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Clear thinking about Rachael Slick’s departure from Christianity

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I saw that Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 tweeted a post from Right Reason by philosopher Glenn Peoples about Rachael Slick, the daughter of CARM president Matt Slick. Rachael recently announced her departure from Christianity for atheism.

Here is the passage where she explains why she left Christianity:

This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?

Now this is not necessarily basic apologetics, but it is fairly easy to respond to, and I posted something about it earlier in the week. I just want to point out that I don’t really view these sorts of objections as serious objections, since the core of Christianity is about the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus. Peripheral issues like Bible difficulties don’t really matter if the core is sound. The main focus in Christian apologetics isn’t on fine points of inerrancy or doctrine, it’s on God’s existence and the resurrection, which authenticates Jesus as the Messiah. More on that later.

I wanted to quote from the post that Brian found though, because I think this really explains some very important things that Christians need to understand in order to avoid these sorts of Bart Ehrman / Dan Barker de-conversion stories.

And here it is:

To a Christian who up until now has taken the faith seriously an an intellectual level, holding a view that this faith is robust enough to withstand a bit of light prodding such as this, the solution would have been a bit of light (yes, actually very light) reading on the subject – and there is plenty to be done. This is to say nothing about the rather idiosyncratic view of morality expressed here (comparing moral truths to mathematical truths does not bode well!). And yet this moment of dorm room theology banter lead headlong to this:

I still remember sitting there in my dorm room bunk bed, staring at the cheap plywood desk, and feeling something horrible shift inside me, a vast chasm opening up beneath my identity, and I could only sit there and watch it fall away into darkness.The Bible is not infallible, logic whispered from the depths, and I had no defense against it. If it’s not infallible, you’ve been basing your life’s beliefs on the oral traditions of a Middle Eastern tribe. The Bible lied to you.Everything I was, everything I knew, the structure of my reality, my society, and my sense of self suddenly crumbled away, and I was left naked. I was no longer a Christian. That thought was a punch to the gut, a wave of nausea and terror. Who was I, now, when all this had gone away? What did I know? What did I have to cling to? Where was my comfort? ??I didn’t know it, but I was free.

Dramatise much? You couldn’t answer a much discussed question in theological ethics. You could have added a bit of learning at this point, but instead you make out that you intellectual world has been nuked. The closing statement sums it up better, I think: “I was free.” And that was really the point of this. Here’s my pick for the real culprit, in the next breath:

For a long time I couldn’t have sex with my boyfriend (of over a year by this point) without crippling guilt. I had anxiety that I was going to Hell. I felt like I was standing upon glass, and, though I knew it was safe, every time I glanced down I saw death.

But over time – thanks to the deconversion, that changed. It’s telling that she chose to draw attention to this. Numerous times I have seen people turn away from the faith, not because they became aware of new intellectual reasons to reject it, but because the appeal of remaining in the faith became dulled by the drive to live a life that was not compatible with it (and that number includes “apologists” for atheism). You see something, you want it. But you have this belief that you shouldn’t do it. So, as is human nature, you rationalise. You re-create the world of truth around you and what you want. “Maybe this Christianity thing isn’t true after all…” What changed? The evidence? Nope. The arguments are as good as ever. Your will is what has changed. This is confirmed by the celebratory comment that “Freedom is my God now.” No doubt, and that is what you were pursuing. Christianity hindered you, so bye bye Christianity. As was shown in the study Losing my Religion, and as I commented in a recent podcast about why some reject Christianity, there is a correlation between having sex outside of marriage and giving up one’s religion (usually Christian, in the American context in which the study was carried out). Other factors that correlate with abandoning the faith include drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders and get this – lacking a higher education. But that’s another matter, and of course does not answer questions about the truth or otherwise of atheistic or religious claims. It also makes sense that the time when a young person leaves their parents’ home and out into an environment where a smorgasbord of choices are now available to them is the most likely time that they will walk away. The comments thread at the blog where this story is told is full of the usual and can be paraphrased thus: “Oh, you taught her to THINK? Big mistake Dad, of course she was going to walk away!” Not even close to the mark. It was not critical thinking that sunk this faith. It was desire, as it so often is. The intellectual reason offered is absolutely flimsy, and certainly not offered an intellectually respectable presentation.

I think that’s very well said, and my experience with other decoverted fundamentalists has always been that they often had non-cognitive issues driving the deconversion:

  • boyfriend and girlfriend issues
  • popularity issues
  • sexual activity / sexual orientation issues
  • unrealistic expectations of a pain-free life
  • unrealistic expectations of God providing financially
  • unrealistic expectations of God making their foolish decisions “work out”

So here’s my advice to parents who want to avoid this sort of rebellion.

First, don’t concentrate on the inerrancy of the Bible as much as you emphasize the good philosophical and scientific arguments for a Creator/Designer. More effort should be put on the mainstream findings of science: cosmology, fine-tuning, origin of life, Cambrian explosion, galactic habitability, stellar habitability. The resurrection is also key, but should be defended with a minimal facts approach using mainstream historical methods – not by assuming inerrancy. The existence of God and the resurrection are the strong core of Christianity, not inerrancy. I am saying this as someone who believes in inerrancy for the autographs. It’s better to lay a foundation rather than trying to defend too much.

Secondly, don’t try to force children to act beyond what their worldview can bear. It is OK for you to have children and to go about doing your Christian ministry based on your convictions, without trying to demand that your kids operate at that level. Instead of telling them what to think, always try to show them both sides. Once a person sees a couple of William Lane Craig debates or Mike Licona debates, they are probably going to want to be like Craig and Licona naturally. But the main thing is that the actions have to be supported by knowledge. When the young person has taken the time to study on their own and sorted out the evidence for themselves, then they will be able to operate more and more authentically as a Christian. The studying comes first, and then the acting like a Christian comes second – at least in a challenging society like ours where we really have to know our stuff cold to stand firm. But you can’t expect the actions before the studying.

Third, don’t just rest your support or opposition to various positions on the Bible. For example your views on theism and the resurrection should be rooted in secular arguments and secular evidence. Consider it a joy when you can go outside the Bible and confirm something the Bible says with secular evidence. Especially scientific and historical evidence. Connecting the Bible to real world evidence eliminates the painful anxiety of being “separate” and “other”. Always make the data the issue, not the position. The data can be debated more easily.

For example, if the issue is gay marriage, spend lots of time talking about the health effects of the gay lifestyle on gay men, the effects of same-sex parenting on children, the social costs of HIV/AIDS, the scientific evidence against the “gay gene”,  the low levels of stability and exclusivity in gay relationships, etc. Look – young people don’t want to feel weird having to defend every moral conviction with the Bible in public. Teach them secular reasons for everything that the Bible says, and it will reduce their anxiety and make being a fully convinced Christian in public much easier.

I think that one of the biggest problems out there right now is that Christian men and women are under so much pressure to conform to the sexual standards of the day in order to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Some people really want to have boyfriends and girlfriends who are first and foremost physically attractive, and their faith gets in the way of achieving that goal. They see superhot guys and superhot girls, and they think about how impressed their friends will be if they are “with” that person. Young Christians basically have a “God will provide the perfect person for me” view of relationships, and their method of figuring out who God wants is by having tingles, not by thinking about what marriage is and finding someone who can do the job. Very often, just being superhot is no guarantee of willingness to marry, though, and may actually be more of a guarantee that you are going to be pressured for sex. Did Rachael do a good job of choosing a marriage-minded boyfriend who values chasity and is ready to commit in order to get sex?

So what to do about that pressure for sex? Well, when I think about why I am totally convinced that premarital sex is stupid, it’s because I want my future marriage to last. And I have looked at evidence from peer-reviewed studies that shows that the number of premarital sex partners is a threat to relationship quality and stability. I want to make effective Christian children, and to impact the church and the university. I want my marriage to be an example to others. A divorce wrecks all of those plans. With the evidence in my hand from mainstream research, it is much easier to accept and act on what the Bible says about premarital sex. The Bible doesn’t have this data, we have to look outside the Bible to get the data to confirm it. Has Rachael looked outside the Bible to be persuasive about what the Bible says?

For a young person facing her non-Christian peers, parroting “the Bible says” is not as reasonable or defensible as saying “the Bible says, and mainstream scientific evidence confirms”. We need to make evidence the foundation. The problem with young people is that they are surrounded by other young people who are just as clueless as they are. A pretty easy question from a young friend cannot easily be answered by a person who has a very limited knowledge apologetics gleaned from Christian rock music and television shows. What we need to do is to get them looking outside of their peer group for answers, and that means connecting them to real scholars with real logical arguments supported by real mainstream science and history. We need to connect the Bible to the data in the real world.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Related posts on chastity

Commentary

What motivates William Lane Craig and why is he so effective?

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Nathan Schneider, who wrote a balanced profile of Dr. Craig for the Chronicle of Higher Education a few weeks back, has written an even more in-depth profile of Christianity’s ablest defender.

Here’s the introduction:

Nobody—or just about nobody, depending on whom you ask—beats William Lane Craig in a debate about the existence of God, or the resurrection of Jesus, or any topic of that sort. During their debate at Notre Dame in April of last year, New Atheist author Sam Harris referred to Craig as “the one Christian apologist who seems to have put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.”

Over the course of working on my book about how people search for proof of God’s existence, I had the chance to spend a generous amount of time with Craig, both in the Atlanta area where he lives and at Biola University, an evangelical school on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where he teaches a few weeks out of the year. For the book, I’ve gotten to write about ideas like his “kalam cosmological argument,” one of the most-cited ideas of its generation in philosophy of religion, which fuses medieval Muslims with modern cosmology. I also tell of his entrepreneurial savvy in turning the Evangelical Philosophical Society into an academic organization that moonlights as a slick-as-a-banana apologetics platform for changing hearts like yours and mine. But none of that quite captures the man’s role as a sage and exemplar, in which he renders something like the upbuilding service Oprah provides to home-bound American women, except that his acolytes are the precocious set among conservative, evangelical, young-adult males. He makes me almost wish I were that kind of conservative evangelical myself—which is, to him, the point.

Craig dresses impeccably and professorially, often with a buttoned shirt and a patterned blazer, sweater, or sweater-vest. His dimples hint at a basic innocence that can be startling when it pokes through the frontage of logic. I find in Craig the decency associated with an era I am too young to be nostalgic for, and which I’ve been taught to imagine was imperialistic, sexist, homophobic, narrow-minded, or otherwise regressive. His rationalizations of certain parts of the Hebrew Bible can sound like he’s okay with genocide. Yet none of these accusations quite sticks to him; none is even comprehensible in the cosmic snow-globe within which he expertly thinks his way through life, whose sole and constant storyline is bringing more and more souls to a saving knowledge of the one true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I live in a different snow-globe from Craig’s. Nevertheless, I’ve gained a lot from the lessons I learned with him, and from his carefully crafted advice, and from his answers to my questions. (“I may not answer, but you can ask!” he once warned.) They’ve improved my productivity, and my relationship with loved ones, and my physical fitness. It would be selfish if I did not pass some of these lessons on, in synthesized and practicable form, to you.

The article covers 7 points about Dr. Craig:

  1. Do Everything Like It’s a Ministry
  2. Make a Covenant with Your Wife
  3. Organize the Day
  4. Turn Weakness into Strength
  5. Be Prepared
  6. Remember That Time Is Everything—and Nothing
  7. Love God and Authority

And here’s one that I found fascinating, being single myself:

3. Organize the Day

There was a time, says Craig, when he began to worry he was losing his knack for philosophy. “Honey,” he remembers telling Jan, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I just can’t seem to concentrate anymore. I used to be able to study all day long, and there was no problem, and now I find I just can’t concentrate anymore. My mind wanders, and I’m tired.” He was tempted to despair.

“No, no, don’t be ridiculous!” she told him. “You just need to organize your day.”

As usual, she was right. She put him on a new schedule: starting the workday with the hardest philosophical work in the morning, then lighter material, like his writing for popular audiences, after lunch. He doesn’t look at his email until late afternoon, “when my brain is really fried.” (For fear of being bombarded with mail, he doesn’t even share his email address with his graduate students.) Soon after trying this regime, he regained his philosophical powers completely.

The couple’s life together, at home in the suburbs of Atlanta, is a picture of (a certain kind of) teamwork. Craig wakes up each morning at 5:30, and begins the day with devotional time, reading from the Church Fathers and the New Testament in Greek, and then he prays for the spread of the gospel in some benighted part of the world, with the help of the Operation World handbook. Soon, Jan is up. They have coffee together (which he dislikes, but recommends for the health and social benefits), after which he goes down to the weight room for an hour of exercise. By the time he reemerges, she has a hot breakfast ready and waiting—sometimes as elaborate, he says, as ham and eggs and pumpkin waffles with whipped cream and strawberries. (“She’s a fabulous cook.”) He’ll return downstairs for an intensive morning of scholarship, and reemerge for the hot lunch Jan has prepared. Then, he’s back downstairs for the lighter work of the afternoon, culminating in emails, which he responds to in longhand and she has often been the one to type out and send, since his rare neuromuscular disease—more on that in a moment—renders him unable to type. Between meals and typing sessions, Jan plays the stock market. Before long dinner is ready, and they eat, and spend the evening together, watching TV and drinking red wine (which he also dislikes, but also recommends for the health and social benefits).

“She’s not an intellectual herself,” Craig says of his wife, “but she appreciates the value of what I do, and that’s what matters.” One would hope that this is true, because she has typed out all of his papers, books, and both doctoral dissertations. Would that we all had such devoted help, though it may be untenable in the present economic climate for those scholars among us unable to garner five-figure speaking fees. We can at least hold off on our email for a few hours—which I have since done, to enormous benefit.

It’s very interesting to read this because it’s got lots of positive and negative points. On the one hand, he finds Dr. Craig’s conservative beliefs and exclusive positions difficult to accept. On the other hand, he has to admit that Dr. Craig really believes what he says he believes, and he’s very good at persuading others. He’s done his homework. I think the biggest problem that a person has with accepting Christianity is re-orienting the will. Another big problem is being willing to be disapproved of by non-Christians. Even if they can’t beat you, the pressure to compromise and please others makes many people shy away from Christianity.

This new profile of Dr. Craig is getting tons of likes and shares on Facebook, so give it a look. Be sure and share it on Facebook and tweet it, too.

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Pastor’s Matt’s book of the year – and the rest of his astonishing reading list

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Previously, I have been pretty critical of pastors being unwilling to connect the Bible to evidence outside the Bible. I have always maintained that the secret to getting people to act like Christians and evangelize effectively was that we needed to train Christians to understand how to relate what the Bible says to the way the world really works outside church doors. Whether it be the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, social issues, fiscal issues and foreign policy issues, my view has always been that pastors by and large were just not taking seriously their obligation to train their flocks to engage with non-Christians. I guess that I expected that most pastors would be more like Wayne Grudem, who is really good at connecting the Bible to knowledge outside the Bible. But in my experience, most pastors aren’t like that.

Look, I don’t even think it’s possible – in a secularized, postmodern, relativistic, naturalistic society like ours – to impact the world for Christ unless our faith is connected to knowledge from the real world. Christians today say that they believe the Bible, but can they really live it out if it’s just private preferences, and not objective knowledge? Many beliefs that conflict with Christianity are accepted by most people today as being beyond dispute. In order to evangelize today, I think that we have to support our beliefs with knowledge. And that means building a worldview from the ground up, with each block the result of a careful study of some area of knowledge. We have to put as much effort into our faith as we do into our education, our careers, our investments, our fitness and nutrition, etc. That’s the only way to be an authentic Christian in such a hostile environment.

OK, so with that said, let’s take a look at Pastor Matt’s exciting post.

He writes:

Hi, my name is Matt and I’m a book addict.  It is a sickness that leads people to such reckless behavior as reading on a couch for hours during sunny days, spending free time wondering the racks at Barnes & Noble and boring the heck out of people at parties when soft-hearted fools make the mistake of inviting a well-known “bibliophile.”  BUT my sickness may be your blessing because raging geeks like me can help you spend your money and time a little bit more wisely.

My favorite book of the year so far is Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by Detective J. Warner Wallace (David C. Cook 2013).  Detective Wallace presents apologetics, the necessary but often dry discipline of defending the Christian faith, in a fresh and compelling manner.  He approaches the Gospels as a cold-case detective and illustrates his points with fascinating stories from his years working as an investigator.  It is a fun, well-written and helpful work that will embolden Christians to share their faith with others for decades to come.  You MUST pick-up a copy of this book.

So far so good. But this is where things get really weird. You see, Pastor Matt is really addicted to reading. He has read SIXTY-SEVEN books so far this year, and he has a bunch more in progress.

Now just check out a few of these books and ask yourself – what would the world be like if every pastor was like Pastor Matt?

Behold, the awesomeness of his book list:

1. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Zondervan 2009).  A lot of budding apologists fill their head with knowledge but lack tact in conversing with non-believers–Koukl’s book can help. A must read.

2. Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells (Regnery 2002).  What unsupported claims do Darwinists hold to? Wells, a trained evolutionary biologists, points them out in this wonderful book.

4. On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig (David C. Cook 2010).  A good apologetics resource although I think Craig struggles to explain in lay terms his response to scientific objections to the faith.

6. True for You, but Not For Me: Answering Objections to the Christian Faith by Paul Copan (Bethany 2009).  A good but short guide to various objections. Recommended.

7. How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong? Responding to Objections that Leave Christians Speechless by Paul Copan (Baker 2005).  A good guide with more meat to it than True For You, But Not For Me. Recommended.

9-11. The Case for Christ (Zondervan 1998), The Case for Faith (Zondervan 2006) and The Case for a Creator (Zondervan 2004).  The Strobel’s trilogy serves as a wonderful introduction to apologetics.  Strobel is a former journalist who interviews experts on matters of faith and reports them with crisp prose.  Highly recommended.

12. The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards (Regnery 2004). A wonderful book on the fine-tuning of the universe.  Highly recommended.

13. Seven Days that Divide the World by John Lennox (Zondervan 2011).  A great little book, which serves as a fine introduction to old earth creationism. Recommended.

15. The Reason for God by Tim Keller (Dutton 2009).  This is the 3rd time I have read through this work and it stands up as THE post-modern apologetic.  A must read.

16. Darwin on Trial: Deluxe Edition by Phillip Johnson (IVP 2010).  The best analysis and refutation of Darwinisn. A must read.

18. Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality by David Baggett and Jerry Walls (Oxford 2011).  A well argued but dense work for the moral argument for the existence of God. Highly recommended for those with a background in philosophy.

19. How We Got the Bible by Neil Lightfoot (Baker 2003). A readable history of how Bibles went from scrolls written by hand in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to the plethora of translations we have today. Recommended.

21. The New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer, Jr. (Zondervan, 1982).  A helpful book dealing alleged discrepancies but a bit dated.

22. The Big Book of Difficulties by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe (Baker, 1992).  Not as handy as Archer’s book but still well worth consulting.

23. The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Newness, 1905).  My son and I finished the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes last year and had a blast working through the sequel.

28. Is God A Moral Monster? by Paul Copan (Baker 2011).  A wonderful survey of the Old Testament with clear, concise answers. Highly recommended.

30. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona (Kregel 2004).  A very good overview of the arguments for the historicity of the resurrection. Recommended.

34. Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig (Crossway 2008).  I have read through this book at least three times and am blessed every time. Highly recommended.

35. The Myth of Junk DNA by Jonathan Wells (Discovery Institute 2011).  Dr. Wells debunks a common objection to intelligent design.  Short but effective.

36. Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe (Free Press, 2006 ed.).  A classic that is often ridiculed by materialists but yet to be refuted!

37. Signature in the Cell by Stephen C. Meyer (HarperOne 2010 edition).  Another classic but a long and difficult read.

42. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith by Douglas Groothuis (IVP 2011).  THE text-book for apologetics.  Don’t let the size of the book intimidate, it is readable yet truly comprehensive.  Amazing.

43. Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics by Doug Powell (Holman 2006). The entries are short but still handy.  Recommended.

44. A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt (Vintage 1990 Edition).  A classic ode to following your conscience. Highly recommended.

45. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Dialogue between N.T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan by Robert Stewart, ed. (Fortress Press 2005).  An interesting but frustrating dialogue between two great New Testament scholars.

46. Holman Quick Source Guide to Understanding Creation by Mark Whorton and Hill Roberts (Holman 2008). The Holman Guides are always good to keep close even if they aren’t as extensive as say the Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics.

48.  Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan Edited by Paul Copan (Baker Academic 1999).  A fine read but how one can peruse this and not be dazed and confused by Crossan’s positions is beyond me.

50. The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian (WND 2005).  How did liberals win the PR war in re: to so-called “same-sex marriage” and the butchering of unborn children? Kupelian does a good job of outlining it.

51. Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike S. Adams (Regnery 2013).  Professor Adams has long been one of my favorite columnists and this book is a must read.  I highly recommend it.

52. A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel J. Flynn (Crown 2008).  One of the few books in the last few years that I have read multiple times.  A must read.

54. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson (Penguin 2009).  A wonderful and readable economic history that is a must for any and all wanna be policy wonks and political junkies.

55. God & Man at Yale by William F. Buckley (Regnery 1986 ed.) A stunning indictment of Buckley’s alma mater, which envisioned the takeover of academia by the secular left.  A must.

56. Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism by Peter Schweizer (Anchor 2004).   A compelling overview of one man’s determination to destroy the evil of Soviet communism.

I am currently re-reading The Apologetics Study Bible (B&H 2007), A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen (Sentinel 2007), Intellectuals and Society (revised and expanded) by Thomas Sowell (Basic 2012), The Last Command by Timothy Zahn (Spectra 1994) Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen C. Meyer (HarperOne 2013) and Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America by Mark Levin (Threshold 2012).  So far, I recommend them all.

This man is the James Bond of church! Where the heck did he come from? Where do they even make pastors like this? I’ve been in the church and in campus groups for the last 20 years, and I haven’t met a single church leader who read books like this.

I really don’t know what to say about this list. I am just so blown away. Can anyone tell me why it is that there is only one Pastor Matt? What’s wrong with all the other pastors, or is it just that I haven’t heard about any of the good ones in my travels? Is your pastor like this? Does he mention ideas from these books in his preaching?

By the way, you can friend Matt on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. Recommended!

UPDATE: He’s written a new post explaining how he is able to read so many books.