The New Inklings discussion group is meeting for the second time in history. All are welcome for food, drink (both BYO) and discussion.
So – our next meeting is…
When: 5 pm, Tuesday 30 April 2013
Where: Trax Bar and Cafe, Platform 1, Wellington Railway Station
Topic: Part One of Jonathan Edwards’ book, Freedom of the Will – Read it before arriving
See you there!
Are you going to the 2013 Unbelievable conference in London?
Unbelievable? The Conference 2013 – Jesus: liar, lunatic, legend… or Lord?
Saturday 25 May, 9.30am – 5.30pm, The Brewery, Chiswell Street, London, EC1Y 4SD
“Now in its third year, Unbelievable? The Conference is the leading UK event for apologetics and evangelism. Ordinary Christians (yes you!) will learn how to share their faith effectively. We’ll also be marking 50 years of CS Lewis’ remarkable legacy as well as how to engage with today’s ethical and scientific issues in a variety of seminars featuring expert speakers.”
Speakers: Alister McGrath, Amy Orr Ewing, Peter S Williams, Fuz Rana, Dr Trevor Stammers, Kurt Jaros
Every booking of 2 or more tickets will receive a free copy of Unbelievable? The Conference 2012 triple DVD worth £20.
Book in at http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable2013
Busy times are ahead!
No sooner has the blog awakened in 2013 than here I am explaining why things may be quiet over the next month. The reasons are all good this time. In late April I’ll be heading north for a number of speaking engagements. Let’s call it a speaking tour, that sounds impressive. All plans are tentative and may be re-arranged at this stage, but they will definitely be approximately like this:
From there it’s off to Tauranga for a “details to be confirmed” talk on Saturday.
All of this means that my writing attention is focused on getting these talks ready – but on the plus side for readers and listeners, it means that at least some of these talks will become podcast episodes in the fairly near future. if you’re interested in attending the Thinking Matters talks, head on over to their Facebook page and say hi!
Remember, if you’d like me to come and speak to a group of people where you are, have a look at the speaking page and drop me a line.
Glenn Peoples
This probably won’t shock any of my readers, but I do not support Louisa Wall’s proposed amendment to the Marriage Act, which will make legally recognised same-sex marriage a reality in New Zealand.
The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill recently passed its second reading in Parliament, and our ever-eager-to-say-they-made-a-difference politicians will almost certainly vote it into law this year. The new legislation would see the definition of marriage used by the Marriage Act 1955 expanded to include unions of two people of the same sex. Existing prohibitions would remain in place (e.g. close relatives still will not be able to marry), and the definition of marriage will not be broadened to include unions of more than two people.
Book Review: J. Warner Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2013)
Wallace starts out with some general observations about how to reach evidence-based hypotheses. This is not at all presented as a densely worded, technical or scientific set of explanations. Instead, based on the kind of situations Wallace has encountered numerous times as a detective, he takes these situations as a springboard into a very user-friendly discussion of how we can take the facts that we encounter at face value and use them to reason to an explanatory hypothesis (in much the same way that a homicide detective uses the available facts to reason towards a hypothesis about whodunit). After discussing the way to approach any such explanation, Wallace then picks the “cold-case” at the centre of the Christian faith – the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Social equality matters. But does it matter how we go about getting it? Surely it does.
There are two ways to think about equality. The way that I find most interesting is not the one I’m talking about here. I’m most interested in what I call basic equality. That’s the idea that we are all each other’s equal. We’re all equally deserving of a basic level of respect, we all have the same starting point when it comes to our inherent value and there’s therefore something true to the claim that we have a duty to treat each other as having a fundamental dignity as human beings. I think that’s a correct idea. I also think it’s a fascinating idea because it’s tenaciously held by many proponents of political liberalism who reject the theological foundations of basic equality, as I discussed in episode 8, “Secularism and Equality.” I don’t think they can have it both ways.
But that’s not the kind of equality that I’m talking about now. Here I’m talking about equality as an outcome at which we aim, the results of personal practices as well as social policies. To aim at equality in this sense is not, of course to make everyone just the same (surely nobody wants that), but it is to try to aim at creating a society where everyone can thrive and there’s no gross disparity in people’s lot in life. Sure, some people will be rich and others not so much. But to have general social equality, there won’t be CEOs with weekly incomes that amount to a full year’s wages for someone who works back-breakingly hard for forty hours a week (to pick an obvious example). There won’t be people who can afford every luxury that life can possibly offer, while others who genuinely work to earn a living and provide for their families must live in continual anxiety about whether or not they can meet costs of the basic necessities of life.
When possible, don’t wait until something goes terribly, tragically wrong until you decide what you think about it.
I had been planning on letting some of the hoopla about gun control in light of the most recent awful school shooting die down a little before I made this brief comment, lest it get lumped in with the arguments about gun control itself (which this post is certainly not about). But evidently those heated discussions aren’t going anywhere in a hurry, so I’ve resigned myself to saying this with all the other conversations still happening. This is more of an observation/rant/vent than most of my comments tend to be.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder of children and staff at Sandy Hook elementary school at the hands of a gunman (whose name we do not need to repeat – more on that another time perhaps), as you would expect, social media was abuzz with conversations about it, and about the issue of legal access to firearms. I’ve got views on that, but those views don’t matter just now. Among some of the comments I was seeing were comments from people who seemed shocked – not just by the fact that such a terrible act had been carried out (which is perfectly understandable), but by the fact that such a scenario was even possible. Now, I know that of course they realised that it was theoretically possible for someone to commit mass murder. But they reacted as though they had never paused to think that people could do this with guns, and as though the possibility of these actions had never before factored into their ethical thinking about gun control.
A version of this review was first posted at Rethinking Hell, a collaborative project that I contribute to. Check it out, it’s worth your time. Trust me.
I know of two movies going by the name Hellbound. One, as I’m sure everyone knows (right?), is Clive Barker’s horror classic, part two in the Hellraiser series. The other is a new documentary called Hellbound by Kevin Miller. I almost said “a new documentary called Hellbound by Kevin Miller, in which he explores the doctrine of hell,” because that, or so I think, is the way Kevin wants the public to see the movie. But having watched the movie carefully, I don’t think I would naturally describe it that way. The issue of hell, its biblical basis, its historical development, its critics and the evidence they cite – none of these things are really broached in what I would call much depth. While I genuinely appreciated aspects of what Kevin is trying to say, I came away with real reservations about a good deal of what was presented here – and certainly about the way that it was presented.
Why is it that so many of the attacks on the Christian faith that I see in opinion pieces and blogs contain so much that I don’t recognise as anything resembling my faith – in spite of me being a Christian? Bear with me as I offer some thoughts on why I think so many criticisms of Christianity – along with so many versions of Christianity – miss the mark.
Consider this list:
God (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) exists
God is uniquely revealed to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead
By having a relationship with God though Jesus, who is God’s own son, we can have eternal life, and know and enjoy God forever
God is the ultimate basis of objective moral facts
People to whom God revealed himself one way or another wrote the Bible, which on the whole presents a reliable picture of who God is
When I talk about believing in Jesus “as a matter of faith,” that’s my way of saying that it’s not about having good grounds for belief, or accepting evidence for the truth of those beliefs.
A big part of my conviction that Christianity is true arose (and maybe is still sustained) by powerful, moving religious experiences that I attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit.
In addition to my faith that I will have eternal life eventually, I trust that God will always “look after” me in this life because I am his child, and he has a wonderful plan for my life that will make me happy and fulfilled.
When I pray, or even better, if I can get a lot of people to pray, and even better, if I can get them to pray really hard, God is more likely to give me what I ask for.
It’s really important to me that my understanding of the origin of the universe or the precision with which the biblical writers recorded all the events that they record is correct, otherwise the way that I think about my whole worldview could be mistaken.
It’s important to me that I know and can explain why X exists (where X is some feature of the universe, whether something in biology intersecting with the question of design, or X is the existence of suffering, or the existence of widespread ignorance or disbelief in my God). Otherwise, there’s a serious hole in my view of God.
That’s a list of eleven claims. If you believed them all, and called that whole list “Christianity,” and then at some point you came to doubt the validity of the last six of these claims, then you’ve come to doubt most of what you consider Christianity to be about. If you find yourself in that position, where one after another of your cherished beliefs have fallen to criticism that you couldn’t address, you might well start to think that the whole thing is a house of cards and give it up entirely. You shouldn’t, but you can perhaps see why somebody might think that. Imagine that you had eleven cards face down on the table in front of you and you previously thought that they were all aces. Your friend sits down opposite you and tells you that they’re not aces, so you decide to prove him wrong. One at a time, you start turning the cards over: Not an ace. Not an ace. Not an ace. Not an ace. Not an ace. Not an ace. That’s six in a row! Stop, you’re just embarrassing yourself. These cards aren’t aces after all. Now imagine that each card represents what is, in your view, an essential element of your Christian faith. Six in a row – all false. You can see why some might be tempted to quit at that point.
A while ago I mentioned that I was speaking on an Episode of Elephant TV on the subject of Christian views on War and Peace.
Elephant TV is a very professional production consisting of episodes where Christians holding different perspectives on a range of hot topics get a chance to briefly set out their position, giving the wider Christian public (and any interested onlookers) a chance to hear the issues set out, hopefully prompting them to explore further on their own. Pat Brittenden and the crew have advised me that the episode I took part in is now available over at the Elephant TV site.
It’s not free but it’s cheap, and it’s a project worth supporting, so if you’re at all interested, check it out. It’s the kind of thing that would make a great viewing session for a group, followed by your discussion and drinks. 🙂
Glenn Peoples
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