Atheism for Lent - When Not to Refute Atheism: Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud for Christian Reflection

Christian Study Center of Gainesville - When Not to Refute Atheism: Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud for Christian Reflection

I'm a big Merold Westphal fan. This essay highlights his work on understanding the hermeneutics of suspicion found in such thinkers as Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche as actually useful to Christians. Westphal's understanding of postmodernism dwarfs what I read from most voices in the church, no matter where they uncritically embrace it or decry it as the enemy of the faith. Now the aforementioned "unholy" trio are enemies of the faith. How can we listen to their critiques and take them to heart?

I believe the final answer to this question is found in recognizing the profound parallel between the critique of religion in Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud and the critique of religion found in the Bible. Faith as fraud? Devotion as deception? These are strong charges, but modem atheism is not the first to make them. What about Amos, whose God cannot stand the music offered in his praise (Amos 5:23)? What about Isaiah (Second or Third), for whom “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6)? And what about Jesus, who considers the most pious people of his day “whitewashed tombs” (Matt. 23:27) and the temple run by the chief priests a “den of robbers” (Mark 11:17)?

Read the full article here.

God In My Bedroom

The Falcon Newspaper - Bringing sex out of the darkness:

This is from an article in the Seattle Pacific University student newspaper about the struggles facing students who are maturing sexually earlier, marrying later, and committed to abstinance.

'You're never in the heat of the moment with just your boyfriend,' she said. 'God's there, you're there, and the possibility of a child is there.'

'I've known women for whom [God's presence] is the reason they haven't had sex,' she said.

Professor of Nursing Dr. Mary Fry says that it can be useful to imagine God's presence in the room.

I'm with her so far. Great. I can't express how helpful this tactic was in my pre-marital dating life.

But, within marriage, she said, 'It's okay also to imagine God is polite enough to turn God's back and give you the freedom to be riotously lusty.'

Whoa! Lost me here. In all other respects this has been an article affirming the goodness of sex and God's creation of us as sexual beings, celebrating marriage as the season for sexual expression in loving relationship. If God created us as sexual beings and the marriage relationship is a picture of the love within the Godhead itself, why does God need to politely turn His back in my bedroom?? Is this not a holdover of an unhealthy negative view of sex as dirty, undignified or sinful?

I reject this statement. If God cannot look upon the riotous lustiness of my marriage bed, then something is wrong with it. If God has to politely turn His back because I'm embarrased to have Him see me "doing that" then something is wrong with it. No, God must be an inimate part of that intimate communion with my wife. If God is the love and passion that drive our relationship and it is sin to be out of fellowship with Him, then He must be a part of that act, too. As two redeemed people, who no longer live as slaves to sin, but possess the righteousness of Christ at least legally and positionally, when we delight in one another we should be delighting in Him as well, naked and unashamed. When we are rightly related to one another and to God, then God looks upon the riotous lustiness of my marital bed and smiles.

Read the full article here.

thoughts?

Design for Living

Design for Living

Michael Behe clears the fog in this NYTimes Op/Ed piece (thanks Dave).

IN the wake of the recent lawsuits over the teaching of Darwinian evolution, there has been a rush to debate the merits of the rival theory of intelligent design. As one of the scientists who have proposed design as an explanation for biological systems, I have found widespread confusion about what intelligent design is and what it is not.

Get the full story here.

Universe Next Door Film Nights, pt 2

The movie nights that I'm leading for my church's college and singles group is starting this weekend. I have a long list of films to pull from now. We're starting friday night with The Game.

Here's an interesting review of The Game from Metaphilm, in their usual daring and entertaining style.

If only Walker Percy were still alive! Writers Brancato and Ferris must be two of his biggest fans. The author of The Moviegoer would recognize his ideas unmistakably by the film’s exquisite rendering of a man so lost in the cosmos that he isn’t even aware of his despair. The question that Walker Percy spent his entire life asking—How do you speak to a man sensibly about ultimate truth in a Christ-haunted and Christ-forgetting culture?—is not only truthfully but beautifully answered by The Game.

Not all of my friends are sold on that theory of the film, but we should have some interesting discussion, nevertheless.

Back In the Saddle

A week-and-a-half ago I dove back into school for the Spring semester. The semester started full-bore, reminding me that I must be crazy to go to seminary while working full-time, married, and attempting to maintain any semblance of ministry. I keep answering those Publisher's Clearing House emails in the hopes that I can quit my job and do school full-time, but something tells me that I'm not going to win. :^)

I'm taking 4th semester Greek: Introduction to Exegesis. This semester we'll be translating the book of Ephesians (twice), writing a verse-by-verse commentary of a passage, two exegetical papers, and a handful of other written assignments designed to teach us how to do exegesis in the Epistles. We're using Grant Osbornes, The Hermeneutical Spiral as our main textbook.

I'm also taking Intertestimental History, which hasn't started yet, and Gospels. Gospels look like it's going to be a good class. My prof (Charlie Baylis) seems committed to making sure we understand how to interpret narrative literature in the Bible. This is important because so many pastors from schools like mine treat passages of the gospels like they would epistolary literature. The take individual pericopes and treat them as simply propositional, drawing principles without regard to the disctinctives of narrative or the place of the pericope in the overall narrative flow of the gospel (or of the whole of Scripture for that matter).

This semester promises to be a lot of work. I hope I can pop in here more that I was allowed to this past week!

New York Daily News - Entertainment Columnists - Jim Farber: The taste of Paste

New York Daily News - Entertainment Columnists - Jim Farber: The taste of Paste

Here's a nice article about Paste in the New York Daily News. Thanks Dave!

The few periodicals that try to straddle all the genres - like Blender or Rolling Stone - often adopt a flip and breezy tone that's more appropriate to celebrity-driven entertainment publications than earnest music magazines.

However, a new arrival called Paste covers the full musical spectrum with equal energy and authority. The magazine has just one determining factor for coverage - quality.

Get the full story here.

NR's List of the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century

NR's List of the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century

The National Review has compiled their list of the best 100 non-fiction books of the 20th century. Thanks again, alyoshak!

It seems that every time I turn around these days somebody's trying to get me to read The Everlasting Man. I guess I'm going to have to break down and do so this semester.

Get the full story here.

Masai Creed

Belief.net - The Masai Creed

I received this via email from alyoshak. His only comment was "This is so edifying." I can do no better than that. What a blessing to have a faith that transcends culture and at the same time inheres in each culture. What a gift to be able to see that faith through the eyes of the believers in those cultures rather than being trapped in the illusion that 21st century American (southern) evangelicalism is the form of the Body of Christ. Enjoy.

The Masai Creed

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the bible, that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

Poynter Online - Help Wanted on the Religion Beat

Poynter Online - Help Wanted on the Religion Beat.

With concern about values registering high in exit polls last election, the question was raised as to why journalists didn't shed more light on such concerns and the people who hold them.

It's the hiring, stupid.

Get the full story here.