Speaking The Language

Last time, I gave a rather dim view of the state of the Christian attempts to engage the world in matters of controversy.  Let me start by apologizing to any of my fellow Christians whom I may have offended with my blunt critique.  In my attempt to express my opinions, I may have cast too wide a net.  Let me also clarify one very important thing.  I am guilty of the same behavior that I criticize.  I still think we, as Christians, are “going soft” in the arena of public debate and discourse, so my indictment is leveled first against myself.

That said, I also indicated that, given what I see to be the current state of Christian debate and discourse in the wider world, I would talk about what I think we should do now (with emphasis on the what I think we should do.  Like Dennis Miller says, it’s just my opinion, I could be wrong).  Well, that’s an elephant-size question with an elephant-size answer.  I think it is also of utmost importance here to remember one very important thing.  The primary goal of Christian participation in the arena of ideas is not to be right or even convincing (though we should strive to be both), but to bring glory to God through our obedience and our conduct.  Our Lord tells us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor.  Thank you, Rich Hefty, for reminding of that fact.

So, let’s eat an elephant, one bite at a time.  I mentioned last time that the first thing Christians need to be able to do is “learn the language.” Upon further reflection, it’s actually not the first thing, but it is in the top five and it’s where we’re going to start (I didn’t want to start with the heavy and potentially controversial statement that all Christians really are agnostics–that will be a fun one).  “What do you mean by ‘learn the language,’ Mark?” you may ask.  Well, rather that recreate the wheel to explain myself, I thought it would be easier to post something I’ve already written, albeit for different purpose.  What follows is adapted from a VERY ROUGH draft of a chapter from a book I’m working on.  Context is everything, however, so let me refer you to http://marklattimore.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/all-i-ever-needed-to-know-i-learned-in-prison/ for some much needed explanation.  The short version is that earlier in my life, I spent about a year and a half in a federal prison.  The book I mentioned explains some of the really cool things I learned while incarcerated about God and how He works.  Read on…

Speaking The Language 

                   I said to the man do you speak-a my language?
                   He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

                                                              “Land Down Under”
                                                              Men At Work

Let me let you in on a little secret. When at a minimum security prison, the worst thing besides separation from one’s family is boredom. This is not the “there’s nothing good on TV tonight” boredom or even your typical “as interesting as watching paint dry” boredom. We’re talking about “I’m willing to try anything once, even crocheting” or “let me sleep 23 ½ hours a day” boredom. You see, in prison you have time. Lots and lots of time. With that kind of time, you have two choices: allow your internal wiring to be reworked so that you embrace the lackluster life, in which case you quickly become the intellectual and social equivalent of a box of wet hair, or find creative ways to keep your mind occupied. I went with number two.

So, I began to do things I wouldn’t typically do on the outside. I read a lot, I watched people a lot, I listened a lot. And I learned a lot. One of the first things I began to do was to study Biblical Greek. I figured that it would be time consuming and let’s face it, I had plenty of time to consume. I also thought it would be helpful to learn the original language of the New Testament in order to better my understanding of scripture. It did and it has. It turns out that the hours I spent with a textbook, dictionary and Greek New Testament were worth the effort.

The more I studied Greek, the more I noticed the importance of understanding language when trying to learn a new subject. I wanted to learn more about a document originally written in Greek, so I studied Greek. Having “only” a 20 month sentence I had a relatively short time to learn about prison life and culture. So, I embarked to learn “prisonese.” It was enlightening to say the least. I quickly picked up on the nuanced uses of the word “minute”, an indeterminate length of time, usually used to convey the passage of a long period of time. I learned that “down” refers to the state of being incarcerated and that “hit” describes the state of being on the receiving end of a bad situation. So someone who “has been down for a minute” might be “hit” if his appeal fails. I discovered, thankfully, that “to feel” someone isn’t nearly as risqué as it sounds, meaning only “to understand” what someone is saying and that the phrase “that ain’t for you and me” expresses the speaker’s displeasure with whatever it is I have just said (as does the related expression “I thought you and me was better than that”). You get the picture.

Had I not endeavored to learn the language of my environment, I would never have fully appreciated what went on inside (or understood half of what was said). You know, life’s a lot like that. We often get so caught up in our own little lives, we become myopic about the rest of the world. We fall into our comfort zones, associating with people who look like us, who talk like us, who think like us, who have similar backgrounds as us and we never venture outside the walls of our safe havens. Then, when we are forced outside (or in my case, inside) we are adrift on a sea of unintelligibility and unfamiliarity. It is only when we proactively decide to “learn the language” of the world we engage that we begin to communicate effectively with it.

It’s the refusal to “learn the language” that stalls a great many efforts of people to engage those outside their group. Conservatives talk about “bleeding hearts” without dealing with the issues of “social justice” espoused by liberals. Abortion rights advocates cry “choice” without addressing the issue of “life”. Evangelicals insist on using the language of King James to evangelize a post-modern world whose cultural identity is more closely aligned with Kurt Cobain or Diddy than with Erasmus. In short, one group talks about apples while the other talks about oranges.  Have you ever wondered why foreign missionaries learn the language and customs of the people group they serve?  Chances are you haven’t.  It seems almost self-evident that they would learn about their mission field.  How else, short of supernatural intervention (which I in no way mean to dismiss), could they hope to share the Gospel?

The fact is, you cannot engage and convince those not like you or even challenge those with whom you disagree unless you understand them.  The early (especially Alexandrian) Church Fathers understood this basic principle of human interaction.  They evangelized by couching Christianity in terms their audience could understand, that is, in the language of Greek philosophy.  2500 years ago Sun Tzu observed, ”If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter III, Paragraph 18). I do not mean to imply that people different from you are necessarily your enemies, but it is clear that in any engagement outside of your comfort zone, whether you are a missionary spreading your faith to another group or a participant in a debate over navel lint, the effectiveness of your attempt is directly related to your understanding of the other person (and yourself–a completely different subject).  If someone’s objection to Christianity is based on a skewed view of the nature of evil, we should be prepared to talk about the problem of evil in the universe.  If someone’s agnosticism is rooted in a belief in a workable secularist moral philosophy, we should be prepared to talk about moral philosophy and its grounding in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  If someone has a question about what the Bible says, we should know…well…what the Bible says.  If someone denies God’s existence because we can’t perceive Him with any of our five senses, we need to be able to talk about how we can know He exists anyway.  We cannot be content to espouse a canned, lingo-laden response to every seeker with no regard for the lifetime of experience that has shaped that person’s worldview.  We should meet people wherever they are.  We should learn to speak the language.  Then, and only then, can we Christians claim to take the commands of the Great Commission seriously.

 

War On Christmas Part II

So, several days ago, I did something that is completely out of character for me.  I posted a link for people to watch a video and I DID NOT COMMENT.  I didn’t say a word about the substance of the video except to give the title, which was provided by Fox News, not me.  I did this as an experiment.  I wanted to see what kinds of reactions I got from people who watched without in any way coloring their responses with my own observations.

For those who have not watched the video, let me summarize.  There is an organization called the American Humanist Association which is funding an ad compaign on Washington, D.C. buses that says “Why believe in a god.  Be good for goodness’ sake.”  Fox News spoke on camera with a representative of this organization, Jesse Galef, who explained that the motivation behind the ad campaign is to reach out to atheists and agnostics to let them know that they can be good just “for the sake of being good.”  Also interviewed was Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who expectedly took a view contrary to Mr. Galef.  In short, Jesse Galef defended the campaign while Bill Donohue blasted the ad sponsors saying, among other things, “if these guys had any guts they would do this at Ramadan and explain it to the Muslims” (my paraphrase) and calling the organization “profoundly ignorant” of basic sociological principles regarding morality.

I posted the link on this blog, Mark Lattimore’s Blah Blah Blahg (my other blog), and also on my Facebook page.  What fascinated (and bothered) me most was the reactions I got from those who commented.  All of the comments were centered, either directly or indirectly, on the American Humanist Association and their campaign.  All of the comments had a sense of distress at this attack on Christianity and almost had the feel of being written by victims.  Not a single person mentioned Bill Donohue’s response (which was brilliant–I do not do it justice in my summary above.  Watch the video).  Not a single person had any substantive, meaningful response to the ad campaign.

This started me thinking…Much has been said about the so-called “Victimization of America,” that is, the idea that every person who has ever had anything in his or her life go awry is a victim of someone or something else, but not of his or her own conduct (keep in mind that I in no way intend to diminish the pain of those who have truly been victimized by another.  I am speaking here of the spurious excuses used by many to explain their plight, real or imagined).  I wonder whether American Christians are participating in this victimization play.  While yes, Christians are probably one of the most maligned groups in popular culture, we’re becoming a body of wimps.  We take it on the chin, whine about how bad society is, and then retreat to our little cliques to lick our wounds and comfort one another.  Why, instead, do we not all respond as Donohue did, not with “oh, you’re hurting my feelings” but with “you are wrong and this is why”?  We are content to let ourselves be bullied, but do not positively and proactively engage the world to show it the rational, intellectual and spiritual bases of our faith.  We talk about the darkness in the hearts of men without also talking about how to bring light to those dark places.  The fact is that Christians have the greatest hope of all.  We are commanded to “always [be] ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in [us]” (1 Peter 3.15).  It’s because of this hope that Paul wrote to Timothy “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1.7).  We should always be ready to confront a worldview such as that held by the American Humanist Association, not with a sense of dread and distress, but with a sense of power, power that flows not from ourselves but from God.  instead, we act like we’re ten runs behind in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, no men on base, and the bat-boy at the plate.  I’ve got news for you.  I read the end of the book.  God wins.

Even though we have the greatest hope of all, I think we remain in a state of distress vis a vis our culture because we simply don’t know how to engage that culture in order to respond to its attacks.  We must educate ourselves.  We must learn the language.  But that’s the subject of another post…

(I hate to leave this negative tone hanging out there but it’s past my bedtime and the next part of this discussion, the “what do we do now” part, will be fairly lengthy.  In the meantime, let me know what you think.  Am I completely out-of-bounds here?  Is there any truth to what I’ve said?  I’d love to hear from you)

Grace and peace to you.

 

War On Christmas

Here’s a new thing for me.  A short post.  Watch this video and then come back and let me know what you think.  I’m cross-posting this at Mark Lattimore’s Blah Blah Blahg.

http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/21416450/war_on_christmas.htm

Be good.

 

Internet Theology

I love Al Gore.  Not because I think he was a great Vice-President, not because I voted for him in 2000, not because I buy into his own brand of environmentalism, and not even because of his vibrant, engaging, and charismatic personality.  I love Al Gore because he invented the internet.

 

Hello (Start here if you’ve never visited before)

I’ve tried to write this post at least a dozen times in the last year.  I could just never seem to finish it.  I’ve been concerned for some time now regarding the dearth of fair and reasoned discourse by those who profess a Biblical worldview.  The fact is that Christians, especially self-labeled evangelical Christians, have forsaken a heritage of serious thought and reflection for what the world is now feeding its people — sound bites, overt emotional appeals, and gross over-simplification of very complex issues.  From politics to culture to theology, many today seem to be driven by what they want to be true rather than seeking what is indeed true.

In point of fact, Americans, both Christians and non-Christians alike, are even missing the boat on the idea of truth.  In 2001, the Barna Group surveyed attitudes of Americans on certain issues in the wake of the September 11 attacks.  Of those surveyed, only 22% of Americans believed in the existence of absolute truth.  More troubling was that only 32% of people who identified themselves as “born again” Christians believed in the existence of absolute truth (See this link http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=102).  Now, as a Christian, I am disturbed by this statistic on several levels.  First, and most obvious, without a belief in absolute truth, the Christian faith falls apart.  Jesus said ”I am the way, the truth and the light.”  Use of the definite article here denotes exclusivity.  This is an absolute truth of the Christian faith without which Jesus is, at best, one of a pantheon of saving deities or a really good teacher.  Secondly, I am disturbed by the intellectual breakdown on the part of Christians and non-Christians that would allow a naked statement like “there is no absolute truth” to take hold.  The simple statement that there is no absolute truth is, itself, a statement of absolute truth (absolute because if it were not, then there are circumstances in which absolute truth could exist — wrap your head around that one for a minute and you’ll see that absolute truth must exist).  Instead, Christians and non-Christians have been content “to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside [their] head[s].  [They] don’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless’.”  (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters).

This apparent inability to engage in serious intellectual reflection, which contemporary views on truth demonstrate, is, in reality, a sign of intellectual apathy.  While I have, up to now, allowed my indictment of intellectual laziness to spread beyond the confines of the Christian community, I want to focus on the thought life of Christians here.  In the last 1 1/2 to 2 centuries, academia and philosophy have been dominated by a secularist worldview.  As historian Mark Noll has noted “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind…modern American evangelicals have failed notably in sustaining serious intellectual life.”  (Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind).  We Christians have simply forgotten how to think.  Because of this, we accept or reject ideas, not based on their value as true or even useful statements, but on the basis of emotion, the agreement of the idea with our personal and often non-Biblical views, socially ingrained prejudices, the empassioned argument of someone we respect, or any one of a number of other unreasoned justifications.  We allow ourselves to get caught up in the euphoria of anti-secular causes and support them simply because they purport to be anti-secular, not because they address a current that actually conflicts with Biblical principles.  We tend to demonstrate extreme gullibility as we swallow whole everything that this televangelist or that Christian commentator exports to the market of ideas without inquiring as to their veracity (yes, even people claiming to be Christians lie).  We forget John’s admonition to “test the spirits” and we allow others to do our thinking for us.  Because of this, we often miss things in the world that are good and beautiful, forgetting that these things are from God, and we often buy into really bad theology.

I could go one, but then we get to the reason I have tried at least a dozen times to write this post and failed miserably.  This is a huge subject with a lot of themes.  With that in mind, what I intend to do in these pages is to explore areas in which Christians, as a body, have forsaken reasoned thought and have failed to bring our Christian worldview to bear.  Fortunately for us, God has given us a rich heritage of thinkers, ancient and modern, from whom we can glean valuable insights.  I will refer to them from time to time.  There is no need for me to struggle to make a point when someone else has said it with more clarity than I could ever hope to provide.  Sometimes, I will ramble on with my own musings on a given subject.  Forgive me if I am ever unclear or, worse, unkind.  Additionally, I am not so arrogant as to maintain that everything I say is correct.  Of course, I believe it to be right or I would not say it.  I encourage you to test everything I say against what the Bible says.  There is a reason that the Bible is often referred to as the canon of scripture.  The word canon is a Greek word meaning measure or rule.  I implore everyone who reads these words to compare them with the canon of scripture and to call me, preferably in a loving way, on any errors.  Finally, I welcome all those not holding to the Christian faith to participate in this dialogue.  While my call to Christians is to engage society with a Biblical worldview, we cannot do so without actually engaging those outside of our faith.  I look forward to talking with all of you in the future.