The Defending the Faith Lecture Series will kick-off on Tuesday, May 27, at 7:30 pm at Biola University. The Case for Christ DVD by Lee Stobel, based on his best-selling book, will be launched that evening. All who attend get a free copy of the DVD. If you’re in the area, plan on attending. Register here.
The Shack is a work of theological fiction which has gone through multiple printings and has gone as high as #8 on the USA Today bestseller list. It is quite popular, receiving reviews such as this from Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.:
When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of “The Shack.” This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” did for his. It’s that good!
Many churches have encouraged the reading of this book (including the one I attend) with the understanding that it may transform one’s spiritual life. Some Amazon reviewers have said:
The character of God in the book is from a point of view I never would have imagined, or thought of. But all the answers and conversations are right on. It really changes the way I view God, and the way I can related with him. My relationship is so much deeper now.
I truly believe that “The Shack” has the potential to shake up and alter the entire Church. This book will seriously mess with your theology — and you will be GLAD. Yeah, it’s really that good.
Wish I could take bakc all the years in seminary!… Systematic theology was never this good. Shack will be read again and agin. With relish.
I would highly recommend anyone reading The Shack (or planning to) to read this excellent review by Tim Challies. (Included in the review is a brief synopsis of the book itself.) There are some serious problems with the book from a theological perspective, which Challies does a good job explaining. Although many have obviously been positively impacted by the book, a little truth mixed with a little error (or perhaps a lot of error) can be a dangerous thing. Challies does not claim that the book is devoid of value, but that it leaves the reader with a potentially perilous misunderstanding of important scriptural truths. Here are some comments from near the end of his review (read the whole thing, if you can):
Focusing on just three of the subjects William Yound discusses in The Shack, we’ve seen that errors abound. He presents a false view of God and one that may well be described as heretical. He downplays the importance and uniqueness of the Bible, subjugating it or making it equal to other forms of subjective revelation. He misrepresents redemption and salvation, opening the door to the possibility of salvation outside of the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are left with an unbiblical understanding of the persons and nature of the God and of His work in the world.
He relies too little on Scripture and too much on his own theological imaginings.
That the Shack is a dangerous book should be obvious from this review. The book’s subversive undertones seek to dismantle many aspects of the faith and these are subsequently replaced with doctrine that is just plain wrong. Error abounds.
R. R. Reno reviews the Whitney Museum’s Biennial Exhibition of contemporary American art here at First Things. I must admit that I would be among Reno’s friends who would make “faces when I told them that I wanted to take a look.” I agree with Reno’s characterization of much of “contemporary art” as…
… a synonym for the radical chic that has become a cliché: chocolate-smeared performance artists, piles of trash in the corners of rooms, ideological pronouncements spray-painted onto police barriers, and so forth.
Most of Reno’s critique is not exactly glowing, yet he is fair and open-minded. His overall assessment of the exhibtion reminds me of Francis Schaeffer’s perceptive evaluation of art through the ages. There seems to be no overarching guiding philosophy behind contemporary American art. He states:
All the same, the message this year was clear: There is no settled orthodoxy in contemporary American art. There’s no there there.
Artists, as canaries in culture, provide insight into the moral and philosophical status of our modern culture. Forsaking the firm foundation of Christian Theism and realizing the inability of reason alone to provide meaning, humanity is left without meaning, direction, coherence, or cause. Reno concludes:
At this moment, the canaries at the Whitney testify to an emerging situation: creativity without a cause…Yet, as I walked on, my hope was mixed with anxiety. Culture cannot exist without orthodoxies, because freedom cannot give itself the obligations necessary for its own perfection: the ordered liberty of assent to that which is greater. Creative freedom we seem to have, but for what and toward what? The same question holds for intellectual, moral, and political freedom. It is one thing to be free from the false dogmas of the modern avant-garde; it is another to find the true dogmas that humanize. For the sake of our creative culture now freeing itself from the long reigning pieties of the modern avant-garde—and for our culture more broadly—I hope God sees fit to open some new eyes to see old truths.
I am a registered Republican voter and have voted almost exclusively for Republican candidates in every major election for the last 32 years. ( The last time I probably did not was when I first was old enough to exercise my right to vote and cast my vote for Jimmy Carter in the ‘76 presidential election. My reasons for voting then was not quite so thoughtful or rational - He was from my home state of Georgia.) I have voted Republican, not out of some blind allegiance to a particular political party, but because the Republican candidates’ views on issues which are important to me most closely aligned with my views. If a Democrat’s views more closely aligned with mine I would have no touble voting Democrat. There are a number of issues which are important to me, and should be important to any evangelical voter. Among these, and perhaps the most important issue, is the candidate’s view of the sanctity of human life. I would find it difficult to justify voting for a candidate who supported abortion (not necessarily impossible, but difficult). I think, in the hierarchy of important issues, this one is near the top.
Charles J. Chaput, at First Things, had addressed this issue from a Catholic perspective in his post, Thoughts on “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08.” Chaput, too, voted for Carter in 1976 (although Carter was “soft toward permissive abortion). Chaput, although he was able to rationalize his support for a pro-choice candidate at that time, now doubts that such support was, nor perhaps could be, justified. Optimistic that perhaps a second term with Carter would perhaps bring about a change on the issue of abortion, he campaigned for Carter in his bid for re-election. Reagan, a pro-life candidate, defeated Carter in his bid for a second term. Despite Reagan’s pro-life stance, Chaput is concerned that not more progress has been made in the important cause of protecting innocent human life:
In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be “personally opposed” to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse—exactly as it is today. In fact, I can’t name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life—not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there’s very little action. In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide.
He brings this all up in the context of the present election and the efforts of a group known as “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08.” This group had quoted the following words from an article by Chaput in their campaigning efforts for Obama:
So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics— people whom I admire—who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views.
Unfortunately, the article stopped the quote too soon. The very next sentences in the article read:
But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life—which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.
I think these are good words of advice for any evangelical considering supporting a candidate who is pro-choice. Chaput noted that:
Planned Parenthood of the Chicago area, as recently as February 2008, noted that Senator Barack Obama “has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record both in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois Senate.”
A few days ago, I posted on the Evangelical Manifesto, a recent document signed by a number of leading evangelicals which hopes to clarify what it means to be evangelical. John Mark Reynolds, in his post What is an Evangelical?, addresses this same issue. I like this portion of his overall discussion:
Evangelicals are committed to reason. They love books, ideas, debates, and finding things out. All over America millions of Evangelicals will attend seminars by philosophers such as William Lane Craig or theologians such as John Piper. When they are losing an argument, they think harder, adapt, and try again.
Like all post-moderns, they too are tempted by anti-intellectualism, but there is a cottage industry of books, such as those by J.P. Moreland, calling them back to their better selves.
Evangelicals want the truth. Not for them are soft platitudes that hide problems. If they became persuaded that their religious ideas were wrong, they would change their minds. For Evangelicals part of faith is a kind of knowledge. They care about being right and hope to avoid being wrong.
Of course, Evangelicals know that reason has limits. They know intellectualism is just as dangerous as fundamentalism. In a mixed up and complicated world, Evangelicals are practical and suspicious of rigid, Utopian ideologies that don’t take into account fundamental human ignorance.
I was able to see the second installment in The Chronicles of Narnia series over the weekend, Prince Caspian, and enjoyed the movie as much as I did the first. I have come across a number of reviews of the film and have found them interesting and insightful. Bruce Edwards, at his C.S. Lewis blog, while not hating the movie, gives an overall less than glowing review here. He feels that the movie misses the mark of portraying the story C.S. Lewis presented in Prince Caspian:
Prince Caspian, thus, is about what happens next, what happens when the mystique and the mystery of life has been stripped away or treated contemptuously—about what happens when Aslan’s true nature and the Pevensie’s righteous reign are discarded or buried or ignored. A movie made of such poignant substance, could be transcendent, lyrical, mythopoeic, could be a wondrous standalone tale in itself—as the forgotten kings and queens of Narnia return not a moment too soon to help the noble but naive Prince Caspian learn his destiny and help true Narnians recover their birthright. Regrettably, that is not the movie Andrew Adamson and his crew have chosen to make.
Contrast that with this brief take by John Mark Reynolds, who states the movie is better than the first (even than the book):
Like a miracle, comes a gift to us from Disney and Walden Media. Prince Caspian, the weakest of the seven Narnia books, is a better film (as a film) than the first . . . and I really liked the first. This time the makers felt able to make changes as the plot was less well known (and less tightly structured).
Finally, I point you to this review by Amy Hall at the Stand to Reason blog. She like the movie overall, but had some specific issues with the film. One of these dealt with the question of how much God knows or can know. At one point Aslan asserts that there are some things even he cannot know… specifically counterfactuals (that is, what would happen if an alternative course of action was chosen by an individual, rather than the choice actually made). This line struck me as odd at the time as well and I wondered if anyone else caught it. Hall states:
The second change is even worse (being more explicit) and involves another of the ideas most memorable to me–one that recurs throughout the series. In the book, when Lucy realizes she’s failed to do something she should have–and could have–done, she asks Aslan what would have happened had she done what was right: “Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?” Aslan responds powerfully, “No. Nobody is ever told that.” Aslan has authority and perfect wisdom–rebelling against his command has consequences, and Lucy’s not doing what he had revealed for her to do causes new difficulties for everyone. But make no mistake, Aslan is quite aware of what would have happened had she obeyed. Compare this to the film version where Aslan’s response to Lucy’s plea is: “We can never know what would have happened.” We? Yikes! I’m not a fan of open-theist (open-lionist?) Aslan.
If you haven’t seen this enjoyable film, go see it for yourself.
David Brooks, in a N.Y. Times opinion piece The Neural Buddhists, anticipating a new direction in the supposed science vs. religion wars (I say supposed because science and religion need and should not be understood in such a way), thinks that a major shift in the culture wars is coming:
… My guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible.
The latest developments in neuroscience and cognitive science, according to Brooks, will lead to a diminishing of the battles between theists and hard core mateiralists and an increased conflict between particular religious claims (such as those of Christians) and some “squishy” spirituality he descirbes as Neural Buddhism. Although he does not make it clear, he seems to indicate scientists are willing to admit that non-material entities are real and exist, but only if it is maintained that they arise from purely material entities:
The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development… Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.
This new spirituality is of course nothing like the God of Christian theism, which leads to Brooks’ assertion that a new form of cultural battle is forming between theists and science. This God of neuroscience…
… can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.
The battle with militant atheists will no longer be the central battle for Christians. Instead, they will have to battle this new-agey, eastern-like, transcendental unkowable entity which emerges from the brain’s neural network.
I’m not sure if Brooks is right or not. In one sense, it would be considered a small victory is non-physical entities are accepted into science’s ontology. On the other hand, the God which is allowed in is not significantly different than there being no God at all. If Christianity is faced with the task of defending its particular truth claims against such a vague deity, I am comfortable that it will be well equipped to meet the challenge. Christianity is unique among all world religions in that it is grounded in historical events, such as the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, which make or break its claim to truth. While this new development might be more troublesome to other religious traditions, not so with Christianity.
Major media outlets, including this CNN article, have commented on the recently constructed and released “Evangelical Manifesto.” This “manifesto” was created by a number of prominent evangelicals to address misunderstandings and concerns relating to the identity of evangelicals, as well as the cultural and political interactions of evangelicals in modern America. Warning: Do not rely on the major media outlets in making your judgment about the merits of this document! Read it for yourself. There is both a 20-page full version and a 6-page executive summary.
I must admit, I was skeptical. However, after reading both versions, I must say that I am in general agreement with most every point. I could certainly sign the manifesto as I feel it makes several important points. Mark Roberts, whose opinions I value and with whom I generally agree, has signed the manifesto and has provided the reasoning behind his decision here.
I will not comment in depth other than to highlight a paragraph of the document I appreciate. These are not representative of the entire document as multiple issues are adressed. I hope you are able to read the documents yourself as they are very instructive and remarkable concise considering all the issues covered.
Here’s an excerpt:
We therefore regard reason and faith as allies rather than enemies, and find no contradiction between head and heart, between being fully faithful on the one hand, and fully intellectually critical and contemporary on the other. Thus Evangelicals part company with reactionaries by being both reforming and innovative, but they also part company with modern progressives by challenging the ideal of the-newer-the-truer and the-latest-is-greatest and by conserving what is true and right and good. For Evangelicals, it is paradoxical though true that the surest way forward is always first to go back, a turning back that is the secret of all true revivals and reformations.
Al Mohler has a post here in which he reflects upon a phenomenon gaining increasing acceptance… eugenic abortion. The impetus for his reflection is the recent birth of Trig Paxson Van Palin to the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. Trig has Down’s Syndrome, a condition for which prenatal screening is now routine and often leads to the killing of the unborn baby. According to Mohler:
The Palins never considered aborting the baby. That means that Trig Palin is now is a very rare group of very special children, because it is now believed that the vast majority of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are being aborted.
Modern diagnostic tests are driving a “search and destroy mission” to eliminate babies judged to be inferior, disabled, or deformed. Some experts now believe that up to 90 percent of all pregnancies diagnosed as having a likelihood of Down syndrome end in abortion.
Back in 2005, ethicist George Neumayr commented: “Each year in America fewer and fewer disabled infants are born. The reason is eugenic abortion. Doctors and their patients use prenatal technology to screen unborn children for disabilities, then they use that information to abort a high percentage of them. Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace.”
Of this “defective” baby, Governor Palin states:
I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection.
Kudos to the Palins for their decision which bucks this disturbing eugenic trend.
I’ve just finished Angus Menuge’s excellent book Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science. I began the book with the ambitious goal of providing reviews of each chapter as I read. This lasted for a couple of chapters. The book is much more rigorously philosophical than many books which are intended for a more popular audience. I found it increasingly difficult to summarize a chapter’s worth of philosophical argument in a quick blog post. So… you’ll just have to read it yourself. It was quite good though and I think he is successful in applying many of the principles of intelligent design as used in the physical and biological sciences to rationality and the mind.
John DePoe states in his Amazon review of the book:
Angus Menuge has written an excellent book defending the concept of “agency” against the most challenging arguments raised by contemporary materialists. Menuge shows that the Christian worldview gives an account of human agency that is not available to the most sophisticated accounts materialism. For example, Menuge engages Dan Dennett, Paul Churchland, Jerry Fodor, and other key figures in contemporary philosophy of mind. The criticisms Menuge brings to light show the breaking points in leading theories of mind. I read this book as a philosophy graduate student taking a philosophy of mind seminar, and I found that Menuge’s criticisms and scholarship can run with the best of them. His carefully documented work of scholarship was a valuable tool for me as a student even in graduate school.
But Menuge’s book is not just a piece of critical scholarship. He also advances some constructive theories that explain crucial features of human agents. A theistic worldview provides tools for maintaining a robust theory of personal agency that are unavailable to materialists, which Menuge brings into focus with rigorous logic and clarity.