Apr 5, 2017 | Explanatory Power
I recently finished reading a book called The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam. The title appealed to me when I first heard of the book because of a fiction that has been promulgated since the mid-1800s of a war between religion and science. Nothing could be further from the truth. All the great strides of early science were made by Christians because they wanted to glorify their Creator by discovering how a universe created for us worked.
While some science was done by ancient Greeks, and Muslims and Chinese of the Middle Ages, it was in the Christian West where science as a continually expanding discipline was established. How ironic, then, that science has been used by secularists for the last 150 years as a battering ram against Christians. How even more ironic that we can thank Jesus of Nazareth for all the blessings of modern science and technology! Of course Christians know this, and do thank him for these blessings all the time, but just in an historical sense, without Jesus we’d still likely be stuck in some kind of “dark ages.”
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Apr 2, 2017 | Plausibility
Modern “New” Atheists (there is nothing “new” about them) are fond of painting Christians as wishful thinking Neanderthals who may as well believe in Unicorns and leprechauns. A Creator God, parted seas, resurrection, and various and sundry other miracles are no different, they confidently assert. I would say this is a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black, but I don’t want to insult kettles.
I came across a version of an atheist creation story at Evolution News that is typical of the illogical leaps atheists have to make to imagine a universe and life springing up without a Creator God. The guilty part in this case is famous atheist and “materialist philosopher” Daniel Dennett. These paragraphs come from a New Yorker profile on the man and his thought, and specifically how life evolved:
Four billion years ago, Earth was a lifeless place. Nothing struggled, thought, or wanted. Slowly, that changed. Seawater leached chemicals from rocks; near thermal vents, those chemicals jostled and combined. Some hit upon the trick of making copies of themselves that, in turn, made more copies. The replicating chains were caught in oily bubbles, which protected them and made replication easier; eventually, they began to venture out into the open sea. A new level of order had been achieved on Earth. Life had begun.
The tree of life grew, its branches stretching toward complexity. Organisms developed systems, subsystems, and sub-subsystems, layered in ever-deepening regression. They used these systems to anticipate their future and to change it. When they looked within, some found that they had selves—constellations of memories, ideas, and purposes that emerged from the systems inside. They experienced being alive and had thoughts about that experience. They developed language and used it to know themselves; they began to ask how they had been made.
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Mar 30, 2017 | Theology
Modern Evangelicalism is a hybrid of Christian traditions that came out of the Reformation. When I became a Christian in college I had no idea this was the case because I was taught that Christianity, the real kind, was just me and the Bible. My relationship with Jesus mediated through the Bible was the very definition of Christianity. Little did I know that the Christianity I was living in college had historical antecedents. Unfortunately, history wan’t real important to the Christians who introduced me to the Faith. Such historical apathy is indicative of far too much of Evangelicalism today, as it is of general American culture.
Modern Evangelicals have far more in common with 19th century revivalist Christianity than their Reformation forebearers. The Second Great Awakening transformed much of Protestant Christianity from a confessional (a la Lutherans and Presbyterians) and sacramental faith, to an experiential and conversionist faith. George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture is an essential read for anyone wanting to understand why conservative Protestant Christianity (i.e. Evangelicalism) is the way it is today. You’ll find out that modern Evangelicals are historical fundamentalists. In other words, our faith today is more informed by the revivalist Christianity of the 19th and early 20th centuries, than the Reformation of the 16th.
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Mar 23, 2017 | Truth
It wouldn’t be surprising if you haven’t heard of Reza Aslan, but he’s becoming increasingly famous among secular cultural elites because he confirms their bias against truth. Azlan is an Iranian-American author, public intellectual, religious studies scholar, producer, and television host, according to Google. But you’ll immediately know he’s suspect because he’s on CNN. His new documentary called Believer proves the point. CNN is always pushing an agenda, and whether it’s politics or religion, they always come down on the liberal side. The documentary fits comfortably in their worldview.
I learned about it from a John Stonestreet piece at Breakpoint. He captures Aslan’s basic assumption:
Quoting the Buddha, Aslan likens the religions of the world to different wells, which believers dig in order to drink the same water. In other words, all religions are equally true. All roads, so to speak, lead to Heaven, resurrection, enlightenment, Nirvana, or whatever else your endgame may be.
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Mar 20, 2017 | Culture
The FX show The Americans is set in the Reagan era Cold War 80s. Two Soviet intelligence agents, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, pose as a married couple to spy on the American government. They didn’t know each other prior to meeting in America, and are tasked with living a completely normal suburban American life, helped along with their two kids who have no idea mom and dad are agents of America’s sworn enemy.
For those too young to remember life in a Cold War world, The Americans an excellent pop culture introduction to the time. For those old enough to remember, it’s a great nostalgia trip. And for those who like solid drama with a lot of moral ambiguity, there’s plenty of that too.
The reason I wanted to write something about the show isn’t to necessarily promote it, although for adults not squeamish about television portrayals of sex and violence it’s well worth the time. Rather, I came across a piece at an online (generally liberal) publication called Vox that affirms one of the central tenants of my book about keeping your kids Christian: “The Americans has always been a show about faith.” Having watched the show over four seasons, it is about anything but “faith,” as most Americans would understand the term; i.e. it’s not about religion. A liberal version of Christianity is part of the show, but the show itself if focused on two communists who are atheists. When I read the piece I was pleasantly surprised by the case the author was making: Everyone lives by faith.
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