Now...

...as a skeptic and cynic by nature I would question who exactly "heard" these guys pray, but assuming they did, this is pretty funny.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24765324/?GT1=43001

The question is, what about all the people who pray for deliverance and die? Any takers?

Snapshot: Email Response

My brother-in-law shot me an email yesterday commenting a bit on "Mere Christianity," the famous Christian apologetic book penned by C.S. Lewis. He had just read the chapter on "The Great Sin," which according to Lewis is the sin of pride. My brother and I have discussed pride in the past, so the chapter sparked his interest and he sent a snippet of it over for me to read. I am in full agreement with Lewis on the issue of pride as the deadly of the deadly sins. Pride is the source of every other type of sin, and on which Lewis comments is "one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves." I agree, minus the "except Christians," which I suppose is true if we weed out those only claiming to be Christians. But that is neither here nor there for now.

Upon re-reading this chapter on pride, I immediately was convicted to the core. Pride is a sin that I have always struggled with and one that God is addressing currently in my life to a large degree, and which prompted the following email response from me almost immediately. Before I post it here I would just like to throw out a disclaimer. I have wanted this blog, for the most part, to be a transparent and genuine reflection of my spiritual journey and not just a commentary on books or acquired theological knowledge. That being said, the following response is as pure and honest as it comes. I never intended for it to become fodder for this blog when I wrote it, but upon reflecting more on my pride after the fact I felt it was a good "snapshot" of where I am, hence the blog title. You could almost say I'm proud of it, which would be ironic, huh? That is certainly possible. At any rate here ya go...forgive the coarse language:

"Pride is my absolute mortal enemy - especially as a seminarian who is acquiring all this knowledge all while ignoring the point of it. I flat out think I'm better than people on most days and am constantly being destroyed over it. It is a battle I fight everyday in my head. It is the catch 22 of living in a nation that celebrates competition more than anything else. I hate arrogant people so much that I want to beat them at whatever causes them to be arrogant, thus accentuating my arrogance twice as much as theirs. It destroys everything in its wake; from my Christian witness to my relationship with my girlfriend and other people. Some days the only thing I can cling to is the fact that through grace I'm constantly being broken down - often painfully - and despite the fact that I would have been one of the assholes who happily nailed Jesus to the cross he still constantly wants me back. This is where Christianity becomes more pragmatic and less "other worldly." It allows for people who are broken to be gracefully put back together knowing that they are forgiven and giving them the ability to move back into a relationship with God.

We are working our way through the prophets right now and this verse just popped out at me, which is a basic summary of man's duty:

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

I'm thoroughly convinced of the truth of Christianity, but that often presents its own catch 22 - because in that certainty there is temptation to be prideful in "being right." I agree with Lewis that there are millions of "Christians" whom Christ will say, "I never knew you." My goal now is to just accept the grace for where I currently stand (as a pride-ridden butthole) and be discipled toward Christ's image and truly be broken and admit fault.

Mere Christianity is a great read. I really want to get some of the other books in the series like "A Grief Observed" and "The Problem with Pain." I heard the former is tough because its about when he lost his wife.

Ok I'm done."

It is amazing the way God works. Again tonight we talked about pride in class while working through Obadiah, although the theme was not just God's displeasure with individual pride, but the pride of nations as well. It is amazing how quickly we may be forgetting that in America. As we talked about Obadiah, who was speaking his oracle against the Edomites, our professor happily reminded us that just when you think you are all that...you ain't:

"The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, 'Who can bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down," declares the Lord. Obadiah 1:3-4

Hopefully I can keep that in mind for myself as well.

Final thoughts on Antony Flew's book. You could call this Commentary Part 2, but I sorta finished it....:)

Antony Flew is an honest man - and one that I wouldn't mind having a conversation with, as long as he spoke slowly once we began to speak philosophically. I've recently finished his book, "There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind," and it is a great read for an agnostic looking for further reason to believe God exists, and conversely a disaster for anyone holding to a strictly atheistic worldview. The reason? When one decides to innocuously follow the Socrates' exhortation to "follow the argument wherever it leads," you will inevitably end up at a Divine Mind.

From the outset Flew throughout his career operated on the above Socratic principle. This is a wonderful principle on which to evaluate the world, and also a great tool to weed out people who refuse to follow it. As I mentioned in the previous post on this book, the New Atheist camp continually fails to address the bigger issues of the existence of God. Given the popularity of their collective books, however, it is not difficult to see why. To illustrate the point we could liken Richard Dawkins to say, the shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Manson has so dug himself into the image of the Antichrist that for him to ever have a true awakening as to the truth of gospel and go public would in essence cause him to admit to legions of fans, and the public, that he was wrong. Now, as a guy, I have a hard enough time admitting I am wrong to my girlfriend. Additionally, when I am very blatantly shown to be wrong my immediate reaction isn't humility, but defense. And might I add a defense that wants to brush the issues presented aside and move on.

So it is in my opinion with the New Atheists. Like Manson, they are now slaves to their image. Someone like Dawkins can no longer afford to be wrong because his entire identity is now wrapped up in his insistence on atheism - from his Out Campaign to his books and DVDs. Indeed, his entire career demands his atheism, and just like the defensive measures I employ when I am shown to be wrong, he brushes aside any perceived threat to the security of his worldview. The New Atheists cannot afford to engage in debate with the current philosophers of science, because they know they will be danced around intellectually and will be forced to face their own dead ends.

This is what I find the most inspiring about Flew's book. It isn't just his mental prowess as a philosopher that led him to a belief in God, but his willingness to be open and honest after being one of the leading atheist philosophers for more than fifty years. He did not allow himself to become a slave to his own image, but rather followed the evidence and held tightly to the fact that he was searching for truth - not agenda. Indeed, you could say he was doing exactly what our Lord states is right and true: "Search and you will find."

Flew's search, over time, had to come to terms with the following questions:

Who wrote the natural laws?
Where do the laws of physics come from?
Why is it that we have these laws instead of some other set?
How is that we have a set of laws that drives featureless gases to life, consciousness and intelligence?
Did the universe know we were coming?
How did life go live?
Did something come from nothing?

Within the context of these questions Flew addresses other issues with God, such as omnipotence and the like, and also addresses the current atheistic science answers to the questions as well, which I must say, are unsatisfactory at best (if they are even addressed at all). Following the evidence, and taking us with him, Flew comes to believe - through reason - that we are a product of a Divine Mind.

Along these lines one thing I should clarify is that Flew is not, to my knowledge, a full fledged Christian believer. Flew clarifies his current position on the topic of whatever religious viewpoint has come about since his "conversion:"

"My current position, however, is more open to at least certain of these (divine revelation) claims. In point of fact, I think that the Christian religion is the one religion that most clearly deserves to be honored and respected whether or not its claim to be a divine revelation is true. There is nothing like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. Virtually all the argument about the content of the religion was produced by St. Paul, who had a brilliant philosophical mind and could both speak and write in all the relevant languages. If you're wanting Omnipotence to set up a religion, this is the one to beat" (Flew, 186).

So as we sit, Flew is in limbo with his newfound belief in the Divine, which is certainly both understandable and expected. It is interesting that his book ends with an appendix interviewing Bishop N.T. Wright, the famous Oxford New Testament scholar. Flew has Wright spell out a case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which he does so rather convincingly (as most NT scholars can) and which Flew concludes by commenting that he is "very much impressed with Bishop Wright's approach, which is absolutely fresh" (Flew, 213).

So what's the point? Why am I writing a pseudo-book review about an atheist philosopher on a blog that no one reads? Well, I suppose the answer is two-fold. First off, I like to hear myself talk, and when no one is around the best way to do that is to write your thoughts down and then read them back to yourself. Second, however, is that when you are faced with the fact of God's existence based on reason and not merely on faith, all of a sudden life takes on a certain beauty that you take for granted everyday. You realize that the best minds on Earth aren't destroying faith based on their discoveries, but supplementing it. And in that lies the hope that despite the measured chaos of the natural world, it was never intended to be the status quo of eternity, but a temporal existence in which we get to find, know, and experience God.

And also, in the unlikely event that someone stumbles onto this blog who is searching, maybe they will be inspired to grab a copy of the book. After all, it says a lot about the search when a man who searched and reasoned his entire life finally came to discover divinity. Such an event should keep the search alive for those searching, and for those not even looking, should be motivation to start.

Ya know...

...studying for OT mid-terms and reading two books simultaneously about God, truth, philosophy, and atheism will leave you mentally drained. Sometimes I kick myself for not harnessing interesting theological mental nuggets I often get and transmitting them to the blogosphere. As of late I'm usually too tired to articulate a nugget into a worthwhile read, anyhow, so these little blogo-vent sessions will have to do.

But when all else fails and you've got nothing interesting to say, just post a picture of a damn fine day with a damn fine lady.



...and don't let her tell you she beat me to the top. That's just nonsense.

Ain't she perty?

C