Tag: Christianity

Mailvox: studying Christianity

LC asks for reading recommendations to learn more about Christianity:
I read your book, The Irrational Atheist, and I have been reading
your blog for a few months now because I find most of what you say
interesting and some of it comforting. I was raised by Christian
parents. I am young, 21, and have recently gone through a questioning of
my faith.  I have re-committed myself to my beliefs and living in a way
that has resulted in a good life. I have realized that I still have the
faith of my childhood and my understanding of Christianity and the
world in general is very limited. I always have respect for your
arguments because you know what you’re talking about and back up your
assertions. Can you please give me some direction on texts to study
other than the Bible to increase my understanding of Christianity and
religion in general? 
First of all, remember not to get too caught up in the theological extrapolations. No matter what you end up reading, it is always worthwhile to periodically circle back to the original source. Don’t neglect reading the Bible in favor of various men’s interpretations of what the Bible says. In the end, theology is nothing more than philosophy derived from the Bible and it is no more intrinsically reliable than any other logical derivation.

I would start at the beginning. If your understanding is limited, begin with The Chronicles of Narnia. As we saw in the debate with Luke of Common Sense Atheism, the average grasp of Christian concepts don’t even rise to the level of Narnia. Then read The Tower of Geburah by John White. Once you’ve read the children’s fiction, move onto simple theology like Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton. As a general rule, it’s hard to go too far afield on a foundation of Lewis and Chesterton. I would also recommend the very short, very simple, but intriguing A Defense of the Revelation by Leonhard Euler, who happens to be one of the most legendary mathematicians in history. And my friend Greg Boyd’s Letters to a Skeptic is also recommended.

Once you have a grasp of the theological basics, you may be ready to read up on the actual history of Christianity and some of its leading thinkers. The first volume of the Cambridge Medieval History series, The Christian Empire, is tremendously informative and the epub is freely available for download online. St. Augustine’s Confessions are worth reading for their influence on Western thinking and a good summary of Thomas Aquinas is a necessity as well. I haven’t read it yet, but I have heard very good things about Edward Feser’s Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide and I intend to review it as soon as I finish the Cantillon.

Any other reasonable recommendations would be welcome. Please note that this is not the right sort of post to either indulge your particular theological peculiarities or exhibit how esoteric your reading happens to have been. We’re talking Christianity 101, not 503.

The Church of England is not the Church

After decades of slow-motion suicide, the Church of England decides that killing itself faster is the cure:

The Church of England is just ‘one generation away from extinction’, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday. Lord Carey laid the blame at the feet of Church leaders who he said should be ‘ashamed’ of their failure to bring youngsters into their services.

His stark message was echoed by the Archbishop of York, who told the General Synod that compared to the need to attract new worshippers, ‘everything else is like re-arranging furniture when the house is on fire’.

The Most Reverend John Sentamu told the Synod – where leaders will debate how to persuade traditionalists to accept women bishops – that they spent too long ‘arguing over words and phrases, while the people of England are left floundering amid meaninglessness, anxiety and despair’….

Church of England Sunday congregations are running at half the numbers of the 1960s, and over the past two decades Roman Catholic churchgoing has seen a similar decline. Christian numbers are rising fast in some parts of the world, notably in Africa. Worldwide, the Anglican churches have between 70 and 80 million followers – many of whom look to the Church of England for a lead.

Embrace the world and die. Abandon Biblical doctrine and die. Permit women in leadership and die. The Church can, and will, survive any amount of persecution. The Gates of Hell themselves cannot prevail, much less bloodthirsty atheist dictators.

But the one thing no church can survive is cutting itself off from its own source of life and nourishment. There are always a plethora of excellent, logical, and convincing reasons why the Church should embrace sin, abandon doctrine, and walk upon the broad and easy path to the approval of the world. And the churches swayed by that reasoning always end up dying. The pursuit of approval always ends in apostasy and societal apathy.

Mailvox: Are Christians “required to be dicks”?

LudVanB objects to the idea that atheists should be expelled from Christian organizations:

“Not all Christians are required to be dicks, Vox”

To which Myrddin responded:

Actually, if we behave the way Christ and his apostles behaved:

  1. To honest seekers: Be gentle.
  2. To scoffers in private: Avoid them.
  3. To scoffers in public: Humiliate them.
  4. To people who claim to be part of the church, but are willfully and proudly disobeying: Kick them out.
  5. To false teachers: Silence them and/or kick them out.
  6. To those who repent: Welcome them back.

Notice under churchian definitions, in four of those six situations, Christians are required to be dicks.

Let’s see if we can  find Scriptural justification for Myrddin’s claims. I’ll start with the two that are relevant to yesterday’s discussion, numbers (4) and (5).

(4) 2 Thessalonians 3:6: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.”

1 Corinthians 5: 11-13 “I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.””
 
(5) James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

2 Peter 2:1: “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.”

The lesson, as always, is this: never listen to an atheist attempting to lecture you on theological matters. They literally do not know what they are talking about.

How institutions die

As various Christians at Northwest Christian University fall about congratulating themselves for being so open and accepting of having an atheist student body president at their nominally Christian institution, the reality is that this likely marks the beginning of the end for the school.

A student from a Christian university in Oregon ditched the privacy of the confessional and went public about his faith, writing in the school newspaper: “I am an atheist. Yes, you read that correctly, I am an atheist.”

Eric Fromm, 21, a senior at Northwest Christian University in Eugene published his thoughts about not believing in God in the Beacon Bolt, the student-run online newspaper — despite the fact that his university is a Christian school.

Although Fromm didn’t share the religious beliefs as the school, he said in his post he decided to enroll because Northwest Christian had a “solid communications program.”

“Before I enrolled, I visited the campus to make sure that the chapel services were comfortable enough that I could fulfill the requirement,” he said. “No one was speaking in tongues or handling snakes, so I decided to stay.”

But Fromm didn’t feel at peace.

“Every day I’m burdened by the fact that my peers might reject me because I’m different from them. I won’t be rejected because of my race or social class, but simply because of the fact that I don’t believe in God — because I am an atheist,” wrote Fromm in his post.

The university should promptly expel Mr. Fromm, return his senior year tuition, and make it clear that it is a Christian university and not a secular one. Christianity is not about acceptance. It is not about tolerance. It is about separating the wheat from the chaff and dividing the sheep from the goats. In his own words, Jesus makes it perfectly clear that he did not come to bring peace. He is, in fact, the dividing factor.

If the university does not expel Mr. Fromm, then it is quite clear that it is no longer a Christian institution. It is merely another secular institution with religion classes. What’s next, churches with atheist pastors….

Now, there is nothing wrong with secular institutions that welcome everyone and practice religious and ideological ecumenicism. There is a place for such things. Atheists are welcome here, for example. But not only is there no place for inclusive Christian institutions, such institutions have no rational reason to exist in the first place. To those who will say “well, what is wrong with permitting atheists attend/teach/work at religious institutions” the answer is quite simple: look at what has happened to the Ivy League universities, the Episcopal Church, and every other Christian institution that decides to be led by the principle of tolerance rather than doctrine-based exclusion.

Every institution that doesn’t actively police its membership will be invaded, taken over, and subverted by its opponents. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the Cub Scouts or the Communist Party. It’s not an accident that Mr. Fromm pursued a leadership position, then promptly went public with his atheism.

Just look at that smug, self-satisfied face. You can see that he is absolutely delighted for having been able to pull one over on the university. The remarkable thing is that he managed to control himself from his inclination to lecture everyone about his adolescent concept of the life, the universe, and everything. And despite the fact that he wasn’t rejected by the school, he still managed to produce a conventional work in the oppression genre.

Mailvox: 25 reasons for Trinitarian skepticism

PB actually emailed me 100 reasons why he feels my skepticism concerning the Trinity doctrine are correct. But the first 25 are more than sufficient for the purposes of discussion.

1. Because
Jesus Christ is represented by the sacred writers to be as distinct a
being from God the Father as one man is distinct from another. “It is
written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me” (John 8:17 and 18).
2. Because he not only never said that himself was God, but, on the contrary, spoke of the Father, who sent him, as God, and as the only God. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). This language our Saviour used in solemn prayer to “his Father and our Father.”
3. Because he is declared, in unnumbered instances, to be the Son of God. “And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Can a son be coeval(the same age) and the same with his father?
4. Because he is styled the Christ, or the anointed of God. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38). Is he who anoints the same with him who is anointed?
5. Because he is represented as a Priest. “Consider the ….High-Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus” (Heb. 3:1). The office of a priest is to minister to God. Christ, then, as a priest, cannot be God.
6. Because Christ is Mediator between the “One God,” and “men.” “For there is one God, and oneMediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
7. Because, as the Saviour of men, he was sent by the Father. “And we have seen and do testify thatthe Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world” (1 John 4:14).
8. Because he is an Apostle appointed by God. “Consider the Apostle,…Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him” (Heb. 3:1 and 2).
9. Because Christ is represented as our intercessor with God. “It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34).
10. Because the head of Christ is God. “I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3).
11. Because, in the same sense in which we are said to belong to Christ, Christ is said to belong to God. “And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3:23).
12. Because Christ says, “My father is greater than all” (John 10:29). Is not the father, then greater than the son?
13. Because he affirms, in another connection, and without the least qualification, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
14. Because he virtually denies that he is God, when he exclaims, “Why callest thou me Good? There is none good but one, that is God” (Matt. 19:17).
15. Because our Saviour, after having said, “I and my Father are one,” gives his disciples distinctly to understand that he did not mean one substance, equal in power and glory, but one only in affection and design, as clearly appears from the prayer he offers to his Father in their behalf, –“that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (John 17:21).
16. Because the Father is called the God of Christ as he is the God of Christians. Jesus saith unto her, “….Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my Godand your God” (John 20:17).
17. Because an Apostle says of God, in distinction from the “Lord Jesus Christ,” that He is the “onlyPotentate,” and that He “only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:15 and 16).
18. Because it is the express declaration of the same Apostle, that the Father is the one God, and there is none other. “Though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) yet to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things” (1 Cor. 8:5 and 6).
19. Because the power which Christ possessed was, as him affirmed, given to him. “All power isgiven unto me” (Matt. 28:18).
20. Because he positively denies himself to be the author of his miraculous works, but refers them to the Father, or the holy spirit of God. “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John14:10). “If I cast out devils by the spirit of God” (Matt. 12:28).
21. Because he distinctly states, that these works bear witness, not to his own power, but that theFather had sent him (John 5:36).
22. Because he expressly affirms that the works were done, not in his own name, but in his Father’s name (John 10:25).
23. Because he asserts, that “him hath God the Father sealed,” i.e. to God the Father he was indebted for his credentials (John 6:27).
24. Because he declares that he is not the author of his own doctrine. “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me” (John 7:16 and 17).

25. Because he represents himself as having been instructed by the Father. “As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28).

Regardless of what your opinion on of the matter is, I think it is important to keep in mind that Christians should not elevate theological understanding to an overly sacred status. It is repentance and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior that are the central issues of our faith, not an ability to see more clearly through the glass than others. Jesus, you may recall, was never overly impressed with intellectual ability.

God is not mocked

I couldn’t help but think of Galatians 6:7 when I read about the tragic death of this father on his misguided trek in remembrance of his dead son.  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

I can’t link to the story, for some reason, but the headline is: Oregon Father’s Memorial Trek Across Country Ends in a Family’s Second Tragedy. So you can probably find it on Google or wherever.

The American elites have declared that there is nothing wrong with what God calls abomination. The usual suspects will insist, in defiance of both traditional morality and secular logic, that there is no such thing as objective universal morality while simultaneously insisting that homosexuality normal and it is wrong to say otherwise.

But at the end of the day, God’s Game, God’s Rules. Are they arbitrary? Perhaps. So is the intentional grounding rule. That doesn’t make them nonexistent and it doesn’t mean we can safely ignore them, given that we are warned about what the wages of sin are.

That being said, I very much doubt that the grieving father was struck down by God simply because he was on a personal crusade to popularize the acceptance of a particular form of sin; the ironic malice involved tends to strike me as the handiwork of a very different supernatural being.

This is something many Christians don’t seem to understand. Evil revels in grief, pain, and suffering. Not good. And not God.

Mailvox: a creedal correction

In which my religious views are somewhat mischaracterized on Twitter:

Avenging Red Hand: Vox is amusing, but highly arrogant, and heterodox, if not outright heretical, on his views of the Trinity.

Uilesmiselani: Yes, he’s a heretic. Not even Nicene.

As it happens, my views are entirely Nicene in the proper sense, they simply do not happen to be in line with what should be technically considered Constantinoplene rather than Nicene.  Consider the actual Nicene Creed of 325:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.


And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;


By whom all things were made;

Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man;


He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost.

I readily affirm all of that. Now, one can certainly quibble over the “one substance with the Father” aspect, as it can be interpreted in various ways and I do not accept it means that “the Father Almighty” and “the Son of God” are exactly equal and wholly interchangeable at all times because this is an explicitly anti-Biblical position; how can God the Father have abandoned Himself?

What I take exception to is the addition made by the First Council of Constaninople 56 years later, in which the simple belief in the existence of the Holy Ghost is raised to a quasi-equal status with both God the Father and the Son of God alike.

“And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.”

How can the Helper, who came after the Son, be considered the Giver of life when not only life, but life eternal, had already been given? And if the Father and the Son are wholly equal, how can the Holy Ghost proceed solely from the Father and not the Son, especially if the Son is the one by whom all things are made? Is proceeding more akin to being begotten or being made?

It seems to me that the true Nicene Creed is not only more fundamentally Christian, but more coherent than the later Constantinoplene Creed for which it is so readily confused. These questions don’t trouble me in the slightest, as we know perfectly well how dark the glass is through which we see these things, but I do think it is inaccurate to describe me as “not even Nicene” or a heretic in the Scriptural sense as opposed to one based on whatever the post-Scriptural dogma happens to be at the moment.

“Heterodoxically Nicene” would, I think, be a more judicious description of my Christian theological perspective.

Predictive prophecy

Ann Morgan appears to believe that anything she repeats nine times is true.  But she is wrong:

The problem with that is this – nobody has EVER taken a ‘prophecy’
from the bible and used it to accurately predict a future event BEFORE
it happened. What they have done is taken various events that have
happened (in their past) and claimed (post facto) that they fulfilled a
biblical ‘prophecy’.

This is absolutely false.  I’ve seen one example in my own lifetime. There has long been an expectation in fundamentalist Christian circles that the various nations of Europe would unify due to the prophecy in Revelation. This was much pooh-poohed even as the Common Market took shape, since the various national politicians all publicly avowed that there was no intention of any political union.

Lo and behold, the European Union was formed.

There are other examples, of course. But Biblical prophecy has an observably better track record as a predictive model than either climate science or evolution by natural selection.

Mailvox: four erroneous arguments

Ann Morgan appears to have no idea that she’s in completely over her head here. Her anti-Christian reasoning is specious and rests on a foundation of ignorance and error.

Christianity generally fails when one or more of a few things happen:

1.
Those who claim something is ‘sinful’ cannot give any reason why it is,
other than ‘Because God says so’. In the absence of actual proof of
God, functionally, that statement is no different than ‘Because I say
so’.

2. A person is promised various rewards during their life
for being ‘good’, only to have the promise broken, and the rewards
either not given out at all, or given to those who were not good. Sooner
or later, they will conclude that the promise of an afterlife is just
one more promise that is going to be broken.

3. The wealth earned
by a person believing in Christian ethics ends up in the hands of those
promoting the Christian ethics. At some point they are going to
conclude that the entire business of Christianity is a con, to trick
them out of their wealth.

4. The promise of ‘forgiveness’ sounds
nice, but the way it functions is that people who harm others and their
society their whole lives, get to repent at the end of their lives and
go to heaven. This will end up in some sort of ‘tragedy of the commons’.
If you don’t want the commons overgrazed, you need to be vigilant about
those who are overgrazing it; allowing them to overgraze it for years,
ruin the commons for everyone else while getting fat cattle for
themselves, then tell them everything will be fine because they ‘repent’
is a recipe for disaster.

Even her introduction is false.  Christianity does not, and cannot, fail on the basis of any of these points.

  1. There is no other reason than “God says so”.  In the absence of God, sin does not exist.  This is hardly philosophical or theological news.  However, makes the basic error of confusing an objective statement with a subjective one.  For example, it makes no difference whether the Magna Carta exists or not, the statement that “the Magna Carta says you must do X” is materially different than “I say you must do X”.  This should be completely obvious, since when the Christian says “God says Y is a sin” and cites a document that existed before he was born, that statement cannot possibly be considered equal to “because I say so” whether God exists or not.
  2. This is irrelevant.  The Bible says that all are fallen and no one is good, save God.  Her argument is based on a false premise and indicates her ignorance concerning Christian theology.  Luke 18:19: “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.”
  3. This is observably false, as evidenced by the fact of billions of Christians who have not, in fact, concluded that the entire business of Christianity is a con.  It would be a poor con that settles for ten percent when the federal government takes, on average, twice that.
  4. This is logically fallacious because it rests on a false assumption.  The fact is that there are relatively few deathbed conversions and there are billions of Christians who do not wait to repent of their sins.  Ergo, no tragedy of the commons. Let reason be silent when experience gainsays its conclusions.

Daring to judge God

I always had my doubts about the legitimacy of Desmond Tutu.  His recent theological posturing confirms my suspicions that he was always more about winning the favor of a fallen world than serving God:

Tutu, who retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, has long campaigned for gay rights. 

‘I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,’ he said. ‘I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.’

At 81 years old, it would seem Mr. Tutu will soon have the option to experience the consequences of his decision.  Most likely to his surprise, as this is the statement of a deeply silly and superficial man with no reverence for the God he once affected to serve, and, I would argue, neither hope of Heaven nor fear of Hell.  Give him another few years and I have little doubt he’d come out as an atheist.

God is not homophobic. He is not afraid of homosexuals but merely regards them as abominations, perhaps because alone among sinners, they define themselves by their sin and assert their pride in it.