Trumped up Religion

It is with hesitation that I write this article. Anytime someone tries to psychologize or explain the behavior or thought of another group of people, it is dangerous territory. Even historical explanations of contemporary events can be condescending. However, I feel like I am on solid enough ground to attempt an explanation of one interesting finding this election season.

According to polls, in five short years white evangelicals have flip-flopped on whether an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties.

White evangelicals are, statistically speaking, more likely to vote for Trump. In a recent poll Trump leads Clinton 55% - 2% among likely white evangelical voters.

The obvious conclusion is the shift in the above graph benefits the 2016 Republican nominee more than the Democratic.

So how did we get to this situation? How did Republicans get such loyalty that they have changed their mind on the value of Presidential candidates personal morality so drastically in five years?

To tell the story we have to go into the history of religion and politics in America.

Kevin M. Kruse has documented a large portion of this history in his book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.

For the purposes of this post, he traces a trajectory from the 1930s to the Eisenhower administration till the 1970s of increasing ties between evangelicalism and conservative (Republican) economics.

But that is of course not the whole story. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in all 50 states. Segregationists did use this to their advantage and racism was a catalyst, but the average evangelical cared more about the spike in legal abortions (at least eventually).

Morality, especially pro-life and pro-nuclear hetero-normative family values, became another corner stone of the development of conservatism.

No one was more instrumental in coalescing conserve values than Ronald Reagan, President from 1981-1989.

He spoke the language of the evangelicals better and more consistently than virtually any other President in American history. (Note: Possible exceptions, Eisenhower and Carter).

So much so that Falwell and Weyrich, the leaders of the conservative group the Moral Majority, declared in 1989 that the religious right is solidly in place.

The Republican party had solidly coalesced conservative economics, conservative morality, and conservative politics.

The failed campaigns by Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee showed that America did not actually want a President who was from the religious right.

However, it took the formation of the The Tea Party in 2009 to expose cracks in the unity achieved during the Reagan era. The Tea Party was largely (but not exclusively) libertarian. They were subtly opposed to traditional Reaganesque conservative politics.

For example, Reagan was for amnesty; Trump is not. And Trump got Tea Party support partly because of his immigration policies.

Abortion is still a motivator for Trump supporters, especially as there is currently a Supreme Court seat empty. But personal morality was/is not a central concern for the Tea Party, nor as we see by the graph above is it for the average evangelical in 2016.

This was a relatively quick (and MAYBE unplanned) bait and switch from personal faith and morality a mix of libertarian and conservative policies.

Book Review: The Case for Christ

The Case For Christ was first published in 1998 and was the first of many in a line of books by Lee Strobel using a legal methodology to assess the historical nature of Christ and His resurrection. It won the 1999 Gold Medallion Book Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. 



Strobel has 139k twitter followers and given Strobel's popularity and series of books based on similar methodologies, I have decided to act as an opposing attorney to his book The Case For Christ. 

Five Bullet Point Summary:

• In the quest for truth pertaining to Christ you should treat the evidence as an impartial juror. 
• The biographies of Jesus can be trusted, and is the same as the Jesus of faith
• Jesus claimed to be the son of God and fulfilled exactly the identity of the Messiah
• Jesus really died and was really resurrected. 
• After reviewing the evidence presented in this book you should conclude that the case for Christ is at least reasonable and perhaps even conclusive.

Extended Summary and Analysis:

The assumption of this book is that you should be like an open minded juror when assessing the evidence (pgs. 17-18). Almost every chapter opens with a legal analogy. In this book review I will take the role of opposing counsel. But before I officially start this role, I want to analyze the overall methodology. 

A legal methodology should not pretend to be nuanced enough to ascertain metaphysical truths. Thus, this methodology is inadequate to prove the metaphysical identity of Jesus the Christ. Similar to Lang below I object to a legal approach to settling questions of religion or metaphysics.

Second, and the main reason I am acting as opposing counsel is that Strobel has not done his job of presenting both sides. Only the case FOR Christ is presented, for instance the further reading sections almost without exception support the case for Christ and virtually every chapter ends with at least one leading question favoring the case for Christ. 

If readers are supposed to be an impartial juror, the other side should be presented. I will offer specific objections along these lines. However, I do not have enough space in a blog post present an entire defense.

I will assume the defense for a few reasons. First, Strobel uses analogies mostly from the prosecution side of American criminal trials. 10 of 14 chapters use a legal analogy from the side of the prosecution, and only one uses an analogy from the defense.  

Second, there are passages that suggests he is assuming the prosecutorial burden of proof:

Having been a legal affairs journalist who has covered scores of trials, both criminal and civil, I had to agree with the assessment of Sir Edward Clarke, a British High Court judge who conducted a thorough legal analysis of the first Easter Day: 'To me the evidence is conclusive and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling. As a lawyer I accept the gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts that they were able to substantiate.' (Case for Christ pg. 320)

This seems to indicate that he is accepting 'beyond shadow of a doubt' burden of proof. Thus, I will consider it a win if I can offer only a shadow of a doubt.     

Defense:

My defense starts with specific legal objections to various quotes 
from the book.

The two main objections I use are the Best Evidence Rule and Counsel is Testifying. Both are actual objections a lawyer can use in court. 

The Best Evidence Rule means that when submitting something as evidence you need to present an original document instead of a copy when possible. 

In an actual trial, I would simply provide the evidence or the witness when making my case. However, to do that adequately would require me to write a book, instead I use this objection to note when he is not giving equal time to the other side. 

The other main objection is mostly self-explanatory. In court of law, counsel cannot testify; only witnesses can. 

These objections will form the basis of one of my counter-arguments. But except for documentation purposes these individual objections only matter in aggregate. 

Please feel free to skim the following section. 

Partial List of Objections:

Pg. 33: "That, I mused, was apparently what Matthew did with Mark--although Matthew had his own recollections as a disciple, his quest for accuracy prompted him to rely on some material directly from Peter in Jesus' inner circle.

I OBJECT: Counsel is testifying. 

Pg. 40: "Again I picked up Armstrong's popular book A History of God. "Listen to something else she wrote..."

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule. There is not enough of Armstrong's original material submitted into evidence. Nor is there an interview of Armstrong. 

Pgs 57-58: "Ironically," I pointed out, "if the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance..."

I OBJECT: Counsel is Testifying

Pgs 87, 142-172, 188-190: References to the Jesus Seminar, a minority group of liberal Bible scholars.

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule. Rarely is their methodology discussed,  and they often summarily dismissed

Pg. 91 "Metzger had been persuasive. No serious doubts lingered concerning whether the New Testament's text had been reliably preserved for us through the centuries. 

I OBJECT: Counsel is testifying

Pg: 106, 133, 287-289, 291, 304, 312, 323, and 336: References to Michael Martin, professor and critic of The Bible. No interview, mostly casual mentions.

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule. Should submit large sections of his thought or ideally conduct an interview with Martin. 

Pg. 141: "John Marco Allegro's absurd book in which he theorized that Christianity emerged from a fertility cult in which adherents tripped out on hallucinogenic mushrooms!"

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule AND Counsel is Testifying. 

Pg. 185: In the context of determining whether a Messianic Jesus can be found in Gospels other than John, Strobel offers: "Immediately I thought of the famous exchange, recording in Matthew, in which Jesus asked his disciples in a private meeting, 'Who do you say I am? Peter replied with clarity, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Instead of ducking the issue, Jesus affirmed Peter for his observation. 'Blessed are you,' he said, 'for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.' " 

I OBJECT: Counsel is Testifying. 

Pg. 200-201: Briefly describes Ian Wilson's theory that Jesus was a master hypnotist. 

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule

Pg. 300: "In the face of the facts, they have been impotent to put Jesus' body back into the tomb."

I OBJECT: Counsel is Testifying. 

Pg. 305: Mentions Anthony Flew, but does not mention any of his books except the one with Habermas, who he is interviewing. 

I OBJECT: Best Evidence Rule

Pg. 320: "Without question, the amount of testimony and corroboration of Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances is staggering."

 I OBJECT: Counsel is Testifying. 

Pg. 333: JP Moreland is 'on the stand' talking about the motivations of the disciples."For what? For good intentions? No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead."

I OBJECT (expecting to be overruled): Argumentative, witness is drawing a conclusion. 

Pg. 361: "After a personal investigation that spanned more than six hundred days and countless hours, my own verdict in the case for Christ was clear."

I OBJECT: Counsel is Testifying. 

Counter Arguments:

I only have to show that there is a reasonable doubt that Jesus was not the Christ who arose from the dead. Given the context of the debate I am restricted to historical arguments, as metaphysical or scientific arguments are precluded in this methodology.   

First let me make my concessions. I concede that Jesus existed, I concede that he was crucified, I will even concede the tomb is empty.  My arguments will center around the resurrection. 

Remember all I have to do is show reasonable doubt based on the methodology of the book.

1) People can be convinced to die for various causes true or not. There was not a significant difference enough presented between the Early Church and Jonestown.

2) Reports of his post resurrection appearances could have been fabricated.  

3) The list of objections provide sufficient evidence to suggest that the content of this book does not mimic a fair and impartial trial, thus a verdict from this book is impossible. Thus, you should side with the defense.

First, the link between people being convinced about something and its truth is emphasized in many of the later chapters. Often the argument is made that what else besides the literal resurrection could convince people to sacrifice their lives. 

But everything from Hale Bopp, Jonestown, and the Manson Cult have had their followers greatly sacrifice for the cause. None of these are believed to be true by a significant number of people. 

News of Heaven's Gate mass suicide.

The difference between these according to J.P. Moreland:

"...this [the Christian] revelation was not done in a publicly observable way. So they could be wrong about it." Pg. 333.

That's it, that's the difference. So you have to demonstrate that the revelation was done in a publicly observable way. Which is a separate argument.

Second, the post-resurrection appearances break in nature from the earlier appearances. We have reliable witnesses to the existence of Jesus before death, but fewer after his resurrection. 

A lot of emphasis is placed on corroborating evidence of Jesus' existence in the early chapters of Strobel's book (see especially chapter 4). But once we get to the post-resurrection appearances this type of evidence is minimized or not invoked.

Granted the the presentation of Gary Habermas' analysis of 1 Corinthians 15, where Jesus appears to the 500 is not a lynch pin of his argument. It is interesting that we see a mild dismissal of the type of argumentation seen in chapter 4:

"...when you have only one source, you can ask, 'Why aren't there more?' But you can't downgrade this one source that way." (Pg. 313).

Furthermore, all the appearances listed on page 316 are followers of Christ. Thomas the only potential skeptic among them. Most were either original disciples or later apostles.  

Of course that is not all that damaging. According to the Gospels he returned for approximately two weeks post-Resurrection. And non-believers could have just thought these people were crazy. 

To convince you that there is at least reasonable doubt, I will propose an alternate scenario for the resurrection.  

First, Joseph of Arimathea moves the body. Perhaps he didn't really want the trouble of having Jesus' body on his land, perhaps he was politically motivated to cause chaos in the Jewish religious order for personal gain, or perhaps he was a secret follower and wanted the prophecy to appear to be fulfilled. He was at least sympathetic agreeing to bury Jesus in the first place. 

Second, some followers of Christ find this empty tomb and report back to the other followers. After hearing about this one of the followers claim to have seen Christ. This continues until he allegedly appears in front of 500. Each perhaps not convinced that they themselves have seen Christ and bolstered by the empty tomb believe in his resurrection.  

And if historians, other than Luke, did not have time to document his reappearance the amount of this public observability should be questioned. 

My third and final argument has to do with how this trial was conducted. The objections I raised earlier point to a systematic tendency to present the evidence in a favorable light for the case that Jesus died and was resurrected. 

In addition, virtually every chapter ends with Deliberations and Further Evidence that has leading questions and books that support the main claim. There is no balance. I argue that this trial is unfair and should thrown out at least until the second half of this case is presented.  

Bottom Line: 

The Case For Christ is one sided. And if Strobel is assuming the prosecution the defense would win. If he took the defense, I would advise his client to sue for incompetency. He would still likely win, but his burden of proof would be so minimal as to be virtually meaningless in the real world.

He could have simply presented these interviews without the gimmick of mimicking a trial and I likely would not have even bothered. But this book is fundamentally dishonest, asking us to be impartial for a case that is presented very partially.  

All of his other books that use a similar methodology will necessarily have very similar issues and thus, should be summarily dismissed until the other side of the case has been presented. 

Current Events: Bathroom Laws (Warning slightly adult content)

Of all the current events I imagined myself covering on this blog I would have never guessed restrooms would be one of them. Many are talking about trans people and which restrooms they should enter. What I thought was a simple inquiry into @NYapologetics position on twitter turned into (I assume) mutually disappointing conversation. I am using that conversation as a jumping off point for this post.

First, I should explain why I am even covering this, because it is not obviously about religion.

The first answer is that the impetus for this post was a twitter interaction with the aforementioned @NYapologetics. Their website is www.newyorkapologetics.com 

The second is that a strict binary of restrooms is disproportionately supported by evangelicals; thus, this issue is divided along religious lines. The reason: many evangelicals believe that God distinctly created us to be male or female and have different moral obligations, while many mainline Christians and non-church goes do not believe that gender is NOT strictly binary. 

Look at what Ken Ham the president of the Answers in Genesis, a creationist organization has to say about Target's restroom policy.

Also, there have been evangelicals protesting Target's policy.

Now compare these positions to one promoted by Rachel Held Evans an ex-evangelical. 

Twitter exchange with @NYapologetics

In my very long twitter exchange with @NYapologetics, they thought I never answered their main question and I never felt that I was never given a concrete policy. I originally engaged in this conversation because I was genuinely curious about alternatives to allowing people to use the restroom of the gender that they identify with.

Their main question boiled down to: how do we protect the rights of 99.7% who would suffer potential abuse/feel uncomfortable due to policies that allow people to go to the restroom of the gender they identify with. I maintained (and still maintain) that forcing the choice of restroom on a person in transition would actually decrease safety and increase discomfort.

One of the first things I did was survey some people I knew. Granted this is not a representative nor a very large sample, but I do want to share two anonymous sentiments that I received from women:

If they were going to build another restroom, I would prefer they just spend the money on making women's restrooms larger. 

These people [like @NYapologetics] are making me uncomfortable by sexualizing restrooms.

I received no sentiments that they were worried about increased abuse. Though, I want to emphasize that I did not even attempt to do a comprehensive survey. However, someone else did do a survey. It found that women and young people are more comfortable with trans people in the restroom of their choice than older men.

I think it would enlightening for someone to conduct different survey. The survey would ask: how comfortable would you be if someone who is obviously dressed and presents themselves as a woman enters the men's restroom and vice versa.

Here are a couple of examples:



Would you be comfortable with this person in the men's restroom?

Or this person in the woman's restroom?

In case it is not obvious, the person in the top image is a transwoman (born with a penis, for those not in the loop) and the bottom image is of a transman. 

I suspect that these individuals using the restroom of the their birth-sex would make just about everyone uncomfortable.

But what about abuse?

In every locale that has regulations allowing trans people to go to the restroom of their choice there has been no statistical increase in abuse. 

There really isn't much more to say. Trans people in restrooms makes (mostly) older men uncomfortable and they claim to be defending women and children from predators, when there just isn't any evidence that Target-like non-discriminatory policies increase sexual abuse. 

And to be clear I would be very concerned if there was any evidence that it did increase sexual abuse. To reiterate, I would be very very concerned.

Other proposals:

NYapologetics maintained a third restroom would be an acceptable solution. However, they also produced one other option, simply making the rule standard that you must use the restroom of your birth sex. 

Policy 1: A Third Restroom

A third restroom is not a practical solution for two reasons. 

First, outside of large areas like stadiums and airports there is just not space. And these places typically already have family restrooms that would likely suffice. But this is not just possible in a standard restaurant, bar, or shopping center.

Second, you are putting people who identify as different genders into the same restroom. Trans people are NOT all the same in their gender identity, most trans people would not appreciate this. You might be able to avoid this to some degree if you make it a locked room, but again, in places that are large enough already have family restrooms. Thus to make this feasible at all, you would likely need four restrooms: one for those born male, one for those born female, one for those transitioning into male, and one for those transitioning into female. 

Policy 2: Back to the Golden Age

Their second suggestion was to only allow those born male use the men's restroom and those born women use the women's restroom. They maintained that this was the original policy; and, things got mucked up when we started trying to make more complicated rules about restrooms. I was not able to get an answer as to how they would enforce this policy. 

Even so, I emphatically disagree that this was the original policy. The original (unstated) policy was that if you looked like a man you walked into the men's restroom and if you looked female you walked into the women's restroom. No one really checked. There was little if any dichotomy between birth sex and gender expression. 

If birth sex is/was the policy as opposed to appearance we would have developed a way to check the birth sex. The fact is that people who don't look enough like their gender (usually women who are dressed masculine) sometimes get harassed going into the restroom of their birth sex. (Note: I am only using this link as evidence that someone was harassed, it was not actually in relation to HB2).

Bottom line: 

These policies proposed by @NYapologetics don't work and the initial question assumes that non-discriminatory policies make people are uncomfortable (which admittedly SOME are, but mostly older men) and that these policies also lead to abuse (which they don't). 

I am open ears to new policies would help more people be more comfortable, in fact this is my main question on this issue. Please comment with any concrete proposal. 

Spotlight on Evangelical Christianity III: My two visits to Jubilee

   

          Jubilee is a historically black church in Mattapan, located outside of Boston. The aesthetic of Jubilee is contemporary and non-traditional. The exterior has the appearance of a converted car dealership or restaurant. Looking to your right as you enter, there is a small cafe/bookstore; looking straight is the sanctuary. The cafe serves Starbucks coffee and sells devotional materials, including videos of previous sermons. The sanctuary is contemporary with no crosses, images of Jesus, or other Christian paraphernalia. The sanctuary seating is spacious and can fit 400 or more people. Jubilee prides itself on being a 'church without walls,' but other than living a moral life outside of the church, most of the emphasis was on its own community.

          I attended two services at Jubilee and both services started with amazing praise and worship. The singers could have easily performed at The House of Blues and the lighting was equally professional. However, there was too much audience participation to consider it just a concert; the worship leaders excelled at encouraging the congregation to participate. The best way to describe the worship is the sociological term 'collective effervescence'. Collective effervescence, coined by the sociologist Émile Durkheim, describes a situation in which a group of people experience the same thing at the same time such that they lose themselves in the process. For Durkheim, the function of this collective effervescence is to promote unity, and unity was a major theme in both services.

          In the first service, after the worship, there was a brief pause, and the pastor asked us to listen to the church announcements. These announcements were prepared in a commercialized form complete with voice over and slide show advertising their various ministries and services. This was a jarring interruption of the collective effervescence experienced earlier.

          But the emphasis on community and unity resumed during the call for tithes and offerings. During the offertory, the majority of the congregation was able to recite the verse: "give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over," Luke 6:38. This verse was chosen by the Jubilee leadership and is quite popular among evangelicals when asking for tithes and offerings. Also, the congregation was encouraged to be cheerful givers, a reference to 2 Corinthians 9:7. Most of the congregants knew the proper (ritualized) words to say when making their offering. This unison likely encouraged the congregants to give more money than they would otherwise.

         The sermon further encouraged community by emphasizing responsibility, particularly being responsible about health issues that disproportionately affect black communities. Remedies included, not drinking too much soda, not eating too much junk food, and exercising. The details of the sermon seemed extemporaneous (made up on the spot) though there was a clear outline. He also encouraged the younger people to go out and protest the non-indictment decision in the Michael Brown case, but he wanted them to do so responsibly. For instance, if you have kids (i.e. more important responsibilities) don't go out and protest, but if not then by all means protest.

           After the sermon the pastor asked all the men ages 16-18 to come to the altar for prayer, then men aged 19-20, and then men in their 20s, and then 30s, etc... until all the men were at or near the altar. He then asked all the women, the sisters, wives, and daughters of these men, to outstretch their hands in support of these men. The men were supposed to receive power and influence over their life and their family's life. This emphasis on gender roles is a common theme Jubilee. For instance, the men's ministry is called Dominion, and Dominion encourages men to exercise "God given Dominion over himself, his family, his finances, and his sphere of influence." In contrast, the women's ministry is called Chosen where women are "selected by God, as instruments, to do his work and to speak out for him." Men have influence; women are instruments of influence. 

          The second sermon I attended was given by the first pastor's father, also a pastor. This undoubtedly extemporaneous sermon moralized from the pulpit and often bordered on the political. The preacher chastised anyone who was having sex out of wedlock, anyone who supported a woman's right to choose (which he called a 'myth'), and also chastised those who do not spank their children. This latter part was probably the bulk of the sermon and even included him taking his belt off and snapping it a few times in the middle of the sermon. There was also an anti-intellectual moment, where he stated that he didn't care whether a marriage counselor went to Harvard (in a condescending tone), but rather how he lives his life, stating "a man can't teach what he doesn't know." (I want to make it clear that I mostly agree with his opinion about the need for practical experience in a counseling career. It is only this opinion on which I agree. I also disagree with the mocking tone in which he conveyed this opinion).

         (Normally I conduct interviews as well, but after repeated attempts I was not able to obtain an interview with the leadership of Jubilee)

Bottom line: 

          There were definitely in-group/out-group barriers in this church. First, both racially and culturally I am a white male. Second, I am admittedly a liberal. And as a liberal I was generally appalled by a good portion of the sermons, particularly the second sermon. That being said I can only write from my perspective. Other than the music, I can recommend nothing about this church. In particular, I was taken aback by the political nature of the avowedly pro-life moment in the second sermon and how the congregation encouraged the pastor with amens and other forms of vocal support. Also, the emphasis on separate gender roles made me cringe. But any good critic should take a moment and think about their own reaction to what they have experienced.  

          I admittedly come from a particular perspective; a perspective that makes it difficult to engage with people who are this different from myself. A perspective which, admittedly values the individual over the community. For instance, it is hard for me to understand the moral code that expects men and women to fulfill different roles. I can only maintain that my position is the moral one, but I must acknowledge that when I enter Jubilee I leave the moral world that I am comfortable with and enter a different moral world, one that is necessary to engage with in 21st century America. Even after much thinking, I am still unsure of how best I can engage these people and their moral world. 

Spotlight on Evangelical Christianity II: A church called Reality

       
          Reality Boston is located at 85 W Newton Street and shares its space with the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts. Perhaps ironically, the Villa Victoria Center was converted from a church to a performance space in 1986. The outside of Reality/Villa Victoria still very much looks like a church, but the inside has some, but little of the previous church feel. Every service they have to set up and take down seating for the attendees and the balcony has small drink tables set up.

          Reality is the first church that I was invited to since starting this blog. I met members Kate and Nick at Knight Moves, a board game cafe in Brookline. As I walked into Reality, I was greeted almost instantly by leaders of the church. (Before attending anything I send out an email, letting the leaders of the organization know my project and purpose for attending). They were gracious enough to take me and my project seriously.

          The first person I was able to talk led the pre-service prayer. He moved from California to Boston to help plant a New England church that was a part of the Reality family of churches. Reality Boston is one of four churches in the Reality family, the other three are in California.

         (Usual disclaimers for all interviews in this post: 1) the opinions expressed do not reflect all of Christianity, evangelicalism, nor even the official stance of Reality Boston. 2) I do not claim that any of these words are verbatim and I encourage any corrections by the individuals represented. These responses are based on my notes and memory of the interview.)

1) What is Religion?

            I don't see what we are doing here as religion. God cares about humanity and and we care together thanking God and having a relationship with God

2) What is Christianity?

           Christianity is a relationship with God.

3) I have just recently heard a talk by the Dalai Lama he argued that Western religion should stay in the West and Eastern religion should (for the most part) stay in the East. He gave an example of a woman being confused and told the Dalai Lama that in this life she would be Christian and in the next life Buddhist. The Dalai Lama said this was a bad confusion. What do you think?

           I think that this is a good confusion. She was separated from God, there really is a God and its good that she heard God's message. Despite the confusion this is likely to lead her onto the path to come closer to the truth of Christianity.

4a) If the Reality family of churches started in California, why plant a church on the East Coast?

            The East Coast is one of the least-churched areas in the U.S
   
4b) But there are a lot of churches in Boston, could you explain what you mean by least-churched?

          What I mean is that there are not that many Bible believing churches, and that the population of Boston is one of the most secular in the U.S.

          After this conversation he asked if I had ever heard of a pastor by the name of Timothy Keller and handed me a book of his titled Reasons for God, read about it here. And then the service started.

          Like many churches the service started with praise and worship. The church attendees were surprisingly young and diverse, especially since Sunday morning is still the most segregated day of the week. The music was done well, and was comprised of mostly newer songs led by the worship team. Monitors on both sides of the building posted the lyrics so that the congregation could sing along. Most congregants did not dance or hold their hands in the air like some evangelical churches. As far as I could tell there was one man, who was consistently lifting his hands up in worship. Later I found out that he was homeless.

           After the worship Al Abdulla, the pastor, preached on forgiveness. The tagline for the sermon was "Sin is a debt which cannot be paid." When someone has sinned against you, they cannot pay, they can only ask forgiveness. Being forgiven is the only way out of sin. We are sinners and thus need God's forgiveness. And since God forgives us, he expects us to be able to forgive others. But forgiveness is difficult. If someone has really wronged us then the relationship is damaged and we have to go through pain to forgive. Or so the sermon went.

          After the sermon I was able to talk to two of the leaders of the church Colin and Al. Like usual I started off with my two most basic questions.

1) What is religion?

          What we are doing is not religion; we have a relationship with God

2) What is Christianity?

           Christianity is giving your life your all in all in him.

3) Are people inherently good or evil?

          Bible says that we are only evil all of the time.

4) So having a need for relationships; a need for forgiveness, doesn't mean that we are inclined toward good at all?

           We do long for something not evil, but people are only selfish and greedy. This is why Jesus had to lay down his life.

5) Why is the name of this church Reality?

          In Colossians there is a verse that says that Jesus is the truest form of reality. The name of the original church was going to be Jesus is Reality, but we shortened it to Reality.

          I was then asked about my opinion of religion; and I gave the response that I think religion is primarily about community. A community that shares beliefs and rituals of course (as virtually all communities do). Colin responded in good Christian fashion that community is not the main intent, but the birth of something more primary.
       
          I had to wait sometime before I could to talk to Al because he is a busy with after service business, but it was worth the wait.

1) What is Religion?

          I'm a little confused, why would you go to specifically Christian church and ask about what religion is?

Response: Well, that's always my first question and I am sometimes surprised at the answer. Already two people I have talked to dodged the question and immediately suggested that Reality wasn't religious.

          Yeah, I think that there are some negative connotations to religion that may prompt that response, but I would suggest that religion is an attempt to express truth.

2) What is Christianity?

            Faith defined by Jesus' fulfillment of Hebrew faith. The Gospel is the story of the recovery of humanity.

3) Why place a church in the south end of Boston?

            First, practically, you plant a church around those that you can connect with most. We are open toward all lifestyles. Second, and perhaps more importantly, we drove all through the city of Boston praying for guidance as to where the church should be located. And we all felt the sense that we were led to the south end. Then after that we started looking throughout all the neighborhoods for suitable locations and the only two buildings we could find anywhere were both in the south end.

4) Why the name Reality?

          Collossians 2 tells us not to trust the empty words of philosophy and that Christ and Jesus are reality. We thought about naming it Jesus is Reality, but shortened it to Reality.

5) Are people good or evil?

          Both. We do have an innate sense of morality that goes beyond just the law of the land. But sin and goodness are multi-dimensional issues.

          He then asked me several questions about my religious beliefs. And I answered honestly. The best way to describe me is that I am a radical agnostic. I don't know what or who God is, nor do I have an opinion of the actual existence of karma, Brahman, or any other concepts that go beyond the realm of nature. While discussing this view, I realized that I had forgotten to ask an important question:

6) Who or what is God?

           What God is, is revealed to us through the Trinity. Who God is is a mystery any conception of God that I can come up with would be too small to actually be God.

           After this question he asked me to go off the record and have a conversation with him, which I obliged. And so we chatted for several more minutes. until it was time for the after service prayer. I was invited to join in, despite my radical agnosticism, but I declined and watched from the back and took a picture. I was also introduced to some of the people in the circle and had brief conversations with them.

Bottom line:

          The oddest thing from an outsiders perspective was the denial that Christianity was a religion. When I saw the Dalai Lama there was a Christian holding signs to promote Christianity who also said that Christianity isn't a religion, but a relationship with God. This is a little annoying for several reasons. First, the term 'religion' comes from the West and when travelers (especially missionaries) visited Eastern countries they often asked the question 'what do they have that is similar to Christianity?' and called that the religion of the area. Second, in order to claim that Christianity isn't a religion you have to define religion in a very awkward way. If this definition is spelled out at all it is usually in terms of following the letter of a religious moral code or performing ritual as opposed to the direct experience of God.

          Overall this was a very welcoming church and the leadership, particularly the pastor, was very intelligent. They welcomed me warmly and answered my questions with patience. I found it interesting that both the Dalai Lama and the sermon at this church stressed the necessity of relationships for human beings. I was also interested to find that I got different answers as to the question of whether humans were good or evil. I thought that the theological diversity on this question was healthy. Perhaps now that I say this, Al might give a sermon on the goodness or badness of humankind, giving the official opinion of Reality Boston. Overall I think this church does have value, though I would recommend this church more to young educated Christians than to other groups.

             

           

Spotlight on Evangelical Christianity I: Review of The Reason for God

           The New York Times best seller The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller was given to me as a gift by the leadership of Reality Church in Boston's south end to better understand Christianity. Timothy Keller is a pastor of a large Presbyterian church in New York City, and is well known among urban evangelicals. Despite its success, The Reason for God is full of mostly superficial reasoning, sprinkled with a few good insights.

(Reminder: my methodology for book summaries is that I allow myself no more than 140 words for the summary and may expand on the ideas presented by the author in the critique).

Summary:

            Skepticism and faith are ascending; replies to skepticism exist. Why would God allow unnecessary suffering? This question implies we know suffering is unnecessary. Even injustices perpetrated by Christians point to a God given sense of justice. God does not send people to hell, instead everyone’s soul follows the trajectory of their life. Believing in one true religion is no more exclusive than asserting all religions have truth. Historically, Christianity has liberated people. Science does not disprove Christianity; science looks for natural causes and cannot address supernatural causes. The regularity of scientific laws are one clue to God’s existence. Sin is absolved through grace, not effort. Jesus had to die because forgiveness is costly suffering and love is personal exchange. If the resurrection did not happen, Christianity would not have been popular. God exists eternally in three persons; God is relational. 

Critique: 

            The problems of this book start with the title 'The Reason for God,' which does not accurately depict its content. Nowhere does Keller even claim to give the reason (singular) for God. In the first half he responds to several objections to Christianity, and the second part is titled "The Reasons for Faith". But, the problem with the title does not end there. Towards the end of the book Keller defends God as a trinity, an exclusively Christian concept of God. Thus, the title should be The Reasons for Christianity.

           The structure of the book, particularly the first half should have been better organized. Chapters 1,3, 6, and 7 should be grouped together as well as 2, 4, and 5. Chapters 1, 3, 6, and 7 all concern objections pertaining to the truth of Christianity. In particular, chapters 1 ("There Can't Be Just One True Religion") and 3 ("Christianity Is a Straitjacket") start with quite similar objections. Chapters 2, 4, and 5 all have to do with some version of the problem of suffering or injustice perpetrated by Christians.

           There are a few excellent observations throughout the book. Keller starts the book by observing that both skepticism and faith are ascending, and the world is polarizing over religion. This is correct. A recent Pew poll shows this polarization quite nicely. This poll shows that 72% of Americans believe that religion is losing influence in public life, and 56% polled say this loss of influence is a bad thing.

          Another worthwhile observation is that doubts arise from a set of alternative beliefs. This does not necessarily entail that all perspectives are equally valid. Keller argues that whenever you have a doubt or critique of Christianity, this doubt is just as bound to a set of beliefs as Christianity itself. In addition, these critiques often come from a culture steeped in Christian values.

          While he holds that doubts arise from a set of beliefs, he rants against relativism, especially moral relativism. In general, relativism is the theory that truth is specific to the time and place of the subject. Taken to its extreme relativism is untenable. But Keller is right that, even in its most sophisticated forms, relativism does have a serious problem. If it is a correct theory about truth, then a relativist would have to acknowledge that relativism is not true, or at least just as true, as moral absolutism. This undermines the relativistic theory of truth. However, this extreme relativism is rarely held and Keller does not properly acknowledge the middle ground between this extreme relativism and his preferred theory that there is one Truth.

           For Keller, God is the author of moral law. We have a sense of justice and fairness that cannot be explained without recourse to God. Thus, God is the metaphysical justification of morality. For Keller, everyone (at least in this culture) implicitly knows God exists. The problem is that Keller does not spell out exactly what moral codes or rules God wrote. Or how the moral sense functions to produce various moralities in multiple cultures. But speaking for myself, I don't care whether or not there is a metaphysical foundation of morality. I know, at least for myself, that I like it when others are happy and do not like it when they are sad. I do find an evolutionary explanation for morality more plausible, but an evolutionary explanation is compatible with God.

            Keller does pose a problem for a theory of truth arising from an evolutionary standpoint. Natural selection only selects the best survivors, not those who can best ascertain truth. Thus, from a purely evolutionary perspective we cannot be sure of our rational faculties, including the faculties that lead us to the theory of evolution. In this argument, he leans heavily on the philosopher/theologian Alvin Plantiga. However, many philosophers have written responses to Plantiga. You can start here for the most basic primer. Suffice it to say that Keller's critique is superficial.

            Keller also suggests that the Bible has beat Karl Marx, the founder of communism, to his own criticism. However, Keller misread Marx. He focuses on Marx's idea that religion is oppressive without discussing the details of Marx's theory. Marx's theory about religion is that religion is the opiate of the masses because it tells the masses that the righteous should NOT seek power in this life. However, when discussing Marx, Keller states: "...He  (the God of Jesus) can only be reached through repentance, through the giving up of power (emphasis original, pg. 61)." By telling us to give up power, Keller is actually helping Marx's argument in this chapter.  
             
            In the second half of the book Keller stops responding to objections and starts arguing for Christianity. In the chapter "The Reality of the Resurrection," Keller argues that culturally no one should have expected anyone to rise from the dead and thus the resurrection could not be hallucinations or fabricated tales. The problem with this argument is that there are several passages in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) where Jesus tells his disciples that he will rise again and go with them to Galilee. Even if culturally no one should expect Jesus to rise again, the disciples, if they believed the word of Jesus would have expected the resurrection. It is not a stretch to suspect that the disciples may have told others of this message.

Bottom Line:

            Keller chose a task that was virtually impossible; responding to seven objections and then making a case for Christianity. Each of the seven objections in the first half of the book and many chapters in the second half of the book deserved a book length treatment. Trying to cover all this material in such a short space led to superficial coverage of complex theological and philosophical topics. However, despite some further problems in organization as well as misreading Marx and other errors, the book's content is better than expected. Given the impossibility of the task Keller chose, it is impressive that the content of The Reason for God rose to the level of mediocrity.