Lewis definitely lived at a time in which people were more certain across the board that empirical, straight-line rationality was the way you decided what truth was, and there’s just not as much of a certainty now. Also, when Lewis was writing, people were able to follow sustained arguments that had a number of points that built on one another. I guess I should say we actually have a kind of rationality-attention-deficit disorder now. You can make a reasonable argument, you can use logic, but it really has to be relatively transparent. You have to get to your point pretty quickly.

I don’t think they’re irrational, they are as rational, but they want something of a mixture of logic and personal appeal.

On why believers should doubt:

Sacramone: You say early on in The Reason for God that a little doubt is necessary to test the integrity of your faith. Does this mean that Christians need to become amateur apologists to some extent, to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within them?

Keller: I don’t mention it in [The Reason for God], but I think there are always doubts that, if you come to grips with them—I think there’s doubts that you have, that you always have, that you ought to be more forthright and address them, for two reasons. One is, then you’re a better apologist. Because now people are coming shootin’ stuff at you in a way they wouldn’t when I was growing up.

As I was reading [N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God], I realized I was coming to greater certainty, and that when I closed the book, I said, at a time when it was very important to me to feel this way, I said, “He really really really did rise from the dead.” And I said, “Well, didn’t I believe that before?” Of course I believed it before — I defended it, and I think before I certainly would have died for that belief. But actually, there were still doubts in there, and the doubts were taken down 50 percent or something. I didn’t even know they were there. And it was a wonderful experience It was both an intellectual and emotional experience: You’re facing death, you’re not sure you’re going to get over the cancer. And the rigorous intellectual process of going through all the alternative explanations for how the Christian Church started, except the resurrection—none of them are even tenable. It was quite an experience.

On dealing with creation and evolution:

How could there have been death before Adam and Eve fell? The answer is, I don’t know. But all I know is, didn’t animals eat bugs? Didn’t bugs eat plants? There must have been death. In other words, when you realize, “Oh wait, this is really complicated,” then you realize, “I don’t have to figure this out before I figure out is Jesus Christ raised from the dead.”

Tim Keller is taking the book tour to Veritas forums at various colleges throughout the U.S.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at February 26, 2008 | Comments (0)

Controversial biblical scholar Bart Ehrman has a new book out, but this time he’s not bent on tackling issues of scriptural discrepancies, as he did in his most (in)famous work, Misquoting Jesus (see Books and Culture’s review from 2005). This time, Ehrman founds his agnosticism on the Bible’s seemingly equivocal answers to the question, How can a loving God allow terrible things to happen to people?

“I realized I couldn’t explain any longer why there could be such pain and misery in the world that was supposedly ruled by an all-powerful and loving God,” the religion professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told the San Diego Union-Tribune over the weekend. The problem of suffering “put me over the top," says Ehrman. "So, I became an agnostic.”

God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer (HarperOne) traces Ehrman’s change in convictions about God and Scripture based on his inability to reconcile the goodness of God with the suffering of man. Ehrman explores and ultimately disputes the way suffering is handled in biblical accounts: as punishment for wrongdoing (Genesis), as an outcome of others’ wrongdoing (throughout the Psalms), as part of redemption (the Gospels), or as part of the mystery of God (Job).

Ehrman finds these varied explanations problematic, as he does chalking the question of theodicy up to something beyond human knowledge: “If you say it’s a mystery, then what you’re saying is there’s no answer.” And having no answer is apparently insufficient for Ehrman.

For other agnostics, though, encountering believers who have profound hope and peace despite suffering is enough to at least crack a window open for belief. This is what happened to John Marks, a former 60 Minutes producer who traces his journey into and out of faith in his new spiritual memoir, Reasons to Believe: One Man’s Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind (Ecco). In a striking interview in this weekend’s Boston Globe, Marks tells of a close friendship with an evangelical couple, the McWhinneys, that emerged from Marks’s research for his book:

When I first met the McWhinneys, [I thought] they were almost walking caricatures of the evangelical Christian. They believe in the Rapture, that when the end time comes, people will be taken up into the air, and the nonbelievers will be left behind on earth to suffer. There was a cardboard quality, I thought, to their belief.

When I met them the second time, after we'd done the "60 Minutes" piece, they told me about their bipolar son, roughly my age, who had tried to kill himself [and] had disappeared and was believed to be living in a homeless shelter in Dallas and whom they had decided to commit. They spoke with great sorrow. They didn't say he was possessed by the devil. They resented that characterization - and remember, these are Christians who believe there is a living Satan. We agreed I would join them for church [the following] Sunday.

Five hours later, their son walked up the onramp of a highway and was killed by a car. On Sunday, I got in the car, we were having a chat, and then Don suddenly told me their son had been killed. [He said] his son was not gone - he was walking the streets of the heavenly city, and we know from Revelations that that city has walls made of pure jasper - describing this world that, for nonbelievers, is just pure fantasy. I became aware of the way this sense that God is real, that there is this heavenly kingdom - it is not window-dressing. In moments of grief and deep sorrow, people like the McWhinneys do reach for this, and it is the consolation.

While believers may not be able to give a thoroughly coherent reason for why God allows his followers to suffer—and debates about theodicy will likely continue among theologians until Judgment Day—we may at least be able to provide a glimpse into “the peace that passes all understanding” as we respond to crises in our own lives and come out praising the Creator for his unbounded goodness.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at February 18, 2008 | Comments (8)

Novelist and New Journalist Norman Mailer died Saturday morning of renal failure at age 84. A controversial but highly recognized writer, Mailer pushed the boundaries of content and style, even tackling the subject of God and religion in his last work, “On God: An Uncommon Conversation.”

ABC said,

“In probing, amusing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years but whose topics he has considered for decades, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism,” according to a statement issued Monday [September 24, 2007] by Random House.

“He presents instead an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of contrary powers in the universe, with whom war is waged for the souls of humans.”

For more on this writer who helped changed the landscape of both fiction and non-fiction while garnering great praise and criticism, visit these links.

BBC: Obituary

New York Times: “Towering Writer with a Matching Ego Dies at Age 84”

CNN: "The Death of the Literary Lion"

The Guardian: “Mailer’s Talent Never as Big as his Ego”

National Post: “The Failed Career of Norman Mailer”

Publisher’s Weekly: “On God”

Posted by Kristen Scharold at November 12, 2007 | Comments (2)

The same week the New York Times magazine featured Mark Oppenheimer's skeptical commentary on Antony Flew's late-in-life journey from atheism to theism (which CT editor in chief David Neff responded to here), another NYT columnist, Stanley Fish, offered a thoughtful and generous survey of two recent books that add to the ever-continuing discussion of God, his attributes, and the presence of evil. In his review, Fish displays a keen understanding of classic Christian writers, from Milton to Epicurus to St. Paul, and opens a larger discussion on evil and the meaning of suffering--a discussion worth having by believers and nonbelievers alike.

The first book Fish surveys is from Bart D. Ehrman, who, since his young adulthood, has moved from theism to agnosticism, partially due to an inability to get past the terrific amount of seemingly meaningless suffering in the world. His new book is titled God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer. The other book Fish surveys, There Is a God, is from the aforementioned philosophy professor Antony Flew, and documents his famous "conversion" to theism in 2004.

As Fish notes, these two writers are approaching questions of God's (and evil's) existence from opposite frames of mind. From beginning to end, Ehrman writes with emotionally charged indignation and a frustrated inability to reconcile the pervasiveness of suffering with the supposed benevolence of God. Contrarily, Flew writes with the detached (some would say "cold") demeanor typical of much philosophical literature.

Here, Flew epitomizes Ehrman's frustration with people who make statements about God and don't seem to take into account "real life." As Fish observes,

"Will Ehrman be moved to reconsider his present position and reconvert if he reads Flew’s book? Not likely, because Flew remains throughout in the intellectual posture Ehrman finds so arid. Flew assures his readers that he 'has had no connection with any of the revealed religions,' and no 'personal experience of God or any experience that may be called supernatural or religious.' Nor does he tells us in this book of any experience of the pain and suffering that haunts Ehrman’s every sentence."

What Fish rightly points out is that while both books arrive at different locations on the belief spectrum, each book attests to the continuing importance and vitality of such questions--even in a time when screeds from atheists who want to throw out the conversation all-together are now nearly clichéd.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at November 12, 2007 | Comments (7)

There will be no restrictions on Bibles being brought into the Olympic village in Beijing next year, contrary to news reports that said that said Bibles would be banned in a nation that is hesitant to embrace Christianity.

The Associated Press reports that a story posted on the Catholic News Agency Web site said a list of prohibited items in the Olympic Village included Bibles. The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Olympic Committee contacted the International Olympic Committee in response to the story, and was told that Bibles would be allowed — and most likely provided alongside Korans.

A notice on the official Beijing Olympics Web site explaining entry procedures into the country said "each traveler is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China."

As the communist nation prepares to host the international event, the world is watching to see how it responds to freedom of speech issues. Just a month ago, the organizers pledged to hold a variety of religious services during the Olympic games.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at November 8, 2007 | Comments (8)

Renowned Hebrew scholar Robert Alter has just released another translation of a portion of the Old Testament, this time of the Psalms--perhaps the most familiar and beloved book of Scripture among believers and nonbelievers alike. The Book of Psalms (Norton) is a near-600-page tome featuring Alter's translation of all 150 psalms, along with extensive historical and cultural commentary, which comprises nearly half of each page. Psalms is the next installment of Alter's biblical translations, following The Five Books of Moses (2004), Genesis (1997), and The Art of Biblical Narrative (1983), a foundational primer in how to read the Bible for its literary qualities.

Alter states in an interview with online Jewish arts magazine NextBook that his intent in translating has always been to capture and remain faithful to the intent and rhythm of the original Hebrew text. Such literary qualities that he says are often overlooked in some popular English translations are the parallelisms, plays on words, and what he calls the "terrific compactness of the Hebrew expression." Thus, some of the most well-known psalms, like Psalm 23, begin to take a different shape with Alter's translation:

Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow,
I fear no harm, For You are with me.
Your rod and Your staff—it is they that console me.
You set out a table before me in the face of my foes.
You moisten my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Let but goodness and kindness pursue me
all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for many long days.

Alter's translation epitomizes one of many ways to read Scripture. He and culture-makers who consistently give his translations glowing reviews (like the New Yorker's James Wood) understand the biblical text primarily as a piece of literature that features several passages of exquisite poetry and insight into the human condition.

What can confessing Christians, who believe that the Bible is so much more than a piece of great literature, gain from scholars who approach Scripture primarily as a literary text? Do we ignore translations like Alter's as being inconsequential in light of the Bible's transformative power as the very Word of God? Or do we embrace Alter's translations as fine pieces of scholarly rigor and great supplementary books to keep alongside our KJVs? How do we affirm the literary genius of the scriptural text, or should we?

To answer these questions, it may be helpful to consider a unique educational project that launched two years ago to address the overwhelming ignorance of the Bible among today's high school students. The Bible Literacy Project (for which Alter is a board member), offers curriculum to high school teachers to teach the Bible as the most important literary text of the Western world. The curriculum, titled The Bible and Its Influence, has been praised for its scholarship among secular and religious news sources alike.

Writing as a confessing Christian, it's worthy of celebration to hear that people who may never have opened a Bible otherwise are digging deep into the historical and cultural roots of this powerful text. Whenever the Bible is studied, even if it is being studied primarily as a piece of literature, who knows how the Lord might use those instances to illuminate the text far beyond a great book, but indeed, his very Word with its power to shine Light into our darkness? And who is to say that Alter's translations might not be used by the Lord in the same way--especially for New Yorker editors who may never otherwise touch a Bible with a 10-foot pole?

Yet the church has the opportunity to pick up where Alter's translations fall short and teach Scripture primarily as the Word of Life, and only secondarily as a remarkable piece of literature. We shouldn't be afraid to recognize the stunning beauty of passages like Psalm 103, Isaiah 43, or the entire book of Ecclesiastes (one of my favorites), knowing that this beauty is a mere vehicle for the power of a "two-edged sword ... able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb. 4:12).

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at October 30, 2007 | Comments (4)

They shall know we are Christians by our love, or in some cases by our sex. Evangelicals are not only marked by conservative political views, anti-evolutionist beliefs and Ten Commandment fights. We are getting a reputation for sexiness. (Visit our past post “Making Sunday Sexy,” for another example.)

The most recent witness of our sexiness is Tom Perrotta, a novelist whose newest book, according the New York Times, is not just about sex, but about evangelicals and sex.

With his latest novel, “The Abstinence Teacher,” out Tuesday from St. Martin’s Press, Mr. Perrotta returns to the anxious and striving contemporary suburban landscape that he has made his literary home, this time tackling the evangelical movement, which has produced chastity events like the one in Wayne.

But why is he interested in the evangelical movement on abstinence? Surprisingly, it is not primarily because he wants to mock the Christian mantra, “Save sex for marriage!” (though there could be some of that). Rather, he seems to be irresistibly intrigued with the evangelical glorification of sex.

Raised Roman Catholic (he has since lapsed), he was exposed to the self-abnegating form of religion that the evangelicals, he said, had turned on its head, particularly in regard to sex. “Catholic theology is that sex should be for procreation,” he said. “But this evangelical culture really embraces orgasms and pleasure. I was really interested in that strain of Christianity that didn’t want to fight American culture and that’s a vibrant, prosperous and actually kind of sexy culture.”

How he came to discover this sexy culture is even more interesting, and even more indicative of the growing presence of evangelicalism in the public’s eye.

Mr. Perrotta said the idea for the novel emerged from the 2004 presidential election, when evangelical voters were widely credited with swinging the result for George W. Bush.

“I was surrounded by people who kept saying, ‘Who are these people?’” recalled Mr. Perrotta, who has lived in Belmont, Mass., for the past eight years with his wife and two children. “I did feel somewhat inadequate as a novelist, just like I’d missed something huge happening in the country. I really did set out to kind of investigate that world.”

[Perrotta] said he had no idea how an evangelical Christian audience would respond to the book. One character in particular, the aggressively pious Pastor Dennis, seems in some respects to fit a typical liberal perception of an evangelical preacher. But Mr. Perrotta said he actually admired the character’s integrity and authentic caring for Tim. Above all Pastor Dennis is not a hypocrite, Mr. Perrotta said. “Like a lot of secular Americans after that first wave of evangelical televangelists crashed and burned, like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye, there was this sense of, ‘I know who those people are, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites,’” he said. “It took me a long time to understand that a lot of them were completely genuine.

What is especially curious about Perrotta's observations is that it appears that our biblical glorification of sex might prove to be an unexpected entrance point for engaging a sex-obsessed culture.

Posted by Kristen Scharold at October 15, 2007 | Comments (8)

Audiobooks are "Reading Lite"? There's a stigma against audiobooks? That's what I learned from The New York Times this morning.

This strikes me as snobbery for snobbery's sake. I don't quite understand the argument against audiobooks, which, unfortunately, the Times doesn't explain. I can't help but wonder: is there really a stigma? I suppose there is now, since The New York Times says there is. But really, if you're going to mock someone in your group for being lowbrow because they listened to He’s Just Not That Into You rather than read a paper copy, you might want to check your irony detector.

I suppose you can "tune out" while listening to audio, but then again, audiobooks work against skimming . (I gave up on the audio version of The Fellowship of the Ring because I decided I wanted the "songs about my sword" and similar sections to pass by a bit faster than the rest of the narrative.) I've benefited greatly from using audio Bibles devotionally, in large part because they focus my attention on the narrative. (Many times I've found myself sitting in the driveway engrossed by the audio version of The Message.)

Maybe the argument is against abridged audiobooks? I can certainly understand the argument there (it's like watching the film version of a book, only without pictures). But unabridged copies of book-group-friendly novels? Which often take much longer to listen to as they would to read? What's the problem?

If you're a CT reader who's eager to stick it to the man by listening to audiobooks, I heartily recommend ChristianAudio.com. There are other good Christian audio outlets, but Christian Audio focuses on thoughtful, intellectually stimulating volumes, many you won't find elsewhere. It also offers several free first chapters and classic titles. (Disclosure of sorts: I think our parent company might have some sort of partnership with this company; I'm recommending it because I actually use it.)

And speaking of ChristianAudio.com, cofounder Dave Bruno has an article on our site today about the Bible and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Posted by Ted Olsen at August 2, 2007 | Comments (4)

The Christian Century
Wasn’t CT founded as an evangelical alternative to the Century? Yes, but while differences remain, the dividing lines have grown blurrier. For example, senior editor Richard Kauffman, who presides over the Century’s excellent books coverage, was formerly at CT. See the May 1 issue—the spring books issue—for a good sampling, starting with Bill Placher on the concluding volume of Gary Dorrien’s The Making of American Liberal Theology. You’ll find enough that’s familiar to make the reading congenial and enough that’s different to keep it interesting. Because the Century is published biweekly, you will also encounter a lot more reviews. Value added: The magazine regularly features poetry, selected by poetry editor Jill Peláez Baumgaertner.

First Things
Catholic at its core, ecumenically orthodox in its scope, with friendly visitors from the Jewish community (David Novak, for example), First Things routinely features substantial essay reviews as well as shorter pieces and a handful of mini-reviews. Richard John Neuhaus’s back of-the-book feature “The Public Square,” where most readers turn first, often comments on books and their authors, always with wit and penetration, occasionally with withering scorn. And like the Century, First Things has poetry in every issue.

The Atlantic
This was already the best general-interest magazine on the market. Several years ago, its books section was beefed up and otherwise improved to match the rest of the menu. I miss the hand of longtime editor Cullen Murphy, who left when the magazine moved to Washington, D.C., forsaking its ancestral home in Boston. But the coverage of books remains superb. Literary editor Benjamin Schwarz leads off every section with a delightfully unpredictable “Editor’s Choice” column (the June issue focuses on books that show “how a revolution in American domestic architecture put women in command”). Another regular is Christopher Hitchens, an atheist who’s often provocative and never boring.

(This originally appeared on p. 59 of the July 2007 issue of Christianity Today.)

Posted by John Wilson at July 18, 2007 | Comments (6)

In an article in Foreign Policy, Philip Jenkins, the redoubtable distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Penn State University and author of The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, promotes his latest book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis. Jenkins says the widely expected Islamization of a secularized and increasingly enfeebled continent has been greatly exaggerated. Jenkins notes:

"The result has been a rediscovery of the continent’s Christian roots, even among those who have long disregarded it, and a renewed sense of European cultural Christianity. Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, 'Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.' Europe may be confronting the dilemmas of a truly multifaith society, but with Christianity poised for a comeback, it is hardly on the verge of becoming an Islamic colony."

Can the faith founded by the Prince of Peace prevail over the self-proclaimed "religion of peace" on the spiritually arid battlefield of Europe? My guess is that increasingly worried Europeans fervently hope so.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at June 18, 2007 | Comments (18)

Don Lattin is right. In the introduction to his forthcoming book on the Children of God cult led by David “Mo” Berg, Lattin says, “Some Christians may take issue with the title of this book, Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge.” He then defends the title and subtitle by pointing out that Berg was “deeply rooted in the Christian tradition” and that he “came straight out of American evangelicalism.”

Ah, well, the key word is “out.” Berg was not “in” American evangelicalism, but rather “came ... out.” He wasn’t even close to “the Evangelical Edge.”

So yes, I’m one of those Christians who will take issue with the title of Lattin’s book (due out from the newly rechristened HarperOne in October.) The copy is designed to sell the book to those who think of "evangelicals" as dangerous and deluded. And while the term "freak" wasn't at all pejorative at the time of the Jesus movement, it's combination with "murder," "madness," and "evangelical edge" reinforces its more current and decidedly more lurid usage.

Nevertheless, the topic of the book and Lattin’s reputation as a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle make me want to spend more time with the uncorrected proof we received in today's mail.

I encountered the Children of God in ’74 or ’75 in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Fortunately, they did not try out their “flirty fishing” free-love recruitment techniques on me. (I probably didn’t look like a good candidate since I was with my wife and two preschoolers.) So they just gave me some of their free literature. But even that was scary stuff. It reeked of the paranoid and delusional.

By the way, there is one erratum to watch out for in the book’s introduction.

Lattin says that Berg was trained as an itinerant evangelist and began his “late-blooming ministry” in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which he identifies as “one of the nation’s earliest networks of Pentecostal churches.” But the C&MA is not Pentecostal. Classical Pentecostalism teaches the gift of tongues as the “initial evidence” of the reception of the Holy Spirit. The C&MA explicitly denies this, while allowing for members to speak in tongues if they are so moved by the Spirit.

The C&MA should instead be classified as a Holiness denomination. It teaches entire sanctification—though it understands that as a combination of crisis moment and ongoing process.

Posted by David Neff at June 14, 2007 | Comments (8)