The sameness of all religions?

A not uncommon remark today is that all religions are basically the same.

Frank Turek speaks to this claim. 

For Christians the first impulse might be to say "no they are not".

Better, IMO (and Greg Koukl's in his books "Tactics" and "Street Smarts") is to find out more.

Here's a paradigmatic pattern that might help.

Let's start with your first clarifying question:

> Really, sounds interesting, can you tell me more?

OR

> What do you mean by [that/'religion' and 'same'?]

This might bring some summary remarks about being kind and loving, or similar superficial existential affect. But what you are after is their basis for their claim. Their "why" they think that.

You might be able to respond: 

>Your view seems to be focused on a basic Christian structure, but that's not surprising because Christianity has influenced the Western worldview with varying success for many centuries. How would that apply to other transcendental world views?

The discussion could go in many ways from here.

A couple of points to keep in mind:

What 'religion' is.

The best general definition of religion is given by Clouser in his "The Myth of Religious Neutrality" page 18 in the edition I use. It is:

"the non-dependent reality on which all else depends"

In other words: the world-view that structures one's view/concept/understanding of man and his relation to the world/reality/what basically is, etc.

So you might ask the person to stand back from the word "religion" and suggest that it is:

1 - the basic conception one has of the nature of man/mankind/humanity, that either differentiates from the rest of the biota or merges into it, and

2 - the basic conception of 'reality' and man's/mankind's/humanities' relation to it.

and in so doing how it accounts for Schaeffer's "dilemma": that man (or the alternative locutions) is noble yet cruel. One could alternatively say: Magnificent, yet flawed. Loves yet hates! Is generous yet selfish.

It is in these basic conceptions that Westphal's tripartite taxonomy works: 

1. Exilic Religion

Core View: Takes life in the material world to be an exile from the soul's true home.

Salvation: The process of returning to that spiritual home.

Key Focus: The divide between the transcendent/spiritual and the physical world, often viewing the latter as fallen or a place of alienation.

 

2. Mimetic Religion

Core View: Views life as normatively controlled by a right, harmonious relationship with nature.

Salvation: Achieved by rehearsing or participating in the origins and depths of nature, often guided by myth and ritual.

Key Focus: Cosmic order, cyclical time, and living in accordance with the rhythms of the natural universe.

 

3. Covenantal Religion

Core View: Adds a historical dimension to the cosmological focus of mimetic religion.

Salvation: Finds ultimate meaning in historical interactions between the divine and humanity, giving specific historical context to human guilt, death, and redemption.

Key Focus: Time as linear, historical responsibility, and moral obligations to a personal, active deity.

(AI summary)

 

Now we can have a conversation about 'religion' and its connection with the world as it is. 

 

[BTW, I don't agree with all Greg's theology, but his apologetics approach is second to none, IMO.] 

 

 

 

 

Now you are at College

Most College/University Christian groups, in my experience of a number of university Christian groups, fails to reach above the level of a middling church 'youth group'.

While doing graduate studies at on of the world's leading such institutions I avoided the evangelical group, and found the young Catholics group much more adult as well as more interested in discussion of any ideas: to expose, test and reflect on from a Catholic perspective.

It was enthralling and enjoyable. Similar to going to the Philosophy Club and disagreeing with all the poorly read opinion merchants. 

Let's start with who is at university: some of the brightest young minds on the planet!!!

So let's work at their intellectual level and rhetorical vigour.

Firstly the reading lists

Bible

Ideally read the Bible through once a year: that's 4 chapters a day, or 2 pd during semester, and more between.

As an alternative, read the New Testament through once a year, and the Old Testament once during your undergraduate period. 

Books

This list covers all three or four years, not just 'this' year. 

Lewis, C. S.

Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, and Problem of Pain.

Schaeffer, F. A.

His trilogy plus:

The God Who is There

He is There and is not Silent

Escape from Reason

Genesis is Space and Time.

Pearcey, N.

Total Truth (with an annual seminar on this for the newbies)

Finding Truth.

Moreland, J.P. (ed)

The Creation Hypothesis.

This is an older book (1994) but contains a good range of contributors and topics.

A more updated set of texts might be recent volumes by Dembski and Meyer.

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian World View (with William Lane Craig)

Turek, F.

I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist 

Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case

Trueman, C.

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

You might want to add similar studies by Charles Taylor. 

Watkin, C.

Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life. 

Seminars

An annual seminar based on Pearcey's Total Truth.

Reading groups for each author through the year, over a 3 year cycle.

One ad-hoc seminar each year on some cultural issue considered through the lens of the Christian world-view.

Training

Personal evangelism dealing with the basic questions of Christians, and by Muslims, in pursuit of 1 Peter 3:15.

Action

On-campus permanent discussion stands, and training visits to discussion stands of other religious and of political groups.

Then we'd see a growing cadre of young scholars able to confidently help others made critical sense of modern life in a corrupt world.

Current rating for this on common current performance? ZERO! 

And, naturally Bible discussion groups meeting at various paces: weekly, fortnightly, monthly to accommodate differing study routines.

Hosting an 'enquirers' group for those interested in Christianity and/or discussing it. This should be hosted by students in their 3rd or 4th year of study, or in post-graduate studies. 

 

Schaeffer and Sartre?

Francis Schaeffer claims that Sartre asserted (words to the effect) that without an infinite reference point man has no true meaning.

Now, I've not found that specific remark, or anything that directly echoes it in what I've read of Sartre...and life is too short to wade through Being and Nothingness without a PhD at the end, but I have read allusions to that in Existentialism is a Humanism and Nausea.

The idea is also consistent with what I recall of what Jaspers had to say in Philosophy of Existence. One only finds definition in some ultimate act of definition...and that is undefined. And, I would say undefinable when the self-experience is the locus of definition. It is a definition based on nothing which has a grounded basis. It floats arbitrarily unattached and truly undefined. So it has no 'meaning' (whatever that word now means) to even the one seeking definitive meaning.

So, lets clarify the conundrum to "without an infinite reference point there is no real self-knowledge."

We can only know ourselves in relation to others, in interpersonal relationships. There are no possible relationships in the non-personal world and any fake or imagined relations ships are in fact mute.

But if true significance ("meaning") comes only through relationships then there must always be a 'reference' relationship, let's say its one's parents. But this is not final. This reference relationship also needs a 'reference' relationship.

In a cosmos that is finally material, the final 'significance' has to be founded or grounded in some mute material thing or process. But it is inter-personally and therefore finally meaningless. It does not communicate, it reflects or responds to nothing of who one is and the only quality of the "relationship" is blank indifference. A nullity.

Yet we still have an inner quest for significance and live and relate as though this is a real thing.

An infinite regress explains nothing as it never ends in a final ground. It vanishes into the indefinably remote and unconnected other which results in the same abject indifference that the material cosmos characterizes.

True self-knowledge, significance or referentially secure "meaning" must remain the product of relationship. To be true and truly significant there must be a viable relational ground in which it terminates and gives a resolution or definition. A self-existent ground, an independent ontology.

Thus we need the Creator God who is person who sustains and anchors all relationship through being the ground and source of personhood and the final 'relater'.

Now the flip-side for the one who denies a Creator-God, who demands we applaud their faux independence and nonchalant self-applauding bravery.

The atheist's dilemma.

We all seek meaning, and often has it in life yet there can be no real axiological pay-off in a material cosmos, Whence the drive for, often achievement of 'meaning' or true significance? Each relies on an implicit teleology which is denied by the meaningless (literally) atheistic conception of termination.

Yet atheists typically act as though their teleological impulse is real while denying a real basis for the 'meaning' quest. So, what is it? The existentialist's self-defining grand act? But to what point? It all ends in dust and in the end no-one cares!

There is really no point, so an atheists has to explain to him/her-self why they even go to the doctor when feeling ill. That too is finally dust and a pointless way-post on the way to a pointless end.

Some provisional thoughts.

Raphael and the Philosophers

Francis Schaeffer referred to Raphael's painting "The School of Athens" in the detail of the gestures of Plato and Aristotle. Detail below.

 The Split Between Nature and Grace

 Schaeffer highlights the separation between the "universal" (represented by Plato pointing up) and the "particular" (represented by Aristotle pointing down). This split represents a failure to keep God as the creator of both, leading to an increasing separation between humanity and the Divine.

A friend put it to me that this was possibly not the references being made, rather, Plato is pointing up to "the good" and Aristotle is gesturing to the world as it is, founded on the "unmoved mover".

Together they are depicting a world in its base reality as impersonal, One that makes of personhood and thus man a final nullity.

The rest of philosophy seeks to deal with this nullity...culminating in Nagel's "The View from Nowhere" p. 225:

One of the difficulties is that the appropriate form of a subjective attitude toward my own future is expectation, but in this case there is nothing to expect.  How can I expect nothing as such? It seems that the best I can do is to expect its complement, a finite but indeterminate amount of something—or a determinate amount, if I am under definite sentence of death. Now a good deal could be said about the consequences of the finiteness of my future, but that is relatively banal and something most of us automatically allow for, particularly after reaching the age of forty. I am concerned with the adequate recognition of my eventual annihilation itself. There will be a last day, a last hour, a last minute of consciousness, and that will be it. Off the edge.

But the view of life and its base ontology from the Creation in Genesis 1, re-pictured by Paul in Romans 8:18ff: is Love, and the 'mission' of the Creator is to bring us into that realm of his Love through Christ.

 

This makes life and love meaningful because its reality is basic, unlike Plato and Aristotle in their bleak finally impersonal static base reality which admits no love, no passion and no fellowship.

 

Couses of course

One can attend endless of those ceremonial speeches that are given at church gatherings -- you may know them as that performative art-piece 'the sermon'. You know, the 20-40 minutes of words you most likely forget as soon as you leave the auditorium in which it was given.

Well, the church I am part of has stepped past this massive error in Christian discipling ('education' or training or equipping) by conducting courses for those interested in upping their skills and/or knowledge in living the Christian live.

Here are the three courses on offer this term:

1. Telling your story: how to 'give one's  testimony'.

2. Reading through John's gospel with a friend using a specific app for shared reading, and

3. Running a 'Beyond Hope' session/s for your friends or neighbours.

All good starting points.

BUT

I'm more than a little concerned at (1), not having attended it yet. I may do a report on it in a few weeks time after I have.

Most 'testimonies' are boring, unless spectacular, like Paul's, or David Wood's, inevitably self-centred if not self-serving and irrelevant.

As one apologist points out, the 'testimony' the old-time mainstay of 'witnessing' is that it is personal, and in being personal, largely sending an inherent subjective message. What we do need to be able to do is give a reason for the hope within us. 1 Peter 3:15. Peter didn't say 'give a tesimony', now, did he?

So, far better if we 'workshopped' 1 Peter 3:15 the way we would give an account for the hope we have in Christ to our friends.

Like I've written before, one needs a set of three formats for this:

1. the 'elevator' pitch. A short, punchy couple of sentences.

2. the 'coffee chat'. A longer duration set of ideas that you can weave in to a chat, and

3. the 'dinner discussion'. Here you  prepare the sort of road map for a longer discussion, with a few of the obvious by-ways, shortcuts and diversions that might spring up.

All in 'everyman' language of course. Not a theological word amongst them.

My basic approach to "Why are you (a) Christian?" is to adopt Greg Koukl's approach crossed with Francis Schaeffer's.

Christianity gives the best explanation for the 'way things are' and for the resolution of the human dilemma.

This invites two questions:

1. "What do you mean/what is 'the way things are?' ", and,

A: we all have a sense that things are not the way they should be: they are 'broken' in some way...nothing is not only perfect, but most things are not at all good.

[This relates directly to the suffering we all see and experience, the frustrations of life and its misdirections ( 'fate' as some may call it). That it is not 'natural' to us as if it was, we would not detect it, it 'just is'. If someone takes this view, they are looking at life's dilemmas and disasters with blank, impassive non-comprehension, lying to themselves that it is of no matter.]

2. "What is/do you mean by 'the human dilemma?" Schaeffer calls it the manishness of man: that man is both noble, and cruel and life is both of great sadness and great joy.

A We all know that there's something wrong, we have shortcomings and endlessly do things we don't want to do, or wish we hadn't done, and the inverse, we don't do things we want to do. We live in a world of frustration, of evil, of suffering that we deeply rebel against. Why? 

Christianity also deals with this realistically, in terms of the real world we know in two ways: our humanity is real, and our despair is real.

Christianity is direct about our personhood, its significance and its reality: it is really real!

Every other construction of the world fails to do this. Maybe not overtly, but always at least implicitly. 

1. They regard the world, and/or the dilemma as illusory, or can only be resolved by denying our nature with final anonymous absorption into the impersonal divine (or in half-baked nostrums such as Buddha's). (Westphal's 'exilic' religions, e.g. Hinduism.)
2. They regard mankind as subservient to the world, continuous with it, it being a impersonal 'force' of some sort. (Westphal's 'mimetic' religions, e.g. Paganism, in modern and ancient forms.)
3. We are integrally continuous with the material world and can only truly be described materially; our human-ness being an abstracted, if not illusory subservient phenomenon on and derivative of the material reality. Modern doctrinaire and informal atheism and agnosticism of convenience rely on this, as does hedonism. Again, reality is at base impersonal.

None of these give humanity a true grounding that is consistent with our life-world and our being in this world. None can ground personhood as a basic constituent of reality and as true: we have true and valid experiences of the world which is truly there, we can make decisions that have real and substantial consequences for both us and (usually) others, and the world is truly there and is intelligible to us. We can produce knowledge that is true knowledge and can communicate it to others with congruent effect.

The grounding of personhood, and of our real reality is only in the description of creation in Genesis 1-3:8a. Personhood is significant, enduring and personal...as is our Creator.

All other conceptions of reality fail to grant the person 'connection' with reality. The person is either ultimately absorbed into 'the one' and de-personalized, ground into dust (materialism/evolution) or a pawn of fates/destiny (most pagan and neo-pagan vague conceptions).

It is only the Genesis description of Creation that gives mankind robust and enduring identity that is directly connected to and an echo of (in the image of) the self-existing creator. 

Train, educate, or get out of the way!

Great video. I was one of those arrogant Calvinists! Happily no longer, so I know the feeling you are talking about.

What started me on the Calvinist path, many decades ago, was a Bible study group that an old (but not that close) friend invited me to join. In my church I was demographically and intellectually isolated. My friend's group was people of my age and all university qualified. Even here, though, the Calvinism was trickled. Firstly by recommending books (the tedious Puritans), and finally a Bible college where I did some summer courses and made some friends, including with the principal and his son. But what distinguished this church to mine was an emphasis on knowledge, on reading theology and 'pious' conversations about what we read.

My church was intellectually  barren. One deacon in discussion vowed to read the italics in his Bible with due emphasis, not being aware that italicized words were translators' additions. An elder, when I asked about a Schaeffer book, told me it had 'too many big words' (it didn't). In this church I was given youth teaching and 'leading' roles for which I was unequipped and given no training. In fact, no one was trained for anything. This intellectual (knowledge) vacuum made me ripe for not only Calvinism, but would have made me ripe for any cult that promised knowledge of the Bible. It also rendered me useless for the roles given. Note, this was way before the Internet age and resources were hard to find and expensive...and I was not even aware that they might exist.

Here's what I now would expect for all new Christians, or Christians from the age of, say 16: a one year course of maybe fortnightly sessions during school terms on Bible basics, an outline of church history, and a thorough grounding in soteriology, if not Christology at the appropriate level. It might also include 'workshops' on the basic questions Christians get asked. A couple of weekend 'consolidation' conferences could be added in.

Similar, but shorter courses should have been available, perhaps at the denominational/conference level on Sunday School teaching and youth ministry. These being ubiquitous and constant needs in 'volunteer' ministry.

The fact that most churches rely on either a weekly 'talk' (aka the sermon) and other forms of osmotic learning is a real derogation of the duty of the church to make disciples. Our biggest effort should be training to 'make disciples' rather than no training, which makes for ineffectiveness or complete passivity.

7 Big Questions Seminar References and Resources

This page is devoted to supplementary material for attendees of a '7 Big Questions' seminar. This is a full day seminar for churches (generally, it can also be given in two half-day sessions) to encourage and assist members in being able to think through answers to the seven most commonly asked questions of Christians.

If you have not attended a seminar, naturally, you are nevertheless welcome to use this page.

If you want to organize a seminar or inquire about hosting one, please send an e-mail to 7BQ_Seminars@email.com, with the subject line "I want to organize a seminar" otherwise it will be filtered out.

If you attended a seminar you have access to a moderated discussion group (provided through your registration e-mail address).

Thanks to 'Watcher' for allowing this page to be hosted on his blog.

How to Talk About Jesus by Sam Chan: a review

Chan has hit the spot in his title. No one talks about how to 'talk about Jesus'!

Koukl's books: Tactics, Street Smarts and The Story of Reality are useful resources in this field, but I've encountered little effort in the 'down and dirty' of actual conversations. Chan steps into this field with a welcome contribution, albeit a few years ago.

Let's move through the chapters.

Merge your Universes

Useful information about 'plausibility structure' and making friends of your neigbours: harder in high-rise than on suburban blocks of cottages, but there must be ways.

We have to learn to 'gossip the gospel' as the ancients used to do...reputedly. That is being able to weave tendrils of conversational openings that a listener might grab so you can take the conversation to where you want, for however long...sometimes just a word, a congruent phrase, and that's it. But if we all do it...there's a cumulative effect. 

Go to Their Things

Very useful chapter. Be part of the non-churched community (without being swallowed by it). Ensure your church as 'contact' events where people can enter the premises without being 'sand-bagged' by a preacher. If there is any form of address or presentation, it has to use common language and link to common perspectives and challenges.

I took a couple of friends to a 'coffee shop' run by my church. Coffee, some live music, then a 'sand-bag' of some theological student giving a 'clear presentation of the gospel'. It must have been a college assignment because it was as clear as mud to my friends, and touched not one aspect of any shared experience or common perceptions of life...my friends asked me to never invite them to a similar thing AGAIN. 

Coffee, Dinner, Gospel

The idea of ordinary social get-togethers is helpful, but 'trapping' people into a dinner party where they get preached at is not. I'd suggest you prepare a few 'fire-cracker' issues to raise that you can give a Christian/biblical tinge to and leave it there. Let others enlarge if they want to, or throw out a challenge...give them comfort to disagree, they might love that!

"Here's something I want you to disagree with; see how you go..." Something like that perhaps. 

Listen

Of course. Conversations are about listening: the better conversation is marked by you listening more! 

Chan's taxonomy of questions was OK, for the book, but I think Scharmer's has a better grasp of the range in what I'd call 'positive' conversations.

The four types of listening reflect the underlying principles of the opening of the mind, heart and will are:

1. Dowloading: This type of listening is limited to reconfirming what we already know. Nothing new penetrates our bubble.
2. Factual listening: We let the data talk to us and notice dis-confirming information. Doing this requires opening the mind—that is, the capacity to suspend our habits of judgment.
3. Empathic listening: We see the situation through the eyes of another. Doing this requires opening the heart: using our feelings and our heart as an organ of tuning in to another person’s view.
4. Generative listening: We listen for the highest future possibility to show up while holding a space for something new to be born.

 (from Medium 2019)

Tell a Better Story

Good idea, but it slips at one point into 'worship' language. No one want's to 'worship'. By this they think of ceremonies, rituals, incense perhaps, peculiar music, strange lyrics and cloud-cuckoo sentiments, bowing, kneeling...That's not Christian worship: its a life transformed into wholeness as we follow the man who brought God to earth.

Apart form that, the idea of the 'better story' is a useful one. We all use 'stories' to shape our lives. Christ is the better story, but it can require a long introduction. 

Tell them Stories about Jesus

Plenty of scope here that has to be used judiciously...'who is this Jesus character' could be the response in most cases. It also sounds a bit cute for my taste. I think I'd say something like "that reminds me of an episode from the career of Jesus of Nazareth...or Yeshua the Nazarene." He was a Jewish prophet of 2000 years ago...that might spin out into a conversation about who he was/is.

The you can go on to I like what he had to say a lot because I think it resolved the very human dilemma we are all caught up in.

Here I like to use Schaeffer's definition: mankind/humanity is noble yet cruel. We can make meaningful decisions that have real effect...how does a pile of cells do that?

Become their De Facto Chaplain

This can be very good, and his examples are great. I'll not spoil them here: read the book.

But it is about being alongside of someone who is reaching out for some real human contact and understanding: listening, form a posture of some personal adversity. 

It is about being kind and 'non-judgemental'.The types of questions that might work are of the "How did that come about?", "How does that make you feel" No solutions unless you are asked and are competent to give them, but avoid them, is my thinking. Let the person talk.

Lean into Disagreement

Of course, we Christians are happy with disagreement because we stand on solid ground! Disagreement shows engagement, interest, unless it is mere show and braggadocio. If the latter 'call it out', and ask to have a real conversation.

As Chan suggests, take them to the logical implicatons of their world view and its use in the present. 

Looking for Black Swan Moments.

Wife and I  took a cruise on a local bay. Leaning on the rail of the boat I was standing next to an older woman. I made a 'throw-away' remark about the 'wonderful' creation, or nature, if you like. Her response was 'I wonder why god bothered' (Her 'god' was a small 'g').

I asked "What do you mean?"   What she meant was her older husband had early dementia. Their lives were changing. She was grieving. I commiserated with her. 'But there's hope.  We weren't made for this world, we were made for a better place...we chatted briefly, and the she moved off.

For all its qualities the book has some deficiencies.

1. Unlike Koukl's idea of 'putting a stone in their shoe' as the 'gardening' aspect of evangelism, Chan sets the bar too high for most people. That is, he sees the main game not as representing Christ as an ambassador (ambassadors rarely seek to change their host nation's policies), but as a 'closer' in sales talk.

The main game is certainly to end with leading others to awareness of the real content of Christian faith, but the more frequent game is to actively sow the seeds.

While Chan doesn't 'close' too quickly, he spends most of his time on contact approaches, rather than connections. Now this is OK: getting involved with community (school) groups, hanging off your children's activities in the earlier years (say, up to 15 or 16). Connections flow, in some chapters, but the preparatory work is not emphasized.

There is little about 'testing' (in a nice way) the other's world view or picture of reality. Koukl talks about questioning tactics: prompting someone for their basic beliefs from some trivial thing: a ring they wear, a bumper sticker they display, etc. and asking about that..."What does that mean?" "Why do you say that?" "How does that work out?" 

This invites conversation, but doesn't necessarily want to get to a 'conversion' conversation. Indeed today we seem to want to race people to that, rather than help the questions they have develop and come into the open.

2. He spends little time on the huge task of de-theologizing language. These days, few people might really know who this Jesus chap is. Muslims think they know, so fruitful conversations can easily be had, if you have done some general research into Islam. So called 'New-Agers' (although that terms is passe now: almost everyone is a 'New-Ager' by default) might also have a better grip on Jesus, or 'the Christ' than the average person, or think they do. People from the sub-continent are also ahead of the game and can be open to discussion more directly. But not the 'average Joe'.

For the average person we need to use simple communicative language. Churches need to teach, practice and train their members for this, and encourage discussing with each other their attempts and outcomes for joint learning and skill-building. This is the hardest skill for most older Christians to master; older in the faith, I mean. Not necessarily in years.

Being adept with common language would also assist people develop conversation pathways that can get 'spiritual' or proto-spiritual without being inappropriate to the conversational topic or tone and so come across as impolite or gauche.

Alongside that, we need to learn to understand what a 'world-view' is and how it plays a role in evangelism at whichever level. I've never heard a sermon about this. I've never heard Schaeffer's discussion of this issue introduced to a congregation. Not that a sermon is a useful means of growing people of course. It's not. Adults learn by grafting in the new to their current stock of ideas and they do this by discussing, asking questions and having issues teased out. We don't do that in church, at our 'services' do we? 

3. The third is equipping. The previous weakness is an aspect of that. Another is the development of skills by local churches.

Christians need to be practiced in putting the Christian message, and 'pre-message' into everyday language, and to deal confidently, if not adroitly with the most common questions that people have, and discussion points that people raise that have Christian implications. Chan touches on this in principle, which is helpful, but I think churches need to up their game and also deal with such issues in discussion groups, not in that one-man, usually, performance known as the 'sermon show'.

Moreover the format of most church gatherings implicitly tells people that a) they have nothing to say, and if they did b) its not worth saying. Against this, the NT church was a place of community communion (as in talking to each other). Many contributed, questions were asked (a little to volubly in some cases, attracting Paul's rebuke to some noisy women), and people grew. The church grew. Except some of the addressees of the letter to the Hebrews seemed to have missed that memo: Hebrews 5:12. 

Some specifics 

Christians need to be able to easily deal with a few common issues:

The Bible: what and why it is, its textual reliability (Bible publishers can help by providing true tables of contents to the major stories or episodes in the books of the Bible, and short orienting intros to each book).

Church: why do you attend/be part of;

Jesus: who is he, why do you/should I follow him? Why is he the only way/

God: does he really exist...and who is he?

Christian: why you are one?

Science: hasn't it disproved the Bible?

Evil/suffering: how can a God of love and mercy allow such?

Training in dealing with these topics is not for the sermon-lecture. It is for focused workshops where people can discuss, simulate encounters, and develop skill in crafting their own approaches. 

The hard part about swinging a conversation to Christian matters is: can I answer the objection (let's make that a 'yes') and the segue from talking about the stock market to talking about values, then talking about how we value...I mean what value does life have if we are a bunch of molecules?  You can usually do it in a few steps to change the 'tone' to what we want to be effective and not 'that guy'.

 

 

 

1 big answer

In the blog "7 or so questions, 7 or so answers: an elevator pitch" I set out an approach to talking about one's faith in terms a non-Christian might better understand.

Greg Koukl recently released a video of his answer to precisely that situation.

An edited transcript is provided below.

What is your elevator speech answer to the   question "What do you believe and why do you believe it?"

First three stories.

1.  There is a God who is there.
2.  He has not been silent. (Francis Schaeffer's title)
3.  He has visited this planet in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

He gave evidence of who he was, and then did something to rescue us from ourselves that will determine what happens to everybody in the final resurrection.

That's, maybe, the content. At the end of history. Maybe I'll put it that way for a non-Christian.

Why do I believe it? Well, this one, in a certain sense, is I'll give the general point that I've given many times, because that answer is about the nature of reality—I'm not talking about my faith, my beliefs, as such.

Of course, they're my faith and belief, but what I believe about those things is that this is the way the world is. And I think that this is an accurate take on the world.

It's the accurate picture of reality, taken as a whole, because it turns out to be the best explanation for the way things are. And, so, when you look at the way the world is—that the world came into existence, that the world has conscious beings, that one set of the conscious beings—human beings—have a moral nature, and that concepts like mercy and goodness and justice and wickedness and evil. All of these are real parts of the universe— the worldview, the picture of reality—that makes the most sense out of all of these things. This turns out to be the Christian view of reality.

In the book, “Street Smarts," I have two chapters on atheism followed by one chapter on the problem of evil, and the chapter on the problem of evil is called Evil: Atheism's Fatal Flaw. I position the problem of evil, not in a defensive way, like, well, let's see if I can find out how I can convince you that it makes sense in our world; I did that in "The Story of Reality”. No, I'm trying to show there is a problem of evil, and that's not bad for us, it's bad for atheists, and here's why.

Simply put, the problem of evil fits into our world. Our story is about   the problem of evil from the beginning to the end”. It starts in chapter 3 of Genesis. It ends 66 books later. So, it fits in our story, and our story is not over yet. It's just part of it.

While there's no real problem there, in a certain sense. there remain questions that come up that we can speculate on and try to answer, but the key thing is, the problem of evil makes sense in our story. It does not make sense in the atheist's story.

In that, there's one example of our view of reality being a much better explanation than any other. In fact, the best explanation for evil or for the origin of the universe or for the existence of consciousness or the reality of human freedom or a whole host of other things.

If I was to give a short elevator speech, would I include any testimony in that or would I stick to, what I have just described?

No, I don't think I would put testimony in, partly because nothing in my testimony is evidential. It isn't like I heard a voice, I went blind, and then I got healed of blindness three days later (referring to the Apostle Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ). So, there's nothing that's third person public that I can offer.

Secondly, I really want to work to avoid relativizing my own views. This is why I don't like when people say, "Well, the Christian view is." There may be a place for that, but we have to be very careful that we're not just saying this is kind of, as you put it earlier, our club. I don't like "Well we believe this," or "We have faith that," "My faith tells me thus and so."

I'd rather put this in terms of my understanding of the nature of reality. These are my convictions about the way the world is, and I have particular reasons for thinking that my convictions match the world, and then I can talk about that. I'm going to try to stay away from the subjective element, in my case, for those reasons. I especially don't want people to be tempted to relativize my view. They could say it's inaccurate. Fine. But if my view is relative, it can't be inaccurate. It's true for me. That’s all you can say.

 

God, evil and modern man

I have yet to hear a sermon or apologetic that really deals with this in terms that might make sense to modern man. Schaeffer comes closest, but he still doesn't quite do it. Nevertheless, he does touch on it in passing, in True Spirituality when he talks of sin as being the breaking of fellowship with God.

Most disquisitions on this topic do nothing to overturn the ancient pagan impression of 'good' and 'evil' as two forces in active opposition and of similar potency.

But NO!

Good and evil do not float platonically behind God, and do not have any existence except in terms of who God is.

God is good by definition, or more precisely, God is love and the properties of goodness and evil (the inversion of goodness, as hate is the inversion of love) flow from this.

Evil, sin, suffering represent the inversion of God's love, of who God is! The result from rejection of fellowship with God.

A&E were told that 'the tree' would bring them face to face with this inversion, rejection, denial of God. That is, face to face with evil, which they would thus 'know'. That is experience and understand.

Love is the disposition to benefit the other even to your disadvantage, to give priority to the other. Evil is inversion of this, to benefit oneself in denial of others.

This comes out in fragments of pride, greed, selfishness, self-centredness littered through every day. From Adam's step away from God in denying him and asserting his own values in that denial, both Adam and the creation were stranded from man's communion with God. But there was more involved. Not only was mankind stranded, but the creation as a whole was severed from its comfort with God's presence. Man as the steward, as God's vicegerent in the creation had  broken the entire creation

The great tragedy is that the creation was given to us as the stage for our communion with God, but it became the place severed from that communion and God's love and life. It's promise was death, and God warned him.

The domain as a whole was broken, subjected to loss, to decay and degradation as the creation in its entirety was dragged after the one set to govern it in love and peace.

Nevertheless, God's love is unstoppable and perseveres, as does his creature in his image as one with real choices. God in this love acted to establish the 'long stop' position and occupied it in Christ. This position enables the final defeat of death -- the great inversion of the meaning of mankind echoed thereafter in his offspring -- and our regeneration to join his kingdom finally in the New Creation.

Two books?

When the discussion turns to the Bible and 'origins' one often years the claim that God has spoken in two books: the Bible, that's a real book, and the 'book of nature'. That's not a real book, its an analogical book.

The two books theme has been used by some very famous people, but it's not helpful, not good and...not even right. In fact, it's so bad as to be not even wrong, to borrow a criticism attributed to Wolfgang Pauli when asked to comment on science so bad that it 'was not even wrong'.

How can this be?

Let's start with the first book: the Bible, the real book. It is full of words. In the original manuscripts the words are there, penned by people whom the Spirit had infused so what was written was the word of God, while retaining the spark of individuality that comes with any writer. 

The words of scripture are congruent with the word spoken in power recorded in Genesis 1 and mentioned by Christ (Mark 13:31, for instance).

Schaeffer discusses the word, the propositional, contentful, communication of God to man, his creation in The God who Is There and Who Is Not Silent. This word mediates the relationship of God and mankind. It is the word by which we make the response of worship to God, our creator, redeemer, saviour.

As Peter Jones says, there are only two religions. The worship of God, the creator, and the worship of the creature (which is every other religion, so called).

When the 'book of nature' is conjured up, the wonder of God in creation is not read through the actual word of God, but is placed in a separate category, almost, in some cases, a separate ontological category, in a separate reality from the Word of God. In this category, the creation is identified with only the words of man in a concrete sense; and these are not inspired by God, but are framed and modelled by man's 'world view'. This is often not founded on God's actual real word, but on words that start from the view that their is a 'neutral' place of only 'nature' and man.

There is in this maneuver the potential to split worship and this second book, so called, the analogical book, usually supplants the words of God culminating in worship of the creation, not the creator as his word takes second place as to the all important grounding definition of our frame of reference by which we see connection between creator and creation. No longer is this his word, but what men say about the creation!

There is only one book. The Bible, by which we are guided into all truth; including the truth of a real world that is amenable to intelligent inquiry because it is intelligently created by the God who speaks and who gave us that ability.

Schaeffer and Trinity

 In He is There and He Is Not Silent, Schaeffer makes the remark:

Every once in a while in my discussions someone asks how I can believe in the Trinity. My answer is always the same. I would still be an agnostic if there was no Trinity, because there would be no answers. Without the high order of personal unity and diversity as given in the Trinity,  there are no answers. (p. 288 Crossway compilation)

I have puzzled over this. Why would there be no answers?

I asked a friend who knew Schaeffer well, who answered:

You are not the first to scratch your head about this claim, and I myself find it quite strange and do not claim to be able to interpret it for you, or to believe it myself.

     I have asked him to explain it and heard others do the same. I think the main thing in his mind was that he saw in the trinity that neither unity nor diversity, neither the One or the Many, was ultimate and so would obliterate the other. They were both anchored in the transcendent God. He saw secular philosophy as unable to resist getting pulled into one or the other of these dead ends -- of only unity (Parmenides) or only particularity (Heraclitus). I certainly see his point here because neither of these dead ends allows any serious understanding of the complexity and wonder of the human condition. But I can't help wondering if there was no trinity, whether I might be more likely to be a Jewish theist than an agnostic, but that question would be in practicality, so highly subjective as a counter-factual puzzle.

     It all seems a tricky question to say what part of Xn truth, if removed, would make me abandon my faith, maybe not always helpful  -- although Paul said it about the resurrection of Jesus. I heard Schaeffer also say that he could not be a Christian if God had not himself shut the door finally on the ark at the start of the flood. He felt that to ask Noah to do it would have been too cruel and inappropriate, given what would happen to everyone else who was not in the ark. On the other hand I asked him once if he were to ever have macro-evolution demonstrated to have been true beyond any doubt, would he leave his faith as a result? He said, "No, but I would have to rethink a great deal."

     To get back to the trinity, but leave Schaeffer's discussion, I found Tim Keller's insight intriguing when he said that only if God is trinity can love be part of his character, i.e. who he is intrinsically. If God was only One, there would have been no one for him to love unless it was someone whom God had created. If God was only One, his main attribute of character would have been power -- who might have chosen to do loving things, but they would be arbitrary and not grounded in his being and he might have easily done the opposite.

There are few useful thoughts here, and I think he's spotted the nub of it: Who God Is is immovably basic to what is independently (and self-existentially) that is, necessarily, real.

 

What then is the Triune God?

• He is demonstrably personal
• He communicates: the three persons of the trinity are in constant communication for the other: communication and relationship are basic. It is also real, significant and true.
  
• There is inherent diversity and unity, inescapably, as per my friend's observation.
• God's acts flow directly from who he is, with no other reference.

 Solo gods, Monist gods and Monist non-gods have none of this, and leave man's 'mannishness' ungrounded, arbitrary and finally insignificant.

What about Yahweh in the OT? Is he not a 'solo-god'? After all, he says he is one and there is no other.

 

I think not for a couple of reasons.

 

He interacts with the creation, in relationship: Genesis 3:8, for example; Genesis 1 itself hints at Trinity: God who speaks, the Word which (who?) creates, the Spirit who 'hovers'. Even if I am wrong, this doesn't seem like a 'solo-god'.

The theophanies throughout the OT suggest God in some form, often human, in his creation. Again, not triune per se, but not 'solo' in our terms here either.

What the Trinity does bring is grounding of communication, of community, of fellowship, of love, in what is basically so. Everything, including our existential questions and dilemmas is resolved, finally, in this.

So our echo of these acts of love and fellowship as beings in his image are real, and join us to him in sharing this reality. Our love is significant and not derivative: of 'nature', of material, of an arbitrary and not essential act of God. Our decisions, communications, community are real and a basic part of us. The only real questions as to our 'meaning' our significance and the moment of our communication have answers. What is life about? It is about love in fellowship with our Creator. But it is also about doing real things in the real creation which itself has substance as the field of our fellowship with God.

And our creator does not 'need' us, because he had these characteristics  prior to creation and did not need a creation to exhibit, generate or reify them.

Monists (whether impersonal spiritists, materialists or solo-god-ists) have none of this, because, everything finally is the same. There is no real connection or movement of mind. There is no final significance possible and any personal solo-god depends on the creation for realization of anything inter-personal (that is, if person-hood in this landscape is really real). Against this, our creator God is utterly independent of creation; it was made not for him, existentially, but for our Lord in which we are to enjoy him forever.

The real three-in-one God is not thus bound.

By the way, my link to Schaeffer's book, is not a blanket endorsement of the Gospel Coalition. I reject a number of points of their theology.

Another article on Schaeffer's philosophy.

 

Science and Christian faith?

Common detractions from Christian faith in relation to science is that faith prevents science.

Not so.

John Lennox has a great video on this.

In brief, because the cosmos has its source in intelligent cause: the agent being the Creator, of course, we are confident it is purposeful and efficient: in short, designed.

Thus exploration of it will bear fruit in real knowledge and we are confident to embark on exploration of anything and everything knowing that we will gain objective, true knowledge of the structure, operation and purpose of that thing.

Our faith in (natural) science arises because of our confidence in an external creator of a uniformity of natural causes in an open system (Schaeffer's term in his trilogy).

Other religions: let's be practical!

All religions are basically the same?

Bob Ackroyd at Brunsfield Evangelical Church explores the practicalities of this and I've discussed an approach a little while ago.

All religions are the same in that they all ask four basic questions:

1. How does your belief inform where you come from (the origin of man)
2. Where you are going (post death?)
3. Why you are here (existential definition)?
4. What's right, what's wrong? Why (meta-ethical epistemology)?
   

A great basis for a conversation: you listen to them, maybe they will ask you your views. See where it goes.

Two questions I would either add or substitute are:

1. Who are we? (aiming to get to Schaeffer's point about the 'mannishness' of man: i.e., in God's image)
2. Why do we suffer? (On the premise that ALL religions are about the problem of man's suffering and pain.)
   

Look out for putative resolutions of these questions that deny obvious reality, the reality of the human dilemma: man is both great and cruel, has joy and suffers, or seek the resolution in man either individually or collectively, on a 'try harder' basis, or an 'it doesn't matter' basis...and how would either help when they are within the very system that is the product and source of the dilemma!

The resolution has to come from without and has to be final: it cannot be part of an infinite regress of causes.

It cannot be contained in the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, but can only be in a system that is open to resolution from without, from not where the dilemma and its discontents arose and are hosted.

Indeed, as Schaeffer tells us: there are only two religions (and our discussion with the 'omni-religious' should have this back of mind}: paganism: the uniformity (or not) of natural causes in a closed system, and Christianity: the uniformity of natural causes in a fallen but open system: open to the creator, the eternal, self-existing, communicating person.

Beware the deist 'god'.

A recent comment on an NT Wright video on his new book The Heart of Romans:

NT talks in many lectures about us having 'platonized' our eschatology, and I guess he's on the money in some areas of church practice; I'm happy to say that I remember from my teenage years a vague belief in the new creation. I think the Apostles creed might have had a part to play in that.

 

But where we have as a church madly platonized is in the creation doctrine. When NT talked about the ease with which the deist caricature of God had headway, it occurs to me that the description of creation in Genesis 1 is from the get go the antidote to deism.

 

Tom talks about God's domain (heaven) and our domain (earth) coming together, but he seems to slip over the fact that the great initial conjunction of heaven and earth is in the creation. Not a platonic or figurative creation, but a real concrete creation. This itself underlines and honours God's creation of a material cosmos with earth in it. In fact, we seem to have an almost Gnostic fear of a concrete creation located in history in connection with our history by the work being done by the Word at a tempo marked by the days which mark our lives.

 

This is perhaps the first move of communion: God shows that he is present and active directly in the world he has made for his creature as the place of communion of they with him and in the concrete terms of the world that he made concretely for that very purpose (concrete as opposed to figurative or conceptual or idealist).

 

The glory of communion of creature and creator comes to its apogee and tragic nadir in Genesis 3:8: God seeking to join communion with his creatures in his image (and thus enabled to commune with propositional content) and finds the opportunity dashed by their rejection of the opportunity.

 

I think this approach to Genesis 1 is not fundamentalist, but the most exciting; spine tinglingly full of joy and the portent of much greater to come. It is consistent with the God who made the material creation to take joy in it and celebrate that by creating in the terms of the creation and by his direct word. Thus, while not fundamentalist, the creation should bear the marks of this creation...as against a deist 'creation' where 'god' is remote, or an evolutionary 'creation' where 'god' is merged into the creation, panentheistically and almost 'paneverytingistly' to use Schaeffer's aptly coined word.

 

Being in his image, we also create by word. Only, as material creatures we use our hands to deliver the idea we have: our word made material while God's word made flesh!

 

Thus the 'days' constitute the frame-of-reference for our concrete congress with God, and his direct (by Christ) participation in his creation. They contextualize all subsequent contact between God and man: the theophanies, the prophets, 'miracles' and the incarnation, in our world marked by a uniformity of natural causes in an **open** system, to again borrow Schaeffer's term.