Is Religion the Root Cause of Evil?

(Cantoro)

(I may mention this post in my sermon Sunday morning. We're not "progressing" morally and spiritually, correct?)

Is religion the cause of evil? Was John Lennon correct (in spite of his own wife-beating, child-abusing behaviors) that "imagine there's no religion" and... no wars?... and we all will live as one big metaphysical love-mass?

I don't think so. Atheist David Berlinski doesn't think so either.

See Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. What is unique about Berlinski is his non-religious nature, railing against the new (but aging) atheists. He writes: "I am a secular Jew. My religious education did not take... I cannot pray. I have spent more years than I care to remember in studying mathematics and writing about the sciences. Yet the book that follows is in some sense a defense of religious thought and sentiment. Biblical verses are the least of it." (xiii)

Berlinski is witty, caustic, funny, and brilliant. One of the things he addresses is the atheistic idea that religion is, especially, the root of all evil. He quotes physicist Steven Weinberg, famously, as saying: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." (21)

I now confess that "religion" has made me a far better person than I was without it. And, I have met countless people over the years about whom I could say the same. But onwards...

Berlinski turns to atheist Steven Pinker, who believes that "something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler." Pinker gives us good news: "In the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture. Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler." (21-22) Pinker goes on to list things like "cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, genocide..., torture and mutilation..., assassination..., rape..., homicide... - "all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are close to nonexistent in the West." (22)

To which Berlinski responds, surely Pinker jests! Here is Berlinski's list of 20th century "happy-face moments," presented to you by irreligion and atheism..

A Shockingly Happy Picture by Excess Deaths (22-24)

• First World War(1914-18): ……...................................15 million
• Russian Civil War(1917-22) ……...................................9 million
• Soviet Union,Stalin's Regime(1924-53) ……...............20 million
• Second World War(1937-45) ……................................55 million
• Chinese Civil War(1945-49) ……..................................2.5 million
• People's Republic of China, Mao's regime(1949-75) ...40 mill.
• Tibet(1950 et seq.) …….................................................600,000
• Congo Free State(1886-1908) ……................................8 million
• Mexico(1910-20) …….....................................................1 million
• Turkish Massacres of Armenians(1915-23) ……............1.5 million
• China(1917-28) …….......................................................800,000
• China,Nationalist Era(1928-37) ……..............................3.1 million
• Korean War(1950-53) ……............................................2.8 million
• North Korea(1948 et seq.) …….....................................2 million
• Rwanda and Burundi(1959-95) ……..............................1.35 million
• Second Indochina War(1960-75) ……...........................3.5 million
• Ethopia(1962-92) ……...................................................400,000
• Nigeria(1966-70) ……....................................................1 million
• Bangladesh(1971) ……..................................................1.25 million
• Cambodia,Khmer Rouge(1975-78) ……........................1.65 million
• Mozambique(1975-92) ……............................................1 million
• Afghanistan(1979-2001) ……..........................................1.8 million
• Iran Iraq War(1980-88) ……............................................1 million
• Sudan(1983 et seq.) ……................................................1.9 million
• Kinshasa,Congo(1998 et seq.) ……................................3.8 million
• Phillipines Insurgency(1899-1902) ……..........................220,000
• Brazil(1900 et seq.) …….................................................500,000
• Amazonia(1900-1912) …….............................................250,000
• Portuguese Colonies(1900-1925) ……........................... 325,000
• French Colonies(1900-1940) ……...................................200,000
• Japanese War(1904-5) ……............................................130,000
• German East Africa(1905-7) ……....................................175,000
• Libya(1911-31) …….........................................................125,000
• Balkan Wars(1912-13) …….............................................140,000
• Greco-Turkish War(1919-22) ……...................................250,000
• Spanish Civil War(1936-39) …….....................................365,000
• Franco Regime(1939-75) …….........................................100,000
• Abyssinian Conquest(1935-41) ……................................400,000
• Finnish War(1939-40) ……...............................................150,000
• Greek Civil War(1943-49) …….........................................158,000
• Yugoslavia,Tito's Regime(1944-80) ……..........................200,000
• First Indochina War(1945-54) ….......................................400,000
• Colombia(1946-58) ……...................................................200,000
• India(1947) ……................................................................500,000
• Romania(1948-89) ……....................................................150,000
• Burma/Myanmar(1948 et seq.) …….................................130,000
• Algeria(1954-62) …….......................................................537,000
• Sudan(1955-72) ……........................................................500,000
• Guatemala(1960-96) …….................................................200,000
• Indonesia(1965-66) ……...................................................400,000
• Ugandi, Idi Amin's Regime(1972-79) ...….........................300,000
• Vietnam, postwar Communist Regime(1975 et seq.) ……430,000
• Angola(1975-2002) ……....................................................550,000
• East Timor, conquest by Indonesia(1975-99) ……............200,000
• Lebanon(1975-90) …….....................................................150,000
• Cambodian Civil War(1978-91) …….................................225,000
• Iraq, Saddam Hussein(1979-2003) ……...........................300,000
• Uganda(1979-86) ……......................................................300,000
• Kurdistan(1980's,1990's) ……...........................................300,000
• Liberia(1989-97) ……........................................................150,000
• Iraq(1990- ) ……................................................................350,000
• Bosnia and Herzegovina(1992-95) ……............................175,000
• Somalia(1991 et seq.) ……................................................400,000

Berlinski concludes: "In considering Pinker's assessment of the times in which we live, the only conclusion one can profitably draw is that such an excess of stupidity is not often to be found in nature." (25)

And, we have the following "awkward fact": "The twentieth century was not an age of faith, and it was awful. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot will never be counted among the religious leaders of mankind." (19)

One more: U of Notre Dame's Alvin Plantinga writes:

"Of course the world’s religions do indeed have much to repent; still (as has often been pointed out) the suffering, death, and havoc attributable to religious belief and practice pales into utter insignificance beside that due to the atheistic and secular idiologies of the twentieth century alone."  (Plantinga. Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism . Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

A Fail-Safe Recipe for Humility

 

                                          (Munson Park across from our home. 2/14/21)

One of the devotional books Linda and I use every day is Dallas Willard's Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional.

A recent reading was on humility.

In Numbers 12:3 we read that “Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”

Surely, writes Willard, there is a connection between Moses' humility and his close working and talking relationship with God.

God gladly gives us the grace of humility if...

• We refrain from pretending we are what we know we are not.
• We refrain from presuming a favorable position for ourselves in any respect.
• We refrain from pushing or trying to override the will of others in our context. 

A fail-safe recipe for humility is:

Never push.

Never presume.

Never pretend.

LOVE IN AN AGE OF OUTRAGE VIDEO

Humility as Constant Forgetfulness of Our Own Achievements

(Heart-shaped snowflake in Monroe)

In the seventh century there was a Jesus-follower named John Climacus, who wrote a book called The Ladder of Divine Ascent. His book was about spiritual "rungs" of a ladder that, by the Spirit, we climb or ascend, growing ever closer to God. He came to be known as "John of the Ladder."

John of the Ladder wrote things like:

"A horse when alone often imagines that it is galloping, but when it is with others it finds out how slow it is." (Step 25:21)

And: "In drawing water from a well sometimes, without noticing it, we bring up a frog with the water." (Step 26:58)

OK. But...

John of the Ladder also wrote this: "Humility is: constant forgetfulness of our own achievements." (In James Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God, 20)

In prayer we bring ourselves, minus our own "glory," to God. Our prayer-focus is: Him, and Him alone. We lose ourselves, we "deny ourselves," so as to attend fully to Him. We're "all ears and eyes" for God. When this kind of heart-purity happens, the real prayer life has begun.

Sick is the person who sleeps in their own trophy room. (John of Monroe)

We lay down our "crowns" before God's throne, since Christ alone wears the Crown.

***

My Books

 Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship

31 Letters to the Church on Praying

The Relative Irrelevance of Our Natural Talents

(A snowy, cold morning in Monroe, in a former time when there was snow.)

Some people are more naturally talented than others. Some are smarter, more athletic, more dynamic in their personalities, and more beautiful by certain earthbound standards. But when it comes to God and his kingdom, natural talents are not what are needed. Someone with all the above might produce nothing of heavenly value; someone with none of the above might produce goods that last forever.

This is about the purpose of our lives, which is: to bear fruit that will last. Only God can grow this. It is the result of a life spent abiding in Christ. We get no credit when it happens. Our own talent counts for nothing. Talent fades and is forgotten; character influences and endures.

Whatever abilities, circumstances, and capital a person possesses in this life diminishes in comparison to lasting, eternal produce. What is important is the fruit, not our relative amazingness. Any intrinsic awesomeness we might have counts for nothing in the eyes of God. When Jesus says, in John 14, that his disciples will do what he has been doing, it is not because they are so talented. 

Most Christians, I suspect, fail to understand this. We are so caught up in the values of the Entertainment Church that mere, godly fruit-bearers are relegated to the lowest echelons of the honor-shame hierarchy. (Francis Chan writes about this in his book Letters to the Church.)

Listen closely to Dallas Willard, who writes:

"Natural gifts, external circumstances, and special opportunities are of little significance. The good tree, Jesus said, “bears good fruit” (Matthew 7:17). If we tend to the tree, the fruit will take care of itself."
(Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship, Kindle Locations 1815-1819)

Humanity Is Not Progressing, But Regressing

                                                                            (Detroit)

In 1977 I taught a course on prayer, to Master's students at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. Since then I have taught countless seminary classes, seminars, and conferences on praying and spiritual formation.

Almost anyone who has done likewise admits that, in spite of all that technology has given us, tech-saturated humanity has spiritually devolved. Call this 'regressive', and 'regressivism'.

Consider this from Thomas Merton. 

"Though man has acquired the power to do almost anything, he has at the same time lost the ability to orient his life toward a spiritual goal by the things he does. He has lost all conviction that he knows where he is going and what he is doing, unless he can manage to plunge into some collective delusion ['progressivism'?] which promises happiness (sometime in the future) to those who will have learned to use the implements he has discovered." 

This is progressivism as utopian myth.

Corroboration of regressivism can be found in Sherry Turkle (Reclaiming Conversation), and Greg Lukionoff and Johnathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind).

Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World deny moral progressivism, in spite of technological advances, which are utilized by morally regressive humans.

Which Church Is Yours: Dragon, or Lamb?

(Monroe County)

Pastors - I recommend reading:

Letters to the Church, by Francis Chan (See also this recent interview with Chan)

The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus' Path of Power in a Church that has Abandoned It, by Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel

And one more - my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church. 

All three are about Spirit-led, Spirit-driven, Spirit-empowered churches. All three come out of deep concern for the American Consumer-Driven Church.

Goggin and Strobel, in their interview with Eugene Peterson, describe the American Church as following the "way of the dragon." Peterson writes:

"We choose: we follow the dragon and his beasts along their parade route, conspicuous with the worship of splendid images, elaborated in mysterious symbols, fond of statistics, taking on whatever role is necessary to make a good show and get the applause of the crowd in order to get access to power and become self-important." (In Goggin, p. 138)

Here is "the way of the lamb":

"Or we follow the Lamb along a farmyard route, worshiping the invisible, listening to the foolishness of preaching, practicing a holy life that involves heroically difficult acts that no one will ever notice, in order to become, simply, our eternal selves in an eternal city. It is the difference, politically, between wanting to use the people around us to become powerful (or, if unskilled, getting used by them), and entering into covenants with the people around us so that the power of salvation extends into every part of the neighborhood, the society, and the world that God loves." (Peterson, in Ib.)

Goggin and Strobel write:

"The way of the dragon is fixated on the spectacular, obsessed with recognition and validation, intoxicated by fame and power. The way of the Lamb is committed to worship, pursues God in the ordinary, and is faithful in hiddenness. The dragon devours and dominates, while the Lamb humbly and sacrificially serves." (Ib., p. 139)

They summarize the two ways as follows.

First, the way of the dragon . . .   

• The pastor uses the church as a platform for personal fame, fortune, and influence.   
• The pastor views ministry as an arena of performance, where some win and some lose.   
• The pastor uses the people of the church as tools to accomplish their big dreams.   
• The pastor relegates prayer and care, the heart of pastoral work, to “lower-level” staff because they don’t have time to waste.   
• The pastor views other pastors primarily as competition. 

Second, the way of the Lamb . . .   

• The pastor gives their life for the sake of the church, regardless of what they gain.   
• The pastor views ministry as an arena of love and service, not winning and losing.   
• The pastor embraces their congregation as people to know and love, not tools to use for other ends.   
• The pastor views prayer and care as the centerpiece of their work, rather than an interruption.   
• The pastor views other pastors not as competition, but as fellow shepherds on the journey whom they need for encouragement and wisdom, and who they are called to encourage and love.

(Ib., pp. 139-140)

I Choose to Bear Fruit of the Spirit

 I'm using this daily devotional by Max Lucado I like how he begins his book by asking readers to choose, every day, wisely.

                                                       (Pear tree, in our neighbor's yard)

I CHOOSE LOVE . . . 

No occasion justifies hatred; 

no injustice warrants bitterness. 

I choose love. 

Today I will love God and what God loves. 

I CHOOSE JOY . . . 

I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. 

I will refuse the temptation to be cynical . . . 

the tool of the lazy thinker. 

I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. 

I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God. 

I CHOOSE PEACE . . . 

I will live forgiven. 

I will forgive so that I may live. 

I CHOOSE PATIENCE . . . 

I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. 

Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite him to do so. 

Rather than complain that the wait is too long, 

I will thank God for a moment to pray. 

Instead of clinching my fist at new assignments, 

I will face them with joy and courage. 

I CHOOSE KINDNESS . . . I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. 

Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. 

And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me. 

I CHOOSE GOODNESS . . . 

I will go without a dollar 

before I take a dishonest one. 

I will be overlooked before I will boast. 

I will confess before I will accuse. 

I choose goodness. 

I CHOOSE FAITHFULNESS . . . 

Today I will keep my promises. 

My debtors will not regret their trust. 

My associates 

will not question my word. 

My wife will not 

question my love. 

And my children will never fear 

that their father will not come home. 

I CHOOSE GENTLENESS . . .

Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. 

If I raise my voice, may it be only in praise. 

If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. 

If I make a demand, may it be only of myself. 

I CHOOSE SELF-CONTROL . . . 

I am a spiritual being. . . . 

After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. 

I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. 

I choose self-control. 

I will be drunk only by joy.

I will be impassioned only by my faith. 

I will be influenced only by God. 

I will be taught only by Christ. 

I choose self-control. 

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, 

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

To these I commit my day. 

If I succeed, I will give thanks. 

If I fail, I will seek his grace. 

And then, when this day is done, 

I will place my head on my pillow 

and rest.

Lucado, Max. Grace for the Moment Volume I, Ebook: Inspirational Thoughts for Each Day of the Year (pp. 25-26). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition

Intercessory Praying: Asking God to Do What I Cannot

 

 

                                            (Our house, viewed from the other side of Munson Park in Monroe.)

During my praying time this morning I am praying for people. I am re-reading portions of Richard Foster's book Prayer. Foster writes:

"In the ongoing work of the kingdom of God, nothing is more important than Intercessory Prayer. People today desperately need the help that we can give them. Marriages are being shattered. Children are being destroyed. Individuals are living lives of quiet desperation, without purpose or future. And we can make a difference…if we will learn to pray on their behalf." (Richard Foster, Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 191)

How true that is! In my desires to help other people my cognitive and physical limitations show themselves. I am, to a large degree, incapable and unable. But God is capable and able. So I pray for people, asking God to do for the people I love what I cannot do.

Preaching Through the Bible in 2024

 

(This is a letter Pastor Tim Curry wrote and sent to our church family yesterday.)

Redeemer family and friends,

In 2024, we feel that God is calling us to preach through the entire Bible--we are so excited about doing this! We have had some good questions about HOW we will do this. Here are my current thoughts:

1. We will consider WHY we believe that we are being called to do this. We are a Presence-Driven, Spirit-led church, and we believe that the Spirit is guiding us to do this (John 16:13.) for greater intimacy with Jesus (John 5:39-40; Luke 24:27; 24:44-45), to guard ourselves from deception (Matthew 4:4; 22:29; 2 Timothy 3:13-17), as an act of remembrance (Psalm 77:11-12), and as preparation for the revival of the Word & Spirit that we are praying for.

2. We began preparing ourselves by preaching through the Bible as a story told through Seven  Acts at the end of 2023 (Creation, Rebellion, Israel, Jesus the Christ, The Church, The Return of Jesus the Christ, The New Creation).

3. We have invited our people to read the entire Bible. Our preaching will roughly correspond to reading through the Bible chronologically in one year (About 12 minutes a day, 7 days a week). Some of us are using the YouVersion Bible app’s (phone or tablet) plan (link to a printable version) called The Bible Recap with Tara-Leigh Cobble. There are many good plans, and many ways to do this, so whatever works best for each person and family is fine. We will not prioritize a translation, the kind of reading technology (book, tablet, or scroll;) or whether you prefer to listen to or read the text. We trust that our people can discover for themselves the best way to make the most of their time in the Word.

4. We will not use shame to motivate our people. If your pace is faster or slower, that’s ok. Whatever we can do to stay in God’s story and finish it will be wonderful.

5. We will encourage each other in the daily discipline of reading scripture—recognizing that while some parts of the Bible are engaging and exciting, some parts are very difficult and unpleasant.

6. We will remind ourselves that understanding ancient literature can take a lot of effort, but (1) following the Holy Spirit, (2) knowing Jesus more deeply, (3) guarding ourselves from deception, (4) remembering the deeds of the Lord, and (5) preparing ourselves for a revival of the Word and Spirit is all worth it!

7. We will pray for each other to have joy and endurance in this discipline as the Spirit shapes us to be more like Christ—for his glory—for his good news, and for the sake of the world.

8. As for preaching, we will spend multiple weeks in some books (Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, etc), and combine some books in other weeks (Minor prophets with corresponding sections of major prophets, the pastoral letters of Paul, etc.). We will focus on the major themes of each book, its place in the Story of the Bible, and highlight specific sections as the Spirit leads.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me, and I bless you with the abiding Presence of our Lord in the New Year!

Love,

Tim