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One of the most controversial aspects of the recent movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is the attention given to the alleged link between Darwinism and the Holocaust. I think that this link is legitimate. No one that I’ve heard, including those interviewed in Expelled, actually believe that all Darwinists are Nazis or that Darwinism inevitably leads to such horrific deeds such as those perpetrated by Hitler. In fact, this point is made clear in the movie. Berlinski, in Expelled, rightly points out that Darwinism was not a sufficient condition for the Nazi atrocities, but it was a necessary one.

Tom Gilson has an excellent discussion of the issue in his post: Darwin-Nazi Link: Fundamentally Wrongheaded? He responds to a charge that this whole linkage is unimportant. He raises a few major points:

1. It is important not to ignore this link because it is important to learn from history. He suggests that the potential for similar consequences are present in a number of contemporary issues.

2. It’s not quite true that there is only a historical link and no philosophical link from Darwin to Hitler.
a. Naturalistic Darwinism, if taken to be the sole explanation for all of life, erases all ethical requirements.
b. There is an ontological implication in Darwinism: humans are the same kind of thing as animals.

Hitler treated humans like animals; Darwinism says that’s what we are.

3. Ideas matter. They have consequences.

4. Influencers certainly can be blamed for the actions of others that follow. In this case, Darwin opened an ideological or ethical door which would not otherwise have been opened.

The Nazbo Rap is the youtube Christian video of the year thus far for Ben Witherington:

Props to all those rappin’ Nazarenes out there in the heartland. Get on up with your Good Self, Kanye and Eminem ain’t got nothin’ on you.

Having attended a Nazarene church for the past few years, it is pretty funny.

Here is Angus Menuge’s powerpoint presentation for his recent debate with P.Z. Meyers. It is titled, “Does Neuroscience Leave Room for God?” It is a nice resource with some interesting quotes pertaining to the subject. Among them is this one which causes one to question the materialistic commitment of many modern scientists:

“[A] rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule.” - William James, The Will to Believe.

HT: Dangerous Idea

If you ever visit the Los Angeles area, I recommend a visit to the Getty Museum. A work of art in itself, the museum sits on a hillside providing wonderful views of the city and surrounding areas. The collection rivals or exceeds that of other major museums I’ve visited. I’ve been blessed to visit the Getty twice and would readily make a third visit.

Art aficionado, Fred Sanders, provides an overview (here at Scriptorium) of some of the religious art at the Getty depicting the life of Christ. Sanders points out that although the Getty is not recognized for its volume of Christian art, due to its nice collection of Western art, inevitably there are a number of images of Jesus. Sanders is informative in his assessment of several works of art. I have heard his lecture on how to look at art and found it very helpful, as well.

I have just finished reading the first two books of Francis Schaeffer’s Trilogy, The God Who is There and Escape from Reason, and I am over halfway through the third, He is There and He is not Silent. Schaeffer presents a powerful presuppositional apologetic for the truth of Christianity. I can’t believe I haven’t read these before.

J.P. Moreland’s latest blog, Recalcitrant Facts and the Image of God, reminded me of much of the content of these books. A recalcitrant fact is a fact that is “obstinately uncooperative, hard to handle or deal with.” From a naturalistic worldview, there are a number of such facts, some of which, according to Moreland are…

… consciousness, the self, free will, equal rights and dignity, rational abilities, the nature and cures of depression, and sexuality.

Schaeffer makes similar claims about the world in his works and asserts that the teachings of orthodox Christianity provide the only framework from which they can be consistently understood:

There is no other sufficient philosophical answer than the one I have outlined… There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills this need in all the world’s thought, whether the East, the West, the ancient, the modern, the new, the old. Only one fills the philosophical need of existence, of Being (and later Schaeffer argues of morality), and it is the Judeo-Christian God - not just an abstract concept, but rather that this God is really there. He exists. There is no other answer.

There are certain facts about the world in which we live that only make sense from a Christian worldview. This is what Moreland and Schaeffer are both claiming in similar ways. Moreland states:

The Christian offers a challenge to other worldviews—particularly, naturalism and postmodernism: Show that you have a better explanation for these features than Christianity does (with its doctrine of the image of God), or show that these features are not actually real, even though they seem to be.

I’ve just finished reading and small, but insightful, booklet by Francis Schaeffer called Art and the Bible. Over the past 10 years or so, I’ve developed a love and appreciation for art and have made it a goal of mine to visit as many of the major (and lesser known) art museums of the world as possible. In Art and the Bible, Schaeffer first presents a summary of scriptural teaching on art and argues for its place in modern Christian life. In the second part of the book, he seeks to develop a Christian perspective on art. I found his remarks quite helpful and thought I would provide here his eleven distinct perspectives from which a Christian should evaluate or judge a work of art (not limited to only visual arts). In the booklet, Schaeffer, of course, provides much more clarifying content.

1. A work of art has a value in itself. It is to be enjoyed as a work of art.
2. Art forms add strength to the world view which shows through, no matter what the world view is or whether the world view is true or false. The effect of any proposition, whether true or false is hightened if expressed in art.
3. In all forms of writing both poetry and prose, it makes a tremendous difference whether there is a continuity or a discontinuity with the normal definitions of words in normal syntax. Totally abstract art alienates the viewer from the painter.
4. The fact that something is a work of art does not make it sacred.
5. There are four basic standards by which art is to be judged:
a. Technical excellence (the use of color, form, balance, texture, handling of lines, unity of the canvas, etc).
b. Validity (whether an artist is honest to himself and his worldview).
c. Intellectual content, the world view which comes through.
d. The integration of content and vehicle (correlation between the style and the content).
6. Art forms can be used for any type of message from pure fantasy to detailed history.
7. Styles of art form change and there is nothing wrong with this.
8. One must distinguish between style and message. (There is no such thing as a goldy style or an ungodly style).
9. The Christian world view can be divided into a major theme and a minor theme. The minor theme is the abnormality of the revolting world. The major theme is the meaningfulness and purposefulness of life.
10. Christian art is by no means always religious art, that is, art which deals with religious themes.
11. Every artist has the problem of making an individual work of art and, as well, building up a total body of work.

Alright, I admit it… I’m hooked on American Idol and have been since its inception. Shout to the Lord, a contemporary Christian worship song was performed by the current Idol contestants on the “Idol Gives Back” show and then the following night on the Idol results show this past week. I, like many others, was quite surprised to hear this song being performed. Initially, my response was, “Wow! How awesome that American Idol is performing a worship song!”. The quickly following, much more ambivalent response was, “Look at these performers, not all of whom are Christians, singing a worship song filled with beautiful words of praise and adoration to a God who means little to them.”

It appears I was not the only conflicted individual watcing the show. Some have praised the show for the performance, others have criticized the performance of a Christian praise song by non-Christians on a secular show. Josh Harris provides some commentary, opinion, and inside scoop on the performance of the song here. Among the comments are these provided by Beverly, a Christian inside Fox network:

I work on one of the “sister shows” of American Idol…so picture an office, with all of the producers, crew, etc. gathered in watching the live feed at our CBS offices, then this song comes on…an office filled with a few Christians….atheists and agnostic Jews. You could hear a pin drop….it was awesome…..the power that came through….nothing had to be said…no debates….just people being touched more than they realized…producers, writers…crew that had never darkened a church door in their lives, or their only experience with Christians was a negative one. You don’t always see the workings of us Christians that are behind the scenes…you don’t know how much prayer went into getting a song with that message on a, let us not forget, a SECULAR show. So, from someone behind the scenes, the best thing you can do is write to the producer of Am. Idol and simply state how much you appreciate the diversity they showed in having an very inspirational song in their program. Period. No criticizing. This will go farther than you realize. Also, pray, pray, pray for us Christians that have chosen Hollywood as our vocation, career and our mission field.

Here is a Youtube video of the song as presented on the Idol Gives Back Show (in which, by the way, another word was substituted for “Jesus.” “Jesus” was restored for the following performance.)

HT: Between Two Worlds

Al Mohler, here, makes an interesting observation concerning these recent words of a presidential candidate:

It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The candidate has come under fire for this comment, but Mohler points out the real issue with what was said…

My interest is theological, for Sen. Obama has given us a near-perfect expression of a functional view of religious belief. In other words, Sen. Obama said that “religion” is a coping mechanism for hard times — lumping religion with other issues his audience members were presumably to find strange and alien.

A functional view of belief assumes or “brackets” the question of whether the beliefs are true. One who holds to a purely functionalist view of religious conviction is not concerned with the truthfulness of these beliefs, but only with the effects the beliefs have on the believer, both privately and in social contexts.

Mohler rightly observes that this functional view of faith is not a phenomenon found only among liberals. Conservatives have often taken such a view as well. Americans are encouraged to have faith in anything as long as it brings them meaning and purpose. Mohler admonishes Christians to…

… learn to detect a functional account of religious belief when listening to public figures speak. Liberals tend to speak in functional terms of meaning and purpose. Conservatives tend to speak functionally in terms of social order, stability, and morality.

None of these is a substitute for authentic Christianity — a faith that is predicated on being true — not merely meaningful or helpful.

For the Christian, it is not faith which saves a person. It is the object of that faith, the God of Scripture.

This is the final post in a series of blogs looking at the question of whether intelligent design is merely religion masquerading as science as so many critics charge. I’ve answered several assertions so far, and today, I turn to one final objection - that intelligent design wishes to ban the teaching of Darwinian evolution from the public schools, replacing it with religious dogma. This may, at first glance, seem legitimate because the term “intelligent design” has been used by some groups in some local school systems to advocate the teaching of young earth creationism using the Bible as a text, but most advocates of the intelligent design movement don’t hold this view.

For example, the Discovery Institute, perhaps the leading intelligent design advocate, does not advocate that schools should cease to teach Darwinism. Instead, they contend that…

… evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned.

Presently, Darwinism is taught as if it has no weaknesses and is universally accepted. ID critic, BarbaraForrest states:

There is no controversy in the mainstream scientific community about either the fact of evolution or the major aspects of evolutionary theory.

This begs the question, since to make such a claim one must classify anyone who doubts Darwinism as a scientist out of the mainstream. It also commits the fallacy of consensus gentium. However, truth isn’t decided by a majority vote.

Although one would not think so based on the rhetoric of intelligent design opponents, the major intelligent design organizations actually recommend the teaching of Darwinian evolution, including both its strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, however, The Discovery Institute’s policy emphasizes that there is nothing unconstitutional about voluntary discussion of the scientific theory of design in a classroom, and that teachers should not be persecuted or harassed if they choose to discuss the scientific evidence for design.

The Dover decision of December 2005 which classified intelligent design as religion, not science, perpetuated the confusion that intelligent design is identical to creationism. Michael Behe, in his response to that decision, sums up the issue well, stating that the courts mistaken ruling was premised on…

… a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; an incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID.

This is the 5th in a series of posts considering the charge by ID critics that ID is nothing more than camouflaged religion. I’ve already considered several assertions offered in support of this claim. Today, I look briefly at another, specifically - Does the observation that a theory may have religious implications mean it is nothing but religion disguised as science?

Critics reject intelligent design as science because of its religious implications. It is certainly true that intelligent design may have religious implications, but so does the science of Darwinism. It is unfair to criticize intelligent design as unique in this. The Big Bang has religious implications, but that does not disqualify it as a scientific theory. Michael Behe, in his testimony at the Dover, PA intelligent design trial, made reference to an editorial in the prestigious scientific journal Nature which…

… carried the title “Down with the Big Bang”, and called the Big Bang a ‘philosophically unacceptable’ theory which gave succor to “Creationists.”

Science should proceed to investigate and explain the natural world without regard to the theological or philosophical implications which may follow. Some critics of modern science think that a dogmatic commitment to certain philosophical underpinnings and a distaste for certain philosophical implications is detrimental to the quest of better understanding the natural world. If one excludes an entire subset of answers a priori, one runs the risk of making the data conform to the wrong explanation. As Alvin Plantinga has observed:

If you exclude the supernatural from science, then if the world or some phenomena within it are supernaturally caused — as most of the world’s people believe — you won’t be able to reach that truth scientifically.

Next, I’ll consider a final objection critics offer in their efforts to paint ID with the brush of religion.