Presbyterians and Baptists have a long history of working together. As is God’s way, any new endeavour must take the past into account but not be bound by it. This is a guest post by my friend Matt Carpenter.

The questions surrounding the origins and necessity of denominations have been discussed at great length and I don’t intend on bringing them up here. But it doesn’t mean we have a license to continue without giving it another thought. This isn’t another call for lip-quivering ecumenism. Fellow soldiers in God’s army can learn a lot from one another and the two groups I currently have in mind are Baptists and Presbyterians. Traditionally they have shared a lot in common.

In 1642, Oliver Cromwell led a group of mostly Puritans, Presbyterians, and Baptists against the army of King Charles I. Regardless of one’s opinion of this war, it’s not an exaggeration to say they banded together to gain religious freedom for many in England.

Two years later, Presbyterians drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith, a document they believed declared the doctrines of the Reformers, Church fathers, and apostles. In 1689, the Baptists of London drew up a document that declared their faith. With a few exceptions it was taken directly from the Westminster Confession. This was no accident, for they, “have no itch to clog religion with new words, but do readily acquiesce in that form of sound words which hath been, in consent with the Holy Scriptures, used by others before us; hereby declaring, before God, angels, and men, our hearty agreement with them in that wholesome Protestant doctrine which, with so clear evidence of Scriptures, they have asserted.” [1] In other words, they explicitly wanted to express their commonality with the Presbyterians (among others) in primary doctrinal truth.

A little over one-hundred years later, Presbyterians and Baptists in the North American colonies again united against the threat of King George III sending an Anglican Bishop to preside over the colonies. None other than John Adams called this the first spark in the American Revolution. [2] Most of the soldiers in the continental army were Presbyterians and Baptists. What is it that links these two groups together, and has done so for hundreds of years? [3]

The first common conviction is the sovereignty of God. As has already been noted, the London Confession reads almost exactly similar to the Westminster Confession when it speaks of God’s sovereignty in all of life, including salvation. In the 1830’s a segment of Baptists and Presbyterians stood against the forces of liberalism that wanted assert man’s free-will over the sovereignty of God.

Another link is the stance against revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. For the Presbyterians the split was among those who supported the “new measures” of Charles Finney (altar calls, anxious benches, etc.) and those who opposed the emotionalism fanned by some ministers. It resulted in the expulsion of 500 ministers and 550 churches. [4] There was also a split among the Baptists in 1832 who also registered their opposition to the “new measures” of revivalist preachers.

A third area of similarity is the belief in the regulative principle (only God’s word can declare what should go on in worship). Baptists like Charles Spurgeon and Benjamin Keach, along with Presbyterians R.L. Dabney and John Murray taught this. Although the principle is interpreted differently among many, it is still held in some form by conservatives of both denominations.

Although there are many other similarities that could be mentioned, a final common link is the emphasis of the local church. In both the Westminster and London Baptist Confessions, chapter 26, section 1 (referring to the church), says: “Saints by profession, are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; …” (emphasis mine). The authors of these statements realized that this can be done only in the context of the local church.

In addition to these areas there are many more we could observe. But suffice to say, sovereign-grace Baptists and Presbyterians have more in common doctrinally than any other groups.

After understanding the historical similarities between Baptists and Presbyterians, we should also understand that there are things we can learn from one another. This requires us to forgo our denominational arrogance. Once we admit that others might see things that we miss, here are some things we can learn from one another.

The first area we can learn is in evangelism. Calvinistic Baptists were known at one time for their evangelistic zeal. They took the message to the frontier and evangelized Indians, white settlers, and anyone else who crossed their path. The Baptist preacher Isaac McCoy was called the apostle to the Indians. Presbyterians Marcus Whitman and Samuel Kirkland were also known for taking the gospel to the Great Plains.

For the church to grow we can’t just rely on other Christians leaving their churches and joining ours; we must be willing to proclaim the word of God to dry bones and tell them to live. We must believe, just like they did, that God will call His elect and they will believe when the gospel is preached.

We can also learn the importance of applying the Word of God to everything. One of the fallacies of modern thought is that the Bible is only useful in the religious sphere, that is to say, at church and in between your ears. But Jesus is Lord over everything, not just our souls. Because His lordship extends to all things our calling is to cast down every thought and stronghold that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. This is one place we as Baptists can learn from our Presbyterian brethren.

R.L. Dabney spoke of the necessity of understanding science from the perspective of Scripture. In his Systematic Theology he articulates why a literal reading of Genesis 1 is important, and he did it in the face of the growing popularity Darwinism. One quote from him should suffice. “The position to which they [Darwinists] consign God’s word is that of a handmaid, dependent for the validity of the construction to be put upon its words, on their (the scientists’) permission. Now this we boldly assert, is intrinsic rationalism… exalting the conclusions of the human understanding over the sure word of prophecy.” [5]

And who could overlook the ministries of men like Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark who used the sword of God’s Word to dispel humanistic philosophy. And when it comes to law, many are familiar with R.J. Rushdoony and the work he’s done with biblical law, but another man who believed in applying God’s law when possible might surprise you: the Baptist theologian John Gill. In his Body of Doctoral Divinity, Gill said:

“And they are, certainly, the best constituted and regulated governments that come nearest to the commonwealth of Israel, and the civil laws of it, which are of the kind last described… And whereas the commonwealth of Israel was governed by these laws for many hundreds of years, and needed no other in their civil polity, when, in such a course of time, every case that ordinarily happens, must arise, and be brought into a court of judicature; I cannot but be of opinion, that a digest of civil laws might be made out of the Bible, the law of the Lord that is perfect, either as lying in express words in it, or to be deduced by the analogy of things and cases, and by just consequence, as would be sufficient for the government of any nation.”

Suffice to say, these men believed in applying God’s word to everything. If we don’t give the church and those outside the church a vision for life under the Lordship of Christ, they will construct their own vision with whatever materials the world makes available to them.

Another lesson we can learn from our brothers in the past is the need for the church to not forsake its calling to the world. Early Baptists did a great job critiquing the world’s attempts to usurp the roles of the church. [6] But you can’t beat something with nothing. We should know what role the church should play in society, but that’s not enough.

The best way to protect the roles of the church is to step up and begin ministry. Do you visit the orphans and widows, or leave it to the government? Does the local church create tracts and literature or do we leave it to the para-church ministries? These are small steps but we must begin somewhere. Charles Spurgeon operated orphanages, shelters, and food kitchens. When Thomas Chalmers was pastoring in Scotland, the number of poor dramatically decreased because of the local ministries developed. The modern church has surrendered her calling to the state and secular groups. We can’t despair of the position we’re in; we must start wherever we are and be faithful right here.

Last but not least I hope we can learn of the importance of the unity of believers. In England, sovereign grace Baptists were known for being much more open in fellowship than the General Baptists. [7] Charles Hodge and other Presbyterians wrote articles that called for greater fellowship with the saints.

In America, this was one area in which all have struggled. We have long memories and if “your people” did something to “my people” we won’t easily forget it. No one is immune to the disease of disharmony among saints. As I said earlier, those who hold to the Westminster and London Confessions have more in common with one another than they do with some in their own denomination.

Do we really believe iron sharpens iron? Then why do we only listen to those who are shaped in a similar way to ourselves? Baptists have weaknesses; Presbyterians have weaknesses and neither will gain strength without changing our spiritual exercise. This means talking, praying, listening to, and fellowshipping with those outside our local church or denomination. You can say, “I love them.” But how do you practice it? Do we foster relationships with churches which are different from us?

There are two different beliefs Christians hold about the world. One says we should remove ourselves from others and remain as pure as possible while we wait for Jesus to come. This view naturally lends itself to divisions among brethren. The other view says that we are called to manifest the reign of Christ in the world and live as spiritual warriors. This view requires us to fight alongside those who serve the same Lord but differ with us on some matters.

God has called us to grow up into a new man. We can’t return to the “good old days”, whatever those were; we must go on to maturity and this requires us to fight next to those who proclaim the same gospel. It’s time to go to war together again, but this time not with carnal weapons. Our enemy is spiritual and we must fight him with God’s weapons in the power of the Holy Spirit. Victory will not be granted to Baptists or Presbyterians, Methodists or Pentecostals. It will only be granted to the body of Christ, the same body which He will present as a glorious kingdom to His Father on the last day.

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[1] Introduction to the London Confession of Faith, 1689
[2] Religion and the American presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush, pg. 7, by Gastón Espinosa
[3] In referring to Presbyterians and Baptists, I’m speaking of Presbyterians who held to the Westminster standards and the Baptists who held to the London Confession of 1689, not just anyone who calls himself by one of those two names.
[4] Crossed Fingers, p. 119.
[5] Dangerous Pseudoscience, The Christian Observer.
[6] The Black Rock Address, 1832.
[7] A History of the Baptists, Robert Torbert.

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Peter J. Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns.

Many atheists think it is their void-given right to make disrespectful, insulting or condescending remarks about religion. One I have heard a number of times is a common atheist response to “Your atheism is a religion”: If religion were a hair colour, then I am bald.

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An interesting excerpt from James Jordan’s review of Wayne House and Thomas Ice’s, Dominion Theology: Blessing or Curse?: An Analysis of Christian Reconstructionism

The quietist is committed to inaction. The pietist, by way of contrast, is frequently active in social and charitable affairs, but what makes his position inadequate is that pietism is in general uninterested in social theory. (In general, pietist movements are not much interested in theology either.) There is no self-conscious reflection on the concerns of political philosophy in the broad sense. It is simply a matter of “doing good” here and there, without reflection. This is not bad, but it does not go far enough.

Pietism works fine in a society that is generally Christian, where the rules are agreed upon. With a background of Christian consensus, pietist movements were able to eliminate the slave trade in England, for instance. Pietism is largely impotent, however, in the face of radical secularism and demonism. Lacking both theology and social theory, it simply does not go deep enough to be able to face such problems.

Modern pietists seem to assume that modern pluralism provides the social fabric within which they can “do good” without having to reflect intensively on social theory. In reality, modern pluralism is a “naked public square.” It is not a social fabric, but the lack of one. It is the self-conscious assertion that no social fabric is necessary. Formerly, Christian society provided the social fabric, within which other religions were tolerated or given sanctuary, provided they did not attempt to overthrow the Christian social fabric. Pluralism is the opposite of this. It rejects the ideas of tolerance and sanctuary (which are found in the Mosaic law) in favor of the idea of social anarchy. For that reason, pluralism in practice is extremely intolerant, as we see more clearly every day.

Jesus was quite clear on the effects of such a position. He stated that when a demon is driven from a man, it wanders in dry places but eventually returns to its former house to see if the Holy Spirit has or has not been given residence. Finding it empty, the demon gets seven other demons, worse than himself, and these eight return to inhabit the man. In context, this statement was not made concerning an individual but a society: Israel (Matthew 12:43-45; cf. vv. 38ff.). It is a rule for society and it shows the long-term effects of a commitment to social neutrality or pluralism. A perfect illustration can be seen in the history of Germany. The Reformation cast the demon out, but Germany did not sustain her reception of the Spirit, and the result was the demonic octave of National Socialism. 

…contrary to dispensationalism and pluralism, the Christian social tradition has always been theocratic. Not theonomic, but theocratic — that is, committed to the belief that society cannot be neutral and should be in some sense Christian.

Available as part of the complete James Jordan collection from wordmp3.com

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or The Root of Democracy is the Spirit of Christ

An excerpt from Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power by David Aikman, Chapter 13: “Artists, Writers and Academics.”

This post is dedicated to the memory of the false premise of Christopher Hitchens.

The late 1980s in China was a heady period of pushing the limits on many fronts, especially in culture and law, and in this environment of creativity and new ideas, a daring, six-part documentary was aired on national television in the spring of 1988. River Elegy was co-produced by Yan Zhiming, a prominent documentary producer,and its theme was that popylar symbols of China’s historic greatness, such as the Great Wall and the Yangzee River, should be regarded as emblems of captivity and restriction. River Elegy argued that they had hindered China from access to the great progress and discoveries taking place in other parts of the world, expecially in the West. The final episode of the series, “Ocean Blue,” shows the Yellow River emptying itelf into the Pacific as an emblem of China engaging with the outside world openly and confidently. “The dream of River Elegy,” Yuan wrote later, “was born out of concern and hope for China.”

That sentiment wasn’t shared by many of the old reactionaries still powerful in the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. While students, intellectuals, and many others hailed River Elegy for pointing to the new, more open, pro-Western direction China should be taking, old-guard revolutionaries were outraged, accusing Yuan of “vilifying the Chinese people and the symbols of the Yellow River and the Great Wall.” When the authorities after the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre began looking around for people to blame for the weeks of student-led pro-democracy protects, Yuan Zhiming was one obvious target. But he succeeded in eluding a national search, escaping finally to the United States. At Princeton University, to which many reform-minded Chinese intellectuals flocked, he encountered a group of committed Chinese Christians who were pro-democratic but who did not believe that democracy, in and of itself, would solve all of China’s problems.

Neither Yuan nor his collaborators on River Elegy had ever been to the West before fleeing China. On his arrival in 1989, Yuan was shocked and disillusioned; he heard about crime, suicide, homelessness, declining moral standards, and family breakdown. Yuan began to read the Bible, became friends with many Chinese Christians, and was baptized in April 1992. He then decided to deepen his knowledge of his new faith by attending the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, where he studied Christianity in greater detail during the 1990s.

Yuan never doubted that China, for its own basic health, must sooner or later become democratic. But based partly on what he saw in the United States, Yuan also came to believe that a successful democracy in any country had to be constructed on more than tried and true institutions. “If a person lacks a firm and overcoming faith,” he wrote later, “he or she is easily tossed around on the sea of life. No democracy can be built on this.” He admitted, however, that many of his fellow dissidents, including those who had worked with him on River Elegy, didn’t share this perspective.

Democracy is not merely an institution nor simply a concept, but a profound structure of faith. At times I have called this to the attention of my friends in the democracy movement who have been in America for quite some time, but continue to lack a deep understanding of democracy. I told them that just because they have read Montesquieu and Locke and have seen an American presidential election, it does not mean that they have found the fountain of democracy. The root of democracy is the spirit of Christ.

In retrospect, as Yuan told British journalist Ian Buruma, he thought that River Elegy was superficial because it left out “the most important thing, the core of Western civilisation, which is Christianity. Without that, you cannot have democracy or human rights.”

While many Chinese dissidents would disagree, the idea became more and more powerful in Yuan Zhiming’s mind. He set out to produce a new TV documentary, in many ways even more ambitious than River Elegy. This was a multi-part series that aired for the first time in Taiwan in 2000 and was spread throughout China and Southeast Asia in VCD format. The English title, China’s Confession, doesn’t do justice to the Chinese name Shen Zhou, which is an ancient name for China, approximately “Land of God” or “God’s country.” Yuan — whose seminary research focussed on connections between the dao of Chinese philosopher Lao Zi’s boo, the Dao De Jing, and the Biblical sense of God, the Holy Spirit, or Christ — interprets the whole of Chinese history as a tragic letdown from a previous era when, he says, the Chinese worshipped God (shangdi in Chinese) and sought to live moral lives. The narrative of China’s Confession tells us:

This was the ancient land of God where people believed in God, feared heaven, obeyed the Tao (i.e., the dao of Daoism), and worshipped God… Our ancestors held firm their belief, which is: the justice of God will prevail, nothing could escape the sight of God, and sinners will receive their punishment. This belief is the moral power o promoting the good and discarding the wrong. it is the moral cornerstone of an ideal universal society. It is the dream of Confucius.

According to Yuan’s view of Chinese history, the real downturn in the behaviour of Chinese toward one another occurred about 2,500 years ago, when China was plunged into a turbulent era of internal regional warfare called the “Spring and Autumn” period (770-476 BC).

Leaving aside the historical validity of Yuan’s argument that the Chinese worshipped God at the origins of their civilisation and lived in an upright moral universe, China’s Confession attempts to account for the fact that despite China’s cultural early greatness, God’s revelation of Himself as recorded in the Bible took place in the Middle East, not in China. Like many Chinese intellectuals, Yuan sought a moral historiography of China that suggested God hadn’t simply bypassed Chinese civilisation. According to Yuan, God did actually set the moral foundation in China for what could have been a righteous and benevolent civilisation.

Well financed by overseas Chinese Christian backers, Yuan used dramatic excerpts from several historical dramas about ancient China to illustrate his point. He flew in one of Beijing’s top TV documentary narrators for several days to help out. Toward the end of the documentary, there is news footage of Chairman Mao at different stages of the revolution, including the fanatical Red Guard idolatry of him in 1966. Aired on TV across Southeast Asia as well as Taiwan, China’s Confession is unlikely to be released legally in China in the near future. But China’s Confession has been shown secretly to Christian groups all over China. Those Chinese Christians I spoke to were full of praise for what Yuan was trying to do. They said they knew a number of peole who had become Christian after watching the documentary. Yuan is also an accomplished preacher; tapes and videos of his sermons are in wide circulation across China and are enthusiastically received.

Yuan’s objective is very ambitious. “Our goal,” he explained in his modest home in Petaluma, California, “is to change the perception of China by the Chinese. If you go to any city and ask the average person, 99 percent of the people don’t understand Christianity. They don’t even know what the question is. Some people in China don’t even know that there are Christians in China.”

To counter this lacuna in basic knowledge, Yuan in 2001 embarked on an even more ambitious documentary a multi-part series on Christianity in China. Making many secret trips in and out of China that year, Yuan took his film crew to Christian communities the length and breadth of China. At one point, early in 2002, they filmed a Christian rock concert in the city of Daqing, close to the Russian border. Having a total of some four hundred hours of interview and narrative film, Yuan’s latest project is called The Cross. It seeks to explain to ordinary Chinese what major contributions Christians have made to Chinese life in the past century or more. He said in 2002, “We want to let government leaders see the movie. The most important thing is to make people realise that Christianity is related to Chinese culture. It is not a Western religion. The main purpose is to tell the Chinese people that the God of the Bible is the God of the Chinese people.” Yuan would like to have the English-language version of The Cross shown on American TV.

The Cross was released in both the United States and China in October 2003 and immediately achieved what Yuan had hoped: it attracted the attention of the Chinese authorities. The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) showed the documentary to several of it high-ranking officials, and also distributed it throughout the country to lower-ranking officials in charge of religious work with orders that everyone watch it. The intent was to put them on alert to the alarming trend of the spread of Christianity throughout the country and society. According to one Three-Self [government approved] pastor, however, some low-level Communist Party cadres who watched The Cross were perplexed. “This is a bad thing?” he quoted some as asking in response to the stories of repentant criminals, healed marriages, honest businessmen and well-behaved teenagers as a result of conversion to Christian faith.

David Aikman is a former Beijing Bureau Chief for Time Magazine.

or Theonomy in the Bible

“…instead of Moses and Aaron challenging the powers that be, we have Herodian preachers crying “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. Nathan is not qualified to confront David because Nathan himself has been sleeping around.”

In his post Christianity as Comprehensive Cultural Tribunal?, timsmartt questions the validity of philosophy’s self-appointed role as an unbiased cultural referee and wonders whether Christianity should take that role:

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or A Thimbleful of Watery Bible Broth

The Modernist Bible is very thin. The Old Testament is a mix of myth and history, and Revelation is just a general picture book of the gospel’s work in the world (or a polemic against first century Rome). It boils down basically to some key statements by Jesus and the letters of Paul. And even here, there are problems. Evangelicals love Paul because he communicates like a Greek, but even evangelicals choke on some things he says.

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]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/07/13/communist-theology/feed/ 2 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/10/the-obsolete-testament/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/10/the-obsolete-testament/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:59:03 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=849 The Old Testament surely has a measure of built-in obsolescence. But it is the obsolescence of childhood. The New Testament, the Covenant of the Man, cannot be truly understood without a detailed knowledge of the Old. A friend posted this quote from Rudolph Bultmann: “who went on to cast a large shadow of influence over 20th century theology. Bultmann argues that the whole Old Testament narrative is of no importance to the Christian faith.”

“To the Christian faith the Old Testament is no longer revelation as it has been, and still is, for the Jews. For the person who stands within the Church the history of Israel is a closed chapter… Israel’s history is not our history, and in so far as God has shown his grace in that history, such grace is not meant for us… The events which meant something for Israel, which were God’s Word, mean nothing more to us… To the Christian faith the Old Testament is not in the true sense God’s Word.”1

A lot of these 20th century theologians ruminate endlessly on the implications of the cross, and come up with all sorts of complicated ideas, some good, some bad. Sure, we need Christian philosophy, but we have the Old Testament history, sovereignly directed by God so we can understand both the cross and the events of the first century, typologically. If we reject this method, we are deliberately reading the Bible with one eye. And often even that eye is glazed over with remnants of higher criticism and/or scientistic methodology. One response to a renewed call to singing Psalms in church was that it was ‘bizarre.’ I guess it is if the Old Testament is obsolete. We need to stop coming to the Bible as critics – as judges – and come before it for judgment as the accused. Otherwise we end up with a screwy hybrid of a world view that brings scorn from the world and confusion to the church.

Modern Christians often don’t know who they are. Israel’s history is most assuredly our history, as much as a narrow trunk suddenly fills the sky with branches. Peter Leithart wrote:

“Recovering the Old Testament as a text in which Christians live and move and have their being is one of the most urgent tasks before the church. Reading the Reformers is good and right. Christian political activism has its place. Even at their best, however, these can only bruise the heel of a world that has abandoned God. But the Bible—the Bible is a sword to divide joints from marrow, a weapon to crush the head.”2

I guess I am a bit sick of people posting about what such-and-such theologian wrote that has little or no reference to the Bible. We need more theologians who are willing to wrestle with the text itself, especially the Old Testament, and be brave enough to get off the critic’s high horse and use the typology built into the Scriptures. The most difficult passages render the greatest rewards. It seems that anything that is too difficult or obscure gets relegated to the ‘obsolete/culturally bound/irrelevant’ basket. Is the Bible God’s Word or not? There is not one word in it that is not there for a reason.

So if you want to philosophise about the cross, perhaps begin in the Obsolete Testament, humbling as that may be, and read it the way the apostles did. Might do us all some good.

Rant over.

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1  Rudolph Bultmann, ‘The Significance of The Old Testament for Christian Faith’, pp.8-35 in B. Anderson, The Old Testament and Christian Faith, 1963.
2  Peter J. Leithart, A House For My Name, p. 40.

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Darwin’s Joker
by Gary DeMar

There are no spoilers in this review. I saw The Dark Knight, the new Batman film, this weekend. It’s everything the reviewers have been saying about it and more. Heath Ledger’s performance is certainly worthy of an Academy Award and not because of sentimentality over his premature death. The role was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he played it perfectly. You will believe he is the Joker. I suspect that Ledger called on some of his below-the-surface struggles, his own demons if you will, to bring the character to life. We all have the potential to play the Joker, but we keep it in check because of the “work of the law” written on our heart (Rom. 2:15).

The movie is disturbing. It’s meant to be. I don’t know the worldview of Christopher Nolan, director, co-writer, and co-producer with an impressive film pedigree, but he got so much right in depicting fallen human nature and the consistency of living out the implications of a worldview without a moral rudder.

Charles Darwin could never have conceived of the Joker character as he is depicted and played in The Dark Knight. Darwinism flowered in the midst of a world impacted imperfectly by a tide of Christian influence. No one was talking about being an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.” No one was claiming that morals are social constructs. The Joker as portrayed by Ledger is the consistent Darwinist. To use his own words, “I’m just ahead of the curve.” There is nothing menacing about the Joker if evolution is true. If you go to see the film, ask yourself this question: “If the assumptions of the four horsemen of atheism are true, what did the Joker do that was wrong?” To be ahead of the curve simply means that he figured out and is willing to live out what he is by nature. Darwin drew the blueprints for the Joker thinking he was making Pygmalion.

One thing did disturb me more than some of scenes. There was quite a bit of giggling and outright laughter by some people in the audience as the Joker did his thing. Apparently some people found the Joker’s antics funny. They couldn’t see where the story line was going. A little after past the halfway mark, the giggling stopped. This movie wasn’t taking the usual warm and fuzzy track like you see in most superhero movies. I suspect the gigglers didn’t realize how philosophically ignorant they were when they entered the theater, but maybe now they know better.

Will any of the reviewers discuss this theme? I doubt it. Should you see The Dark Knight? No doubt; you should, however, it’s not a movie for children and maybe even some adults.

]]> http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/10/ahead-of-the-curve/feed/ 0 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/10/leading-anti-creationist-philosopher-admits-that-evolution-is-a-religion/ http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/10/leading-anti-creationist-philosopher-admits-that-evolution-is-a-religion/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:22:14 +0000 http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/?p=767

‘Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint—and Mr [sic] Gish is but one of many to make it—the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

‘… Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.’

Reference: Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? National Post, pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000.

Michael Ruse was professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada (recently moved to Florida), He was the leading anti-creationist philosopher whose (flawed) arguments seemed to convince the biased judge to rule against the Arkansas ‘balanced treatment’ (of creation and evolution in schools) bill in 1981/2. At the trial, he and the other the anti-creationists loftily dismissed the claim that evolution was an anti-god religion.