Does the Resurrection matter?

Some years ago the music department at the public high school where I taught performed Jesus Christ Superstar as the annual musical. The cast was a cross-section of the student body, theists and atheists, Jews and Christians and members of other faiths. One of the Jewish students in the cast told me one day, rather wonderingly, that Christian students involved in the production "don't know what they believe."

Sometimes people outside the faith understand better than some of those who think they are in it "what they believe." Rabbi Marc Gellman on The Jesus Family Tomb:

.... If this was indeed the tomb of Jesus, then not only is the Christian Testament false but, worse, Christianity is a cruel deception, à la The Da Vinci Code, foisted on the world by Jesus' panicky followers to help market a faith led by a dead messiah. I don't think that is how Christianity was born....

Some Christian respondents to this film have said that even discovering the bones of Jesus would not seriously undermine their faith. They say that 2,000 years of tradition does not just get canned because somebody found some bone boxes in the basement of the Israel Museum. I know many Christian clergy who have told me that the main truth of Christianity for them is to love as Jesus loved and that no archeological discovery can change that spiritual lesson. I love these folks but, as an outsider, I just don't agree that decisive refutation of Jesus' resurrection would have no effect on Christian faith. Unlike Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and even Buddhism, which are built on God's teachings, Christianity is built both on God's teachings as well as on an historical event proving a transcendental miracle. If the Red Sea never really split, there would still be the Ten Commandments and the Torah for me. What is left of Christianity if Jesus died and then just remained dead? .....

The divide separating Christians from non-Christians is not between those who think loving all people is good and those who think loving all people is bad. The real divide is between those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day as proof that he was indeed the Messiah sent by God, and those who do not believe this article of faith and this audacious historical claim.

Source: Newsweek: Jesus R.I.P.

"Nothing but the blood"

At Christianity Today, David Gushee asks how the Baptist tradition of salvation holds up against what Jesus actually taught:

...[O]n the two occasions in Luke when Jesus was asked about the criteria for admission to eternity, he offered a fourfold answer: love God with all that you are, love your neighbor (like the Samaritan loved his neighbor), do God's will by obeying his moral commands, and be willing, if he asks, to drop everything and leave it behind in order to follow him. ....

In my Baptist tradition, especially, we direct people to "invite Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior," an act undertaken using a formula called the "sinner's prayer." Or we simply say, "Believe in Jesus, and you will be saved."

But Jesus never taught easy believism. .... [H]e called people to abandon their own agenda and trust him radically. Radical trust calls for both belief and action.

I suggest that we tend to confuse the beginning of the faith journey with its entirety.... [more]

Source: Christianity Today - Jesus and the Sinner's Prayer

Giuliani

GetReligion writes about Giuliani, religious conservatives and the Republican Presidential nomination:

The big question for journalists covering his candidacy is whether or not Giuliani can garner the support of the religious conservatives, which has come to be defined as the core of the GOP. There are two levels of disgust most religious conservatives would have for Giuliani. One is his views on the culture wars. Supporting abortion rights and gay rights isn't going to win too many friends in Colorado Springs.

The second level, and perhaps more pernicious, is the personal morality of Giuliani.... [more]

Source: Rudy Giuliani: the leading GOP candidate

Faith and politics

When asked whether his religious belief affects his political decisions the politician replied:

Yes, it does. I do believe in the separation of church and state. But I don't think separation of church and state means you have to be free from your faith. My faith informs everything I think and do. It's part of my value system. And to suggest that I can somehow separate and divorce that from the rest of me is not possible. I would not, under any circumstances, try to impose my personal faith and belief on the rest of the country. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's appropriate. But freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion. And I think that anything we can do to promote the idea that people should express their faith is a good thing.

This is precisely the sort of thing George W. Bush says for which he has been attacked as a "Christianist" and accused of trying to establish a "theocracy." The quotation is from an interview John Edwards gave at beliefnet. The position Edwards takes in this part of the interview is correct and the outrage directed toward Bush was silly.

Source: John Edwards on faith

God still speaks

At the Christianity Today site, an affecting account of God acting in a particular situation: "My Conversation with God."

Source: Christianity Today: My Conversation With God

"Darwin's God"

"...He has put eternity into man’s heart...."
Ecclesiastes 3:11

This Sunday the New York Times Magazine contained an article describing efforts to provide a scientific explanation for the seeming human need for religion. What, they ask, is the Darwinian explanation? What "survival value" does religious belief have? One of the scientists is Scott Atran:

When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.

Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. [the article]

The article is very interesting and the explanations ingenious. But even if one of the approaches proved to be true [and this is one of those questions the answer to which will be forever speculative], it would tell us nothing about whether or not there is a God. Perhaps the actual explanation is the simplest one: that God exists and, consequently, the human beings He created yearn for the God that is.

"You have created us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
St. Augustine

"Universal happiness will prevail"

In a review of collections of the writings of Mao and Robespierre, John Kekes describes why seeking heaven on earth results in something more like hell:

Maximilien Robespierre led the phase of the French Revolution called the Terror. It lasted a little over a year. He gave the orders that resulted in beheading, drowning, shooting, or burying alive about 20,000 men, women, and children. Mao Zedong ruled China between 1949 and his death in 1976. During his tenure, his followers murdered, on a low estimate, 20 million people. These two men were among the handful of great mass murderers of modern times, in the same class as Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Stalin.

Both Robespierre and Mao seized control of and radicalized revolutions that they did not start. In each case, the revolution destroyed the previous corrupt regime and replaced it with hell on earth. Instead of their predecessors' venality, Robespierre and Mao sought ideological purity, and they had a cold impersonal hatred of those whom they suspected of not sharing their crazed theories. This hatred brought them to murder people indiscriminately, not for what they did but for what they were. Innocence was no part of Robespierre's or Mao's vocabulary; the notion that punishment should be for real crimes, both men thought, was subversive of the grandiose project of achieving happiness for all. Their ideologies dictated the only way to reach that lofty goal; those who disagreed with their ideologies became enemies of mankind, deserving only extermination. ....

They can believe such travesties because their ideologies offer a misguided explanation of why the world is as it is, rather than as it ought to be. Often, as everyone knows, we fail to get what we deserve; good people come to bad ends, and bad ones die in comfort. Justice doesn’t reliably prevail; reason doesn’t always guide key decisions; and even the best-laid plans may fail, thanks to stupidity, indifference, and selfishness. Ideologies explain why this happens and, more important, they promise that human life can escape these defects. The world isn’t as it should be? Blame bad political arrangements—poverty, injustice, fear, and poor education. The way to make the world better, therefore, is to change those bad political arrangements radically. Only force—revolution—can bring that radical change about. After a revolutionary cleansing, people will no longer be corrupt, evil will disappear, and justice and universal happiness will prevail.

If ideologues were reflective, they would realize that bad people are what causes bad political arrangements. Ideologies rest on the mistaken assumption that changing political arrangements will change people. But human nature remains what it always was; only the ways it expresses itself change. Good and bad motives, virtues and vices, excellences and defects—all have characterized and will continue to characterize human beings. The ideologues’ efforts to change human nature aren’t just futile; they’re also calamitous, since they’re marked by the very flaws that they seek to eradicate. The gruesome crimes of Robespierre, Mao, and other despots testify to this truth. [more]

 Words to Die By by John Kekes

Biblical submission

At Between Two Worlds, Justin Taylor republishes portions of a sermon John Piper delivered that clarify what submission does not mean.

Link to Between Two Worlds: What Biblical Submission Does and Does Not Mean

March, 2007 Sabbath Recorder Online

The March, 2007, Sabbath Recorder is available online here. Among many interesting and informative articles are those related to the theme "Stories of Restoration and Recovery" including accounts of Seventh Day Baptist volunteers who worked to help people devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

"Things that can never be compromised"

Gospel Basics
Steve Crouch
from a sermon

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

I Corinthians 15:1-8 [ESV]

Just about every local church in the world has problems. Churches have problems because people have problems, and churches are made up of people.

• Some people have beliefs that aren’t supported by the Bible.
• Some people live immoral lives, as if they weren’t Christians at all.
• Some people are still influenced too much by a sinful world.
• Some people can’t seem to put their old ways behind them and move on to maturity in Christ.

If you’ve read the two letters to the Corinthians, you know that the church in Corinth was that kind of church. Corinth itself was an immoral city, and the Christians found it hard to escape that influence. So chapter by chapter in these two letters, Paul went through each issue – at least the ones he had heard about – and said, “I hear that you have this kind of problem in your church: this kind of immorality, or this kind of heresy.” Mostly it was evil behavior that he had to deal with in that church. But he knew that behavior is determined by belief, whether good or bad. So the problem in Corinth was the same as in many other churches since then: bad theology that produces bad behavior.

Paul had an answer to bad theology, and that’s good theology.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul started out, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you…” Paul had been to Corinth before, and he had taught these people the Gospel of Jesus Christ – you can read about it in Acts 18. These people had heard the Gospel, had believed it, and were saved. But now Paul found out that some things weren’t going well in the Corinthian church.

So in chapter 15, it’s back to square one, the basics of the Gospel. And you can sum it up in four main words: Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, and he appeared. That is more than four words, but in the original language, each of these verbs, these four things Christ did, is one word.

Not just anybody did these things, Christ did them. By saying “Christ” here, Paul was going back to the only real hope that this world has ever had. Pagan religions didn’t offer any hope or any future – their whole religion was not much more than trying to keep the gods happy so that the crops would keep growing. But the Jewish people had something real in their religion: they had hope for a future that God would give them when the Messiah came.

The Christian faith says that the Messiah did come, and he was Jesus. This was something tangible, a real flesh-and-blood person who people saw and heard. And this real person did things that were important to God. The Christian message is that because Jesus did these things, people can be saved from sin and death and have eternal life. Eternal life begins the minute you believe, and it changes your eternal future.

When you know that your future is settled in Heaven, you can face anything with confidence in God – and that means anything. The problems are still there, but you can handle them in a different way than you did before, because God is doing most of the handling. And because churches are made up of people, church problems are going to be handled differently too.

It all comes back to the basics of the Gospel message, the reality of what Jesus did. Does anybody remember a Gospel tract called The Four Spiritual Laws? Campus Crusade is still publishing that tract, and many Christians are still using it to share the Gospel. The basic Gospel message is summed up in four statements, each supported by Scripture. Here is a summary:

1. God loves you and has a plan for your life.
2. Sin separates you from God and his plan.
3. Jesus died to pay the price for your sin and bring you to God.
4. You can receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus offers.

Millions of people have heard that message, and millions have become Christians.

1 Corinthians 15 also has four basics of the gospel, and maybe we could call them “The Four Things Jesus Did.” These are teachings that you can’t compromise – you can’t change them, and you can’t ignore them. If you remove these, you don’t have the Christian faith anymore – you have something completely different. This is why in verse 3, Paul said that this is “of first importance.”

Another thing to see here is that these things aren’t just philosophical ideas, or even theological ideas – these are things that God did. The Christian faith is built on what Jesus did. These are historical events, and with one exception, there were eye-witnesses to prove it. So here they are:

First, Christ died. Now of course dying wasn’t the first thing Jesus ever did. But his dying is first in importance – he could never have saved us without dying. And of course saving us was the reason he did it: he died for our sins. The gospel says that he died so that we don’t have to pay the price of eternal death ourselves.

The next thing Christ did (according to the Scriptures) was to be buried – verse 4. All four gospels tell this part of the story – they all describe Jesus being buried in a tomb. The burial is important because Jesus really was dead. A burial is usually the last thing they do when someone dies – usually that’s the end of the story. Paul included the burial in his Gospel because it had to be absolutely certain that Christ really had died. If there is any doubt that he really died, then who is going to believe that he rose from the dead!

But he did rise again, after being dead for three days. That is the next part of the gospel – “raised on the third day,” in verse 4. Jesus established a new pattern of death followed by life, and the Bible promises the same thing for us. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we have promises, and we have hope. Perhaps God could have saved us just by Jesus’ dying, even without the resurrection. But how would anybody ever know about it! How would we ever understand that death is not the end! The proof is in the resurrection.

But again, suppose Jesus rose from the dead, and nobody ever found out about it. So the next part of Paul’s Gospel is that the risen Christ appeared to his followers. Verses 5-8 list several times that Jesus appeared to individuals and to various groups of people, and this list is not by any means complete. There were other times and other people Jesus appeared to, who aren’t mentioned here. Lots of people saw him alive after he was crucified, buried, and raised from the dead – lots of people, including Paul himself.

Now every time you read this Scripture, do you ever wonder why we usually say just “death and resurrection,” and don’t include the burial and the appearances? Well, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with “death and resurrection” as a good, accurate summary of what Jesus did for us. But for Paul’s purpose in writing 1 Corinthians, he wanted to make sure that his readers saw the whole picture.

So Paul’s teaching goes something like this:

• Skeptic: “The Christians say that Jesus died, but did he really? Wasn’t it all a hoax?”
• Believer: “Well, no, it wasn’t – he really did die. And the proof is: they buried him. They sealed up the tomb, and they even put soldiers there to guard it.”
• Skeptic: “Okay, the Christians say that Christ rose from the dead, but how do we really know – there weren’t any eye-witnesses, nobody who actually saw him rise from the dead.”
• Believer: “Yes, but he appeared to people, not once, not twice, but many times. Some of the people who saw him are still living – you can go and ask them.”

Here we have the essential facts of the Christian Gospel, based on historical events. And we also have details: supporting evidence that help us to believe that it’s all true.

And we do have to believe it’s true. These things really happened, and a real man named Jesus did them. Paul thought it was necessary to remind the Corinthian Christians, because this would help them to trust God better and to obey him better. By being absolutely sure of the facts of the faith, they could find God’s grace to overcome the problems they had in their lives and in their church. But of course it’s more than just “problem solving,” it’s the Kingdom of God, and eternal life.

We need this confidence too. You’ve heard the Gospel before, and you need to hear it again – and again. Remind yourself often what the basics of the Gospel are, the things that can never be compromised: that Jesus did all of this for all of us.

Thank God for helping us through our problems. But it’s more than that. Quite literally, we are staking our very lives and our eternal future on believing that it’s all real, and it’s all true.

Steve Crouch is the pastor of the Bay Area Seventh Day Baptist Church.

"He entered space and time and suffering."

Peter Kreeft from Making Sense Out of Suffering:

Jesus did three things to solve the problem of suffering. First, he came. He suffered with us. He wept. Second, in becoming man he transformed the meaning of our suffering: it is now part of his work of redemption. Our death pangs become birth pangs for heaven, not only for ourselves but also for those we love. Third, he died and rose. Dying, he paid the price for sin and opened heaven to us; rising, he transformed death from a hole into a door, from an end into a beginning.

That third thing, now - resurrection. It makes more than all the difference in the world. Many condolences begin by saying something like this: "I know nothing can bring back your dear one again, but.. ." No matter what words follow, no matter what comforting psychology follows that "but," Christianity says something to the bereaved that makes all the rest trivial, something the bereaved longs infinitely more to hear: God can and will bring back your dear one again to life. There is resurrection. [more]

Source: Suffering by Peter Kreeft

"Can we call the Lost Tomb a hoax now?"

Get Religion describes the reporting on the "Lost Tomb of Jesus." Perhaps it's time to move on.

Question: does anyone other than the good folks behind the Discovery Channel documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus believe the claims that this crypt contained the bones of Jesus Christ? I have yet to see any independent confirmation anywhere, or anyone (other than the filmmakers) expressing a single bit of confidence that any of this could be true.

Considering that everyone (other than the reporters covering the matter and the filmmakers) is saying this thing is bogus, what are we to make of the coverage? It's a legitimate story that this film is being made and makes the claims it does, but at what point does it tip over into a hoax?

A second-day story by Washington Post religion writer Alan Cooperman appropriately carries the headline "'Lost Tomb of Jesus' Claim Called a Stunt." Cooperman is a day behind the coverage, but that extra time seems to have given him a chance to write a more balanced article and find sources outside the usual suspects:

Leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States yesterday denounced the purported discovery of the tomb of Jesus as a publicity stunt.

Scorn for the Discovery Channel's claim to have found the burial place of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and - most explosively - their possible son came not just from Christian scholars but also from Jewish and secular experts who said their judgments were unaffected by any desire to uphold Christian orthodoxy.

"I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight," said William G. Dever, who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years and is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars. "I just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated."

Source: Can we call Lost Tomb a hoax now? » GetReligion

Self esteem II

The Detroit Free Press reports on a new study of the effect of the self-esteem movement on today's generation of college students:

Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. 

"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already." ...

“Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others,” he said.

The study asserts that narcissists “are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors.” ...

The researchers traced the phenomenon back to what they called the “self-esteem movement” that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far.

As an example, Twenge cited a song commonly sung to the tune of “Frere Jacques” in preschool: “I am special, I am special. Look at me.” [more]

Source: Detroit Free Press: College students get an A in narcissism

Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation

An atheist website, Daylight Atheism, lists those who have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the position argued by the Freedom from Religion Foundation [FFRF] on Hein v. FFRF [see here]. Our denomination is affiliated with the Baptist Joint Committee and, consequently, we once again find ourselves in interesting company.

The FFRF does not stand alone in this case. Friend-of-the-court briefs taking their side have been filed by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Freedom, People for the American Way, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, the Center for Free Inquiry, and a diverse group of eminent legal scholars and historians. The FFRF is also being represented pro bono by the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic of the Yale Law School, and their oral arguments before the Court will be given by Andrew Pincus, former assistant solicitor general under the Clinton administration. [emphasis added]

Source: Daylight Atheism > FFRF at the Supreme Court

Old movies

As one who has always loved movies I enjoyed this post at World Magazine. I still resist silent film and many of my younger students resisted anything that wasn't in color - or that had a plot that might make them have to keep track of anything. It is, of course, easy for a non-parent to prescribe how children should be raised - so here goes - it seems to me a very good thing to raise children to enjoy their cultural patrimony, whether music, art, literature or film. Perhaps a book like this can help with at least the latter.

For most of my life, I didn't really like old movies. Not because they were bad, or black-and-white, or not in stereo, but because I didn't know how to watch them. When you're used to the style of Goonies and Ghostbusters, it's hard to get into, say, The Grapes of Wrath or Giant. Since these older movies are on the whole more palatable for the family, though, it might pay to start early with my 9-month-old daughter, Simmons, to ensure her palette for My Fair Lady, rather than My Super Ex-Girlfriend. That's what Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr says in his book, The Best Old Movies for Families. From a review: "The younger you start, the easier it is, so here are his top five choices for toddlers: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Bringing Up Baby, Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin' in the Rain, and Stagecoach.

Source: How to make sure your daughter prefers Jimmy Stewart to Jimmy Kimmell

"God is the Gospel"

As seems to be their frequent practice, the Desiring God site makes the John Piper book God is Gospel available as a pdf. Here is their summary of the book:

"Gospel" means good news - but what makes the good news good? What is the goal of the gospel, without which it is no longer good? It is that Christ's death brings sinners to God! Were it to bring us anywhere else we would be left hopeless. But the gospel is that God gives us himself - Christ died to give us Christ -, and this self-giving is his highest mercy to us and the best news for us! The most profound, most exceedingly gracious, final and decisive good of the good news is Christ himself as the glorious image of God revealed for our endless satisfaction.

Source: God Is the Gospel :: Desiring God

He lived happily ever after...

The Discovery Channel, in its search for appropriate Lenten fare, has produced a "documentary" which, if true, would destroy the central doctrine of Christianity. Da Vinci Code redux. Captain's Quarters comments:

The finding ... purports to show that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a son named Judah, also buried at the tomb with his own ossuary:

New scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world's foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah.

The DNA findings, alongside statistical conclusions made about the artifacts — originally excavated in 1980 — open a potentially significant chapter in Biblical archaeological history.

... The DNA analysis...does not identify the Jesus of the ossuary as the same Jesus in the Bible. All it does is show that the bones in a tomb that the researchers speculate belonged to Mary Magdelene have no familial relation to the bones in the Jesus ossuary. That is how the archeologists assumed that the two in this crypt were married, and that the Judah ben-Jesus of the ossuary had to be their offspring. ...

... Jesus was a well-known agitator whose crucifixion creates a cult following in the eyes of the Romans and the leading Jews of the time. The basis of that cult formed around the notion that Jesus rose from the dead. If the Romans knew where his body was buried, why then did they not produce it as proof of his immutable death? In order to be placed in an ossuary, he would have to lie in the tomb for a year, decomposing to skeletal remains. During that time, the Romans could easily have produced the body - or the cult followers could have stolen it and buried it elsewhere to prevent it.

... In the first generation of Jesus, no one mentions his marriage or family. Yet his family and followers - ossuaries of Matthew and James are supposedly among the discoveries - supposedly felt it of no moment to bury him with his wife and son, despite their refusal to acknowledge a marriage. By the time his son would have died, the Gospels would already have been written and prophesied in the region and further to Greece and Rome.

And all of this evidence would have been left in the open, in a tomb in the middle of the largest city in the region, where anyone could have discovered it....

Source: Captain's Quarters

Ben Witherington on the subject.

And Darren Hewer.

Eulogies

S.M. Hutchens, reacting to a eulogy:

... The two great desires on such occasions are to say either more or less than we should, and only the well-disciplined pastor says what he ought and no more.

If I were to draw up rules for the occasion the first and greatest would be to remember that we do not know the present state much less the eternal destiny of the deceased, for we do not know men's hearts; only God does. This does not mean that those who have lived what appear as holy lives cannot be used as examples of blessedness, or praised for their virtues - since every good man is a type of the Christ whom we are called to preach - or that examples of human evil cannot be forthrightly condemned as sin that brings men to hell. What it does mean is that we may not, unless we are given special prophetic insight (all claims to which I doubt), speak as though we know things we do not, give assurances of blessedness or condolences of its opposite we are not qualified to deliver, no matter how desperately people wish to have them. The righteous need to understand at such a time that all their righteousness is as filthy rags, and be put in fear, and sinners need to understand that no life, however wicked, is beyond God's saving, and be given hope in him. When the minister, on the basis of what can be seen of a life from the outside, seems to know where the dead have gone, life is reduced to an equation in which God is no longer a factor, men have no hidden life known only to God, and at the price of some immediate but ephemeral comfort, the Source of all true and legitimate comfort has been covertly and unwittingly disposed of. [more]

Source: Mere Comments: The Great Story and the Little Fables

"Nooma"

Ben Witherington reviews Rob Bell's Nooma videos.

Nooma is the Anglicized version of the Greek word pneuma, which means spirit, breath, or wind. This word is presumably chosen for the series of short videos Rob Bell is producing signaling the fresh winds that are blowing through the church and the world in part through the Emergent Church movement. Each of these short films have one word titles like 'Rain' or 'Flame' or 'Trees' or 'Sunday', and each center on some elemental concept or idea about which Rob can give some Biblical and spiritual reflection.

The review of Nooma videos 1-5 is here, 6-10 here and 11-15 here.

Source: Ben Witherington

"The Dawkins Confusion"

At Books & Culture, Alvin Plantinga assesses the arguments in the most recent Richard Dawkins book:

Richard Dawkins is not pleased with God:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal&.

Well, no need to finish the quotation; you get the idea. Dawkins seems to have chosen God as his sworn enemy. (Let's hope for Dawkins' sake God doesn't return the compliment.) The God Delusion is an extended diatribe against religion in general and belief in God in particular; Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (whose recent Breaking the Spell is his contribution to this genre) are the touchdown twins of current academic atheism. Dawkins has written his book, he says, partly to encourage timorous atheists to come out of the closet. He and Dennett both appear to think it requires considerable courage to attack religion these days; says Dennett, "I risk a fist to the face or worse. Yet I persist." Apparently atheism has its own heroes of the faith - at any rate its own self-styled heroes. Here it's not easy to take them seriously; religion-bashing in the current Western academy is about as dangerous as endorsing the party's candidate at a Republican rally. [more]

Source: The Dawkins Confusion - Books & Culture