A Change of Title Revisited

So I changed the title of this blog to avoid being labelled as a particular type of Christian, and then had it pointed out to me that both 'modern' and 'post-modern' are also labels.

So, a final change.  Reflections of A Methodist Presbyter also labels me as a certain type of Christian, as a Methodist: but it also describes that which I believe God has called me to.

So from now on that is the name of my blog.

Hope to see you all soon....

Some Things For The New Atheists To Think About!

As you will be aware from yesterday’s blog post I unwisely tried to engage with some New Atheist on Twitter and found I could not do so effectively because of the 140 character limit; which allowed for the atheists to make pith and shallow remarks but left no space for a detailed and considered reflection.

I see in this blog today a chance to address some of the main criticisms the New Atheists have of God and the Christian faith, both in the hope that it will give them something to think about and to demonstrate that there is intellectual rigour in the Christian faith.  I also hope that it may help my sisters and brothers in Christ in their discussions with atheists.

So, who are these New Atheists.  The key figures in the new atheism are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, Victor J. Stenger and the late Christopher Hitchens.  They and those who have been convinced by their writings are the New Atheists.  Unlike the traditional atheists who were content with people of faith continuing to believe in God; the New Atheists are actively trying to promote their belief that there is no God with an evangelical zeal that puts some Christian believers to shame.  Ian S. Markham calls them ‘fundamentalist atheists’, arguing that they share with Christian fundamentalists ‘the equally clear assertion of uncompromising truth’ and that they also share ‘an unambiguous assertion of a worldview in which the authors are entirely confident that they are right.’

The central tenet of atheism is the conviction that there is no God.  The existence of God cannot be proven.  Theologians like Thomas Aquinas advanced various ‘proofs’ for the existence of God.  In The God Delusion Dawkins provides good arguments against Aquinas’ proofs and, in fact, those arguments failed in the seventeenth century.

A summing up of the New Atheist position would be that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God and that ‘God almost certainly does not exist.’

Alister McGrath explains the atheist understanding of science as ‘the only reliable tool that we possess to understand the world.  It has no limits.  We may not know something now – but we will in the future.  It is just a matter of time.’ (The Dawkins Delusion)  In another work McGrath points out that there are limitations to science, writing:

‘A theory can be plausible enough to gain our trust, even though some of its predictions and promises lie in the future.  In short: it is about faith – a point long appreciated by Polanyi and other philosophers of science.  So when Dawkins speaks of “proof”, he actually means something rather weaker, such as “good reasons for believing that something is right,” whilst realising that it cannot actually be proved at present.’ (The Twilight of Atheism)

Christians are not rejecting science.  We are, in fact, being more faithful to the concept of science and its inbuilt limitations than some New Atheists.  In line with this we can legitimately point out that it is the province of science to explain how things work, whereas it is the province of theology to explain why things work; in others words science can tell us what the laws of physics are and theology can offer an explanation as to why there are laws of physics to discover.

New Atheists tend to have a very one-sided and uninformed understanding of God as presented in the Bible.  Dawkins has described what he calls ‘the God of the Old Testament’ as ‘arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.’  Dawkins goes on to describe Jesus as God’s ‘insipidly opposite Christian face, “gentle Jesus meek and mild”’ (The God Delusion)  Christians will immediately recognise both of these as gross distortions of the God we worship.

Dawkins himself admits that his portrayal of Jesus ‘owes more to his Victorian followers than the man himself.’  Christians will readily acknowledge that there are problematical passages in the Old Testament that appear to portray the God Dawkins describes; these passages are sometime difficult for us too; and, of course, some passages are open to misinterpretation.

An example of one passage Dawkins misunderstands would be Genesis 22:1-19 where Abraham is commanded by God to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  At the last minute God prevents the death of Isaac and a goat is provided for sacrifice.  Dawkins calls this a ‘disgraceful story’ and ‘an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships.’  What he fails to understand is that this story is included in the scriptures to demonstrate that God does not require the child sacrifices common in the ancient Middle East; the exact opposite of Dawkins’ interpretation.

One of the central planks of New Atheism’s opposition to faith is the evil that has apparently been perpetrated throughout history in the name of faith.  In his preface to The God Delusion Dawkins writes:

‘Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion.  Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as “Christ-killers”, no Northern Ireland “troubles”, no “honour killings”, no shiny suited bouffant-haired evangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.’

Of course, not all these are references to Christianity, but some are.  As a Christians I humbly apologise for the corporate sin committed in the name of the church.

I also acknowledge the hurt caused to New Atheists by our sometimes antagonistic and hate filled engagement with them.  Richard Dawkins has cited examples of hate filled comments he has received in correspondence from ‘Christians’ that are too disgusting for me to print here.  Sam Harris has had his share of hate letters from Christians.  In his introduction to Letter to a Christian Nation he wrote, ‘The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism.  While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible.  How do I know this?  The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.’  Not only are these Christians discrediting themselves; they are, by association, discrediting the church and the scriptures they would claim to hold dear.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus told us to love our opponents.  We provide a poor witness when we show hate instead and we are failing to honour our Lord!

The New Atheists like to claim the support of science for the belief (and it is a belief, not a fact) that God exists.  Richard Dawkins has written that ‘Great scientists of our time who sound religious usually turn out not to be so when you examine their beliefs more deeply’, using Einstein as his primary example.  Dawkins is being very selective in his approach and there are great scientists who articulate their Christian faith very clearly.  Dr Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, has written:

‘I had started this journey of intellectual exploration to confirm my atheism.  That now lay in ruins as the argument from the Moral Law (and many other issues) forced me to admit the plausibility of the God hypothesis.  Agnosticism, which had seemed like a safe second-place haven, now loomed like the great cop-out that it often is.  Faith in God now seemed more rational than disbelief.’ 

Geologist Kenneth Hsu has written ‘We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy.  It is about time we cry “The Emperor has no clothes.”  John Polkinghorne is a well-known scientist who defends his strong Christian faith and he has written several books on the interface between faith and science.  Finally, if there is a great scientist of our age it must surely be Stephen Hawking who, although not a professing Christian, has written, ‘It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as an act of God who intended to create beings like us.’  Dawkins is simply being disingenuous when he implies that great scientists do not have faith and the witness of those scientists who do give New Atheists reason to look again at the question of God’s existence.

New Atheists have trouble dealing with the person of Jesus.  Christopher Hitchens resorted to commenting on ‘the highly questionable existence of Jesus’ when in fact no serious scholar of history questions Jesus’ existence.  He also tried to slight the character of Jesus by accusing him of being one of a number of ‘deranged prophets roaming Palestine’.  Christian apologist C.S. Lewis indeed proposed this as one of the options when considering Jesus, stating that Jesus must either be mad, bad or the Son of God.  Lewis concluded ‘it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend and consequently… I have to accept the view that He was and is God.’   Dawkins tackles this point and suggests another possibility ‘that Jesus was honestly mistaken’ whilst failing to provide any justification for this view.  As a Christians I would argue that Jesus was and is exactly who he claimed to be because of his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.

In Jesus God lived amongst us as a human being and revealed himself to the world.  Jesus gave his life on the cross to save us from the consequences of our rebellion against God and the resurrection proves that all Jesus claimed for himself was and is true.  Many have offered convincing proofs for the resurrection, from Frank Morrison in Who Moved The Stone to N.T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God.  Respected scientist John Polkinghorne has also offered proof for the resurrection, writing:

‘One of the strong lines of argument for the truth of the resurrection is the astonishing transformation of the disciples from the demoralised, defeated men of Good Friday to the confident proclaimers of the Lordship of Christ at Pentecost and beyond, even to the point of martyrdom.  Something happened to bring that about.  I believe it was the resurrection and that if Jesus had not been raised it is probable that we would never have heard of him.’

Resurrection is outside the realms of natural possibility and could only come about by the intervention of a supernatural God, the very God Atheists claim does not exist.  John Polkinghorne has written, ‘if a person believes in the resurrection then a simply secular reading of the gospels will no longer be sufficient.’  Paul made the same point about the centrality of the resurrection to Christian faith when he wrote ‘if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.’ (1 Cor 15:14).

If you are an Atheist reading this, then please think about what I’ve written.  You may well still disagree with me, but hopefully you will have gained a better understanding of the Christian faith and may not be so rigorous in attacking that faith.

If you are a Christian reading this then I hope that I have demonstrated that there are positive ways in which the Christian church can engage with the New Atheists.  We can discuss together the things we have in common like the appreciation for and understanding of science, both its achievements and limitations; and we can remind New Atheists that the seed bed of the scientific disciplines was Christian faith .  As Kepler said, ‘Science is thinking God’s thoughts after him.’  We can engage with science in our apologetics.  We can sincerely repent of the corporate sin of Christianity, of our oppression of and violence those who do not think as we do.  We can offer to New Atheism the witness of respected scientists like John Polkinghorne.  Finally, and most importantly, we can witness to Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected, the Jesus who lived and died and rose again and who is still encountered and experienced today.

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A Change of Title

Until today this blog was called "Reflections of a Thinking Evangelical".

I have decided to change the blog name for two reasons:

1.  I realised that there was an implied and unintended criticism of evangelical Christians, suggesting that they did not think much about their faith, which us clearly not the case.

2.  I have come to dislike the categorisation of paths within Christianity as conservative or evangelical or liberal of progressive or some combination of those terms.

I am simply a Christian, a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ, trying to live as a disciple in 21st century Western society and trying to help others understand Christian faith and theology, even as I seek greater understanding myself using the tools of Biblical scholarship and archeology.  That us what I mean by the word 'modern', a faith for the 21st century firmly rooted in the a Scriptures and understood in the light of the witness, theology and discoveries of men and women of God over the past two thousand years.

I hope you will continue to read my musings and journey with me as I seek to be evermore faithful to Jesus Christ.

The Limitations of Twitter for Theological Debate!

I should know better.  I really should.  Yet I went ahead anyway!

For a couple of years now I have had a Twitter account.  I use it for personal communication and to post the odd bit of simple theological reflection, social commentary and quotations from the Bible.  I have had positive responses, quite a few shares and have a reasonable number of followers.

A couple of day I got into a Twitter conversation with a couple of disciples of Richard Dawkins, new atheists who are not merely content in believing that God doesn't exist but feel the need to try and convince everybody else that God doesn't exist: people who respond quite aggressively to the things Christians post on Twitter.  As Christians we are commanded by Jesus to tell others of our faith.  I'm not quite sure why atheists feel the need to try and convert people of faith to their belief system - and it is a belief system, make no mistake.  It takes just as much faith to believe that God does not exist as to believe that God does exist, since God's existence cannot be categorically proved or disproved.

Anyway, the limitations of Twitter became clear when I was challenged to provide documentary evidence of Jesus outside of the Christian scriptures, particularly of his miracle working.  There is such evidence, as it happens, but trying to detail and explain it in 140 characters is difficult, if not impossible.  There are subtleties that just cannot be fitted into a short, pithy post.

For example, how do you into the details of all the documentation in 140 characters?  How do you explain that we have copies of the New Testament documents that are far earlier than sources of other ancient documents that are accepted without question?  How do you go into the evidence from Josephus and extract the original writing from the later Christian additions?

Incidentally when I mentioned the Jewish Talmud, which does indeed reference Jesus as working miracles, though attributing them to the powers of sorcery, there was no direct response from the new atheists.  The Talmud was composed very close to the life of Jesus.  Again, how do you get all this into 140 characters?

The answer to these questions is you can't.  It is very easy for the atheists to get their point across in 140 characters because, by and large, they use shallow ridicule and cheap point scoring rather than serious engagement with historical and documentary sources, such as "how much faith are you using up by not accepting the existence of Allah, Thor or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?" (this in response to my suggestion that believing God does not exist is also an act of faith); or how about "the scientific method doesn't deal with faith.  I have been presented with zero evidence, therefore atheist" (in response to my point that for God to be worthy of the designation he is, by definition, beyond absolute scientific proof).

As a Minister I am always happy to discuss my faith with people, but I shall no longer be entering into debates on Twitter with new atheists because the limitations of Twitter do not allow such debate, at least not for me.

Lesson learned!

Is There Room In Your Heart for Jesus? A Christmas Meditation

Is there room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

There was no room at the inn for his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph.  No room for the baby to be born.  No room for the baby Jesus to lie down and sleep in a cot on his first day on earth; just a manger full of straw.

Is there room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

There was room in the heart of Mary!  There was room in the heart of a young Jewish woman, who agreed to carry the Son of God, risking her reputation, risking jeering and accusations; perhaps risking her very life.  There was room in Mary’s heart that enabled her to make the long and arduous journey to Bethlehem where the Messiah had to be born.  There was room in Mary’s heart to ponder and treasure the visit of the shepherds.

Is there room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

There was room in the heart of Joseph.  There was room in the heart of a Jewish man who believed the woman he was engaged to had been unfaithful to him.  There was room in his heart to listen to the message of the angel who told him, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  There was room in Joseph’s heart to take care of Mary and to help raise the Son of God, protecting him until he was old enough to protect himself.

Is there room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

There was room in the hearts of the shepherds.  There was room in their hearts to listen to the message of the angels that the Son of God had been born in Bethlehem.   There was room in their hearts to risk possible rejection because many saw them as outcasts, the lowest in society.  There was room in their hearts to meet the infant Jesus and to praise and glorify God for all that they had seen.

Is there room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

Who Is The Lord, The Saviour, The Son of God?

Son of God!  The Lord!  Saviour!  Who do you think of when I say those words?  I’m guessing that most if not all of you will be thinking about Jesus, or at least I hope you are.

To the average citizen of the Roman Empire in the early years of the first century AD hearing those words the name Jesus would not come to mind; they would immediately think of Caesar Augustus.  To the Romans the Emperor Augustus was the son of god, specifically the son of Apollos.  He was seen by them as divine and was worshipped along with the other Roman gods and goddesses like Jupiter and Mars.  Augustus was seen as the Lord.  Through the might of the Roman Empire he ruled much of the world that was known at the time.  There was nobody with more military might and political authority than Caesar Augustus.  He was also seen as the Saviour because he had united a Roman Empire nearly torn apart by civil war.  Through force and military might he had brought peace to the empire!

Son of God!  The Lord!  Saviour!  These were all titles given by angels to the baby Jesus at the time of his birth.  In placing these titles of Jesus in the mouths of angels the author of Luke’s gospel was saying something very, very profound about Jesus and his relationship to the Emperor whose decree had forced Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem.

If Jesus is the Son of God then Caesar Augustus was not!  If Jesus is the Lord then Caesar Augustus was not!  If Jesus is Saviour then Caesar Augustus was not.  Right at the moment of his birth, with the titles given to him by God’s angels; Jesus was a counter-cultural figure standing in opposition to the beliefs and values of the world around him, embodied in the Roman Empire.

The contrast could not be greater.  Augustus was the first born son of a Roman noble woman, Atia, a relative of Julius Caesar.  Adopted as Julius Caesar’s heir, Augustus was born in the finest of surroundings and enjoyed wealth, privilege and power his whole life.  He achieved that power by military might and through fear!  He brought peace to most of the known world, but did it through violence.

Jesus was the first born son of a Jewish peasant woman, an impoverished nobody from a tiny village in the north that was looked down upon by many.  He was born in a stable and his first bed was an animal food trough.  He spent his early years as a refugee in a foreign land.  Jesus never had wealth and he gave up his power when he was born in Bethlehem.  Jesus achieved his influence by simply loving people and turning away from the violence that brought Caesar his power.  Jesus’ message was that justice for all will bring peace to our world.  Indeed when threatened with violence Jesus did not respond in kind, but instead submitted to death on a Roman cross.

There are really only two paths we can follow in this life.  We can follow the path of the world, represented by Caesar Augustus, the path of might is right, of seeking wealth, privilege and power.  We can be seduced by all the temptations the world has to offer, the pretty, shiny trinkets and baubles that are, ultimately, worth nothing!  We can follow the way of the world, putting ourselves, our needs and longings and desires first and perhaps paying only lip service to the needs of others.  We have the choice; we can choose the easy path.

There is another path we can follow, the path of Jesus Christ.  We can choose to make worshipping and serving God and each other the most important thing in our lives.  We can choose the path of peace, a peace that comes not from violence and intimidation, but through justice for all.  We can choose to live lives filled with love, lives that mirror the life of our Saviour.  Living and loving like Jesus will not always be easy, but it will bring us such rewards in heaven that the finest earthly gold will be like ashes to us.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours.”  Those he favours are those who seek to be disciples of Jesus, who seek to become subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven by living lives of love and peace. 

 
I hope that all who read this Christmas Day sermon will reject the false promises of the world and instead embrace Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, whose birth we celebrate.

Personal Preaching!

I’ve been thinking about preaching today.  Not about actually doing it, you understand, as preaching isn’t something I usually do on a Saturday but about what goes into a sermon.

Thinking about preaching is actually something I do quite a lot of.  As a Probationer Presbyter in the Methodist Church I do a lot of preaching and write at least one new sermon every week.  This means I’m not only thinking about the last sermon I wrote but starting to think about the next one I will write too.

Actually ‘write’ is a loaded word; since not all the sermons that are preached use words.  Many people who know me will never hear the words I preach in church on a Sunday because, at the moment, they would never dream about setting foot inside a church.  The only ‘sermon’ they ever get from me and others whom they know to be Christians is the sermon of our lives, the way we live, the things we say, the way we treat other people. If you are a Christian, what is the ‘sermon’ of your life saying to others?

But there are the sermons that are prepared and sometimes written down and preached in churches all over the world.  There are some poor sermons, some average ones, some good ones and the occasional brilliant sermon.

What makes the difference?

Is it length?  Not especially.  I have been bored by a five minute homily and entranced by a sermon that lasted a good hour!

I think it’s actually the personal involvement of the preacher in his or her sermon.  A good sermon isn’t just a sound exposition of the Scriptures, made possible by use of good commentaries.  It isn’t even one that has lots of good, relevant, amusing or thought provoking illustrations.  A good sermon is, I think, one that comes from the heart, one that comes from the spiritual experience of the preacher; a message that is in one way intensely personal and that at the same time contains profound truths about God and about being a Christian disciple.  Preaching such a sermon will lead the preacher utterly exhausted because they have given a part of themselves in that sermon.

Of course there is more to a good sermon than this.  A good sermon is one that is inspired by God through the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit; who also inspires the minds and hearts of those who hear the sermon.  A sermon without the Holy Spirit is just a speech!

Preaching from the heart and giving of oneself in a sermon is costly, but it is genuine honest preaching; it is preaching that has integrity and that reaches the hearts of others.  It is the kind of preaching I long to hear and it is the kind of preaching that, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit, I hope I do.