The Fact of Pluralism Is Not Epistemically Problematic

Dinesh D'Souza says: "If you happen to be born in Afghanistan, you'd be a Muslim. If you happen to be born in Tibet, you'd be a Buddhist. That's true, but what on earth does that prove? I happen to have been born in Bombay, India, which happens to be a Hindu country. The second largest group is Muslim. Even so, by choice, I am a Christian. Just because the majority religion is one thing doesn't make it right or wrong. By the way, [this] is equally true about beliefs in history or science. If you are born in Oxford, England you are more likely to believe the Theory of Evolution than if you are born in Oxford, Mississippi. If you are born in New Guinea you are less likely to accept Einstein's Theory of Relativity than if you are born in New York City. What does this say about whether Einstein's Theory of Relativity is true? Absolutely nothing." ("Our Inescapable Pluralism," fn. 5)

In logic, "truth" is a function of statements. A "statement" (or "proposition") is a sentence that is either true or false. The truth or falsity of a statement is independent of its cultural situatedness. So we see that in logic texts issues of sociology, anthropology, and psychology have little or no place in evaluating arguments. The fact that there are multiple competing theories does not change this. Indeed, any and every theory faces the "problem" of the fact of pluralism. But this fact does not pose an epistemic obstacle to the search for true theories.

Redeemer Ministry School - The Problem of Evil

In my RMS Apologetics class this week I will be introducing RMS students to the "problem of evil" as it relates to the existence of God.

I will also address the issue as to whether or not "religion" is intrinsically evil. We'll look at how R. Dawkins, S. Harris, and C. Hitchens present this, and show their reasoning to be popular (in a small way) but false.

(WANT TO STUDY WITH ME FOR 9 MONTHS IN 2010-2011? Join me, our incredible teaching faculty, and other students for nine months that will change your life. See Redeemer Ministry School.)

The Sadducees (not the Pharisees) Denied Resurrection & the Afterlife

In my message at Redeemer this Easter morning I mistakenly said that it was the Pharisees who denied resurrection and the afterlife. That was a mistake. The Pharisees affirmed the idea of resurrection, the Sadducees denied it.

N.T. Wright says: "In the postbiblical period, the Jewish group known as the Sadducees famously denied the future life altogether. The Sadducees, according to the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus, held that “the soul perishes along with the body” (18.16)... "Resurrection” is not simply death from another viewpoint; it is the reversal of death, its cancellation, the destruction of its power. That is what pagans denied, and what Daniel, 2 Maccabees, the Pharisees and arguably most first-century C.E. Jews affirmed, justifying their belief by reference to the creator God and this God’s passion for eventual justice."

(Thank you Jeff B. for pointing this out to me!)

Easter Morning, Merton, and Metaphor

(Door, in Jerusalem)

Thomas Merton writes:

“The grace of Easter is a great silence, an immense tranquility and a clean taste in your soul. It is the taste of heaven, but not the heaven of some wild exaltation. The Easter vision is not riot and drunkenness of spirit but a discovery of order above all order – a discovery of God and of all things in Him. This is a wine without intoxication, a joy that has no poison hidden in it. It is life without death…." (The Sign of Jonas, 297-298)

I like how Merton puts this metaphorically. His metaphor is rooted in the certainty of this great historical truth. Significant historical truths always give rise to metaphorical fruit. This sort of thing has been, and remains, one of my great interests.

A "Resurgent" Atheist Movement of 300

I'm sorry, but this brought a smile to my face. :)

CNN has, as one of it's headlines, "Atheists Cite Resurgence as They Gather on Easter Weekend." The article reads: "While millions of Christians worldwide will celebrate Easter this weekend, David Silverman has other plans. Silverman will join about 300 atheists in a Newark, New Jersey, hotel ballroom to proclaim another message: The atheist movement in America is growing." So, were there 299 at last year's meeting?

"300"??!! At the "36th annual American Atheists National Convention." (We'll have 400-500 at my church tomorrow. Should I announce "We won?")

I quote, from the movie "300":

"So my king died, and my brothers died, barely a year ago. Long I pondered my king's cryptic talk of victory. But time has proven him wise, for from free Greek to free Greek the word was spread that bold Leonidas and his 300, so far from home, laid down their lives, not just for Sparta, but for all Greece and the promise this country holds. Now, here on this ragged patch of earth called Plataea, Xerxes hordes face obliteration! Just there the barbarians huddle, sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers, knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the swords and spears of 300. Yet they stare now across the plain at 10,000 Spartans commanding 30,000 free Greeks! Ho! The enemy outnumber us a paltry three to one! Good odds for any Greek. This day we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny, and usher in a future brighter than anything we can imagine. Give thanks, men, to Leonidas and the brave 300! To victory!"

Note: A year ago I was sitting in Panera Bread when our county's Atheist Society had its meeting three tables away from me. They were snickering about people who believed in God. There were three of them.

Free E-book On the Resurrection of Jesus

Biblical Archaeological Review offers a free e-book "Easter: Exploring the Resurrection of Jesus."

See especially N.T. Wright's article "The Resurrection of Resurrection." Some Wright quotes include:

• "Christianity was born into a world where one of its central tenets, resurrection, was universally recognized as false. Except, of course, in Judaism."
•  In Judaism the concept of resurrection is "a late arrival." "Clear statements of resurrection are extremely rare. Daniel 12 is the most blatant, and remembered as such for centuries afterwards: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel is, however, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible."
• The Sadducees "famously denied the future life altogether."
• The Sadducees held that "the soul perishes along with the body."
• "The clearest statements of resurrection after Daniel 12 are found in 2 Maccabees, the Mishnah and later rabbinic writings."
• "Resurrection does not mean 'being raised to heaven' or 'taken up in glory'... 'Resurrection' is not simply death from another viewpoint; it is the reversal of death, its cancellation, the destruction of its power."
• "The early Christian hope for bodily resurrection is clarly Jewish in origin, there being no possible pagan antecedent."
• The early Christian belief re. 'resurrection' is: "the overcoming of death by the justice-bringing death of the creator God."
• "For early Christians, resurrection was seen to consist of passing through death and out the other side into a new sort of bodily life." See Romans 8:11. Wright says: "This is a radical mutation from within Jewish belief."

Easter Week: Further Up, Further In

(Linda and I, at Caesarea Philippi north of Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean Sea)

Do I love the things this week brings? Yes. Yesterday was, for me, an extended meditation on the cross-event of Jesus, using the Gospel stories + some current texts by Craig Evans and N.T. Wright to assist me. At one point yesterday, I confess, I began crying while contemplating Jesus, who is my Rescuer. I am, and will be, always grateful for the redemptive work Christ has done and continues to do in me. The fruit of this continues to be that I find engaging in redemptive work on behalf of others the most rewarding experiences of my life.

There is a greater and greater converging point happening for me. Today through Sunday I am personally fathoming the depth of what Paul writes in Philippians 3:10 - "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."

Me too. More than ever. This spring marks 40 years of following after Jesus. It's been an adventurous, imperfect, enriching experience that I would not trade for anything. I think of C.S. Lewis's attempt in the Chronicles of Narnia to describe heaven, not as a static place, but as a never-ending movement of "further up, further in."

When Paul writes about "knowing" Christ, it's instructive to remember that, for him, "knowing" is relational, not theoretical. It is like a husband who knows his wife, and vice versa. As a result of being married to Linda for over 36 years I "know" things about her that no one else could know. (Philosopher of science Michael Polanyi called this "tacit knowledge.")

To know Christ, now and in the days ahead, more deeply. My heart cries out, "I want to know you, Lord."

Religious People Are More Generous, More Gracious

Robert Putnam's American Grace is coming out soon. Putnam famously wrote Bowling Alone. Putnam's book is reviewed at washingtonpost.com by Michal Gerson.

Gerson says American Grace is going to make some people unhappy, since it will show that, "against the expectations of hard-core secularists, Putnam asserts, "religious Americans are nicer, happier and better citizens." They are more generous with their time and money, not only in giving to religious causes but to secular ones. They join more voluntary associations, attend more public meetings, even let people cut in line in front of them more readily. Religious Americans are three to four times more socially engaged than the unaffiliated."

In our community, as regards our huge and successful efforts to see that no one goes without food and a meal every day of the week, it's a 100% "religious" (Christian) effort. Our church is one that has been at the forefront of this very good thing. I've many times served with our people and others in our Godworks Soup Kitchen meals. And, I remember inviting a local leading atheist, in a private discussion, to serve with me. He refused. Of course that's a very, very small sampling. But it appears that Putnam, of Harvard, finds what's happening on our city to be close to the norm.

Gerson: The politicization of religion by the religious right, argues Putnam, caused many young people in the 1990s to turn against religion itself, adopting the attitude: "If this is religion, I'm not interested." The social views of this younger cohort are not entirely predictable: Both the pro-life and the homosexual-rights movement have made gains. But Americans in their 20s are much more secular than the baby boomers were at the same stage of life. About 30 to 35 percent are religiously unaffiliated (designated "nones," as opposed to "nuns" -- I was initially confused). Putnam calls this "a stunning development." As many liberals suspected, the religious right was not good for religion...


...But Putnam regards the growth of the "nones" as a spike, not a permanent trend. The young, in general, are not committed secularists. "They are not in church, but they might be if a church weren't like the religious right. . . . There are almost certain to be religious entrepreneurs to fill that niche with a moderate evangelical religion, without political overtones."
 
This rings true to me. The 70-100 philosophy students I teach every year, while incerasingly uninterested in Christian and religious politics, are overwhelmingly, even phenomenally, interested in "religious" things like talking about God, spirituality-issues, and so on. My interaction with college students has generated countless phone and personal (over coffee :)) conversations.

The Religious Will Inherit the Earth

(Picture from Quiverfull, and referred to by Caspar Melville as "propoganda," as seen when you go to Melville's article and right-click on the picture.)

Political scientist Eric Kaufmann's Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? is reviewed here by Caspar Melville. Melville's "review" is almost immediately discredited when he writes: "If, like me, you skip the six dense chapters of politico-demographic analysis, in the very last line of the book you can find his answer: “The religious shall inherit the earth.” So, it appears that this is a partial review of Kaufmann's text.

The bullets are:

• Far from declining, religious populations are actually multiplying.
• The assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong; it's a "failed prophecy."
• Liberal secularism contains the seeds of its own destruction.
• Kaufmann says: “By this I mean post-’60s secularism, one that is post-ideological, multicultural and liberal. My argument is that there is something about this multicultural liberal secularism that is good for fundamentalism and bad for itself.”
• This is about birth rates.
• "Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and... secular liberals are the midwives."
• Kaufmann brings in big-time, scholarly demographic studies to make his points.
• I find this interesting re. America, and do not doubt it. "“America really is a case of delayed secularisation, what happened in Europe in the middle of the last century is happening to America now in terms of the young turning away from organised religion. Currently America is about 14 per cent secular, that is unaffiliated, and we predict this will grow to about 17 per cent by 2050, then plateau out.” [Kaufmann]  This growth is not a matter of fertility rates. Secular fertility in America is as “stagnant” as everywhere else Kaufmann looks at, well below replacement at 1.65. But, Kaufmann admits, secularism profits from “conversion” – people born with religion become secular. However, these secular converts come overwhelmingly from moderate religions."
• In America, secularism grows slightly ("a bit"), moderate religions lose out "a lot," and fundamentalism "flourishes."
• "New variants of ultra-modern fundlamentalism" will form.
• Kaufmann says: "I don’t think we want to get in a population footrace. It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.”   
• Part of Kaufmann's argument is that religion provides a certain "enchantment," whereas secularism lacks this.
• "If Kaufmann admits that his scary headlines somewhat belie the provisional nature of his findings, he has an answer: “I am trying to force a certain rethink of the idea that we are moving naturally toward secularism. To shake up our complacency and, perhaps, stir up some debate.”Secularists may well be shaken by his book, but will they be stirred?"
• Amazon.com says: "Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families. Drawing on extensive demographic research, and considering questions of multiculturalism, nationalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises - and what this will mean for the future of western modernity."

I don't know if Kaufmann looks at the phenomenon of ex-fundamentalist Christians who leave their fundamentalist Christianity only to bring their deep-seated fundamentalist hermeneutic to their "secularism."

Jim Cymbala on Authentic Preaching

I'm re-reading parts of Jim Cymbala's Fresh Power. I'd forgotten how good, and how prophetic, it was. Here's Cymbala on authentic "preaching."

"We have all seen preachers who fake emotion and put a tear in their voice. This is just an alternative form of stagecraft. Preachers should humbly present Jesus and then sink out of sight so people can get to Christ at the throne of grace. Instead, we often see preachers as the centerpiece of the action, directing attention to themselves, boastful, proud, and often using sacreligious gimmicks to feleece the sheep out of their money. This is all millions of miles from what God intended the preaching of the gospel to be." (Fresh Power, 61)

I hardly ever watch TV preaching. What little I have briefly watched has made me wish such nonsense was not on TV. Most of what I see on TV is a million miles from the Real Jesus. While there are some authentic preachers on TV, authentic preaching rarely catches the media's attention. I just want the real thing, avoidance of fakery, and God to be worshiped.