Astute Cultural Analysis Here

Zachary Fine:

Those of us born after the mid-1980s whose upbringing included a liberal arts education and the fruits of a fledgling World Wide Web have grown up (and are still growing up) with an endlessly accessible stream of texts, images and sounds from far-reaching times and places, much of which were unavailable to humans for all of history. Our most formative years include not just the birth of the Internet and the ensuing accelerated global exchange of information, but a new orthodoxy of multiculturalist ethics and “political correctness.”

These ideas were reinforced in many humanities departments in Western universities during the 1980s, where facts and claims to objectivity were eagerly jettisoned. Even “the canon” was dislodged from its historically privileged perch, and since then, many liberal-minded professors have avoided opining about “good” literature or “high art” to avoid reinstating an old hegemony. In college today, we continue to learn about the byproducts of absolute truths and intractable forms of ideology, which historically seem inextricably linked to bigotry and prejudice.

For instance, a student in one of my English classes was chastened for his preference for Shakespeare over that of the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat. The professor challenged the student to apply a more “disinterested” analysis to his reading so as to avoid entangling himself in a misinformed gesture of “postcolonial oppression.” That student stopped raising his hand in class.

I am not trying to tackle the challenge as a whole or indict contemporary pedagogies, but I have to ask: How does the ethos of pluralism inside universities impinge on each student’s ability to make qualitative judgments outside of the classroom, in spaces of work, play, politics or even love?

Read the rest.

Apologetic Sound Bites: ‘How can you claim there’s only one true religion?’

Tim Chester:

"How can you claim there’s only one true religion?’ You may be asked this question as you’re at the photocopier at work or at the bar buying a round. Here’s the second part in the apologetics series that will give you some ideas of how to respond when you only have five minutes. 

1. People often liken religions to blind men encountering an elephant. The first blind man feels the stomach of the elephant and concludes it is a wall. The second feels the trunk and concludes it is a snake. The rest conclude it is a spear, tree, fan and rope, depending upon where they touch. The story purports to prove that all religions reflect the truth, but none grasps the whole truth. If people tell this story, ask them: ‘How do you know it’s an elephant?’ In other words, the story assumes the teller is as enlightened, objective observer. 

2. People may say: ‘If you were born in Iran, you’d be a Muslim not a Christian.’ But the same goes for the pluralist. ‘If you’d been born in Iran, you wouldn’t be a pluralist.’ In other words, your belief that all religions are equal (or misguided) is as culturally and social conditioned as my belief in Jesus (more so since going to church is now a minority activity in our society).  

3. Jesus claimed he was the only way to God (John 14:6). If all religious roads lead to God then Jesus was a liar and Christianity is false. In which case, not all religions lead to God. 

4. People sometimes ask if you fully investigated all religions before deciding to follow Christ. Two responses: (1) You don’t need comprehensive knowledge before you can be confident something is true. You don’t read every newspaper and interview multiple eye-witnesses before believing a sports result. (2) I didn’t decide Christianity was the best religion; Jesus laid claim to my life. 

5. Ask people to define religion. Jesus is not another religious figure, but the end or opposite of all religion. Religion is about an upwards movement of humanity towards God. Jesus represents of downward movement of God towards humanity. 

6. Because Jesus is God’s initiative towards humanity, the message of Jesus is a message of grace. It is not dependant on human achievement, but upon God’s gracious and completed work. So Jesus alone gives assurance of salvation. 

This material is adapted from a Porterbrook Learning module.

Some great books by Tim Chester that I would recommend:

• You Can Change
• A Meal with Jesus
• Total Church
• Close the Window 

Getting To The Heart of Real Tolerance

D.A. Carson:

Genuine pluralism within the broader culture is facilitated when there is a strong Christian voice loyal to the Scriptures – as well as strong Muslim voices, skeptical voices, Buddhist voices, atheistic voices, and so forth. Genuine pluralism within the broader culture is not fostered when in the name of tolerance none of the voices can say that any of the others is wrong, and when this stance is the only ultimate virtue.

Because the new tolerance, an ostensibly value-free tolerance, has become the dominant religion among media leaders, this vision is constantly reinforced. For instance, the media may present popes such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI in a positive light, provided these popes are restricting themselves to ceremony or world poverty, but if they show how their beliefs impinge on social issues such as premarital and extramarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia, then they must be bigoted, out of date, slightly bizarre, even dangerous, and certainly intolerant.

- D.A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance

(HT:  Aaron Armstrong)

There Are Only Two Religions

Dr. Harry Ironside:

Well, before we can get into the question of which one is true, we need to clarify something. There are not thousands of religions. There are not even hundreds of religions. There are only two: one which tells you that salvation comes as a reward for what you have done, and one which tells you that salvation comes by what somebody else does for you. That’s Christianity. All the rest fit under the other. And if you think you can get your salvation by your own efforts, then Christianity has nothing to say to you. But if you know you need to be saved, then you are a candidate.

- Quoted by Ben Patterson in Muscular Faith.

(HT:  J-Buzz)

Everyone Has Faith. Where Do You Place Yours?

Jonathan Dodson:

In the end, you have to decide where to place your faith. Both religious pluralism and Chrisitianity require faith. Leslie Newbigin said: “Doubt is not autonomous.” What he meant is that you can’t doubt alone. We can’t doubt one thing without placing our faith in another. You doubt Jesus and trust pluralism, or you trust Jesus and doubt pluralism. You can't say “I believe Jesus is the only way” and say “I believe all religions lead to God.” So, will you place faith in Jesus who is the way, truth, and life? Or will you place your faith religious pluralism? I hope you’ll choose Jesus.

Read the rest of this very important article. It will help equip you to share you faith with your neighbors.

Is Pluralism More Tolerant Than Christianity?

Jonathan Dodson:

Very often people hold to religious pluralism because they think it is more tolerant than Christianity. I’ll be the first to say that we need tolerance, but what does it mean to be tolerant? To be tolerant is to accommodate differences, which can be very noble. I believe that Christians should be some of the most accommodating kinds of people, giving everyone the dignity to believe whatever they want and not enforcing their beliefs on others through politics or preaching. We should winsomely tolerate different beliefs. Interestingly, religious pluralism doesn’t really allow for this kind of tolerance. Instead of accommodating spiritual differences, religious pluralism blunts them. Let me explain.

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"You Wouldn't Be a Christian if You Were Born in India."

Suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different.  (But) the same goes for the pluralist... If the pluralist had been born in (Morocco) he probably wouldn't be a pluralist.  Does it follow... his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?

Alvin Plantinga, A Defense of Religious Exclusivism, p. 205

Quoted in Tim Keller's, Reason For God.

Jesus Meets the Relativists

Relativism is not a coherent philosophical system. It is riddled with contradictions—both logical and experiential. Sophomores in col- lege know that something is fishy when someone claims the state- ment to be true that all truths are relative. They may not be able to name the law of non-contradiction, but they are wired with it, and they can smell it in the wind. Claiming truth for a statement that nullifies truth is self-contradictory. But if you are not claiming your defense of relativism is true, why do you expect me to listen?

And every businessman knows that philosophical relativists park their relativism at the door when they go into the bank and read the language of the contract they are about to sign. People don’t embrace relativism because it is philosophically satisfying. They embrace it because it is physically and emotionally gratifying. It pro- vides the cover they need at key moments in their lives to do what they want without intrusion from absolutes.

That’s what we see in the chief priests and elders. They don’t care about truth. They care about their skin. Therefore, they take the God-given handmaidens of truth—thinking and speaking—and prostitute them as slaves of self-protection. They think their way to an escape, and then use language to avoid shame and harm. Self- aggrandizement is the deepest root of relativism.

It is an enemy of the noble use of the mind. It is something we should avoid and grieve over and labor to overcome. One of the ways that we might make some headway in protecting ourselves and fol- lowing generations from embracing relativism is by pointing out how evil and destructive its effects are.

- John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, p. 98, 99

"Tolerance" and Anxiety of Disagreement

Good thoughts here from Mike Cosper.  He writes:

There’s a lie that’s being spread from every level and layer of our culture. It begins in Kindergarten with sweet-smiling platitudes about getting along, and ends in institutions of higher learning in programs of all stripes – Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Literature, History, and Religion. It’s present in our civic ceremonies, in the language of our news media, and in the stories being told on sitcoms and dramas.

The lie is this: we live in an age of tolerance, diversity, and without moralistic absolutes.

Now this is nothing that Tim Keller hasn’t said (much more brilliantly than I, for certain), but it’s come to my mind this morning as I read the comments section on the Courier-Journal’s story about our 10-year anniversary. The vitriol runs loud and proud, with accusations of fundamentalism, homophobia and misogyny flying like rocks at an Old Testament stoning.

If there’s anything our post-Christian western ethos is not, it’s tolerant.

Read the rest. I couldn't agree more.

Is Jesus an Egomaniac?

“Here is the end of the matter: God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is not the act of a needy ego, but an act of infinite giving. The reason God seeks our praise is not because he won’t be fully God until he gets it, but that we won’t be happy until we give it.

This is not arrogance. This is grace.

This is not egomania. This is love.”

- John Piper, Is Jesus an Egomaniac?

(HT:  Erik Raymond)

They Are Not All The Same

Stephen Prothero, writing for The Boston Globe, has a great post concerning that frequently heard claim, "All religions are basically the same."

At least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful and all are true. This claim, which reaches back to “All Religions Are One” (1795) by the English poet, printmaker, and prophet William Blake, is as odd as it is intriguing. No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so self-evidently at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, both essentially the same and basically good.

This view resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture, not least on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and in Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, “Eat Pray Love,” where the world’s religions are described as rivers emptying into the ocean of God. Karen Armstrong, author of “A History of God,” has made a career out of emphasizing the commonalities of religion while eliding their differences. Even the Dalai Lama, who should know better, has gotten into the act, claiming that “all major religious traditions carry basically the same message.”

Of course, those who claim that the world’s religions are different paths up the same mountain do not deny the undeniable fact that they differ in some particulars. Obviously, Christians do not go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and Muslims do not practice baptism. Religious paths do diverge in dogma, rites, and institutions. To claim that all religions are basically the same, therefore, is not to deny the differences between a Buddhist who believes in no god, a Jew who believes in one God, and a Hindu who believes in many gods. It is to deny that those differences matter, however. From this perspective, whether God has a body (yes, say Mormons; no, say Muslims) or whether human beings have souls (yes, say Hindus; no, say Buddhists) is of no account because, as Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda writes, “The fundamentals or essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the nonessentials.”

This is a lovely sentiment but it is untrue, disrespectful, and dangerous.

Read the rest.