withallyourmind.net

I was greatly encouraged by this article over at the Boundless Webzine which discusses a recent book by Philip Jenkins (Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University) called The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity. The article (following Jenkins’ book) criticizes and rebuts the commonly heard doomsayers, from the secular humanists to the far-left ‘christians’, who insist that Christianity is on the decline and will never survive so long as it holds onto its ‘pre-scientific’ supernaturalism. The problem with this view is that it’s false. Christianity is steadily growing (or at least staying the same) in the United States, and it is exploding throughout the second and third world. Jenkins writes:

Viewed from Cambridge or Amsterdam, such pleas make excellent sense, but in the context of global Christianity, this kind of liberalism looks distinctly dated. It would not be easy to convince a congregation in Seoul or Nairobi that Christianity is dying, when their main concern is building a worship facility big enough for the 10,000 or 20,000 members they have gained over the past few years. And these new converts are mostly teenagers and young adults, very few with white hair. Nor can these churches be easily told that, in order to reach a mass audience, they must bring their message more into accord with western secular orthodoxies.

Here are some of the statistics he has compiled:
* In 1900 less than 10 percent of Africans were Christians. Today the number has surged to over 47 percent.
* In 1949 China had only 4 million Christians. Today the number stands at about 82 million. That’s over a 20x increase, even factoring in the country’s total population growth. Former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine David Aikman projects that within a few decades 1 in 3 Chinese could be Christian.
* Christian faith is also on the rise in South America. Many South American countries report a catholic majority and a charismatic form of Protestantism is growing most quickly, sweeping whole cities with revival.
* The spread of the faith in Korea has been just as astounding. Forget Saddleback. Seoul is now home to the world’s largest church. And Korean Christians are not content with mere domestic growth. Christianity Today reports that now “Korea sends more missionaries than any country but the U.S. And it won’t be long before it is number one.”
* Jenkins estimates that by 2050 there will be 3 billion Christians and non-’white’ Christians will outnumber ‘white’ Christians five to one.

The conclusion of the article:

I question their motivations. I wonder if their “predictions” are anything more than wishes in disguise. After all, those hailing Christianity’s immanent demise also tend to advocate an aggressive secularism while longing for the day when religious belief will be expunged from public life. Call it wishful thinking.

Whatever the cause, it’s still going on. Right now somewhere in America a professor is sketching out the soon-ending “Christian Era” before a class of credulous freshmen. On some radio show there’s an “expert” opining about the decline of Christendom.

And meanwhile thousands are hearing the gospel for the first time and responding in faith.

Of course we Christians aren’t surprised. We remember that someone else made a prediction long ago. Standing before his disciples with fire in his eyes Jesus promised to build his church. The gates of hell couldn’t stop it, he told them. Nothing could. Nearly 2,000 years later 2 billion people the world over claim to follow the Carpenter from Nazareth. I guess He wasn’t kidding.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this the body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

I know that just about every apologist and his mother has blogged something about the Da Vinci Code recently, but I also noticed a large number of Christians who were content to say something like “But everyone knows it’s just fiction. What’s the big deal?” and leave it at that. The unfortunate fact, however, is that popular culture does a lot more to affect peoples’ worldviews than you would think. One recent survey found that 17% of Canadians and 13% of Americans believed that Jesus’ death was a fake and that he was secretly married - a key premise of the Da Vinci Code. Another survey in France found that nearly one in four thought the book “is based on facts surrounding the life of Jesus Christ.” A survey done by The Barna Group found that 5% (estimated to be about 2 million people) who read the book actually changed their religious views because of it and 24% considered it to be “a helpful spiritual document.” The point I’m trying to make here is that the Da Vinci Code is affecting how people think about Jesus and every Christian should know at least enough about it to answer the questions it raises about the historicity of the biblical documents.

(HT The ID Update)

I listened to a wonderful lecture last weekend (and I intend to listen to it several more times) by Vinoth Ramachandra entitled Who is Jesus Christ for Us Today?. I was intrigued and convicted by his condemnation of today’s Christians, especially in America, for believing only in a “God-of-the-Gaps”. I had previously only heard this term in connection with the scientific fallacy of saying “God did it” whenever something seems on its face to be unsolvable (or difficult to solve) by natural means. Ramachandra, however, pointed to another way that Christians confine God to the gaps by pushing His influence and importance to the edges of our existence and only appealing to Him when our own knowledge or resources fail. The principle way we do this is by making the imaginary divide between sacred and secular. We imagine that how we perform our occupational duties, participate in the larger culture, and spend our money are unaffected and in a separate realm altogether from what we ‘believe’ or sing about in our churches on Sunday. We want our pastors to teach us how to think about the Bible and what it says, but only insofar as it refrains from making us uncomfortable by daring to put limits on how we spend our leisure time or which way we vote. And we do evangelism by selling a spiritual experience that both begins and ends with the one-time utterance of a simple prayer that makes everything right.

Contrary to these things, what the Bible calls us to is a complete submission of our entire beings to be used for God’s glory and the spread of His kingdom. To be a Christian is not to have a one-time experience and then be done with it. It is to be a follower of Christ, the God who became Man in space and time and stood for justice and mercy in a culture that was short on both (much like ours). And this changes everything. As George Grant has said, Jesus’ emphasis in the Great Commission was that “we need to make disciples who will obey everything that He has commanded, not just in a hazy zone of piety, but in the totality of life…when the Christian’s task is limited to snatching brands from the flickering flames of perdition, then virtually all Christian influence is removed from the world.” (Micah Mandate, p. 54) Christians are called to be salt and light - to preserve and to season, and to expose the darkness of, the world in which they live. And if we are ever going to fulfill this calling, we must recognize that we are not called by a God-of-the-gaps, but by the God who created and is at the center of everything.

ID Update linked to an article in the Oregon State Daily Barometer which reviews a debate held on May 22, between Michael Ruse and Cornelius Hunter called “Evolution versus Intelligent Design: Scientific Assumptions in a Free Society”. Reading the brief report by the OSU Daily Barometer staff writer, Adam Cambell, reminded me of my previous post. It seems that reporters (and perhaps participants) just don’t get the issue. However, Campbill actually did a better job than most city newspaper reporters. Here is his representation of the opposing views:

Darwin’s theory of evolution states that all organisms have one or a few common ancestors, and as time passed they developed traits which eventually separated them into different species.

Intelligent Design, on the other hand, states that biological processes are too complex to have been brought about by random variation, and instead show the telltale signs of design. Just who the designer is, though, the theory does not say.

His characterization is much better than the that of the Tallahassee Democrat. His description of Darwinian evolution however would be embraced by many ID’ers. Because some advocates of intelligent design do not deny evolution, only the Darwinian mechanism.

On another note, I found the discussion of the debate to be very similar to a Ruse debate I attended several months ago. The ID supporter attempted to focus the debate on the science, and Ruse attempted to focus the debate on the associated cultural issues.

“Intelligent Design is not a debate about the fossil record, but more of pushing a way of life,” Ruse said.

Ruse argued that Intelligent Design is more of a social and moral agenda, supported by conservative, evangelical Christians.

According to Ruse, “ID is not only bad science, it’s bad religion.”

Of course, Ruse’s claim is not completely true. There are many conservative, evangelical Christians who support ID, but I know of many who do not. As a matter of fact, they feel it is compromise with science. Alternately, there are many who support ID, including some of the most visible leaders of the ID movement, who are not evangelical Christians. To deny that there are cultural implications is, of course, ridiculous. But to claim that that is all there is to ID is also ridiculous.

I found a recent article in which Madeleine Albright criticizes President Bush to be quite instructive concerning the worldview of many. The former secretary of state claims bush is alienating Muslims and making U. S. foreign policy “more rigid and more difficult for other countries to accept”.

What is it about Bush that is so alienating? Well…it is his Christian worldview of the belief in objective truth (Albright uses the term “absolute”, I prefer objective). In the words of Albright:

“I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy…President Bush’s certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different…The absolute truth is what makes Bush so worrying to some of us.”

It seems that a person who believes that good and evil have some objective reality and that this reality can be known is one who worries many in society. He is an alienator. However, President Bush has made it clear on a number of occasions that he has no problem with a Muslim believing in his faith. The problem arises when a Muslim, or any human being, resorts to terrorist acts and the mass destruction of innocent lives. So, it is worrisome when the president calls terrorism evil? Albright expressed dismay that Bush would claim that God is on our side. I do not think that Bush meant to imply that God would support America in whatever endeavor America was involved. If so, that would certainly be mistaken. Bush, I believe, did mean that the terms good and evil mean something; that there is some objective means by which we can determine what is good and what is evil, and that God is on the side of good.

Albright expresses the same confused subjectivism which is abundantly found throughout American culture. People are offended by someone who believes in objective truth. One can believe whatever one wishes…with the exception of objective truth. The article had this to say regarding the origin of Ablright’s views on objective truth:

Asked about her own beliefs, Albright said she had “a very confused religious background”. Born and raised a Roman Catholic in Czechoslovakia, Britain and then the United States, she converted to Anglicanism when she married and only later in life discovered she had Jewish roots. It is this legacy which makes her wary of any religion which claims a monopoly on truth, she said. These days, she describes herself as “an Episcopalian (U.S. Anglican) with a Catholic background”, recalling how she used to pray to the Virgin Mary as a child and still does. “I know I believe in God but I have doubts, and doubt is part of faith,” she said.

Madeleine Albright may have had a confused religious background, as so many have. This however does not imply that one must resign to accepting all viewpoints as equally valid. Since many viewpoints stand in direct contradiction, that would be an absurdity. It is that view that is worrisome to me.

MOST glorious Lord of life that on this day,
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin:
and having harrowed hell didst bring away,
captivity thence captive us to win.
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
and grant that we for whom thou didest die
being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
may live forever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
may likewise love thee for the same again:
and for thy sake that all like dear didst buy,
with love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

I know this is a lengthy quote, and I admit that I took it directly from Jollyblogger. But it’s a good one. From The Divine Conspiracy, pp. 62-63.

We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.

While I was teaching in South Africa some time ago, a young man named Matthew Dickason took me out to see the beaches near his home in Port Elizabeth. I was totally unprepared for the experience. I had seen beaches, or so I thought. But when we came over the rise where the sea and land opened up to us, I stood in stunned silence and then slowly walkd toward the waves. Words cannot capture the view that confronted me. I saw space and light and texture and color and power . . . that seemed hardly of this earth.

Gradually, there crept into my mind the realization that God sees this all the time. He sees it, experiences it, knows it from every possible point of view, this and billions of other scenes like and unlike it, in this and billiions of other worlds. Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being.

It is perhaps strange to say, but suddenly I was extremely happy for God and thought I had some sense of what an infinitely joyous consciousness he is and of what it maight have meant for him to look at his creation and find it “very good.”

We pay a lot of money to get a tank with a few tropical fish in it and never tire of looking at their brilliant iridescence and marvelous forms and movements. But god has seas full of them, which he constantly enjoys (I can hardly take in these beautiful little creatures one at a time).

We are enraptured by a well-done movie sequence or by a few bars from an opera or lines from a poem. We treasure our great experiences for a lifetime, and we may have very few of them. But he is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right. This is what we must think of when we hear theologians and philosophers speak of him as a perfect being. This is his life.

ID Update provided news concerning a forum which was to be held last evening in Tallahasse, Florida regarding the teaching of evolution vs. intelligent design in public schools. The Tallahassee Democrat published an article promoting the meeting in which were several snippets from various educators. While I am sure that these snippets did not contain the full comments of those interviewed, I was concerned with the way evolution was characterized. I hesitate to blame those interviewed because I do not have access to the full transcript of their comments. At minimum, the Democrat did a poor job of explaining the issues. For example, Eugenie Scott, executive director for the Nationl Center for Science Education states:

This is like teaching chemistry and skipping (the) periodic table. Evolution is the idea that living things had common ancestors, and common ancestry of living things is what explains why biological phenomena are the way they are.

That is certainly a misleading way of defining evolution and differentiating it from intelligent design. Many in the ID community embrace common ancestry (not all). Evolution claims far more than this. It is those other claims with which IDers have issues.

Joseph Travis, dean of FSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, voicing concerns over evolution being made optional, states:

The classic example are things like pathogens. They use methods from evolutionary biology to discern what strain of influenza to use to develop next year’s vaccine. That affects a lot of people.

Again, this just totally misses the crux of the debate. The development of bacterial resistance to antiotics and the ability of viruses to undergo antigenic shift is not denied by any ID advocate that I know of. Intelligent Design does in no way oppose the teaching of mutation and other biochemical concepts in general. That is ludicrous. The point is Intelligent Design favors the teaching of these concepts. It opposes, however, the unwarranted extrapolation of these concepts to imply that the diversity of the species can be attributed to the action of natural selection on mutations.

Lastly, Frank Stephenson, editor of FSU’s Resarch and Review which is sponsoring the forum, states:

Evolution determines how we teach critical thinking, how we go about thinking what science is and how science is to be taught.

To this, I can only ask, “What?” Evolution has apparently reached the status where it is the supreme paradigm that determines how we think about any other issue. If we don’t understand evolution, we can’t think critically! Evolution is now determining how we think about science!

I can only hope that the article is poor reporting and that we are not to take seriously those comments attributed to these educators. What we really need is a forum which seriously addresses the real issues concerning the teaching of evolution and intelligent design.

(Regarding my last post…I had a few unexpected minutes and felt I had to comment on the article)

I’ve been absent from posting for several days while Jeremy has carried the load. Unfortunately, this will probably continue for a while. I’m finishing up my semester at Biola, taking finals and writing papers. I’m also leaving soon for a couple of weeks away. In the meantime, I am also working in the hospital almost everyday in order to take time off to go away. I hope to contribute a couple of posts in the next few days before I leave. I started a series on postmodernism that I still hope to continue, but that may wait for a few weeks. I look forward to reading Jeremy’s thoughts and insights. God is good!