Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. Justin Martyr (103-165), First Apology VI

I should like to propose a thesis that may seem somewhat unlikely for a Christian theologian: namely, that the atheists are right.

Or, at least some of them are. Insofar as they contend against the existence of God, or attack the authenticity of the Bible, or pit faith against reason, I would say they are badly mistaken.

But there is another form of atheism, which Professor Merold Westphal of Fordham University calls ‘the atheism of suspicion’. This form of atheism is represented by the works of those great nineteenth and early twentieth century figures Nietzsche, Freud, Marx and to some extent Darwin (or at least, his descendants). The work of these scholars serves to expose the bad conscience of much religious belief.

They were less interested in evidence than in motives. In their different ways they believed that they could undermine belief in religious propositions by showing that believing often served less than pure ends. As Westphal puts it, “Its target is not the proposition but the person who affirms it, not the belief but the believer.”

Continue reading…

“Human beings are animals whose preference for group membership is simultaneously the source of their greatest salvation and their ultimate destruction” —Xenocrates

Who has the majority of evidence to support their paradigm? Is it the Young Earth Creationists or the (mostly atheistic) Evolutionists? (Please note that as far as I am concerned, anyone else is just sitting on a very sharp fence trying to hide the pain with clever words.)

The Old Earthers, whatever their stripe (from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to certain young Sydney Anglicans I admire and the misguided mob at BioLogos), despite their bluff, rely on hearsay and circular reasoning. Creationist cosmologist Russell Humphreys writes:

There is a little-known irony in the controversy between creationists and evolutionists about the age of the world. The majority of scientists— the evolutionists—rely on a minority of the relevant data. Yet a minority of scientists—the creationists—use the majority of the relevant data. Adding to the irony is the public’s wrong impression that it is the other way around. Therefore, many ask: “If the evidence is so strongly for a young earth, why do most scientists believe otherwise?” The answer is simple: Most scientists believe the earth is old because they believe most other scientists believe the earth is old!

They trust in what’s called ‘circular reasoning’, not data. I once encountered such a clear example of this misplaced trust, that I made detailed notes immediately. It happened when I spoke with a young (in his early thirties, career-ambitious, and upwardly mobile) geochemist at Sandia National Laboratories, where I then worked as a physicist. I presented him with one piece of evidence for a young world, the rapid accumulation of sodium in the ocean. It was ideal, since much of geochemistry deals with chemicals in the ocean.

I wanted to see how he explained possible ways for sodium to get out of the sea fast enough to balance the rapid input of sodium to the sea. Creationist geologist Steve Austin and I wanted the information in order to complete a scientific paper on the topic.3 We went around and around the issue for an hour, but he finally admitted he knew of no way to remove sodium from the sea fast enough. That would mean the sea could not be billions of years old. Realizing that, he said, “Since we know from other sciences that the ocean is billions of years old, such a removal process must exist.”

I questioned whether we ‘know’ that at all and started to mention some of the other evidence for a young world. He interrupted me, agreeing that he probably didn’t know even one percent of such data, since the science journals he depended on had not pointed it out as being important. But he did not want to examine the evidence for himself, because, he said, “People I trust don’t accept creation!”

So, in reality, who are the free-thinkers now? Not the old earthers.

Read the full article here.

Michael Jensen had a great column published on ABC Unleashed, critical of the religious programme Compass:

Imagine No Religion

If you ever tune in to the ABC’s flagship religious affairs programme Compass after the bonnet drama of a Sunday night, then you could be forgiven for thinking that the group of people labelled ‘the religious’ are those who wear funny hats.

As the opening title sequence of the show scrolls by, viewers are treated to a veritable facebook of curious millinery – along with some impressive facial hair.

To the average ABC viewer, watching as they iron their work clothes, the message is clear: these people are not ‘us’. They are definitely ‘the other’: a group or groups of people to be observed, categorised, wondered at – and sometimes even frightened of. 

But is there such a category as the ‘religious’? Does ‘religion’ even exist? 

I am not convinced that it does – at least, not in the sense that the word is commonly used. The concept of ‘religion’ operates as an anthropological term, which like most academic language, enables the object under examination to be placed at a scholarly arm’s length. Like exotic butterflies, religions are to be caught in the wild, observed under the microscope, described in minute detail according to their visible forms, and then pinned to polystyrene. 

There are three enormous traps into which this method steps – and the result is a colossal misunderstanding of the ‘religious’. Categorising things is so much a part of our approach to life that we can imagine it promises more understanding of a subject than it can deliver.

The first mistake is that we think we have discovered a coherent concept because we can describe things that the various religions apparently have in common. If the religions are to be understood because of the things they seem to have in common, it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the things they have in common are the really important things about them. 

The problem is that the massive differences between the faiths are then ironed out. After all, termites and elephants both have legs.

The second trap comes with the triumph of imagining one has discovered the single catch-all concept at the heart of all ‘religions’. The scholar with this sort of claim – and believe me, they aren’t modest about it – imagines herself sublimely objective in this, uniquely capable of divesting herself of all vestiges of her home culture and its variety of faith.

For example, it is no accident that scholars from Christian backgrounds have gone looking for a ‘God of love’ as the core idea of all other religions. It’s a peculiarly Christian way of homogenising other faiths. 

We can see this in the work of John Hick – and Hick’s lesser hack, John Shelby Spong.

Thirdly, if we think in terms of ‘religion’ we will become far too distracted by the external and cultural forms of religion. This is what I call the ‘silly hat’ problem. 

When I was chaplain at an Anglican school, I was often sent sample ‘Studies in Religion’ textbooks. They were uniformly hopeless, in my opinion, because they concentrated almost entirely on ceremonies, rituals, ecclesiastical haberdashery and religious festivals. Was this what ‘religion’ was about? 

Perhaps – if you are looking in from the outside, as someone who is not ‘religious’ in this sense. But you do not understand Christianity (I speak only for my own faith) at all by observing its outward forms. In fact, you may completely misunderstand it. 

In its most hostile forms, at the hands of a Dawkins or a Hitchens, the idea of ‘religion’ is a means of dismissing it. If you pollute the concept with enough human evil – and goodness knows, there’s plenty of that to share – you can make it start to look like a concept we’d be better off without. 

You end up implying that the lady across the road who goes to church each week is just as evil as Osama.

But more often, using the term ‘religion’ is a way of taming the phenomena collected under this heading. If it can be boiled down to its core elements, and if I can then see that these core elements are available without ‘religion’, then …well, why would I bother? 

I don’t look good in hats, and I like to sleep in on the weekends.

So, I want to invite you to (to borrow from John Lennon) ‘imagine no religion’. If you are really interested in understanding those people we call ‘religious’, then realise that that thinking in terms of ‘religion’ is getting in the way.

And what’s more, you will continue to think of yourself as ‘not religious’, if you keep believing in ‘religion’.

Why deny yourself the chance of being challenged – and even changed – by what you discover?

Jensen’s point is excellent, but he relies partly on the fact that he is speaking from within the same cultural bubble as the producers of Compass. Hats, robes and facial hair are a method of denoting special office. Bikers, Mods, Punks, Goths, Scenesters and Ganguros all communicate through clothing. Baptists wear business suits. You wouldn’t be caught dead without a tie in some circles. What does that communicate? (and imagine a world where everyone wore business suits!)

Yes, we may misunderstand a religion if we only observe the externals. But the rites, millinery and facial hair so alien to us are very often direct expressions of the doctrines of any given religion. So, where Compass focusses on the exotic externals to put religion in a tidy box, the modern western Christian thinks he can divest his faith of its expressions and boil it down to some timeless “Greek-style” ideal. [1]

Despite their abominable doctrines, these exotic, alien religions are often more in touch with the physical world, and the symbolic nature of the creation, than we are. Their doctrines unashamedly create culture. It is a richness we have lost. Our Christianity has become a victim of the detached objectivity of the scientist. Our culture of worship, bereft of any real Biblical inspiration, has nothing to draw on but the mall.

Sure, the special attire of the servant eventually becomes a desired commodity. Pharisees and phylacteries! Human nature always ends up using religious robes as a cover for hypocrisy and unjustice. [2] But so does the Supreme Court. Snakes love gardens… best place to hide! In our wisdom, we think the robes are the problem. But when their message has been distorted by opportunists and tyrants and dandies, perhaps it’s time to come up with something altogether new. [3]

The Common Ground Christian sect has a coffee shop in Katoomba. Some of their doctrines are way off (such as there being a third way between salvation and damnation, a middle road of good works for those ignorant of the gospel). Some of their doctrines are spot on. They have a sort of “postmillennial” kingdom optimism. They want to transform society, not escape it (albeit via communes!). They have a way of dressing that reflects their worldview. It communicates modesty, honour and hard work. It communicates who they are. And it sure beats business suits. While our dying culture dresses children up like streetwalkers and pierces any available orifice, what’s wrong with a bit of visible glory to illustrate an official capacity in the church?

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[1] See Communist Theology.
[2] See Rags to Robes, and of course Jordan’s classic The Dominion Trap on Adam’s robe.
[3] All this requires wisdom. From memory, Doug Wilson refuses to wear a clerical collar because of what this has come to communicate in American culture. See his article Vestments. And check out his facial hair.

Atheists reduce Religion/Theology to a chapter within anthropology. This, of course, removes any claim to validity for Christianity. It just gets lumped together with other ‘superstitions.’

In response, theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg claims that the Godness of God and not human religious experience must have first place in theology. (Quoted in Michael Jensen’s post Pannenberg on Anthropology at mpjensen.blogspot.com)

‘Theologians will be able to defend the truth precisely of their talk about God only if they first respond to the atheistic critique of religion on the terrain of anthropology. Otherwise all their assertions, however impressive, about the primacy of the Godness of God will remain purely subjective assurances without any serious claim to universal validity.’1

Jensen summarises, ‘He maintains, furthermore, that rejecting this anthropological ground is in fact conceding the ground to anthropological suppositions – by reducing theology to mere subjectivity.’

So, I think Pannenberg says:

1 Anthropology is actually a chapter within theology, not the other way around.

2 Christians must debate the issue on anthropological grounds, or there is no common ground upon which to engage the atheists in debate. In other words, they have won the boxing match by default because we won’t enter the boxing ring.

Jensen asks, ‘Which way are evangelicals going to swing on this?’

To mix metaphors, don’t swing in a boxing ring that doesn’t exist! The foundation of the atheists’ anthropology is fiction.

It is helpful if, for anthropology, we read HISTORY.

The compromise by most evangelicals on the historicity of great tracts of Scripture has left them bloodied and limbless, lying on the ground shouting “Come back here and I’ll bite you to death.”

Only a clear stand against pop-anthropology, pop-science and pop-history (a wholesale rewriting of man’s past) will avoid the embarrassment of defending our faith with the sad rubber sword of the gnostic. Many of us are defending a book we don’t really have the faith to believe.

The atheists have their physical ‘history’ as a foundation. Any compromise with it – against the clear teaching of the Bible – leaves us fighting it with no more than a philosophy disconnected from this perceived ‘reality.’ No wonder they designate Christianity as superstition. At least these critics are consistent. Their ‘history’ supports their faith.

For many evangelicals, this is not the case. Talking about the Godness of a God who gave us a book that apparently gets history wrong is idiocy. We kid ourselves to claim any validity for this legless hybrid.

The statement that rejecting this anthropological ground is in fact conceding the ground to anthropological suppositions – by reducing theology to mere subjectivity – assumes their history requires Christian interpretation but is basically sound, and thus an outright rejection of ‘history’ concedes the debate. Fair enough, but…

…the assumption is flawed, and the attempt at reinterpretation futile.

Let the Bible be the history it is and there is no debate. Only an ultimatum. If only evangelicals were as consistent as their critics.

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1  Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective, p. 15. My emphasis.