Fides Quaerens Intellectum

C.S. Lewis on Education

John B. — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:54:38 +0000

“…a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now–not to be able to meet enemies on their own ground–would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered.”

-C.S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time” (1939).

Protestant atheism, cont’d

John B. — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:53:41 +0000

As I continue to work my way through the Hitchens book god is not Great (2007), I’m simultaneously trudging through a recent work by one of Hitchens fellow New-Yorkers, Rev. Tim Keller. It’s pretty clear that Keller, pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, churned out The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008) at least in part due to the rise of the growing corpus of literature coming from the leaders of the New Atheism, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and yes, my favorite “new” atheist club-member Christopher Hitchens. One of Hitchens arguments against the probability of the existence of an omnibenevolent God is captured in the title of his second chapter, “Religion Kills.” Citing numerous examples of religiously-motivated violence from the street wars between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast to the 9/11 attacks in his own back yard, Hitchens concludes that the “true believer cannot rest until the whole world bows the knee. Is it not obvious to all, say the pious, that religious authority is paramount, and that those who decline to recognize it have forfeited their right to exist?” (31). Setting aside the minor challenge Hitchens has with logic–and in this case the composition fallacy (i.e., a fallacious argument claiming that what is true of a few parts of the whole MUST be true of the whole itself), Keller humors Hitchens and agrees that “Religion ‘transcendentalizes’ ordinary cultural differences so that parties feel they are in a cosmic battle between good and evil” (55). Yes, Islam is the reason for much present-day terrorism, not to mention the never-ending contest between Israel and Palestine. Keller points out, however, that non-religious wars have been as plentiful as religious ones. Beginning with the French Revolution which jettisoned religion for human reason, we can point to the Communist Russian, Chinese, and Cambodian regimes of the 20th century–all of which rejected organized religion and belief in God (55). Keller then asks if we can with confidence conclude the source of killing is religion itself, or is it something else in the darkness of the human heart–as he suggests it is–that “expresses itself regardless of what a society’s beliefs might be” (56)? Hitchens will have to find another way of making a necessary connection between religion and killing.

Christian Gap-Year?

John B. — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:18:31 +0000

I was at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America last week in Dallas. Had a great time catching up with old friends and acquaintances while having the opportunity to share about IMPACT 360. One thing I’m always challenged by in talking with interested parents, prospective students, and pastors is what kind of language best describes the kind of education IMPACT 360 delivers. What DO we deliver? Biblical worldview education, intensive leadership training, and vocational (in the Reformational sense) understanding–all in 9 short months before students head off to their respective four-year institutions. The rhetoric of “gap-year” has been used for a number of years by outside-the-box educators, including homeschoolers, who typically are very quick to pick up on what IMPACT 360 is trying to accomplish. So does that make us a Christian gap-year program by default? How much should the market define our parameters vs. principles setting those boundaries? I find myself sitting on the fence on this one, frankly. Princeton University is rolling out a gap-year program as well, although they will use the nomenclature of “bridge year,” according to a February Princeton news release. Whatever we want to call this particular “gap” between high school and college, it’s pretty significant that the elite institution is jumping on the bandwagon. USA Today just ran a gap year story as well. Seems that we Americans are finally picking up on what the Europeans have been doing for quite some time now.

Protestant Atheism

John B. — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:25:22 +0000

A few days ago a I picked up highly acclaimed atheist Christopher Hitchens’ book god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (no, that’s not a typo…he chose–or perhaps the publisher did– a lower-case “g” in coming up with his title). Hitchens, a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School for Social Research in NY and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, has joined the ranks of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett in the attempt to popularize atheism in American culture. Although he uses his book as a megaphone to rail against seemingly any kind of transcendent religion (from evangelical Christianity to Catholicism to Greek Orthodox to Islam), he points out that his “particular atheism is a Protestant atheism” in that “it was with the splendid liturgy of the King James Bible and the Cranmer prayer book–liturgy that the fatuous Church of England has cheaply discarded–that I first disagreed” (11-12). I’m only a couple of chapters into the book at this point, but I would say that young university-bound evangelicals need to sit up and take notice of the book, and they need to take Hitchens seriously. This is the kind of atheism they will find for the four or five years they spend in academia. It isn’t that Hitchens’ arguments are the most brilliant I’ve ever come across. In fact I’ve actually read much more compelling arguments from leading atheist philosophers whose publications are read typically only by other philosophers and students of philosophy. What makes Hitchens compelling is his raw authenticity in explaining why he believes what he does, as well as in recounting his own faith journey. That’s the challenge. The appeal to authenticity often wins the day with the Mosaic generation. More to come…

Launching

John B. — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:13:15 +0000

Last evening the 2nd class in IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) history graduated. Exhausted but joyful, a new class of alumni has launched. Book after book, article upon article, and lecture followed by Socratic discussion on everything from evidence for God’s existence to the purpose of a college education, not to mention all the community service hours worked, Chick-fil-A leadership training absorbed (including leadership lessons taught on the corporate jet!), Bible studies led and spiritual disciplines practiced…these alumni understand that all of these growing experiences were not ends unto themselves but rather means to a divinely established end, namely that of discerning their callings in this world.

John Calvin once said that “the Lord enjoins every one of us, in all the actions of life, to have respect to our own calling.He knows the boiling restlessness of the human mind, the fickleness with which it is borne hither and thither, its eagerness to hold opposites at one time in its grasp, its ambition. Therefore, lest all things should be thrown into confusion by our folly and rashness, he has assigned distinct duties to each in the different modes of life. And that no one may presume to overstep his proper limits, he has distinguished the different modes of life by the name of callings. Every man’s mode of life, therefore, is a kind of station assigned him by the Lord, that he may not be always driven about at random” (Institutes, Book III, ch. 10, section 6).

Through it all they–and we as staff–have learned time and again that achieving the kind of discernment necessary for hearing God’s call is seemingly thwarted by a restlessness of heart and mind that Calvin describes, namely one that is a symptom of a less than fully integrated character. The battleground is one where the the vices and affections of the old, empty self (Eph. 4:22) have less and less power over the ability of the Christ-follower to choose the good, and yet it is still a battleground where the Christ-follower is all too aware of the stranglehold that certain vices still have in the depths of the soul. Citing C.S. Lewis, one of our coed students drove this point home as well as I’ve heard in recent memory: “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is.” She went on to say “My reaction to situations, and how I treat the people involved, shows me how sinful I really am. I do bad things because I am a bad person.”

Still, this alumnae from Illinois and indeed the entire class now know that one of the means of God’s grace in the midst of this restlessness was their life together as believers at this “station” called IMPACT 360. Their call to Christian community was (to use Calvin’s verbiage) a station that none of them would have guessed would be so crucial for their future, and yet none of them on this side of the experience would now trade that in for anything. They leave us understanding that God’s presence in their lives means that the “bad person” is redeemed and is constantly being refashioned into the image of Christ, and they leave realizing that the evidence of that redemption and its corresponding image is far more visible and tangible than it was nine months ago when they began this past September. And they leave with an eagerness to serve each other, and to serve those brothers and sisters who will comprise their next station for the next four years of their lives.

War, Pacificism & “Miami Virtue”

John B. — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:49:54 +0000

This past week a 19 year-old student sat in my office troubled by a certain aspect of her past, namely the fact that she descends from a long line of conservative Pennsylvania Dutch pacifists. For a few weeks at IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) we’ve been working through systems and issues in ethics, and it was only natural that the ethics of war should be on her mind–not to mention the fact that she started and ended her high school career during Bush II’s War on Terrorism. She was respectful in the way she talked about her pacifist heritage, but it was clear that she was wrestling in her very soul with the idea of intentional non-participation as a viable long-term solution to international crises. “How can I talk with these people in a convincing way?” she queried. For a few minutes we broke out the ethics text we’ve been using and reviewed St. Augustine’s theory on just-war and discussed its strengths and weaknesses. Eventually I attempted to answer what I thought was the real question she was asking. I told her that my own sense of it is that (and please excuse the unfortunate metaphor in this case) the pacifist will make this issue a hill on which to die. “The only exception to that,” I explained, “is if the person is truly seeking to understand your position instead of just trying to show you why you’re wrong. You have to offer that same respect.”

Several days after that conversation it occurred to me that perhaps this student was trying to dig down deeper than what I had realized at the time. This week in reading the last chapter of University of Southern California philosopher Dallas Willard’s book The Spirit of the Disciplines (HarperCollins, 1991), I paused to contemplate an old ’60’s slogan he poses: “suppose they gave a war and nobody came?” He goes on to explain that “in the case of a complex phenomenon such as war, the righteous must reach must deeper than resistance or noninvolvement.” Here Willard is referring to authentic Christ-followers to are seeking to make a difference in the world. He concludes that Christ-followers “must reach into the dispositions that make war seem a plausible course of action and make people come when the battle cry is sounded. War is not an isolated phenomenon but rides upon the coattails of cultural, economic, racial, and even religious practices, ideas, and attitudes that have their life in the social context. These are the sparks that kindle the raging holocaust of war” (231). The point here is not to determine whether or not Willard is a pacifist or an Augustinian just-war theorist. Rather, his point is simply this: that the world’s seemingly impersonal power structures, independent of any one single person’s will though they may be, are “dependent for their force upon the general readiness of normal people to do evil.”

Further reflection on Willard’s claim regarding our readiness to do evil brings up questions that atheists, agnostics, and even theological liberals are challenged to answer with any degree of intellectual satisfaction. Here’s one: If human nature is basically “good,” then how do we explain atrocities such as those committed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and, more recently, the horrendous events in Darfur? The atheist is challenged with the very concepts of good and evil anyway. If he is intellectually honest, he’ll have to say that since there is nothing transcendent we simply make up what is good and evil and then create laws around what we make up. Those laws could and should perhaps change over time, because in the end there is only behavior and survival of the fittest, plain and simple. The theist who tilts to the left theologically of course is in better shape (arguably), but still misses the mark. She acknowledges God’s reality and perhaps even his active involvement in the world. But her assumptions about the nature of humanity–that people are basically good–cause her to explain away such human atrocities as resulting from a lack of education, scarcity of resources, or even psychological disorders caused by brain physiology gone haywire. Not that these cannot be factors, BUT, isn’t the problem running a bit deeper? Is it possible for normal people, as Willard suggests, to have a general readiness to do evil? Could it be that human perversity cannot just be explained away by faulty hard-wiring or improper schooling, but rather is the result of faulty character that actually prefers to immerse itself in the tempting subtleties of a culture deeply pervaded by evil itself? Why is it, Willard asks, that we want to live vicariously through the personalities of “Miami Vice?” (A quick aside to the mosaics out there–if you haven’t seen this show, just check TV Guide for reruns on TBN.) Why is that title met with intrigue deep within us, whereas a title such as “Miami Virtue” probably strikes us as hopelessly dry, dull, and boring?

The Spirit of the Disciplines is Willard’s attempt to encourage Christ-followers to recapture an understanding and regular practice of the spiritual disciplines, which he defines as “nothing but an activity undertaken to bring us into more effective cooperation with Christ and his Kingdom” (156). Pacifism on its own is an inadequate solution to war in that it merely solves the crisis of conscience of some via active non-participation. What about this instead: Recapturing the spiritual disciplines can assist us in improving our ability to see evil for what it is in all its cultural subtleties. What if community, national, and world leaders actually believed this? Perhaps that could go a long way in actually addressing the root causes of war itself.

On Your Way to the Ph.D.? Take the Left Fork in the Road

John B. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:10:41 +0000

It’s no secret that academia is, and has been, dominated by politically and socially left-tilting faculty members. For years now David Horowitz has been the most prominent voice on this issue, and indeed at times has been a voice crying in the wilderness. This is not an argument for conservatives to avoid higher education or even the secular academy. In fact I would make the claim that a new study conducted through the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. gives conservatives good reasons to think harder and longer about going into the professorate. The study, entitled “Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don’t Get Doctorates,” is available online at http://www.aei.org/docLib/20071114_WOESSNER.pdf. Anyone who believes that non-religious institutions ought to self-regulate with respect to maintaining a truly diverse faculty should pay attention to this study. Seems to me that “diversity” in the hiring of professors is increasingly defined by ethnicity or sexual orientation to the neglect of the diversity of ideas. Conservative Ph.D.’s are out there (although more scarce than liberals), and they are essential for maintaining a rich and diverse learning environment for students. A favorite extracurricular activity of liberal professors is to build straw men by asserting that conservative professors “aren’t about education, they’re about indoctrination.” Well, certainly we can cite instances where that is true, and most unfortunately so. If the liberals are honest, though, they’ll admit that they can find numerous instances where those of their own ilk are doing the same thing. Left-tilting deans and department chairs at research universities and non-religious liberal arts colleges would do well to remember that in their faculty searches.

Ethics and the “whatever” generation

John B. — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 03:49:16 +0000

This past week at IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) saw the awakening of students’ critical thinking capacities as those were brought to bear on the subject of ethics. Too broad? For sure. This was an introductory module to ethics–specifically an introduction to the major systems of ethics, including deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. We also covered moral relativism and moral objectivism in depth. In our socratic roundtable discusssion on Thursday we had a lively exchange over how one might best respond to John Q. Citizen who makes the argument that “you cannot impose your values on anyone else, since values themselves are culturally defined, thereby making the language of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ entirely culturally bound.” Most agreed that discussion with someone like John on this question really won’t get very far if we try to reason from Scripture to the fact of moral objectivity. In this case we have to punt to general revelation.

Here is the real-life case study I brought to Thursday’s roundtable. A social work student I met several years ago at a large state university said this to me in a follow-up email to a conversation she and I had about the merits of the Federal Marriage Ammendment (2004), which would have outlawed (by way of Constitutional amendment) same-sex marriages:

“I think I was most troubled by the concept of an objective moral reality. How can you prove that it exists? If everyone were to follow certain steps, would they each come to the same conclusion about this moral reality? Morality is certainly not inherent in each of us ? we are taught the morals of our culture. Similarities between cultures regarding taboos and mores indicate that certain activities or practices contribute to survival or well?being. I allowed your argument that nobody would agree with torturing babies as a premise in our discussion on Tuesday night, but I’d even like to retract that. Maybe some people think it’s okay. Female genital mutilation is still practiced. How do we know it’s okay to eat animals? How do we “know” it’s not okay to eat people? Or is it? Our knowledge is not innate. From research, I can say that we are social creatures, and without society we do not develop.”

Responses, anyone?

The Storm’s Silver Lining

John B. — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 02:09:42 +0000

Last evening a tornado ripped through the campus of Union University (www.uu.edu), IMPACT 360’s (www.impact360.net) academic partner. Having talked with one of our alums who is now taking his degree at Union, they are estimating the damage to the campus physical plant to be in the tens of millions. The good news is that no one was killed or seriously injured. This developing story has received national media coverage, and I was reminded of the importance of Christian character and Christian witness in the face of literal disaster and hardship when I read the following comment on the Union University emergency update blogsite (http://uuemergency.blogspot.com/):

“I am not a churchgoer, but I have been so impressed with the attitudes, courtesy and presence of the students interviewed by the news media that I just sent a check to the disaster relief fund. All best of luck to you all.”

Larry, Avon, CT

The kind of character to which Larry from CT took notice isn’t anything those Union U students could fake. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is….”

Pain & Joy in PA

John B. — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:53:35 +0000

C.S. Lewis once wrote “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

An encounter I had recently while staying in Pennsylvania reminded me how true this really is. I had been doing dissertation research in PA earlier this month, as well as a bit of recruitment for IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net), and on this particular day had scheduled a lunch meeting with a headmaster of a Christian school in the area who sent us one of their graduates this academic year. We enjoyed sharing our life stories, dreams and plans for the future–mostly in terms of our careers. It became clear to me very quickly that he is a respected visionary leader in his school, church and home. When the topic of conversation turned to family towards the end of the meal, he said to me “Well, my wife and I are actually going through a pretty tough time right now.” He went on to explain the good news of his wife being pregnant with their third child, and how they had already been blessed with two strong and healthy boys. “Even though she hasn’t been born yet, we’re naming our little girl Victoria Grace,” he explained. “We want people to know her name before she’s born.”

“Why’s that?” I queried.

“Well, you see, several months ago our daughter was diagnosed with anencephalitis…..”

Although he kept talking, I didn’t hear much after he used that medical jargon, which is one of the few medical terms I actually know–only from doing case studies in medical ethics during my time in graduate school as well as my own experience in teaching bioethics to seminarians and undergraduates. For a second I was frozen in a state of utter shock. Anencephalitis is a brain condition in a small percentage of in-utero babies, and it is 100% fatal once the child no longer has the benefit of being inside the mother as a life-support system. I knew immediately where he was going with this.

“The doctor tells us that Victoria Grace will live for a few hours at most as soon as the baby is born, perhaps as little as a few minutes.” he went on to say, mournfully. “My wife is due any day now.”

“Dear God,” I prayed, “why?”

My new friend kept talking. “You know,” he explained “I won’t tell you that my wife and I don’t have our bad days when we tell God we don’t understand. And we do plead with Him for the life of this child we already love so much. But we know that His grace is sufficient for us, and we thank him for the time we will have with her and have already had as she has grown inside her mother. We just wouldn’t be able to make any sense of this if we didn’t have Christ, knowing that this is all somehow for His glory and our good” (Rom 8:28). “I can’t wait to see her in Heaven,” he concluded. He beamed with a kind of intense joy and inner peace that I’d rarely seen in a Christ-follower before.

This man, three years my junior, in many ways is so much mature than I am. I have no idea what it would be like to experience the joy of finding out that I’m going to be a father again, only to discover soon thereafter that the kiss I would give to my daughter welcoming her into the world would also be a kiss goodbye. And yet, I see through my new friend’s testimony and faith in God’s plan that with Him all things are possible (Mt. 19:26), even finding new joy through the struggle of such searing pain.