I was on facebook the other day, taking a silly quiz to see how "Reformed" I was.  As it turns out, the quiz was designed by Presbyterians, so it wasn't very accurate. 

One person, obviously irked by Reformation theology, left a rather cynical comment on the quiz's wall, along the lines of "child prostitution brings glory to God."  This person was attempting to raise the objection that, because the Reformed believe quite strongly that every event and every moment of history is ordained by God, for the purpose of glorifying Himself, they are left with the (supposedly) absurd conclusion that the most vile and wicked acts imaginable are somehow God-glorifying.  Child prostitution exists, according to this line of thought, because God in some sense wanted it to. 

I just want to say two things in response to this.  The first is that, as is often the case, this is a stilted charicature of Reformed theology.  No sane Reformed person actually believes that God possesses a disposition such that He actually delights in suffering.  There is a very real sense in which God does not want anyone to suffer, in this life or in the next.  He justly hates evil in every possible sense.  You'll also be hard pressed to find a Reformed theologian who will claim that the Fall (and the subsequent existence of sin and evil in the world) was somehow necessary.  What you will find is a commitment to the idea that, even though evil things are evil in and of themselves, and should not be considered good in any way, it must be the case that they exist for the good, or God would not allow them.  I think Reformed and non-Reformed alike should be able to agree on this.  The only other option is that God does not work all things for good (even if only the best good possible).

The second point is very important, and too often overlooked.  Typically it is said that Reformed theology places the ultimate blame on God, while Arminian forms remove from Him any such responsibility and place it back on us.  Here's the problem:  Both views must account for vile atrocities like child prostitution.  And both views believe in an omnipotent and wholly good God.  In short, both must still account for the problem of evil.  But to simply say, "well, it's human freedom" does little to get God off the hook.  At the heart of the so-called "free will defense" against the problem of evil is the notion that the free choice to love God is so infinitely beautiful and good that it is worth the price of child prostitution.  This is, to say the least, a contentious claim.  But more importantly, most advocates of this view will also argue that such free choices of love are supremely God-glorifying.  Arminian theology doesn't glorify man by placing all the emphasis on him and his choices, says the Arminian, but rather it places equal emphasis on God and His glory.  Fair enough.  But notice what the Arminian view is now saying:  God "allows" (rather than "ordains") child prostitution so that some can freely choose Him, to the end of glorifying Himself.  Does that sound familair? 

My point here is not necessarily to defend one view over the other.  I don't think I've made any case for Reformed theology here.  But we need to stop acting as though any one denomination has the sure-fire, bullet-proof response to something as immensely troubling and difficult as the problem of evil.  I don't hold to Reformed theology because I think it makes more sense of the problem of evil than Arminian theology, and I would strongly discourage anyone from holding to Arminian theology for the same reason.  If you can't accept Reformed doctrine because of exegetical concerns, or because you think it has no adequate grounding for moral responsibility, great!  All I wish to submit here is that the mere presence of evil in the world is not by itself sufficient grounds for accepting or rejecting either view.  It is, as they say, a two-way street.   

We all expect the Spanish Inquisition to show up sooner or later in our discussions with atheists.  Does the presence of the Inquisition in Christian history discredit all of Christianity?  Does it render our past completely barbaric?

Here's a question that can help clarify the issues involved with the Inquisition objection:  Do you honor Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb, or do you merely scoff at him for not inventing a computer?  Edison explored the same world we explore, and yet he only invented a light bulb.  Was he a colossal failure?  Absolutely not.  Data (in this case, the data of the physical world) takes time to work through, sort out, and apply.  Edison had a less than perfect understanding of the world, but he furthered the process of our knowledge and application of the facts of nature by one more step, moving us all towards a more precise understanding of the one reality of nature that has existed since the beginning.  Eventually scientific data would lead to computers, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the beauty and wonder of the invention of the light bulb in its own time.  And even though at the time of the light bulb's creation there were many other false ideas about how to apply the laws of nature (the use of leeches, for example), the false applications did not discredit science for all time.

Now move this same idea away from science and into the realm of morality and Christianity.  Like the unchanging laws of nature, we have the unchanging words of God in the Bible.  And as in the world of science, in the world of Christianity we've had to work out our knowledge and application of those unchanging words into our societies.  This takes time because human societies started off so far from the ideal--with many false ideas and without knowledge of some true ideas of application that hadn't yet occurred to them.  (For example, the idea that a pluralistic society could peacefully exist and not tear itself apart looks obvious to us now, but before the cultural situation made the discovery of this radically new idea possible, it was assumed that one must enforce unanimity for the good of the citizens, in order to survive.)

It's no surprise, then, that 500 years ago societies had only reached the moral equivalent of the light bulb and not the computer; but the problem was in the application, not in the data.  That is, as inevitably as an application of the facts of the physical world led to computers, so the ideas of the Bible have led to the free societies we now see in the West.  But one ought not be surprised by the amount of time it took the societies of the West to work through ideas based on biblical data any more than one is surprised by the thousands of years it took us to work through scientific ideas based on the observable data of nature.  Nor does it make any more sense to fault the unchanging Bible itself for those societies' slow pace than it does to fault the always-present laws of nature for our formerly rudimentary ideas about science.  The Bible and nature remained the same even if the implications had not yet been fully explored and rightly applied.  And, as with the light bulb, we ought to honor the steps that were made in creating better societies rather than merely degrade the people of the past for not creating the inventions and institutions we have today.

But why, we may then ask, when first creating the nation of Israel, did God not immediately demand that they live as we do today?  The answer might be similar to the reason why He didn't supply them with computers.  A computer would have been completely beyond their grasp.  In the same way, Israel had a difficult enough time adjusting their society to what God did give them explicitly at that time.  Some things, to be fully understood, accepted, and lived out, have to be reached on our own as we struggle over time, learning little by little.  Applications of ideas are discovered and then take time to permeate and transform a society.  This, in turn, lays the groundwork for discovering more applications.

What God did do is speak to Israel where they were.  He addressed the world as they knew it, and He set a foundation of ideas in place through the Old and New Testaments that would infect societies in such a way that the spread of those ideas would eventually lead us to where we are today.  He told us that we're all--men and women--created in His image (Gen 1:27) and equal in value before Him (Gal 3:28, Philemon).  We're not to kidnap people and sell them into slavery (Ex 21:16), we're not to punish people in a way that humiliates them (Deut 25:3), we're not to make converts by the sword (John 3:5-8, 18:36), the State is under God and the law (Deut 17:14-20), no one--rich or poor (Lev 19:15), native or foreigner (Num 15:15-16)--is to be favored when justice is dispensed, and the foundation goes on and on.

Unfortunately, just as the lack of good scientific instruments slowed the discovery and application of the laws of nature, our moral weaknesses--stubbornness, ignorance, biases, selfishness, and inherited false beliefs--have made the application of the Bible to our societies a difficult, slow process.  This is why the Inquisition, while condemnable, is not unexpected or surprising and so does not successfully argue against the truthfulness of Christianity.  And in fact, it gives further witness to the truthfulness of the Bible's central message of our desperate need for Jesus and the forgiveness He provides.

Last night, Ben Stein came to Biola Univeristy to promote his new film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.  In the film, Ben Stein invenstigates the employment termination of several University science professors due to their doubts about Darwinism and support of Intelligent Design.  Find out more about the film here. 

Recently, Dr. R. C. Sproul interviewed Ben Stein about the new film on his radio show, Renewing Your Mind. 

Listen to Part One.

Listen to Part Two. 

Order from STR Amazon

Stephen Wagner speaks to and trains a variety of audiences on pro-life and bioethics issues as part of the ministry of Stand to Reason. His new book, Common Ground Without Compromise: 25 Questions to Create Dialogue on Abortion, challenges advocates on both sides of the abortion issue to have more respectful and fruitful conversations. Though the book is available on Amazon, we encourage you to support Steve's work at Stand to Reason by ordering through their website. The conclusion of the interview will be posted on Thursday.

As the title indicates, the point of your book is to build common ground between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. Many people on both sides of the issue simply want to persuade their opponents- why should they be interested in finding common ground?

I don’t see a person who disagrees with me primarily as a sort of potential convert.  I see her as a human being.  Human beings deserve to be treated with respect; they deserve to be heard.  It’s troubling that some Christians take the Great Commission as a directive to think of non-Christians as “gospel fodder,” people who are only valuable if converted.  Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason coined that term and I’ve found it helpful in my thinking about the abortion debate.  I am a pro-life advocate, but I don’t see the pro-choice advocate simply as a future notch in my pro-life belt. 

Now, is it important to persuade people of the pro-life position?  I believe the pro-life position is true, and surely it’s vital to help people come to see it as true.  But if I don’t come with an attitude of listening and appreciating this human being as a fellow truth seeker, I’ll miss the forest for the trees…or the human for the ideas.  Since persuasion is important, though, common ground is all the more important.  It’s diplomatic common sense.  Take the pro-life volunteers I trained for a recent outreach in Arizona.  As we shared stories of our interactions, many of the volunteers shared about how common ground helped them move the dialogue forward to discuss disagreements in a productive way.  In the book I picture common ground as the fuel in a car.  You’ll need it at the beginning of a conversation.  And you’ll need to refuel with common ground along the way in order to keep the conversation moving.

Early on in the book you state, "I believe that you and I are both seeking truth, so we have at least one item of common ground." (p17) I suspect that some pro-lifers won't like this because that they believe pro-choicers are more interested in convenience than truth. Why should we believe people we disagree with are interested in seeking truth? Do you honestly believe every person you talk with is seeking truth?

Anyone who’s spent even a few hours talking to college students, or people of any age for that matter, knows that many people value convenience or pleasure or entertainment more than the search for truth.  That’s uncontroversial and I’d be a fool to claim otherwise.  I think it’s also uncontroversial, though, that every human seeks truth on some level.  You can be just as certain that the college student who seems to only care about sex or entertainment also cares deep in his soul about knowing what’s true.  No one wakes up in the morning and says, “I’d really like to find someone who will deceive me today.”  People care about not being deceived, and conversely, they care about knowing the truth.  Our job, as those who believe there’s truth about abortion, is to help people bring their innate love for truth to the surface, so they can fix their conscious gaze on it and evaluate their beliefs.

You spend most of your time in the book exploring 25 questions you believe will help build common ground. Why are questions so important in this endeavor?

It’s interesting that you would use a question to ask why questions are so important! 

Questions are the only way that dialogue happens.  It’s the way we signal to others that we want to hear their opinion.  It’s also one way to signal that we are positioning ourselves as partners rather than enemies (although this also requires asking the question with a certain kind of attitude).  I framed the content of the book in a series of questions because I wanted to help the reader see in a tangible way how to start a conversation and how to keep it productive.  Asking people what they think and why is much more likely to help them change their minds than telling them they are wrong.

The first question you pose in an effort to build common ground is "What do you think about late-term abortion?" You cite a 2003 Gallup poll that suggests "68% of Americans oppose abortion in the second trimester and 84% oppose it in the third trimester." (p39) Why do you think these polls statistics are so high?

Your question is a great one…to ask anyone we’re in dialogue with.  “If you are against late-term abortion, or think it should be illegal…why?”  I think responses to that question are varied.  Many people just think the unborn is a baby at this point.  Some people think the fetus in the second or third trimester looks like older human beings.  Essentially, “It looks like me, so I’m repulsed by killing it.”  Others cite the fact that the fetus likely has higher cortical activity in the late second and third trimester.  So, this question gets us quickly back to the main issue in the abortion debate: Is the unborn a human being who has the same rights as the rest of us?  Many say “yes” in the last half of the pregnancy.

You note that we often hear this common sentiment presented in the media: "The majority of Americans are 'pro-choice' and oppose restrictions on abortion." (p62) Do you believe there is a 'pro-choice' bias in the media?

I’m not sure I’d put it that way.  I think the media’s treatment of the abortion issue shows a “pro-shallow” bias and a “pro-controversy” bias.  People in the media usually have only seconds to communicate ideas and must use sound bites.  Plus, on television, a simplistic representation of extremes plays better than complex dialogue.   So, it’s easy to report poll results, but thorough analysis takes too long.  Neil Postman was right when he criticized the television medium as being intrinsically an entertainment medium that makes it difficult to get accurate facts.  People in the media could minimize this liability, though, by only publicizing polls that ask specific questions about specific abortions at specific times in pregnancy.  Only then can we really understand what people think.

But the fault is not all the media’s.  Pollsters typically serve up polls that ask very vague questions about whether people are for or against abortion, pro-life or pro-choice, for or against Roe v. Wade.  As I explain in the book, the polls rarely define what all of these terms and court decisions mean, so the poll results actually portray an inaccurate picture of public opinion.  But when the media publicizes this inaccurate picture, it becomes a part of our collective consciousness about public opinion on abortion.  We come to believe that what the media reported is “just the way it is.” 

The most serious problem with polls and the media, though, is not the polls or the media.  It’s us, the viewers.  If many of us believe these shallow and inaccurate public opinion polls, it’s our own fault.  We should be more careful.

There has been some talk about Frank Schaeffer's new book about his father, Crazy for God.  Os Guinness's review is now posted on the Books and Culture website:

The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work. In Frank's own words, his parents were "crazy for God." Their call to the ministry "actually drove them crazy," so that "religion was actually the source of their tragedy." His dad was under "the crushing belief that God had 'called' him to save the world." Because of this, his parents were "happiest when farthest away from their missionary work." Back at their calling, they were "professional proselytizers," their teaching was "indoctrination," and it was unclear whether people came to faith or were "brainwashed" and "under the spell" of his parents. Frank's own arguments in their support, he now says, were a kind of "circus trick". . . .

 

For six years I was as close to Frank as anyone outside his own family, and probably closer than many in his family. I was his best man at his wedding. Life has taken us in different directions over the past thirty years, but I counted him my dear friend and went through many of the escapades he recounts and many more that would not bear rehearsing in print. It pains to me say, then, that his portrait is cruel, distorted, and self-serving, but I cannot let it pass unchallenged without a strong insistence on a different way of seeing the story. There is all the difference in the world between flaws and hypocrisy. Francis and Edith Schaeffer were lions for truth. No one could be further from con artists, even unwitting con artists, than the Francis and Edith Schaeffer I knew, lived with, and loved.

Guinness gives some interesting thoughts in his review on what he thinks happened in the Schaeffer family to bring them to this point, with lessons for anyone trying to simultaneously guide a ministry and raise a family.

(HT:  Between Two Worlds)

After a brief introduction and biography, Dr. Follis explores the theology of John Calvin and Reformed interpretations since. This lays the groundwork for Schaeffer’s understanding of the dignity of humanity despite its depravity and the role of reason in his apologetic. The second chapter considers the various arguments Schaeffer put forward, including the well-known “taking the roof off,” and places Schaeffer’s love and compassion in proper relation to his apologetics. Francis Schaeffer has been accused of rationalism by some evangelicals, so Dr. Follis seeks to defend him against that charge in the third chapter. He argues that Schaeffer’s argumentation cannot be separated from his spirituality and that critics simply do not consider the full canon of Schaeffer’s work and life.

In the fourth chapter, Dr. Follis explores methodology, noting that Schaeffer was not a presuppositionalist in the tradition of Cornelius Van Til, but more like a verificationist in the tradition of Edward Carnell. He makes the important note, however, that Schaeffer did not believe “there is any one apologetics which meets the needs of all people. The concluding chapter considers the role of love in Schaeffer’s work and life, which Schaeffer called “the final apologetic.” Dr. Follis explains the personal nature of Schaeffer’s evangelism and the importance of community.

Truth with Love by Bryan Follis not only sets the record straight about the beliefs and life of Francis Schaeffer, but also puts forwards an inspirational vision for apologetics in our current postmodern culture. It’s main fault is that some of the points are placed repetitively throughout the book, but with such important points that may be forgiven.

This paper was essentially a summary of Dr. House’s chapter in the recently released Reasons for Faith ed. Norman Geisler and Chad Meister. The following is my summary of his paper and reflects my understanding of the points Dr. House made.

The apologetic debate is over whether God intends to use general revelation to bring about salvific belief. The central question is: Do we share any common ground with the unbeliever?

Classical and Evidential apologetics acknowledge that unbelievers can understand some truth. The difference between them is the Classical begins at first principles and Evidential begins anywhere. Presuppostional apologetics deny unbelievers can understand any truth until after regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

A crucial distinction is needed between “believing in” and “believing that.” Evidential apologetics can be used to bring someone to the point of “believing that.” “Believing in” requires regeneration. For example, there have been Jewish scholars who have affirmed that the resurrection of Jesus is a historically verifiable event. But there differ regarding the meaning of the resurrection- whether or not Jesus is the messiah. They believe “that” but not “in.”

Evidence can assist a person to belief in Christ by removing factual obstacles. The task of apologetics is to show the truth of objective reality. The move to embrace belief in (from belief that) requires the subjective work of the Spirit. The Spirit makes meaning of the historically objective reality.

In Acts, the audience has no familiarity with the Hebrew scriptures- much like where our culture is going today. Paul started with creation: God’s existence and nature, and moved on to what God has done. His framework was provided by his theology found in Romans 1: that “they knew God.” Many people understand with their mind but do not receive in their hearts.

Paul sought common ground with his audience. Instead of wasting time with pointless rabbit trail debates, he pointed out that they both believed in God and kerygma. He moved from what they accepted to what they did not know. Paul also assumed that he was being understood- that those in his audience could follow the logic of his argument (another aspect of common ground).