Christianity – Page 99

LA Times on Atheism

I’m getting a bit bored with the whole atheism thing. While I haven’t engaged in any emailed debates for a couple of days the last 200 email saga is still playing itself out in my head. It just makes me angry. So angry that rather than beating my head against the desk I will share this recent opinion piece from the LA Times with you…

The problem with atheists — and what makes them such excruciating snoozes — is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God’s existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God’s omniscience with free will or God’s goodness with human suffering.

What does strike me about the whole debate – and this article brought it home – is that atheists feel like they’re in the minority. In the US they may well be – it’s politically incorrect to be an atheist. But I’m not sure that the “religion” stats from censuses are anything to go by. And I’d suggest that in Australia being an atheist is the normal or default position (assuming that agnostics are just uncommitted atheists because most religions would suggest that if you don’t act like you believe in God, you don’t believe in God) – not the exception to the rule.

“A recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16% of Americans describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, only 1.6% call themselves atheists, with another 2.4% weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists’ failure to win converts to their unbelief, but atheists say the problem is persecution so relentless that it drives tens of millions of God-deniers into a closet of feigned faith, like gays before Stonewall.”

That’s certainly not consistent with my experiences where I would expect the majority of people I deal with to be either atheists, or agnostics.

I’m wondering why the whole debate bothers me so much – and I suspect it really is that somewhat selfishly I’d like to be taken seriously and not treated like an idiot for having “an imaginary friend”…

Atheists seem to assume that the whole idea of God is a ridiculous absurdity, the “flying spaghetti monster” of atheists’ typically lame jokes. They think that lobbing a few Gaza-style rockets accusing God of failing to create a world more to their liking (“If there’s a God, why aren’t I rich?” “If there’s a God, why didn’t he give me two heads so I could sleep with one head while I get some work done with the other?”) will suffice to knock down the entire edifice of belief.

May 19, 2009

Anti-pastor

I’m a “PK”. For those not familiar with the jargon it means the child of a clergyman. I can’t bring myself to say “Pastors Kid” – because I hate the word “pastor” as a title. I don’t know why. It just grates on me. I hate it. I will, when questioned about my “PK” status insist that the P is for Preacher.

Is my loathing of “Pastor” unreasonable? I’m sure there’s a Biblical argument for it, but it just sounds a little soft. Wussy. Which I guess in the scheme of things isn’t a bad thing – people in ministry are called to be servant hearted or shepherdly.

I just don’t like it.

That is all.

May 19, 2009

Testing times

Lately I’ve been thinking about how churches should harness the power of PR a little more – particularly regional churches in cities like Townsville – where there’s a strong local media contingent and not so much clamour for media attention. I’ll probably turn that into a post all of its own at some stage – but for now, I have a case study for your consideration…

A group of researchers set out to conduct a series of experiments testing prayer. Their findings created a difficulty for those people who expect science to be capable of testing everything… both Christians, and atheists…

Christians who think science can prove God struggle because the people being prayed for fared worse than the people not being prayed for – and atheists because they’ll often argue that prayer should have a demonstrable psychological placebo effect – which it didn’t.

Christianity Today found a somewhat unpredictable spin to put on events. The study was conducted a few years back, but this article was produced pretty recently. Here’s a description of the study:

“STEP was simple and elegant, conforming to standard research norms and protocols: 1,802 patients, all admitted for coronary artery bypass graft surgery, were divided into three randomized groups. Two of the groups received prayer from committed Christians with experience praying for the sick. But only one group’s members knew they were being prayed for. The result: The group whose members knew they were being prayed for did worse in terms of post-operative complications than those whose members were unsure if they were receiving prayer. The knowledge that they were being prayed for by a special group of intercessors seemed to have a negative effect on their health.”

Here’s the Christianity Today editorial on the results:

The real scandal of the study is not that the prayed-for group did worse, but that the not-prayed-for group received just as much, if not more, of God’s blessings.

It’s an odd interpretation of the results and doesn’t seem to mesh well with the study itself.

Here’s the Harvard Medical School Media Release on the study – and a better description of the methodology… You’ve got to wonder who set these parameters and actually thought they’d work. This doesn’t seem to come close to any Biblical picture of prayer…

“The researchers standardized the start and duration of prayers and provided only the patients’ first name and last initial. Prayers began on the eve or day of surgery and continued daily for 14 days. Everyone prayed for received the same standardized prayer. Providing the names of patients directed prayer-givers away from a desire to pray for everyone participating in the study. Because the study was designed to investigate intercessory prayer, the results cannot be extrapolated to other types of prayer.”

Sadly, the whole report is now going to be used by misguided atheists to bash all Christians over the head as they call for amputees to grow arms.

May 18, 2009

Bad movie plot: Mormon Theology

Here’s a fairly old piece of orthodox Christian criticism of Mormon theology… Interesting viewing, this, along with a South Park episode, and some segments of John Safran vs God, forms my understanding of the teachings of the US-centric religion. It’s really not at all linked to Christianity – despite what your friendly neighbourhood doorknocker might tell you.

May 17, 2009

Helpful Atheists

I’ve been challenged by my recent conversations with my atheist friends to consider my comments on morality – apparently atheists find the suggestion that Christians are more inclined to act morally somewhat abhorrent and arrogant – they argue that there are plenty of nice atheists. Which is true.

I made my suggestion in what I thought was a logical and coherent manner. If atheists are prepared to acknowledge that Christianity – in its pure, biblical form complete with love and an other person focus, is a force for good – then it follows that Christians must be gooder than average. I thought that made perfect sense. It lead to vitriol and condemnation.

I may have countered the standard accusation that “religion” has killed lots of people and done bad stuff by breaking Godwin’s Law – and invoking Hitler, and other terrible atheists who have killed many more people throughout human history as a response. This is altogether another argument and worthy of a separate post – this line was rejected on the basis that they weren’t motivated by their atheism. I disagree slightly, but take the point… anyway, that’s a rather long intro to this little story about a nice, helpful atheist who has agreed to help out those Christians who subscribe to rapture based theology. He’s going to send mail on their behalf, post rapture. You can choose from a series of letters and greeting cards… like this one…

So there you have it. Atheists can be nice people after all…

May 17, 2009

Want a youth ministry that rocks?

Let Ignatius ignite you.

His essential ingredients of Youth Ministry:

An Xbox 360
A copy of rock band
A book deal
A moderately priced hair cut

He’s edgier than Mark Driscoll.

“Ignatius makes Song of Solomon look like Dr Zeuss”

And all about rigourous training and preparation…

“I’m very serious about preparation – I’ll spend two or three hours doing prayer lattes.”

It’s 10 minutes of awesome Youth Ministry instruction…

Relax children, it’s a mockumentary…

May 15, 2009

More on atheists

I’ve had a pretty long debate stretching over two days with my atheist friends. I have some observations I’d like to make… they are generalisations so come with the standard general disclaimer.

Atheists being branded as they are will always immediately dismiss Christianity on the basis that they’ve made the debate occur a step before Christianity – this means not engaging with any Christian material (ie the Bible)…
They’re a-theist not a-Christian. If you argue the questions from a Christian perspective they dismiss them immediately because you’re not tackling the issue at the root.
They will also refer to God as “it” and remove any Christian terminology from the argument – which makes arguing from a Christian perspective difficult. The Christian then becomes an apologist for Islam, and any other theistic world view in the process. In fact, by doing this they bring in every non-credible and crazy religion and ask you to defend them on equal footing – which is why the “atheist movement” for want of better nomenclature – have invented the Flying Spaghetti Monster and describe Jesus as a Zombie Carpenter…
In attacking the rhetoric this way they’ve moved the goal posts – and apologists must adjust accordingly.
The fundamental differences between the two positions are, in my mind best expressed as follows: Theists look at a complex universe and say a big creator must have made this, atheists look at the complex universe and say it’s too complex for a big creator, it must have been small particles accidentally colliding, or its complexity is a product of infinite possibilities occurring in infinite time. Alternatively, as expressed by one of the atheists in the discussion:

Theism uses the impossible to explain the rational.
Science uses the possible to explain the irrational.

Where somehow, if I understand that point correctly, science is equal to atheism. Which comes as a surprise to me, and no doubt to many Christian scientists.

May 13, 2009

Prayer fail

One of the proofs that one of my atheist friends suggests would swing him towards faith is some sort of observable scientific testing of prayer.

The problem with this is that too often they then demand the test meet some “observable” criteria, that they set, like growing an amputee’s limb back…

I think prayer works, my personal experience of prayer suggest that it works, but then I tend to pray within the constraints of rational possibilities (eg not that an amputee will grow a limb back) consistent with instructions on prayer from the Bible.

There is however, another side of the coin. Where people can pray in stupid ways that just lend themselves to atheists pointing and laughing.

Like this 63 year old Indian man who has refused to bathe for 35 years as part of his regular prayer ritual.

I would suggest, that if you’re hanging on to some sort of superstition in order to achieve a particular, and stated aim, that 35 years is too long. Particularly if the aim is to have a male child.

An Indian man who fathered seven daughters has not washed for 35 years in an apparent attempt to ensure his next child is a boy, newspapers report.

Kailash “Kalau” Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a “fire bath” every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva, according to the Hindustan Times.

May 12, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: An Atheist on evangelism

This has been floating around for a while – but I haven’t posted it yet. It’s timely based on the emails I’ve had flying back and forth between my atheist friends and myself today…

It’s magician Penn Teller, renowned atheist, encouraging people who believe in hell to evangelise – and presenting an interesting set of instructions for evangelistic methodology.

“How much do you have to hate somebody not to evangelise…”

May 12, 2009

Houstons, we have a problem…

So the Hillsong takeover of the Garden City Church is in full swing – with the church to be renamed: Hillsong Brisbane Campus.

The Houstons are turning their global domination strategies back to Australian shores and focusing on “multisite” expansion – ala Mark Driscoll.

Here’s how the previous minister of Garden City felt about the expansion – this is an excerpt of an article in the SMH today:

Garden City’s senior pastor for eight years, Bruce Hills, was forced out before the arrival of the Houstons. Garden City Christian Church announced Mr Hills’s resignation in December, amid criticism that the church was not growing enough. Yet in an address to a Christian conference at Easter, Mr Hills revealed he had a nervous breakdown last September. “Emotionally I just imploded,” he said.

When he returned from eight weeks’ leave, Garden City Christian Church elders told him: “We’d rather have more of a CEO leader than you. We’d like you to resign.”

Describing it as “the deepest, darkest experience I’ve ever been through”, Mr Hills said he was “really angry about what these people had done”.

Steve Dixon, who has been acting pastor at Garden City since Mr Hills’s resignation, will now be “campus pastor” of Hillsong Brisbane.

I love the way this church – and Hillsong – have been so caring and compassionate to their leader. Very biblical. Especially the bit where they sacked him because the church was not growing enough… I assume they mean numerically, because this would certainly indicate a level of spiritual immaturity.

Oh, and Craig reckons they’re now a denomination. In completely unrelated news – have you ever noticed that you only have to switch one letter in denomination to make it demonination? That would be a Freudian slip if ever I saw one…

May 11, 2009

Swines flew*

Ok team. I have a question. Well, two questions. I was reading through the passage in Mark this morning where Jesus encounters the demon possessed man – with the demon called Legion. It’s an odd story, not because it’s all about demon possession and features a crazy guy living in a cemetery – it’s crazy because there’s a herd of pigs wandering around, being tended to. Here’s the story for those needing a refresher:

9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” 10 And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

14 Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. 17 Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

So, as I was saying, I read this this morning with a friend who’s a new Christian – and we speculated about why there would be pigs being tended by people – in a presumably Jewish city. We presumed it was Jewish because there seems to be no reaction to the fact that 2,000 pigs have just been demon possessed and drowned. If I were a farmer and some guy caused 2,000 of my stock to die, I’d be pretty upset. When I was working in a law firm at uni there was a case I did a lot of photocopying for where the government had culled a bunch of cows on the suspicion that they had tuberculosis – and that was a case worth millions of dollars… so there wasn’t much of a reaction recorded re the destruction of livestock… they just asked Jesus to leave town.

So we were wondering why Jews would be keeping a herd of 2,000 pigs that they couldn’t eat and didn’t seem to care about.

But Wikipedia suggests the region Jesus was in was a Gentile region – which just makes the story odder not simpler. Because you would assume these Gentile farmers would be pretty unhappy with a Jew killing their herd.

So what’s your take on the story?

*I wonder if swine flu is a case of a phonetic fulfillment of any contractual obligation to partake in an activity when “pigs fly”…

May 9, 2009

Reasonable doubt

Terry Eagleton is a former Catholic Marxist philosopher and academic who wrote a great critique of the God Delusion that even had die hard atheists (eg Jack Marx who at the time was blogging for the SMH and is now at News Ltd) pondering their positions.

He’s now got a book out – called Reason, Faith and Revolution – and it has been reviewed by a NY Times blogger.

While his own take on the book suggests he’s by no means sold on Christianity himself:

“I do not invite such readers to believe in these ideas, any more than I myself in the archangel Gabriel, the infallibility of the pope, the idea that Jesus walked on water, or the claim that he rose up into heaven before the eyes of his disciples.”

And he’s not a fan of “institutionalised religion” which comes in for a pretty stinging rebuke (according to the cover note). Instead he’s trying to empower the left by presenting Christianity as a solid option. So, while offering up the standard criticism of Dawkin’s insistence that religion and science are incompatible he tackles the issue from a social perspective too, here’s a passage from the review (which is worth a read):

“The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,” all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.

And as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about “the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine”? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: “If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world.”

May 5, 2009

Luther: A hippy?

Some people see eschatology as a dirty word thanks to the Left Behind mob – and I’ve always been pretty wary of people who define themselves by their views on “end times” – but here’s a second post tagged eschatology in two days. There was a comment on my post about how your eschatology shapes your actions that is worth sharing with everybody.

Joanna – who based on her email address I assume used to be a Richardson – but that’s a guess… pointed to a famous quote attributed to Luther:

“Interestingly, Martin Luther – who certainly agreed with you that preaching the gospel was an urgent task in the light of the return of Jesus – when asked what he would do today if he knew the world was ending tomorrow, answered ‘I would plant a tree.’ Was he a man with a poor eschatology, or just a strong theology of creation? Or both, do you think?”

From what I can gather – the quote, more accurately rendered is:

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

I’m not about to throw stones at Luther’s eschatology, that would be profound arrogance on my part. I am curious as to why he would answer the question that way – so I’m doing some research. At the outset I’d posit that either he really enjoyed gardening, or he thought that guessing games concerning the end of the world were pointless and that we should go on living life regardless, others speculate that Luther’s vision of the New Creation features a redeemed version of the current one, and a tree would be a part of that…

There are a few seemingly reputable sites that cast some doubt on whether or not he actually said this at all… but it turns out he did enjoy gardening.

From my initial googling, Option 2 seems to be the favoured interpretation around the online traps.

However, there are others who run with it more literally, like those planning the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 theses… who plan to plant 500 trees in the Luthergarden as a visual celebration.

Then there’s the TreeLink mob who claim Luther as a tree-planting champion…

Personally, and this is probably again shaped by my “bias” – and the weight of Luther’s teachings regarding the importance of evangelism against this one quote of dubious origins – I think if he did say it he was probably emphasising the fact that “nobody knows the time and place” so we shouldn’t live as though each day should be our last – but should go on living in readiness. Which, given the weight of Luther’s teachings and the picture we have of the life he lived would involve bold proclamation of the word as a priority.

Some poor souls who run a repository of “spiritual quotes” attributed this one to Martin Luther King Jr.

Incidentally my favourite Luther quote for a long time was this:

Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.

May 4, 2009

Don’t buy this book: WWJE

I had a fun chat with Robyn, Keagan, Phoebe and Tim today about whether or not it would be a bad thing if Koorong went out of business.

It prompted an idea. I’m going to run a semi-regular (however often I get around to it) feature of the worse books on offer from Koorong.

I thought I’d start with an old favourite (of mine – in principle rather than in actuality) – What Would Jesus Eat and the matching cookbook. They actually exist. Funnily enough the detox diet offered by the cookbook includes “fasting” – I would have thought that too obvious to print.

Here’s a look at the blurb – written by the publisher – because that’s all I’ve read.

The Ultimate Program for Eating Well, Feeling Great, and Living Longer

Though there are many diet programs claiming to be “God’s way” to healthy living, and while some of them are based on biblical principles, and even have proven effective for weight loss, WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT? is the first to note the obvious health benefits of what Jesus ate. In this comprehensive program, Dr. Don Colbert reveals the sensible approach to healthy eating laid out by the ultimate role model.

Wait, what? There are other diet programs based on biblical principles. Why have I not been told?

Seems there’s a lot of substance to this diet…

Readers will discover:
* Why foods forbidden in the Old Testament are unhealthy
* Jesus’ favourite foods, including “fast foods” and dessert
* The health benefits of foods Jesus ate, and the health risks of foods He avoided

Also included are Dr. Colbert’s tools to effectively follow the plan: recipes, nutritional information, and practical advice, including how to follow Jesus’ model of eating with foods readily available today.

Jesus favourite fast food? Obviously not figs. They’re never ready on time. Dessert? Wine vinegar perhaps? Frankincense cakes? Or just bread. And obviously the blanket full of animals dropped in front of Peter in his vision are available in the sequel – “What would Peter eat”… A cursory reading of the Gospels would suggest Jesus ate fish, bread, and figs – and that he drank wine. I’m not sure you can build a diet plan on that information.

What would Moses eat is no doubt a book full of Quail dishes, but no recipes featuring milk or honey.

May 3, 2009

The End is the Beginning

Ahh, the Smashing Pumpkins, what a band. Who’d have guessed that that title would stand the test of time and become the title of this post…

So, one more reflection from my sermon today and my thoughts on Matthew 9-10.

One of the other things I stressed was the urgency of the harvest – I picked up this little pointer from Tony Robowtham at Spur in Brisbane last week – but that I should have known given the family I married into – the language of the harvest is loaded with a sense of urgency.

It strikes me that your approach to evangelism is greatly influenced by your eschatology – how and when you think the world will end will profoundly effect how you live and how urgently you approach the task.

Given that I’m of the inclination that the world could end whenever God calls stumps – I’m inclined to priorities evangelism over things like caring for the planet. I can see how that’s a much greater concern if you’re a long term thinker. Probably not as profound as it seems in my head, but worth jotting down for when the idea resurfaces in my head in the future and I search for eschatology on my blog.

May 3, 2009