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?