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Ben Witherington’s blog has become essential reading for me- he has a lot to say on such diverse topics as Biblical archeology and movie reviews. The following quote from his blog is from a draft of an upcoming book on the New Testament and ethics called The Indelible Image.  His blog post contains a much larger segment on the connection between the Old and New Testaments.  It’s good stuff, and I think even non-Christians who question the validity of the Bible, believing it to be full of errors and contradictions,  will find it interesting and hopefully enlightening. Trust me - if you’ve ever criticized the Bible, you probably should read this if you want to maintain any kind of intellectual integrity.

Some will ask why is it so important to consider the theology and the ethics in the Bible in a processive and progressive manner? One answer is that we cannot judge the meaning of a story, and the character of its actors before we get to the end of it. Consider for a moment the example of the great trilogy the Lord of the Rings. One cannot tell whether Frodo will have the necessary character to do what is required with the ring until we get to right near the end of the story. Up to that point we do not know whether he will pass the test. Or even more tellingly, we cannot tell whether Gollum is going to end up being an adversary or an assistant in the process of saving the Shire and the world until right near the end. Or what of Gandalf? Will he return in time or at all to help the human race ward off evil? We don’t know until many hundreds of pages into the story. The Bible involves a similarly epic story from creation through fall through various acts of redemption to the final new creation. Viewing the whole story from the end changes the way we look at the character of God, the character of God’s people, how human history will play out, the nature of redemption, and a host of other subjects. The truth is—we don’t fully know God and the divine character sufficiently for eternal salvation before Jesus turns up to reveal it.

This is not necessarily the best section to quote, but I chose it because it is reasonably self-contained and does give the flavor of what he’s saying. I really encourage you to head over to Ben’s blog (here’s the link again) and read the entire article.

Now for something completely different, thanks again to Ben W for finding this little gem:

Who says that Christians don’t have a sense of humor?

“I was quite shocked…that most people thought the reason for Christianity is to make you happy. I shared that with the youth worker at my congregation…as I told him about that I invited him to bring the high school students to my class because I was expressing things about the faith and that particular Sunday I was going to talk about the Creed. So the youth came and they participated a little bit…when they went back to their own class they voted whether to come to my class anymore, and they voted not to, because they didn’t want to learn the substance of faith.

I was very disappointed, and I asked about what they were doing in their junior high class to prepare them for high school class. There they were doing “How Christianity helps us grow up.” But it was matters of “I need comfort when I break up with my boyfriend.” There’s more to Christianity than how its going to make you happy… Young people have very little doctrinal content. And that’s dangerous because, if it’s just feelings that hold them to Christianity, when their feelings aren’t there…they’ll move away .”  - Dr. Marva Dawn from The White Horse Inn, 8-24-08

Thanks to Charles St-Onge for the quote.

This issue has been plaguing me for some time now. One of the issues that gave rise to the Reformation was the theological and Biblical ignorance of the Roman Church, including the leaders. Many of the local priests didn’t even understand the Latin that they recited daily from memory. Today, as “educated” as we are, with an amazing plethora of resources available for free on the internet, the contemporary evangelical church is largely ignorant. And, they apparently want to stay that way, even many of the leaders. I’ve heard from more than one pastor that they don’t have time to read or study (aside from what they have to do to prepare sermons, etc.). More and more sermons are on the level expressed above, “where do I find comfort when I break up with my boyfriend?”

It’s embarrassing, and it’s frightening. I’m putting my son, who’s a high school senior, though a self-study theology program (called “The Theology Program“), so at least he’s got some kind of foundation. He’s not getting it in the youth group. Fortunately, my wife and I taught 3 years of Jr High and High School classes (my wife has taught for longer) where we provided basic theology, but still, it was nothing like the education I had growing up. As a Lutheran in Confirmation class, I learned church history as well as basic theology, including the meaning of the creeds, and so on. It takes a church, not just one person.

Who cares, today?  I don’t think the church we’ve been attending does.  Churches today are offering more practical, “meaningful” topics to attract people to their classes. It’s not about education, it’s about marketing, experience and entertainment. It’s time for a new Western evangelical reformation, and the emerging movement isn’t it. Cultural relevance isn’t it.

The church needs to rediscover the Gospel, that Jesus is Lord (king) and that he’s got a plan. We’re not just here wasting time waiting to be taken away to some Heaven-Nirvana. We’re called (remember “calling?”) to a purpose, to start working for the Kingdom here and now.

To those waiting to hear the next “feel-good” sermon about what’s in it for you, this is what I have to say: “Suck it up. Wake up. Get over it.” Certainly there are benefits for you in the process; Christianity is a religion of “enlightened self-interest.” But recall the Bible talks about working out your salvation. That’s not working for your salvation, that’s putting your salvation to work.

Welcome to the New Reformation.

In my last post I briefly discussed the origins of modern epistemology (that area of philosophy concerned with what we know and how we know that we know what we know), for the purpose of providing some background to discuss modern Christian epistemology and post-modern epistemology.

Recently I received an e-mail which linked to recent articles appearing on Christianity Today online, with the subject line, “Apologetics makes a comeback…”  Apologetics historically is the systematic defense of Christianity. The Apostle Paul is considered the first Christian apologist, first using the word apologia as recorded in Acts 26:2. At its most basic, apologetics is providing the basis for your faith; however, under modernism, apologetics has often come to mean the systematic proof of Christianity. Modern apologetics includes philosophical arguments relying heavily on Aristotelian logic, as well as scientific and historical arguments. With modern apologetics, reason tends to reign supreme - even more so than with much of modern materialism.

As with its arch-rival, philosophical materialism, modern Christianity (especially evangelicalism) has been to some extent running scared from the West’s newest worldview, postmodernism. Postmodernism started as an architectural style, a move away from modernism’s boxy steel & glass that now dominates our cities’ skylines, and philosophers began using the term. Philosophically, it is very hard to define, other than that it is a purported deconstruction, critique and rejection of many of the failures of modernism. In some ways, it is not a philosophy so much as a non-philosophy. However, the major issue with regard to Christianity has been the tendency to reject the notion that anyone can claim any hold on truth. Truth claims are seen as methods of control (which often they are; no one has either the ability to know what is true or the right to enforce that view on others. We all choose our own paths, our own truths, blah, blah, blah.

So, when Christianity Today starts publishing “apologetics isn’t dead” articles, what’s behind it is this fear that postmodernsm will put modern apologetics out of business.  However, CT’s article A New Day for Apologetics quotes author Lee Strobel:

“It wasn’t too many years ago that scholars were writing off apologetics because we live in a postmodern world where young people are not supposed to be interested in things like the historical Jesus,” Strobel says. “The biggest shock is that among people who communicated to me that they had found faith in Christ through apologetics, the single biggest group was 16- to 24-year-olds.”

A 2nd CT article turned out to be an interview with an old friend of mine, Mark Mittelberg, who has recently published a book entitled Choosing Your Faith: In a World of Spiritual Options (Tyndale, 2008). This book - while I admit I haven’t even seen a copy yet - is a bit different than some of the older apologetic books, as it is focused on evaluating truth claims in a culture where truth seems to be up for grabs. Mark says,

I would urge my fellow believers to not let go of one of the most important things God has given us: logic, evidence, old-fashioned apologetics, which Jesus often appealed to when he was questioned. He would say, “Don’t just listen to my words, but look at my works, look at my miracles, look at the fact that I am fulfilling the roles of the Messiah in the prophecies. Look to the fact that I will rise from the dead.” And then to Thomas the doubter, he said, “Look at the holes in my hands and in my side. Look at me; it’s Jesus.” Over and over he pointed to the facts, the evidence, as did the apostles and other writers of Scripture. I’m not saying it’s the only approach; I’m just saying it’s an important approach that we need to use well…

If we can call this The New Apologetics, it seems that besides offering logical evidence for Christianity, it is also to an extent an apologetic for modernism; saying, “don’t give up on logic, reason and evidence.” Here, oddly enough, even The New Atheists would be in agreement, but disagree as to what constitutes evidence. However, even at modernism’s peak (the pre-Vietnam era), there were many for whom logic, reason and evidence simply weren’t enough.

So, in the early 21st Century, we are told on one hand that we are living without a doubt in a postmodern culture. On the other hand, interest in science, technology and apologetics seems as strong, if not stronger, than ever. What gives?

Stay tuned for the possible answer to this question, and more …