TheVirtualWord

I’m grateful to my friend AJS for pointing me to this mini-debate from the BBC Today programme between William Lane Craig and Lewis Wolpert. 

It is a classic example of two people who will not accept each other’s presuppositions. 

The scary thought is that a large number of people would fail to recognise that the second person had any presuppositions.  It is ironic in a postmodern world that so many people of ‘no faith’ are still so keen to claim a position of objectivity.

 (William Lane Craig is currently running a ‘Reasonable Faith‘ lecture and debate series.)

A new book by Steve Jeffery, Mike Overy and Andrew Sach, all of Oak Hill Theological College is to be published next month.  The website accompanying the book which has links to some useful resources, including relevant texts, songs, and articles is now live at: www.piercedforourtransgressions.com.  Well worth a look.

There is an excellent article at BeThinking which goes into a little more detail regarding the weakness of many of Dawkins’ arguments.  Well worth a look.

We’re now on one.  Just thought I should mention it.

‘Generation Next’ have published the findings of their recent survey exploring the attitudes of young men towards ministerial training.  It makes interesting reading, and the discussion forum will hopefully be useful in exploring some of the issues raised.  Find out more here: Generation Next.

Dawkin’s latest bestseller The God Delusion was recently recommended to me. Not because the person in question throught it was a good book (although he did acknowledge that Dawkins writes well), but because, so he said, therein you see the unravelling of atheism. In particular he made the point that so ‘polemical’ is Dawkins becoming that even a number of his atheist friends are distancing themselves from this latest diatribe.

Now I must confess that I have not read the book yet myself. But a reviewer from Prospect magazine decsribed the book as ” dogmatic, rambling and self-contradictory” (you can read the whole review by following the link).

I confine myself to a single comment. When I did pick up the book in a bookshop the other day I was intrigued to note which intellectual heavyweight Dawkins chose to endorse the book on the back cover - Derren Brown…

A quick plug for a product I have just discovered and think is excellent!

Bible+ is a freeware Bible reader for the Palm OS. There are many other free and commercial Bible Readers (indeed I have been using Laridian MyBible for some time now), however, the real plus from my point of view is that this enables you to access the original languages - something which wasn’t possible with MyBible.

Find out more by following this link to Bible+.

I may post a more full review when I have played with it a little longer.

Further musings on the issue of blasphemy and Christian protest.

One of our strongest apologetic tools may be our ‘cultural appropriation of revelation’.

What on earth does that mean?

As Christians we believe that we have been created in the image of God. Our creativity - our fashioning of things - our development of ‘culture’ - is part of that image of God.

Furthermore, our ability to create and fashion and shape is dependent upon the ordered regularity of the universe, which is guaranteed by our sustaining God.

Unlike God we are unable to create from nothing which means our very creative ability is limited by our ‘createdness’ (we can’t surprise God - even with the most radical idea).

For example, a painter can only paint because God created and governs the world to make paint react with canvas in a particular way. He cannot transcend that. To use Turnau’s phrase we “do culture using borrowed capital”. And the amazing truth from the point of view of the Christian is, that even the most anti-God piece of writing or theatre is only possible because of ‘common Grace’.

And this should perhaps encourage us to seek and appropriate that which reflects God and His gracious work in the most idolatrous piece of ‘culture’ we can see. So perhaps rather than complaining about Jerry Springer the Opera we should be looking to use it apologetically?

But to my mind the jury is still out about how this relates to blasphemy and whether our reaction should be different because of that. More thought required…

PS thanks to AJS for pointing out the opacity of the title, which has been duly changed…

Calling all university lecturers - it appears that you must now be careful who you quote in your lectures.

It would seem that simply for quoting the words of a 14th Century Christian Emperor the Pope is in big trouble. According to the BBC his remarks have “angered clerics and commentators around the Muslim world”.

By a parallel process would a history lecturer quoting from a speech made by Hitler cause similar offence to the Jewish community?

Obviously the Pope is a high-profile public figure, but it is clear that his remarks were made in the context of a university lecture. Furthermore if you take the trouble to read the lecture [you can download his full lecture here] it is clear that the main thrust of his argument is to do with the link between faith and reason. If it was critical of anything, it was a critique of modern reason not an attack on other faiths.

It is no wonder that many commentators are nervous about passing laws relating to Religious Freedom. We seem to be heading towards a place where our only freedom is to say nothing lest we inadvertently offend someone.

“There is none like you, O LORD;
you are great, and your name is great in might.
Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?
For this is your due;
for among all the wise ones of the nations
and in all their kingdoms
there is none like you.”

Jeremiah 10:6-7

Just a wonderfully true reminder of the nature of our God. And I think we sometimes need to come back to this - the wonderful character of our God - as we plod on in our Christian lives, and as we seek to encourage others. We have a GREAT God. And He LOVES us. And He delights to WORK in our lives.

What mystifies me, is why I forget that so often and try to do things on my own.