July 28th, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
I love it when two news items flow into one another virtually unawares. Chuck Colson wrote this morning:
Chinese scholars were asked to “look into what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world.” After considering possible military, economic, political and cultural explanations, they concluded that the answer lay in what the Chinese scholars saw as the “heart” of the West’s pre-eminent culture: Christianity.
This comes in interesting conjunction with an NPR story SteveK brought to our attention yesterday: “In the land of Mao, rising tide of Christianity among Chinese.”
Some recent surveys have calculated there could be as many as 100 million Chinese Protestants. That would mean that China has more Christians than Communist Party members, which now number 75 million….
“In China, a lot of so-called atheists treat money as their God,” storms* the young man who is preaching to the gathered crowd. “But only in God’s truth can you find real freedom.”
As Colson also wrote in that same piece,
Still, it’s a powerful reminder of how Christianity transforms not only individual lives but entire societies as well.
For a more extended version of the Chinese scholars’ conclusions see here.
*Having spent more than two months in China, I find the image of a young Chinese man “storming” to a crowd amusingly difficult to conjure up. I could be wrong; two months isn’t that long. Still, it sounds to me like reporter-speak for impassioned preaching.
July 28th, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
T.M. Moore writes about Discipleship Without Learning at the Worldview Church:
Our Christian educational activities may be unprecedented in their scope, but they are unimpressive in their results.
The day we see quizzes and papers become a regular part of Sunday School (we call it school, don’t we?) is the day I’ll begin to think we’re overcoming the very real problem he has described there.
But there are reasons things are as they are. Four of them come to mind.
1. We live in a culture that is unimpressed with learning except that which contributes toward earning a living.
2. Our Christianity is such that we can get along with the little knowledge we have, and feel fine about it. As long as we can ride somewhat successfully through the hard spots in our own lives, we can manage to insulate ourselves from the hard questions others face or that our culture brings to us—and thus we don’t really have to think deeply about much of anything.
3. When life becomes a really rough ride, and making it through successfully becomes really difficult, we doubt that there is any advantage or help to be gained through deep discipleship of our minds. We also doubt that such discipleship would be helpful as advance preparation for future bumps in the road.
In a word, we don’t really believe it’s valuable for the growth of our souls.
4. Where we do confront the questions of our culture, we do so with surface-level thinking. This is associated with number 1. Americans—Christians included—are much more at home with the quick slogan than the carefully considered thought. Furthermore, we think this is the normal and proper way to handle tough questions and issues. I suspect that has to do with being trained by way of political sloganeering and news-show sound bites.
I know of significant exceptions to all of the above, but in general these seem to be characteristic of American Christian culture, and strong contributors to “discipleship without learning.”
July 27th, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
Related to the Keeton case: Freedom of Religion? No, Freedom of Sexuality.
Discussion will be held on the linked page.
July 27th, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
Bill Vallicella on the New Atheists:
Theist-atheist dialog is made difficult by a certain asymmetry: whereas a sophisticated living faith involves a certain amount of purifying doubt, together with a groping beyond images and pat conceptualizations toward a transcendent reality, one misses any corresponding doubt or tentativeness on the part of sophisticated atheists. Dawkins and Co. seem so cocksure of their position. For them, theism is not a live option or existential possibility. This is obvious from their mocking comparisons of God to a celestial teapot, flying spaghetti monster, and the like.
For sophisticated theists, however, atheism is a live option. The existence of this asymmetry makes one wonder whether any productive dialog with atheists is possible.
[From Maverick Philosopher: "Some of Us Just Go One God Further"]
His topic is what I have called the Arithmetical Atheism Argument, or the Magic of Misdirection. It’s the atheist’s canard, “everyone’s an atheist, we’re just atheistic about one more God than you.” This amounts to misdirection, in that its apparent reasonability is nothing but illusion. It would be a great argument if it had anything to do with the real question. Its success, however, such as it is, depends on directing one’s attention away from all relevant considerations: for example, “What kind of universe do we live in?” It is the very finality with which such hopelessly flawed arguments are brought forth that produces the asymmetry of which Vallicella speaks.
I expect some atheists to object to his thought that “a sophisticated living faith involves a certain amount of purifying doubt.” It’s not the easiest thing to explain in this format, but he’s right: there is for me a sense of groping toward reality, especially in prayer. Like the Psalms, my prayers are full of questions on the order of, “God, if you’re there, then why … ?” That question ends differently almost every day, for there is so much I don’t understand. I can lean on what I do understand, thankfully, which is enough for now.
————–
While I’m sharing links, I’ll mention a couple more. A new semester is starting soon. Going to college was one of the best things that could have happened to me. For some students it’s one of the worst. Being involved in study and fellowship with other students can make all the difference; it did for me! The Christian Colleges and Universities page has listed their “Top 10 Christian Study Groups,” a guide to getting connected with Christians on campus. A couple of their suggestions are more for high school students, which is fine. I would add InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Navigators to their list.
And one more for you who are social networkers. Other than blogging, I’m pretty far behind the times with that. I have a Facebook page, and I spend probably as much as five minutes a week on it. But that’s my flaw, not yours, if it is a flaw. You might enjoy connecting with others at Christian.com.
July 24th, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
You can keep up with Thinking Christian by subscribing to the RSS Feed. It’s free, of course. What does it do for you? It’s a tool to aggregate and display headlines and content from blogs and other news sources, all in one easy-to-follow location. If you haven’t done it before, here’s how:
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July 23rd, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
Based on events alleged to have taken place at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia.
DISGUSTA, Ga. — Attorneys with the National Uncivil Liberties League (NULL) filed suit against Disgusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling professor told that her beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The professor, Dr. Julia Charrington, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs to remain on the counseling program’s faculty.
NULL senior attorneys underlined the seriousness of the situation: “Our dearest American liberties are at risk if we won’t let professors impose their anti-religiousness and pro-homosexuality on students against their will.”
Disgusta State ordered Charrington to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will remove her from the Counselor Education faculty.
Other professors learned of Charrington’s views on religion and homosexual conduct, specifically that:
- Homosexuality is an unrestricted good
- Freedom of sexuality trumps freedom of religion
- Sexual behavior is by no means a matter of accountable choice
- Persons are not born male or female; they become that way by of social conditioning; and especially
- Persons who disagree, especially those who disagree for religious reasons, must not be allowed to enter the counseling profession.
“A public university professor shouldn’t be threatened with termination just for insisting that students drop all their moral values and religious beliefs, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said NULL, through a spokesman-woman-person-whose-gender-had-not-been-quite-socially-settled-yet. “Allowing students to hold their own religious beliefs should not be a precondition for employment at a public university. This type of zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop.”
The re-education plan assails Charrington’s beliefs as inconsistent with the counseling profession and expresses suspicion over her “ability to demonstrate multicultural competence in counseling, particularly with regard to working with non-gay, non-lesbian, non-bisexual, non-transgender, and non-queer/questioning (nGnLnBnTnQ) populations, as well as religious populations.” The plan requires her to take steps to change her beliefs through additional assignments and additional “diversity sensitivity training.” It also orders her to “work to increase exposure and interactions with non-gay populations. One such activity could be attending the Non-Gay Pride Parade in Disgusta.”
In her defense, Charrington offered the example of Augusta State University, also in Georgia, where—allegedly—her beliefs are not only tolerated but actually required. “If what I’ve been hearing is true, Augusta State has a grand tradition of believing what I believe, and even requiring students to believe the same,” she said. “It sounds to me like they’ve set the standard for barring students’ freedom of religion. If it’s true they can do that, then it’s manifestly unfair for Disgusta State not to let me insist that all students here think only the things I say they must think!”
In case you missed it: yes, if reports linked here are true, there is what appears to be a real story behind this satire. Jennifer Keeton’s alleged experience is too similar and yet quite the opposite of the fictional Dr. Charrington’s.
Also at First Things: Evangel
July 23rd, 2010 / Author: Tom Gilson
I don’t recall seeing this when it came out in 2008, but a friend flagged it on a forum, and I thought I’d pass it along: Muslims Leaving Islam in Droves. Al-Jazeera reports from an interview with a Libyan Islamic leader:
As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches [in Africa] whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.
I believe his count of churches may include only Roman Catholics. I say that because of the context surrounding that quote. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity reports an estimate of 390 million Christians in Africa as of five years ago, which is consistent with what I’ve read elsewhere.
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