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.