Thinking Christian

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If you are not (as I referred to here) a believer in Christ with a gift from God that you dream of using for his glory, then I ask, is it because you are not a believer? Why on earth not? There is more than enough reason to be confident in the truth of Christ, and to be assured that he offers you the only life that is true life.

Or are you a Christian with no gift from God? I say no; he has gifted all believers with both natural and spiritual gifts (Romans 12:3-8). Then are you a believer with no dream of using your gift for his glory? Why on earth not? That makes no more sense than not believing in Christ at all!

It need not be a public gift; what counts is what God gave you, what fits in his plan for you. The world needs your service and your contribution: dream of using what God gave you to make the greatest impact you can for his glory.

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Coming to Chesapeake, VA, on March 13!
The Answers 2010 Regional Apologetics Conference

With a lineup including several nationally-known speakers, a debate, and two sessions that I’ll be leading.

From the conference website:

The Answers -
Questions come at us from every angle: our friends, our relatives, even ourselves. These questions ask, “Does God Really Exist?”, “Is the Bible trustworthy?”, “Why does God allow so much suffering?” The questions are difficult, and they’re important. Now, it’s time to get The ANSWERS.

This conference is designed to help Christians answer these questions and more. Parents, teens, college students, home-schoolers, new believers, and pastors: EVERYONE can come here to get The ANSWERS. Experts from all over the country are gathering here to answer questions related to: atheism, Islam, Creation vs. Evolution, the Bible, the Resurrection, Pop-Culture phenomena like the Da Vinci Code, and more. Some of the speakers include best-selling author Mark Mittelberg, nationally renowned scholars Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Craig Hazen, and former-Muslim Christian evangelist Dr. Nabeel Qureshi. The evening will conclude with a live debate between international debater David Wood and atheist author John Loftus on the topic “Does God Exist?” Seating is very limited, so sign up early to make sure you are here to get the ANSWERS!

[From The Answers 2010]

Not mentioned in that front-page promotion from the conference website: several breakout session speakers, including myself. I’ll be speaking on Postmodernism and “Does Faith Make Sense In an Age of Science.”

There’s still room for you! If you’re anywhere within range, don’t miss this great event.

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Stanley Fish wrote a profound piece for the NY Times’ Opinionator Blog last Monday, “Are There Secular Reasons?” He’s addressing the Classic Liberal doctrine that public policy should always be decided on the basis of secular reasons, not religious ones; and in the end, he doubts there are any actually secular reasons. I read his article a couple days ago with the sort of disappointment only a blogger could know: he had said it so well, I couldn’t think of anything to add.

In terms of cultural proportionality, Fish’s piece is considerably more important than what I’m writing here. (Use your time wisely: read his article first.) He is speaking of a widespread social phenomenon; my topic relates to a small but terribly vocal minority.

One member of that minority is Jerry Coyne. Coyne is a professor of biology at the University of Chicago who has complained loudly about Francis Collins being selected as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Why the complaint? It’s not because Collins lacks scientific credentials; first a physician, later he was head of the Human Genome Project. No, it’s because Collins believes in Jesus Christ, Never mind his having headed up one of the most complex and significant scientific projects of the past two decades—Craig Venter notwithstanding—if he’s a Christian, he must be a blithering idiot.

It was David Heddle who reminded me of Coyne this week by drawing attention to his further complaints. Coyne said this week that Collins’s Christianity disqualifies him:

Collins gets away with this kind of stuff only because, in America, Christianity is a socially sanctioned superstition. He’s the chief government scientist, but he won’t stop conflating science and faith. He had his chance, and he blew it. He should step down.

David dealt with Coyne nicely enough; I don’t need to add to his piece, either.

Recall now that Fish was talking about whether religion ought to be allowed into public discourse. He cites two forms the objection against it takes:

A somewhat less stringent version of the argument permits religious reasons to be voiced in contexts of public decision-making so long as they have a secular counterpart: thus, citing the prohibition against stealing in the Ten Commandments is all right because there is a secular version of the prohibition rooted in the law of property rights rather than in a biblical command. In a more severe version of the argument, on the other hand, you are not supposed even to have religious thoughts when reflecting on the wisdom or folly of a piece of policy. Not only should you act secularly when you enter the public sphere; you should also think secularly.

Whether the argument appears in its softer or harder versions, behind it is a form of intellectual/political apartheid known as the private/public distinction: matters that pertain to the spirit and to salvation are the province of religion and are to be settled by religious reasons; matters that pertain to the good order and prosperity of civil society are the province of democratically elected representatives and are to be settled by secular reasons.

This “intellectual/political apartheid,” this “private/public distinction” is a real phenomenon. Francis Schaeffer was the first I know of to write on it; more recently there has been Nancy Pearcey. I don’t disagree with it. But it is no longer true, as it once may have been, that it is the one factor behind attempts to eject religion from the public square. The New Atheist line (and there are other examples) says those who believe in religion have committed intellectual suicide. Only secular rationalists are smart enough to lead.

The public/private distinction is powerful in our culture. It’s the way Western religion-deniers try to push faith underground. It’s not the only force in the debate any more, though. There’s a new prejudice out there gaining voice along with it: religious people are doofuses and on that basis alone, they shouldn’t be allowed to lead.

Coyne doesn’t propose a religious litmus test for public office. He knows that would be unconstitutional. Well, good for him. All he’s saying is that religious people, just because they are believers in God, are therefore too stupid to hold certain offices. That’s not as bad, is it?

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Last week I opened my new series on basic discipleship of the mind by outlining briefly what it means to think Christianly. The next most important question is whether it matters that we think Christianly. Here are ten reasons it does:

1. Knowing God — which is of first importance — means knowing. Jesus said “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This is relational knowledge, which to a great extent depends on knowing true facts about God: his nature, his character, how he has revealed himself.
2. The first Great Commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:34-40).
3. Personal transformation begins with the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1-2).
4. From the same passage, spiritual worship—which could also be rendered rational service—is tied to the renewal of our minds. Service and worship are both connected to the life of the mind.
5. The word “disciple” means follower-learner. We cannot be disciples of Christ without both following and learning. If I may repeat what I said last week, it is no accident that one of Jesus’ main activities on earth was teaching.
6. God’s primary revelation to humans is in the form of a book. It’s such an obvious fact, we might miss what it implies: books are for studying.
7. Study and learning are directly commanded in Scripture, 2 Timothy 2:15.
8. Knowledge is good in itself.
9. Truth is good in itself. Truth can be known in part without thinking Christianly, but whatever ignores, sets aside, or denies God’s revelation cannot approach the fulness of truth God calls us to know and to follow.
10. Thoughtful error must be countered with thoughtful truth (1 Corinthians 10:3-5; Jude 3-4).

C.S. Lewis put that final point this way in The Weight of Glory.:

“To be ignorant and simple now — not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground — would be to throw down our weapons and betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”

(Are there more than ten reasons? Is there more that could be said? Sure! I’m using this short-post format as a break from my usual longer articles.)

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Sometimes the news is so horrifying it takes your breath away, and you don’t know how to begin to respond. That’s the effect the earthquake in Haiti has probably had on all of us. For now, there seems to be little we can do except to pray and to give financial support to relief efforts. And grieve for our fellow human beings who have been so devastated, and who must deal with the possibility of even more damage from aftershocks.

Pat Robertson also responded by suggesting that the earthquake had something to do with Haitians having made a pact with the devil in their practice of voodoo. One’s immediate response is to denounce that kind of statement as judgmental, condescending, and assuming too much freedom to speak for God. I think all of those reactions are appropriate.

The error he made was not, however, in suggesting that God would never punish a nation for gross sin and idolatry. He did it with Sodom and Gomorrah, he did it with almost the whole human race in the flood, and he has warned us of further judgment yet to come. We fallible humans know that crime cannot be glossed over, for it would be unjust, and it would encourage crime to proliferate still more. God, who is all-wise and perfectly good, also practices his justice by giving crime (sin) its due. Only if one’s sin is forgiven through Christ is there freedom from this consequence.

Theoretically, then, if Haiti has made a pact with the devil, then it is possible that God has expressed his judgment on that. But I am not at all sure their sin is greater than America’s, India’s, Russia’s, Morocco’s, or any other country’s. I am really not sure that Robertson knows that God has directed this disaster toward Haiti as a particular punishment for their sin. Above all I cannot see how this meets a terribly wounded country’s need for pastoral help and love.

Robertson could have done far better to echo Jesus’ words following disasters at his time (Luke 13:1-5):

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

It was a warning to the smugly self-righteous. Do we suppose the Haitians are worse sinners than us? Or do recognize that we all stand equal before God, in like danger of perishing unless we turn to God through Christ? There is a true way to life and freedom, but it is the way of confession, humility, and trust.

(See further from Stand to Reason)

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Book Review/Podcast

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I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer by phone on Monday, January 11, about his powerful recent book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. The book’s main argument, if I may be so bold as to summarize 600+ pages into one sentence, is that (1) materialist explanations (involving only natural processes) for the information present in the first life have never been found and are nowhere on the horizon, (2) that information is known to come from one source and one only, which is mind, (3) that mind is therefore the best explanation for that information, and (4)  it is artificial and arbitrary to rule out mind as an explanation.

My first question to Dr. Meyer was something I don’t think I have seen discussed by ID proponents. ID opponents talk about it frequently but usually not in any satisfying way. The question was, “for those of us who are not specialists in the technical fields under discussion—biochemistry, biology, and even geology and cosmology which are not the topics of this book—is it reasonable for us to come to any conclusion on these questions? Can we know enough to make an informed decision of our own?”

ID opponents’ typical answer is, “There is no controversy, so there is no question. Why are you even asking?” For his answer, Dr. Meyer focused just on the origin of life and the information that it must have contained and expressed. The scientific facts are presented in the book for those who want to dive into them. For those who are not so equipped or inclined, the key point is that the basic facts are not in dispute: materialistic explanations are not working—at all—nor are there any prospects that they will in the foreseeable future. So the question is not whether there is or is not some materialistic explanation to be compared with proposed Design explanations. The question is whether one is allowed to entertain Design as an explanation; and if not, then why not?

Scientific rejoinders to this argument have been few, and none of them have addressed the core argument of the book: the origin of the first functional biological information. Not that there haven’t been negative reviews, but that they have lacked substance where it counts most. One of the better ones, by Darrell Falk at Biologos, touches on miniscule details and not on the fundamental point Meyer is making. Another review there, by the very eminent biologist Francisco Ayala, is much more theological in nature than scientific, and weak at that, in my view.

Reviews at Amazon, as I have already analyzed and reported (and discussed in the interview), turn the usual complaints against ID upside down: it is the negative reviewers, the ID antagonists, who have displayed dogmatic theological anti-intellectualism.

Meyer is not an experimentalist. Is his argument therefore not science? He offers two answers: one, does it matter if it’s science if it’s the best explanation? And two, if his is not science on that basis, then ID opponents will be embarrassed to find out who else they have thereby declared to be non-scientists. I suggest you read the book (especially Chapter 4-6 and thereabouts) to find out who; but you can hear the short answer in this podcast interview.

More than six months after its publication, it’s hard to find any effective scientific response against it. One Amazon reviewer called this book a “game-changer.” Time will tell if that’s going to be the case or not. But I have a strong feeling that if you don’t read this book, you’re not even going to know what the score is.

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer. New York: HarperOne, 2009. 624 pages including extensive endnote material. Amazon Price US$19.13

(The content of the podcast is copyright 2010 by the participants. I edited my portion of the conversation to improve my sometimes slow conversational pace and upgrade your listening experience. Dr. Meyer did not need that kind of help.)

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