Tag Archives: Authenticity

Commentary

UK government lawyers want Christians to behave like atheists in public

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

Landmark cases, brought by four British Christians, including two workers forced out of their jobs after visibly wearing crosses, were heard on Tuesday at the European Court of Human Rights, a judgement will follow at a later.

Despite previous pledges by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, that he would change the law to protect religious expression at work, government lawyers insisted that there was a “difference between the professional and private sphere”.

James Eadie QC, acting for the government, told the European court that the refusal to allow an NHS nurse and a British Airways worker to visibly wear a crucifix at work “did not prevent either of them practicing religion in private”, which would be protected by human rights law.

[…]The QC also told the court that, unlike the Muslim headscarf for women, wearing a cross is not a “generally recognised” act of Christian worship and is not required by scripture. “A great many Christians do not insist on wearing crosses at all, still less visibly,” he said.

[…]Shirley Chaplin, from Exeter, was moved away from nursing to a clerical role by the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust in Devon after refusing to remove a necklace bearing a crucifix. She has since lost her job after 30 years of nursing.

Mrs Chaplin told The Daily Telegraph that she felt “insulted” by the argument that Christians who are told by their employer that they cannot wear a cross at work can always find another job.

“It is insulting, humiliating and degrading.My Christian faith isn’t something that you put on and then take off to go to work,” she said.

“We are treated differently. Britain is a very tolerant country but we seem to be more tolerant to some groups than others and at the moment we’re not at all tolerant to Christians. You can have faith but not demonstrate it.”

James Dingemans QC, acting for Mrs Eweida, questioned the value of having a right to religious belief if it could not be applied at work, where people spend 80 per cent of their adult lives.

“What value is a right that stops when cross the threshold of work,” he said.

I guess that these secularist lawyers simply don’t understand that there is a requirement for Christians to be public and evangelistic about their faith, and to ask them to act like atheists is to ask them not to be authentic Christians. It’s the most intolerant thing to do to a Christian – to issue a Christian with orders that override their obligations to Jesus Christ. This is not an undue burden on employers and clients – it’s just being allowed to (quietly) be who you are and to signal to others who you are.

Let me illustrate from the Bible exactly what is expected of Christians.

Matthew 10:32-33:

32“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.

33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

1 Corinthians 4:1-2:

1So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.

2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

That’s what’s at stake here. These are just a couple of examples, there are many more. What gives these left-wing atheists the chutzpah to run around telling other people how to practice their religion? Let each person practice what they believe, and let’s all tolerate the differences. There is a right to practice what you believe, there is no right to control what others believe and to take away their basic human rights just because you are offended. Only people on the left are fascistic like that, and it’s got to stop.

People on the left should reflect and understand what it is exactly that they are doing by marginalizing Christianity and trying to stop people from believing it by shaming and intimidating Christians, and leading people into sin. If Christianity is true, then actions like that are probably the absolute worst thing you can do. It’s particularly nasty when you realize that the reason that secular leftists try to suppress Christians from being authentic Christians is because of their feelings. Secular leftists feel that they have a right to suppress the freedoms of others by force of law, on the grounds that they feel offended by someone else’s religious beliefs and practice.

Let’s double-check that with the Bible and make sure.

Matthew 18:6-14:

6 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

7 Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!

8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.

14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Trying to persuade a Christian that they are wrong is fine, but using the power of the state to take away a faithful Christian’s job, which discourages them from being Christian, is something else. In my view, it’s worse than murder. I think that this sort of heavy-handed, intimidating secular fascism masquerading as “tolerance” is worse than murder. You do not intimidate someone away from an authentic relationship with God as he really is, just because of your feelings of discomfort at public expressions of religious faith. The right of each person to express their religion in public is a basic right, but there is no right not to be offended by someone else’s use of liberty to just be themselves. No one is asking for non-Christians to be forced to convert to Christianity or to be forced to celebrate and affirm Christianity by the power of the state. We’re just asking to be who we are without losing our jobs.

News

Younger evangelicals put happiness and popularity over morality

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Here’s an interesting post by Mark Tooley in the American Spectator. (H/T Jay Richards)

Excerpt:

A new generation of evangelical elites is imploring evangelicals to step back from the culture wars. Mostly they want to escape polarizing strong stances on same-sex marriage and abortion, and perhaps also contentious church-state issues, like the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

Purportedly the evangelical church is failing to reach young, upwardly mobile professionals because evangelicals, who now broadly comprise perhaps one third of all Americans, are seen as reactionary and hateful. On their college campuses, at their coffee shops, and in their yoga classes, among other venues, some outspoken hip young evangelicals want a new public image for their faith.

[…]A popular young evangelical blogger echoing Merritt’s theme is Rachel Evans, who conveniently grew up in the Tennessee small town famous for the Scopes Monkey Trial. Her 2010 book was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. “We are tired of the culture wars,” she explained in a recent interview. “We are tired of politics.” Lamenting the church’s preoccupation with “shame and guilt,” she urged evangelicals to reconsider their opposition to same-sex unions.

The post has a nice history of how evangelicals have always been involved in moral and political issues, and it’s worth reading. But I want to make a different point below.

What’s at the root of this movement to back away from moral issues? Here’s what I think is the problem. When you advocate for moral causes like protecting the unborn, or school choice, or freeing the slaves, a bunch of people are not going to like you. Christians in the time of Jesus knew that being bold about their Christian convictions would make a lot of people think bad things about them – they expected it. But young evangelicals have gotten the idea that being a Christian should not involve any sort of unhappiness and unpopularity. They wouldn’t have learned this from the Bible, because the Bible emphasizes suffering and unpopularity as part of the normal Christian life. It is their experience of church (and the hedonistic culture around them) that is likely to reinforce that view.

What young evangelicals learn in many churches is that religion is something that is centered on the Bible and the church building – it is not something that flows into real life. They learn that you can’t find out anything about God from the Big Bang, the DNA, the fossil record, or even from the peer-reviewed research on abortion, divorce, or gay marriage. They learn from the Bible that helping the poor is good, but then they never pick up an economic textbook to see which economic system really helps the poor. What you learn about in church is that religion is private and has no connection to reality whatsoever. This fits in with their view that Christianity should make them happy, because they’ve learned that it doesn’t involve any studying to connect the Bible to the real world.

What follows from having a view that Christianity only lives in the Bible and church, and not out there in the real world of telescopes and microscopes? Well, most young evangelicals interpret what their pastor is telling them as “our flavor of ice cream” or “our cultural preference”. They don’t link Christianity to the real world, they don’t think that it’s true for everyone. They think that you just accept what the Bible says on faith, and that’s all. No reasons can be given to non-Christians outside of just asking them to accept the Bible. Younger evangelicals believe that there are no facts that confirm or disprove Christianity – it’s just a blind belief. Young evangelicals think that their faith doesn’t have to be complemented with careful study of how things work in the real world.

What is the result of this anti-intellectual compartmentalization of faith? The result is that young evangelicals will balk at the idea of telling someone that they are going to Hell if they don’t believe in Jesus. They will balk at the idea that feminism is to blame for the destruction of the family. They will balk at the idea that the best way to help the poor is to push for free market capitalism. They will balk at the idea that it is wrong to kill unborn children. They will balk at the idea that disarmament and pacifism embolden terrorists and tyrants to attack peace-loving people. They will balk at the idea that traditional marriage is better for society and children. They will balk at the idea that man-made catastrophic global warming is not supported by science. They lack courage because they first lack knowledge. They don’t know how to make the case using hard evidence. They don’t learn that hard evidence is important in church.

If the purpose of religion is to have happy feelings and be liked, then studying the real world to find out whether the Bible is true is bad religion. If religion is divorced from reality, then it’s just a personal preference influenced by how a person was raised. No young evangelical is going to lift a finger to take bold moral stands if they think their worldview is just one option among many – like the flavors of ice cream in the frozen section of the grocery store. They have to know that what they are saying is true – then they will be bold. An example: there was a time when people believed that God did not create the first living cell, because it was just a simple lump of protoplasm that could easily come about by accident. Now we know better, and we can boldly make the case for intelligent design based on hard evidence – if we put in the time to study the evidence. And it is the same for everything – from theological claims, to moral claims, to social claims, to economic claims, to foreign policy claims. It doesn’t matter if people call you names when you have the facts to support unpopular claims, and that’s why public, authentic Christianity is built on facts. Non-Christians being offended by your claims doesn’t change the way the world is.

We have to turn away from our own ignorance, laziness and cowardice if we hope to have the ability to stand up for our beliefs in public. Christianity is not about being happy and feeling good and being liked by others. In a society that is increasingly secular and relativistic, studying outside the Bible necessarily precedes an authentic Christian life. There is no shortcut. We might have been able to get away with fideism 50 years ago, but not anymore. Not now.

News

Easter is a good time to learn how to defend the resurrection of Jesus

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First, let’s briefly talk about whether the Bible supports talking about the resurrection with non-Christians.

There are lots and lots of Christians in the world, but almost none of them are comfortable talking about the resurrection with non-Christians, in a way that doesn’t use crazy Christianese language and doesn’t assume that the Bible is inerrant. But I think that this situation is wrong for three reasons.

First, Jesus says that his resurrection is a sign so that people will believe in his other theological claims.

Matthew 12:38-40:

38Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.”

39He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Second, Paul says that if the resurrection didn’t happen then we are all wasting our time with Christianity.

1 Corinthians 15:13-19:

13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

And third, Peter uses the resurrection as evidence in his evangelistic efforts.

Acts 2:22-24, 29-33, 36:

22“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

23This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

24But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

29“Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.

30But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.

31Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.

32God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

33Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

36“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

So, how can you do what Jesus, Paul and Peter do with your non-Christian friends?

You can do it, too – and you must

Most non-Christians don’t like to hear about the resurrection, because if a religious teacher really rose from the dead, then they would have to care about what that person said. Many people don’t want to have to adjust their lives to someone else’s rules and values – they don’t want to have to follow anyone but themselves. Many people have also heard that that they will separated away from God when they die unless they respond to the Easter story and develop a relationship with Jesus over the course of their lives.

But aside from the dislike of authority issue, there’s another reason why people don’t want to hear about the Easter story. Many people think that when Christians talk about Easter, that we are just telling our personal your personal opinions, not telling about what really happened in history. So not only are these stories threatening to their autonomy, but they are also just our opinions. And our opinions can be ignored – especially when they are opinions that put burdens on them to re-prioritize their lives.

Just think for a minute what they must think of you when you talk about how they must “believe in Jesus” (whatever that means to a non-Christian) in order to be “saved” from eternal separation from God. They think that your opinions about religion are just like opinions about which flavor of ice cream is best – just your personal preferences. They don’t think that you are talking about anything real – something that really happened. How would you like to hear someone tell you that you are going to Hell for not liking vanilla ice cream? You’d think they were crazy! And that’s what non-Christians think of you, unless… Unless what? Unless you present publicly testable arguments and evidence to show them why they should consider the claims of Jesus.

No one complains that it is “mean and divisive” if their doctor diagonoses them with cancer. Because a challenging diagnosis is not the doctor’s personal opinion – it’s true objectively. You need to make your presentation of the gospel exactly like a doctor’s diagnosis. Am I making sense here?If you are telling them the truth and you can show them publicly testable reasons and evidence, what sense does it make for them to be offended? They might as well be offended by their credit card statement or their speeding ticket. And that’s why people in the New Testament were constantly appealing to evidence whenever they talked to people about why they ought to become Christians.

I have Jewish friends, Hindu friends, Muslim friends, atheist friends, etc. They do listen when  you talk about the Bible as a historical document, and when you talk about what we can know about the life of Jesus using historical methods. Telling people the truth with publicly testable arguments and evidence that they can assess for themselves works.

Some things to help you talk about the resurrection

The main thing to remember about talking about the resurrection in public with non-Christians is that you can’t assume that they believe everything in the Bible is true. Serious Christians get around this by using standard historical criteria to filter out the passages of the Bible that are most likely to be historical. A passage could be as small as 1 verse or it could be several verses. Some of the criteria that historians use to separate out the passages that are more likely to be “historical” would be things like: 1) how early after the events was the passage written? 2) in how many places does the passage appear? 3) Are the places where the passage appears independent from one another (e.g. – Mark’s gospel and Paul’s letters), 4) does it embarrass the author in some way? 5) Is the passage corroborated by other historical accounts not written by people who share the author’s views? Using these criteria and others, historians (and I mean even non-Christian historians) can extract a bare minimum set of historical facts about Jesus. On this view, it matters more that you know things like when books of the Bible were written, who wrote them, and whether they agree with other books in the Bible, and books outside the Bible. You have to do good history in order to bee able to talk about Jesus in public.

Once you establish these minimal facts, you argue that the best explanation of the facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Your opponent either has to disprove one of your minimal facts, or he has to propose an alternative explanation of those minimal facts that explains the data better.

Here is an example set of facts that almost no historian denies:

  • Jesus died by crucifixion
  • Jesus was buried in a tomb and the location was known
  • The tomb was later found empty by his women followers
  • He was seen by individuals and groups alive after his death
  • He was seen by skeptics like James after his death
  • He was seen by enemies like Paul after his death
  • The earliest message preached by the first Christians was that Jesus had been resurrected
  • Christians faced persecution from the Roman authorities for proclaiming the resurrection

So why do historians accept these facts and not others? See below for some links and even a real formal academic debate where this “minimal facts” approach was used.

The top 10 links to get you started

So with that out of the way, here are the top 10 links to help you along with your learning.

  1. How every Christian can learn to explain the resurrection of Jesus to others
  2. The earliest source for the minimal facts about the resurrection
  3. The earliest sources for the empty tomb narrative
  4. Who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb?
  5. Did the divinity of Jesus emerge slowly after many years of embellishments?
  6. What about all those other books that the Church left out the Bible?
  7. Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus
  8. William Lane Craig debates radical skeptics on the resurrection of Jesus
  9. Did Christianity copy from Buddhism, Mithraism or the myth of Osiris?
  10. Quick overview of N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection

Debates are a fun way to learn

Here’s a formal debate between two scholars, one Christian and one not, where you can see how to talk about the resurrection – even at a university:

Books on the resurrection

You can learn more about defending the resurrection on historical grounds by getting books by people who know how to make the case for the resurrection in formal academic debates. Mike Licona, for example, has debated skeptics like Bart Ehrman many times.