How an atheist became pro-life

I don't know who first said (or wrote) "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention," but that would be a nice summary of Nat Hentoff's still-ongoing journalistic career. As memories of the American Republic and its Constitution recede ever further into the past, a great number of his columns on cato.org end with something very much like, "I keep repeating: Is this still America? And if not, who on earth are we?" And for this, he is to be ceaselessly praised.

The marvelously titled "Not Only Did Obama Lose (Hooray Constitution), but so Did Abortion," is not simply a celebration of the recent election results; in it, Hentoff explains how he came to "the most controversial position he has ever taken" (and the one which, the cynical amongst us are wont to suspect, was the real reason he was laid off by The now-disgraced Village Voice). He read some books on prenatal biology, and came to the inescapable conclusion that a fetus is a human person.

I bring this up (again) because I know what reasonable people think about people like me. To save time, I've begun explaining to those outside our ecclesiastical circles that "We're not the nice presbyterians; we're the reactionary, knuckle-dragging kind." (Yes, I literally say that. With a smile, though.) That's why I feel compelled to point out that our crazy views on the beginning of human life do not orginate in an irrational leap of faith, but rather in observation and an application of the scientific method. Indeed, the true irrationality is to suppress all reason and conclude, contrary to all evidence, that a person is not a person simply because said person is in the womb.

In other words: if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

The sacred, the secular, & the beautiful (2)

But if the sacred/secular distinction is eliminated from how we judge our lives, then it must also be eliminated from our worldview. All the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1); our task is to render all we find to his service. Our quiet manual labor fulfills the dominion mandate given to man in Genesis 1:28. We rule by using things: not only plants and animals, but everything. This must include culture.

How do we do this? We take hold of pagan creations and use them to glorify God. Musical instruments were invented by Jubal, from the ungodly line of Cain (Genesis 3:21). Therefore, they properly belong to paganism. But Christians are commanded to seize Jubal’s harp and flute and use them to praise the Lord (Psalm 150:3-5). All things belong to the Lord; Christians act as his repo men.

This process is fairly simple to grasp when discussing seemingly neutral technology, like musical instruments. It becomes a touch more tricky when dealing with the cultural artifacts produced by that technology, such as music itself. Can Christians really use grunge rock and jazz, or ought we to stick with classical music and hymns?

Well, as the founder of the Salvation Army asked, “Why should the devil have all the good music?” As we approach our culture and world, our question should not be “Is this (music, book, scientific theory, historical argument) safe? Will we be contaminated by it?”, but rather “Can this be used for God’s glory? If so, how?”

We can only answer that question by knowing God’s Word, the Bible. There the Lord describes for us the world in its relationship to him. The Bible is the standard by which we ought to measure all we see. When we hold the artifacts of our culture up to its light, we can discern what is true from what is false. Its framework will enable us to determine what we should flee from, and what we may render to the Lord’s service. From Scripture we learn that God is the Beginning and End, that all purpose and truth rest only in him. Anything else is false and idolatrous. 

Because of his mercy and love for his people, and his desire to provide a good world for them to live in, God has not deprived all pagans of truth and beauty. We live as foreigners in a land which rightfully belongs to us, and its occupiers would ruin all its good fruit if the Lord did not restrain them. Thus, the creations which come from their bent hearts oftentimes have in them the ring of truth and the unmistakable presence of beauty. Shakespeare could be a foul-mouthed, obscene blasphemer, as his comedies demonstrate. He was also capable of writing more eloquently than most of the love between a man and a woman, as his poem The Phoenix and the Turtle proves.

One difficulty in exercising dominion, rendering all the earth to the Lord’s service, is that there are no mechanical rules for doing so. It’s hard, dirty work. If we say all dead Greek and Latin pagans are worthy and all modern pagans funded by the NEA are fit only for the dustbin of history, we’ve missed the point. We must instead pick up the cultural artifacts of the world, examine them in the light of Scripture, discard that which is foul, and delight in that which is beautiful. In the process, we can turn the pagan’s idolatrous cultural artifact into a testimony of God’s character.

Take the film Titanic. I think we can say with a fair degree of confidence that James Cameron was not setting out to make a Christian movie: the celebration of premarital sex which is at the narrative’s center proves otherwise. However, we learn from it some very true things about both God and man. Towards the film’s beginning, a character looks at the Titanic and exclaims, “Not even God could sink this ship!” This, at least, is historically accurate: when the grand vessel set sail, many said precisely that. And grand she was. Cameron does us a great service by showing the breathtaking scale and majesty of the Titanic. The massive turbines of the engine room, creating and harnessing enormous power, are astounding. The gifted craftsmanship behind its lavishly decorated interiors is inspiring. All this was the creation of man. Man truly is great, and Titanic shows us this. But for all man’s greatness, he is powerless before God’s creation. When the Titanic struck an iceberg, she was doomed. Hubris, the fall brought on by arrogance, proved to be the Titanic’s undoing, and this magnificent testimony to mankind’s creative power sits at the bottom of the ocean.

This is a story we have heard before. As at the Tower of Babel, as at the Fall, man tried to supplant God, to take his place as rightful Lord of all. In so doing, man was destroyed. Man is great, but the Lord is far greater. But how do we find this testimony in a movie designed to reap massive profits at the mall? Because we have eyes to see. Because we know who man truly is and what his fate will be. Because we have read the Bible, we understand how all things testify to the glory of the Lord. As we see the world Biblically, we will see how all things find their meaning in their Creator. As we quietly live our lives in his service, we take dominion over the world, rendering it beautiful to the Lord, making its song of praise increasingly audible.

The root of protestant division

I've been reading Book 4, chapter 7 of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which John Calvin offers a brief history of the Roman bishop's claim to sovereignty over the universal Church. Perhaps that has led me to reflect on Church history in general, and the Great Schism in particular.

With many more thoughtful Roman Catholics, I regret that one effect of the Protestant Reformation was a division of the visible Church into various distinct, and often competing, branches. However, I cannot agree with the solution to that division proposed by many of the same Roman Catholics (particularly those with the zeal of recent conversion to the cause): namely, reunification with the Roman Catholic Church. These tend to paint division as a protestant disease, one which can easily be cured by submission to the pontiff in Rome.

This strikes me as a rather convenient failure to remember Church history, and in particular the division between East and West which passed its point of no return in 1054 A.D. This Wikipedia article is a reasonably fair and accurate summary, and helps us see this separation is no more or less substantive than the separations between Protestant traditions: disagreements over worship styles, forms of Church government, and rather technical theological points. The Great Schism is the Church's move away from her original constitution as a visibly universal Church to her modern existence as a fragmented body whose parts are more concerned to preserve their particular attributes and strengths than to submit themselves to the concerns of either the other parts or the whole.

In other words, protestant division is not alien to Roman Catholicism, but intrinsic to the post-1054 character of Rome (and Eastern Orthodoxy, for that matter). Peculiarly, Roman Catholicism continues to recommend as a cure for division precisely that which led to the Great Schism: universal submission to the papacy. For Protestantism, this is anathema, while for Eastern Orthodoxy it is primarily distasteful. Why, then, does Rome continue to insist on it? To this Protestant, it seems Rome would prefer division to surrendering its false claims of supremacy.

Schism is the great sinful legacy of the Protestant Reformation, and I agree with our Roman Catholic critics that Protestantism is unnecessarily divided against itself. But to the extent that is so, we are merely following a tradition inherited from our time sojourning in Rome after 1054. The root of Protestant division is in the Church's Roman Catholic history, and today's Roman bishop would have far more credibility when he makes ecumenical pronouncements if he were actively seeking to root it out.

The New Noncomformist Conscience

Over at the First Things website, Helen Andrews examines the recent trend of "shame campaigns" against those who do not hold to the recently established establishment line on homosexual marriage by offering a brief history of similar efforts in Great Britain in the 19th century, along with a helpful discussion of why they defeat the Church's Gospel agenda but may very well be the essence of "cultural progressivism." Recommended.

Shadowlands

The Denver Center Theatre Company presents Shadowlands, William Nicholson's play about C.S. Lewis's brief, late in life marriage, in the Space Theatre through April 27. Being as Lewis was a scholar, sometime Christian apologist, thoughtful analyst of culture and a writer of admirably clear style, the classically-educated Mrs. Curmudgeon elected to join me in attending a performance last week.

As I have come to expect, the Denver Center production staff oversaw a remarkably professional, if not especially creative, staging of this play. When a play is staged in the round, one can be sure he will get an actor's back at some crucial moment or other; this time out, our seats had the misfortune of missing the face of either Lewis or his eventual bride, Joy, during nearly every one of their scenes together. Nonetheless, I think I can say Graeme Malcolm inhabited C.S. Lewis, or at least this version of Lewis, rather convincingly, even if Kathleen McCall as Joy Davidman was somewhat less lacking in conviction. The other stalwarts of the Denver Center Theatre Company acquited themselves as well as ever.

But as I say, a thoroughly professional production is to be expected from the DCTC. Thankfully, such a staging allows for and invites a careful consideration of the play itself. Or perhaps not so thankfully in this case.

C.S. Lewis's stature amongst 20th century Christian writers cannot be overstated. In my hard-shell Calvinist opinion, he was out of his depth as a theologian, but his understanding of culture, and where a society determined to cut itself loose from all Christian moorings would end up, was remarkable for its insight and foresight. "Prophetic" is a woefully overused adjective, but I can think of no better for his The Abolition of Man. In a different, fictional vein, what I consider his best and most beautiful book, Till We Have Faces, is a lovely account of the Gospel's power to produce repentance and faith.

That being so, one expects a presentation of his most intimate encounter with human joy and grief to be set in the context of Lewis's consistent personal testimony of Christian hope. Instead, Nicholson begins with a Lewis absolutely confident he can explain Christian suffering, only to end with a Lewis utterly undone by the experience of it. "Shadowlands" is a Lewisian term for this present life as a preparation for the life to come: now is merely a shadow of a much greater and more substantial reality. At the play's end, after the death of his beloved, Lewis no longer says we live in the shadowlands. Instead, he says there are only shadows.

Whatever one thinks of C.S. Lewis, he was unquestionably a Christian man who, after his conversion, bore a consistent Christian testimony. Shadowlands turns a Christian man into an existentialist. Regardless of any other merits it might have, that fact makes this not a very worthwhile play at all.

Jerry, Tinky-Winky, & Culture Wars

[This essay was written in February of 1999. Before there were blogs, believe it or not.]

First, some background.  Teletubbies is a British television program designed specifically for children two and under.  It features a group of brightly-hued, fuzzy individuals with antennae who run around, sing, and fall down.  Apparently, the target audience loves the show.  I found watching it a bit like taking heavy medication, only more disorienting.

Of course, not just todd lers have televisions, and somewhat predictably, some (relatively) older individuals have become fascinated with the program in a hip, cynical, postmodern sort of way.  Also somewhat predictably, militant homosexuals have claimed, in their typically adolescent manner, that one of the characters, “Tinky-Winky,” is a gay transvestite.  This is because he definitely has a male voice, but carries what they claim is a purse.  Jerry Falwell weighed in on the matter  earlier this month, criticizing the Teletubbies’ alleged secret homosexual agenda in his National Liberty Journal.  According to news reports, Mr. Falwell observes that Tinky-Winky “is purple- the gay pride color;  and his antenna is shaped like a triangle- the gay pride symbol.”

What are we to make of this?  Is Mr. Falwell’s alert necessary?  Apparently not;  the producers of the show have stated that they’re not trying to promote homosexuality, and we have no reason to assume they’re lying.  Keep in mind that symbols can have different meanings.  Homosexuals use the rainbow as a sort of badge, but the Bible says it represents the Lord’s covenant promise to never again destroy the world by flood (Genesis 9:8-17).  The triangle, or delta, is the symbol for “change” in logic and science.  My Dictionary of Biblical Imagery says that purple suggests royalty.  Perhaps, then, Tinky-winky represents the Christian, who is changing into one who belongs to the King of Kings.  Or maybe he’s just a goofy purple dude with a magic bag, and not the next Ellen Degeneres.  To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a triangle is just a triangle.  Militant homosexuals claim that everyone is secretly gay.  The sane response to ludicrous statements is to ignore them, not publicize them.

The larger error here is adopting the worldview of militant homosexua ls.  One doesn’t have to imitate their sin in order to see homosexuality everywhere, as they do.  An analysis of popular culture which interprets Tinky-Winky as a gay icon mirrors that of militant homosexuals, even if it criticizes the Teletubbies.  It says the sinner is right:  this is his world, not ours.  The risk of waging a culture war this way, by affirming the wicked’s interpretation of things, is that one may very easily turn into one’s own adversary.

What, then, is the Biblical response to this situation?  How ought we engage our culture?  More to the point, how ought we engage the sinners in our culture?

Our response to homosexuals, in particular, ought be two-fold.  First, we must call them to repentance, pointing to Jesus Christ as the only hope for sinners.  Second, we should point out to them that attempts to legitimize their behavior by making it culturally acceptable are ultimately futile.  They cannot successfully cover their sins from God’s all-seeing, holy gaze, even if they can get United Methodist ministers to perform “union” ceremonies.  This two-pronged approach sums up what our interaction with our culture ought always be:  1) call sinners to repentance in Christ;  and 2) remind them that if they do not turn to Christ Jesus, they will face the certain judgment of the Lord.

At the same time, we must avoid the danger of becoming so obsessed with sin that we catalogue all the details of its practice.  We need not become experts on wickedness in order to call sinners to repentance.  All you need to know is that theft is a sin;  learning the best times for robbing convenience stores is unnecessary.  If we familiarize ourselves with sin to the extent that we adopt the sinner’s worldview, we will be unable to call them into a genuinely new life.  They may stop sinning, but they will continue to live in a world ruled by sin, and not the Lord.

Instead, our duty is to view the world Biblically, and to call others in our culture to do the same.  Scripture teaches that submission to the Lord means we focus the bulk of our attention on our own sin, not the disobedience of others (Matthew 7:5).  If you constantly look for wickedness, you will be sure to find it, sometimes even if it’s not there.  Are the Teletubbies promoting homosexuality?  Really, the question is not worth asking.  But I seriously doubt it;  not because I think the show’s producers are without sin, but because I see enough sin in my own life to keep me busy.

In this way, through the mortification of our own sin, we provide the best witness to the sinners in our culture.  We are called by our Lord to live lives which glorify him in every regard.  When we do so, we are like a light shining on a hill (Matthew 5:14-16).  Of course we must call sinners to repentance;  but when our light shines before men, they will praise our Father in heaven.

Pro-life because of biology

In a comment to my post "So what if abortion ends a life?," Anonymous asked, "When do you believe that life begins and what is your biblical basis for your belief!" I should let Anonymous know that, as a presbyterian, while my understanding of the world is shaped and controlled by the Bible, I do not believe that every fact which I believe must be explicitly stated in Scripture. For example, I believe I live in the great state of Colorado, which fact can be found nowhere in the Bible.

In this regard, I point my vast readership to Great American Hero Nat Hentoff, who says he is a pro-lifer "not for religious reasons, but because I'm an atheist who can read biology." For me, my high school biology class and the 6th Commandment are sufficient to believe abortion is murder.

Freedom from Religion

Don't be misled by the title. R.R. Reno's response to a public appearance by retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama is not, no matter how justifiable it may be, a comment on how confusedly religious interests are handled by U.S. administration officials these days. Instead, it's a trenchant analysis of mankind's headlong flight from God, as aided and abetted by religious authorities who should (and probably do) know better.

With Epiphany nigh

No doubt because Epiphany is nigh, the OPC website this week features an attempt to explain the Star of Bethlehem as a supernatural celestial phenomenon. As I've preached on Matthew 2:1-12 several times without ever feeling any concern over just what was going on in the skies two thousand years ago, I can't fault this explanation. However, I prefer one offered by Allen P. Ross, whose lecture "Matthew and the Magi" was recently featured on the Beeson Divinity School podcast. Ross suggests the "star" may have in fact been the divine Glory-Cloud which led Israel through the Exodus wilderness and was associated with Solomon's Temple. As Matthew is rather vague on the details, one can't say for sure, but that fact has never stopped scholarly speculation in the past.

Ross also argues that the magi probably visited Jesus in Bethlehem shortly after his birth, defending the popular impression  they arrived on January 6, just after the twelfth day of Christmas but still in time to appear in manger scenes atop mantels and pianos everywhere. I have a curmudgeonly appreciation for this contrarian position, but was disappointed at the cheap shots Ross takes at "We Three Kings of Orient Are." He's not content to observe the indeterminate number of magi in Matthew's account, but seems to think we believe each magus explained the symbolical meaning of his gift as he presented it. No one thinks they did, and as a professional exegete, I must say the interpreations offered in the classic Christmas hymn are as good as any I've ever found in any commentary. Our ignorance of the number of wise men aside, the ommission of "We Three Kings" from either edition of the Trinity Hymnal is a great tragedy. Much better, I think, to sing at Epiphany and at other times,

Glorious now behold Him arise,
King and God and Sacrifice.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Sounds through the earth and skies.

Another gratuitous shot at Roman Catholicism

To a Protestant such as myself, the perpetual virginity of Mary is one of the loopier of the doctrines fabricated by Rome. As my best friend in college (now a Methodist pastor, of all things) put it, "If Mary was ever virgin, it's Joseph we should be worshiping."

As I prepare to preach Luke 2:41-52 this Sunday, it seems plausible that Mary and Joseph might have lost track of Jesus for a few hours, but for an entire day? That seems unlikely if they had only one child. If, on the other hand, they had four, six, seven or more children, any parent of two or more children can understand how the boy Jesus was able to wander off on his own, unaccounted for: Mary had to have more children than one on her hands.

Given the size of the average faithful Roman Catholic family, many of them will no doubt realize the integrity of this argument and shortly embrace Protestantism.

Veneration of saints or of Christ (Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: pp. 673 [vol. 1])

To refute the practice of selling indulgences, Calvin goes after the papist doctrine of the "treasury of merit," which holds that the saints have performed more good works than they need to satisfy their own accounts, these "supererogatory" or extra works go into a treasury, and the riches of this treasury can be dispensed to less worthy Christians on the authority of the pope of Rome. If the merits of Christ can be intermingled with the saints, Calvin asks,

What is this but to leave Christ only a name, to make him another common saintlet who can scarcely be distinguished in the throng?

The same question, it seems to me, can be asked more directly regarding the entire practice of venerating the saints in general and the Virgin Mary in particular. When considering popular Roman Catholic piety, I find it rather difficult to distinguish Christ from the throng.

Maybe if Juan Diego of Guadalupe could paint a really cool mural of Jesus...

Privatized religion's incoherence

My ears perked up when I heard a self-described evangelical defend recent comments by Indiana senatorial candidate Richard Murdouck, in which he acknowledged God's role in bringing about human life even in cases of rape and incent, on NPR's Morning Edition today. Sadly (and perhaps not surprisingly, given the venue), after Amy Sullivan explained that finding God at work in the worst of circumstances is a staple of both Christian and Jewish theology, she proceeded to reject this doctrine in favor of a god who is not involved in, much less in control of, all events in his creation.

Perhaps more surpisingly, Ms. Sullivan went on to explain that a politician should not impose his moral convictions, derived from religious beliefs, upon others. Ms. Sullivan views these religious beliefs as being merely personal decisions which, given their private character, cannot, by definition, be made normative for other people.

This is a passingly odd position for an evangelical to take. When I traveled in evangelical circles during my eccentric youth, Christ's death as a substitute for sinners was a doctrinal staple. For that to be true, all humanity must be fallen and sinful, and every person has fallen short of God's moral standards which apply universally. That is, if the Christian Gospel is true, it is true only because God has imposed objective moral standards on his creatures; on that principle, a politician might very reasonably argue that abortion violates those standards. Privatized religion simply does not cohere with the public character of the Christian Gospel.

If one wishes to have the Gospel, then there are universal moral standards which a politician might legitimately seek to apply to our nation's laws. In other words, if one believes religious convictions are entirely private, one cannot have the Gospel.

Defending Francis Schaeffer

The writings of Francis Schaeffer had a profound influence on me and continue to color much of my thinking on cultural and political matters. I continue to be disppointed by his dalliance with the "religious right" towards the end of his life, but no hero is without clay feet. Thus, I've been offended by the gross misrepresentations of Schaeffer's work which have recently appeared in media outlets eager to pillory Michele Bachman for her Christian faith. Thankfully, byFaith, the PCA's online journal, has compiled several refutations here.

News of the inevitable

I think it was about fifteen years ago I read a throwaway line from James Jordan, something to the effect of "Does anyone really think the speed of light is an absolute?" It stuck with me, and now has been vindicated, at least apparently, by the CERN lab in Switzerland.

It's not that I have any beef against Einstein: to the extent I understand his physics (and once math is involved, I understand very little of anything), they seem a useful model for the universe in which we live. The fact I see Einstenian physics as a model, though, reveals my real beef, which is against those in the hard sciences who tend to treat their models and theories as something more final and definite, who think they are able to speak on moral and metaphysical questions on the basis of scientific research. If verified, the lasting value of the CERN laboratory results will be to remind us that all scientific models and theories, because falsifiable, are at best provisional: they stand until a contrary data point is discovered, and they are useful only so far as they are useful. And when it comes to judging the ultimate questions of human existence, which are not material but metaphysical, they are of very limited utility indeed.

Perhaps that's the sort of attitude one might expect from a pastor, who deals in final answers to metaphysical questions, answers which are in a strict sense falsifiable but in fact cannot be falsified because no contrary data points exist. However, I think my attitude is not the result of a parochial superiority complex, but instead has to do with the natures of our respective fields. Scientists are human beings attempting to describe the world around them. Preachers are human beings who declare God's description of the world he has created on the basis of what God has already and authoritatively declared in the Bible. That declaration is complete, and unlike scientific models and theories, shall never change.

A.A. Hodge on perseverance

In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 17 (or as he calls it, "chapter XVII"), A.A. Hodge provides these helpful clarifications to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints:

1) ...the true doctrine is not that salvation is certain if we have once believed, but that perseverance in holiness is certain if we have truly believed.
2) The certainty... of an individual's salvation is known to him only through the fact of his perseverance in holiness.
3) This doctrine teaches, not that persistent effort on our part is not necessary in order to secure perseverance in grace to the end, but that in this effort we are certain of success; for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

[Emphases original; the Presbyterian Curmudgeon prefers tasteful understatement.]

Sacramental Realism

Addressing theologian Douglas Farrow, Peter Leithart handily dismantles frequent Roman Catholic cavils against Prostestant sacramental theology, demonstrating that we do indeed have a sacramental practice.

And in just three paragraphs, too.

Get thee to a newsstand

The March 2011 issue of First Things included an essay by Timothy George, president of Beeson Divinity School, entitled "Reading the Bible with the Reformers," in which he argued the Bible should be read in dialogue with the Church's historic creeds and confessions, along with the last 200o years of interpretation. Finding this rather standard protestant fare, my only reaction was to wonder how a Baptist can place himself within the broad stream of ecclesiastical consensus. But then, I'm a presbyterian curmudgeon.

Given that I was reading First Things, I should have anticipated the vehement objections registered by several Roman Catholic correspondents in the May issue's letters column. These complained that Protestants cannot have a "churchly hermeneutics" as they do not accept Rome's (supposedly) authoritative magisterium. In a polite reply, Timothy George pointed out theological divisions within Roman Catholicism not only prior to the Protestant Reformation, but today as well, forcefully demonstrating that Rome's recourse to an ecclesiastical authority which stands over the Scriptures has utterly failed to produce anything like a doctrinal consensus.

For once, I cheered on the Baptist. This material is available online, but only to paying subscribers of the print edition. Perhaps you can still find the May issue at better newsstands everywhere.

The Moral Economy of Guilt

But how, in a society that retains its Judeo-Christian moral reflexes but has abandoned the corresponding metaphysics, can a credible means of discharging the weight of sin be found?

The question comes late in "The Moral Economy of Guilt" in the May 2011 issue of First Things, but drives Wilfred M. McClay's explanation of the present ascendance of the cult of victimhood in our culture today. More basically, McClay provides an accessible and powerful cultural rationale for seeking expiation of sins in the Cross of Christ.

Theodicy & idiocy

Theodicy is the theological discipline which seeks to reconcile the goodness of God's character with the realities of sin and suffering in the world. All ecclesiastical and theological Christian traditions have a history of theodicy, and (not surprisingly) their answers to its questions are more or less satisfying. Because suffering is an especially personal question, we should expect that even the most theologically airtight theodicies will fail to satisfy at least some in the midst of their struggles; this is a simple pastoral reality.

The serious nature of theodicy makes the "contributions" of modernist scholars to the field extraordinarily aggravating. A parishoner picked up a copy of "Bible scholar" Bart D. Ehrman's God's Problem at a dollar store. From the dust jacket flap:

In times of questioning and despair, people often quote the Bible to provide answers. Surprisingly, though, the Bible does not have one answer but many "answers" that often contradict one another. Consider these competing explanations for suffering put forth by various biblical writers:
• The prophets: suffering is a punishment for sin
• The book of Job, which offers two different answers: suffering is a test, and you will be rewarded later for passing it; and suffering is beyond comprehension, since we are just human beings and God, after all, is God
• Ecclesiastes: suffering is the nature of things, so just accept it
• All apocalyptic texts in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament: God will eventually make right all that is wrong with the world

Notice the presumption: different answers are necessarily contradictory. He seems not to have entertained the possibility they might be complementary: that is, one is true in this situation, another in that situation, and one or more will come into play at the Last Judgment. But of course, one would have to believe the Bible might be true, and that there will be a Last Judgment, in order to entertain said possibility.

I suppose this sort of "reasoning" is to be expected among those who have rejected the authority of Scripture and its account of God. I am continually astonished, however, that this quality of work is rewarded with doctorates and faculty appointments. Moreover, I am wonderstruck at the magnitude of idiocy in anyone who thinks such facile and sophomoric logic should persuade thinking adults.

The knucklehead vs. the extremists

It's fairly obvious to most adults in this country that the Florida pastor planning a Koran bonfire this Saturday is something of a knucklehead. Of course, a pastor has the duty to inform his congregation that Islam is a false religion. This, however, is mere provocation. I hope I'm not the only person to note the irony of a congregation with "outreach" in its name making its biggest splash with an event which does nothing to articulate the nature of the true Gospel, the grace of which Islam's system is strictly against.

At the same time, these little episodes underline the astonishing difference between Islam and Christianity. Someone threatens to burn a Koran or draws an irreverent doodle of Mohammed, and thousands of Muslims riot, burn down embassies, and threaten and/or kill Europeans and/or Americans. An irreverent depiction of Jesus is shown on South Park, and thousands of Christians shrug and take a moment to pray for souls of the blasphemers.

So which really is the religion of peace, and which is nothing of the sort?