Below is a flow chart that I have made to illustrate Book 2 of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. In this book, Lewis argues that all worldviews, except biblical Christianity, are inadequate to give an account of how and why evil has entered the world.
In the end, the existence of evil is not a problem for Christianity; it is a problem for everyone else.
Flow Chart of Evil
I hope you find this helpful as you study Lewis' classic work of apologetics.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Why Christians Care So Much About Sexual Sins
After this experience, I began to contemplate what it must be like for that woman. Is it like this everywhere she goes? Is she used to it? Does she like it? Does she feel trapped or subtly victimized? What I think is so terrible about this is that this apparently innocent woman was essentially reduced to an object. But why?
I suppose that it is possible that she is a known prostitute/cat-strangler/voodoo priestess in town and that I'm the only one who didn't know. In that case, it would make sense that people would turn and stare at this woman they had heard about--but why only the men? My intuition tells me that this is about sex. This poor woman has been reduced from a person with hopes and dreams to a mere object of fantastical sexual pleasure in the minds of the passersby.
Everyday in every town in our nation, women are objectified just like this woman. You can see it. Next time you see a woman jogging down the road, watch the lingering eyes of some of the drivers as they pass. Some will honk, some will slow down, and others will nearly drive their cars into the ditch or on-coming traffic. This rightfully ought to produce an inner sense of disgust and perversion toward the sin of lust (in ourselves and in others).
 |
| beef tenderloin |
C.S. Lewis reasoned through two possible explanations for this sexual obsession by way of a thought experiment. In Mere Christianity [1], he imagines a land in which the residents attend bizarre food peep shows. The people sit in a theater with a curtained stage. On the other side of the curtain is some delectable food--let's say, a tenderloin. The crowd sits in eager expectation, hooting and hollering, waiting for the curtain to open just seconds before the lights are turned off. This behavior seems bizarre to us. The question Lewis wants us to consider is, what might be the cause for the food obsession?
- One group theorizes that the cause of the obsession is starvation. They have been deprived of adequate food for so long that they have become obsessed with the thought of their next meal. Since food is an analogy for sex, this is the position of sexual libertarians. They blame puritanical Christian religion for starving us of our natural inclinations and need for sex. Abstinence is the problem, and sexual exposure is the solution. Christians have stigmatized human sexuality to the point that it has caused a sort of neurosis of starvation.
- Another group, on the other hand, might argue that the bizarre food obsession is caused by gluttony. The problem is not a lack of sex in culture but an excess attention to it. This is the position that many Christians rightly take today, arguing that our society has become so sex-obsessed that a perfectly good thing (sex) has become this bizarre freak show. Lewis writes, "Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations."
Why Christians care so much about sexual sins
There is so much more that can be said on this topic, but C.S. Lewis' illustration explains why Christians care so much about sexual sins--they lead to total societal obsession. Christians want to stand against the tide of sexual obsession in society, because it leads to the victimization of our neighbors, and Jesus commands us to love our neighbors (Matthew 22:34-40). Women, like the one at the mall, are reduced to the status of a plate of beef tenderloin.
Societies obsessed with sex develop such pathologies as homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, rape, sadomasochism, prostitution, and sex trafficking. These are all activities that lead to individual and/or societal victimization, and it disproportionately affects women and children. In addition, these activities and lifestyles contribute to psychological and physical harm, and they jeopardize public health through the spread of disease and addiction. The proper Christian response is not motivated by self-righteousness, "for there is no one righteous," (Romans 3:10) but from a desire to protect our neighbors, their children, their wives, their mothers, and their daughters from being victimized. [2] Christians desire to have a preservative effect on society that protects everyone, especially the most vulnerable among us. We care so much about sexual sin, because we want to do our part to create a society in which our daughters don't be come slaves.
A wise man once told me that sin will always take you further than you want to go, and I've learned that that is as true of society as it is of the individual. I don't think sexual libertarians really want to go to where their theories will take them.
--------------------------
[1] Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 5.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Advice to Christian College Students of Atheist [Philosophy] Professors
Despite the fact that I'm 32-years-old
and have a Masters degree in theology, I'm taking a freshman-level
philosophy course at a local university. Have you ever had a class
with an annoying “non-traditional” student? Yes, I'm that
guy. As the class has progressed, it has become very clear to me that
my professor is a committed atheist and philosophical materialist, and he knows
that I'm a committed Christian. Too often, Christian college students
who find themselves in my position do not know how to respond to
their professors with “gentleness and respect,” as is exhorted by
the Apostle Peter. (1 Peter 3:15) Below is my advice to the young
college students who find themselves in a philosophy class with an
atheist professor. (The principles here apply to any class with a
non-Christian teacher.)
Plato (teacher) and Aristotle (student) disagreed. Be respectful toward your professor. Your professor likely has a PhD or some other upper-level degree in his area of expertise. It is highly likely that he is smarter than you and has worked harder than you've ever dreamed of working. He deserves your respect for that alone. On the other hand, you must earn his respect.- Lean how to think, not what to think. Going to college is not just about amassing large amounts of information. More importantly, it is about learning how to think. This is especially true in philosophy and logic classes. Even if your professor rejects belief in God, he may have a valid argument, because it is well reasoned. (Note: an argument can be valid but not true.) Learn those skills of reasoning from him. Even if you come to a different conclusion, those skills will serve you well as a Christian and citizen.
- Always use the principle of charity in argumentation. The “principle of charity” is more than just loving your neighbor, as Jesus commanded. It is a way of arguing philosophically. It means to grant your opponent the strongest interpretation of his argument. Otherwise, you run the risk of committing the “straw-man” fallacy—setting up a weaker form of your opponents argument and defeating it. Christians frequently do this with such topics as open theism, evolution, atheism, and communism. Do not explain your opponent's position in a way that your opponent would reject. When we commit the straw man fallacy, we seem desperate and appear as if we only want to win, rather than find truth. If your professor can see that you're committed to finding truth with him, rather than fighting against him, he's more likely to respect you back.
- Do not ask questions to teach. This happens a lot for a couple of different reasons. One reason students ask questions is to show off to their classmates (and maybe the professor) how much they know. It's just plain arrogance. A second reason, which is a bit less self-centered, is to challenge the professor's assertions by asking a loaded question meant to provoke debate. It is a passive form of teaching. The problem is that you are not the teacher. No one paid tuition to hear you teach; they paid to hear the professor teach. Also, if you are invited to challenge the professor (again, a good professor will encourage this in civil discussion), do so in a bold, straight-forward way. Disguising your dissent as a question is passive aggressive and annoying to the professor and your classmates. Be transparent.
- Do ask questions to learn. Ask sincere questions for the true purpose of learning what the professor wants you to learn. This means you should 1) try to keep your questions relevant to what the professor wants to teach and 2) only ask questions that you don't already know the answer to. Asking genuine questions, even if they relate to your Christian worldview, is perfectly legitimate.
- Expect the professor to teach from within his worldview. A good professor will teach passionately about what he believes and understands. This means that an atheist professor will teach from and defend his naturalism. As long as he is rationally consistent and receptive to others' sincere questions and dissent, this, I think, is acceptable. We expect Christian professors to holistically integrate their faith into their teaching. Why expect any less from non-Christians, even if their worldviews are wrong? Expecting a Christian to teach from within the subjective acceptance of the Christian faith while, at the same time, expecting an atheist to teach from a neutral and objective position is a double standard. Also, I'm not convinced that it is even possible to teach from a purely objective perspective.
- Stay calm. If you take a philosophy course (or any other course, really) under a non-Christian, it will almost inevitably cause some level of crisis or doubt in your faith. Don't panic. Just because the class raises questions that you don't have answers for does not mean that there are no answers. A professor equipped with experience, expertise, and a PhD outmatches a college student any day. Remember: for every atheist philosophy or biology professor who sees no logical reason to believe in God, there are equally educated and intelligent Christian professors out there who would argue the opposite. The truth of Christianity does not depend upon your understanding, so don't freak out.
- Fill out the teacher evaluation. If you do have a terrible professor, this is where you express that. Universities use student evaluations as part of their overall evaluation of professors. Professors are held accountable to their students to some degree. If you have a lousy professor whose tenure has placed him above the accountability of student evaluations, you just have to get over it. Play the game, learn what you can, and move on with life. There is no reason to argue with a lousy professor (atheist or not), because they don't care about their students enough to care about your words anyway. In my experience, getting this sort of professor, however, is very rare.
My professor and I have a delightful
and cordial relationship, because we respect one another, and, even
if we come to very different conclusions, we both are seeking truth.
I do pray that he comes to know the God of Scriptures who created him
wonderfully and fearfully in His own image, but, if he doesn't, I've
still developed a good relationship and shown him the Gospel and the
kindness of Christ. What he does with that is between him and God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God."
--Jesus (Matthew 5:9)
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Why God Doesn't Hate Religion
There is a propensity within evangelicalism to claim that "religion" is bad but that a "relationship" with God is good. Religion, as it is used here, implies cold rigidity, self-centeredness, and formulas. It can be accomplished in rote with little feeling or purpose. Relationship implies vitality, purpose, love, and meaning without Pharisaical methodology.
This is, I think, a false dichotomy, and I argue that the distinction is not between religion and relationship but between good religion and bad religion. Disregarding religion altogether is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
John Calvin called humans homo religioso or religious man. In the animal kingdom, religiosity is one of the key factors that sets homo sapien apart from the other animal creatures. Humans are inherently and incurably religious. It is notable that there are no societies that were or are atheistic. [1] Even in the absence of God's special revelation through Jesus or the Scriptures, humans have still invented religious narratives. In Rome, Greece, and Egypt, it was mythological polytheism. In Africa and the Americas, the natives practiced forms of animism and ancestor worship. In the east, human beings have been cosmic Buddhists, polytheistic Hindus, or various other forms of pantheism. In the absence of the knowledge of Yahweh, humans will worship the stars, the sun, sea creatures, cows, and mountains. Or they'll deify all of Gaia itself. This is why Calvin wrote, "the human mind is a perpetual factory of idols." [2] The point is, outside of modern universities, there just have not been many atheists. Why? Because God created man to be religious. Expecting humans to not be religious is like expecting a Corvette to not be fast.
This God-designed trait in human beings works its way out systematically in the form of religion, and religion may be either true or false. [3] True Christian religion ought to be one whose central tenets are love of God and love of neighbor. It is Christ-centered, Gospel-focused, others-serving, and Scripture-based. It is obedient to God and sacrificial to others. It loves orphans, widows, prostitutes, the poor, and the marginalized.
For all of its merits, evangelicalism has over-emphasized the individual at the expense of the universal Church. The Christian life has become about one's own relationship with God, rather than the whole Church's relationship with God. The Bible certainly points to the necessity of the individual to love God and be "born again," (John 3:3) but the Church is also called the "Bride of Christ," a term, which is collective for the Church as a whole. (2 Cor. 11:2-3; Eph. 5:22ff; Rev. 19:6-10; Rev. 21:9-27) The "flock," the "building," the "bride," the "body," the "branch," and the "preisthood" are all collective similes for the Church, which illustrate the fact that God cares greatly for the whole institution, not just its individual members. Many have long neglected the covenant community of the Church with whom God commands us to worship, love, edify, carry out discipline, practice baptism, share communion, and give our offerings. There is a certain level of religious formula and ritual (religion) in the faithful Christian life that cannot and should not be neglected.
Of course the formulaic nature can be abused and become lifeless, but that is bad religion. Again, as James wrote, "faith without works is dead." (James 2:20, KJV) Dead, false, or bad religion is a problem. Good religion follows the formula without neglecting things like love, truth, sacrifice, and spiritual affection. Saying that religion and relationship are antithetical is an oversimplification. I credit certain evangelical leaders (e.g. Jefferson Bethke) for trying to lead us to the cure--a genuine spiritual life--but I don't think the diagnosis was entirely accurate.
In my theological study at Wheaton College Graduate School, I learned to think of the religious rituals (and even formal liturgy) in a new way.
Dr. George Kalantzis, my professor of ancient theology at Wheaton College (IL), once compared the sacraments (communion and baptism) to sex. For people like me this statement carried great shock value. Where could he possibly be going with this? He semi-jokingly stated that young people get married to have sex (at least they should wait until marriage) and then they have sex to stay married. His point was that sex is designed by God to deepen the relational bond between married people. While initially newly married couples focus on the act in and of itself, there ought to be a change of focus to the purpose behind it. When sex is no longer novel, it would be a huge mistake to stop doing it; otherwise, the reason for it--the deepening of the marriage bond--is lost. From a Christian perspective, a marriage without sex is not a good marriage. This is why marriage counselors will often encourage troubled married couples to make an effort toward physical connection even when they don't feel like it. The formality has a way deepening the relationship and becoming more than mere formality. Religious practices (baptism, communion, liturgy, prayer, worship, and giving a tithe) can have the same effect, I think.
Immature young people drop out of church life during college because it ceases to be fun and novel for them. (Coincidentally, this is often the same reason people get divorces.) The mature minority stick it out and continue to practice the "religion" and, in time, they find that their hearts are softened and the formality becomes genuine relationship. If we only practiced faith when we felt like we had a deep relationship with the Lord, there would likely be very little to the Christian life for most of us.
By trying to be relational, many well-meaning evangelical leaders are trying to communicate the Gospel to young people. Ironically, however, this runs the risk of alienating an entire generation of Christians who long to be connected to something historic. The strong restorationist impulse of evangelicals has given the impression that the only church history that matters is that found in the early Church and in a small number of Christians since then (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and maybe Edwards). And, these few historical voices are usually used as little more than a foil against Catholicism. In particular, young people born since 1980 or 1990 seem to crave historical connection, and they have rejected the historical isolationism of their parents.
Feeling like they have no other options many young evangelicals have left for confessional churches, such as Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Presbyterian denominations. Others have jumped off the Protestant ship altogether and embraced Catholicism. They don't know what to do with the seven sacraments, priestly celibacy, Mariology, or papal authority, but they are willing to live with the tension. To many, those things are an acceptable price to pay for the sense of historicity and connection to the past.
The evangelical rejection of history, tradition, and religion is pushing away the youth who crave just those things as part of a genuine and vital Christian faith.
Toward a solution
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that evangelicals place religious tradition on an equal pedestal with the Scriptures. God's inerrant revelation in Jesus and the Scriptures ought to always be our rule of faith. However, we do need to make a place in our teaching and study for discussion with Christians from the past. Most Christians in the universal church are dead, and they had a lot of really good things to say. They may or may not be right, but we should not tune them out due to our over-hyped fear of religion and religious tradition.
Secondly, I think it would be more edifying to quit beating up on religion and start trying to purify it. When Pharisees practice bad or dead religion, they must be called on it. When our religious institutions give more attention to political campaigns than they do to single mothers, sex slaves, orphaned children, the disabled, and the lost, they should be boldly exhorted. But, to deny religion per se is to deny an essential part of our very humanity, which God himself designed.
Let's push one another on toward "pure and faultless" religion.
[1] I'm not here using this as an argument for the existence of God. I'm simply stating that, if God did create human beings, we would expect them to be incurably religious.
[2] Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1559. I, xi, 7.
[3] I suspect this happens because the Bible does not tell us every single detail about God or the Christian life. Being religious, therefore, we instinctively fill in the blanks.
This is, I think, a false dichotomy, and I argue that the distinction is not between religion and relationship but between good religion and bad religion. Disregarding religion altogether is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
(In the attached video clip, Jefferson Bethke illustrates this tendency of evangelicals to condemn religion generally. This video quickly went viral on Youtube, because it struck a nerve with so many people-both positively and negatively.)
John Calvin called humans homo religioso or religious man. In the animal kingdom, religiosity is one of the key factors that sets homo sapien apart from the other animal creatures. Humans are inherently and incurably religious. It is notable that there are no societies that were or are atheistic. [1] Even in the absence of God's special revelation through Jesus or the Scriptures, humans have still invented religious narratives. In Rome, Greece, and Egypt, it was mythological polytheism. In Africa and the Americas, the natives practiced forms of animism and ancestor worship. In the east, human beings have been cosmic Buddhists, polytheistic Hindus, or various other forms of pantheism. In the absence of the knowledge of Yahweh, humans will worship the stars, the sun, sea creatures, cows, and mountains. Or they'll deify all of Gaia itself. This is why Calvin wrote, "the human mind is a perpetual factory of idols." [2] The point is, outside of modern universities, there just have not been many atheists. Why? Because God created man to be religious. Expecting humans to not be religious is like expecting a Corvette to not be fast.
 | |
| This article illustrates the same anti-"religion" impulse. |
For all of its merits, evangelicalism has over-emphasized the individual at the expense of the universal Church. The Christian life has become about one's own relationship with God, rather than the whole Church's relationship with God. The Bible certainly points to the necessity of the individual to love God and be "born again," (John 3:3) but the Church is also called the "Bride of Christ," a term, which is collective for the Church as a whole. (2 Cor. 11:2-3; Eph. 5:22ff; Rev. 19:6-10; Rev. 21:9-27) The "flock," the "building," the "bride," the "body," the "branch," and the "preisthood" are all collective similes for the Church, which illustrate the fact that God cares greatly for the whole institution, not just its individual members. Many have long neglected the covenant community of the Church with whom God commands us to worship, love, edify, carry out discipline, practice baptism, share communion, and give our offerings. There is a certain level of religious formula and ritual (religion) in the faithful Christian life that cannot and should not be neglected.
Of course the formulaic nature can be abused and become lifeless, but that is bad religion. Again, as James wrote, "faith without works is dead." (James 2:20, KJV) Dead, false, or bad religion is a problem. Good religion follows the formula without neglecting things like love, truth, sacrifice, and spiritual affection. Saying that religion and relationship are antithetical is an oversimplification. I credit certain evangelical leaders (e.g. Jefferson Bethke) for trying to lead us to the cure--a genuine spiritual life--but I don't think the diagnosis was entirely accurate.
In my theological study at Wheaton College Graduate School, I learned to think of the religious rituals (and even formal liturgy) in a new way.
Religious practice is like sex
Dr. George Kalantzis, my professor of ancient theology at Wheaton College (IL), once compared the sacraments (communion and baptism) to sex. For people like me this statement carried great shock value. Where could he possibly be going with this? He semi-jokingly stated that young people get married to have sex (at least they should wait until marriage) and then they have sex to stay married. His point was that sex is designed by God to deepen the relational bond between married people. While initially newly married couples focus on the act in and of itself, there ought to be a change of focus to the purpose behind it. When sex is no longer novel, it would be a huge mistake to stop doing it; otherwise, the reason for it--the deepening of the marriage bond--is lost. From a Christian perspective, a marriage without sex is not a good marriage. This is why marriage counselors will often encourage troubled married couples to make an effort toward physical connection even when they don't feel like it. The formality has a way deepening the relationship and becoming more than mere formality. Religious practices (baptism, communion, liturgy, prayer, worship, and giving a tithe) can have the same effect, I think.
Immature young people drop out of church life during college because it ceases to be fun and novel for them. (Coincidentally, this is often the same reason people get divorces.) The mature minority stick it out and continue to practice the "religion" and, in time, they find that their hearts are softened and the formality becomes genuine relationship. If we only practiced faith when we felt like we had a deep relationship with the Lord, there would likely be very little to the Christian life for most of us.
Religion values the whole community, past and present
By trying to be relational, many well-meaning evangelical leaders are trying to communicate the Gospel to young people. Ironically, however, this runs the risk of alienating an entire generation of Christians who long to be connected to something historic. The strong restorationist impulse of evangelicals has given the impression that the only church history that matters is that found in the early Church and in a small number of Christians since then (Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and maybe Edwards). And, these few historical voices are usually used as little more than a foil against Catholicism. In particular, young people born since 1980 or 1990 seem to crave historical connection, and they have rejected the historical isolationism of their parents.
Feeling like they have no other options many young evangelicals have left for confessional churches, such as Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Presbyterian denominations. Others have jumped off the Protestant ship altogether and embraced Catholicism. They don't know what to do with the seven sacraments, priestly celibacy, Mariology, or papal authority, but they are willing to live with the tension. To many, those things are an acceptable price to pay for the sense of historicity and connection to the past.
The evangelical rejection of history, tradition, and religion is pushing away the youth who crave just those things as part of a genuine and vital Christian faith.
Toward a solution
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that evangelicals place religious tradition on an equal pedestal with the Scriptures. God's inerrant revelation in Jesus and the Scriptures ought to always be our rule of faith. However, we do need to make a place in our teaching and study for discussion with Christians from the past. Most Christians in the universal church are dead, and they had a lot of really good things to say. They may or may not be right, but we should not tune them out due to our over-hyped fear of religion and religious tradition.
Secondly, I think it would be more edifying to quit beating up on religion and start trying to purify it. When Pharisees practice bad or dead religion, they must be called on it. When our religious institutions give more attention to political campaigns than they do to single mothers, sex slaves, orphaned children, the disabled, and the lost, they should be boldly exhorted. But, to deny religion per se is to deny an essential part of our very humanity, which God himself designed.
Let's push one another on toward "pure and faultless" religion.
James 1:26-27 -- Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
[1] I'm not here using this as an argument for the existence of God. I'm simply stating that, if God did create human beings, we would expect them to be incurably religious.
[2] Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1559. I, xi, 7.
[3] I suspect this happens because the Bible does not tell us every single detail about God or the Christian life. Being religious, therefore, we instinctively fill in the blanks.
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