Posted by Anthony on May 28, 2009
Not too long ago I posted a review of Stephen Kingsley’s The Easter Answer (Amazon
- www.easteranswer.com) and at that time Barker had not yet issued his response. And no wonder: not to be outdone in any respect, Barker issued forth a 69 page answer to a book that was only 82 pages in the first place. I am glad for Barker’s exhaustive treatment as it exposes a whole heap of flaws in Barker’s ‘Challenge’ and most importantly gives us explicit insight into how Barker analyzes potential answers.
Probably the fundamental issue exposed by Barker’s reply is that Barker has set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner as far as deciding whether or not his challenge has been met. Personally, I believe in the future, Mr. Kingsley or any other would-be answerer should insist that an impartial panel be the judge. You’ll get an idea why by the end of this post…
1. Barker’s Challenge explicitly says: “…without omitting a single detail…write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension… [it] does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture- it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. … The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted.”
Who among us is surprised to hear that by ‘plausible’ Barker basically means ‘naturalistic explanations’? Even I, I mean, even I, was shocked to hear Barker dismiss the plausibility of Kingsley’s chronology because, well, one must adopt a naturalistic perspective of what counts as ‘plausible’! Unbelievable! Consider this exchange leading into Part 2: Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on May 18, 2009
My first exposure to Dan Barker was his so called ‘Easter Challenge.’ I had already emerged from my own crisis of faith and had already determined some principles for sorting out alleged Biblical contradictions. The more I read Barker’s writings, the less impressed I was. I put the Challenge to good use, though, having my New Testament courses take up the ‘challenge’ for their spring project.
It never crossed my mind to try to actually correspond with Barker. I assumed the whole thing was just some sort of cheap shot. Having read Kingsley’s book I see that was a mistake. He documents how Barker and other hyper-skeptics really thought they had something here and took the alleged silence of Christians as telling.
I am glad, therefore, to see that Pastor Stephen Kingsley has taken up the ‘challenge.’ According to Kingsley, he has contacted Barker with the ‘answer’ but Barker has demurred and hasn’t yet responded.
Has Kingsley done it? Has Kingsley really and definitively reconciled and harmonized the Easter accounts? Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on April 29, 2009
Last week I posted an entry challenging the notion that we can save the planet. This generated some interesting comments. One person pointed out that it was his understanding that Christians should care about the environment. On this there is no dispute. Since I rarely speak on this issue I thought something more definitive is in order. Briefly.
There is no question that Christians should care about the environment. However, the infantile notion that the planet needs saving or could be saved is not what that means. This notion rests on the idea that the planet has some sort of intrinsic value, that it has the capacity to care which configuration it ends up in, and that there are things we can do for the sake of the planet just for the sake of the planet.
What is really meant by ’saving the planet’ is ‘establishing or maintaining the biosphere in certain particular ways.’ And by this it is basically meant, ‘preserving the biosphere to reflect human interests.’ Here it might be objected that no, other interests are at stake, say for example the polar bears. But even there it is our human interests, because it is a special characteristic of humans to care about such things. This care is proper, but if we are not honest about it we are liable to be played as suckers.
The interesting thing about Christian care for the environment, especially if we take the Scriptures as our guide, is that this ‘human interest’ is front and center. Genesis 1:26 has God putting mankind in charge of ‘the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ This we can properly call stewardship and as we see from the text, the value of humans and the earth is set by God, and in this equation, the earth is placed in subject to Humanity.
Presumably, this means it is to humans to carefully manage what has been put under their care.
By ‘carefully manage’ we must understand that ‘human interests’ must be the guiding light, and as this command comes when man was yet unfallen the concern that mere selfishness would be the guiding light is probably not warranted.
Of course, some of the most strident Christian environmentalists are ones who have thrown out Genesis 1. So, I don’t know what their Scriptural basis is. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on January 26, 2009
NBC’s The Last Templar has concluded just now. Sort of a The Da Vinci Code warmed over and softened up to be more palatable to believers, I have to confess I didn’t really enjoy the show. I have no idea how close the movie resembles the book it is derived from, so I’m going to stick the blame on the writers of the show. 
I’m sure they thought that they were doing us all a favor, dangling this document that could disprove Christianity in front of our noses only to have it destroyed before anyone could read it: thus preserving faith.
But you did me no favors, The Last Templar. The idea that faith is important in its own right quite apart from the facts and evidence is an understanding of ‘faith’ common to liberal believers and a certain brand of fundamentalists. Both extremes have in common this idea that faith is by definition indifferent to facts. That is why you can have scholars like John Dominic Crossan running around insisting that they, too, are Christians, even though they have done all in their power to strip Christianity from any claim to actual truth. And why not? A mystical belief in God and a view of all humans as God’s children is all that is required, right? This perspective is what fuels the skeptic’s accusation that ‘faith’ is not merely belief in absence of the facts, but even in spite of the facts.
Near the end, when Tess (the skeptic turned ‘believer’) is confronted by Bill (Richard Dawkins at age 70) I almost thought the show was going to break some new ground. Bill is convinced that the ‘Gospel of Yeshua’ (that’s Jesus, friends) will give Jesus’ account and confirm that he was only a man, was ever only a man. Tess retorts something to the effect, “How do you know if you haven’t even read it?”
Now that would have been something, because the common atheistic take is that any historical discovery will only serve to undermine Christianity. The truth is that discoveries continue to vindicate Christianity. ‘Discoveries’ like the ‘Gospel of Judas’ are trotted out with fanfare as bringing down Christianity but always after people have a look for themselves (if they look, that is) Christianity remains strong. No one seems to wonder what would happen if something popped up that destroyed atheism or gnosticism! Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on January 10, 2009
Yesterday I presented at an online conference. My topic was “Can Christianity Survive the Internet.” Or, otherwise titled, ‘The Death of Christianity.”
I will at some point obtain a simple mp3 of the presentation but in the meantime if you want to listen and observe the chat conversation you may listen via the archive link.
This morning I woke up to a follow up question. I thought I would answer it on my blog. Here was the question:
I often see two groups of people.
One is are involved in a tradition rich church with head knowledge of rules and dogma. In reality for them, God is not often real in their lives and their rules without empathy or transparency drives people away.
The second could be explained as people involved in a newly created, often emotion driven church, with little foundation or knowledge of how firm the foundation of the bible and the church is. When real questions come up, they topple.
Both are in danger of propagating a fragile view of Christianity to people they know and more importantly, their children.
How can the churches out there tackle these problems effectively.
I think both of these perceptions are valid. I have met Christian-turned-unbelievers from both categories in abundance.
How can the Church counteract these two extremes? Lord if I know! The problem for each is that they are utterly convinced in their own minds that their perspective is correct. Worse, proponents have another harmful attitude where they would prefer utter isolation to change and adaptation. I have met proponents in both camps- in this case, especially the traditionalist camp- who would go so far as to say that if their congregation shrinks, even to nothing, that is better then ‘compromise.’ In fact, it is not uncommon to hear them say that if their congregation atrophies, this is a sign that they are doing something right. And the surest sign that a church is compromising with the truth: if it is growing. This is not hypothetical. I can think of numerous instances.
(The meteoric rise of the Christian church in the book of Acts is apparently exempted from this reasoning)
So, I see your question touching on my first recommendation which was “Recognize there is a problem.” Proponents in both camps recognize there is a problem, all right: It’s with everyone else.
It should be evident what I think of these attitudes. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on December 11, 2008
It is that time of year again when a holiday becomes the front in a culture battle. I need not give examples- google Dan Barker and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. It is not uncommon to find skeptics and secular humanists insinuating with a sneer that belief in God is exactly like belief in Santa Claus, the only difference being that people grow out of belief in Santa Claus. Atheists who think this way have no problem being contemptuous punks because in their mind, given the similarities between the two examples (in their mind), a person who still believes in God exhibits prima facie evidence of being infantile and irrational: exactly the kind of people we need to cull from the population one way or another.
In light of this situation, it is useful to point out that Santa Claus actually is real.
‘Santa Claus’ is the modern expression of the legends originating with a certain, real, person, named Nicholas, or as he came to be known, Saint Nicholas. Do you see it? Saint/Santa? Good ol’ Saint NICK? NiKLAUS? Here is an unsubstantiated account that is accurate as far as it goes and helps lay the background here.
Not as well known, this same St. Nicholas wasn’t a rotund and jolly fellow. At the Council of Nicea c. 325 AD, Jolly Ol’Saint Nick got into a fist fight with one of the Arians and was ejected from the council.
This is discussed in the more extensive and more substantiated account on Livius. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on September 29, 2008
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1-4
Christianity (and religion in general) is often maligned as being anti-curiosity. Passages like the one I just quoted are often cited. This understanding is fueled by two flawed notions. 1. Faith is belief apart from evidence, or in Dawkinian terms, even in spite of the evidence. 2. A child’s faith, which Jesus calls people to have, is simplistic and unquestioning.
Let me first take aim at Dawkins (and the other New Atheists) on this. The man is flat out wrong. I believe that I am the only person to have done the research to prove that either he is a lazy scholar, and outright biased maniac, or a flat out liar, (or evil, but I choose not to think about that) in regards to one of his quotes in The God Delusion where he tries to show that Christianity is outright against curiosity and learning using a quote from Augustine’s Confessions to make his case. The man is wrong. Much of the advances in science and philosophy for hundreds of years were done by Christians- a point he acknowledges by saying that these Christians, had they been born today, would have been atheists. Nonetheless, they were Christians and they were inquisitive. I guess Christianity isn’t incompatible with curiosity after all. Anyway, if you’re interested in my trouncing of Dawkings on this point, read this.
Now let me take aim at the two contentions above, beginning with #2.
Anyone who has kids knows that they ask a lot of questions and they are increasingly more sophisticated. My oldest child is only six and he has already asked me why bad things happen to good people if God is loving and can do anything. If you can find me an adult with anything more sophisticated than that, I’m their huckleberry. I often wonder if people who think ‘faith like a little child’ is ‘childish’ spend much time around children. I know that my experience is not merely anecodotal. As one who was in charge of Sunday School programs and was a teacher at the junior and senior high level and two years of college, I can testify that kids ask a lot of hard questions.
I can also testify to the fact that the difference in the age groups doesn’t have anything to do with sophistication of the questions but rather the attitude in which the questions are asked. A six year old asks a question because he really wants to know. A thirteen year old wants to play gotcha. A senior in high school already knows the answer and knows you’re wrong. A college kid wants to tell you the answer. Sometime in college it begins to sort out so that a person raising the question could be in any of the categories of attitude I just listed. Read the rest of the entry… »
