BR: "Why Men Hate Going to Church" by David Murrow

There are some books which prove quite important to one's growth and development in life because they make evident a pattern, challenge, and/or idea that is true, real, and yet somehow neglected or left unconsidered. Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow is one such book: after reading it, you will never look at Christianity and its practice in 21st century America the same way again.

I first encountered this book a few years ago and was glad to have the chance to read and review the updated and revised edition. "Completely Revised and Updated" is not an exaggeration: I remember many of the key arguments and themes, but in the new edition they are presented more powerfully and underscored with more evidence. My reading of the original edition really caused me to think about the best way of approaching ministry; reading the new edition has led to the same process.

Why Men Hate Going to Church presents one of the pressing challenges of American Christianity: where are all the men? The author sets out the evidence: most churches have a gender gap, featuring far more women than men. The more active the women get, the more likely the men are to leave. When men are not active in churches, their children are less likely to be active in churches, especially their male descendants, and the challenge grows.

The author then provides helpful analysis of the sources of the difficulty: church plays to the strengths of women but the weaknesses of men. Women tend to be more auditory, better at study, more relationally-driven and focused, willing to sit and listen, share, and better at expressing themselves verbally. Men are more visual-spatial, less patient with study, less relationally-focused, fidgety, and often find expressing themselves verbally as challenging.

Men do excel at boldness, willingness to take risks, and engagement in acts of service, but many times these values are not honored as highly in the assembly and in the general life of a church. The author spends some time contrasting different images of Jesus and to whom men and women best relate ("the Lion of Judah" vs. "the Lamb of God"). The author describes how churches better appeal to women, and on account of it, develop a more softened and feminine approach, further alienating men and enhancing women's presence.

Yes, many ministries are male-dominated, but the author does well at showing how ministry is often done by men who are more verbal, studious, and more "feminine" than the average "macho man" (and I, for one, must plead guilty). The author also shows how when women do take over, either in terms of various matters within the congregation or as preachers themselves, men are most often further alienated and their number continues to drop.

The author spends some time looking at historic trends and the various reasons why we have come to the place at which we find ourselves, as well as seeing different experiments that seemed to work in the past (like the YMCA). He also spends a lot of time considering how to bring the men back in: return to a mission-based view, consciously think about how a given prayer, song, lesson, theme, etc., would sound to the average man and adapt accordingly, find things for men to do that play to their strengths, and find ways to work with boys and their particular composition in such a way as to respect their constitution and not develop an inferiority complex in the face of all the girls.

I have some concerns about many of the suggestions which put a lot of the impetus on the church where the Lord put it on the individual Christian in terms of service and in terms of the programs which should be provided for the youth; thankfully, the revised and updated edition put less emphasis on adaptations to the assembly and more on finding ways to get men to serve out in the world. I'm afraid that some of his theological points in terms of masculinity might be a bit too reactionary against an overly feminized version of Christianity; it's understandable but not necessarily beneficial.

These concerns should not distract from the main point of the book or its importance. I believe this is a must read for anyone who seeks to promote the Gospel of Christ and wishes to encourage his or her fellow Christians: you don't have to agree with every point or every solution to gain from the author's perspective and the needed reconsideration of thought, feeling, and practice toward being more inclusive of masculine characteristics. There's a reason Jesus speaks more concretely and obviously about mission than relationship; there's also a reason why Jesus chose 12 men and worked intensively with them. If the church will grow and prosper in the twenty-first century it will need men to stand up with faith, boldness, vision, and effort to promote the Gospel message, and an over-emphasis on the "feminine" aspects to the detriment of the "masculine" aspects of humanity is pushing those men out and away. There are times for preaching and study; there are times for service and boldness. There is a strong need for greater relationship; there is as strong of a need for recognizing, understanding, and accomplishing God's mission for His Kingdom. Let us find ways to bring men into the fold and make sure that we are not pushing them away on account of our distorted emphases or an environment hostile to masculinity!

ELDV

*---book received as part of early review program

Hell and Theology

If so be that it is righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

In the past year there has been a significant controversy within many parts of "Christendom" in regards to hell, its existence and nature, discussed in terms of Rob Bell's Love Wins. Yes, I know that I am late coming into the game, so to speak; nevertheless, I have had an opportunity to read Love Wins along with Francis Chan's Erasing Hell and some other resources in regards to this issue.

Many of the pertinent issues have been addressed well in other places; I especially recommend Erasing Hell toward that end. What has interested me is just how much we learn about our theology based upon our understanding of hell.

The very word "hell" and our reactions to it tell a lot about our theological inclinations. Some shudder at the concept are convinced that it is the bloodthirsty concept of some less developed society. Others prove very comfortable with the idea, and most often are quite sure that it is for all sorts of other people and not themselves. These are the extremes, and most everyone else falls somewhere in the middle.

These theological inclinations come out when arguments about hell are presented. On the one side, God's love (or, perhaps better, human conceptions regarding what God's love must be) is maximized, suggesting that His love for mankind demands that hell either cannot exist or cannot exist permanently for whatever reason. On the other side, God's wrath is maximized, leaving many to wonder how anyone could ever be rescued from it.

Therefore one's view of hell says a lot about one's theology, and understandably so. Hell is one of the most challenging and contentious aspects of Scripture, not only about the place itself and its function, but what it says about God in terms of His love and wrath, justice and mercy. Since the Bible speaks of God's love, God's wrath, God's justice, and God's mercy, it becomes very easy to get distorted and overemphasize some of these to the detriment of others. This exacerbates the problem, for very often believers are tempted to react to the distortion of others and themselves distort in the opposite way. Finding balance is hard enough on most issues; finding balance when it comes to how we understand who God is and the presence of hell is that much harder!

This is my greatest criticism of Rob Bell's presentation of hell: it demonstrates a distorted theology. Much can be read about God's love in Love Wins, but there are few, if any, references to God's wrath or God's justice. Although I am quire sure that Bell is aware of the passages in the Bible speaking about God's exhortation for Israel to commit ethnic cleansing (1 Samuel 15), the swift execution of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-13), and even discussion of God's wrath as poured out in the Judgment (Romans 2:4-11, 12:19-21), but there's no hint of wrestling with or grappling with these realities in Love Wins.

I will grant that there is plenty of bad theology and bad eschatology out there, and there are plenty of people whose view of hell and what goes on there is more influenced by popular cultural theories than what is in Scripture. There are people who seem to revel in God's wrath; one has to wonder if such people have soberly considered Amos 5:18-20!

But if theology is going to be a useful practice, it must be based not in what I think or whatever "groupthink" comes up with but what God has revealed about Himself. Rob Bell knows this and speaks frequently about his opponents and "what kind of god" it is they believe in. But the same criticism can and must be leveled at him as well (as well it should be for all of us, and a good corrective for all of us): is the "god" presented in Love Wins (or in my theology, your theology, etc.) the Creator God who revealed Himself to Israel and through Jesus, or is it an idol that may have some resemblance to the God revealed in the Bible but full of distortions based upon culture, society, and other factors?

It would probably be good to attempt to explain what Bell is trying to say about hell. This is not easy to do since he never comes out and provides a full explanation. From my attempt to understand the book, it seems that he understands hell mostly in terms of all of the pain, misery, and injustice experienced on earth. He seems to think it honorable of himself that he says that there is a perfectly good word to describe all of the evil in the world, and that word is "hell." It does seem that Bell believes that there will be a place in the next world that is separated from God; he suggests that most people in that place will then realize how terrible it was and is to be separated from God and that most, if not all, will desire to be reconciled back to God. He asks whether God will say "no" to such a person in that condition (and we're supposed to believe that God will not tell such a person "no"), and thus believes that everyone will get another chance in the afterlife to be reconciled back to God. This, in his estimation, is how "love wins."

There are a lot of evils on earth; there's a reason why people speak of "hell on earth." Nevertheless, the better word to describe such things is hellish, not hell. Jesus is perfectly aware of the problems of pain and evil in life, but when He speaks of the condemned, he speaks of their fate as one where the worm does not die and the fire is unquenched (Mark 9:47-48), a fiery furnace or the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:41-42, 49-50, 25:30; it is worth noting that when Bell describes what Jesus says about hell, he focuses on Jesus' use of gehenna but entirely ignores the other images Jesus uses to describe the same place). To speak of earthly evils as "hell" is not to use the term properly; it is to dangerously minimize the power and the import of the term. What happens on earth is bad, but it is only hellish. From everything we gain in Scripture, the actual hell is far, far worse!

I found Bell's question about whether God would say "no" to people who would want to reconcile with Him yet find themselves in hell to be a desperate plea; in fact, the minute I read it, I thought of the following passage:

"Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.'
But he answered and said, "Verily I say unto you, I know you not."
Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour" (Matthew 25:11-13).

Here we have an instance of people who wish to get that "second chance," but they come to a shut door.

One can only wonder how Bell would reconcile such a question with Paul's:

And reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest them that practise such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Romans 2:3-4).

Why would Paul be worried about anyone despising God's forbearance and longsuffering unless he envisioned a time when such foebearance and longsuffering would cease?

And, of course, there remains Hebrews 9:27:

And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment.

Bell is convinced that all the passages that speak regarding God "reconciling all things to Himself" means that all people at some point will be fully reconciled to Him, and yet without that premise, the entire concept of a post-judgment chance at reconciliation falls flat. There is no Scripture that speaks about it; all the Scriptures speaking about the Judgment have an air of finality about them.

The implications are worse. People are carnal; we have numerous examples of well-intentioned doctrines being distorted by people to justify their immorality. In Bell's doctrine, it would not matter if one lived completely sinfully on earth without repentance; they could receive reconciliation after the Judgment. Bell would not advocate for this, but it won't take too long for people to draw that conclusion from what he has said. And, if it is possible to be reconciled back to God after the Judgment, is it also possible to fall away from Him after the Judgment? Where do we hear of these matters? Why are they being introduced?

We have no reason to believe that God's reconciling all things to Himself will involve the reformation of all persons and entities who are in rebellion against Him; in fact, we know as much, based upon Matthew 25:41 and 2 Peter 2:4: Satan and his angels will experience eternal fire and we have no indication that they will be reconciled back to God. Therefore we have no reason to believe that those cast into that fire with Satan and his angels will be reconciled back to God, either.

All of this has been well-covered by others in more effective ways. I do find it interesting, however, that the one thing Bell does not seem to analyze or question much is this "love" which wins.

And this is the trap: it's our assumptions that often get the better of us. In the entire book there is a tone that says that God's love is incompatible with the "standard views" on hell.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a).

Bell understands that coercion and compulsion are incompatible with love; in that sense, he is not fully "universalist." He understands that God will not coerce or compel anyone into believing in Him.

Nevertheless, Bell has seemingly ignored or missed the aspects of love that are not charitable to his case: love does not rejoice in unrighteousness (and Greek adikia refers to injustice as much as to unrighteousness). Love rejoices in the truth. Therefore, that which is unrighteous and/or unjust and against truth is against love. Love cannot embrace both truth and unrighteousness/injustice. Yes, it is true that love does not "take account of evil,: but that means that love is not resentful, and God is not resentful: He does not act out of personal animosity.

If love does not rejoice in unrighteousness/injustice, justice and righteousness must maintain a prominent place in love. This is made perfectly evident throughout the Prophets and their insistence on Israel following the ways of righteousness and justice. In Malachi 2:17, the Jews cry out, wanting to know where the God of justice has gone.

God is love, yes, but God also upholds justice and righteousness (Psalm 33:5). This is a necessary aspect of theology because it is a necessary aspect of God. Yes, it is difficult to define justice clearly, but there is agreement that whenever evil is perpetrated without consequence, injustice has taken place.

This is why so much emphasis is placed on the day of Judgment in Scripture. It is a warning, yes, but also a promise: there will be a day of reckoning. This was already expected by the Jews (cf. the Day of the LORD, also Daniel 12:1-2); it should not pass without notice how often it is emphasized in the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles (e.g. Acts 10:42, 17:30-31). With the Judgment comes the consequences for lifestyle, as Romans 2:5-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, etc. make clear.

Granted, too much emphasis on justice would mean all of us are going to hell; there is a place for God's mercy and grace as expressed through Jesus (Romans 5:6-11). This also renders rejection of some concept of Jesus as paying the penalty for sinners untenable: after all, if there is no concept of justice in God's saving act through Jesus, how can the Judgment have any pretense of justice? If there was no penalty paid for some sinners to be justified, how is it just to force other sinners to pay the penalty for their sin? If there is no concept of justice in the atonement, how can anyone argue against what Bell is suggesting?

In all of these things, balance is essential. God's love demands that injustice be addressed; repentance and change is ideal, but condemnation is a very real and just sentence as well. The Scriptures are quite clear that Judgment involves what we have done in the flesh: our chance for repentance and finding life in Jesus come in this world, and once we die, we've exhausted our chances. That does not mean that God is now somehow unjust or unloving; He gave us plenty of chances, did He not? At some point, God will say "enough." Who are we to argue with Him?

And that's the issue in the end. God is who God is. We either accept that or reject it. There's every temptation in the world to accept the aspects of God we like and try to refashion all of God's more "negative" attributes into something more socially acceptable. Israel did the same thing: it was great that YHWH rescued them from slavery, but who could serve a god without an image? And so they made a golden calf and called it YHWH and felt better about themselves. But the calf was not YHWH. YHWH cannot be so easily fashioned into a god of our own liking.

He lets us do it because He loves us; He does not coerce or compel us to accept Him as He is. We must seek after Him (Hebrews 11:6), and He desires to be found, being quite nearby (Acts 17:26-28).

There are some aspects to God and Scripture that are difficult. What the Scripture says about the fate of the unbelievers and the wicked is difficult to swallow and hard. Understanding how God could command Israel to commit ethnic cleansing is hard. There are a lot of things we will find out about God which we may not agree with and perhaps we might strongly dislike.

We don't have to like it. But we have to confess that it is true.

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69).

It is very easy to make an idol out of knowledge, understanding, and preference. We will never know everything, understand everything, or even like everything about God in Christ, but that does not mean that we reject whatever we do not know, understand, or prefer. This is not a call for us to presume that we know the answer even when we do not know the question, or to get so lost in the challenges of many of the questions that we lose heart. Instead, we are called upon to trust. To have faith. To accept what God has revealed about Himself, us, and the fate of everyone. We may not always know everything, understand it all, or even like it, but we can know that Jesus has the words of eternal life, and He is the Holy One of God. Let us be rooted in that faith, and allow Jesus' message to inform our understanding of God.

ELDV

BR: "Family Shepherds" by Voddie Baucham Jr.

Even though most people would still agree that the family is an important aspect of life, the quality of family life--and the instruction transmitted by parents to children--has certainly diminished in recent generations. This is likely the result of many trends, religious and secular, that have come together at this time.

In Family Shepherds, Voddie Baucham Jr. gets to the heart of these challenging trends and provides direction for husbands and fathers when it comes to fostering a Biblical environment in the home where spiritual truths are taught in word and deed.

In the book he describes the challenges coming from society: feminism, worldly parenting values, educational issues, entertainment, the expectation of the career as being one's primary form of identity, and so on. He also speaks of the problems bedeviling many churches, especially as it involves "youth ministry." He shows persuasively how "youth ministry" perpetuates the specialization trend to the detriment of the father and the family: however consciously or not, people end up trusting "the professionals" to provide the spiritual direction when the child will only really learn it from the parent.

Baucham Jr. seeks to demonstrate, from Scripture, a better way forward, emphasizing the role of the man as the shepherd of the family, using Christ as the example for his life as a husband, father, in the career, and in the church. He encourages the use of catechism to instruct children in the faith, and speaks again, as he often does, of the value of "family worship." He places strong emphasis on church membership and participation in the local congregation. There is much of value in this instruction.

In such an otherwise excellent book it is disappointing to have much with which to disagree. The book is permeated with the author's strong Calvinist position: his description of the dispute regarding free will and divine grace is one-sided, still fighting the full Pelagian strawman, seemingly unaware of the perspective's Biblical deficiencies. It would not be as much of an issue if it were not for his full application of Calvinist principles to children; one would get the impression from the book that the author believes children are little devils. There seems to be no grappling with the lack of full conscious capacity with children and what that might mean when it comes to how one views children and works with children. Puritan sources feature strongly in the book, sometimes in interesting ways, but often to perpetuate some of the more wrong-headed views in the book. The author associates Sunday as the day of assembly with the Sabbath, something not found in Scripture and rather directly contradicted therein (Colossians 2:14-17, Hebrews 4:1-11). He also strongly emphasizes how a local congregation ought to engage in "missions of mercy" on a congregational level but never provides the Biblical support for the congregation being involved in such a work (probably because there is none); strangely, he quotes the one passage that shows how such is not God's intention (1 Timothy 5:16, making a delineation between who the church should support and who the individual should support).

The theological challenges deriving from the author's Baptist background are all that hinders me from providing a strong commendation for the book. The concept is excellent; instruction to men to be the family shepherds they ought to be (and encouragement for single women with children toward the same end) is profitable; if only the book were not so suffused with Calvinism.

ELDV

Kindle galley edition: the galley condition was quite disappointing; no Scripture references were fully provided with chapter and verse to consult the Bible to make sure that the author's claims matched up with the citation, and the galley edition did not render "ff" whenever it would come up in a word (e.g. "offered" was "o ered"). Such made reading quite a challenge.

BR: "When the Bottom Drops Out" by Robert Bugh

We Westerners, particularly in America, tend to have it pretty good when it comes to our existence. Whether we know it or not, most of us live rather charmed lives. The evils and difficulties of life that are front and center before so many-- illness, famine, oppression, and other such trials-- rarely come upon us. While there are many benefits to such a life, what happens when things start going wrong? What do we do when the "bottom drops out"?

Robert Bugh recently experienced this type of trial when he lost both his best friend and then soon after his wife to cancer in the prime of life. He recounts his story and some of the lessons he has learned in When the Bottom Drops Out: Finding Grace in the Depths of Disappointment.

The book describes first the death of his friend Tom and then his wife Carol and the lessons he learned throughout the process. He does well at illustrating stories of overcoming difficulties and standing firm in the face of challenge in Scripture with Joseph, Abraham, and Jeremiah. He describes the challenges experienced during the periods of the illnesses, the immediate after-effects of grief, the nuances of change vs. transition and how to handle both (with the Exodus story as a paradigm), and concludes with his later marriage to his best friend's widow and the challenges inherent in forming viable stepfamilies.

The author is Evangelical with strong Calvinist flavors but at least recognizes the critical need for growth, development, and obedience in faith. Much of his Biblical commentary and exposition is sound but places a lot of trust in the proposition that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations.

There is value in the book in terms of understanding that life was never promised to be all roses and cherries; sometimes an author's personal journey can be helpful to people in distress to see that there can be a way forward while holding firm to the faith. At times the book does get overly personal, which can be good but it also can limit the scope of the book. For one seeking to come to grips with the mortal illness of a loved one, this book has great value; for others seeking to come to grips with other tragedies, this book may not always hit the mark.

Nevertheless, any message that reinforces our need to trust in God in the face of trials and difficulties, declaring that difficulties will come whether we like it or not, and therefore our need to prepare for such events is useful. Americans today often live in a fantasy world where everything should be great, and when things go wrong, it must be God's fault, maintaining a superficial faith that cannot withstand any such challenge. Problems in life is no evidence of being forsaken by God; problems in life happen, they try us and test us, and whether or not we continue to believe in God says far more about our level of trust in God than about God Himself. The Bible is replete with stories of people in far more dire straits than ourselves finding sustenance, strength, and ultimate deliverance through their trust in God. Few today can grapple with God with the questions of evil and suffering in complete faith like Job; faith seems to be the first casualty in such questions. It need not be, but it will demand the promotion of a more robust faith.

Trials and difficulties will come; faith will be tested. Will it stand or not?

ELDV

*--book received as part of early review program

BR: "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy," by Eric Metaxas

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the towering figures looming over modern Christianity. His seemingly prophetic perception of the evils of National Socialism and his principled stand that led to his execution remain a powerful witness against the evils fostered upon the world through the unbridled excesses manifest in Nazi Germany.

Much more has been written about Bonhoeffer than Bonhoeffer ever wrote; nevertheless, Eric Metaxas has written an accessible if long biography of him entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Martyr. Prophet. Spy. Through it one receives a rather comprehensive view of Bonhoeffer: his family, his upbringing, the theological climate in which he worked, descriptions of the historical events that led to the circumstances in which he found himself, and a decent attempt to synthesize the theology Bonhoeffer developed.

As an introduction to Bonhoeffer's world, work, and theology, Metaxas' work succeeds admirably. He does well at contextualizing Bonhoeffer as a brilliant twentieth century German whose "practical," more Barthian theology challenged both the "liberal" and the "conservative" viewpoints, and who seemed to above all seek to live the life exemplified in Jesus. In a mostly anti-Semitic world, he and his family would stand with the right of the Jews to live and exist as they had previously. When other "Christians" attempted to accommodate and/or appease National Socialism, he perceived what it was all about and called for rejecting it. Bonhoeffer perceived, to some extent, Jesus' goal for the transnational Kingdom of God beyond most of his fellow Germans. And then there was the conspiracy against Hitler: the most controversial aspect of Bonhoeffer's life and work.

There is a reason why I have said that it succeeds admirably as an introduction: especially in his historical analysis, Metaxas has a tendency to oversimplify and even become a bit too apologetic for both Germany and Bonhoeffer. Furthermore, Metaxas' admiration for Bonhoeffer seems to be a bit overmuch; the work does not seem to suggest much criticism of Bonhoeffer for any reason. This is understandable to an extent: since the book is directed mostly at Americans, it is useful to get a chance to see the "other side" and try to see why the Nazis took over. Nevertheless, the apology provided throughout--"we did not take Hitler seriously; we could not imagine that he could be that evil"-- is a catch-22. It sounds as if something someone would say to maintain a final last shred of dignity after being presented with the clear culpability and thorough evil taking place at that time, a kind of historical revisionism to feel better. If it is actually true and legitimate (and it seems to be to some extent, at least in terms of the view of other nations toward Hitler), then it is in many ways even worse: people come out looking much more foolish, stupid, and naive this way. A more nuanced position would be more frank about the German predilections toward all of the things that ended up happening based upon the entrenched nationalism, Social Darwinism, and memory of the humiliation of WWI still very much alive at that time.

Metaxas demonstrates how Hitler and his companions were more influenced by Nietzsche than Christianity and the outright hostility toward Christianity felt by many of the Nazis in high command. Their own words confess their adherence to many scientific dogmas of the day and how they used those dogmas to justify their actions. Ultimately, this level of evil cannot be easily explained, and to that end it is easy to sympathize with Metaxas: how can you explain how Hitler came to be?

That same surface treatment also causes difficulty in terms of the discussion of the conspiracy. For me, this has always been the most vexing challenge of Bonhoeffer: one wants to sympathize with his cause, understanding the great evil being perpetrated by Hitler, and one wants to sympathize with his arguments about how all of the deception and work done in an attempt to kill Hitler is justified because of the greater good of getting rid of him.

But the conspiracy does not succeed. Most of those who participated were executed. Ultimately, all would have been better off had they not attempted the execution; the Allies were already on the ground in France when the attempt was actually made, and the war would be over within the year. Yes, it is easy to make that declaration in hindsight, but when we are being faced with a theological question like this, it is worth consideration: whereas Bonhoeffer's ultimate goal perhaps was right, did that justify his methodology?

These are major challenges, and easy answers do not help. The tone of Metaxas' biography assumes Bonhoeffer is right in believing that what he is doing is what God wills and wants him to do. To challenge that premise is made out to be dangerous; after all, it is easy to play "armchair quarterback" and criticize his actions and thought process in peace and security when he was in great danger and acting boldly. But this may be the ultimate difficulty of Bonhoeffer's execution: he was denied the opportunity to sit down in peacetime, reflect upon his behavior and how everything eventually took place, and try to make sense of it all. We will never know whether he would confess that in the heat of the conflict he went too far or whether he would stand by everything he did until the bitter end. Therefore, we are left with his theology as it was tested in the middle of intense conflict, and its condition is argued in that situation.

This is not an attempt to besmirch Bonhoeffer. He perceived the great challenge to historic Christianity that was afoot in the twentieth century, and he stood firm against it. He can be embraced as the conscience of a nation that almost entirely lost it in the war. His challenge to Christian organizations and individuals to take what Jesus said and did seriously and attempt to live similarly in their own day and age is exactly what needed to be declared, and much that is good in theology has developed in his shadow.

But Bonhoeffer was not perfect; of all people, he would be the first to admit that. Therefore, his theology and actions, especially in terms of resistance against the state, are things to be discussed, questioned, challenged, and debated, and not necessarily to be wholeheartedly embraced. A good dose of "Lincoln's theology" might present an entirely different view of the matter, viewing Hitler and WWII in similar terms as Lincoln viewed the Civil War. Until the cup of wrath was fully drunk, perhaps, there was not intended to be relief for anyone. Ultimately, only God knows.

Could Bonhoeffer have engaged in resistance against the Nazis without the deception and the conspiracy and not just remain in God's will but be better aligned with it in order to see the ultimate end as God was establishing it? This is the question; it has always been the question; it will remain the question.

Yet this is beyond the scope of the book, which remains a good introduction to Bonhoeffer, and hopefully many will read it and go on to consider his other books.

ELDV

*--book received as part of early review program

BR: "Rumors of God" by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson

It's no secret that one of the most maligned "institutions" of our day is the church. Most people have a jaded view of the church. Some of that can be blamed on people's misunderstandings and misapprehensions; far more of the blame falls upon the people who comprise churches for failing to come anywhere near the New Testament expectation of how the church is to function. It is one thing to be a fallible, sinful human being; it is quite another to continually willfully distort what God established.

Nevertheless, God continues to expect His people to associate with one another on the basis of their shared walk in Christ (1 John 1:7). And congregations of God's people, for all of their faults, still do provide blessings and have the opportunity to provide many more.

Such is the premise of a new book by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson, Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You've Only Heard About. The authors are Australians who happen to work at large Evangelical churches in the Chicago suburbs and in New York City, respectively.

The book serves as both critique and encouragement for Christians in their personal faith and in their participation within the Body of Christ. Subjects addressed include finding true life in Christ; the insidious influence of marketing, advertising, and consumerism, and their impact on believers in terms of how they view themselves, their goals in life, and where they direct their resources; what it means to truly depend on God and His love; great emphasis on grace; the challenge of individualism and God's mandate for community; the need to work for justice; and the hope that is provided through Christ.

Many of the premises of the book are similar to material that is being popularized within Evangelicalism, particularly to the younger generations. The influence of Timothy Keller can be ascertained here; much of what is said is entirely consistent with David Platt's Radical books, and Gabe Lyons of Q ideas is one of the people who writes praise for the book. In this sense most of the material is fully consistent with the recent emphases on faith, love, grace, and justice within Evangelical Christianity.

There are some interesting nuggets in the book that go beyond what some others have written. The demonstration that Greek dikaiosune, often translated "righteousness," also incorporates the idea of justice (thus fusing the Hebrew tsdaqa, "righteousness," and mishpat, "justice") is valuable information and does change the way one views many New Testament passages. The critique of marketing and consumerism not just in terms of where we expend our resources but also in terms of forming one's imagination and goals in life is also rather profound in application.

And I would be remiss to not note some challenges. As Evangelicals, there is evidence of the faith only and imputed righteousness positions, although their discussion of grace and the human condition, as written, is Biblically consistent. In chapter 6, the authors use Jonah and the Assyrians to discuss the challenges of forgiveness and prejudice. The imagined scenario of Hitler becoming repentant for killing people and thus being able to be forgiven was quite good, and the intent of the authors in the use of the Jonah example is right on. Nevertheless, in their discussion of the Jonah story, it seems that they use later historical events to describe why Jonah feels as he does about the Assyrians; they also speak of Assyrians moving in and marrying Israelite women so as to create the Samaritan ethnic group in Israel, based on Shane Hipps and Dan Carlin as sources. I'm still trying to figure out how one extrapolates that from 2 Kings 17; it would seem from 2 Kings 17 that the Assyrians almost fully exile all Israel from its land and import foreigners who learn of YHWH from a Levite sent back to Israel by Assyria (2 Kings 17:23-41). Perhaps the information comes from Josephus; but how can one separate truth from propaganda? Granted, 2 Kings 17 is rather prejudiced against the Samaritans, but it at least comes from much closer in time to the events specified than Josephus and whatever Samaritan accounts existed from the first century CE. Chapter 10 is a retelling of the story of Jesus meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. The authors make much of a possible connection between the two going to Emmaus and Emmaus as the place where Judas Maccabeus won his great victory over the Seleucids. It is an interesting theory, but entirely uncorroborated; one can imagine a hundred other reasons why the two disciples were going there.

Rumors of God is built on the premise of the "rumor"-- a murmuring, a report that some things might be happening-- and the authors invite the reader to turn the "rumors" regarding God, Jesus, love, hope, grace, justice, generosity, forgiveness, etc. into realities in their lives. Even if one is well-versed in the present emphases in Evangelicalism, this book is still a good reminder of what is really important in life. It maintains a good mixture of encouragement and critique, balancing both the good and the not so good within the current "Christian" environment. Rumors of God will challenge you and hopefully inspire you toward greater faithfulness toward God and living in relationship with Him in obedient service.

Kindle version: I recently obtained a Kindle and received this book in the Kindle edition. I noticed a couple of small editing mistakes, but otherwise the digital edition was well-organized, easily read, and free of major difficulties.

ELDV

*-- book received as part of early review program

CXVIII: Christianity vs. Scientism

No religion: What was Lennon summoning? For starters, a world without "divine" messengers, like Osama bin Laden, sparking violence. A world where mistakes, like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to "God's will." Where politicians no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable. Where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense.

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA." They have produced robust theories, backed by empirical evidence (including "imaging" studies of the brain at work), that support the conclusion that it was humans who created God, not the other way around. And the better we understand the science, the closer we can come to "no heaven...no hell...and no religion too."

Such is the premise of an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times, entitled "Science and religion: God didn't make man, man made gods" by J. Anderson Thomson and Clare Aukofer. Everything that needs to be said about these individuals, especially the former, is revealed in the attribution center at the end of the article:

J. Anderson Thomson is a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. He serves as a trustee of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Clare Aukofer is a medical writer. They are the authors of "Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith."

We have recently spoken regarding the waning influence of New Atheism; merely because there is waning influence does not mean that there will be no influence, and more distant still the idea that the challenge of atheism is going away anytime soon. And with this op-ed we see the standard method of operations of such people: they are attempting to pass off their dogma not as a "religious argument," as it really is, but as "informed science." That's the goal of scientism-- to make "religious" claims that somehow get more credence than the "religion" arguments they are trying to counter.

The authors of this piece, of course, would lambast any idea that they are "religious" in any way. They, ostensibly, define "religion" in terms of the belief in a supernatural force or entity, and, for that matter, everything that is done in the name of a supernatural force or entity.

In order to make their purpose palatable-- eradicating the idea of god and religion-- they focus entirely on the negative of religion. They cite two examples-- Osama bin Laden and those who claimed Hurricane Katrina reflected God's will.

Those two examples do make religion look pretty bad. But does this mean that it is better to imagine a world with "no religion"?

What does a world with "no religion" look like? Osama bin Laden would not have a religious ideology to justify his ambitions, perhaps-- but does this prove somehow that he would not have still harbored the same ambitions but would have found another ideology in order to justify them? After all, a world with "no religion" still has Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Pol Pot still in it. A world with "no religion" is also bereft of Jesus of Nazareth, Francis of Assisi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the innumerable people who do good things in the name of "religion." Is that really the world in which people want to live?

The argument may seem profound but ends up being extremely facile. Most "religious" people would entirely agree that Osama bin Laden acted terribly and sinfully; most "religious" people would also agree that it was inappropriate to declare that the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina represented "God's will." Do the authors really want to argue on the basis of extremes? If so, that means that on the scientism end, the nuclear weapon, and the Holocaust and the persecutions of Stalin and Pol Pot, are representative. Does this mean that science is an entirely polluted affair, since its developments and technologies are so often used to end life and perpetrate oppression? Should we start advocating the elimination of science from our world and our lives?

Of course not. The authors act inappropriately throughout their article to presume that "religion" has only led to evil in the world. Religion can certainly be used to justify evil; so can science, so can nationalism and political ideology, and so can a host of other ideas and practices. That does not make religion, or science, or politics, or nationalism, inherently evil. It says more about the people abusing them than the ideas themselves.

But "religion," as these authors are clearly using the term, is in some ways quite too broad and in important ways not broad enough. It is too broad because it does not differentiate between belief systems and does not take into account the self-critique present in religions like Christianity. Christians see what Osama bin Laden did and those who said that Hurricane Katrina was God's will and see sinful acts and sinful people that by no means represent what God is trying to accomplish in the world through Jesus Christ. Christians will agree with these scientists in saying that "religion" is abused to justify all kinds of evil; nevertheless, Christians understand that this is a distortion of true religion, a lack of understanding of how God would have us to live through the example of His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 2:3-6). These scientists see religion as the problem; Christians more properly see the distortion of religion to serve human ends as the problem.

And Christians are also willing to see the distortion of science to serve a religious dogma also as a problem. At first, many might read such a statement and wonder how it can be, since so many Christians disagree with the current theory of macroevolution on the basis of what many perceive as "religious dogma." But we are really continuing our critique of the definitions of "science" and "religion" as used by these authors. They want to define "religion" broadly, encompassing all supernatural belief systems, but of course do not want to define religion generically as a belief system. Why not? The minute they do so, their own religion-- scientism-- is exposed for what it is.

Scientism is the belief-- and it is a belief, not based on empirical evidence, and it undergirds a philosophy of existence-- that science is able not just to ascertain the nature of our physical universe and its properties but can also provide the answers to the questions of existence. In scientism, everything is subject to science.

We can see how this plays out in this article. In the first quote given above, "critical thinking" is subtly defined as "accepting the claims of scientists over that of religion." A world without religion, it is claimed, is a "world that makes sense." They say that "empirical evidence" supports the conclusion that "humans created god, not the other way around."

So where is the evidence for any of this?

For example, we are born with a powerful need for attachment, identified as long ago as the 1940s by psychiatrist John Bowlby and expanded on by psychologist Mary Ainsworth. Individual survival was enhanced by protectors, beginning with our mothers. Attachment is reinforced physiologically through brain chemistry, and we evolved and retain neural networks completely dedicated to it.

Like attachment, they are mechanisms that underlie human interactions: Brain-imaging studies at the National Institutes of Health showed that when test subjects were read statements about religion and asked to agree or disagree, the same brain networks that process human social behavior — our ability to negotiate relationships with others — were engaged.

Among the psychological adaptations related to religion are our need for reciprocity, our tendency to attribute unknown events to human agency, our capacity for romantic love, our fierce "out-group" hatreds and just as fierce loyalties to the in groups of kin and allies.

Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom notes that "it is often beneficial for humans to work together … which means it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals." In groundbreaking research, he and his team found that infants in their first year of life demonstrate aspects of an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, even fair and unfair. When shown a puppet climbing a mountain, either helped or hindered by a second puppet, the babies oriented toward the helpful puppet. They were able to make an evaluative social judgment, in a sense a moral response.

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist who co-directs the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has also done work related to morality and very young children. He and his colleagues have produced a wealth of research that demonstrates children's capacities for altruism. He argues that we are born altruists who then have to learn strategic self-interest.

What is proven in these studies? Humans need attachment, especially some form of protector. Neural networks are dedicated to these needs-- the parts of the brain used to process human social behaviors also process religious claims. Humans tend to favor reciprocity and have tendencies toward anthropomorphization and tribalism. Young children have an innate sense of right and wrong and altruism.

Now let us notice how the authors leap from substantiated science to unsubstantiated interpretations and claims regarding the science (that is, the leap from science to scientism).

Regarding attachment and a protector:

We easily expand that inborn need for protectors to authority figures of any sort, including religious leaders and, more saliently, gods. God becomes a super parent, able to protect us and care for us even when our more corporeal support systems disappear, through death or distance.

Regarding tribalism:

Religion hijacks these traits. The rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for example, or the doctrinal battles between Protestant and Catholic reflect our "groupish" tendencies.

Regarding the moral intuition of infants:

Morality, which some see as imposed by gods or religion on savage humans, science sees as yet another adaptive strategy handed down to us by natural selection.

Where is the proof for any of these claims?

How can any of these claims be tested according to any process that can be deemed "scientific"?

These, mind you, are the authors' main "proofs" that humans invented gods, and not the other way around.

But Christianity can make counter-claims regarding the same evidence.

That humans seek after attachment and protection-- and especially the idea that the same parts of the brain control social behavior and religion-- are completely aligned with the Christian view of the Triune God, One God in Three Persons, one in relationship, who made man in His own image, seeking relationship (Genesis 1:26-27, John 17:20-23, Acts 17:26-27).

Infants and young children have an innate sense of right and wrong-- and what does Paul say in Romans 1:19-21 but that humans have an innate sense of who God is based on His eternal power and divine nature as present within the creation?

It is quite rich, in fact, for these authors to claim man's moral intuition as evidence for scientism. After all, Dawkins himself-- for whose foundation the lead author serves as trustee-- declares the altrustic impulse of man as an form of evolutionary "misfiring" in his book The God Delusion. The evolutionary model has no room for intuitive senses of right and wrong, especially when it motivates humans to act in ways contrary to their "evolutionary advantage." Yet it makes perfect sense if there is a Creator who fashioned the universe not just with materialist underpinnings but also metaphysical ones, including a sense of justice.

Christianity confesses that humans tend to be tribal, deriving from the events surrounding the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. Christianity agrees that tribalism poses a problem, but suggests that the solution is found within the Church of Christ, since Jesus died to break down the walls of hostility between people so as to allow all to be one in Him (Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 2:11-18, 3:10-11, Colossians 4:11). Scientism can only declare that tribalism is so-- and notice how the authors have not mentioned how tribalism often has nothing to do with religion per se, since tribalism also can involve nationalism, dedication to sports teams, dedication to a geographic area, etc., without any religious impulse whatsoever.

Scientism is a religion-- it professes confidence in science as the Explainer of all things through the mechanism of its evolutionary theory. But there's no scientific experiment to justify such confidence or such a conclusion. Scientism's claims are ultimately philosophical, much to the chagrin of its adherents.

Just because the science is legitimate-- and we are not disputing the actual scientific evidence here-- does not grant such legitimacy for the conclusions. If one wants to believe the authors and think that the evidence suggests that man created god, one is certainly able to do so; but let us not pretend that "science" teaches this, or that the evidence must be interpreted in that way. Scientism is a worldview and it tries to fit all evidence into that worldview; Christianity is a worldview, and it tries to fit all evidence into that worldview. It might well be that some pieces make more sense according to the perspective of scientism; a competent and honest person will grant that other pieces make more sense in the Christian perspective. Neither perspective can be proven through some empirical process. And it should be noted that the Christian perspective on things has incorporated new evidence within its existing system for 2,000 years and still tries to understand all things through Christ (Colossians 2:1-10). Scientism, in its 200 years, has gone through far more violent tossings and turnings, and no one is able to predict where it will head over the next 100 to 2,000 years, if humanity lasts that long. It would not surprise me in the least if, in 4011, if mankind is still around, that science has a completely different view of the world than it does now, and anyone who would dare hold to the worldview of science ca. 2011 would be derided as much as there is derision for those who hold to what is deemed as a "pre-scientific" worldview. Yet, in 4011, Christianity will still be incorporating new evidence within its existing system, seeking to understand all things through Christ.

We have left for last the ultimate whopper of this article:

Beyond psychological adaptations and mechanisms, scientists have discovered neurological explanations for what many interpret as evidence of divine existence. Canadian psychologist Michael Persinger, who developed what he calls a "god helmet" that blocks sight and sound but stimulates the brain's temporal lobe, notes that many of his helmeted research subjects reported feeling the presence of "another." Depending on their personal and cultural history, they then interpreted the sensed presence as either a supernatural or religious figure. It is conceivable that St. Paul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus was, in reality, a seizure caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.

The scientific evidence is that when certain people have the faculties of sight and sound blocked but have their temporal lobe stimulated, they perceive the presence of something else. "Depending on their personal and cultural history," the authors say, people interpreted the "other" as supernatural or religious. Notice the caveat: it is dependent on their personal and cultural history. What happens if you put an atheist to this test? What does this prove? Some people in some circumstances might perceive physical phenomena as supernatural. But this cannot prove-- or even make a sensible claim-- that all claimed supernatural phenomena fit this paradigm.

And then the whopper-- "it is conceivable." Well, it can be conceivable that there are purple men who live on Venus. We can conceive of a lot of things; we're creative humans. But what is "conceivable" here? That Paul's Damascus moment was "a seizure caused by temporal lobe epilepsy."

Really? How is that conceivable?

A young man who is aggressively persecuting a sect of people who believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and King, has a seizure on the road, and his unconscious is forming this idea that he is entirely wrong, that Jesus is King, and he must now serve Him?

Where is the evidence for that? Would it not make far more sense that whatever "vision" Saul would have received would have in fact validated his hostility and his persecution of this sect? Where is the evidence that any such event has ever led to the dramatic turnaround as seen by Saul of Tarsus?

The big piece of evidence that undermines this theory, however, is that Saul was not alone when the event happened:

And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but beholding no man (Acts 9:7).

And they that were with me beheld indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me (Acts 22:9).

We should note that there is no inherent contradiction in these passages; the men with Paul heard the sound of speaking but did not understand the voice, and they saw the light but did not discern Jesus within it.

But look at what this shows-- the event was not just something happening in Saul's mind! There are eyewitnesses to the fact that something happened, and it was external to Saul. Therefore, this postulate by the authors completely fails, since it cannot make good sense of all the evidence. Perhaps there is a naturalist/materialist explanation that could be made for what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus, but it surely is not this one.

This goes to show the desperation of the argument being advanced. The explanations of scientism for the events described in Scripture never make sense of all the evidence. They certainly cannot be proven by any empirical method. In the "world that makes sense," contrary to the view of the authors, the explanation provided by Scripture-- in this instance, that Saul of Tarsus had a supernatural experience and revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ that completely transformed his understanding-- makes better sense of all the evidence than any naturalist/materialist explanation so far offered. Look at what very intelligent and highly educated people are willing to suggest in order to maintain their dogmas of materialism and scientific causes: a man totally changed everything he believed because of "a seizure caused by temporal lobe epilepsy." And, somehow, those around him were affected by the same malaise.

There is a conflict afoot, but it need not be between science and religion. The conflict is between Christianity and scientism. Christianity affirms that there is more to our reality than we can perceive, and that the most sensible explanation of our reality is rooted in the Triune God who is the Creator of the universe, having made mankind in His own image, seeking relationship, in a world marred by sin and death because of his own transgression, able to find redemption through the grace and mercy offered by God through the Son, who became flesh and lived the perfect life. Scientism is based on the belief that there is nothing beyond the perceptible universe, and attempts to make sense of all things in materialist/naturalist ways through the mechanisms of macroevolution. These are two worldviews that are going to be in conflict. These are two worldviews that have vastly different philosophical presuppositions and assumptions, and most importantly, one will never be able to be "proven" over the other through some empirical mechanism(s).

It is high time for those advocating scientism to be open, up-front, and honest about their dogmas, their claims, and where the science ends and where the interpretive mechanisms of scientism begins. After all, that's what people who think critically are willing to do-- they are willing to separate evidence from conclusions, and subject both evidence and conclusions to critical scrutiny. I would not count on that happening, however-- for then the emperor will be discovered to be naked, the dogma will not be able to bear the load that it is carrying, and people will see just how more sensible Christianity is than scientism. Let us be willing to properly use critical thinking skills, and let us try to make the best sense of this world!

ELDV