withallyourmind.net

I posted this review of The Shack by Tim Challies a few weeks ago. I’ve just read this review of The Shack by Ben Witherington III.

Witherington seemed to find a few more redemptive qualities in the book than did Challies, but in the end he voiced some of the same concerns. I think these concerns are weighty enough to far offset any redemptive qualities the book may have. The Shack promotes grave theological error.

The first of Witherington’s concerns relates to book’s negative attitude toward organized Christianity:

… (W)hile no one would deny it’s very much about living and loving relationships, the truth of the matter is that it is a false dichotomy to separate Jesus from religion, or for that matter organism from organization. Let me give an illustration on the latter point.

Consider for example a very simple organism indeed—the single cell amoeba a form of protozoa. Now the amoeba is nothing if not flexible. It can subdivide over and over again. But within that larger flexible entity there is organization—there is a nucleus for example, without which it could not exist. It also has pseudo-pods by which it moves and vacuoles by which it maintains its equilibrium. Without structure, order and organization it could not ever be even a viable living thing. This is in fact true of all organisms, and that includes the church, if one wants to call it an organism. That doesn’t mean that human beings aren’t capable of over-institutionalzing things, or ossifying some of the structures, but to pit organism over against organization, with one seen as living and the other dead, one God-given, and the other man-made is absolutely a false dichotomy when it comes to the church.

There is no such thing in heaven or on earth as an organism without organization, order, structure, form, otherwise it would have no distinct shape, purpose, or being. And that applies to God, the church, as well as to all created things—remember the story of how God created the universe in a very specific order with very specific properties? Well it’s always been like that. Creativity takes a particular form and shape, bring order out of chaos or a disparate group of elements. Spontaneity is not particularly more God-like than something that was planned before the foundations of the world and executed over a long period of time. And why we should think an organism like the church needs to normally be completely spontaneous in order to be ‘alive’ is a mystery. Perhaps it is an over-reaction to spending too much time in moribund or unwell churches.

A second serious misstep in The Shack is its heretical presentation of the Trinity. Here, again, is Witherington:

Another of the bad guys in this novel is ‘hierarchy’ whether in human relationships or in the Godhead…

There are some real problems with this sort of formulation, especially when one comes to deal with the fact that the Son is the only begotten of the Father, and only the Son dies on the cross, and no one comes to the Father except through the Son, and no one receives the Spirit except if the Father and Son sends the Spirit. Even in the most revealing of Gospels when it comes to the relationship between Father and Son, the Fourth Gospel, we have a very clear picture of a functional subordination of the Son to the Father—he can only do and say what his Father gives him to do and to say, even though he is fully equal in being to the Father and can be called God in John 1 and 20 (see my study The Shadow of the Almighty). In other words, hierarchy and subordination are not inherently the enemies of equality of being… The image of God in this novel is even pushed so far as to say that following “When we three spoke ourself into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations that this entailed.” (p. 98). This statement is closer to Monarchianism, a heresy the early church rightly condemned than it is to Biblical Christianity.

The Father and the Spirit did not become incarnate as the Son did, and did not assume the limitations the Son did at the point of the Incarnation. Only the Son took on flesh. The three-ness of God must be stressed just as much as the oneness of being or ‘ousia’ of God, and in that three-ness there are things that can be said of the Son that cannot be said of Father or Spirit (for example the Father is unbegotten from all eternity, the Son alone died on the cross, and the Spirit did not become Incarnate with or as Jesus). Equally problematic is the comment on p. 100—“I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one.” This for sure is not what the ecumenical councils said about the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit. They said that the three persons of God shared the divine nature or ousia, not that each of the 3 are fully and entirely the one (go back and read up on monarchianism, monothelitism, Sabellianism, and Apollonarianism).

Ben Witherington’s review has much more excellent insight, including questions concerning freedom raised by the novel. I encourage the reading of his full review.

A London Times article, Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup, by Kate Muir, describes Richard Dawkins as “a knight of the mind who goes into battle against the ignorance and foolhardiness of the populace.” By this, she means, of course, the antiquated belief in God. I’ve rarely read such drooling adulation in the public media. Dawkins, who will featured in a three-part television series in Britain, Dawkins on Darwin, claims that:

natural selection is “the most important idea to occur to the human mind”, the slow change of species over millions of ideas disproving the religious theory of intelligent design by God.

There is much one could say about this article, but one particular comment of Dawkin’s caught my eye. Muir explains:

Again he lapses into silence, but I now know to sit out these Pinteresque moments rather than interrupt – while most interviewees are floundering, Dawkins is thinking. “There’s a very important misunderstanding of the relationship between Hitler and Darwin, which is relevant to this,” he resumes. “A lot of people think that Hitler sort of was a Darwinian, which he absolutely wasn’t. What Hitler did was to take the principle of domestic breeding of animals and apply it to humans. What Darwin did was to take the principle of the domestic breeding of animals and apply it to nature. It’s all done by nature, by who as a matter of fact survives.”

About three months ago, I wrote a post, The Darwin-Hitler Link, which was written in the context of the controversy stirred by the Ben Stein movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. This movie suggested that Darwinism was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the atrocities committed under Hitler. Of course, the church of science, of which Richard Dawkins is the leading evangelist, contested about the unfairness and illegitimacy of claiming that Darwinism was in any way responsible for Naziism.

Now, whether or not Hitler ever knew of Darwin (which he most certainly did), Dawkins seems to admit that the Hitler and Darwin both based their theories and/or actions on the same basic understanding. Hitler applied domestic breeding principles to human beings, while Darwin applied it to all of nature. Based on this observation, it seems to be a straightforward, non-contestable claim that Hitler’s actions were based on Darwinian principles. Human beings are, on a Darwinian view, nothing more than a part of nature. They are, like any other animal, a product of blind chance and natural selection. To say that it is a misunderstanding that Hitler was “sort of a Darwinian” seems moot in any important sense. Hitler applied the same principles as did Darwin to a subset (human beings) of the total Darwinian set (all of nature, including human beings). Am I missing something, or is not the Darwin-Hitler link established by Dawkins’ statements?

(HT: Al Mohler)

As I attempted to catch up on the last week’s posts by my favoite bloggers, I came across this surprising one in which John Mark Reynolds attempts to defend the (nearly) indefensible. The (nearly) indefensible, in this case, is the sacrilege offered by scientist/religious skeptic P.Z. Myers:

I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. . .

These remarks (and others) have produced much angry response. Reynolds, first of all explains why some are rightfully upset about Myers’ words. After this, however, Reynolds offers some great counsel concerning what a Christian’s response to such “blasphemy” should be.

First, he advises, one should not confuse the actions of one skeptic with that of most skeptics. Not all, in fact, not many, skeptics share his views, or would condone his actions.

Second,…

if P.Z. Myers does blaspheme, then it will be a sad act of theatrical atheism doing more harm to his own cause than to Christianity. Such antics embarrass the vast majority of nonbelievers who are good neighbors in our pluralistic, but majority Christian society.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, Reynolds reminds us that Christians should examine their own attitudes and actions:

Surely it is no better, and perhaps worse, when we piously kneel to receive Christ’s body only to slander our neighbor over the after church coffee? Myers blasphemes a God he does not know, but we fail in our duty to a God we do know.
Thereby, the tortured body of Christ suffers…

Professor Myers harms what he does not understand, but many of us have harmed ourselves and others, and thus Jesus Christ, while knowing what we are doing. Sadly, it will not likely be Professor Myers who causes the suffering Son of God the most pain this year.

Lastly, he stresses that one should be allowed to express his private opinions without fearing for his job at as a teacher at a public university. In Reynolds’ words:

Myers is invincibly ignorant of sophisticated philosophy or theology, but is evidently a fine scientist and teacher…

We may protest, argue, and defend our ideas. But history shows that our ideas will prosper best and that our churches are most safe in a society where Professor Myers can say what he wishes.

Jehovah Our Righteousness
(Jeremiah, xxiii.6)

My God, how perfect are Thy ways!
But mine polluted are;
Sin twines itself about my praise,
And slides into my prayer.

When I would speak what Thou hast done
To save me from my sin,
I cannot make Thy mercies known,
But self-applause creeps in.

Divine desire, that holy flame
Thy grace creates in me;
Alas! impatience is its name,
When it returns to Thee.

This heart, a fountain of vile thoughts.
How does it overflow,
While self upon the surface floats,
Still bubbling from below.

Let others in the gaudy dress
Of fancied merit shine;
The Lord shall be my righteousness,
The Lord forever mine.

William Cowper (1731-1800)

One of the most memorable moments in my sports-watching history (which is quite extensive) occured on Monday night as I sat before the screen watching Josh Hamilton blast ball after ball over the Yankee Stadium wall and into the anticipating hands of fan. I’ve never seen such a prodigious display of power in my years of watching baseball. By the time the first round was over, Hamilton had hit 28 home runs, an all-time record, far outdistancing the closest competitor who had 8 home runs. This feat in itself is astounding, but adding to the spectacle is the story of Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton was the number one overall draft pick in the 1999 baseball draft. He was drafted out of high school by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In 2001, injuries led to a downward spiral in which he wasted much of his $4,000,000 signing bonus on drugs and alcohol. He was officially out of baseball. Here’s what happened a few years later according to Josh in this ESPN piece:

Within my first week of sobriety in October 2005 — after I showed up at my grandmother’s house in Raleigh in the middle of the night, coming off a crack binge — I had the most haunting dream. I was fighting the devil, an awful-looking thing. I had a stick or a bat or something, and every time I hit the devil, he’d fall and get back up. Over and over I hit him, until I was exhausted and he was still standing.

I woke up in a sweat, as if I’d been truly fighting, and the terror that gripped me makes that dream feel real to this day. I’d been alone for so long, alone with the fears and emotions I worked so hard to kill. I’m not embarrassed to admit that after I woke up that night, I walked down the hall to my grandmother’s room and crawled under the covers with her. The devil stayed out of my dreams for seven months after that. I stayed clean and worked hard and tried to put my marriage and my life back together. I got word in June 2006 that I’d been reinstated by Major League Baseball, and a few weeks afterward, the devil reappeared.

It was the same dream, with an important difference. I would hit him and he would bounce back up, the ugliest and most hideous creature you could imagine. This devil seemed unbeatable; I couldn’t knock him out. But just when I felt like giving up, I felt a presence by my side. I turned my head and saw Jesus, battling alongside me. We kept fighting, and I was filled with strength. The devil didn’t stand a chance.

Congratulations to Josh Hamilton for his success in the home run derby, but more importantly, in the contest of life. He has given his life to Christ, and it is to Christ that he gives all the credit for where he is today. His story inspires many others who struggle with addictions.

It’s a precept of my Christian faith that my redemption comes through Christ. But I’m also a big believer in the Golden Rule, which I think is an essential pillar not only of my faith, but of my values and my ideals and my experience here on Earth. And I’m also a believer, as part of my faith, that I am a limited being, with limited understanding. And so I operate on the basis of, I operate knowing what I know for myself, but not presuming that I know everything, certainly not enough for me to condemn others, or to presume that their path is wrong.

These words were uttered by a presidential candidate in a recent Newsweek article about his religious faith. Melinda, over at Stand to Reason, has an excellent post in which she takes a closer look at this explanation of religious conviction. In her insightful commentary, she notes the following:

This, of course, isn’t an unusual sentiment these days - even among those who profess Christ, as the Senator does. But the only way a rational person can make such a statement is if they don’t believe religion is objectively true with any factual basis. This kind of statement can only be made if religion is a different kind of conviction than the rest of our beliefs that we live and function by. Religion is a personal preference with no objective, rational, truthful basis. The evidence that this is how Senator Obama views religion is how he treats other things he believes in, like politics. He is running for president because he thinks he knows the solutions for America and he’s comfortable saying that President Bush and Senator McCain are wrong in politics. Why else would you run for president and be interested in putting your ideas into public policy and law? So he’s comfortable presuming he knows true things that he wants to persuade others of in politics, but not religion because religion is somehow not truthful or factual in the same way.

She further notes:

Disagreeing with someone’s religion is not condemning them. Saying someone will go to Hell isn’t condemning them. It’s expressing a viewpoint. We don’t have control over whether someone goes to Heaven or Hell, and it’s possible we are wrong. But it’s God who condemns - or forgives. Not us. This common compulsion to compare disagreement with condemnation is false.

Here’s what I would love for a politician to say in reference to his religious beliefs (and moral beliefs for that matter). “I am firmly convinced that my religious faith (whatever that might be, Christian, Muslim, etc.) is true. That, of course, means I think other religious viewpoints are false in many of thier claims. Since we make contradictory claims, we cannot all be correct. I feel similarly about my political views. I believe I am right and the other candidate is wrong. This does not make one a bad person. I could be wrong about my beliefs and am always willing to reexamine them and rationally discuss them with those who disagree. I believe people should be free to embrace whatever religious beliefs which they feel are correct.”

Wouldn’t that be refreshing? (Of course, perhaps the person is a pluralist, in which case he should simply state that he is. He should then drop the line about his own faith and admit that all belief is equally true and valid and he chooses his own faith for reasons other than the truth value of it.)

In Al Mohler’s latest blog entry, Modernity, Madness, and Morals, he uses a recent Minette Marrin article in the London Times discussing a secular form of ethics called rational choice theory. According to this theory of ethics, which has features of a social contract theory, a person decides what is the correct course of action based on a rational choice. Mohler summarizes:

More recently, moral philosophers have settled on a more clearly secular theory of morality — rational choice theory. According to rational choice theory, people tend to settle on a moral code that fits their needs and leads, or is likely to lead, to their desired outcomes. In other words, individuals make a rational choice. A young woman might make a rational choice not to engage in premarital sex because she does not want to harm her reputation or opportunities or marriage. A young man might not shoplift because it would harm his chances of advancement. Rational choice theorists argue that their theory can explain virtually any human behavior, including moral choice.

As Marrin laments, and Mohler agrees, such a theory fails as an adequate theory upon which a society can base morality and ethics. Mohler uses the analogy of two boys, the first of which does well and receives positive reinforcement for his “good” decisions. The second receives no such reinforcement. Mohler observes:

The second boy has no experience of similar controls. He does not expect life to go better for him if he behaves well. He may lack parents who would even teach him how to behave, much less reward him when he obeys and punish him when he disobeys. Instead, he learns that cutting corners, breaking rules, flaunting his misbehavior, and playing the part of the “bad” boy works for him. He gets more attention (even if negative attention) and gains the respect of his peer structure by misbehavior.

Marrin astutely observes:

Morality depends on having something to lose. It isn’t just a matter of learning right from wrong, least of all in a post-religious society. Morality is socially constructed. I will respect your property and your person because I want you to respect mine. We both have something to lose. One does not have to be educated in political philosophy to understand that ancient deal. But if I have neither property nor respect from anyone, what’s in the deal for me?

Rational-choice theory certainly explains much of our behavior, but it is incapable of providing a firm basis of morality. This is the first of Mohler’s observations. The second is since much of our behavior may be explained by rational choice, humility should be embraced by all Christians who think they’re “good.” Much of our good behavior may be readily explained simply on the basis of rational choice. There is no place for pride. Mohler concludes thusly:

The rational choice theorist has little or nothing to say to the boys and young men of Minette Marrin’s concern. The Christian church does have something to say — the liberating truth of the Gospel. But in order to be heard, we had better first be humbled by the honest recognition that we are not as “good” as we like to think. We are all delinquents — every last one of us.

Mary Jo, of Confident Christainity, has reviewed Eckart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose, here. This book has been touted by Oprah Winfrey in her promotion of her new age religious philosophy.

Mary Jo does a nice job explaining the basic premises of the book and pinpointing the major problems:

Though there are numerous problems with Tolle’s philosophy, there are three glaring issues that I will touch on in this review: 1) Tolle’s view of thought processes: Through excessive reliance on thinking, reality becomes fragmented (page 196) and Being must be felt. It can’t be thought (page 40), 2) The problem of special knowledge, and 3) The refuting of “either/or” logic using “either/or” logic.

She fleshes out these problems in more detail in her post. While acknowledging that Tolle is not wrong in everything he states in the book, she asserts that much more is wrong than is right. She further states:

This is only a brief review of some of the problems with Tolle’s book. There are many more issues to deal with such as the relativism problem, the revisionist history included, and the cherry-picking of arguments to make a better case. There are also numerous theological issues; such as Tolle’s concept of the Christian view of God, his exegesis of passages of Scripture, his doctrine of the nature of man, and his doctrine of Jesus.

Pagan Christianity, a new book by Frank Viola and George Barna claims that much of what we experience as church-goers these days has little to do with Christianity and lot to do with pagan practices. Here’s the quick Amazon editorial review:

Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we “dress up” for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, choirs, and seminaries? This volume reveals the startling truth: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is not rooted in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence in the first-ever book to document the full story of modern Christian church practices.

Certainly, the modern American church is not without flaws. I’m certain we could improve on the way we do a lot of things. I might say that I have not yet read the book (although I’ve ordered it) so I cannot myself review or comment on anything which the book teaches. I will direct you to a review by New Testament expert, Ben Witherington. He has a five part review of the book, plus, an additional, related post yesterday on whether Christians should meet on Sunday and who should do the teaching. His insights and knowledge are helpful when considering the topic of this book.

A couple of excerpts from the first of his lengthy multi-part review:

Of course the big bad guy in Pagan Christianity is not going to be sin, suffering, the Devil, or any of those things. The big bad guy is going to be what is loosely called the Institutional Church and that other famous whipping boy—‘church tradition’ and oh yes— Greek philosophy. The particular animus is against the Roman Catholic Church for paganizing Christianity. Dan Brown would have liked this book.

One of the worst things that can happen to persons who are anti-institutionalists, and anti-sacramentalists, is that so angry are they about the excesses and bad theology that has sometimes come out of the ‘institutional church’ that they throw the baby right out with the sacramental baptismal waters. I understand this, but it is a colossal over-reaction. Desacralizing worship, the Lord’s Supper, and even persons is not something devout Christians should be about. The last thing the church needs is a more casual, less reverential approach to all these things which removes altogether the recognition that one is entering into the presence of the Holy One when one comes to worship, the One in whose presence we too become sanctified, something that happens through encountering God through prayers, praise, songs, sacraments, and of course the preaching as well.

This NY Times article discusses a controversial ancient tablet that was found approximately 10 years ago, but is now attracting lots of attention. This stone, which some call Gabriel’s Revelation (Since it contains an apocalypse given by the Angel Gabriel), was found in the Dead Sea area and is possible a Dead Sea Scroll on a 3 foot high piece of Stone. It is felt to date from the first century B.C.

The controversy arises from a small section of the text in which many words are missing and is very hard to make out what the text is saying. Some believe that the tablet contains a reference to a Jewish messiah figure who dies and is then resurrected three days later. The significance of this, according to one scholar, Israel Knohl:

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington has a brief commentary on the significance of this tablet at his website and Amy Hall, of Stand to Reason, comments on the finding here.

The bottom line is this:

1. Ben thinks the tablet is probably authentic given the guys who have examined it and have weighed in on its authenticity and dating.

2. The section which is said to contain the reference to the death and resurrection of a messiah figure three days later is not at all clear and there may be some reading into the text what one wishes the text to say.

3. Let’s assume the tablet is authentic and the text does contain the reference which some claim that it does. What follows? Nothing which “shakes our basic view of Christianity. As Amy points out, it seems that the outcome is rigged against the basic truth of the Christian message. For a long time, critics have claimed that the resurrection story cannot be true because the Jews of that time had no concept of such a messiah. This story, therefore, must have been subsequently added back in to the Gospels to make them support later Christian teaching. Now that we have possible found a 1st century B.C. Jewish source which does contain the concept of a resurrected messiah, the Gospel message is obviously not true since it just copied from an earlier Jewish source.

4. It is not surprising that there might be 1st century B.C. references to such a messiah given certain O.T. texts, such as Isaiah 53.

5. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth should be evaluated on its own evidence (which is substantial), whether or not there was such a concept in the Jewish thought of that time.

Ben Witherington concludes:

This stone certainly does not demonstrate that the Gospel passion stories are created on the basis of this stone text, which appears to be a Dead Sea text. For one thing the text is hard to read at crucial junctures, and it is not absolutely clear it is talking about a risen messiah. BUT what it does do is make plausible that Jesus could have said some of the things credited to him in Mk. 8.31, 9,31, and 10.33-34.

Addendum: (Al Mohler also addresses the topic here.)