In this last post, I’d like to reflect on how Richard Dawkins unwittingly and certainly unwillingly helps the Christian Church, as well as the other theists he so energetically opposes.
In particular, he helps us by showing us how some of us sound to people such as he, as well as to others who also do not share our premises. I was struck as Dawkins spoke at how similar was his style to that of many Christian apologists and preachers I have encountered/endured through the years.
For instance, he presented major issues in a simplistic fashion only to dispatch them with breathtaking swiftness. Here’s one example.
Dawkins averred that theism is patently contradictory. A God who can see the future with certainty (because of omniscience) thus is powerless to do anything other than what he foresees himself doing, thus compromising his omnipotence. Voilà! Theism is incoherent!
Read the rest of this entry »
Richard Dawkins has traveled the world, sowing his particular gospel of atheism, science, rational argument, and the courage to live in the light of The Facts.
He has appeared before countless audiences, participated in dozens of debates, and handled hundreds of questioners. But he seemed surprised, even nonplussed, by the line of questioning he received from several members of the UBC audience who patiently lined up to press him on . . . vegetarianism.
By the time Dawkins encountered the third such questioner, he was moved to wonder aloud whether he was encountering some sort of “lobby.” No, just the West Coast.
Yet this particular issue presented an intriguing window into Dawkins that had not been provided in his presentation. For his presentation was mostly offensive, in the sense of attacking positions he disliked, rather than defensive, in the sense of offering cogent reasons for adopting his own life philosophy. (His presentation was also at times astonishingly offensive in the other sense, but more about that in my third post.)
Being pressed about vegetarianism, then, we got to see Richard Dawkins construct and defend some ethics. And what a ramshackle thing he produced!
Read the rest of this entry »
Does the Trinity Prove Anything about Gender? Not Much
April 19, 2008
Amid all the arguments among Christians regarding the roles of men and women in home, church, and society, one of the most prominent nowadays is the argument from the Trinity, namely, that the way the persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) relate and are related to each other tells us something important about how men and women are related and ought to relate to each other.
And no wonder some argue this way. What a trump card! “Our view of gender is rooted in the very nature of God!”
The first troubling thing to notice here, however, is that this argument is deployed by both complementarians/patriarchalists and egalitarians/feminists.
Empty Tomb or Empty Gesture?
March 24, 2008
One of Canada’s leading newspapers, the Toronto Globe and Mail, reported this past Easter weekend on a local church who decided not to sing, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, Alleluia,” but “Glorious Hope Is Risen Today.” As the reporter, veteran Michael Valpy, probed to find out in just what that hope consisted, if not Christ the Lord, he was told by the pastor, Gretta Vosper, that her church had no room for miracles. Just moralism.
No “Big God-ism,” as Valpy reported her putting it: “No petitionary prayers…. No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity’s teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus’s death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.”
The Reality of Sex
March 13, 2008
It was my privilege to give a public lecture at the University of British Columbia recently on the question, “Why Are Christians Against Sexual Freedom?” I haven’t spoken on quite this subject before, so I enjoyed preparing for it partly so I could think about the question a little more clearly than I had previously. Here’s the gist of what I said, and I’ll be glad if you can clarify my thinking still further:
Some Christians Are, Indeed, Against Sex: Some Christian teachers have taught the superiority of lifelong celibacy. Some Christians have taken out their own confusions and frustrations and traumas on others by speaking of sex as a Bad Thing to be avoided if possible and endured if necessary. Yes, some Christians are against sex, so they’re certainly against sexual freedom. But that’s not all there is to say.
Christians Aren’t Against Sex: In fact, the very first chapter of the Christian Scriptures contains the very first command of God to the very first human beings, and it’s this: Have sex. Indeed, have lots of it (Genesis 1:28). The world, God says, is fresh and wild and good. It’s now yours to look after, and it’ll take more than you two (Adam and Eve) to do it. In fact, the planet will take a planet-full of human beings to bring it under cultivation (”subdue it,” “have dominion,” etc.). So (ahem) get busy.
Sexual relations are celebrated in an entire book of the Bible, The Song of Solomon, and celebrated so graphically that Jewish and Christian commentators throughout history have tried to distract us with spiritual allegories so that we won’t stare at all the eyes and hands and breasts featured therein. And, to be sure, sexual imagery sometimes is used in the Bible to depict the relationship of God and Israel.
No, Christians aren’t against sex.
“Let There Be Peace on Earth…”
December 31, 2007
As 2008 dawns in the midst of the Twelve Days of Christmas, how we long for peace: for shalom, that great Biblical word for the flourishing of each individual, each relationship, and the cosmos as a whole in harmony with God.
Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus as the one foretold to be “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), the one who came to bring “shalom on earth,” as the angels declared to the shepherds (Luke 2:14). And it is only as we look to Jesus that we will have the peace he promised (John 14:27).
One doesn’t need to be a Christian, of course, to long for peace, to work for peace, and to enjoy seeing peace on earth–in part, here and there, for a while. And let’s acknowledge that we Christians are as capable of wreaking “non-peace” as anyone else.
The fundamental Christian hope, however, is of the “peaceable kingdom” to come, when Jesus returns to set things finally right. And the Christian joy is to experience something of that peace already in the present age of tumult and trouble.
So my kids are wondering, having spent the last week or so at home full-time with Professor Papa, why the theologian doesn’t radiate peace, why I don’t characteristically walk into the room as a soothing breeze of calm and delight, trailing clouds of quiet happiness in my wake.
Jesus, Muhammad, a Sudanese Teddy Bear, Irshad Manji, and Me
December 27, 2007
Irshad Manji, a Canadian activist who cajoles and confronts her fellow Muslims from the theological left of Islam, recently asked some of her acquaintances what we thought of a case in the Sudan that received international attention.
An English teacher in that country invited her 7-year-old students to name their class teddy bear. The overwhelming choice was “Muhammad,” so they were then all sent home with assignments regarding their mascot.
But a staffer at the school complained that the 54-year-old teacher, Gillian Gibbons, intended to insult the Prophet. Charges were laid, Ms. Gibbons was put in prison and threatened with flogging, she was tried and found guilty, and then Sudan’s president pardoned her after considerable diplomacy at a high level and angry demonstrations on street level. (Read about it here.)
Ms. Manji, now living in New York, got into a vigorous discussion with a Sudanese cab driver about it all. (Vigorous discussions are Irshad’s stock in trade!) She blogged about it, and asked a few of us for some responses–especially asking the interesting Christmastime question, “What would Jesus do?”
I replied instead to the related question of “What would Jesus have me do?” and Irshad excerpted a bit of my answer on her blog. As for what Jesus would have done if he had been on site in Sudan, well, here are some thoughts on that question, also.
Why I Signed the Yale Response to “A Common Word”
December 20, 2007
Over the last few weeks, various Christians have contacted me because they are troubled over encountering my name amidst dozens of other signatories listed in a recent New York Times advertisement as supporting a public statement of support for a recent document from moderate Muslims, “A Common Word between Us and You.” (I’m glad to say that others have contacted me to express their appreciation that I did sign it.) The statement of support, entitled “Loving God and Neighbour Together,” was drafted by several professors at Yale Divinity School, including my friend Miroslav Volf, founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology.
(For all of the relevant documents, see the pertinent press releases and links here.)
It was Miroslav who e-mailed me to ask if I’d like to sign the statement for the NYT publication. I read the original Muslim statement and the Yale response, and didn’t sign right away. I was concerned that differences between the faiths, particularly about the divinity of Christ and God’s triune nature, were not as clearly set out in either statement as I would have preferred. Had I drafted the statement myself, I would have made changes elsewhere as well.
But I wasn’t being asked to help draft it. The thing was done, and the question now was a simple, binary one: Sign or not?
An article in this month’s Commentary, by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin, speaks of “Crimes, Drugs, and Welfare–and Other Good News.” Apparently not everything in our culture is going to hell (as I suggested in my blog entry of September 24, 2007). Indeed, Wehner and Levin point to decreasing numbers of teenage pregnances, increasing test scores in schools, lower numbers of abortions and divorces, and a drop in violent crime.
The authors suggest that a combination of opinion-shaping and policy-making are responsible for the changes. Well, maybe. But not perhaps the opinions and policies they have in mind.
I don’t mean to be ungrateful for their tidings. It certainly is good news that there is some good news.
Some of us historical types have been warning for quite a while, to be sure, that history does not proceed in single, straight lines–or circles. Just as some “leading cultural indicators” have shown that some aspects of contemporary North American culture are worse–from unthinking boorishness in parks and cinemas to a widespread acceptance of fornication–other indicators have shown for a generation that some aspects of culture are better, such as how our society treats handicapped people, or people of other races, or people without property, or people who aren’t men.
Still, the question is why–why some things are improving. And I’d like to know why Wehner and Levin do not even mention the provocative thesis of economist Steven Levitt et al., popularized in his book Freakonomics (2005).
Entering Advent: Repentance and Forgiveness (I)
November 24, 2007
As Christians enter the season of Advent—the time of the church year when we undertake an examination of our lives and repent of our sins to prepare for the celebration of the first coming (“advent”) of Jesus—we do well to consider the themes of repentance and forgiveness. There is a lot of confusion around these terms, and a lot of pain around them as well, perhaps especially as Christmastime brings to mind hurtful events and relationships in one’s life. Let’s see if we can bring a little Christmas light to bear on the subject.
Repentance and forgiveness are at the heart of the Christian faith and two of the key words in the Christian vocabulary.
Indeed, they are
• at the heart of the Gospel—we are called to repent and God promises to forgive our sins;
• at the heart of Christian prayer: “and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” (Luke 11:4) ; and
• at the heart of Christian conduct toward our neighbours.
Yet sometimes Jesus says such odd things about forgiveness: “Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, `I repent,’ you must forgive” (Luke 17:3-4).
Notice that in this short passage we encounter multiple sins and multiple forgivenesses. Forgiveness may be necessary toward the same person over and over again.
Notice also that repentance seems to be required. But it isn’t.
Politics, patience, and power…and theology
November 10, 2007
Politicians, we all know, are among the least respected people in our society. We assume the worst about them and nod our heads sagely as one or another of them is exposed as venal, or hypocritical, or merely ambitious.
Yet we need them, and we need Christians among them.
Politics is about multiple policies, procedures, publics–and therefore about patience. No wonder so many people who want to get things done, and get them done soon, and get them done in a straightforward way tend to despise and avoid political careers.
Christians, of all people, should therefore get involved.
Our theology equips us to expect, and not be shocked by, sin, stupidity, absurdity, and waste. We should take for granted that some people’s motives are bad, everyone’s motives are mixed, and political systems are corrupt, with all that money and power at stake.
Our theology should also, however, lead us to expect some success, some goodness, and some blessing. We who know how things eventually turn out, and who know that God intends to bless the world in the meanwhile, should be hopeful of at least some measure of shalom from government.
So, given our grasp of the light and the dark, the positive and the negative, the “mixed field of the world” and what it takes to get anything worthwhile accomplished in it, we should be unusually patient. And yet we usually aren’t.
“Red-Letter Christians”: A Bad Idea with a Bad Name, Alas
October 22, 2007
Being a “red-letter Christian” sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University, activist, pundit, and provocateur, tells us that he wants to obey the very words of Jesus, those words that in previous generations of Bible publishing were printed in red.
His comrade Jim Wallis of the Sojourners Fellowship, also known as an activist, pundit, and provocateur, shares this self-designation and thinks that such an approach to Christian discipleship will transcend the division of American political culture between the left and right, Democrat and Republican.
So isn’t being a red-letter Christian (RLC) a good thing?
Well, first, let’s agree that Christians should try to follow Jesus. No problem there. But the trouble with the RLC concept begins immediately afterward.
