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Biblical Inerrancy: The Spoken Word or Revelation of God?

October 14, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Growing up in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), I don’t recall ever hearing the term “inerrancy,” not from the pulpit, and not in catechism classes or at youth conferences.  At Calvin College, I stayed up many nights until 3 am discussing all sorts of theological issues, and I don’t think a single one of them had anything to do with biblical inerrancy.  I didn’t know that in 1978 there had been a major conference that generated The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.  You’d have thought that this sort of thing would have trickled up the highway to my dorm room by 1980.  It didn’t.  And it didn’t really come up in the following decades either.

Now, I hear the term inerrancy a lot.  Part of the reason is that I go to a different church, but it’s also because the internet has me reading what other Christians are writing.  I get the sense that those who use the word inerrancy, read the Bible differently than I do.  I struggle with embracing the idea of biblical inerrancy, not because I think the Bible is wrong, but because of something else.  I couldn’t put my finger on it until I read James R. Payton Jr.’s Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting some Misunderstandings (IVP Academic, 2010).

Inspiration or Revelation?

Biblical inerrancy is a bigger deal for some Christians than for others and it comes down to what you think the Bible is, revelation or inspiration.  Of course, it’s both.  It is not an either/or proposition. But they are not the same things, and one will be often (perhaps inevitably) be subordinated to the other.

After reading Payton’s book, I realized that in the CRC, as I experienced it, the Bible was revelation, more than inspiration: God reveals himself through his creation–general revelation.  He reveals himself through the written word–special revelation.  And he reveals himself through his incarnate word–his Son.  God reveals himself.  Biblical inerrancy isn’t much of a concern for those who see the Bible as revelation because the focus is on the relationship between the readers and the person we find in its pages–inerrancy is not descriptive of a relationship.

The inerrancy of scripture is necessary and logical when we see the Bible as inspiration, or “the inspired Word of God.”  In this view, God speaks to us through scripture, and because he is all knowing, and doesn’t lie, anything contained therein is objectively true.  The Bible is, therefore, inerrant.

The inerrancy of scripture is logical if the Bible is inspired. But is this primarily what it is?
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These different views of the Bible have a long history. According to James R. Payton Jr., the Reformers saw the Bible as revelation.  Later, after the Reformers passed on, the Protestant scholastics emphasized the divine inspiration of scripture in order to defend Protestant ideas against Catholic attackers, who used scholastic methods to argue—a “fight fire with fire” approach.  Because of its emphasis on objective truth, the Bible as inspiration is a more useful tool in such debates.

To illustrate these different approaches, Payton uses the analogy of studying a frog:

One way is to watch frogs for hours on end, the other is to dissect the frogs.  The Reformers watched the frogs, and they kept doing so, repeatedly and at great length.  The protestant scholastics dissected the frogs and probably came to quicker conclusions about what could be said about the frogs; the frogs never jumped again, though.

These contrasting approaches have resulted in different views of scripture that are still with us today.

Although Christians generally believe that God had an active role in shaping scripture, the degree to which He was active in the process is a subject of debate.  Was it 100% God, or were the historical human authors significantly responsible for the contents?   Zondervan’s Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy explores some of the main points on the continuum.  Where you end up on the continuum has something to do with how much you take the idea of revelation into account to shape your ideas of inspiration.

Another essential question is, what is it that God inspired?  Did he inspire the text, the authors, or the overall sense or spirit of scripture?  If one starts with the primacy of revelation, the spirit or sense of scripture is the object of inspiration.  When inspiration is the starting point, the object of God’s inspiration moves from sense toward text.  And again, if God actively inspired the text of the Bible, then it can’t possibly contain erroneous information–it must be objectively true.

Those who are concerned with inerrancy will usually include the text as one of the objects of God’s direct inspiration.

Informational or Relational?

When we think of the Bible primarily as revelation, we are emphasizing the relational dimension of scripture.  The Bible is a revelation between persons–God and his people.

When we think of the Bible as the Word of God.  We think in terms of God speaking to us through scripture, telling us things that we need to know.  Scriptures are thought of, primarily, a source of true information.

Is the Bible, primarily, the Spoken Word or the Special Revelation of God?

Is the Bible the Word of God, or it a Revelation of who He is?
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James R. Payton Jr. says that the emphasis on the inspiration of scripture leads us to a “depersonalized” reading of the Bible.  It can have a significant effect on, among other things, the way we understand sin and faith. With a relational reading of the Bible, sin is understood as unfaithfulness to God and the effect on this relationship is like that which occurs in any broken relationship—estrangement.  These terms describe a personal relationship.  The Bible as inspired text may result in a depersonalized view of sin.  Sin is thought of as an infraction against God’s divine law and the effect is guilt.  The terms, and the feelings they describe are less personal.

How one understands faith is also affected by the relationship of revelation to inspiration.  The relational understanding of faith is thought of as “cleaving to God.”  The more depersonalized approach understands faith as the acceptance of right doctrine.  Both perspectives are found in the Bible; they don’t cancel each other out, but the emphasis of one idea over the other is not without effect.

One last example, on which I have previously written.  Do the sermons in your church end with applications or implications?  It’s not so much the word, as it is the idea behind the word.  The term application implies an impersonal adhesion of the object to the subject.  We stick the lesson onto the listeners like a band-aid onto a scraped elbow.  It makes the recipient feel better, but it doesn’t do much else.  Although implication suggests a lot more ambiguity than application, it is usually a better term because the clarity of the application is often achieved through a reduction of the truth, either factual or moral, to information.  Implication is not about how the sermon fits into, or onto, my life; it’s about how I fit into the story of the Bible and into a relationship with the person of God behind the scriptures.  Implication bridges the gap between subject and object because I enter the story and it enters me–I experience the story and in so doing, I encounter the truth.

There was a long stretch in my life where I hardly read the Bible at all.  My problem was that I thought of the Bible as if it were primarily informative and the reason for reading it was to acquire the right knowledge. I didn’t feel as if I needed more knowledge than I could glean from sermons and books about the Bible.  I’m much more inspired to read the Bible when it is about a person-to-person relationship, about finding in its pages the God who made us and loves us and seeks a relationship with us.  I have a strong desire for this relationship.

Is the Bible more like an encyclopedia or a letter from a loved one?
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It’s sort of like the difference between reading an encyclopedia and reading a long letter received from a distant and cherished friend or lover.  Are the contents of each true–inerrant, if you will?  Sure they are, but it is not the veracity of the information in the love letter that motivates you to devour every word–even the description of yesterday’s weather.

 

Laptops in the Classroom

October 2, 2017 / / 0 Comments

As a teacher with a classroom full of laptops, I had to read the article in my Twitter feed entitled–“Ban the Laptops, Yes.”   This article by Mark Bauerlein cites a study that appeared in Education Next, under the title “Should Professors Ban Laptops?” which suggests that the implementation of classroom technologies, such as laptops, may be detrimental to student learning.

The results were striking—

and disappointing for people who believe

that better classroom technology and implementation

will produce higher student achievement.

I was troubled and confused–troubled because last year the high school at which I teach required every student to come to school with a laptop, confused because, from my experience, laptops are improving student learning.

I read a little further.  The article explains, “The decisive measure was performance by students on the final exam.” Ah, there it is.

I was no longer troubled or confused.

It is clear from the study that the classrooms wherein laptops are causing the problems are the ones in which professors are lecturing and students are taking notes.  In this context, exams are a measurement of how well a student transfers the content of the lecture to the examination paper.  The study shows that technology interferes with this simple process because when students “update social-media sites, order takeout, and watch YouTube videos during lectures.”  It is easy to see why the study concludes that “unrestricted laptop use reduced students’ exam scores.”

This all leaves me with a few questions:

Why are laptops a detriment to student learning, but an indispensable tool for the professors who deliver the lectures, and research and publish their papers, articles, and books?  In the so-called, “real world” personal computers and other digital devices are used by adults all the time–presumably because they are effective tools for accomplishing important tasks. Is it simply that adults are more mature and therefore better able to resist the temptation to watch Youtube videos?

Or is it because the work that adults are doing is relevant and the results really matter, and because the work is challenging, requiring creativity and critical thinking?

Is it because it’s personal–involving the whole person–the unique gifts and abilities of the adult individual?  Or is it because it’s interpersonal, involving collaboration with others?

Is it because it’s complex, varied–interdisciplinary?

Or is it because the responsibility for the success and failure of our efforts rests heavily on our shoulders?

Perhaps the problem is not the laptops, but a pedagogy that lacks all of the things that keep adults motivated to do good work.

In my grade 9 humanities class, we are studying World War I.  One of the students’ tasks is to produce several documentary videos telling the story of the First World War–the causes, key figures and events, and the effects.  Their laptops are vital tools in this project.  They research their topics using the internet.  They write and edit the script for their documentary film using a word processor.  They find out how to properly cite their sources using online resources.  They record their scripts, then create and edit videos on their laptops.  In the process, they give and receive feedback as to how to improve their documentaries.  They then share these videos on a social media platform so that others may learn from their work.  The use of technology isn’t to make learning about WW1 more fun, nor is it a distraction from the learning.  It is a vital tool in the process of completing a complex project where students learn, not only about World War 1 but about research, primary and secondary sources, how to discern internet sources, documentary script writing, plagiarism, providing feedback, voice recording, video editing, and a lot more.

Students are not passive; they are active and motivated to complete a project of high quality–they don’t have time to check in on their social media accounts.  For a student passively listening to a lecture, it’s almost impossible to resist the lure of the distractions.

What is the problem here?  Are the laptops the issue?

If your primary task as a teacher is to cover content and communicate information, and if your students are passively listening and taking notes, then this study shows that it is important that you “should draw back, return to pencil and paper and chalkboards.”

But if your students transform, rather than transfer information; if the boundaries between your classroom and the “real world” are blurry; if what your students are learning will have relevance 30 years beyond the exam. . .

then bring in the laptops!

 

Why Christians Might Watch Game of Thrones

August 17, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Image: HBO

 

Kevin De Young stated recently that he didn’t understand Christians watching Game of Thrones.  From the comments following his post, it’s obvious that this is a bit of a contentious issue.  I don’t think that Kevin De Young is necessarily wrong, but I do think that there is one reason why some Christians might watch Game of Thrones.

Before I engage his main idea, I have a few preliminary, knee-jerk reactions to his post:

First:  A particular strain of North American Christian is particularly sensitive to sexual content.  DeYoung’s post only questions this. Ten of John Piper’s explanations of the Twelve Questions to ask before You Watch Game of Thrones are centered on sex.  That violence in Game of Thrones doesn’t seem to be a concern suggests an imbalance.

Second:  Because he has not seen Game of Thrones (“Not an episode. Not a scene. I hardly know anything about the show.”) I don’t think De Young is qualified to publically comment on the show.   The question a discerning Christian viewer must ask about questionable content (coarse language, violence, and nudity) is not whether or not it is present, but whether or not is it gratuitous.  I have no problem with anyone choosing to avoid a program because of the content, but this does disqualify them from making a public critique of the show.  I have had many frustrating conversations with people bent on banning books they’ve never read–Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were the subjects of three of these conversations.

Third:  I find his use of the adjective “conservative” to be puzzling.    De Young is baffled that many “conservative Christians” are watching the show.  Why not just “Christians”? With this usage, he seems to be suggesting that there are all sorts of things we might expect from _____________ Christians, but conservative Christians should know better.  There is so much damage done in the church through the deliberate perpetuation of divisions within the body of Christ, and they are often completely imaginary.

Fourth: De Young’s post is short because “the issue doesn’t seem all that complicated.”  Oversimplification is a dangerous thing.  I concede that over-complicating simple issues is also a danger–which is this?  I don’t think too many things are simple.  In this post, De Young is oversimplifying a complex topic: the Christian engagement with culture.

 

OK, so why might some Christians watch Game of Thrones?

 

Game of Thrones is art.  It may be bad art or art to be avoided, but it is art.  It is a product of our culture and it contributes to the discussion about what it means to be human.  Christians have some important things to say on this topic, and should not exclude themselves from the table.  Most Christians should be paying attention to this conversation, and some Christians might need to pay attention to the contribution that Game of Thrones makes to this conversation.  The stakes are high, and, like I said, we have some important things to say on this topic.

Some Christians ought to be paying attention to the contribution that Game of Thrones makes to the conversation: What does it mean to be human?
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I’ve recently read a book called, How to Survive the Apocalypse by Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson.  In Chapter 7 — “Winter is Coming: The Slide to Subjectivism,” the authors suggest that Game of Thrones “gives us a picture of the world that could (and can) be but not the world that is.”  Of course, the dragons and whight walkers are fantastic, but Joustra and Wilkinson are talking about one of our cultural pathologies that is on display in Game of Thrones–instrumentalism.  Less and less, in Western culture, do we make decisions based on morals, ideals or principles.  We weigh costs and benefits, and these are measured on a scale of personal fulfillment.  Whatever benefits me is meaningful; I get to decide what benefits me–meaning is subjective.

The problem is that we live in a world that has a bunch of other people living in it too, and these folks present conflicting meanings.  Very quickly we are faced with a problem: How do we decide whose meaning is more meaningful? The answer is simple: whosoever is the stronger.  Consequently, everyone wants power, for only with power can my idea of personal fulfillment be realized for me.  This is, perhaps, the reality to which we are headed.  This is the world of Game of Thrones–“You win, or you die.”  Because Game of Thrones gives us a peek at our possible future, it can be taken as a warning.  We aren’t supposed to find the sex and violence stimulating, we are supposed to find it offensive because they are being used as tools to achieve a particular idea of personal fulfillment–this is something hellish.

If the show uses sex and violence simply to titillate and entertain, it is gratuitous sex and violence, and Christians ought to avoid this show.  If the show condemns the instrumental use of sex and violence, then we are on the same page as the creators and watching the show will enable us to engage in meaningful dialogue with our culture, so that we might yet pull back from the slide to subjectivism.  The problem is, I suspect the show uses the sex and violence both gratuitously and as a signifier of important ideas.  See what I mean?  It’s not simple.

One of the problems with the sex in Game of Thrones is that it distracts Christians from much more important and much more dangerous ideas than the sex and nudity.  It would seem that the artists who create Game of Thrones are concerned about the increased role that power is or might be, playing in our culture.  As Christians, we are concerned about that as well and we might, perhaps, be thankful that they pointed it out in such a way that so many people are paying attention.  Christians have something far more to contribute to the conversations about Game of Thrones that go way past nudity–in the Gospel, we have the resources to challenge subjectivism, instrumentalism, and power before they transform our culture into one that too closely resembles what we see in the television program.  Some Christians will need to be watching the show in order to take part in this important conversation.

Sex in television is a problem because it distracts Christians from ideas that are much more dangerous than nudity.
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Am I arguing that all Christians ought to watch Game of Thrones?  Certainly not.  Many should stay far from it because of the sex and the violence–it will cause them to sin, or another to stumble.  Others should stay away from it because no Christian should ever passively consume a show like Game of Thrones, or any show for that matter.  We are not of the world, but we are in it, and if we are going to be in it, some of us will need to understand it–this takes a lot more work than many people want to do, so these, too, should avoid shows like Game of Thrones.

When it comes to our interaction with culture, Christians often find themselves caught between a desire to be innocent as doves and to be as wise as serpents.  It seems that it is Christ’s desire that we be both.  So we, with the power of the Holy Spirit, are left to sort it out.  This conversation has been going on for a long time; DeYoung leaning more toward a Puritan position, and my ideas coming out of a more Kyperean-Calvinist model.

Whatever position we take in this conversation, I believe these things are important:

  1. There is a line.  Game of Thrones may have crossed it and the “cultural engagement,” or “Christian freedom” arguments can’t be used as excuses to do whatever we want.
  2. Our engagement must be inclusive and holistic.  We need to pay attention to more than sexual content.  This would include violence, but I think the far more subtle ideas about human value (or lack thereof) and meaning (or the lack thereof) are far more dangerous, and these are to be found in movies that are rated G.
  3. I think it is important that we do not perpetuate artificial divisions between others in the body of Christ.  Most of our differences have to do with differing emphases.  Too many Christians are getting caught up in the political polarization that dominates our culture–we don’t have to go down that road.  I would suggest that to do so is to defy Christ’s desire that we be unified.
  4. And we must not over-simplify things which are not simple.

What do you think?  Is there a place for some Christians to watch Game of Thrones?

Image: HBO

 

 

My Question about Dunkirk

July 22, 2017 / / 0 Comments

 

A few quick thoughts on Dunkirk (no spoilers)

Incredible film–go see it.

In Dunkirk, we see people under stress.

Under this stress, some people respond well, others not so well.

Everyone in the audience agrees when a person does something good, and when a person behaves badly.

When someone is willing to sacrifice another in order to save themselves, we consider this bad behaviour. Conversely, when someone willingly gives up something for the benefit of someone else, we consider this good. It’s like there is an external standard that we all agree on by which we judge the actions of the characters.

But as a culture, we are very uncomfortable with this notion of an external principle, because it must be grounded in something or someone–we’ve been on a trajectory for about 500 years where we slough off any form of external authority–Pope, King, God. We seem to be well on the way to negating the authority of our biology to set any limits on our freedom. We are on a quest for complete individual autonomy.

Yet here we all sit watching Dunkirk, judging this person to be good and this action to be bad. It wasn’t just the papists, or the royalists, or the theists who were judging–everyone was. By what or who’s authority? If we were truly free to create our own morality, wouldn’t we accept someone saying that they thought character A was bad (you know of who I’m talking about)?

Here’s my question: Let’s say we find this current generation in some sort of Dunkirkean crisis–would we see the same proportion of people stepping up–behaving admirably–as in the events faced by “The Greatest Generation.” Or would our passion for individual autonomy translate into the whole lot of us trying to save our individual skin, dooming us to collective, and probably individual, destruction.

The good news is we still seem to know what a hero looks like, but will we be able to be one when the time comes.

The good news is we still seem to know what a hero looks like, but will we be able to be one when the time comes.
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I don’t really know.

Not unrelated is my post on Wonder Woman.

The Gospel According to Wonder Woman

July 21, 2017 / / 5 Comments

I like nearly all of the superhero movies that have inundated the summer cinema for the last decade, but Wonder Woman might be my favourite. For one thing, it is set in Europe during the First World War.  I’ve been interested in The Great War since a veteran came to my grade 7 classroom and talked about his experiences in the trenches. My interest continues; since 2014, I’ve read at least 15 books on the First World War–it’s been my way of engaging the centennial.

I also like good writing. When I watch a movie, I don’t focus on the writing and decide if it is good or not. It’s good if I don’t wince or snort during dialogue. I winced once in this movie; more on this later.

The big story is also part of writing and I love this big story because of how it presents the Gospel to a modern audience.

SPOILER ALERT

I’m obviously not much of a comic book fan, because I didn’t know that Wonder Woman is Diana, the daughter of Zeus.

Importantly, in the world of the movie, all the gods (except Diana and her brother, Ares) are dead. By the end of the story, we are down to one diety.  This offers a parallel to the Modern world where all gods are dead; the death of the last one, the Christian God, was declared by Nietzsche’s madman in The Gay Science (1882). This was thought to be a good thing for now we were free.  On a popular level, there was quite a bit of optimism in the late 19th century–we didn’t need God. Human ingenuity seemed limitless; science and technology, the offspring of our new god-incognito, Human Reason, would lead us to a better world.  This optimism was also based on human perfectibility–the idea that human beings are basically good and getting better. This march toward a better world and human perfectibility fit nicely with a popular misinterpretation of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; rather than simply adapt, organisms improve. Although many thinkers and artists questioned 19th century optimism, society in general looked forward to the new century with positive anticipation. Then came WWI.

Faith in human goodness continues despite a calamitous 20th century. I recently had a conversation with a friend about basic human nature. He said he believed that people are basically good. Our problems come from the small minority who are bad. The solution? These need to be rounded up and put into prison.   A lot of my other friends identify social conditions (poverty, education, racism, etc.) as the source of our problems, but their faith in human goodness is unfaltering.  They believe that everyone’s natural goodness will shine through with the elimination of poverty, racism and equal access to education.  The battle continues in our culture–more prisons or more social programs, but neither of these solutions will work, because both have a naïve understanding of the problem. The problem is not a few “bad apples” nor is it poverty or racism. It’s us!

Neither liberal nor conservative solutions will work, because both have a naïve understanding of the problem.
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When Diana leaves the Edenic paradise for Europe she is naïve. She thinks that the problem is an evil Ares–the black sheep of the Greek pantheon.  Ares is wiser; he understands the problem, and it’s not him, and it’s not war. Human beings are what’s wrong with the world.  They aren’t made to be evil, by some external force, they choose it.  Evil lives within their hearts–all of them are corrupt. Steve Trevor says, “Maybe we are all to blame.” We are: Paul says in Romans that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” For Ares, doesn’t represent Evil, he represents Justice.  It is just that human beings are destroyed; we deserve destruction.

What we deserve is a central theme in the film. At one point our group of heroes offer up the familiar Irish drinking toast: “May we get what we want…and may we get what we need. But may we never get what we deserve.” As a human race, we don’t deserve Wonder Woman; we deserve destruction. This idea is everywhere in the film, and it’s central to the Gospel. Diana sets out to be the saviour of humanity, and both her mother, Hippolyta, and Ares tell her that humanity doesn’t deserve her. Her initial motivation to save us is her naïve assumption that we are good and deserved to be saved. Diana experiences a major crisis when der declared purpose to save humanity from evil, comes into conflict with her realization that Ares is right, the human race deserves destruction.

As a human race, we don't deserve Wonder Woman; we deserve destruction.
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In the movie, this crisis is ultimately resolved in our favour. Thankfully, in the real world this crisis is also resolved in our favour–this is the Good News, or The Gospel.

Like Jesus Christ in the real world, Steve Trevor is our advocate in the world of the movie. He says, “it’s not about what they deserve, it’s what you believe.” I winced at this line, initially considering it hokey, but there’s more to it than I first thought. I missed the pronouns they and you. He says that the motivation of the saviour comes not from the attributes of those who need saving, but from the one who saves. This echoes Paul’s words in Roman’s 5:6-8 where he says,

6 . . .  when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Steve Trevor exemplifies for Diana the characteristic that is necessary for saviours when he gets into the big bad airplane with all that deadly gas. He willingly dies in order to save all the residents of the city of London from Doctor Poison’s gas attack.

The lesson is not lost on Dianna. Trevor’s death is resolves her crisis, and in that resolution we get our cinematic saviour. She summarizes her journey from naïve warrior to wise saviour:

I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. I’ve touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world.

To an audience that has been exposed to the Hollywood gospel for their entire life, this line comes as no surprise–true love is always the source of salvation. This is not just the case for romantic comedies, it’s true of almost every film of almost any genre. But this is not what is happening in this story.

She’s not talking about Romantic love, but love of another kind–the love that is manifest in self-sacrifice.

Sacrificial love will save the world, especially if it's the primary quality of the God who made us.
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Over and over in the Bible we find that God will save us, because he wants to save us. Not because we deserve it, but because it is his will to do it. Search up “Bible verses, condemnation” and you will find a long list of verses about how we deserve destruction, but the idea of condemnation rarely stands alone. It is almost always accompanied by God’s desire to save us.
Romans 5:8 puts it succinctly:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is what Wonder Woman comes to understand as she resolved to continue as a saviour for mankind.

One final element of the Gospel is present in the movie–the role of ordinary people in the story of redemption–just before Steve Trevor gets onto the airplane where he will die, he tells Diana, “I can save today. You can save the world.” We cannot save ourselves, and we cant save the world, but we can, in small ways, imitate our saviours as we show self-sacrificial love to others, whether they deserve it or not. It’s not going to save the world, that’s already been taken care of, but it could save today.

Not unrelated is my post on the Warsaw Ghetto.

I Still Love Audible Books

June 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I have kept up with my “reading” on Audible Books for another year. Still climbing my local mountain. There is some concern that I won’t hear the bears, but so far I have seen them a long way off so my sense of hearing has not, so far, been necessary.

This year I listened to some books I have read before (some of them multiple times). These include

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl,

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe by Douglas Adams,

Shogun by James Clavell,

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens,

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and

Dracula by Bram Stoker.

I loved these books when I read them, and got even greater pleasure from them this time around with Audible.

A lot of my enjoyment of Audible Books is the performances–Especially good performances were :

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, was performed by Anthony Bourdain himself.

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre was read by John Lee

Excellent Woman by Barbara Pym was read by Jayne Entwistle

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison was performed by Joe Morton

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was read by Simon Prebble

The books I would most strongly recommend are:

William Manchester’s The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, II: 1932-1940. I own all three volumes in book form and read and loved reading volume 1. Volume 2 on Audible was very, very good. Volune3 was fine.  The issue here is Manchester passed away before he could write volume 3. Using Manchester’s material, Paul Reid wrote volume 3.  He’s good, but his prose isn’t as engaging as that of Manchester.

Ready Player One by Earnest Clone is pure entertainment. Great story and you will especially love it if you grew up playing video games in the late 70s early 80s. Apparently this book is being made into a movie and I can’t wait to see it.

The list below rounds out the books I listened to since my last post about Audible Books I have “read.”  I enjoyed all of them.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton

The Innocent: A Novel by David Baldacci

The Idiot by Fydor Dostoevsky

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, III: 1940-1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Reframe: From the God We’ve Made to God With Us by Brian Hardin

Battle by John Toland

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Island of Knowledge by Marcelo Gleiser

The Sea Wolves by Lars Brownworth

If you regularly drive or walk for any significant amount of time, you must consider an Audible Books account.  I love it.

Imperfections in Others, Opportunities for Me

May 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Do you want a stronger marriage? I attended the wedding of a friend last weekend.  The message was very short, but beautiful and, to be honest, nothing more needed to be said.

Everyone who has been married knows that living in such close proximity with another sinner is bound to bring out ones limitations.  How are we to deal with these newly discovered or amplified imperfections in our spouse?

The pastor suggested that it’s the imperfections in each other that give us the opportunity to demonstrate God’s love to each other.  Here is what he said:

 

Slowness of others gives us the chance to show patience

 

The mistakes and wrongdoings allow us the opportunity to forgive

 

A place of leadership creates avenues to elevate others

 

The possessions and the talents of others give us the chance not to envy

 

Our own abilities and successes allow us the chance to restrain boasting

 

The imperfect people that make up the church give each other many opportunities to love each other. Without the imperfections, there would be no way to see the fullness of God’s love at work. In a strange way, brokenness is the blessing that allows God’s love to shine through. You already have gifts and you already have a desire to see God’s people succeed. Stay the course. Continue to love by using the gifts you have to serve one another and to serve his people. In this way, God is honoured and your relationship will be hope giving for a world looking for something truly unique.

In a strange way, brokenness is the blessing that allows God’s love to shine through.
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 — The Tale of Two Daddys

May 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

 

SPOILER ALERT

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Peter Quill finds his father.  He actually finds two.

These fathers embody contrary philosophies.

In The Guardians Vol. 2 two fathers embody contrary philosophies, that of heaven and of hell.
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The philosophy of heaven and the philosophy of hell.

Ego, played by Kurt Russell is the representative of the philosophy of hell.  This perspective is described by senior tempter Screwtape in C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.

The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good, and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by absorbing them. A self does the same. With beasts the absorption takes the form of eating; for us, it means the sucking of will and freedom out of a weaker self into a stronger. “To be” means “to be in competition.”

This is also the vampiric approach–to take from the other (to their detriment) for the benefit of the self.  It is selfishness to the extreme.

The philosophy of heaven is, I suppose, the reverse.  It is extreme selflessness.  To give up ones life for the other.

In John 15, Jesus commands his followers to

love one another as I loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus follows this up by doing it, for us, on the cross.

Yondu Udonta is not Peter’s biological father, but by the end of the movie, Peter realizes that he is his “Daddy.” He embodies the philosophy of heaven.  He gives up his life so that Peter could live.

 

I Simply Believe in One Fewer God than You

April 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

A common argument against belief in God–does it stand up?

Actually, that’s not all there is to it.  I mean, it’s not quite so simple.  Affirmed atheist, Ricky Gervais used this argument when he was a guest on Stephen Colbert.  The YouTube clip has received over 4 million views.  In the interview he said that there are about 3000 deities that people have worshiped at one time or another and Christians don’t believe in 2,999 of them, the atheist simply goes one god further.  Gervais’ exact words are:

I don’t believe in just one more.

Colbert didn’t respond–perhaps he was just being polite, but what is the Christian response to Gervais’ argument?

“I don’t believe in just one more”

This argument needs to be unpacked a little.  Gervais is suggesting that that there is a logical, and therefore necessary, step that Christians (and other monotheists) fail to make.  His use of the term “just” suggests that this step is insignificant.  This is far from the case–the step is neither a logically necessary nor is it insignificant.

His argument is that the rejection of the final god is the same as, and in line with, the rejection of all preceding gods.  But this is wrong.  It does not follow that if one rejects 1 god, one must reject the remaining 2999.  Nor does it follow that if you reject 2999, you must logically reject the last. 

This has only been taken by very few, and these only recently.  Of all the millions of people that ever lived in all of the remote corners of the world, all of them came to the same conclusion.  They concluded that there is more.  Belief in any one of the 3000 gods is an acknowledgment of some form of transcendence–that there is something beyond or above the range of ordinary or merely physical human experience.  The belief in any deity is a claim that there is some external standard to which we must all align our lives.

Gervais’ leap of faith

Rather than making a small step in line with the rejection of the first 2,999 gods, Gervais is making giant leap in the opposite direction.  He doesn’t go one itty-bitty step beyond Christianity, as the “just” implies, he and those like him are breaking with conclusions arrived at by the rest of humanity arrived at independently.

That all of humanity has arrived at the same conclusion, isn’t irrefutable proof that their conclusion is true.  People who believe in God certainly take a leap of faith.

Gervais points this out as he explains atheism in a nutshell:

You say, “There is a God.”

I say, “Can you prove that.”

You say, “No.”

I say, “I don’t believe you then.”

Perhaps many in Colbert’s audience feel that Gervais has scored a point against believers, but he hasn’t.   A theist can illustrate the atheist leap of faith similarly:

You say, “There no spiritual reality beyond the material.”

I say, “Can you prove that.”

You say, “No.”

I say, “I don’t believe you then.”

I think Gervais would acknowledge his leap of faith.  Who takes the greater leap?  The person who says that everything that we see in the cosmos and through our experiences in life are the result of material processes or the person that says there is something more than matter and its movements and modifications.

Who takes the greater leap of faith, the theist or the atheist?
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The conversation can start here, not where Gervais thinks he ended it in the Stephen Colbert interview.

Are All Other Religions Wrong?

April 11, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Christians are not as intolerant as you might think.

Are atheists more tolerant than religious people?  Are Christians intolerant of other faiths?

On a site called Hubpages, a person that calls themselves “kittythedreamer” asked the following question:

Why is it that Christians believe that Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Native Americans, etc. are all wrong in their beliefs?

It generated quite a bit of discussion.

This question makes a lot of sense in our culture.  We find Christians, indeed all those who take their faith seriously, as judgmental.  When we accept that there is no God, as many in our culture have; tend to also abandon the idea that there is a universal purpose and meaning–we are uncomfortable with, or reject, the idea of objective truth.  We’d rather create our own truth.

That’s why Christians baffle people like kittythedreamer (“kitty”).  Christians have this old fashioned idea that truth is objective, rather than subjective.  We believe that some things are true, or moral, or good, or just, whether we like it or not.  It follows then that some things are false, immoral, evil, unjust.

In our culture, saying someone’s views are wrong is the same as telling them that they have the wrong favourite ice cream.

“kitty” is right; Christians do say others are wrong. They do so because when they claim that some things are true, they can’t also accept the opposing idea as also true.   To do so requires a mental dexterity possessed only by those who don’t believe in objective truth–those who create their own meaning.

But “kitty” is wrong in another way.   Christians do not believe that other religions are wrong, at least not entirely so.  We believe other religions are right in some very important ways.  Here’s a list of some of the ways that other religions are right:

Christians do not believe that other religions are wrong, They are are right in some very important ways. Here's a list of some of the ways that other religions are right:
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  1. We’ve already covered the first one.  All, or very nearly all, of the world’s religions believe that truth resides outside of the individual.  They don’t entirely agree on what that truth is, but it’s external.  External often means universal–that means it’s true for everyone, everywhere, for all time.  One of the things that humans are supposed to do is conform themselves to that external truth.  So rather than thinking everybody is wrong, Christians believe that, in this respect, that these religions are right.
  2. Another thing that nearly all religions believe is that behind the natural world there is a mystical and/or spiritual reality.
  3. Most of the religions of the world, past and present, believe in transcendent gods or a God. Christians believe that, in this respect, all those religions are right.
  4. Most religions believe that God or the gods is/are occasionally active in the lives of humans. Christians believe that, in this respect, all those religions are right.
  5. Many religions believe that God is interested in human flourishing. Christians believe it and any other religion that believes it too are considered to be right.
  6. All religions believe that human beings must contend with evil in their lives. Christians believe this and they agree with any religion that believes it too.
  7.  Many religions believe that other religions possess truth.  Some are closer to “The Truth” than others.

Obviously, Christians don’t believe that other religions are wrong. There is tremendous agreement among religious adherents.  This is not to say that the differences aren’t significant, but the points at which all, or most, religions agree might give one pause.

So who is more open-minded?  Does the atheist say, “You are all correct”?

Atheists usually say of religious believers, “You are all wrong!”

I know it feels like there is a lot of conflict between Christians and others in our society.  Not all of it can be reduced to closed mindedness and bigotry–some of it has to do with the fact that people of faith look to a source of truth outside themselves.  Their claims might not be true, but it must be admitted that the idea that all meaning is necessarily internal also has some significant drawbacks that make it hard to believe.

This is where the dialogue should begin, not with kitty’s question.

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