Tag Archives: Intolerance

Commentary

William Lane Craig: churches should focus on apologetics to attract more men

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I saw that Triablogue quoted this passage from William Lane Craig’s April newsletter, which made me very excited and happy.

Here it is:

One overwhelming impression of these engagements is the way in which the intellectual defense of Christian faith attracts men. Both at Texas A&M and again at Miami every single student who got up to ask a question was a guy! I wondered if the girls are just shy. But then I remembered a lengthy clip Jan and I watched of cast members of Downton Abbey doing a Q&A with an audience in New York. Almost every person who came to the microphone at that event was a woman! It wasn’t until late into the evening that a man finally asked a question, which was remarked by all the cast members. Why the difference between that session and the ones I experienced?—simply because the Downton Abbey program is highly relational, which is more appealing to women, whereas my talks were principally intellectually oriented, which is more appealing to men.

Churches have difficulty attracting men, and the church is becoming increasingly feminized. I believe that apologetics is a key to attracting large numbers of men (as well as women) to church and to Christ. By presenting rational arguments and historical evidences for the truth of the Gospel, by appealing to the mind as well as the heart, we can bring a great influx of men into the Kingdom. I’m so pleased that the church in Canada seems to be awakening to this challenge! I’m convinced that we have the opportunity to revolutionize Western Christianity by reclaiming our intellectual heritage.

I could tell you many, many stories of what it was like for me being shut down by churches who were overly sensitive to the desires of women. In college, I and the other male students had every attempt to bring in scholars to lecture or debate shut down by female leadership. Every single week it was prayer walks, testimonies, hymn sings… over and over. Eventually, the more manly Christians just quit going. Later on, I witnessed apologetics being shut down in the church from the top down and from the bottom up, as well.

I remember one week an excited male friend invited me to his church because his male pastor was giving sermons using Hugh Ross and Gerald Shroeder books. He was trying to tie in the existence of God to cosmology. Well, I showed up the next Sunday to hear, and was disappointed. I could tell that the pastor wanted to go back to that subject, but he never really did. Later on, we found out that a female parishioner had complained that too much science and evidence had ruined her experience of feeling good and being comforted.

I could go on and on and on telling stories like this. To this day, I cannot stand being in a church unless that church has organized things like apologetic training classes, public lectures, public debates or public conferences. But that’s the minority of churches. The fact is that churches are attended far more by women than by men, and pastors are catering to women more than men. Not only will apologetics not be mentioned, but elements of feminism will creep into doctrine (egalitarianism) and all political issues will be avoided. Church has become a place to have good feelings, and it is far divorced from anything like evidence or politics which might be viewed as judgmental and divisive.

On Saturday night, ECM (a male deist) and I were talking about the Gosnell scandal, and he was asking me why churches don’t mention things like this. And I told him that the feminization of the church means that Christianity can only be cashed out in subjective terms. I told him about the church-attending women I know who are 100% Democrat because it’s more “tolerant”. And I told him about my difficulties getting the church and campus groups to take up apologetics. Is it any wonder that non-Christian men view Christianity as weak, because we can’t even talk about politics and current events in church?

Commenters on Triablogue think that Dr. Craig will draw flak for his comment, but he’s not going to draw flak from mature Christians. What he said is correct. Mature Christians are right behind him on this point. Christian men who have tried to act to defend God’s reputation in public know that there is something wrong in the churches. And eventually, men just tune out of church because we know that there is nothing there for us. If women want men to come back to church, then they have to change the church away from what it is now.

UPDATE: Lydia read this post and reminded me that pre-suppositionalism is very popular with men and is a kind of fideist approach to Christianity that’s nowhere found in the Bible. I totally forgot to mention that. Presuppositionalism, in my experience, is very popular with men. I take a strong view on it, that it’s basically fideism, but I have been disagreed with on that by many people. In my mind, the only right way to do apologetics is by addressing presuppositions like naturalism, universalism, pluralism, etc. and using scientific and historical evidence as well. So there is an area where men are working against effective apologetics by embracing an unBiblical approach to apologetics that tries to minimize the use of evidence.

News

Is it still safe to defend marriage using your real name?

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A Facebook friend is in hot water from his left-leaning classmates for a short essay that he wrote defending marriage. It was published in his college newspaper. In it, he makes a case that society has an interest in promoting marriage because the state has an interest in the development of children.

He writes (in part):

Marriage is a comprehensive union with a special link to children. It is a private union with a public purpose.

Private in that comprehensive union exemplifies the love of the spouses. Public in that their comprehensive union is intrinsically directed toward a purpose beyond the love of the spouses: children.

The state regulates marriage because it has an interest in children. Marriage produces and cultivates the development of future citizens within a family unit held together by norms of fidelity, monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence. The state incentivizes marriage both because it recognizes child-rearing to be a difficult task and because it wants to encourage men and women to form family units. Not all marriages have children; some are infertile. Nevertheless, all marriages between men and women are still capable of engaging in the kind of unitive act that is intrinsically directed toward children.

The essay is a 500-word version of a longer essay that he posted before.

Scary comments

I wanted to bring this up because if you read some of the comments on his post, you will find that most of them seem to be unable to even understand the case that he was trying to make in his small, short 500-word version of the longer essay. Yet, even though these people could not understand what he was saying, they nevertheless went ahead and insulted him personally, over and over and over again.

Take a look at some of these comments, and ask yourself – are they trying to engage with his arguments? Are they bringing new research to bear on the problem? Or are they just offering personal attacks and emotional outbursts?

Look:

The argument in the letter has been debunked time and time again. Ultimately, it implies gay couples aren’t human. At the very least, it implies that gay people aren’t already parents, which is false. I’m absolutely disgusted at your discretion in publishing this trash. You have stooped to an unbelievable low this time. As a side note, I’m embarrassed for [the academic department you belong to].

If it’s been debunked so many times, then we can’t he explain what’s wrong with it instead of becoming insulting?

Here’s another from that same person, right after the first one:

You don’t like gay people. How original. As a side note, I did offer arguments against the ridiculous fallacies in logic that you presented. But it’s not like you’re here to have a discussion. I’m sure you’ve made up your mind re: profile pictures and such.

Um, he never did post any arguments. He just posted about his feelings “disgusted” “embarassed”. That’s not an argument.

And here’s the same person again:

Your article is an insult to anyone who’s LGBT– yes, even your “friends.” It’s an affront to humanity. See Perry v. Schwarzenegger for an obliteration of your argument. I can’t even bother when the facts are all there in Supreme Court records for your easy consumption.

And the funny thing is – people keep clicking like on his comments. Why is that? Why do they think that he has said anything of value?

My advice

And here is the point I want to make about this. I do not recommend to people, and especially to students, that you write about social issues under your real name. I also recommend that even if you use an alias, that you do not make it widely known what your real name is to people who you meet casually online. You do not want to be in a situation where someone can just do a web search for your name before a job interview or a school admission. People who are on the left on these issues are not exposed to other points of view, so they do not tolerate other points of view. Often, they are coming from a position where they already have made lifestyle choices (I mean straight people, too) where they cannot allow themselves to consider the possibility that they would have to regulate their sexuality for the good of children or society.

News

Defense Department brands evangelical Christians and Catholics as “extremists”

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Anti-Christian bias at the Defense Department
Anti-Christian bias at the Defense Department

The Washington Times reports on the latest Obama administration department to marginalize religious Americans. (H/T Lydia)

Excerpt:

The Defense Department came under fire Thursday for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as “extremist” religious groups alongside al Qaeda and theKu Klux Klan.

The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.

The presentation identified seventeen religious organizations in a slide titled “religious extremism.” They include al Qaeda, Hamas, the Filipino separatist group Abu Sayyaf, and the Ku Klux Klan, which the slide identifies as a Christian organization.

“Religious extremism is not limited to any single religion, ethnic group, or region of the world,” the slide explains, in language that closely resembles the text of a Wikipedia page on “extremism.”

While outfits such as al Qaeda and the KKK are explicitly violent, the presentation also lists Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism as extremist groups.

I noted the careful way that the article refuses to say whether the presenter was a man or a woman. I have an opinion on that.

This isn’t the first time that characterizations of the right like this have been seen in the government, either.

Take a look at this article about FBI training from Life News.

Excerpt:

Documents LifeNews.com obtained today reveal the Obama administration partnered with leading pro-abortion organizations to host an FBI training seminar in August with the main focus of declaring as “violent” the free speech activities of pro-life Americans.

On August 25, 2010, the FBI and the United States Department of Justice co-sponsored a training seminar with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority Foundation.

When information about the seminar, which took place at FBI headquarters in Portland, Oregon, reached pro-life advocates, they asked officials for permission to attend and were granted access to the seminar and the training materials.

FBI and Obama administration officials provided participants with an 84-page document entitled “Resource Guide: Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers” that contained print copies of Power Point presentations prepared by the Justice Department and an analysis of alleged pro-life “violence” prepared by the pro-abortion groups.

The so-called violence perpetrated by pro-life advocates mostly contained examples of constitutionally-protected free speech, including activities such as praying, providing women outside abortion centers with alternatives information, and peaceful protesting or picketing.

That material was prepared by the Obama administration Department of Justice.

And most significant of all, the report by the Department of Homeland Security.

Excerpt:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she was briefed before the release of a controversial intelligence assessment and that she stands by the report, which lists returning veterans among terrorist risks to the U.S.

[…]The Times reported Tuesday that the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) issued April 7 the nine-page document titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” Outcry from veterans groups, Republican lawmakers and conservative activists followed, but the reaction spread Wednesday to Democratic lawmakers and liberal-leaning groups.

[…]“Rightwing extremism,” the report said in a footnote on Page 2, goes beyond religious and racial hate groups and extends to “those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” said the report, which also listed gun owners and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as potential risks.

I am not surprised by this, because there really is no interaction with thoughtful, scholarly Christians throughout the K-12 process in public schools. You have a bunch of unionized education majors teaching children for 13 years. Then those children go off to college, often to non-quantitative departments that indoctrinate rather than teach practical skills. And then they graduate and get unionized jobs in the government – not the private sector. When would they ever be exposed to thoughtful conservative scholarship? Never. And that’s what causes this intolerance – it’s lack of critical thinking and lack of viewpoint diversity. They don’t know any thoughtful Christians, and they don’t care to correct their views by looking for them.