Howm’I supposed to defend the faith against these swamis of reason when they keep making me wheeze like they do?

Sam Harris, aspiring scientist and indignation impresario, is promoting this project, in order to advance the sweet voice of reason. You can look at a really cool graphic they have put together here. The base line represents all the verses of the Bible, and the red lines all arch, like so many mortar shots, to the location of another verse, with which it is supposed to collide. You can then tell at a glance that the Bible is just full of contradictions. The night sky is lit up with them. A really cool graphic is necessary to illustrate this because today’s street smart youth know that iPhone apps have dispensed with the need for actual arguments and textual study, you know, the kind with books.

I took a random sampling of just a couple of their contradictions, and addressed them below. I will perhaps be forgiven if I don’t work through them all. You don’t need to drink the whole bottle to tell that it’s vinegar. So, here are a couple drops from their bottle, in all their glory, and I don’t think I am risking contradiction when I say we need to look elsewhere if we are looking for Pinot Noir that goes with the tenderloin.

#208 If a husband believes, is his wife saved also? 1 Cor. 7:14, Acts 16:31 ≠ 1 Cor. 7:16

Can you feel your faith teetering? Well, you oughter, you superstitious rube, because here are the verses themselves, actually quoted.

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If you are on an atheist jag as I am (and why shouldn’t you be?), you really ought to get The Return of the Village Atheist. American Vision published it at the same time they published my Letter from a Christian Citizen. I got my copy the other day, and just finished it last night. It is also a response to Sam Harris’ book, and while there are just a few areas where our responses overlap, for the most part Joel McDurmon addresses different problems with Harris, or the same problems in a different but equally effective way. This book is another potent answer to Harris.

One example. McDurmon points out that Harris doesn’t understand the arguments of Intelligent Design, just as I did, but he goes on to juxtapose Harris’ apparent ignorance of the irreducible complexity argument with Darwin’s clear anticipation of that argument. “Since Darwin himself anticipated the ID argument as a full refutation of his theory,” then it is not possible for Harris to say it is mere “religious advocacy masquerading as science,” unless of course Harris believes that Darwin thought his theory was so rickety that it could be overthrown by something as flimsy as religious opinions (p. 65).

There are some other devastating arguments here as well. If this subject interests you at all, this book will interest you a great deal.

I had seen on Richard Dawkins’ blog that he was going to be on the O’Reilly Factor, which he in fact was. He and Bill skirmished, as could have been predicted, and I only want to say one thing about it. O’Reilly brought up Stalin and Hitler, good job, and Dawkins pointed out that both men had mustaches. We don’t want to say that facial hair is the cause of genocide, do we?

Nope. According to atheism, we only identify the worldview of bad actors with their bad acts if that worldview involves any kind of belief in God. In short, if there was someone as wicked as Stalin who thought that God was going to hold him accountable for every evil deed, that person would obviously be motivated by his religion. (!) But if he believed that he was going to get away with absolutely everything, that would be what Dawkins would call an irrelevant detail.

In the meantime, alarmed by the influx of Muslims (who do not give the condom sacramental status as do the secularists), European unbelievers have learned how to sit up in bed and make noises that they believe to be war cries. But they are nothing but death rattles, capable only of startling the nurses.

In Letter From A Christian Citizen, I argue two basic points concerning slavery. The first is that atheism does not provide us with any solid ground for condemning slavery. This does not keep atheists from condemning slavery. It just keeps them from having a good reason for doing so.

My second point is that Scripture does provide us with a solid basis for eliminating slavery.

So I hold up two fingers together and say, “On this subject, me and N.T. Wright . . . like that.”

In Black & Tan, I include the following short chapter that summarizes the biblical teaching on slavery. For those visitors coming here from Richard Dawkins web site, looking to discover some of my deep, dark, doctrinal secrets — here they are:

Christians need to understand this issue in order to remain faithful to the teaching of Scripture. By seeing how obedience to Scripture could quite possibly have protected our fathers (both North and South) from a costly and bloody war, had they only obeyed, we may be assured of the importance of submitting to the Scriptures when it comes to our controversies (e.g. militant feminism, homosexuality), whatever the unbelieving world has to say about it.

The slave trade was an abomination, and I hold that those evangelicals in England like William Wilberforce who led the fight against it are rightly considered heroes of the faith. The Bible clearly rejects the practice of slave trading (1 Tim. 1:10; Ex. 21:16). In a just social order, slave trading could rightly be punished with death.

In considering slavery itself, we must recognize the difference between slavery regulated by the Mosaic law, that is, a slavery which was little more than an indentured servanthood, and slavery as it existed in a pagan empire such as Rome. In ancient Israel, it was the duty of those who feared God to simply obey the laws on slavery as God gave them, recognizing their temporary nature. The laws on slavery in the Old Testament begin with manumission in view (Ex. 21:2), and were given to a people who themselves had just been freed from bondage in Egypt (Ex. 20:1-2). The temporary nature of Hebraic slavery was built into it as a design feature.

But when the existing law was that of an unbelieving pagan order, like that of Rome, it was the duty of Christians living within that system to follow the biblical instructions for resisting the paganism of this slavery carefully so that the Word of God would not be blasphemed (1 Tim. 6:1).

The distinction to be made here is between slavery that was ordained by God, which is what we see in the Old Testament among the Hebrews, and slavery that was instituted by an unbelieving and pagan world, and which was to be subverted by faithful Christians living in accordance with the gospel.

American slavery had the additional complication of its racial basis. And so we as Christians, and especially as American Christians, must denounce as a matter of biblical principle, every form of racism, racial animosity or racial vainglory. God created man in His own image, and has made from one blood all the nations of the earth (Acts 17:26). We are called to believe firmly that in the gospel God has reversed the curse of Babel, and that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free (Gal. 3:28), black or white, Asian or Hispanic, tall or short. Jesus Christ has purchased men from every nation and tribe with His own blood, and His blood necessarily provides a stronger bond than ours does.

Christ died on the cross to set all men free from their sins, and all forms of external slavery are built on the bedrock of slavery to sin. Therefore, the logic of the Great Commission requires the eventual death of slavery as an institution in any place where it might still exist. While Christian slaves were commanded to work hard for their masters, Christian slaves were also told to take any lawful opportunity for freedom (1 Cor. 7:20-24). This indicates that slavery as an institution is inconsistent with the fundamental Spirit of the gospel, who is the Spirit of liberty (2 Cor. 3:17).

The best way to subvert a pagan system of slavery is through careful obedience to the law of Christ. This means that, while obedient Christians could have been either slaves or masters, the instructions given to them in their respective stations are very clear. Christian masters are to remember that they have a master in heaven, and this means they must treat their slaves charitably (Eph. 6:9). Christian slaves must work diligently for their masters, knowing that ultimately they are doing their work for God and not for men (Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22-23). And Christian slaves who happen to be owned by Christian masters were told to pay even greater attention to this submissive demeanor, because the beneficiary of their labors was a brother in Christ (1 Tim. 6:2; Phil. 10-19). These scriptural instructions, carefully followed, resulted, over time, in a peaceful elimination of Roman slavery, and had they been consistently applied by us, they would have had an analogous impact on the slavery of the ante-bellum South.

The godly pattern of social renewal is never bloodthirsty. The radical insists on immediate action, through coercive, bloody, and political means. In contrast, the work of the gospel is done as silently as yeast working through the loaf, and the end result is liberation from sin, love for God, and love for one’s neighbor. This love for neighbor necessitates the recognition that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female, white or black (Gal. 3:28). But those radicals who are impatient in their spirits always refuse God’s teaching in such matters. They are proud and ignorant, loving verbal strife, envy, railing, and perverse disputes (1 Tim. 6:3-5). We speak for peace, but they are for war (Ps. 120:7).

Let’s tie two timely issues together. This is sometimes dangerous, because when issues are timely, they are also frequently raw, and this means that it is easy to be misunderstood. But I will try to state this basic argument against atheism as briefly and as clearly as I can.

The first timely issue is the presence of the new atheism, which various influential people are crusading for. Regular readers of this blog know that the new atheists are here, they are belligerent, and if you don’t come along with them with glad shouts of acclaim, the obvious explanation for your lack of cooperation is that you’re an idiot. Truculent is the word.

The second issue is the Virginia Tech shooting that the nation is still reeling from. Everyone is appalled, grief-striken, and numb. That is what makes it easy to misunderstand. Everyone is also touched, focused, and teachable. That is what makes it possible to begin to understand.

Here is something I wrote in Letter from a Christian Citizen.

I wrote these words long before the Virginia Tech tragedy, but knowing that something awful like it was bound to happen at some point in the future. Sam Harris made a similar point in his book when he described a particular crime, yet future, as inevitable.

Now let me head off the misunderstanding (and it is always the same one). I am not arguing (or otherwise hinting) that Sam Harris, or Richard Dawkins, or any of these new atheists are in any way supporters of this kind of murderous rampage. I know that they are as appalled as I am. So the point is not that they are secret admirerers of the shooter.

My point is that atheists disapprove of this kind of thing, but their disapproveal cannot be derived from the premises of their atheism. It must therefore come from somewhere else. This means that Harris, Dawkins, et al. are as much opponents of the logical consequences of atheism as I am. They like to portray themselves as courageous “facers-of-the-consequences.” If logical consequences were a bracing autumn breeze, the upper right hand corner of Dawkins’ blog would have a picture of himself standing in it, chin out, hair swept back, and a steely resolve in his eye. “Bring those consequences on.”

Okay. Here is one. Given atheism, the Virginia Tech shooter is now in the same condition as Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, John Paul II, Ted Bundy, John Lennon, and Dolly Madison. The nirvana of non-existence is now his, and he successfully escaped to that haven from every claim of justice. That rampage is an atrocity which Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens all believe will never be put right. Justice will never be applied to it. And this lack of justice is just the way it is. So what is wrong with this lack of justice now? Given atheism, nothing is wrong with it.

But even the new atheists cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this. This is because they are created in the image of God, and they know better. So my charge is not that they approve of such things. Of course not. Not a bit of it. My charge is that they are purveyors of an impotent disapproval. The shooting has stopped, the shouting has died down, the bullets are all spent, and the shooter has begun to decompose. And the infinite concourse of atoms that constitutes all reality continues to roar by us heedless, continuing, as always, to not give a damn.

Letter from a Christian Citizen has drawn the attention of Richard Dawkins, and there was quite a discussion over at his blog. If you want to take a look, you can see it all here. I am not asking you to go over there to pile into the discussion — in fact I would recommend that you not do so — but it is illuminating to take a look. Paradigmatic thinking is frequently identical with blinkered thinking. The subject head is “Sam’s Flea,” referring as I suppose to Yeat’s line, “But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?” More about this in a minute.

The thing to note here is the strategic inconsistency that the new atheists appear to be stuck in. On the one hand, they want us to be marginal, insignificant, why dignify these guys with a response?, and so on. We are the fleas on the dog’s back. On the other hand, America is teetering on the brink of theocracy, the Religious Right is sweeping everything before it, secularism is about to die the death if we don’t act now, and so on down the street and around the corner.

Now I think that they would agree that we believers can’t be significant and insignificant at the same time. The fact that we are seeing this rash of book publishing from them indicates what they really think, which is that the image of dog and fleas should actually be reversed.

But let me up the ante. Since we showing off our respective educations by referring to poets, let me modify Eliot’s hippopotamus and make it a rhino. Christendom is an enormous rhino — socially awkward, unsophisticated, non-academic, embarrassing, and what have you. I am a tick-eating Oxpecker bird, positioned by the ear, or on the rump, depending the strategic necessities, the time of day, and my particular mood. The atheists are very critical ticks, and they take delight in pointing out (often quite accurately) that the rhino is lumpy, clumsy, and short-sighted. They recommend a fitness regimen, urge the rhino to abandon its shape and become something more Euro-friendly. Methane is also an issue.

I have debated a number of atheists in the past (Tabash, Stein, Barker), and of course I would be happy to debate Harris if that were to come together. But as I said at the end of my book, I would also be delighted to stand him for a beer. That could work too. Or, if we wanted to do something more organized, I would be willing to issue a more formal challenge from the Christian community to the atheist community — to something more important than debates, like a poetry contest, say, or maybe a game of dodgeball.