The VNP award for Christian Authenticity goes to….Jeff Lucas

Jeff Lucas, for the second time, wins the above award (See here for the first time). Jeff writes for Christianity magazine, although he is in fact a teaching pastor at Timberline Church, Colorado (Lucky them!). There is stiff competition for VNP’s “Christian Authenticity” award amongst Christianity magazine columnists and they have come up for it before. See here: 

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/epistemic-play-pen.html

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/healer-dealers.html

Jeff’s latest article can be found in the June edition of Christianity magazine and is entitled A Dangerous Passion. As the title suggests it is a warning about what happens when passionate serious minded Christians, who see every issue in black vs. white terms, go on the rampage – as Jeff can testify from personal experience. Here are some quotes: 

Passionate Christians can be highly dangerous. I’ve reached that this awkward conclusion after too many years of pastoral leadership …. I’ve seen people wounded, churches split and lives ruined by sold out, white hot, do-or-die zealots…. 

And that’s just the start. The article is so worth reading that I scanned it and it can be read below. Jeff is certainly not against passion per se; his problem, I think, is with the mindless bigoted passion of the spiritual ultras who take themselves far too seriously. As I always say: 

Polarisation passion feeds. Passion polarisation breeds. Polarisation is passion's cause, for crusade and holy wars.

And here's another good saying that I have used before: (An epitaph found on a tomb in St Stephen's church in Norwich)

A scholar without pride, a Christian without bigotry, devout without ostentation.

(Click to enlarge)

Holy Healers!

Point to the evidence Hinn!

As my last post touched on the subject of healing I ought to post the following for the record. 

The June edition of Christianity magazine has a letter from a Peter Saunders who signs himself as the chief executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He says:

The 4000 Christian doctors who belong to the Christian Medical Fellowship Fellowship believe in God's power to heal both in response to prayer and through the gift of medicine. We also believe in the positive effect that Christian faith has on health, which is supported by scientific research.

So here we have a guy who is likely to be very knowledgeable about Christian health issues and at the same time not especially biased against the possibility of miraculous healing. But this is what he goes on to say:

Although God chooses to answer prayer in many ways, there is very little hard evidence that miracles of the sort that Jesus and the apostles performed - instantaneous miraculous reversals on major diseases and disabilities - are happening with any great frequency in Britain today.

That, need I say, concurs with my own observations. However, it is quite likely that Saunders testimony would count for very little amongst the pious ultras who would probably regard much of the medical profession as part of a Godless system. In any case as we saw in my last post any attempt to check up on  apparently miraculous healings may be regarded as at best unnecessary and at worst a sign of resisting the Holy Spirit. But on this subject Saunders writes:

If Jesus was not afraid to have his healings examined by the priests, then we should also seek objective verification [by medical professionals] of any healing claim.

Great advice! But I am afraid that this all rather presumes a culture which respects the medical profession. Unfortunately many marginalised Christian spiritual ultras have a tendency to despise professional medicine and write it off as "man's way". Criticism of their culture will automatically register amongst them as an affront to God, such is their conceit.

Holier Than Thou vs. Holier Than You

As we saw in my last post the latest round of revivalist expectancy is linked to the Bay of Holy Spirit movement, a movement that has prophesied revival in Norwich. This prophecy has now passed its sell by date, but expectancy of revival remains high amongst these revivalists.

One must first put this whole matter in perspective: The churches who have identified themselves with this latest “move of God” are just one of the many Christian splinters to be found in Norwich; in fact I don’t think of them as mainstream, if indeed such a thing as “mainstream” can be defined given that the normal state of Christian affairs is one of its eggs being distributed over many baskets.

Setting the scene for the purposes of this post, however, is this article on the ecumenical Christian web site Network Norwich and Norfolk. Posted toward the end of 2010 it gave me my first alert that a new prophecy pertaining to Norwich was in the offing. The article attracted the comments from a critic called “Way Truth Life Seeker” who is attached to yet another of Norwich’s many Christian splinter groups; but more about that later. 

What I want to look at here is the response of a certain “Brent Lewis” to Truth Seeker’s challenge. Lewis has obviously sold out to the Bay of Holy Spirit movement. However, compared to Truth Seeker’s robust and closely argued challenge Lewis’s response in terms of facts and reason is remarkably light. But assembling facts and reason are really not his forte; instead he prefers to spiritually intimidate his critic. Below I reproduce Brent Lewis’s final response and I have embedded it with my own commentary. As you will see it is weak on reason and fact but very strong on its attempt to apply spiritual duress. I must say that in my experience Lewis’s spiritual put downs are not peculiar to him; they are common amongst those in his Christian subculture and the ethos and clichés he expresses can be found in the teaching of the leaders who promote God’s latest “new thing”. To be fair Lewis is just re-expressing what he has been taught. 

Dear Way Truth Life Seeker, I appreciate your honesty and frankness however I don’t think we’re going to agree on the issue of Divine healing. I’ve attended many revival meetings in different countries and witnessed numerous miracles, why would we want evidence and documentation; the evidence is right in front of my eyes; that by the Lords all sufficient love and Grace- He sets people free, delivers them, heals them and makes them whole. 

My Comment: As we know, and as the existence of sleight of hand “magic” confirms, evidence that is right in front of the eyes can be notoriously unreliable, especially if it comes out of the heady and emotional context of revivalist rallies; in such a context seeing isn’t believing. Apart from clear physical impairments such as amputated limbs, most human disabilities have causes and symptoms that are invisible and therefore claimed healings are by large claims about things you don’t readily see. Moreover, crowds, particularly gullible, uncritical, and emotional crowds, are easy to manipulate. If we waiver demands for documentation it would become a free-for-all for every religious charlatan between here and Salt Lake City. Genuine healers will not to be frightened of demands for documentation. 

You seem like a doubting Thomas even wanting a sign, but the Lord said in the synoptic Gospels that no sign shall be given.

My Comment: The reference to “No sign shall be given” comes from Mat 12:39 (et similia) where we find Jesus confronting not a disciple but His sworn enemies, the hypocritical religious leaders of the day: Lewis subtle, or perhaps not so subtle, insinuation is that Truth Seeker is comparable to Christ’s worst enemies! But the great irony here is that Mat 12:39ff tells us that a sign will be given, namely, the story of Jonah, a story that is being used here as a metaphor for Christ and His resurrection. We see this metaphor actually fulfilled in the very story of doubting Thomas who received the best sign of all, the living Christ Himself. Lewis, in mixing up the stories of doubting Thomas and the Pharisees, has clearly screwed up his comparisons! 

The cack-handed insinuation and sense of threat gets even stronger in the next passage: 

We as believers have to be very careful when we speak about the miracles infused by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Mathew chapter 12 we see the Lord working many miracles and the Pharisees are mocking the Lord and even saying : This one does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub the ruler of the demons, but the Lord rebuked them and said Therefore I say to you, All kinds of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. 

My Comment: Lewis is now upping the ante with an innuendo about the unforgivable sin; (See Mat 12:30ff; looking at the context we see that once again Jesus’s antagonists are the Pharisees, and not disciples) My interpretation of this piece of spiritual bullying by Lewis is this: “If you challenge the Bay of Holy Spirit movement it may not just classify as an ordinary sin; instead you should beware of committing the unforgivable sin”. This kind of language has been used before against those who were opposed to the Toronto blessing – See here. So, having well and truly sunk his fangs into Truth Seeker with this allusion to the unforgivable sin Brent Lewis now dribbles out some concentrated spiritual venom: 

The scribes and the Pharisees were eyewitnesses of the miraculous healing of the mute and blind man. They saw the demon cast out of the man, and they knew it was only the power of the Holy Spirit who could do miracles such as these. Their accusations toward Jesus revealed the attitude they harbored within… envy, jealousy, bitterness, hatred and strife. Instead of rejoicing because this child of Israel was healed and restored, they began to be enraged with and set themselves “violently against” Jesus. This was not merely an outburst of anger on the part of the scribes and Pharisees, but rather, the outward manifestation of their greed and selfish and wicked ways. By plotting against the man of God, they begin their journey down the road to blasphemy (vilification) of the Spirit of God, it’s the same situation today with many dear ones touched, healed and delivered by Spirit of the risen Christ yet onlookers just shun and shake their heads not realizing their blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

My Comment: The intimidating anti-superlatives are coming in thick and fast here; “they knew it was the power of the Holy Spirit”, “accusing Jesus”, “envy”, “jealousy”, “bitterness”, “hatred”, “strife”, “violently against Jesus”, “greed”, “selfishness”, “wicked ways”, “plotting against the man of God”, “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” all packed into a short paragraph. If poor old Truth Seeker doesn’t want to “begin his journey down the road to blasphemy” what should he do? Here’s Brent Lewis’s advice: 

At the end of the day we have to have empty ourselves of all the teaching, doctrines and theology we think we know and stop confining the Lord to the letter and get afresh vision of the Lord moving across the earth. One of the attributes of love is that it believes all things, and rather than Christians arguing what is or isn’t a miracle they need to work together get out on the highways and byways, exercise the gifts that the Lord has given them so the Lord can complete his work on earth and come back and establish His kingdom. Come Lord Jesus! Amen.

My Comment: The foregoing, in my experience, typifies the ethos and doctrines doing the rounds in these authoritarian revivalist Christian subcultures: Empty your head, suspend your critical faculties and just believe all that’s on offer, for to do otherwise is neither loving nor the way of Christ. I’m reminded here of a cassette I listened to in the mid-1990s where a certain Ellie Mumford, a promoter of the Toronto Blessing, exalted her listeners not to analyze this blessing but to just accept it. Neither Lewis nor Mumford can see their double standard: They would not, of course, empty their heads of all those doctrines which teach an uncritical acceptance of what is loudly billed as the latest move of God. This emptying of one’s self of all reason and knowledge, especially when faced with superior articulation, is what I refer to as the gnostic escape from reason; basically it’s saying “Damn your arguments; I’m enlightened and you’re not!”. It’s usual the stand-off between reason and intuition, knowledge and feelings that takes place when logos and mythos fail to come to terms.

*** 

One question remains here: Who is this "Truth Seeker"? That is a long story: I spent nearly three years corresponding with him by email. He is a follower of Witness Lee’s teachings. These teachings are promulgated by “Living Stream Ministries” who have an administrative and teaching centre at Anaheim, USA. He was much more willing to engage the Bible and reason than the self-confessed empty-head, Brent Lewis. But we find that Truth Seeker, like Lewis, has also backed himself into a corner as a consequence of an all-out-commitment to just one of those many baskets of eggs. Lewis and Truth Seeker are both very pious Christians capable of some ostentatious displays of devotional language: That’s another way of saying that they are both spiritual hot-heads, “on fire for the Lord”. Their meeting is a match of the irresistible force and the immoveable object. They both have complete confidence that the Christian subculture to which they have attached themselves is where everyone should be at spiritually; if you are going to believe this sort of thing then you are going to believe that Christians who are not with you are prime fodder for proselytizing. This is the logic that brings Truth Seeker and Lewis to similar conclusions: Viz: “If you are not with us you must be against us and if you are against us you are against God”. Truth Seeker, when I pressed him, also resorted to bluster and the gnostic back-stop against reasoned argument; he was “in the Spirit” and I, of course, was not; his thoughts were spirit lead and mine were “soulish”. Furthermore, like many who have backed themselves into a corner, he could also be pretty threatening; and the best way to threaten a fellow Christian is to attempt to call into question and destabilize that which is most precious to them; none other than their faith*. The idea is that the target will then attempt to re-stabilize their faith by selling out to what the proselytizer will hype as the latest move of God, a move not to be missed. 

 Perhaps I will tell the story of “Truth Seeker” another day. 

 * Footnote: At one point in the NN&N thread Lewis even goes as far as questioning whether the moderate and reasonable evangelical Hank Hanegraaff is a true believer.

Postscript
Lewis and Truth Seeker find it difficult to accept that authentic shows of high piety are possible outside their own Christian subculture. Their strong and exclusive identification with their respective sub cultures has, as I have said above, had the effect of backing them into a corner and given them little room to manoeuvre. Therefore when they are faced with another's spiritual ostentation and vehment conviction they have given themselves few choices: Rather than seeing one another as just displaying bog standard human foibles and conceits, they see something far more malign: As we have seen Lewis is edging towards accusing Truth Seeker of committing the unforgivable sin. Truth Seeker in turn, as my experience with him suggests, is likely to think of Lewis as being a captive in spiritual Babylon.

Prophecies: Stack’em high, Sell’em Cheap and Sell’em Short.

Some prophecies are running out of time

This blog post was triggered by an article in the April issue of “Christianity” magazine entitled “Hungry for Revival”. In the words of the article:

Some have prophesied that 2012 could be a significant spiritual time for the church and interest in revival among some leaders is growing…… An increasing number of churches are expectant.

After a summit of revivalist leaders in September 2011, during which there was “a special sense of the presence of God”, one of these leaders is quoted as saying:

“There’s something about September 1^st, I believe you can write it down. I believe you can write it in your journal, that ‘everything changed September 1^st 2011’. I feel like it’s a prophetic word over this country (the UK) – September 1^st 2011 – everything’s different”

That statement is gloriously ambiguous! And yet it is apparently regarded as a “prophecy”; the article goes on to say that those close to this particular leader tell us “It is very rare that he would give this kind of prophecy”.  As we will see this kind of prophecy from this kind of leader is far from rare. One must remember that in the Christian subculture this prophecy is coming from, leaders are apt to be raised to the status of quasi holy men and therefore merely setting a question against their teachings is often felt to be  an affront, perhaps even tantamount to questioning the Holy Spirit Himself. Therefore the followers of this particular holy man will be taking his words very seriously indeed and very ready to defend him.

The above prophecy is still, I suppose, relatively fresh and its ambiguity gives it a fuzzy sell by date. Going back in time a bit further we can find recent prophetic utterances that are still part of this latest round of revivalist expectancy but are now, however, past their sell-by-date.  If you look at the video promoted here and here you will find Bay of the Holy Spirit revivalists  Nathan Morris  and John Kilpatrick prophesying about revival in Norwich.  This is what we hear:

 I believe in the next eighteen months city wide revivals will break out…. In the end of 2010  into 2011 we are going to see an outbreak of revivals across the nations of the world. I believe the Lord said to me I’m going to raise up cities of refuge, places of out pouring…

I speak to Norwich in the UK. Norwich!  Be awakened by the fire of the Holy Ghost!

God is beginning to do something there…just an outpouring in Norwich UK. I believe that this word we preached tonight is coming to Norwich UK…. Shout fire right now…Norwich in the name Jesus be awakened right now.

But do you know what, in the days to come there is going to be so many cities on fire for God, especially beginning in 2011…I believe the Holy Spirit right now is softening cities and churches ready. It’s not going to be a church wide revival; it’s going to be city wide revivals. God’s going to shake cities

Those prophetic words really do seem to be past their sell by date; the end of 2010 into 2011 is over a year ago and nothing has happened in Norwich: Although no date is actually given for revival in Norwich the prophecies pertaining to Norwich were provided very much in the context of the 2010 into 2011 time frame.

***

Dubious prophetic utterances and an excited expectancy amongst the followers of the Christian holy men, need I say, are no new phenomena; there has always been a demand  to up the ante with the latest “new thing” God is doing. The Jehovah’s witnesses were into a similar dynamic with their 1975 expectancy. In fact as a result of this latest spate of prophecies I decided to travel back in time by browsing my stock of Christianity magazines, a stock which goes back to 1980, right back to the days when “Christianity” was actually called “Buzz”.  This is what I found.

The year is 1987. The January edition of Buzz carries an article entitled “Are the Horseman in the Saddle?” (Referring, of course, to the four horseman of the apocalypse) The article tells us about a certain Clifford Hill, a pastor of a London East End church who “called a group of 153 Christians with a prophetic gift to Mount Carmel in Israel”. Over to Hill and the Mount Carmel prophets:

We are very near to the point of disaster in our nation. The present world situation is so serious that the very existence of mankind is under threat. There will be tremendous destruction, even nuclear war, unless the nations turn from the path they are taking now and turn back to God….. I see three things coming in the not too distant future in our nation. One is economic collapse, the second is political uncertainty and the third is trials on a scale unknown before in our nation…. I believe I’m hearing from God….

It will not be long before there will come upon this world a time of unparalled upheaval and turmoil. Do not fear for it is I the Lord who am shaking all things. I began this shaking with the first World War and I greatly increased it through the second World War. Since 1973 I have given it an even greater impetus. In the last stage I plan to complete it with the shaking of the Universe itself with signs in sun and moon and stars.

Let us now go forward to the April of that year. Here we find an article entited “Revival”.  It starts:

A great tidal wave of revival is heading toward Britain – a new wave of God’s spirit sweeping across the nation and winning souls for Christ. Such is the vision of revival received by evangelist Nancy Goudie a member of the gospel rock band Heartbeat….. “As the Spirit of God has been moving through the Church it’s as if he’s put the word ‘revival’ on the lips and hearts of his people” say Heartbeat. And a good many Christians agree with them.

The article goes on to quote other big names of the day who were expecting a British revival; Selwyn Hughes, evangelist James Robinson, pastor Paul Yonggi, evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, and restorationist Arthur Wallis. Flamboyant pastor Gerald Coates is also quoted as saying the tide has turned.

One must recall that the above are simply the Woolworth’s prophecies that have come my way - if one starts looking for them one finds them to be as common as beetles – for example in 1995 Gerald Coates predicted  that  within 18 months Westminster chapel was going to be at the heart of Revival.  Here I list a few other Woolworth’s prophecies that I’m aware of.

People love to have something exciting on the horizon; it gives them something to work for, hope for and fuels their dreams, and those Christians whose hopes have been inappropriately raised have my sympathy. However, one might find that the sympathy only goes one way. When prophets and their prophecies are questioned their followers can get quite threatening.  As William Irwin Thompson has remarked about the zealous excesses of the followers of eastern gurus (and I think you will find that the principles here apply as much to Christian gurus):

We do not need a new civic religion of the world state run by Initiates of Kundalini Yoga; we need to protect spirituality from religion in a secular culture of law in which devotees are protected from the zealous excesses of one another. It is utterly naïve to think that in the near future men will have outgrown the playpen of the American Constitution and will lovingly trust one another. The gurus are tolerant and merely condescending now because they have no political power; but even without power they show full evidence of human frailty and vanity and tend to think that their own yoga is bigger and better than the other guru’s. And what is often only a case of mild condescension in the guru becomes in the disciples a fever of zealotry.

Just how threatening the disciples of the latest clutch of Christian holy men can be we will see in a later post.

The Epistemic Play Pen

"Join me, I'm a fundamentalist."

In the February edition of “Christianity” magazine Greg Downes writes about his decision to study theology (see page 49):

When I first expressed an interest in the subject as a teenager, some well meaning Christians advised me against it, saying I would lose my faith. This certainly happens to some people, but I couldn't help but think that if I were to discover some devastating fact that was the death blow to my faith, surely that would mean it wasn’t true after all, and therefore not worth holding on to.

This is not the attitude of many Christians. When “The God Delusion” was published, a Christian advised me against reading it, saying it would undermine my faith. She was surprised when I replied: “Well if Dawkins is right I would want to be an atheist as soon as possible”. The response from this sister was that if Richard Dawkins was right she would really rather not know, since her life would be emptied of meaning. In that sense being an unashamed seeker after truth is what I have in common with men such as Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, only since my conclusion is that God is, my world view ends up radically different.

Downes expresses an admirable attitude. The only real challenge to faith I can see here is the hint that for some, Christianity only works because a lack of intellectual integrity protects it. There seems to be a swathe of Christians out there who believe their faith is only safe whilst they remain in an epistemic play pen. With this level of gullibility no wonder the anti-science fundamentalists have a market.

Quasi-Religion Creeps into Atheism by Stealth

God is pictured as a kindly old bearded gentleman all in white, seated on a throne surrounded by light and who lives upon high.

(Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimshannon/3823248802/)

This is a curious post by PZ Myers. The post tells us about fellow atheist Alain de Botton who suggests atheists build “temples for atheists”. PZ Myers, need I say, is none too pleased; it’s sailing far too close to the winds of religion for PZ to feel comfortable! PZ links to this web page, where we can read:

De Botton's most recent book, Religion for Atheists, calls for unbelievers to copy the major religions and build grand architectural masterpieces to inspire a sense of perspective in people. He argues that a temple doesn't need to be dedicated to a religion: "You can build a temple to anything that's positive and good. That could mean: a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective".

He added: "Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land? It's time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals. A beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across. Books alone won't do it."

As I have remarked before, when atheists want to introduce a blend of communal celebration and mysticism into their beliefs they have little choice but to raid religion for ideas*. Trouble is, in my experience atheist mysticism and crowd celebration always comes over as affected and intensely embarrassing; what is to be the focus of atheism’s mysticism and celebration? Humanity? Science? Our ontological context that makes science effective? But the self, the known and the insentient make poor objects of worship. Authentic worship and celebration thirsts for the transcendent

Whether one regards religion’s objects as real or not, it seems that humanity has an innate appetite for the transcendent and the mystical and only religion has the wherewithal to satiate this appetite. No surprise then that something resembling religion worms its way back into atheism at the first opportunity. That’s going to make a zealous atheist like PZ Myers very unhappy indeed: He may sense that conceding the existence of an appetite for religion, even amongst atheists, especially among atheists, might register as evidence relevant to the question of God's existence. If Myers' aim is to suppress religion I think he has got his work cut out!

Footnote:
* My previous quotation re this subject:  "when organised atheism in the form of communism has attempted to provide a public rationale for celebration it has created cult figures, demigods and a quasi-religious sense of mystical collective destiny."

Further Notes on "The Mouth of God"

There is an all too human temptation of pride in thinking of one’s self as part of an exclusive righteous elite, a spiritual remnant who hold tightly to “absolute truth”. The epistemological focus of this kind of devotion is on “The Word” and/or internalized epiphanies. A concomitantly fideist tendency to reject science (The Mechanics of Providence) as mere “man’s knowledge” is taken as an expression of devotion. Above all sectarians know that their words are “right” and everyone else is “wrong”, even other Christians; in fact especially other Christians! As I have indicated in my last post, this apparent epistemological arrogance surfaces in the mind of the sectarian as the epitome of humility because he, in his opinion, is conforming to Divinely revealed “blueprints” and simply mouthing God's words. That such “blueprints” have to be appropriated, read, interpreted, evaluated and implemented by the fallible mind of the sectarian never seems to enter the sectarian’s arrogant and proud head. He will claim that The Bible and/or The Holy Spirit underwrites all he says; thus are logos and mythos horribly abused to underwrite an epistemology of arrogance. Oh the irony of it all!

Strong sectarians have little regard for serious relations with “outsiders” for their own sake – outsiders are considered evangelism fodder and the sole reason for seriously relating to them is to get them into the sect.  Relations are severed when it becomes clear to the sectarian that an “outsider” is argumentative and/or a lost cause. The sectarian may become sullen and belligerent toward the dissenting outsider whom he considers to be opposing God's very words spoken through his mouth.

Such are my unpleasant experiences with those on the sect-cult spectrum.

The Mouth of “God”

Sectarianism: All  mouth and blind obedience.

The January issue of “Christianity” magazine has an interview with Christian palaeontologist Mike Taylor. During the interview Taylor comments on the polarised quarrels in North America between Creationists and Evolutionists. Viz:

They are a complete waste of time and energy. Scientists who should be doing valuable work are distracted into refuting frankly loony ‘science’. Worse still Christians who should be spreading the love of Christ are distracted into a fruitless argument that has nothing to do with the Gospel, and can only be a hindrance to scientists who might otherwise be open to Christ. It really is the most appallingly pointless and destructive conflict – all the more so because it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other.

I’m certainly sympathetic toward Taylor’s impatience! The time of professional scientists (not to mention tax payer’s money) is clearly not well spent refuting the crank-science of fundamentalists. I’m also sympathetic toward Taylor’s regret at the pointlessness of it all, especially when the quarrel is between Christians. However, I think Taylor is rather too hopeful in his assessment that it’s between two sides that aren’t even opposed, as they would realize if they’d only listen to each other. For many fundamentalists this issue is very much bound up with their version of Christianity and they have a world view that obliges them to proactively crusade against Christians whose views differ from their own. Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham, need I say, is my textbook example; you won’t get him to accept that this is a fruitless argument. For him it is the stuff of the Gospel and those who do not share his views he thinks of as compromisers who are turning people away from church and the true gospel. Given extremism of this intensity any reasonable Christian who respects science and reason will find themselves in conflict with fideist fundamentalists whether (s)he likes it or not.

If we should have any doubt that Ham’s concept of the gospel is inextricably linked to his Young Earth Creationism (YEC) we only need read his blog post of 28 December and entitled A No-Literal-Adam Evolutionary Christmas “Gospel” Message. In this post he refers to a Christmas message from Faraday institute director Dr Denis Alexander as an “anti-gospel message”. Further, in a blog post dated 30 December and entitled Which Jesus Do You Really Believe In? we read the following:

Steve shows that today many Christian scholars who identify themselves as theological conservatives and evangelicals are preaching a Jesus different from the Jesus of the Bible. In order to accommodate their personal belief that millions-of-years-evolution is true, they are essentially re-writing major doctrines and accounts in the holy Scriptures from beginning to end. Many no longer believe in a literal Adam and Eve, a literal sin in a literal the Garden of Eden, a literal Ark and Flood, or that the Jesus created the world as recorded in the Old Testament and as He says He did in the New Testament

Consistent with a sect that is reacting to a hostile world by hardening its position in order to prevent its message being compromised, YEC philosophy is now getting explicit recognition in the statement of faith of those who attach themselves to it. In Ham’s blog post dated 26 Dec and entitled President of Creationist College Visits Museum with Family we read:

The college, which started in 1968 and is now a Bible/liberal arts school, has the following sentence in its statement of faith: “We believe in . . . Six creation days of twenty-four hours each.”

The sentiment is clear: For Ham salvation demands a belief in a creation period of literally 6 x 86400 seconds; essentially the core message that Ham’s Answers in Genesis organization is preaching – in his view to deny YEC is to deny Jesus and perhaps even jeopardize one’s salvation. This consolidation of the collective identity of a religious group in a ritualized gathering around a particular set of proprietary observances thought to be bound up with salvation (in this case YEC) interests me greatly; it is a stage in the formation of a cult.

***

Since my first identification with the Christian cause I have given a certain amount of time to the study of Christianity’s many sub-sects and cults. Let me be frank here. After being happily and merrily “converted” in the mid seventies my subsequent soon after discovery of the numerous cultish and sectarian expressions of Christianity was a big and unexpected shock; yes I really was naive enough to think that all was going to be sweetness, light and harmony in Christian circles. After all, I was given to understand that the radical message of Christianity was that faith wasn’t about an uptight and jealous guarding of proprietary religious observance and practice, but rather the acceptance of a very embracing message of grace, repentance, forgiveness, and relationship followed by a clear conscience. But here were people who were reintroducing no end of finicky observances and proprietary beliefs back into church, by using the Bible as if it was a collection of legal articles. They left little doubt that if their views were not followed whole heartedly it could endanger one's salvation. For them the guilt trip was very much back on the pilgrim's itinerary and constituted the coercive means by which they eased in their beliefs. I have to say that as far as I was concerned these people were (and still are) the biggest challenge Christianity faces to its authenticity and truth as one can find and so I threw myself into a study of the subject.

Below I provide a list of some of the partisan Christian groups I have been acquainted with. They occupy different places on the sect-cult spectrum and have varied degrees of social integration, strictness and recognizable identity; some have a fuzzier definition than others and some are movements within movements. However, they are all marked by offering particular observance novelties and/or spiritual elixirs that they regard as at the very least helpful to salvation, if not essential to it. The list below is roughly in the chronological order of my acquaintance with these movements. The bias toward protestant sects is a sign of my being in the protestant West.

Children of God.

Strict and Traditional Brethren

Jehovah’s witnesses

Mormons

The Christadelphians

Strict and Traditional Evangelicals

Herbert Armstrong and the Plain Truth

The Jesus Army

Restorationists

Gnostic and fideist charismatics

The Snake Handlers sect.

Potters House

Toronto Blessing revival

Barry Smith: Millennium Bug prophet

Gold dust and angel feathers Charismatics.

Extreme orthodox groups.

Answers in Genesis.

Strict and Particular Baptists

Todd Bentley’s Lakeland revival

The Witness Lee Brotherhood

The Geocentric Christians

Christian Flat Earthers (Now defunct?)

Real Catholics (Michael Voris)

William Tapley, end of world prophet 2010

Harold Camping, end of world prophet 2011

I don’t think anyone needs to be told that this list is by no means exhaustive. If one looks hard enough new species of Christian cult or sect, each with their own specialized hobby horses, will creep out from under every stone one turns. When presented with such a smorgasbord of types one seeks general ideas and themes to simplify and explain the phenomenon. To this end we can identify commonalities in the social dynamics that exists amongst the sects: The observations I have made above about Answers in Genesis are a case in point. Here we find a group whose specialist message is being rejected by the vast majority of Christians. In fact the 1960s “restoration” of YEC beliefs seems to be running out of steam and Christians are failing to accept YEC’s travesty of science. The reaction of those who have huge stakes in the movement (like Ken Ham) is to get more strident and extreme in their pronouncements as they find a need to derive an inverted self esteem from an increasing awareness of themselves as a "peculiar remnant" people. Thus, isolation leads to entrenchment and in turn a clearer definition of an eccentric faith. This seems to be the common polarizing dynamic that is a precursor to the sectification and ultimately cultification of a Christian movement; either that or the movement bombs because only unshakeable and proactive self-belief can survive marginalization by the rest of the Christian community. There is an inverted pride in being a small vociferous purist movement that sees itself as an uncompromising anchorage of truth in a sea of error.

There is another commonality I have noticed from my experience with sects and cults that I would like to share here and which is relevant to Taylor’s otherwise admirable sentiment that the two sides need only listen to one another. Listen to one another? Forget it! In the sectarian mind failure to enthusiastically and uncritically embrace the uncompromising sectarian message, whether it is about the latest form of restorationist teaching, blessing, or revival, is to play fast and loose with God and risk Divine displeasure. In this sense, then, sectarians think of themselves as God’s mouthpiece that must be obeyed. Therefore an attempt to negotiate with them will register as a failure to respond adequately to their message and will be regarded as at best a sign of spiritual impediment and at worst manifestation of willful sin. Their message is non-negotiable. They therefore harbour a deep suspicion of the motives of all who disagree with them and they find it difficult if not impossible to accept that anyone can dissent and still have a clear conscience; dissidents are likely to be thought of as consciously and deliberately resisting the Holy Spirit.

It is this hardline attitude of the sectarian toward prevaricators that unfortunately makes Taylor’s desire for conciliation unlikely to be fulfilled. The out and out sectarian takes himself very seriously indeed and if his views are not taken on board he will, after a time, retreat in sullen righteous indignation; neutrality is simply not an option with him and even an impartial noncommittal attitude is equated with rebellion against God. He will feel every right to echo divine anger toward the dissenter; you can sometimes see it in sectarian faces. As effectively “God’s mouthpiece” sectarians have no pride problems with making claims of breathtaking arrogance and yet, paradoxically, at the same time think of themselves as humble, devout, unquestioning vessels of the Almighty’s purposes. Whenever I deal with sectarians who make a show of their piety I always think of an epitaph that one can find on a tomb in St. Stephens church in Norwich:

A scholar without pride, a Christian without bigotry, devout without ostentation.

St Stephens Church, Norwich, holds a lesson for sectarian Christianity.

Crank Conspiracy Theories: What in the World are They Spraying?

Caution: Please approach this with Poe's Law in Mind. Note ambulance siren in the background - the men in white have the situation in hand.

Don’t Play this at Home:

The obscenities in this video tear through the sentimental and schmaltzy fabric of Xmas with the sound of a low flying jet over a soft Kincaidian landscape. The message is that Santa gets all the accolades (and gets to look charitable to boot) whilst the beasts of burden (the reindeer) and the small men (elves, pixies and dwarfs) do all the work. Given that Santa is patron saint of Xmas capitalism, the video reminded me very sharply of the days when I used to read the stridently Marxist newspaper "Socialist Worker". The video expresses that paper’s vision of society to a tee: In raucous and harsh tones it forever condemned middle class capitalist acquisitiveness at the expense of working class wealth producers. “Stuff the Bosses”, “Stuff the Tories!”, “Stuff the Royals!” were the kind of headlines that often graced the front page.

I myself, however, was as cynical toward this Marxist message as the Socialist “Workers” were to the society that sustained them in sufficient freedom to express their opinions. Theirs was a materialist version of an archetypical eschatology that promised worker salvation on the great and terrible day of Revolution. Thence on the workers would own the means of production ushering in a supposedly classless society where everyone’s interests coincided and therefore all would live in peace.

But as the video says: “What a croc of ****”. A successful society depends on differentiation and specialization, thus implying classes, thereby setting the scene for potential conflicts of interest. Potential conflicts of interest are a fundamental feature of social existence. The so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a cloud cuckoo land concept that in practice leads to an elite ruling class who stifle all debate and dissention under the pretext that in a (fictitious) “classeless” society no conflict would exist and therefore by definition dissenters are reactionaries.

How many times have we seen the failure of this sort of cloud cuckoo land social philosophy? The Christian cults and sects do exactly the same: They are so sure they have found the secret to a social and spiritual utopia where (wo)man is at one with fellow (wo)man. But they fail to get the right balance between positive and negative democracy; accordingly their uncompromising effort to usher in a new unified and free Christian community has exactly the opposite effect. Their zeal, conviction and misplaced confidence in the rightness of their proprietary vision of community betrays them and they end up creating a social nexus ten times more oppressive than what they aim to replace; a nexus where censorship and compulsion are the norm and imposed by a (self) righteous elite. As the video says: “What a croc of ****”.  Oh the pathetic irony of it all!

No social restructuring of community and society will ever relieve us of the basic challenge we face day by day; namely, that of finding the strength of moral character to meet the demands of gainsaying self in favour of our neighbor. There is no uptopian society so structured that the moral choices we should make come effortlessly and naturally. This age old challenge is as much with us today as it always has been:

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Whether you believe the Christmas story is a myth or to signifies deep ontological realities, the values and challenges it embodies are timeless and for all: It is a story of a double condescension by Deity: One:That of giving our contingent and suffering world the power to allow its emergence out of the platonic realm of possibility into reality. Two: Of that Deity giving up all to visit this graciously reified world and identifying with it to the point of death:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Whether as a myth or as an “in fact” reality the Christmas story, in beauty, meaning, depth and grace, surpasses all.

More Nonscience From Ken Ham

Education without integrity

In a blog entry dated Dec 13th and entitled “We Love Science” Ken Ham continues to delude himself that Answers in Genesis isn’t an organization committed to delivering nonsense non-science to an ignorant and gullible Fundamentalist Christian public. I don’t want to spend too much time on the self delusions of this anti-science nincompoop, but if I were to expand upon just why Ken’s Answer in Genesis organisation is busily subverting science I would critique the following fundamental philosophical fallacies we find amongst the likes of Ken and his cronies:

1. The view that one can fundamentally distinguish between the “You weren’t there” historical sciences and the “repeatable” sciences: The motivation here is to undermine the historical sciences like evolutionary theory. As I have said elsewhere: All science, “historical” and otherwise, in varying degrees depends on historical documents and an assumed rational repeatability in the universe. There is no experiment that I can do, no historical investigation I can embark on, that doesn’t depend on documents and a posited rational repeatability. In short Ken’s philosophical fuax pas embodied in the quip “You weren’t there” undermines both Science and the Bible.

2. Ken’s Mature creation theory: I have addressed this at length here

3. The view that the Bible is the exclusive epistemic “lens” with which we see the universe: One cannot read and understand the meaning of the Bible without a “boot-strap” epistemic “lens” already in place – although of course the Bible effects one’s epistemic lens. What is being missed here is that epistemology and ontology have a two way coupling: Epistemology leads to knowledge of ontology and knowledge of ontology in turn modifies epistemology.

4. YEC failure to do justice to the equation “Meaning = Text + Context”: I have looked at this subject here.

5. An obsolete view of uniformitarianism that fails to understand power law catastrophism.

There are a lot more reasons I could find for pinning an anti-science charge on AiG, but really this unreasoning and bigoted fundamentalist group have consumed too much of my time already. It is irony that AiG’s position is liable to undermine all of science and history and would ultimately put irrationality on the throne. The vehement atheist and professional scientist PZ Myers has little patience with anyone who so much as entertains the subject of deity, but there is no need to unnecessarily antagonize an already very sore atheist with the anti-science bilge we get from Ken Ham. It is clear from the posts here and here that PZ Myers fully understands why Ken Ham’s junk science is the road to irrationalism and why it would lead to the ultimate demise of science and history as disciplines of hope and intellectual integrity. What an irony that secularist PZ Myers understands the role of rationality, intellectual integrity and hope in science but Ham’s organization doesn’t.

More Good News From Ken Ham.

(The first lot of good news can be seen here)

The Sectarian World View

In a blog post dated 17th November and entitled “World Wide Epidemic Threatens Church” we find Answers in Genesis’ Ken Ham riding on a wave of euphoria after attending “The All-Asian Creation Conference” in Malaysia. Over a 1000 attended the conference and Ken sold out of AiG resources in minutes. According to Ken he is amazed how God has used and taken AiG’s (false) message around the world. Ken also says he is thrilled to hear the testimonies of people who have been led to the Lord through AiG’s (false) message. As I have remarked before, this sort of talk, given that it is based on AiG’s fundamental errors really debases the language of Christian testimony. I’m sure the Jehovah’s Witnesses with their 7.5 million affiliates and the Mormons with their 14 million followers are equally as ecstatic after their huge rallies.

But, and this is the big “but”, 1000+ attendees is but a drop in the ocean. Ken really understands this and when he sobers up he comes back down to Earth with a bump. The following quote from Ken’s blog is an indication of just how marginal YECs are even within the Christian world. I have italicized the text where it is clear that Ken understands how relatively insignificant the YEC movement is even though it is 50 years since the “YEC reformation” started in the early sixties. I have also emboldened terms that indicate how badly Ken thinks of those who don’t hold his views; especially Christians. Ken is man on a very particular mission (i.e. to spread Christ plus YEC); but then particularity applies to the proprietary doctrinal idiosyncrasies of every Christian fundamentalist sect between here, Brooklyn and Salt Lake City. Here is my quote from Ken:

But something has stood out to me more than anything else at this conference, and it burdens me so deeply.

After I spoke a person came up to me and said, “Please bring a conference to Indonesia—most of the pastors there believe in evolution.” Then another person said, “Please come to my country—most of the pastors believe in evolution. Then another said, “Please come to my country—most of the pastors there believe in evolution.”

There were 20 countries represented at this conference, and I think I have now heard from people from nearly all of them pleading for a creation conference in their country. They have all have said to me something like, “most of the pastors—Christian leaders—seminary professors—believe in evolution and millions of years.”

Friends, disbelief in the book of Genesis is a worldwide epidemic. Satan has used millions of years and evolution to permeate the church around the world. What a mission field we now have to the church. And in particular, what a mission field we have to reach the “shepherds,” the Christian leaders and pastors around the world to call them out of compromise and back to the authority of the Word of God.

I think this one conference has made me realize even more than ever how the pagan religion of millions of years and evolution has so permeated the church around the world! What a mess! And sadly, countries like the USA and England have sent missionaries around the world teaching this compromised message because they were trained in compromised colleges and seminaries.

This makes me more burdened than ever to challenge these compromising church leaders.

And you know what else this conference in Asia has shown me? There is a real hunger among the people—hunger for the truth. It is a hunger for answers. When people who do have a respect for God’s Word are given answers and taught the importance of not undermining biblical authority in Genesis, they get it. They really get it! And then they are set on fire to go back to their country and be a missionary for creation evangelism.

Please pray for the Lord to open more doors so we can deal with this compromise epidemic that is undermining God’s Word worldwide.

Each and every sectarian thinks they’re uniquely placed before God. If anything, then, the small size of their community gives them the pride of being  part of a select spiritual elite, the remnant through which the Almighty is working to enlighten humanity about looming apocalypse. Moreover, they take consolation in their work of proselytizing; they always believe they are in with chance as they seek to convert those who are beyond the pale of their strict and particular beliefs and practices. But in the face of unbelief and lack of response to their message they look for scapegoats to accuse of courting Satan and sin; especially fellow Christians who don’t quite see it their way. These sects may be in a small minority but their clownish extremism gets them an audience out of all proportion to their size; Harold Camping (amongst many others of similar ilk) has shown us that.

Lessons in Authenticity

Christianity magazine is nothing if not painfully honest about the Christian life. In keeping with this ethos the magazine published an article by Jeff Lucas (October 11). In this article Lucas tells his readers about a church he visited where the preacher “Painted the Christian life as endlessly epic”. The whole article is worth reading, so here is a photo of it (click to enlarge):

Clearly Lucas isn’t fooled by the extravagantly superlative terms of the Christian triumphalists. The excessive use of such language inflates its shock value; more and more of it is needed to achieve its desired effect of intimidating the faithful into belief and wrenching from them an emotional reaction. Ergo, this language gets increasingly empty of meaning and the affectations of the rank and file as they try to follow what they hear from the pulpit ring hollow. Jeff Lucas (like most of the writers for Christianity magazine), on the other hand, comes over as entirely genuine and above all self-critical – any claims that he makes about being a witness to the epically miraculous feel that much more authentic. He's a man one can take seriously.

Knock, Knock .... Who's there ? ... the Je-who-vah’s Witnesses!!

I concocted the following imaginary conversation between a Jehovah's Witness and a mainstream evangelical Christian sometime in the 1980s. I have resisted the temptation to hone it some more as it is a long time ago that I studied the Watchtower Followers. When I created the imaginary dialogue below my conversations with  the JWs and the contents of their books (on which the dialogue was based) were still fresh in my mind. I have on occasions attempted to place the dialogue before evangelicals, but unless they are a captured audience in a home group they stay well clear. The fact is that apart from some obvious unorthodoxy such as the notoriously difficult and contentious questions over the nature of Christ in relation to God, the JWs can make a statement of salvation that approximates very closely to the evangelical one. However, there is definitely an observance based streak in the JW's concept of salvation. But to be fair my contact with fundagelicalism has also revealed a very observance based faith; fundagelicals can be very scathing about the standing before God of those who do not assent to their verbal formalisms and practices to the letter. Hence, I'm as sympathetic to the JWs as I am to many a sectarian fundagelical.

***

What do you do when someone like this knocks on your door ?; I'm sure it will ring a bell with you ....

A :(Knocks on door & door opens) Hello. I have just been discussing with your neighbour the present state of the ...

B: Are you a Jehovah's Witness?

A: Yes, how did you know?

B: Sorry, but I'm a Christian and I don't believe what the Jehovah's witnesses say.

A: But what we say is only what the Bible says.

B: That's not true.

A: Can you give me an example?

B: Well, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have said the world would end and it hasn’t. That couldn’t have been from the Bible!

A: We have never said that.**

(...Pause. Bill knows that he can’t prove it so he tries again)

B: Er... Well, you don't believe in the Trinity.

A: You won't find any mention of the Trinity in the Bible. Jesus couldn't have been God because he said "The Father is greater than I am"

B: But Jesus said "I and the Father are One" (John 10:30).

A: Look at John 17:22. The disciples were "one", but they weren't one person: it just means that they were in harmony with one another.

B: What about John 1:1 where it says "The Word was God"?

A: Look at verse 18 of that chapter; it says "No one has ever seen God" -but men have seen Jesus, so he can't be God. This is why the Greek text actually says "The word was divine" and not "The word was God". Further proof can be found in Colossians 1:15 where it says "He is the firstborn ..". This shows that Christ was created and therefore couldn't be God.

B: (silence)

A: What religion do you belong to?

B: I.. err... am a Christian.

A: Do you go to a Church?

B: Yes.

A: What denomination is it?

B: It's the Vineyard fellowship, but we're not denominational.

A: Do you use God's name in your services?

B: What do you mean?

A: If you write a letter to a person do you address it with their name?

B: err ... yes.

A: Then do you think that during your worship you should address God by his name Jehovah?

B: What is wrong with addressing Him as father as mentioned in Romans 8:15?

A: You have to remember to whom that reference applies. Who was the Old Testament written for in the first place?

B: The Jews.

A: Do you think then that the sacrificial practices should apply directly to us?

B: No.

A: In the same way most of the New Testament is not directly applicable to us but only to a little flock with a heavenly hope. These are the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7:4 who are anointed by the Holy Spirit, and who are resurrected to heavenly life as spirit creatures as Jesus was. This is why you can't apply Romans 8 to us now - unless you are one of those few Christians anointed by the Holy Spirit and therefore a member of the 144,000.

B: If most of the New Testament doesn't apply to you, what is the basis of your salvation?

A: The basis is Christ's ransom sacrifice. Jesus willingly laid down his life in sacrifice for us. Let me read 1 Peter 2:24 ... "He Himself bore our sins in his own body upon the stake in order that we might be done with sins and live to righteousness." That is a marvellous expression of God's love for mankind. Let me also read John 3:16 "God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed, but have everlasting life". By exercising faith in this Ransom we can enjoy a clean standing before God and come under His loving care. In Revelation 7:9 it says "before me was a great crowd that no-one could count standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb". Jehovah's witnesses are the great crowd who have exercised this faith.

B: So Salvation is only available to Jehovah's Witnesses - I can't find that in the Bible.

A: What you have got to do is identify the marks of the true worshippers of God. One of their marks is the widespread publishing and honouring of his name. If you are to gain salvation you must honour the name of God. What religious group is most prominently publishing the name of God? If you were to talk to your neighbour and refer repeatedly to Jehovah, with what organisation would they associate you?

B: Why does that prevent salvation being available to those who have nothing to do with your group?

A: Surely if you follow the Bible commands you must be in one organisation. In the Old Testament there was only one channel of truth and that was Israel. Today it is the Jehovah's witnesses. What other religious organisation have the identifying marks of true discipleship. Are there any other organisations of which you could say that all members are in unity, love one another and teach the same things ?

B: Well, what about the Mormons and Moonies?

A: But they aren't in agreement with the Bible are they?

B (After a pause): It seems to me that this debate has missed the point. Faith is not based on academic opinion, or logical or illogical human reasoning; but on fact and reality; God can actually be known in real experience; what's important is whether we know him.

A: I agree, we need to know God and His working in our lives and through His organisation, and if we know Him we will know the truth.

"B", (call him Bill) certainly fails to do justice to himself and his faith in this confrontation with "A" (call him Andy), the Jehovah's Witness and appears to readily fall into the traps long planned by the JW doorstep evangelism system. But Bill is in fact a stooge placed to illicit some of the stock of preprogrammed responses of this system enabling us to put it under the microscope. Perhaps, DV, we can, at some later stage, consider in detail some of the puzzles and questions that the above dialogue raises like: Can a cult member be a Christian? What is faith? What is unity?. What is a church ? What is wrong with JW theology? And certainly not least: How ever do you witness to cult members? In the meantime any of your own reactions and comments to the above are welcome. (I never got  any comments! - ed)

Footnote

** This is misleading. There is much documentation drawn from old Watchtower sources to indicate that their attempts to predict world events, based on their reading of the Bible, have failed. Many doorstep JWs are not aware of this documentation and of course do not know that the Watchtower has made significant false predictions. Therefore these JWs can genuinely deny that such predictions have been made by the organisation. This strategy is largely unconscious, but it clearly enhances the organisation’s survivability in a hostile environment.  (see The Spiritual Rat Run for  a discussion on the similarity between cults and organisms)


c. T. V. Reeves, September 1995

McDowell lays it on with a Trowel

Should Christians build protectionist barriers?

PZ Myers has written a gleeful blog post about this article in “Christian Post”. The article reports the comments of Christian apologist Josh McDowell. In the article McDowell admits that his version of Christianity will find it difficult to survive amongst young people given the environment of information laizzez faire brought on by the internet. If, as McDowell is effectively saying, Christianity will struggle outside the bounds of its tradition epistemic play pen, then this is hardly an advertisement for the authenticity of the faith; in fact it sends out the signal that the Christian world view can’t cope with the latest influx of information; that could be construed as saying that as a world view it is bankrupt. No wonder atheist PZ Myers is so pleased about McDowell’s comments. Here are some quotes from the “Christian Post” article:

Atheists and skeptics now have equal access to our children as we have, which is why the number of Christian youth who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity is decreasing and sexual immorality is growing, apologist Josh McDowell said. What has changed everything?” asked the apologist from Campus Crusade for Christ International as he spoke on “Unshakable Truth, Relevant Faith” at the Billy Graham Center in Asheville, N.C., Friday evening. His answer was, the Internet. “The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have... whether you like it or not,” said McDowell.

McDowell, who lives in southern California with his wife Dottie and four children, said atheists, agnostics and skeptics didn’t have access to kids earlier. “If they wrote books, not many people read it. If they gave a talk, not many people went. They would normally get to kids maybe in the last couple of years of the university.” But that has changed now.

Around 15 years ago, the apologist added, when Christian youth ministries were raising money for youth projects, the big phrase was, “If you don’t reach your child by their 18th birthday, you probably won’t reach them.” What is it now? “If you do not reach your child by their 12th birthday, you probably won’t reach them.”

The Internet is weakening Christian witness and “we better wake up to it because it’s just beginning.”

My Comment: If the Christian world view can’t weather a blizzard of information then it’s worth less than tuppence. Removing the walls of the epistemic play pen can only be a good thing for any Grand Narrative that is really worth its salt. A successful sense making narrative feeds on raw data and has no need to insulate itself from challenges. Mcdowell, however, clearly doesn’t believe that internet laizzez faire will actually support a Christian World view; in fact he thinks it will do precisely the opposite and support other world views. Let me repeat: Mcdowell is sending out the very worst kind of signal about Christianity: For if Christianity finds it difficult to survive in an environment of free flowing information then that suggests it simply doesn’t work as a world view. Typically, Mcdowell gives little credit or trust that young people, in the fullness of time, can and should come to their own opinion on things: He regards a young person as all but lost if they haven’t succumbed to early years indoctrination. This looks to me like a return to the Jesuit concept of an institutionalized faith propagated by child rearing.

I made the statement off and on for 10-11 years that the abundance of knowledge, the abundance of information, will not lead to certainty; [My Bold] it will lead to pervasive skepticism. And, folks, that’s exactly what has happened. It’s like this. How do you really know, there is so much out there… This abundance [of information] has led to skepticism. And then the Internet has leveled the playing field [giving equal access to skeptics].”

While 51 percent of evangelical Christians did not believe in absolute truth in an earlier survey, the percentage escalated to 62 in 1994. In 1999, it jumped to 78 percent. “You know what it is now?” asked McDowell. “One of the most staggering statistics in history of the church… 91 percent said there is no absolute truth apart from myself.”

My Comment: Note McDowell’s reference to “certainty” in the foregoing. My recent exposure to fundamentalism tells me that postmodernism and relativism are becoming such frightening ogres to fundamentalists that they are confusing skeptical and critical attitudes with a lack of belief in absolutes; to fundamentalists anything less than certainty in their kitschy world view smacks of relativism. Fundamentalism offers a false dichotomy between a toy town certainty and the slippery slope of relativism. With only this dichotomy available in the minds of fundamentalists, they are liable to classify skepticism and uncertainty as postmodernism.

McDowell proposed three ways to deal with the problem. “First, we have to model the truth. If you don’t model what you teach your kids, forget it. If they don’t see it, they won’t believe it… Second, we have to build relationships.” Just as truth without relationship leads to rejection, rules without relationship lead to rebellion, he said. “Kids don’t respond to rules. They respond to rules in the context of a loving, intimate relationship.” And third, he said, we have to use knowledge. “You better arm yourselves to answer your children’s and grandchildren’s questions…no matter what the question is…without being judgmental.” Kids’ greatest defense, he said, was the knowledge of truth.

However, McDowell said, as many as 85 to 90 percent of the evangelical Christian parents in America are not equipped to handle their kids. Christians, he urged, needed to understand the time, quoting 1 Chronicles 12:32: “Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do...”

My Comment: Not surprisingly McDowell’s solution is didactic; give kids “answers” in a controlled and authoritative way rather than inculcate a probing, analytical faculty allied to an uncompromising integrity and honesty that strives for truth. It is ironic that the religious right favours epistemic protectionism rather than the free market of ideas. They are unwilling to apply their “Libertarian, small government” ethos to epistemology.

***

I don’t think militant atheism is the ultimate enemy of Christianity; laizzez faire atheism’s critical freedom and lack of superstition is far too sanitized to present any real “dark side” threat to Christianity. Moreover, atheism has difficulty connecting with some of humankind’s deepest emotions and provides little or nothing to celebrate publically - unless it borrows from religion: Viz: when organised atheism in the form of communism has attempted to provide a public rationale for celebration it has created cult figures, demigods and a quasi-religious sense of mystical collective destiny.

But the postmodern nihilism that often accompanies laizzez faire atheism may simply be the pendulum pull back prior to an almighty reactionary swing into the black depths of cult religion. Maybe the house is being swept clean ready for all manner of nasties to re-inhabit it; my guess is that those nasties will be fundamentalists of some sort. Fundamentalism, as I have said elsewhere, appeals to deep seated instincts in way that laizzez faire atheism has little hope of doing. Religion is capable, therefore, of unleashing some of the strongest motivations known to man. The real danger to Christianity is not gnu atheism and the internet but something far more insidious.