Tag Archives: Religion

Commentary

Contrasting Muslim martyrs and Christian martyrs

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Claudia Rosett

Story from Forbes magazine, by Claudia Rosett. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

This past Christmas Day brought us the stories of two young men, both willing to martyr themselves for their beliefs, but in ways and for visions so utterly different that their tales might serve as a parable for the defining struggles of our time.

One, as you surely know, was the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a wealthy young Muslim from a prominent Nigerian family. Following his embrace of radical Islam, he tried to sacrifice himself–allegedly–in a botched attempt to sow terror and death by blowing up an American airliner packed with 289 other people, en route to Detroit. Having entered American air space decked out as a suicide bomber, he is now availing himself of U.S. constitutional rights, granted to him by the Obama Administration, to plead not guilty to criminal charges.

The other martyr, in stark contrast, was a 28-year-old Christian missionary, Robert Park. An American of Korean descent, Park offered himself up peacefully, on Christmas Day, for the cause of life and liberty for others. He went to northeast China, and from there walked across the frozen Tumen River into North Korea. Witnesses told reporters that as he went, he called out, in Korean, messages of God’s love, as well as “I am an American citizen.” He took with him a letter to North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il, asking Kim to open his country and shut down his prison camps.

Are all religions basically the same? Are the beliefs different? Do different beliefs result in different actions? Does it make sense to equate Islam with Christianity? What do people do when they are fully committed to their religion? These are two different versions of full commitment. Two different versions of full commitment.

Park’s final interview with Reuters is here.

Commentary

How did universities reject the concepts of theological and moral knowledge?

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I spent all day Saturday listening to fun lectures and an audio book, (“The Divine Conspiracy“), from Dr. Dallas Willard, a professor of philosophy at USC. (This is why I’m not responding to any of your e-mail or writing any long posts about courting and apologetics).

Here are a couple lectures he did in 2002 at Ohio State University about what it means to be human.

You may have to download them twice, I notice that the first time I try to download lectures that it gives me some short little 250Kb file which isn’t the whole lecture. The second time it works fine.

Anyway, he talks a lot about the work of a Harvard professor named Julie Reuben, who wrote a book called “The Making of the Modern University”. I hunted around and found a three-part book review that I have summarized for you below. The book review is by Mark Hansard at Christian Leadership Ministries, which is the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Here’s part 1 of 3.

Excerpt:

The first chapter, entitled “The Unity of Truth,” explains the educational philosophy of the early 19th century, and how it fell apart near the end of that century. What caught my eye was the robust view of knowledge that professors and university presidents believed at that time. According to Reuben, they believed not only that all knowledge in different fields could form a coherent whole, but also that its pursuit would lead to a good and more virtuous life. All knowledge led to better action. In fact, she says, university leaders at that time believed that the “the good, the true, and the beautiful were interconnected, and that successful education promoted all three together” (12). All knowledge inevitably lead to worship of God and an understanding of his wisdom.

Part of this 19th century construct was natural theology, which in this case was not merely the admission that design was detectable in nature, thus pointing to a Creator. It consisted of stronger claims such as: the harmony of nature reflected God’s wisdom, that the more we understand of nature the more we can understand God’s character, and that, as one professor put it, “the knowledge of God, derived from the study of nature, is adapted to add greatly to the impulsive power of conscience” (20). In other words, a study of nature would strengthen virtue in the student.

This is why the first scientists (and some today) are Christians. They were trying to find out something about God’s existence and character by looking at nature. They wanted to see what God was communicating to us through the natural world.

And one more:

But even more serious is the loss of belief that moral knowledge is possible. There is no wisdom (in the ancient sense which Plato and Aristotle discussed) in the universities today, because there is no way to know what the good life is, how life ought to be lived. Such things, since they no longer constitute part of the curriculum, have simply been lost. Is it any wonder there is so much moral confusion among us?

This is really what Willard is concerned about in the lectures. If there is no God to create and design the universe, then there is no objective way we ought to be. And when the university stopped doing theology (or insulated it from critical inquiry), they stopped having a foundation for robust morality. Morality is hard. It’s not the kind of thing you can do if you have to take it on faith. Sometimes, moral rules go against our selfish desires, and it’s those times where you really need to know if these things are true.

Here’s part 2 of 3.

Excerpt:

According to Reuben, Darwinism brought with it a new, revolutionary view of science that viewed scientific knowledge as imperfect but progressive, always seeking to correct itself through further research and experiment. The new science relied on hypotheses, theories, even imagination as it attempted to explain the world, and a good scientific theory would have practical, measurable results.

[…]Eventually scientists came to view theology as a meddlesome interloper who made a priori pronouncements about truth that simply got in the way of free inquiry and scientific advancement. Theology would have to be abandoned if the new, modern university founded upon the progressive philosophy of science would be allowed to pursue scientific research unfettered. But how could this be done, while maintaining the importance of Christianity? According to Reuben, the solution of scholars and administrators “was to distinguish theology, defined as a mode of inquiry and a set of doctrines, from religion, which was left largely undefined as sentiment, experiences, ritual, and ethical values” (57).

Theology is a knowledge tradition, which purportedly carries authority because it consists of truth claims that carry weight in describing the real world. However, in teaching religion, the knowledge conveyed was not about doctrines of God, man and salvation, but instead a set of propositions about what religious people believed, how they worshipped. In short the study of religion conveyed knowledge about how religious people acted apart from asking the question of whether their beliefs were true. Theological knowledge, and with it moral knowledge, was permanently lost. Instead of strengthening Christianity with science, the new religious studies departments actually weakened Christianity by taking away its authority, an authority that is based upon knowledge. Not surprisingly, administrators could not get students to be interested in their new religion classes.

If Christianity is just a set of beliefs and rituals designed to make people feel good, act morally to please parents, and to have a sense of community, then it is worthless. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

Either Christianity is a knowledge tradition, or we are wasting our time with yesterday’s fashions. If Christianity is about our feelings, then it will die, because we can always to make us feel better. What will happen is that you will have people jumping around in church singing songs on Sunday morning, then having abortions and divorces on Monday morning.

Here’s part 3 of 3, but I didn’t find anything earth-shattering in it. It sounds like Christians were too authoritarian and dogmatic in responding to science’s desire for increased autonomy. You cant make an argument from dogma – it just makes people dislike your dogma. What we ought to have done is what we’re doing today: doing good science and good history without any pre-suppositions and seeing if what we find in cosmology, biochemistry, ancient history, etc. confirm or deny Christianity. The lesson to be learned here is that when you insulate your faith from rational inquiry, you reduce it to personal preference and you lose your authority – authority that comes from knowledge.

It’s interesting to think about how different things used to be just a few decades ago when people were not so different to throw off the constraints of knowledge and the obligations of morality in a desperate pursuit of pleasure in this life.

Commentary

MUST-READ: How the media’s secular bias affects their news coverage

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Here is a magnificent post up at Big Journalism, Andrew Breitbart’s new web site. (H/T ECM)

First, he talks about different journalists are from the rest of America:

The modern secular newsroom lacks the ideological know-how to truly understand religion.  Perhaps Terry Mattingly best exlplained the media’s “diversity problem”. According to Mattingly, “While there’s been heavy gender and racial diversity … there’s a lack of cultural diversity in journalism…”  It is this lack of diversity that leads to major misconceptions and the media’s inability to adequately tell stories that are rooted, themselves, in religious themes.

The lack of diversity may lie in the journalists themselves, as personal faith plays a role in the ability to understand and thus illustrate religious themes.  Just how religious are journalists?  According to USA Today, “the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported in 2007 that 8% of journalists surveyed at national media outlets said they attended church or synagogue weekly.”  Additionally, 29% reported never attending church services, with an additional 39% stating that they go a few times each year.  In sum: Not very religious – especially when compared to America as a whole.

Later on, he talks about how rigid conformity to secular presuppositions creates bias:

In covering the American Religious Identification Survey that was conducted in March 2009, the Pew Research Center wrote,

“A comment on the blog Matters of Faith declared, “The media’s tendency to give inordinate attention to religious dimwits and crackpots has seriously damaged the credibility of religious leaders. You rarely read or hear of the miraculously generous work of faith communities in caring for the poor and infirm around the globe. But let someone suggest that the Virgin Mary has appeared in a plate of refried beans and the bulletins circle the globe in minutes.”

This commentary targets one of the media’s main malfunctions when it comes to covering religion in general and Christianity in particular.  As is the case with most stories covered by the mainstream media, the more outlandish, the more the story is pursued.  In practice, this creates a climate of coverage strewn with the “dimwits and crackpots” mentioned above, as journalists lack the understanding or desire to seek a wide array of theological viewpoints.  Meanwhile, thousands of Christian missionaries risk their lives both domestically and internationally to make lasting spiritual and physical change in the lives of those in need.  Yet their stories go widely unnoticed.

Here is an example of news coverage that you will never see in the mainstream news.

The secular leftist media will run stories about Sarah Palin’s children, and the Duke Lacrosse non-rape, because even though the stories later turn out to be fraudulent, they want to send the right message. They view their work as propaganda designed to effect political change. And I think it is sometimes useful to reflect on the story in the video above and ask why such stories are not covered. And the answer is because the media doesn’t tell people about news that doesn’t fit their rigid ideological stereotypes.

I was chatting with ECM about this post, and he informed me about The New Yorker’s movie critic Pauline Kael, who was surprised by Republicans’ 49-state landslide victory in the 1972 federal election.

She said:

“How could that be? I don’t know a single person who voted for Nixon.”

And that’s the news media today. They are not informed about views different from their own. They do not question their own fundamentalist assumptions by seeking out debates. Everything they need to know about religious people they learned from watching “Inherit the Wind” and “Jesus Camp” and such propaganda that allows them to demonize anyone who disagrees with their worldview. You would think that their ignorance of the best arguments on the other side would make them cautious, but it doesn’t.