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The Thoroughly Rational Conversion of Michael Minot

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C.S. Lewis has some words to live by for you
C.S. Lewis has some words to live by for you

One of the things I’ve noticed hanging around in church on and off the last 20 years or so is that it often seems to be the case the church leaders seem to value some people as leaders more than others. Specifically, it seems to me that church leaders prefer to put athletes and cheerleaders into leadership positions, and they tend to be skeptical of people who have intellectual conversion stories, and intellectual interests. I think I actually got the phrase “jocks and cheerleaders” from Dr. John Mark Reynolds when describing who churches tend to prefer, so I’m not just making this up.

But not everyone sees things that way. Of all the people I’ve met or read, I probably agree with Terrell Clemmons the most. And if I disagree with her, then I usually find out that she is right later on. Pretty much everything she writes about is not only relevant, but practical, which is amazing for a person who writes about topics related to Christian belief and practice. One of the things she likes to write about is the background stories of people who were intelligent and successful as non-Christians, who then went on to become Christians through a careful study of the evidence, and then went on to make a difference through outward-focused enterprises.

Let’s start with this article from Salvo Magazine about a successful atheist lawyer named Michael Minot.

Terrell writes:

Never in his 28 years did Mike Minot imagine he would entertain this unthinkable thought, yet lately of an evening he might easily be found pacing around his house like an awestruck research scientist muttering things like, “It just can’t be! . . . Can it?”

The seismic shift had started quite unexpectedly just a few months prior. He was three years out of law school, and life was great. After years of living on beans and weenies as a student, he had arrived on the scene of success. He had a growing law practice, money in his pocket, and a teeming social life. The world was his oyster.

Then he had received an odd phone call. Normally confident and well-spoken, Jim, whom he’d met while studying for the Florida bar exam, spoke awkwardly, struggling uncharacteristically to get his message out. Finally he got to his point. “Sharon and I have been watching what’s been going on in your life. And we decided we would give you a call and invite you to do something. We believe the Scriptures are very important. They’re very important to our lives, and they’re helpful to us. We know what you think about spiritual matters, but we want to challenge you to take some time at this point in your life and reexamine these things.”

To say Mike was taken aback would be an understatement. He was a perfectly contented atheist, and he had no interest in interrupting his prosperous life to look at anyone’s answers to questions he wasn’t even asking. But he did value the relationship he had with Jim, Sharon, and their two adorable kids. If he were to summarily dismiss this suggestion, what would that do to their friendship? It seemed he should at least put forth a cursory effort, if for no other reason than for the health of the relationship.

First thing to note is that the people who ask Michael to give Christianity a look are successful and intelligent themselves. Not only is Jim studying for the Florida bar exam (so that he has credibility to another lawyer), but Jim’s wife has also given him more credibility by marrying him. Married couples are typically more “grown-up” than singles, and I’m saying that as a chaste single myself who has been successful in education, career and finances. Marriage requires a whole set of behaviors from people that singles don’t have to perform. The point is, though, that Michael is being approached by people from the same professional and social background. He is not being approached by a missionary or a street preacher, but by someone who has been effective in their education, career and marriage.

This really does matter – Christians are often perceived (rightly) as over-emotional, irrational, impractical, and driven more by community than by truth-seeking. It’s very important for Christians who want to produce a return that they not be living with their parents in their 20s, have gap-filled minimum-wage resumes, have $20,000 in student in outstanding student loans from an easy, unused non-STEM degree, and no achievements except zip-lining, skydiving, surfing, and fear-of-missing-out travel.

The journey starts with science:

With no predetermined plan, he delved into both the Scriptures and science. The Scriptures felt intimidating, though, and he was more comfortable with science. Not two weeks in, he found something that totally blew his mind. Ironically, it was something that had been there all along: the solar system—and the mind-boggling precision by which it operates. He marveled at the elegant complexity of it. It appeared way too precise, statistically speaking, to be an accident.

Suddenly, this was no longer a casual exercise. He had to find the natural explanation for the solar system. If he continued on his merry life without it, he would forever live plagued by lingering thoughts that he could be living a lie. Never did he want to go in for a lie, and intellectual honesty demanded that he keep searching.

So he put on his miner’s lighted helmet, so to speak, and went to work. But instead of locating the natural explanation for the solar system, he found himself turning up all manner of equally troublesome phenomena—the fine-tuning of the earth for supporting life, with its balance of nitrogen to oxygen ratios and plate tectonics; the information content of DNA; and the complexities of animal and human life, to name a few. The perplexities mounted, and the whole project snowballed. He would go looking for the explanation for one natural marvel, only to encounter two more crying out for explanation.

If I could communicate one thing to the church, it would be this: whether you agree with the old universe and old Earth timelines or not, everyone who attends church for a decade should be able to state the kalam cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the intelligent design argument, the fossil record argument, and the habitability argument, to the degree where they are naming scientists, discoveries and specific books where the evidence for these arguments are laid out.

Unfortunately, thanks to the “leadership” of many prominent fideist pastors, many Christians have adopted an attitude of outright suspicion to science, preferring instead to pre-suppose the truth of the Bible by blind faith (“the burning of the bosom”, as the Mormons say), and refusing to study anything outside the Bible that might establish the necessary prerequisites to taking the Bible seriously. Successful non-Christian professionals looking to evaluate Christianity, this blind-faith approach is rightly seen as anti-intellectualism.

More:

Other complications did follow, though. He had trustingly believed teachers and authorities who had taught that everything could be explained naturalistically. What else, now, needed to be reexamined? This went beyond science and philosophy to sociology, psychology—everything had to be rethought according to this completely new paradigm. He would later liken it to being planted on a whole new planet.

And his entire social life collapsed in a matter of weeks. But he joined a church, and it became his new social center as well as his spiritual lifeline. He volunteered to serve as a jail chaplain in the evenings, a post he filled to great satisfaction for fifteen years. He met his wife Nichole at church, and they went on to adopt five children. Life settled into a richly rewarding concert of family, jail ministry, and law. Nothing he’d ever envisioned back in his atheist days could match the prosperity of these blessings.

At first glance, it may seem ironic that an atheist committed to seeing everything through the “lens of science” would come back around to see God through the lens of science. But the truth is, it wasn’t science per se that had hidden his Creator from view. Rather, it was the lens of philosophical naturalism imposed onto science—both in education and throughout the broader culture—that had fostered and fueled Mike’s unchallenged atheism.

Naturalism is a philosophy – a philosophical assumption. It’s not science. The origin and design of the universe are science. DNA is science. Habitability constraints are science. The sudden origin of major body plans in the fossil record is science. There are no scientific arguments for atheism. There’s just speculation driven by naturalistic philosophy.

In the end, Minot turns his life around 180 degrees, and puts his intellect and professional abilities to work for the gospel. You can read about all the ways he is making an impact in Terrell’s article in Salvo Magazine. Always remember stories like these when you are making decisions about your own education and career. God is still working, still reaching out to people through science and history, appealing to their minds for a fair hearing, and then asking for their best efforts for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Cosmologist Luke Barnes answers 11 objections to the fine-tuning argument

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Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

This is from the blog Common Sense Atheism.

Atheist Luke Muehlhauser interviews well-respect cosmologist Luke Barnes about the fine-tuning argument, and the naturalistic response to it.

Luke M. did a good job explaining the outline of the podcast.

Details:

In one of my funniest and most useful episodes yet, I interview astronomer Luke Barnes about the plausibility of 11 responses to the fine-tuning of the universe. Frankly, once you listen to this episode you will be better equipped to discuss fine-tuning than 90% of the people who discuss it on the internet. This episode will help clarify the thinking of anyone – including and perhaps especially professional philosophers – about the fine-tuning of the universe.

The 11 responses to fine-tuning we discuss are:

  1. “It’s just a coincidence.”
  2. “We’ve only observed one universe, and it’s got life. So as far as we know, the probability that a universe will support life is one out of one!”
  3. “However the universe was configured, evolution would have eventually found a way.”
  4. “There could be other forms of life.”
  5. “It’s impossible for life to observe a universe not fine-tuned for life.”
  6. “Maybe there are deeper laws; the universe must be this way, even though it looks like it could be other ways.”
  7. “Maybe there are bajillions of universes, and we happen to be in one of the few that supports life.”
  8. “Maybe a physics student in another universe created our universe in an attempt to design a universe that would evolve intelligent life.”
  9. “This universe with intelligent life is just as unlikely as any other universe, so what’s the big deal?”
  10. “The universe doesn’t look like it was designed for life, but rather for empty space or maybe black holes.”
  11. “Fine-tuning shows there must be an intelligent designer beyond physical reality that tuned the universe so it would produce intelligent life.”

Download CPBD episode 040 with Luke Barnes. Total time is 1:16:31.

There is a very good explanation of some of the cases of fine-tuning that I talk about most on this blog – the force of gravity, the strong force, etc. as well as many other examples. Dr. Barnes is an expert, but he is also very very easy to listen to even when talking about difficult issues. Luke M. is very likeable as the interviewer.

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Should Christian men consider single mothers for marriage?

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Why Christians object to warning men about high-risk relationships?
Why do Christians object to warning men about high-risk relationships?

A while back, I explained my three concerns about attending church. One of them was that male pastors and church leaders have adopted the priorities of radical feminism, and have turned against men who want a traditional marriage in which the man leads and the wife supports. Well, I found something that really illustrates what I mean by that, so that everyone will understand it.

Above, you can see a tweet by Michael Foster, a pastor who hosts a podcast called “It’s Good to be a Man”. His web site states that his goal is: “Extending God’s house & father-rule by helping men to establish their own houses in strength, workmanship & wisdom.”

He explains in subsequent tweets that he is just urging men to ask questions to find out how the woman became a single mother.

Reactions to the tweet

Here are some reactions to the tweet:

The negative reactions are all anti-intellectual and childish, especially trying to refute statistics with “you hurt my feelings” or telling a single personal story as a counterexample.

Here’s a disclaimer. In this post, I am talking about single mothers by choice, and single mothers who initiated divorce. Widows are excluded.

The risks posed by single mother

Now, let’s improve Foster’s warning, by looking at some evidence – is a marriage to a single mother really more likely to result in a bad outcome?

First of all, women initiate 70% of divorces. If you meet a woman who divorced her husband, she either had a defect in her ability to evaluate and choose a man, or she had a defect in her ability to maintain a commitment to the man she chose. Either way, a woman who divorced her previous husband has red flags. There are two possibilities. She either chose a good man or she chose a bad man. If she chose a bad man, then it shows that she didn’t choose a man with good moral character and spiritual leadership. That means that those things were low priorities for her when deciding who to get naked with. Alternatively, she married a good man, and failed to maintain the commitment. Then she has different problems: problems with male leadership, problems with responsibilities, problems with commitment, problems with contentment, etc. You need to ask questions to get to the bottom of what happened, and more importantly, what she has studied and done to change her worldview. Don’t take her words for it, look at her actions.

Second, the number of premarital sex partners a woman has makes her a higher risk of divorce. The more sex partners, the more risk. The problem with women who engage in sex with men who don’t commit to them is that they necessarily don’t see a man’s willingness and ability to commit as valuable when choosing a man. Women who have premarital sex with men who don’t commit see OTHER THINGS as more valuable. They are rewarding the man for his height, his muscles, his tattoos, his piercings, his entertainment of her, etc. A good man should be very wary when a woman who gave her best youth, beauty and sexual interest to men like that now want to “settle” for a boring, unattractive provider who they see as having lower value than the men they gave sex to without requiring a commitment. What they really wanted was bad boys, and they threw sex at those bad boys without asking for commitment. With the man they perceive as low-level, they are insisting on commitment first, because they don’t want this low-level man as badly as they wanted the bad boy. They are settling for less than they feel they deserve. This is where sex-withholding, feelings of unhappiness, and frivolous divorces come from. And by the way, hollering Jesus doesn’t fix that risk any more than hollering Jesus fixes student loans accumulated for a useless non-STEM degree. Jesus-hollering isn’t evidence that a woman has persuaded herself to change her view of which men are the most attractive. A woman’s lack of respect for men who prepare for commitment and who keep their commitments is dangerous for marital stability. The hysterical reactions to a man’s judging a woman for her past mistakes don’t cancel the damage and risks caused by those mistakes. They simply tell the man that this woman is unrepentant, and therefore unteachable, and likely unsuitable for goal-oriented marriage. She is not qualified for the job of wife: self-sacrificial love for her husband, respect for her husband, and supporting her husband in what he is trying to achieve for God.

Here’s what the Bible says about sex outside of heterosexual marriage and about frivolous divorce. Read the critical replies to Foster’s tweet. The critical responses show the default position of church-attending Christian women and pastors to the Bible in this culture. First, the critics don’t accept the Bible as an authority over women’s choices in any area of life. Second, the critics don’t believe that women should bear any responsibility for their past actions. Nobody believes that women choosing bad men is the woman’s fault in this society. So you should assume that single mothers don’t take responsibility for their own failures. And that means that she will have taken no steps to repent of her mistake, and change her character so that she doesn’t make the same mistake again. It’s up to you to look at what she has been reading, listening to, watching, etc. and to check her actions in order to find out what she really thinks about what the Bible says. You can’t marry a woman who responds to any mention of the moral law and moral obligations with denial of responsibility and insults. If she hasn’t become an active crusader against women who choose bad men, and women who choose premarital sex, and women who choose divorce, then you can’t really believe that there’s been any real repentance. The risks to you are too high to take a chance on someone who is not certain. I’ve only ever met one single mother (Kerri) who blamed her own divorce on her own bad decisions.

The culture opposes male leadership

Foster’s warning is intended to help men to make better decisions, so that their relationships will produce results for God. But his critics aren’t interested in what men are trying to achieve for God. They are only concerned that women get what they want, regardles of their past actions. In their opinion, men exists solely to serve the needs of women. Women don’t have to be good enough for marriage, men just have to give them what they want regardless of the woman’s suitability for wife and mother roles. The role of men in any relationship is not to lead and achieve goals for God. Their role is to let women rule over them, disposing of their earnings as they see fit, for the benefit of the woman.

When women are young and pretty, they are entitled to hot bad boys to entertain them. When they are older, have tons of sexual experience, and children from different fathers, they are entitled to a husband to financially support them. But a husband with no power to lead the home, since their past choices of man showed they have no interest in following a man who has good character. And the churches, pastors, courts, schools, hospitals, etc. are all there to enforce this view of men as clowns / slaves.

This is what women are told about the role of men in every area of society. This society, including the Christian parents, Christian pastors, Christian culture, etc. do not produce women who prefer early marriage to men who are good at moral leadership and spiritual leadership. Therefore, men who are chaste, sober, have good educations, good private sector jobs, good savings, etc. need to be extremely careful. Look at the responses to Foster’s tweet, and think: do these people care about providing you with a good wife? Or is their concern all about how to insult you and shame you, until you are submissive to her needs?

Your marriage is your enterprise for serving God

My advice to men right now is to read over every single critical tweet in that thread that Foster started. Imagine that you are trying to get these women to do something in a marriage that is part of your plan to make the marriage serve God. You’re trying to get her to watch a William Lane Craig debate. You’re trying to get her to stop spending money on 50 Shades of Grey and Harry Potter. You’re trying to get her to stop smoking and drinking. You’re trying to get her to talk about the sermon instead of essential oils. You’re trying to get her to read a Thomas Sowell book. You’re trying to get her to not put the kids in day care or public schools.

You need to assume that her response to male leadership like this will be the exact same as the responses that Foster is getting to his tweet. And then after you have assumed it, then you need to keep your hands off that woman. Keep your distance, and ask her questions to find out what her real views are, and whether she is interested in growing into the kind of person who is safe for you to marry. Don’t forget that chastity and sobriety are important during the evaluation process, so that you aren’t influenced away from your leadership role. Don’t listen to her words, look at her actions.