I’m Gonna Let it Shine…

Jesus once said:

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

– Matthew 5.16

Some other people have said:

It is striking that the early Quaker abolitionists and Christian pacifists in different ages had a public impact precisely by witness rather than by argument according to ‘publicly acceptable’ criteria.

– William Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (1989), p. 167.

The world’s cynicism and unbelief make the courage, continuity, and conviction of anybody, even ordinary people, appear to be adventurous and heroic. An unbelieving world can make a saint out of anybody who dares to be faithful.

– Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (1989), p. 58.

In a culture full of doubt as to whether there is a God who loves and cares for the world, godliness helps to keep alive the plausibility of Christian conviction.

– John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 224.

If we just care enough, God is in safe hands with us – despite everything.

– Etty Hillesum, died November 30, 1943, Auschwitz, Poland.

Does Christianity Have Faults?

Particularly when it comes to Christianity, the past is often seen by outsiders as merely a collection of tableaux that sit fixed in one’s mind as stark moral lessons: Christians mounted bloody Crusades against noble Muslims; Christians burned hapless women as witches; Christians foolishly resisted scientists such as Galileo and Darwin; Christians oppressed women and spoiled sex; Christians overran and dominated native peoples; Christians abused the earth. For many of our neighbours, the Christian past is simply a chamber of cultural horrors…Our civilization has been deeply marked by Christianity – by it’s faults but also by its gifts and glories.

– John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 50-51.

In an apologetic conversation, an impasse is often reached on the issue of the past faults, failings and mistakes of Christianity – incidents like those mentioned in the above quote. The impasse occurs because Christians find it hard to unreservedly say ‘That kind of Christianity is wrong’ and those outside the faith have no desire to align themselves with a community whose tradition includes such shames.

On the Christian side of things, I think this occurs because Christians are not sure whether they are able to say that Christianity has its faults, or whether they need to bite a bullet and maintain that Christianity is perfect. We are worried that by criticising Christianity, we will be paving the way for serious objections to make ground – claims such as Christianity does not communicate the truth about God, the Bible is not trustworthy, Jesus’ words do not give life, there is no God.

Perhaps what this points out is the need to distinguish between Christianity construed of as a cultural movement, and Christianity construed of as the work of God in action. With this distinction in place, a criticism of peoples, times, activities, and agendas, does not translate so easily into a criticism of Jesus’ words or lead to claiming that God doesn’t exist. To run these two notions together makes it impossible for Christians to criticise Christianity (or to listen to criticism), since, on this construal of things, to concede that Christianity has flaws supposes that an implicit criticism of Jesus or God is entailed, rather than merely a criticism of the particular activity of a historically located group. Looking at the tragic list above that Stackhouse recites, it seems to be that a lesson from church history is that when Christians are suspicious of criticism from within and closed to criticism from without, awful things are able to be done under the guise of Christianity.

This all can be reduced to the question: As Christians, are we comfortable talking about the faults, failings and weaknesses of Christianity as a cultural movement? Are we comfortable talking about Christianity as being (in a sense) a cultural movement rather than (unreservedly) the workings of God? Are we open to others shining a light on supposed faults, failings and weaknesses? Or do we believe that Christianity is beyond criticism?

For a movement that began as a Jewish man warned Israel, ‘Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven has come near’, I have my suspicions.

Atheism vs. Theism: The Wrong Paradigm?

 

Controversy over Christianity is almost never conducted in the terms in which it is usually discussed by professional apologists, namely, “theism versus atheism”. The options are far wider that these anachronistic choices – choices that smack of Enlightenment-era European debates. To be sure, one might encounter nowadays a discussion between a theist and an atheist, but the theist could well be a Muslim, a Sikh, or a Hindu and the atheist a Thervadin Buddhist, philosophical Confucianist, or postmodern pragmatist. More commonly, however, the question is not, “Do you believe in God?” but “Which God or gods do you believe in?” – John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 12

“Are you an atheist or a theist?” In the above excerpt, John Stackhouse suggests that this question is not as important as is usually thought. Debates about religion, faith, philosophy and worldview often come back to this question, assuming that it is the fundamental question that needs to be answered, and that it therefore ought to have a kind of priority over other questions. The thought goes: if we can just sort out whether you are an atheist or a theist and why, then we will be in a better position to move forward, or will know the right kinds of questions to be asking one another. Stackhouse calls this whole paradigm into question, suggesting that this kind of foundationalist thinking is a relic from Enlightenment-era thinking, which we need not see as the best way to discuss worldview and faith.

Stackhouse is saying that although atheism is a more abstract category than Marxism, and theism is a more abstract concept than Christianity, it need not be given a priority as the first issue that needs to be settled, and it need not take up residence as the focus of the debate between worldviews. This thought resonates with me because I see atheism and theism as being commitments which are entailed in other ideologies, where the ideologies themselves are more commonly the objects of decision. To overstate things – it is more common, and perhaps more natural, for people to choose an ideology first, and then to discover that atheistic or theistic commitments are bound up in what they have chosen, and to choose this ideology for reasons not necessarily linked with the atheism vs. theism debate. Most people choose Christianity (or whatever) not because they have first been convinced of theism, and most people choose Marxism (or whatever) not because they have first been convinced of atheism.

To dig a little deeper, perhaps this is because atheism and theism are too abstract to set real agendas, but too large to be ignored. If this is so, it explains why almost all worldviews have something to say about atheism or theism, and goes someway to explaining the plurality within each camp. To focus just on atheism: In a world without God, Marxists are able argue for the unique importance of the political and the urgent need for economic and social change; Feminists are able to argue for the contingency of the status quo and in some cases the fluidity of gender; Continental philosophers are able to argue for the relativity of value; Analytic philosophers are helped in arguing for empiricism as the most reliable way of knowing; and popular individualist consumerism in able to hold comfortably to beliefs in happiness as the supreme good, and the self as being of supreme importance.

This is all very cursory, but the point I’m gesturing towards is that atheism or theism can be employed for various worldviews and philosophies to bolster their own ideology. The five approaches I have just mentioned are starkly different – Marxists are not renowned for getting along with individualist-consumerists and Analytic philosophers are not renowned for getting along with Continental philosophers. It is not that these approaches have reached a consensus that God does not exist, but that atheism is a helpful, but by no means dominant, facet of their worldviews which are ultimately driven by other agendas.

Given this, Christian apologetics and conversation with others ought not to proceed by trying to settle the atheism/theism debate as though the whole ball game was riding on it. Much better to attempt to get inside of another worldview, and compare it’s beliefs, hopes and agenda with the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth. This makes the potential apologetic conversation much more complex, as the discussion has moved from comparing two abstract ideas, to comparing one worldview (Christianity) with a seemingly infinite plurality of others. It makes the conversation more exciting, since if atheism vs. theism is not the foundational issue, then it means you may begin to get towards the heart of things – the reasons people have chosen one ideology over another, and why they have done this. For a funny take on all this – check out how quickly the comedian Rick Gervais was able to dismiss Christianity once the conversation was framed in terms of atheism or theism, rather than the agenda, beliefs and hopes of Christianity compared with another ideology.