Minimalist Christianity is not only tactically and pastorally wise as well as charitable, but it’s also biblical.
Now for me to sell this claim, which may take a bit more work! I’m not sure how to categorise what follows. It’s not (really) theology. It’s not philosophy either. Maybe it’s somewhat “pastoral” in nature (but I’m no pastor). Take it as advice (and as advice that happens to be true, I might add).
Way back in 2003 I signed up to Theologyweb, a theology discussion forum – the best Theology Discussion forum anywhere on the web, in my humble opinion. One of the site owners is my friend Dee Dee Warren, who also runs the Preterist Podcast.
There have been a couple of relatively small “conferences” of Theologyweb geeks over the years. However, in conjunction with Perissos (run by my friend Lynn Erhorn), Theologyweb is looking at holding a large theology conference in Jacksonville, Florida. Here’s what Dee Dee had to say about it (I copied this from the Preterist Podcast)
For those who are interested, Justin Duckworth has been elected as the Anglican Bishop for the Wellington Diocese (I’m moving to Wellington).
I’m sick and tired of the way that extremist conservative claims about history – such as that Abraham Lincoln actually existed – are taken seriously, but serious, well-thought-out, well evidenced and reasonable claims – like the claim that Richard Carrier does not exist – are demonised. This is manifestly unfair. As Tim McGrew has recently shown, pure Bayesian probability gives us excellent reasons to doubt this strong claim:
I’m heading for the seat of power! In a manner of speaking, anyway. In a couple of weeks I’m getting on a plane, becoming a North Island dweller once more and moving up to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. I’m going to be working on a project for my employer (I won’t bore you with the details of that here).
Ruth and the kids aren’t coming with me. We didn’t want to move the family – not initially at least, because of the potentially temporary nature of the work and because we’re really not sure how long it will last, but it’s going to last a while – at least until late this year (maybe October or later). There’s even a chance it may be extended further – perhaps until sometime next year, but we don’t know anything that far in advance yet. If we reach the end of the school year here in Dunedin and the role is extended, then it’s likely we’ll all move up to Wellington and begin a new era in our family’s history. As far as my (non-academic) career is concerned, Wellington will be a good thing and may lead to great opportunities in the future.
So from May the 14th I will be living like a monk for a while! Actually that’s not quite true, I will be back every now and then. My employer will be flying me back to Dunedin once a month, and we’ll be trying to live frugally so that I can afford to fly back once a month in addition to this (flights still aren’t nearly as cheap as I’d like them to be, and although I’ll be doing different work, as it’s a secondment my official job description and salary doesn’t change), so twice a month (or at least thrice every two months, depending on what we can manage) I’ll have my family back. I’ll have a phone-and-Skype marriage for the rest of the time! While the move as a whole will be worthwhile and even a little exciting, this is that part that will undoubtedly be hardest.
But while I’m in Wellington I’ll be living like a monk. I’ll be focused on a few things: Work (of course), writing (so the blog output might actually increase while I’m away – I won’t be able to take many books up, so when I can I’ll invest a tablet), and working out (I’ll be going to the gym as much as I can). Wellington is a University city (although not as much so as Dunedin), so I’ll also be on the lookout for opportunities to speak to student groups, but I really don’t know what the “scene” is like up there.
Do I have any readers/listeners in Wellington? If so, drop me a line!
Glenn Peoples
What should we make of the often heard reference to “religious terrorism,” coupled with the innuendo that religion is a uniquely dangerous influence when it comes to just how far people will go in the name of their God, even to the point of outright terrorism?
Imagine for a moment that you are a student at Dortmund University in Germany (highlighted on the map to the left). You chose to go there, let’s assume, because of the climate – both academic and geographical. Then imagine one day you woke up in Austria. You’ve moved! You’ve gone from one place to another. You’re no longer in the same place, and your climate – one would assume – has changed. In fact, you hear on the radio as you eat breakfast that literally millions and millions of people who were in Germany are now in Austria. The population of Germany is waning, and people are flooding into Austria.
Well, actually, not exactly. That’s the impression you might have initially: You were in the West of Germany, and now you’re in 
Austria, so you must have moved. There must be a mass Exodus going on if millions of people from Germany are suddenly in Austria. But actually, in the place where you are now, the sky is the same as it was before, the climate is the same, the people are the same, and in fact – your location is the same! How is this possible? Here’s how: While you were sleeping, an invasion took place. A swift but decisive battle was fought, and invaders from Austria re-drew the border dividing Germany from Austria, as illustrated on the right. People who regarded themselves as German before still regard themselves as Germans now, but the Austrians – they will take some convincing!
The Invading Austrians are happy for you to continue life as before, which you happily do. OK, so you’ve come to accept that although you’re in exactly the same place you were in before, the militant Austrians now call the land you stand on “Austria.” But then imagine that the Austrians start sending out press releases: There has been a mass exodus from Germany to Austria! The population of Austria is on the rapid rise! Austria must be really popular, because people are leaving Germany and moving to Austria. You can’t believe your eyes as you read the headlines in one after the other daily Germ- I mean Austrian newspaper. This is nonsense! That’s not what happened at all. Nobody changed where they live – The Austrians have just changed the labels on the map! There’s no “move” from Germany to Austria going on.
OK, as you can probably gather, I’m painting this scene as an analogy, and the scene is now set. I’m really talking about philosophy of mind and two points of view therein: Dualism and Physicalism. Physicalism is Germany. Dualism is Austria. Dualists are changing the map.
In the Nuts and Bolts series I lay out some of the basic concepts thrown around in my areas of interest – philosophy, theology and biblical studies – and explain them for those unfamiliar with them.
This time I’m looking at the “Original Position,” a term that originates with John Rawls, one of the most significant political philosophers of the 20th century. Rawls, like many people in the Western democratic tradition, advanced a form of social contractarianism; the view that the principles of just government are grounded in an agreement (a “social contract”) between the governed and those who govern. Those who govern must govern according to the terms of that contract, and in fact fellow citizens should only support policies or laws that are in keeping with that contract.
But what sort of contract would that be? Is it an overtly stated contract that we all actually agree to? No. Like many other social contractarians (e.g. John Locke), Rawls realised that the types of contracts that everyone might actually agree to could be significantly flawed in all kinds of ways. We want to think of social arrangements in terms of contracts partly because it stresses the fact that each side has the power to negotiate with the other on equal footing with them. But this is often not the case. Simply out of ignorance, for example, we might agree to terms that are actually unjust to us and unfairly advantageous to others. What if members of an ethnic minority in your society were willing to agree to a social contract that, unbeknownst to them, actually had the consequence that they were exploited and seriously disadvantaged when it came to, say, employment? What if all the kind, gentle people were happy to endure conditions in, say, trade negotiations that were flagrantly unfair to them and helpful to cutthroat, assertive, dishonest swindlers? So the actual contracts that people happen to form aren’t really good enough here.
What is needed to come up with the standard of what sorts of laws and public policies are acceptable, then, is a kind of hypothetical social contract, one that we would arrive at under idealised conditions. And what sort of conditions are those, you might ask? Here is where the title of this blog comes into play: The constitutional basis of law and government in a just society, says Rawls, are those that we – or at least ideal versions of ourselves – would formulate from the perspective of the Original Position.
Do babies come into this world with a natural tendency to tell right from wrong, or is their stance entirely informed by social conditioning? Or is it both?
I’ve blogged in the past on ethical intuitionism, and I had some favourable things to say about it. Properly functioning people under the right sorts of conditions, I maintain, have a (fallible) tendency to form true moral beliefs. I also blogged recently about the fact that children, in the course of healthy, normal development without extraordinary intervention, naturally form belief in God.
What about healthy babies and moral beliefs? Do they naturally form true moral beliefs, or is it all a matter of social conditioning and etiquette? Well, I’ve already answered that question by supporting ethical intuitionism. If that’s a plausible view on true moral belief formation in general, then it will be true of everyone as they develop into a competent knower. But is there any scientific evidence that very young children and babies actually do naturally form (what many of us would take to be) true moral beliefs?
“Ah, those silly creationists are at it again. Every real scientist knows that evolution is fact, and then these people with no real experience in science come along and bumble through the issues without understanding them at all. And as for those geographers! I have no real time for geography myself, but pah! Everyone knows the earth is flat!”
Ironic, right? Anyone who would say this is playing by an obvious double standard, and they would look a bit silly, to put things mildly. They would be doing the very thing they complain about others doing. Just imagine my surprise then when I read through Lawrence’s Krauss’s reflections (I think after reading it you might be justified in calling it a bit of an outburst) on his debate with William Lane Craig.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén