Top Ten Cheers for the Bible

I read a blog post at Lady Atheist entitled, "Top Ten Grievances Against The Bible." You can read it here. I would like to respond point by point to that post with my, "Top Ten Cheers for the Bible." Here I go:1. The Bible has stood the test of time as the authority for God's people because it is remarkably accurate historically and has displayed an amazing unanimity between its authors. The transmission of the Old Testament text by the Masorites and the New Testament text by early copyists is a testament to the divine guidance of this holy book. No other ancient documents can boast such amazing success in its transmission. The copyist errors, and there are many, amount to nothing significant. 99% of them are spelling or word omission/misplacement. The Dead Sea Scrolls were a wonderful testimony to the faithful transmission of the Old Testament.

2. The Bible is remarkably consistent with itself. From cover to cover there is one message, God wants to redeem the world and the Bible displays his plan to do so. When I hear people speak of its inconsistencies and contradictions I find that they either have not studied the texts or they are projecting a bias against the text. In other words, they prefer to see contradiction rather than finding the natural harmonization. The two creation stories are only written with a different perspective in mind without being in conflict at all. the four gospels and the two genealogies of Jesus are not in conflict once you see why they were written and who the audience is that the writer is addressing.

3. The Bible's presentation of God is majestic and awe inspiring. He is worthy of worship, respect and adoration. It is wonderful to have such a God to worship and admire, because as humans we need and want such a God. A great God lifts humanity up in greatness. Sure, He's tough and at times wrathful. But, the same degree to which God hates sin and judges those who are unrepentant, he is amazingly loving, kind and forgiving. In the atonement of Christ we find both the fullness of God's wrath toward sin and his love for mankind. Both are startling.

Sure, we don't want to be on the side of His wrath. It's awful. But, we do want to partake of the amazing graciousness and kindness of God found in Christ's sacrificial death. There is nothing comparable to the love of God in Christ. Nothing!

I find that people who despise the Biblical God by citing certain texts that show his, so called "brutality," are only declaring a distorted picture of Him, because they do not see the composite picture of God that the whole Bible presents.

4. The Bible presents miracles that amazed the most skeptical people and substantiated the claims of Christ. I don't buy the argument that people in Biblical times were so steeped in superstition that we cannot trust their claims to have seen real miracles. Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke, was a physician and had a scientific mind. Just read his introduction! Of all the disciples Thomas was a hold out and doubted that Jesus was resurrected, but Jesus came to him and convinced him with evidence (I can identify with Thomas). According to Paul, 500 people claimed to have seen the risen Christ. People who were widely known to have been dead, such as Lazarus in John 11, were raised from the dead. The writers of these events, contrary to the claim that they were "superstitious," went out of there way to show that these miraculous events were substantiated by "eyewitness" observation. This is impirical evidence which is scientific, not superstitious.

Why don't we see these kind of miracles today? The best answer is that they happened at a time when it was important to establish the claims of Christ and the Apostles. Once the Bible was completed miracles disappeared. I call it a, "phasing out." The early church fathers did not claim miracles and they didn't seem to have a problem that they stopped. That's just history!

So, why weren't the miracles and resurrection of Jesus corroborated outside of the Bible? You don't find much in the secular historical record and that is a fact, as well. There might have been a lot of literature written about Jesus and the activities of the Apostles in secular writings, but they were lost to us. When Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans in 70AD all literature in the city was destroyed along with the buildings. It's a theory, but I think it's reasonable to think that a lot of "secular" literature about early Christianity went up in smoke with Jerusalem.

5. The Bible is a reliable revelation of God's will for mankind. People malign the Bible as a divinely inspired book. After all, wasn't it written by men who wrote with different motivations, ideas, and from different perspectives? So, how can it be a book from God? I simply see that God used these differences to communicate what he wanted. People wrote from their perspective, in their language, within their cultures, and with their own intentions as they understood God. However, all that they wrote was all superintended by God so that what they wrote was God's word. God's normal modus operandi in the Bible is to work though people. Why is this so unbelievable? We are not robots, but free agents who are used by God. Also, those who want to reject the Bible as a revelation of God will often speak of people in Biblical times as superstitious, psychotic, or schizophrenic to account for miracles, dreams, and voices from God. But, that is purely an argument from silence.

6. The Bible is not contradicted by science, but substantiated by science! I'm not saying it's a science book, it's not intended to provide all knowledge of all things. It's a book intended to communicate God's will, period! However, as an example, Archeologists have successfully used the Bible to find ancient cities buried under thousands of years of dirt; cities that were once thought to be mythological.

It is often pointed out that the Bible reinforces unscientific ideas, such as the Bible referring to the sun rising and setting, rather than accurately communicating that the earth revolves around the sun. True, but the Bible is often written in phenomenological language, so it speaks of nature as humans experience it; not as it is scientifically. Nothing wrong with that, we still speak and write this way in our "scientific" times.

What about evolution? The Bible speaks of man as a creation by fiat, not evolution. As a matter of fact we don't know any more about the origin of man by evolutionary process than we do about the creation by fiat - scientifically, that is! Both the evolutionist and the creationist have to take the origin of man by faith. While the scientific method has displayed the possibility of evolution within species, it has not proven the origin of man by evolution.

7. In Jesus the Bible provides a solution to the problem that we humans have always agonized over. It's in all the great literature of ancient and modern history. Because of the short life we live, the suffering we experience, and calamitous world we live in, we naturally crave a hero to rescue us from this misery. The Bible displays Jesus as a dying and rising savior who rescues us from our plight. But, it's been well established that there were a number of ancient hero gods much like Jesus of the Bible, such as Mithra. but, to me, this does not destroy my faith by proving that Jesus was a copy or just another mythical hero. On the contrary. First of all, if there is a Satan, and I believe there is, wouldn't it be reasonable to think that he would counterfeit Jesus with other similar identities? Satan is not going to try to thwart Christianity with something totally opposite, but he's smart, so he uses counterfeit tactics. Also, it might be just as reasonable to understand these saviors previous to Jesus as simply foreshadows of the real thing to come, Jesus. Furthermore, these other characters were not historical figures, as was Jesus, who is rooted in history. And furthermore, the whole Bible, from cover to cover, ties itself to Jesus the Messiah and his heroic sacrifice for mankind on the cross. There isn't any story comparable in history. In other words, I am saying that all others are either counterfeits or foreshadows of the reality in Jesus.

8. The Bible gives hope of redemption to the worst offenders. The Bible records the conversion to Christianity of a Jewish Rabbi in training, who at one time was helping to execute Christians. Then, the Bible contains more New Testament books written by this man for the good of the Church than any other person. His name was Paul. Contrary to the growing popular belief that Paul never believed in a historical Jesus, Paul met Jesus and spoke more about his historical crucifixion than any other New Testament writer! Read Paul's letters for yourself, folks. Don't suck down the disinformation being spread around the internet about Paul. It's irresponsible.

Also, in Paul's books to the Romans and Galatians we have a tour de force presentation of the great doctrine of grace, of which we would know precious little without his exposition of this doctrine in these books.

This is the kind of God that I like, a God that would forgive a repentant murderer of Christians and then make him the greatest defender and proponent of Christianity in the New Testament. Paul has become the premiere example of salvation by grace to billions of Christians. The God of the Bible loves to take worthless, degenerate, obnoxious, prideful, morally ugly people, and then bring them to a repentance that changes both them and the world around them.

9. The Bible contains perhaps the most beloved book by Christians, the Gospel of John. It is so loved because of it's clear message of Christ's nature as God and his atoning death for us on the cross. This book smashes to pieces the popular liberal orientation that Jesus was just a great moral teacher, or an apocalyptic prophet, or the messiah who came to be the king of the Jews. The Gospel of John presents Jesus as God Himself breaking in to this sin sick world to lay down his life for mankind. John's Gospel is indeed, "The Good News!"

10. The Bible provides a needed moral compass for humanity. The 10 commandments were not just for Christians or Jews, but all humanity. Without the 10 commandments and the absolute moral standards communicated in the Bible we would be living in a sea of anarchy driven by what ever conflicting standards people choose to live by. The Bible's ethics, despite what atheists claim, is the basis for our modern jurisprudence.

In the last several years atheists against Christianity have been loudly charging that the God of the Bible is a brutal and capricious ogre. It seems to have become part of the Atheist's Gospel. It is claimed that He orders the executions of men, women and children, sanctions child sacrifice, and is blood thirsty. I almost have to keep from laughing when I hear of these charges, because these charges are caricatures of God, like one of those twisted cartoon sketches comedic artists draw of us at the fair. All of our features are distorted to make us look exaggerated. That's what is being done with God in this case.

God never sanctioned or condoned child sacrifice. The story of Jephtha supposedly sacrificing his daughter, recorded in Judges, is misunderstood. God explicitly commanded His people not to practice such sacrifices. In context there are other explanations of what happened. As for the "blood thisty" charge against God, I think it's misunderstood. It's not the blood itself that is important, but that the blood represents life. Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for us, not his blood. Christians were never told to drink blood. The drinking of the blood of Jesus was symbolic and never to be taken literally. I guess one has to appreciate figurative language to understand this. As for the killing of the men, women and children in the book of Joshua, it was in fact commanded by God. How's that for not beating around the bush? But, just to put things in perspective let me add two things: 1) God was purging evil from the land to make way for God's people who were to be holy. They were to be a light of holiness and goodness and well being to the nations around them. Once in the land they were called upon by God to care for those around them by taking in and helping the "strangers" in the land, not killing all of them off but welcoming them. 2) The greater truth in this story is that every one of us ought to be condemned and snuffed out just like the Amalakites. The only reason God hasn't plowed all of us under is that he is gracious and long suffering with us. We ought to be glad we have any kind of peace, love and happiness in our lives, for by his standards we don't deserve it. We can either be angry at God for doing such a "brutal thing," or we can stand in awe of his justice and be amazed that he is so gracious with us to provide a path of acceptance and forgiveness.

I can go on and on with each of these top 10 cheers for the Bible, but I would rather answer questions or handle criticisms if you have any.

The Continuing Debate on the Historicity of the Gospels: “Why Four Gospels? The Historical Origins of the Gospels”, by David Alan Black

Since I have been reading some of the latest literature on the historicity of the Gospels I thought I would ask my good friend, Bob Krupp, if he would weigh in on the controversy. I have known Bob as a Seminary professor and I turned to him as an expert in the field of the early church Fathers. I have been reading so much criticism of the Fathers as a source for the historicity of the Gospels, that I requested of Bob to write a book defending them. Bob wrote back to me and said that the book he would have written has already been written and of course he advised that I should read the book. Coming from a man of Bob’s caliber I immediately Amazoned the book and read it the day it arrived. Here are my thoughts on, “Why Four Gospels? The Historical Origins of the Gospels”.

As I began reading the book I understood Bob’s high regard for Black’s work. Black’s theory of the reliability of the Gospels depends entirely on the explanation of the early Church Fathers, such as: Papias of Hierapolis (60-130), Justin (100-165), Irenaeus (130-200), Clement of Alexandria (150-215), Tertullian (160-225), Origen (185-254), Eusebius (260-340), and others. Black lists all the fathers and their statements about the gospels in order to display the weight of Patristic evidence. These Fathers and others of the Ancient Church not only attest to the authority and reliability of the Four Gospels, but provide the historical process of their transmission. But, Black is not promoting his own theory; rather he is seeking to document in writing the theory presented by his colleague and friend, Bernard Orchard of The Gospel Research Institute in London. His theory is called, “The Fourfold-Gospel Hypothesis”, which according to these men was the ancient Church’s view of the Gospels. Thus, they simply see themselves as recovering what the Church Fathers taught. The title of the Hypothesis is based on the language of Ireneus, which tells you something about Orchard’s desire to stay close to the early fathers as “The” authorities on the Gospels.

The Fourfold-Gospel Hypothesis states that Matthew wrote the first gospel for the original church in Jerusalem, Luke was later commissioned by Paul to support his missionary efforts among the Gentiles, Mark was then written as a dictation of Peter’s lectures given to a Roman audience for the purpose of substantiating Matthew and Luke, and then last John was written to fill in missing information in the previous three Gospels and add critical theological features of Jesus. This is a very different scenario than what is painted by Ehrman and his Historical Critical approach to the Gospels. Ehrman and the critical scholars have adopted the 18th century Enlightenment theory that Mark was written first, then Matthew and Luke were written, but depended on Mark and a now lost source known as “Q”. “Q” would be the source information not contained in Mark. This theory is often called the, “Markan Priority”. Orchard and Black offer another explanation for the formation of Mark, which follows the accounts given by Clement of Alexandria. Mark is seen as a “bridge” gospel between Matthew and Luke. Clement says that Peter gave a series of lectures to a Roman audience which was then written down at the request of the Romans who were in attendance. Peter's assistant, Mark, wrote down the lectures, which became the Gospel of Mark. Orchard and Black have concluded that Peter used the scrolls of Matthew and Luke for his lecture material (to support Matthew and Luke as authentic gospels), but also including his own eyewitness experience (material include in Mark, but not Matthew and Luke). To Orchard and Black, this makes more sense than hypothesizing about a mysterious “Q” document that filled in the blanks between Mark and the other Gospels. Besides, with the historical documents provided by the Fathers, Black has the advantage over the Historical Critical approach by the fact that there has never been another source for the Gospels discovered, nor has another source been referred to anywhere in the history of the early church.

The key to accepting the Four-Fold Gospel Hypothesis is, of course, the acceptance of the church fathers as an accurate source of information about the historicity of the Gospels. So, Black spends more than 10% of the book cogently defending the Fathers as reliable sources of information. One of the most ironic facts Black uses to support the reliabililty of the Fathers is the current scholarship on Greek and Roman ancient history. These scholars, unlike the Historical Critical scholars of the Gospels, see the Church Fathers as completely reliable. Also, one of the interesting charges that Ehrman levels against the Fathers in his book, “Jesus Interrupted” is that the Gospels were anonymously written and only later was the authorship ascribed to the Gospels. This was done in order to give them apostolic authority to ward off other heretical writings. Black agrees that it wasn’t until the debates over heresy began in the middle of the second century that we find written attestation by the fathers that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the authors, but he argues that apostolic authorship was never an issue. Authorship wasn’t officially affirmed in writing until the heresy debates began.

From a literary perspective, the book’s 90 pages are very readable and easily read in one evening. It is written as a summary of the Four-Fold Gospel Hypothesis and is not written for the scholar. So, in this sense it is a very good comparison read with Ehrman’s “Jesus Interrupted”, which is also not a scholarly presentation. One difference, however, is that Ehrman is broader in his scope and seeks to deal with a lot of other controversies beside the transmission of the Gospels. For instance, Black does not deal with any of the conflicts between the gospels, where Ehrman does. Black’s book will keep you focused on one issue, the reliable transmission of the Gospels. You'll have to get the conflicts answered in another book.

As I was reading Ehrman’s, “Jesus Interrupted” I felt strongly that this was a dangerous book for an uninformed reader. Ehrman presents his “Historical Critical” case that the Gospels are largely legendary without any question or debate. In fact, Ehrman even told the story in his book that when he lectures in churches about his Historical Critical Gospel theory people are often shaken in their faith and wonder why they have never heard of this view of the Gospels before. Well, he never suggests that his view is controversial and unorthodox! He simply asserts that the Historical Critical approach, that led him to distrust the Gospels, is unquestionable fact and accepted by the Biblical scholarship at large. It is very intimidating. However, when you read authors such as Bauckham and Black you find a very different and compelling approach in support of the historicity of the Gospels. This book read in conjunction with Bauckham’s, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” provides a very persuasive argument that the Gospels are real history. I like being fair and the stakes for truth are high, so I would recommend reading Ehrman and Black "before" making any conclusions.

Are The Gospels Historically Reliable? A Review of Bart Ehrman’s, "Jesus, Interrupted", and Richard Bauckham’s, "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses"

These are two of the latest and most compelling books written on the subject of the historicity of the Gospels. Bauckham’s book came out in 2006 and Ehrman’s in 2009. The books are written in very different styles and with different purposes. Ehrman’s book was written on a more popular level, while Bauckham’s book is written in the style of a doctoral dissertation. Reading Bauckham is like being served a meal, but he first takes you in to the kitchen to show you the recipes and process of how the meal is cooked. Ehrman’s book is the meal without the explanations. So, Bauckham is a more thorough, but complicated read. I felt like I had to plow through Bauckham to get to the interesting insights, because he spends so much time taking you to his sources and building his case. Ehrman was more enjoyable to read. You don’t have to know arguments A, B, and C in order to understand argument D, as you do with Bauckham. But, Bauckham is covering new ground with his ideas, so he does the right thing as a scholar to provide careful reasoning and support. Ehrman is no less scholarly than Bauckham, but Ehrman is writing to the masses who do not know about the controversy over the historicity of the Gospels. Part of his stated purpose is to expose the masses of church going Christians to the 200 year old system of Historical Criticism, which views the gospels as non-historical. He claims that the reason most Christians don’t know about this method of doing history is because scholars have not communicated it on a level that people can understand. He also blames it on seminary trained students who have not properly taught their congregations that the Gospels are unreliable historically. But, he never concludes that maybe these students do not agree with the Historical Critical Method. Rather, he attributes the confusion to the pastoral interest to see the Gospels as devotional rather than historical.

Ehrman’s thesis is that the gospels were written by unknown authors far removed from the actual events, who wrote in different places with differing agendas. This is why the gospels are full of discrepancies and therefore cannot be trusted to give us the real history of Jesus. Bauckham’s thesis is that the gospels were biographical accounts of Jesus’ life written within the living memory of the eyewitnesses and that the eyewitness testimony of the disciples was the basis for the written Gospels. Therefore, the Gospels can be trusted to give us the real history of Jesus. Here are several reasons Bauckham and Ehrman are diametrically opposed to each other:

First, and most foundational, they have differing theories of how we should "do" historical analysis of the Gospels. Ehrman explains that the Historical Critical method requires a skeptical and disinterested analysis of the text of the Bible, as well as comparing the texts with other related documents of the period. By “disinterested” he means you cannot have a theological or personal interest in the outcome of the study of the text. You want to let the text speak for itself without any bias, so that you can let the chips fall where they may. For instance, you cannot bring with you to the study of the Gospels the assumption that God inspired the text of the Gospels. That would be a theological interest that would keep a scholar from getting to the real history behind the text. Bauckham appears to be a textual critic, but unlike Ehrman he is not skeptical of the gospels as real history. His study leads him to the conclusion that ancient historians at the time of Christ had a very high view of historical accuracy because of their trust in eyewitness testimony. Bauckham’s theory of historical knowledge is based on what the ancient historians thought about history, whereas Ehrman’s theory applies a modernist skeptical understanding of history.

Second, Ehrman and Bauckham have conflicting views of how the history of Jesus was transmitted and then written down as the Gospels. Ehrman sees the transmission of the eyewitness testimonies as “oral tradition”. That is, the witnesses testified originally to one or more people and then the story was retold to the next person or group and so on down the line. Finally, after countless transmissions of the stories the gospels were written down as fragments with the gospels as the final product. The fragments were the basis for the synoptic gospels, written between 35 and 65 years after Jesus died. He compares the impossibility of trusting this kind of historical transmission with the well known example of the telephone game. A story is told to one person, then that person tells the story to the next person, so that by the time it passes through several people it is a different story. (pg. 147). Bauckham sees Ehrman’s theory as outdated and wrong headed, based on how the Ancients actually “did” their history. To him, the Historical Critical method of Ehrman does not take the Ancients seriously. Actually, Bauckham’s whole book is a refutation of the kind of historical theory that Ehrman espouses. I think this is what makes the comparison reading of these two books interesting. Bauckham makes the case that the Ancients were very distrustful of any historical accounts that were not rooted in eyewitness testimony and which were not written during the “living witness” of the person who witnessed the events. In other words, the gospel writers wrote down what was testified to them by the actual witnesses, or by trusted elders of the Christian Community who carefully preserved the testimony of the witnesses. The discrepancies or contradictions can be accounted for by the nature of the gospel literature as biographies and the various perspectives from which the witnesses saw the events unfold. Bauckham never deals with the actual discrepancies, as Ehrman does, but that is not his purpose. However, it is clear from the development of this theory that he would not see them as irreconcilable.

Third, Ehrman and Bauckham have a very different understanding of the reliability of eyewitness accounts. Basic to Bauckham’s theory is the reliability of testimonial evidence. He builds a case for accepting testimonial evidence as a valid means of gaining historically accurate information. He claims that it is as valid epistemologically as inference, perception and memory. He acknowledges that it requires trust and cross examination, but we can ultimately rely on it. After all, this is how the Ancients understood the recording of history; they would have been careful. Furthermore, Bauckham has a persuasive chapter on “Eyewitness Memory” where he develops his theory that eyewitness recollection, as in the case of the gospels, is highly reliable as a source of history. He builds his case upon memory studies and theory. Ehrman completely overlooks this kind of possibility and dismisses the eyewitness concept of history within the space of one paragraph, essentially “declaring” eyewitness testimony unreliable (page. 103). Bauckham builds a case that demonstrates the gospels to be eyewitness accounts that were embraced by the leadership and community of the earliest churches. The stories were kept faithfully in tact, according to Bauckham. He bases much of his support for this upon Papias, an early church historian. Papias’ writings do not survive, but fragments of his writings are recorded within the writings of others contemporary to him. Papias was a second generation believer who claimed to know “the elders” who had known the original disciples. Papias provides a history that supports the authorship of the gospels by Mark and Matthew based on the eyewitness testimony of the disciples. For instance, he claimed that Peter’s testimony was the basis for Mark’s gospel. Ehrman addresses the Papias question, but dismisses Papias as unreliable and therefore untrustworthy.

I must say that I found myself appreciative of Ehrman’s clear and fair presentation of the problems with the gospels. He showed a number of apparent contradictions between the Gospels that I think every thinking student of the Bible must deal with. However, I came away distrustful of Ehrman’s conclusions. He often makes the claim that the Bible is “full” of contradictions, which renders them untrustworthy. His chapter titles are very suggestive of this kind of “all-or-nothing” conclusion, “A World of Contradictions”, “A Mass of Variant Views”. He leaves no room for discussion about whether or not the discrepancies in the gospel texts can be reconciled. He does not present any opposing arguments. He simply states that the discrepancies are impossible to reconcile. But, what about Bauckham’s theory of the Ancient concept of doing history? Ehrman does not even address this theory, which appears to be a very valid approach. For all the claims that the Historical Critical Scholars make about being “historical” in their scholarship, I don’t see Ehrman addressing Bauckham’s historical approach to history. Perhaps he dismisses it as non-sense and unworthy of consideration?

Ehrman concludes the book with his understanding of who the “real” Jesus of history is. But, if we cannot trust the gospels to give us the “real” history, as Ehrman argues, then what is his source? As with all such historical critics Ehrman is left with a “pick-and-choose” approach to the Gospels for the discovery of the historical Jesus. A major criticism of those who utilize the Historical Critical Method to find the real historical Jesus is that the Historian creates his own Jesus. If you read those who follow Ehrman’s historical methodology you get a different picture of Jesus from each historian. There is the Jesus of John Dominic Crossan, who sees Jesus as, “The Wise Sage”. There is Marcus Borg’s Jesus, who he sees as, “The Man of the Spirit”. There is Bart Ehrman’s Jesus, who he presents in this book as, “The Apocalyptic Prophet”. And so on…. Of course, this is understandable if the gospels are not completely historical. You have to cherry pick what you think is true and what is not. But, how is this more trustworthy than accepting an eyewitness testimony in the Gospels as historical? I think a follower of Bauckham’s theory would be able to see a much more objective picture of who Jesus was, because the sources are the four historically trustworthy gospels. Every scholar is on the same playing field when defining the historical Jesus and so you get a more unified picture of him.

My own view is that I’ll stick with the Apostle Peter’s presentation of the historical Jesus, who said, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. II Peter 1:16

Spin Doctor Atheism

I've been going over to Debunking Christianity to mix it up with the Atheists for quite a while now. I think they might be fed up with me, so I haven't been replying to any posts for a couple of days. However, the blog director and chief atheist, John W. Loftus, just posted an interesting article from Dr. Douglas Groothius, professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary. He has a new book coming out defending Christianity against the attacks of the New Atheists and he posted on his web site a primer of the book. Mr. Loftus put Groothius' primer up on his site so that his atheist friends could throw rocks at it. You can read Groothius' post at DC and the atheist responses to it here: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/03/guest-post-by-dr-douglas-groothuis.html

When I started reading posts over at Debunking Christianity I noticed that the posts and comments were a lot of straw man arguments about God, Christians, and the Bible, etc. At first I tried to keep my mouth shut and be agreeable to show some understanding with sympathetic comments. However, after a while I felt like they were getting away with bullying Christianity, so I simply tried when and where I could to show them some of their false and exaggerated arguments. For instance, one of their favorite straw man arguments is to describe the Biblical God as blood thirsty, capricious and very angry. "Who would want to believe it that God?" is their point. Another one is the false comparison between the Christian Faith and belief in "imaginary friends" and "spaghetti monsters". "Jesus is just a figment of our imagination", is this point. But, to support this claim they have to make up a "belief" that Jesus was just a mythical figure. Of course, they are completely outside of mainstream scholarship when spouting that belief. Yet, it is finding remarkable popularity today. Another common atheist straw man is depicting the historic Christian Church as wicked, hypocritical and genocidal. "See, religion breeds evil people, not good people," is the point here. They don't ever, and I mean ever, cite one example of the benefits Christianity has brought to the world since Christ was born. I just thought it was not fair to let these exaggerations go unchecked. If they are going to make a stand against Christianity they ought to at least use arguments that are meaningful, instead of these spin doctor tactics.

When I read the synopsis by Groothius at DC I almost started shouting at my computer, YES! Finally, a scholar with more refinement and more verve than I could muster has been posted at DC addressing many of the same things I have been trying to say. But, then when I read the comments by the atheists I saw the same old false criticisms. No change! I wonder if the explanation for the problem has to do with what Paul said in Romans 1:18-23, where he describes the unbeliever as comitted to supressing the truth of God. What do you think?

Test Your Faith with the Outsider Test of Faith

Recently, I read a book entitled, “Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity”, by John W. Loftus. It’s a book designed to convince the Christian that Christianity is a fairy tale myth that is essentially no different than belief in, what Richard Dawkins calls, “Flying Spaghetti Monsters”. I must admit that Mr. Loftus’ book is a thorough and comprehensive critical look at Christianity. It’s better than the books by the Atheist Four Horseman, because he deals with what Christians actually believe, having been one himself. It’s hard core and will force you to justify your belief system.

Loftus has a chapter in the book that calls upon the Christian to test his own faith as if he were a dispassionate outsider looking at the claims of Christianity. He calls it the “Outsider Test of Faith”, or OTF. He is convinced that if the Christian will remove his God biased spectacles and adopt a position of skepticism the Christian will find his faith to be absurd. The Christian, he says, looks at faith claims from other religions as weird, stupid or even silly, such as: Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, or Mormonism. But, Loftus surmises, what if the Christian will but turn his critical eye to his own faith? He suggests that when he does he will find the same absurd and irrational claims in his own belief system that he finds in others. As a result, once he sees that his Christian Faith is absurd and irrational he must abandon it. This reminds me of what Mythologist Joseph Campbell once said while reflecting on aspects of Hinduism, “every religion has its absurdities”.

To help explain how to take the “Outsider Test of Faith” he uses the analogy of the prince in the Cinderella story who must question 45 people to find the girl with the glass slipper at the ball last night. The prince wants the “real” girl so he takes the search for her as seriously as a CSI investigator. This is how we should examine our own faith system, he suggests. After all, don’t we want what is “real”? He understands that presuppositions are next to impossible to shed when one examines his own faith, so Mr. Loftus suggests taking stringent measures such as: 1) Consciously remove all of your controlling beliefs and adopt skepticism as your controlling assumption. 2) Read books critical of Christianity to help you think critically, such as his own book. 3) Examine how you adopted your faith to determine if your faith was derived from social conditioning or rational choice (His assumption is that you will find that religion is merely an accident of geography and thus social conditioning. You are supposed to see that this is irrational and therefore unworthy of acceptance).

Mr. Loftus is convinced that if you will take this test you will find Christianity to be “silly”. He told me so himself on his internet forum, “Debunking Christianity.” I wrote to him and others on that forum that I took the test and I am still a Christian. I am an OTF graduate and I still believe that Christianity is a coherent, rational, and existentially satisfying religion. So, he wrote back to me and suggested that I probably did not properly understand the test if I am still a Christian! Well, I just reread the OTF chapter from his book, again. I don’t know what else I can do to convince him that I did understand the OTF and I did take the test using his “draconian measures”. In fact, I have been taking that darn test over and over for many years. Why, because I happen to be naturally skeptical and a natural doubting Thomas, like most people. Actually, I think some form of the OTF is taken by most Christians. At least the one’s I know. But you see, after taking the OTF every time, I come to the following conclusions: Christianity is unique among world religions in its historically accounted for resurrection of a savior, Christianity is a distinctively superior world view among other great religions, and Christianity has a compelling and incomparable gospel message among other world religions. Now, what about absurdities? I agree with Joseph Campbell that all religions have their absurdities, even Christianity. However, in Christianity I see the absurdities as “apparent” and not logical. Take for instance the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union of Jesus. These do seem absurd and incomprehensible. But, they are not illogical or irrational, however absurd they might be.

My conclusion: I encourage every Christian to take the “Outsider Test of Faith”. John W. Loftus wants you to take it because he is convinced that you will lose your faith, so that you can become enlightened like him. But, I say you might strengthen your faith if you take it and become more convinced that Christianity is true. Go for it, Christian! By the way, Loftus says on page 71, “If after having investigated your religious faith with the presumption of skepticism it passes intellectual muster, then you can have your religious faith. It’s that simple.” Thanks for your permission, Mr. Loftus. I’ll do just that!

Watch Out! The Four Horsemen Are Here!

Did you know that the Four Horsemen have been galloping through our nation for the past several years? That’s right, only these aren’t the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who sweep the world to destroy the ungodly. On the contrary, these horsemen are out to destroy faith in God. I refer to the four popular atheist authors that have come to be known as the Four Horsemen: Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Each has written popular books with the purpose of eradicating from the world the dangerous influence of faith in God. They found an ear in our society, due in part to the public disgust of Militant Islam and the Religious Right. The former brought terrorism to our country on 9/11 and the latter displayed intolerant hyposcrisy during the Bush years. A lot of people think that God is ready to be kicked out of society and the Four Horsemen are just the tool to make it happen. I have read their books, listened to their debates, and heard them interviewed. Their arguments are cogent and passionate. They can intimidate you with their intellectual authority. Their books offer powerful ammunition for those looking for reasons not to believe. And, for nominal Christians and Christians who don’t know Biblical theology these books can cut your faith to pieces. After digesting these books and their arguments, I want to offer a few observations:

First, these guys just don’t know the Bible in it’s historical, grammatical, cultural and theological context. Dawkins is a biologist. Harris is a philosopher. Hitchens is a satirical writer. And Dennet is a philosopher. None of these guys have a background in Biblical scholarship. And, it shows in their work. So, their picture of God is so characaturized that they wind up arguing against a god that does not exist. They build their own misinterpreted picture of what the God of the Bible is like and how he relates to the world and then they attack that picture. Well, in logical parlance, this is called a Straw Man argument. Sure, if God was all that they describe him to be, then who would want to believe in him?

Second, it is a fact that evidence cannot establish the existence of God. There either is not enough evidence, or there is only a preponderance of evidence. As Christians we accept this and understand that faith is required to believe in God, not evidence. If evidence were enough to establish the existence of God, then faith would not be necessary. The Bible is clear on this point. However, what the Atheists don’t tell you is that faith is also required of their position. A case in point is the question of origins: The origin of man, The origin of the universe, The origin of matter, The origin of logic and self-awareness. They are evident, but where did they come from? Even evolution cannot establish origins. The Atheist does not know where it all came from and all he can do is theorize without evidence, just like the believer. We are ultimately in the same boat!

Third, logic and reason are often used to persuade one from belief in God as though logic is on the side of Atheism. However, I have seen debate after debate where logic and reason are used to establish the veracity of “each” side of the argument. Logic and reason are just like facts, they can be used to support any hypothesis. The believer says, “God exists and here is why…” He then gives you his logical reasoning. The atheist says, “Here is why I don’t believe that God exists…” He then gives you his reasoned case for not believing in God. The formal debates that I have seen often come down to who best uses logic and reasoning skills, not which view is the truth.

There is a lot more to be said in defense of the existence of the Christian God. I just list a few things to keep in mind. If you are going to read these books, do not put your “faith” in the Four Horsemen. Come with skepticism to their assertion that God does not exist, just as they come with skepticism about God’s existence.