are either wonderful or blind-faithers and everywhere in between. However, I wanted to be in the secular environment, fleeing the holy huddle, being a shelter for Christian students, and engaging the secular ones, providing an alternative. We still need folks to do that.

What I realized this week, is how badly we as Christian faculty, the exceptions to those in the graph, need to reach ‘in’ to the Body, to ease their fears, to enable them to stand, to open the eyes of their blind faith, showing them that faith is truly the assurance of things hoped for, because of what we have seen in God’s faithfulness. We do not need to be afraid for God’s power or reputation—He is the Lord All Mighty. Faith is supposed to give us the confidence to seek out the truth in the world and proclaim it in all of its forms, not cause us to run in fear in case it gets crushed.

Faith and fear are opposites. It is time for us as Christian scholars to lead our brothers and sisters out of fear and into faith. We need to help them to see their view of God is too small, a god of the gaps, not the Conqueror of Death and Author of Life. We need to restore a love of learning and study of Creation within the Church, to reignite the idea that scholarship is a holy calling, and reinforce the command that intellectual integrity is not only possible, but expected in a person of faith.

SDG

Overcorrection

I have often found that the truth of an issue often lies somewhere between the extremes, and requires somewhat of a balancing act to avoid straying too far down a path that leads to a completely incorrect understanding of the issues. Furthermore, sometimes when one encounters a person out of balance, it is necessary to pull them to the other side so they can settle into a proper equilibrium among views. The challenge when doing this is avoiding pulling them too far to the other side or letting yourself go too far in the attempt to help them. Let me clarify with an example.

Let’s look at the problem of evil, pain and suffering (EPS)—the hardest single issue facing any worldview. There are a number of perspectives within Christendom about why God allows His people to suffer. Some say that since God works His ultimate plan through all that occurs, then we should not grieve when we have suffering, pain, evil in our lives because God intends it for good. Critics of this view argue that it implies that God is sadistic, and therefore not good. Others say that God is incapable for various reasons of stopping all EPS. Critics say this view denies God’s omnipotence. Still others say that God is completely sovereign, but has also allowed freedom and therefore cannot lift all consequences of sin upon innocent parties without violating the principles of freedom, and so allows some tragedy. This is often viewed as completely unsatisfactory. There are other variations and theories, but I think these cover most of them. They all have some level of problems with them, which is why there is so much debate about the issue.

Personally, I lean towards the last, but with the understanding that it is at best a two dimensional, flat understanding of what is both paradox and mystery. (Deut.29:29) Scripture deliberately leaves this critical question pretty vague, saying basically, trust God because He is holy, righteous, and good, and that He has established justice and it will be carried out completely and satisfactorily in the end. This is difficult for both the skeptic and the thoughtful believer alike to accept, especially in the midst of such times. Yet, repeatedly in Scripture, we see God grieving over EPS, even when He is about to relieve it. The account of Jesus raising Lazarus is a key example of this. He allowed the tragedy of Lazarus’ death, but in His sovereignty restored him to life.

An example of the first view was related by a friend who did college missionary work and stayed with a pastor and his family, which included the couple, their kids and the wife’s mother. The routine was he would get up, play with the young kids until breakfast, join them for breakfast and then go do his missionary work. One morning at breakfast, the wife announced with a smile that the night before her mom had passed to be with the Lord. My friend instantly shared his condolences and apologized for the normal rambunctious antics he’d done earlier in the morning with the children. The wife jumped down his throat, rebuking him for grieving her mother because it was God’s will that she go, and if it was His will, it must be good and therefore grief had no place in their hearts. I fear for this woman and her family and hope that deep psychological wounds did not arise from this attitude, but I am not optimistic.

 If Jesus grieved over both Lazarus’ and His own deaths and tribulations, then I feel very comfortable in doing the same in an appropriate manner. When we have surgery, we take pain medicine post-op because the pain is real—our bodies have been insulted, regardless of whether it was for good or ill. We don’t refuse the medicine and pretend the pain doesn’t exist simply because the surgery was for our benefit. That is foolish and nonsensical—the pain is real and must be dealt with appropriately as a real issue, even though we know it will eventually go away. The same is true for emotional pain. We do have hope, and so the grieving is tempered by it, but the loss is still a real loss.

 I have an acquaintance who is internationally known in Christian circles. In his objection to what he views as the Pollyanna-ish, psychologically disturbing view that we should refuse to grieve because it shows God’s Hand moving in our lives, he attempts to pull people over towards the idea that God is limited, that He is not really sovereign and wishes you well, but is unable to protect you from all wrong. I agree that it is sometimes helpful in convincing people of wrong attitudes or beliefs to present a stronger case than it exists in reality, but it is also incumbent on the convincer to be able to recognize when they are stepping beyond what is acceptable and true doctrine and moving over to an unbiblical extreme. My acquaintance doesn’t just merely argue a view that is beyond typical understandings of the Biblical perspective, he actually believes it and holds to it firmly and vociferously, going so far as to saying that God is not sovereign and there are things He is unable to do. He developed this view in reaction to the Pollyanna view, but in my opinion goes too far with it.

In our academic fields, much the same dynamic occurs—people hold differing views on controversial issues and, in arguing with those of different persuasions, hold their arguments more and more firmly until they wind up at the extreme view out of sheer stubbornness or defensiveness. Logic and reasoned thought no longer reign, but dogma.

Once we lose the teachability of humility, and descend into blind dogmatic insistence, we lose much objectivity and reduce the effectiveness of our authority on the topic. We also tend to lose the ability to discern between primary, secondary and tertiary issues—we make mountains out of molehills.

It is one thing to be emphatic or even dramatic in helping to correct others. It is quite another to over correct, and thus need correcting ourselves.

SDG