Blind Faith: Does Christ Require It?
September 30, 2006
When I talk with or listen to nonbelievers, particularly atheistic scientists, about Christianity, it’s usually not long before they explain: “I never could be a Christian. I just can’t believe anything based on ‘blind faith.’” Inevitably, I or someone else then tries to explain that the God of the Bible does not ask that we believe based on faith alone. He has provided a great deal of evidence – in Scripture, nature, and the natural law – so that people may know Him. One may argue that they do not find the evidence compelling, but they cannot argue that none exists.
Too often, the nonbeliever responds along these lines: “There may be evidence, but Christians aren’t allowed to examine and weigh it. Righteousness requires that they believe without question or challenge. I know, because this is what I was taught as a child, when my parents dragged me to church.” I don’t doubt that some of our churches err in their teaching about faith. All churches err at some time, in some way. If you find yourself struggling with the issue of “blind faith,” either in your own mind or in conversations with others, I recommend a couple of short posts I came across this week. David Heddle at He Lives offers his thoughts, including a series of relevant Biblical passages. Paul at Exiled from GROGGS reproduces a very useful passage from Francis Schaeffer’s classic, He Is There and He Is Not Silent.
The Christian Right’s Problem: Knowing God’s Truth
September 29, 2006
Former senator John Danforth of Missouri has a new book, Faith and Politics: How the “Moral Values” Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together. As reported in yesterday’s Washington Post, Danforth is telling audiences that the “potency of the Christian right in the Republican Party is limited,” “religion is a divisive force in the United States today,” and “GOP leadership [has proven to be] neither humble Christians nor effective politicians.”
I have no intention of reading Faith and Politics, not because I am suspicious of Danforth’s politics and theology – which I am – but simply because my reading pile is already more than ten books deep. Accordingly, I will not analyze all of Senator Danforth’s claims, scrutinize his evidence, or comment on the eloquence of his prose. In fact, I had decided not to say anything about his book, but then I read the following paragraph from the article in yesterday’s Post: “The problem with many conservative Christians is that they claim that [1] God’s truth is knowable, that [2] they know it, and that [3] they are able to reduce it to legislative form,” Danforth writes. “The popular question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ can be difficult enough to contemplate with respect to everyday interpersonal relations. It is mind boggling when applied to the complex world of politics.”
Let’s take a closer look at each of the three components of what Danforth says is “the problem with many conservative Christians.”
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Do Your Children a Favor: Eat Dinner Together as a Family
September 26, 2006
Did your family eat dinner together yesterday? Since 2001, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has been celebrating Family Day on the fourth Monday in September. Family Day is a “national effort to promote family dinners as an effective way to reduce substance abuse among children and teens.”
CASA’s full-page ad in Sunday’s Washington Post says in part: Family dinners are more than just sharing a meal. Research by [CASA] consistently finds that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs. . . .
The conversations that go hand-in-hand with dinner help parents learn more about their children’s lives and better understand the challenges they face.
I find the Family Day campaign especially encouraging for two reasons. First, the campaign and its underlying research acknowledge that families, in particular parents, play a vital role in the moral education and edification of our young. Why is that apparently obvious fact so important, you may wonder? Generally speaking, it runs directly counter to a key presupposition driving the cultural revolution of The Sixties, when young people were encouraged to throw off the oppressive traditions and morality of their parents (and other social institutions, including government, church, etc.). Youth was celebrated, and escaping the oppression of established institutions was held up as the way to recovering human integrity. Family Day is one small indication that we are realizing or remembering the inherent value of at least one of our social institutions.
Second, the Family Day campaign presupposes that truth – rather than simply being subjective, personal and relative – can be objective, universal and absolute. We hear a lot these days that there is no truth of this latter kind – only self-interest, prejudice and power dressed up as such. Yet, here is a truth claim: children are less likely to smoke, drink or use drugs, the more often they eat dinner with their families. CASA goes farther than that, trying to persuade parents to Tell your child the truth—that drugs, alcohol and tobacco may make them feel good for a while (by activating brain chemicals). Unfortunately, that feeling is brief and no one can know the true potency or lifetime effects of these substances.
Next year, I would like to see CASA provide parents with advice on how to answer the sophisticated, postmodern teen who responds to this truth claim by arguing, “That may be true for you (or some other kids), but not for me.”
Ridiculously Expensive Designer Footwear: What Can We Learn From It?
September 23, 2006
The cover of this Tuesday’s Washington Post Business Section included an article celebrating the emergence of a class of DC professionals wearing $1,000+ pairs of high-end designer footwear, Taking a Stiletto To D.C.’s Drab Image: A Sensible-Pumps Town Develops Taste for Manolo and Jimmy. The story features Kira Lieberman, a 29-year-old political consultant, who owns 371 pairs of shoes and 25 pairs of boots. It showers attention on Charrisse Jordan, wife of Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan, who isn't bashful about posing for a picture among some of the 200 or so pairs of shoes she has at their Maryland home. (No estimate of how many additional pairs she keeps at their home in New Jersey.)
I have read this article several times, searching in vain for any indication that the author or the editor for whom she writes finds such gluttonous self-indulgence anything less than commendable. Instead we are told that “high-end designer shoes . . . symbolize all that is fabulous,” and that these women are doing a public service by “squashing the region’s stodgy reputation under their four-inch stilettos.” The author rationalizes buying $1,000+ pairs of shoes, pointing out that many purchasers “are repeat customers.” We need not worry: these women are not “forgoing rent and eating ramen to pay for their Prada pumps.” When confronted with such extravagant self-worship, I have to stop myself from slipping into an easy moral outrage. I have to stop myself from carrying on about the many impoverished children who could be fed, clothed and given medical care for the price of a single pair of Prada pumps. As I start to comment on another’s shortcomings, I am reminded of the need to look at myself.
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What’s So “Human” About Rights Based on Mere Pragmatism?
September 21, 2006
This week, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released its 2006 Corporate Equality Index, “a tool to rate American businesses on how they are treating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.” Corporate America’s increasing sensitivity to GLBT diversity concerns, of course, makes some people happy and others not so happy.
For me the report summons memories of graduate business school, in particular my corporate strategy professor and his approach to diversity issues. As he put it, there is one defensible reason for a corporate executive to foster diversity and discourage discrimination: to maximize profitability, you need to sell your products to an increasingly diverse population; without a diverse workforce, you cannot hope to understand and surmount the cultural barriers to making those sales.
My professor’s message was not unique. It fit neatly within the university’s and the business school’s shared worldview. As compared to his peers, he was just a bit more plain-spoken, less diplomatic in his delivery. In fact, this pragmatic approach to diversity and discrimination has a strong presence in the Human Rights Campaign report. The clearest example can be found in the highlighted quote on page 9 of the report. When asked why Hewlett-Packard Co. supports GLBT inclusiveness at the workplace, John Hassell, director for government affairs, said, “One word: competitiveness. It’s not just a nice-to-do thing. It’s a requirement to be successful in the private sector.” I suspect that this pragmatic approach has been the driving force behind Corporate America’s embrace of diversity. What will happen if – no, not if but when – circumstances change? What will happen when businesses are able to institutionalize the information needed to surpass cultural barriers to sales? Will executives remain sensitive to diversity concerns? Not likely. Not if they remain pragmatic. The GLBT lobby should be careful what they celebrate.
Money and Possessions: from Greed to a Biblical Motivation for Reward
September 19, 2006
Time’s cover story for the week of September 18 – Does God Want You To Be Rich? – explores the hold that the so-called “prosperity gospel” has on a significant fraction of the Church. When prosperity preachers say that God wants His followers to be rich in the things of this world, it riles me. When their destructive message is amplified through mainstream media reports, it angers me.
My sinful nature would love for the prosperity gospel to be true. In fact, if I were to design a religion, it no doubt would include a god who wants me to be rich right here, right now. As recently as two years ago, my adoration of money may have rivaled the most decadent among us. As an adolescent, Alex P. Keaton was among my role models. Later, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen, consistently rated as one of my favorite movies. The major appeal: Gordon Gekko (played by Douglas).
As slick and twisted as Gekko was, I admired what I perceived as a willingness to discuss the pursuit of self-interest in language stripped bare of political correctness. Recall his climactic speech at the Teldar Paper shareholders’ meeting:
[G]reed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
“Greed is good,” I agreed. Admittedly, greed is an “excessive desire” by definition, but I doubted whether “excessive” really meant anything in this context. By what standard could that possibly be measured? (Can you hear the influence of my post-modern University of Michigan education?) Hence, in my world, an excessive desire was nothing more than a hearty desire, and there couldn’t be anything wrong with a hearty desire for life, money, love or knowledge.
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The “Gay Marriage” Debate: Valuable Reminders from a Libertarian
September 16, 2006
Thanks to friends at BreakPoint for pointing me to a thoughtful discussion of the gay marriage debate penned by libertarian blogger Jane Galt. Like Galt, I often hear the following type of exchange between social conservatives, on one side, and progressives, on the other.
The social conservative says:
[M]arriage is an ancient institution, which has been carefully selected for throughout human history. It is a bedrock of our society; if it is destroyed, we will all be much worse off. (See what happened to the inner cities between 1960 and 1990 if you do not believe this.) For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman; this seems to be an important feature of the institution. We should not go mucking around and changing this extremely important institution, because if we make a bad change, the institution will fall apart.
To which, the social progressive replies:
Why on earth would it make any difference to me whether gay people are getting married? Why would that change my behavior as a heterosexual? . . .
I will get married even if marriage is expanded to include gay people; I cannot imagine anyone up and deciding not to get married because gay people are getting married; therefore, the whole idea is ridiculous and bigoted.
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Seeking “Healthy” Children: Nearing Gattaca?
September 14, 2006
You remember the movie
Gattaca, starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, right?
In the not-too-distant future, Vincent (Hawke) is born the old-fashioned way, free of genetic engineering.
With his genes left to “chance,” Vincent is now saddled with not just bad eyesight but a serious heart condition that shrinks his life expectancy to 30 years.
In Gattaca, where genetic composition is determinative, a profile like Vincent’s destines a person to permanent membership in the socioeconomic underclass.
Determined not to subject their second child to a similar fate, Marie and Antonio, Vincent’s parents, decide to conceive him in what has become the “natural” way – i.e., genetically fine-tuned.
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9/11: Some Personal Reflections
September 11, 2006
Before the memories become any more faded, I would like to take a few minutes to record my experiences five years ago this morning.
Like you, I remember precisely where I was when the news came. I was in my boss’s office across from the Ronald Reagan Building, overlooking Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue just a few blocks east of the White House. He and I were in a familiar place, on a conference call with our client American Airlines, discussing whatever pressing competition law matter there was that morning.
The first sign that that day would be different from any other came in the form of an odd and uncharacteristic interruption from my boss’s assistant. She walked into his office, seemingly ignoring our very important, ongoing phone call. Why? “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center this morning,” she announced. I immediately had a picture in my mind of a tiny, wayward Cessna accidentally running into a skyscraper. Odd. But certainly not worthy of an interruption. Evidently, my boss agreed, because our teleconference continued as before.
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A Godless Life: Dismal or Bright?
September 09, 2006
What is life like deep inside the hearts of those who believe the universe is empty of God and meaning? Is misery central and enduring, happiness peripheral and fleeting? Or do the godless have good reason to cling to a bright outlook on life?
Given the diversity of human experience, it is no surprise that there are many perspectives on these questions.
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