The Questioning Christian

Category: God

  • Suggested reading: Bibles and other religion books

    A reader sent me an email this week, excerpted below:

    … Today, I happily stumbled upon your blog via a web search regarding the possibility of being Christian while not believing in the divinity of Jesus. I have spent the past hour or so looking over your previous posts, and I am finding them most helpful in my current faith journey.

    I particularly value your definition of faith as: (i) accepting that a Creator exists and (ii) trusting that, in the end, all will be well. This resonates deeply with me.

    … I realize you have not posted much lately, but I hope you can assist me. Could you please recommend: 1) books that reflect your views on Christianity and faith, and 2) a good English translation of the Bible?

    (Extra paragraphing added.)
     
    Many thanks to that reader, whose email inspired me to put together the following lists.
     
    (The links below are not "affiliate" links, incidentally.)
     

    Bible

    I normally quote from the New International Version, for two reasons: (1) It's fairly readable, and (2) it's a favorite of evangelicals and conservatives — if I quoted from a more-"liberal" translation, that might give those folks an excuse to discount or ignore the point I'm trying to make. 
     
    My own personal favorite Bible is the New Revised Standard Version, especially the HarperCollins Study Bible, which has lots of footnotes and annotations. 
     
    I've found useful the NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament. ("NKJV" stands for New King James Version.)

    Books

    The following list of books is in no particular order, from scanning across my bookshelves:
    I've omitted some writers whose works I found valuable but that I regard as less accessible, such as:
    • John Dominic Crossan, a scholar and former Catholic priest
    • Paula Frederiksen, a Boston University professor
    • John Polkinghorne, a renowned Cambridge University particle physicist turned Anglican priest, but some of whose science-based arguments I find less than convincing
    • A. N. Wilson
    • Paul Johnson
    I've also omitted writers whom I regard as assuming too many facts not in evidence or being insufficiently skeptical, such as N.T. Wright (conservative) and Marcus Borg (liberal).
     
    Finally, I've omitted various translations of primary sources.
     
     
     
     

     

  • The real meaning of “science” — Dr. Atul Gawande’s CalTech commencement address

    Dr. Atul Gawande is one of my heroes. His CalTech commencement address of yesterday should be required reading for any informed citizen of any country.

    Excerpt:

    If this place has done its job—and I suspect it has—you’re all scientists now. Sorry, English and history graduates, even you are, too.

    Science is not a major or a career. It is a commitment to a systematic way of thinking, an allegiance to a way of building knowledge and explaining the universe through testing and factual observation.

    [DCT comment: In other words, "science" is the practice of dealing with the universe as it is — or in another formulation: as the Creator wrought it — and not as necessarily being now what we wish it were.]

    The thing is, that [the scientific mindset] isn’t a normal way of thinking. It is unnatural and counterintuitive. It has to be learned. Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense.

    Common sense once told us that the sun moves across the sky and that being out in the cold produced colds. But a scientific mind recognized that these intuitions were only hypotheses. They had to be tested.

    (Emphasis and extra paragraphing added.)

    Read it all.

  • Morals without God? (NY Times blog post)

    A good read, by biologist Frans B. M. de Waal

  • Can disbelief be reconciled with worship?

    Last week a reader sent me a Facebook message expressing hope that I hadn’t discontinued this blog, saying, “Goyim for God, indeed!” I take the liberty of quoting from [his or her] reply to my response:

    … I’m a lifelong [denomination member] recently transplanted to a small [location] town where my only church option is St. [XX] Episcopal ….

    But talk about culture shock! Worship is a constant barrage of words that I either don’t believe or that offend me (it will take some time), and I’m struggling with Book of Common Prayer on the one hand and the apparent absence of any normative common wisdom on the other. I say the first line of the Nicene Creed and am then silent. [Me too – DCT.] … Yet the people are dear, the rector–rather conservative theologically–is masterful at pastoring, and I am chipping away at a niche for myself. Still longing for the Goyim for God!

    … I am deeply concerned about the future of Christianity if all the laity sees is fundamentalism, megachurch me-ism, or 4th century theology. Where is panentheism in the pulpits? Where is there talk of process–or of anything other than Jesus as the biological son of God? We’re doing a decent job of whaling away at social issues, but what about theology? What can a layperson do (other than write a highly articulate blog)? I gather you have found a way to be comfortable with worship. How do you do that?

    Truth to tell, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with traditional Christian corporate worship. Except when I have blood-drive duty every eight weeks, I haven’t been to church at our parish in over a year.  (My ever-supportive wife and I visited a couple of other nearby parishes, but she decided she didn’t want to switch, for reasons I completely understand. So now she goes alone, and I’m not sufficiently motivated to become a regular at another parish on my own.)

    Why have I stopped going to church? Because over the past 10 years or so, our parish has become far too Jesus-centered for comfort. As junior clergy have moved on, they’ve been replaced by evangelicals; all of our parish’s recent calls have been products of Nashotah House or Trinity School for Ministry, two bastions of orthodox ideology. The sermons, the hymns, the Sunday school lessons all seemed to focus mainly on Jesus as (supposedly) God become man, who defeated once and for all the sin of the world and who would soon return in triumph — all of which are notions that, in my humble judgment, simply cannot be reconciled with the evidence of what God actually wrought in this world, as opposed to what some people imagine he did.

    I remain convinced that belief in a Creator of some kind is eminently defensible, and that the Summary of the Law — paraphrased slightly — is the key to a happy life.  I admire and respect Jesus for his commitment to both, even at the cost of his life. I still love and respect my friends at our parish, many of whom have said they miss me on Sundays. I can’t rule out that it’s I, not they, who is totally missing the point (but I don’t think that’s the case). 

    Still, I squirm when preachers and laity act as though there’s no room in the church for any point of view that doesn’t square with what I can only judge to be sheer speculation. In the end, that’s what caused me to stay away from church, at least at our parish.

    I’ve toyed with the idea of asking some of my like-minded parishioner friends if they’d be interested in starting a Goyim for God study group that meets somewhere for Morning- or Evening Prayer (minus the Gloria Patri and the Phos Hilaron) and Sunday brunch or dinner, either in lieu of or in addition to the Sunday service at church. Maybe someday we can give that a shot and see how it might work.

  • Israeli ‘settlers’ torch Palestinian property in retaliation for being evicted by Israeli troops

    When you and your friends and family are implacably convinced that you know God’s will beyond question, you can do some evil things:

    On a hilltop, blankets, pots and broken chairs are strewn where the Israeli army tried to demolish an illegal Jewish settlement outpost. In the fields opposite, 70 olive trees are scorched and blackened after the settlers took revenge — not on the army, but on the local Palestinians.

    It is a new and effective settler tactic known as the “price tag”: if the Government sends police or soldiers to dismantle an outpost that is being built, the settlers make the Palestinian population pay the price.

    “It’s quite simple and smart but evil,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer with the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din. “They attack Palestinian property, people, and blockade roads every time the Israeli security forces do something they don’t like” — such as demolish outposts.

    Many settlers in the West Bank are religious hardliners who believe that they are fulfilling a biblical prophecy by taking over the land that they call Judaea and Samaria.

    * * *

    “It’s not a war, it’s our right,” he said, brushing aside the issue of what might happen to the Palestinians if his movement succeeds in settling the land.

    “It’s not my problem, it’s not something I have to solve. This is a land that was promised by God, that’s all I know,” he added.

    Mr Sfard said that there were anywhere between a few dozen and a few hundred settlers using the violent tactic, which was proving to be effective.

    “It’s slowing down the security forces and demanding much larger and heavier forces,” he said. “It’s such a big headache that many of the relevant authorities give up without trying.” The outposts are rebuilt quickly by determined settlers once the army leaves.

    From James Hider, West Bank settlers use ‘price tag’ tactic to punish Palestinians, The Times [UK], Oct. 15, 2009 (bold-faced emphasis added.)

  • Karen Armstrong: Itinerant prophet of the Golden Rule

    My wife and I enjoyed hearing renowned religious historian Karen Armstrong last night at Houston’s Wortham Center, as part of a Progressive Forum of Houston lecture series. Some observations:

    • Armstrong is delightful.  Her lecture style is passable; to me, though, the most enjoyable part was her living-room conversation afterwards, in the style of Inside the Actor's Studio, with Progressive Forum founder Randall Morton, who posed questions previously submitted via the Web.
    • Armstrong emphasized the commonality of the Golden Rule in world religions. That resonated with me, of course (see my various postings here on the fundamental importance of the Summary of the Law in human cultural evolution).
    • She claimed that it’s only been in the last few hundred years that people took the Bible’s creation accounts lit­erally. She said that those accounts used to be re­garded — correctly, in her view — as mythos, a story setting out a program for action, as opposed to logos, a description of the way things really are. (Doubtless this one-sentence summary fails to do her justice.)
    • Armstrong pitched the Charter for Compassion movement that it sounds like she’s spearheading.
    • She pronounces her first name CAR-rin.
    • The event looked to be sold out – I saw only a handful of empty seats here and there in the Cullen Theater, probably from no-shows. We ended up sitting in the mezzanine, which I think was our first time ever in that section. The seating there is pitched incredibly steeply, more so than any stadium I’ve ever been in.
    • It was announced that Armstrong would do a book-signing for her latest, The Case for God, being sold on-site by co-sponsor Brazos Bookstore. I wanted a signed book, but the line was at least 30 minutes long, so we headed home.  I’ll check with the Brazos to see if they have any signed books there.
    • I’ve never seen so many Toyota Priuses in one place as there were in the parking garage afterwards; draw your own conclusions about the audience ….
    • Armstrong is not without her critics – see that section of her Wikipedia entry.

  • The four basic prayers: Gimme! Thanks! Oops! and Wow!

    From Zev Chafetz, The Right Way to Pray?  NY Times, Sept. 16, 2009:

    “… when you come right down to it, there are only four basic prayers. Gimme! Thanks! Oops! and Wow!”

    “That’s it?”

    “Yep. Wow! are prayers of praise and wonder at the creation. Oops! is asking for forgiveness. Gimme! is a request or a petition. Thanks! is expressing gratitude. That’s the entire Judeo-Christian doxology. That’s what we teach our kids in religious school.”

    “What about adults who want to learn to pray?”

    “I tell them to start with prayers of Thanks! That’s what Christians call ‘grace.’ Everybody has something to be grateful for.”

    “What if the person doesn’t believe in God?”

    “Then I tell him to thank who or what seems appropriate,” Gellman said. “Hey, you’ve got to start somewhere. If people say prayer is a crutch, I don’t disagree. Sometimes you need a crutch. But I don’t believe in a God who is a magician and miraculously answers individual prayer. That’s absurd.”

  • God hasn’t given us a Batphone to take his calls on

    “Statements like, ‘It is clearly God’s will that we…..’ or ‘God’s Word has settled the issue’ should trigger immediate questioning.  What God wants of us is not to be learned from a morning message on the red telephone, but in the patient waiting on the guidance of the Spirit, which comes through the myriad changes and chances of human existence, both sacred and secular.”

    –Canon Simon Mein, Away from my Desk (hat tip: Mark Harris)

  • Redefining church

    Here’s a proposition for debate, inspired by a discussion at TitusOneNine and a posting last week by Nick Knisely:

    Resolved, that the members of ‘the church’ are those people — reasserter, reappraiser, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. — who are willing:

    1) to pray ‘next to’ one another, even if the prayer of the person next to you is no more than a grudging acknowledgement that maybe a Creator of some sort might indeed exist;

    2) to treat each other’s prayers with equal dignity, even when there’s grave disagreement over underlying suppositions; and

    3) to collaborate in seeking the best for others as for themselves, even if for no other reason than that this seems to give a species a survival advantage over the long term.

    Under this definition of ‘church,’ a given individual’s theological beliefs would be of no particular relevance, except of course to the extent those beliefs influenced the individual’s actions.

    I know some would object to such a definition of ‘church’; I’m curious how you’d articulate that objection.

  • Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God – a must-read

    The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright Robert Wright never disappoints. His latest book, The Evolution of God, is an extended look at theology from the perspective of a journalist who understands the fallibilities of human perception and memory, and the natural limitations of scriptures.

    Wright doesn't seem to be religious in the conventional sense. He accepts evolution as about as well-proved as anything we know. But he does think the evidence is consistent with the existence of … Something 'out there.'

    The Afterword, a nice summation, is worth the read all by itself. Here's an excerpt from the final paragraph (with extra line breaks added):

    Though we can no more conceive of God than we can conceive of an electron, believers can ascribe properties to God, somewhat as physicists ascribe properties to electrons. One of the more plausible such properties is love.

    And maybe, in this light, the argument for God is strengthened by love’s organic association with truth — by the fact, indeed, that at times these two properties almost blend into one.

    You might say that love and truth are the two primary manifestations of divinity in which we can partake, and that by partaking in them we become truer manifestations of the divine.

    Then again, you might not say that.

    The point is just that you wouldn’t have to be crazy to say it.