Saying No.

Take up another challenge: Spend a 24-hour period with no entertainment whatsoever. That means: no TV, no recorded music, no movies, no video games, no internet surfing. Can you divide your life into the entertaining and non-entertaining? There would be more silence, for example. Think about it, then unplug. Enter another world within this world (and above it). Then, please converse about your discoveries with others--or even on this blog if you'd like. Selah.

Super Bowl Boycott

I call on all those reading to boycott the Super Bowl. Have nothing to do with it. It is a debauched institution, although part of the liturgical year of most evangelical churches. Try going to a church service that day that doesn't mention it. (I'm preaching tomorrow and won't mention it, but the worship team probably will...) The Super Bowl is punctuated obscene and juvenile commercials (featuring mega-bimbos everywhere) that appeal to the seven deadly sins. Parents: do not expose yourself or your children to this! Moreover, it is a colossal waste of about three hours. Instead: read a book, pray, worship the King of Kings, call a lonely friend, take a nap (it is Sunday after all). Do something else that counts for eternity. As Thoreau said, "You cannot kill time without wounding eternity." See Psalm 90:12 as well.

Ghost-Preaching: Sermon-Stealing and Sermon-Buying

Sermon-stealing and sermon-buying are particularly egregious forms of plagiarism that effect and infect the church more than we might like to believe. Like ghost-writing, these forms of deception are quite popular. One nationally known pastor makes his sermon outline available for $4 a pop. I met with a group of pastors about two years ago who complained that they were tired of the retread sermons they heard in their pulpit by various pulpiteers who were filling in after the loss of their beloved pastor. I assured them that if they wanted me as an interim preaching pastor that the sermons would be my own, for better or worse. I would not be relying on a ghost preacher.

Titus 2:7-8 instructs teachers to have integrity and be serious about their teaching. 1 Peter 4:11 exhorts those who speak to speak "as the oracles of God." That probably eliminates sermon-stealing and sermon-buying. Teachers will be judged more strictly, says James 3:1-2--and not on a curve. As Phillip Brooks said in Lectures on Preaching, preaching is "truth through personality." One refracts God's truth in preaching through the diligence of one's own efforts. This requires grappling with the sacred text through one's own study and prayer--complimented by the prayers of others. It cannot be done on the cheap. While some on-line sermon outlines are hawked as "road tested" (because a famous preacher preached them before a big crowd), a biblical sermon is soul tested in the fires of study, reflection, and prayer. Fire in the bones cannot be downloaded (Jeremiah 20:9). One climbs into the pulpit alone--but before God as the audience of One.

Ghostbusting the Ghostwriters

A new blogger has a short and to the point essay on ghostwriting. I respond in a comment as well. This has been a long-time concern of mine. It is rampant in "Christian" publishing, sadly.

"Why Truth Matters Most" on line

I found a pdf file of my article from the September, 2004 issue of The Journal of The Evangelical Theological Society, "Why Truth Matters Most: An Apologetic for Truth-Seeking in Postmodern Times." This, Lord willing, will be a chapter in my forthcoming apologetics textbook. It can be found here. Feel free to use it as you wish.

Cell Freeze

It's hard. I forget to take the cell phone with me. Then I take it with me and forget to turn it on. Then I forget to call when I'm supposed to. My wife wrote out 2/3 of a page of detailed instructions for the thing; bless her, but I'd rather read other literature. I hope I don't accidently flush it down the toilet, drop it in the dishwater or the soup, or use it as a drum stick on my electronic drums.

My Cell Phone, Myself: Philosophy of a Technology

To the utter shock of some of my students, I have purchased a cellular telephone. My wife has done all the work in selecting the best plan, figuring the thing out (a complicated mess of technological decoding and conversing with ignoramuses), and laying out the conditions of use. I am so old that I remember when telephones were simple. They rang; you answered: no choice of ringtones, no voice mail, and they were tethered to the earth by a cord.

Our cell company offers these ring tones: "screams" and "moaning" and much more. Don't ask. Everything is customized (even in a perverted sense); the self is endlessly flattered; choices explode; it gets old, and we want none of it. Here are our rules (so far).

1. We have a very minimal minutes plan. The cell is only for exigencies when my wife and I cannot use a land line.

2. We are not giving the number to anyone else, not even Paris Hilton.

3. I am not going to wear it. It is not a piece of clothing. The full armor of God is enough (Ephesians 6)--along with the standard sartorial arrangements.

4. I am not going to use it in public--meaning no "cell yelling" or "cell stalking."

5. I am not going to use it while driving (or biking or swimming).

6. I will never say, "I don't know how I got along without it," because it will not become an integrated feature of my life.

Another Aphorism on Postmodern Times

"Never have so many been so certain of so much about which they know so little"--Rebecca Merrill Groothuis.

Abortion: Reflection and Prayer

From The New York Times:

"ON THIS DAY -On Jan. 22, 1973, in its Roe vs. Wade decision, the Supreme Court legalized abortions, using a trimester approach. "

Thirty-three years later, perhaps forty million abortions later, we stand as a nation guilty before a holy and Almighty God. We are guilty of neglecting and even killing "the least of these," the most vulnerable among us. May God have mercy on us and may God bring restorative justice to the land. May Christians, the people who are taught to believe that all humans bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26), rise to the challenge by teaching and preaching the truth about abortion. May we rise to the challenge to pray that Judge Samuel Alito may be confirmed to the Supreme Court, since his philosophy of law (is constitutional and) would thus likely turn back Roe vs. Wade if given a chance. May be counsel people to honor and protect unborn life. May be give our time and money to that great end. And may we offer forgiveness through our loving Savior for those who have performed and had unnecessary abortion performed on them. May they repent, be forgiven, and be restored to newness of life in Jesus Christ. Amen

Football, Baseball, and the Culture of Violence

My counter-cultural premise is that cultural forms are not neutral. Whether we are addressing communication technologies, art-forms, or sports, all must be exegeted and analyzed according to their form, nature, and structure. Television, for instance, is neither intrinsically good, intrinsically evil, nor neutral. It has a nature as a medium that makes is suitable for entertainment and generally unsuitable for edification and instruction. It tends to foster intellectual impatience, a sense of unreality, and an image-orientation to life that “humiliates the Word” (Jacques Ellul). Goth music and culture is inextricably rooted in the symbolism of death, decay, and destruction, however skillful the musicians may be. It celebrates and generates darkness and despair. Therefore, the notion of “Christian Goth” is oxymoronic in the extreme. The cultural form is not redeemable. It must be condemned and replaced with something better.

Cultural forms shape our sensibilities and our mindsets in countless and typically covert ways. As a culture riven with senseless violence and mayhem, as evidenced at Columbine High School, we need to discern the cultural forces that pull people away from God’s shalom and toward the abyss of rage, revenge, and the devaluing of human life made in God’s image. Sin lies in the heart, but it also becomes institutionalized and systemic in many cultural forms. These must be exegeted and exposed to the light of truth.

Now on to sports, a topic that is virtually never discussed in terms of cultural form, whether moral or aesthetic. Whatever features unite all instances of sport, each sports differs from every other sport in some distinctive ways. Rather than give an detailed ontology and ethical assessment of the major team sports, I want to draw from comparisons between football and baseball in relation to cultural violence and entertainment.

I will not be discussing the ethical character of players, managers, owners, and fans. This is incidental to a formal or structural analysis of these two sports. We find “good Christians” playing baseball and football and “good Christians” watching both sports. This is a trivial point, however, if we endeavor to discern the nature of these two sports.

The argument is brief, sharp, and probably unpopular. Baseball is both aesthetically and morally superior to football as a cultural form. Moreover, football is not only inferior to baseball, but possesses deficits that should cause Christians to consider their participation in the sport—whether as players, managers, owners, or fans—in principle. As an ideal, a team sport should evince aesthetic beauty, moral virtue, and intellectual value. Now consider baseball and football.

1. Football is intrinsically violent. It cannot be played without heavy padding and physical punishment. Professional players typically undergo multiple surgeries for repeated injuries. Many of these injuries are permanently debilitating. The nature of the sport encourages a toleration for, and even promotion of, violence. Players attempt to injure each other to take them out of the game.

Many young men are seriously injured while playing football. Why risk the damage to a growing body? If the body is “fearfully and wonderfully made” and the temple of the Holy Spirit for the Christian, why should anyone treat one’s own body and other’s bodies to so much physical abuse? We were not designed for this kind of punishment.

2. Baseball is not intrinsically violent, but only contingently violent; it much less violent than football overall. No physical contact of a brutal nature is required of the sport. No pitcher must bean (intentionally hit) a batter, although there is a risk of this happening accidentally. No batter tries to injure a fielder with a hit. No fielder intentionally throws the baseball into a runner, although this may happen by accident. And so on. Yes, there is physical contact between offense and defense. A runner barreling home from second base on a single to the outfield may need to collide with the catcher in order to attempt to score. However, his is not necessitated by the game as such, and the catcher is well-protected by his pads and mask. Many games are played where this kind of contact never occurs. Further, many runners will try to avoid the catcher entirely with a hook slide.

3. Baseball is intellectually superior to football, because of the degree of strategy, finesse, and intelligence required to play it well. Football knows of many plays and patterns, but most of them reduce to speed, strength, and coordination--as opposed to intelligence. In baseball, a pitcher with less than a cannon arm (such as Greg Maddox) can be one of the best pitchers in baseball in light of his intelligence in pitch selection, control, knowledge of batters, and fielding ability. Nothing analogous is the case with football, to my knowledge.

Historically, intellectuals have been drawn to write and reflect on baseball. A recent example is columnist and author, George Will. I doubt there is anything of this nature to be said of football. (This, of course, does not imply that no intellectuals like football or than only unintelligent people do.)

4. Aesthetically, baseball is superior because of its unique sense of time. There is no clock in baseball. Time never runs out, only opportunities do. When Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” he was not uttering a tautology. Since the game is not terminated until the final out is made, it is always possible to come back or to blow a huge lead. In football, the game is often over (determined) before it is over (temporally), rendering the final minutes meaningless and pointless. In baseball, as in the Christian world view, a measure of hope is always alive until the game is over. Near-miraculous comebacks are possible. When they occur, there is no greater drama in all of sports.

5. The pace of baseball is far more deliberate and delicate than football, given that there is no time clock. It is thus more conducive to patience and reflection. This assumes that you are not watching on an evil television network where commercials are now jammed in between batters; thus violating the ontology of the game itself.

6. Both baseball and football require athletic skill for their performance, but I venture to say that an expertly turned double-play, a diving catch in the outfield, or a deftly stolen base (particularly of home) demonstrates more athletic and aesthetic excellence than anything in football. Moreover, nothing in any sport has the dramatic effect of a grand slam homerun, especially in a close game.

7. No one can hog the ball or exclude other players from play in baseball. This is largely because baseball is the only team sport where the defense controls the ball. The defense never knows where the ball will end up after the next pitch. This adds an element suspense and intrigue that is lacking in football. The batter or baserunner has no possession of the ball. The ball must be outsmarted by being hit (by the batter) or avoided (by the runner).

8. In baseball, apart from the aberration of the designated hitter (a recent perversion only used in one league), all the players must function on both defense and offense. Pitchers are not expected to be excellent hitters, but they can contribute in this way and also need to know how to bunt and run the bases. This adds depth to the athletic performance. Football players play either defense or offense, but not both (with possible rare exceptions).

More could be said, but if these reflections are correct, baseball is superior to football as a cultural form. It is much less violent, more artful, and more intellectually stimulating. The intrinsically and inextricably violent nature of football makes it suspect morally, especially for Christians who ought to prize gentleness and peace as fruits of the Spirit. Despite my apologetic for baseball, I can find no moral imperative to be involved at any level of baseball. Any goodness or excellence found therein can be found, at least analogously, in other areas of life.

Nevertheless, the moral implications of the argument are as follows:

1. If one participates in a team sport, baseball is a worthy choice, as is softball for similar reasons. One may play well or poorly, with good motives or bad motives, but the nature of the game is itself good.

2. Given the formal deficiencies and defects of football, one ought not play it or coach it or watch it or own it or support it (through stadium taxes, etc.). (This does not exclude touch or flag football, which are not intrinsically violent, though still aesthetically and intellectually inferior to baseball.) Football reinforces and perpetuates the culture of violence, which must be resisted in every form if we are to regain a measure of sanity and civility in our increasingly violent world.

One may wonder, then, if I am very involved in watching baseball. I am not. Television has nearly destroyed the sport (as it destroyed just about everything). I will did not watch the World Series last year, nor did I watch a single game. My argument is not a justification for any habit or addiction I may have; it addresses objective properties related to form. Attending an organic form of baseball, such as youth league, is another matter. That would be blessedly unmediated.

The Ersatz Religion of Football

Susan Arnold has an astute commentary on the liturgical year and devotional practices of football on her web log. I highly recommend this. The Denver Post should have some of my comments in a similar vein in Sunday's paper.

A Dead-on Commentary by Charles Colson

Pandora's Box: What Roe Has Wrought

January 20, 2006

This Sunday marks the thirty-third anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision—a day Americans should mark with sadness and shame. Forty million babies have been sacrificed on the altar of personal choice and autonomy.

When Roe came down, many of us argued that it was the beginning of a slippery slope, that once we devalued life in the womb we would devalue life—and endanger life—at all stages. After all, we had just established, as a matter of law and social priority, that individual choice trumps even the right to life.

Tragically, we have been proven right. The so-called "right to choose" has led to Supreme Court decisions like the Lawrence case that held that it is discriminatory for states to legislate against sodomy. As Justice Scalia put it in his dissent, "This opens the flood gates for gay marriage and makes it impossible for any morals legislation to be enacted." He is right. Who can say the common good demands the preservation of traditional marriage when personal choice is exalted to the summum bonum of society and is constitutionally protected?

The worst post-Roe decision was Casey v. Planned Parenthood, in which Justice Kennedy wrote: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Now, if you take those words literally, it makes it impossible to legislate any determination of the common good, because inevitably, the individual then has the right to say that does not conform to his idea about the meaning of life.

This is individualism run amok.

And this week more damage was done. By invoking federal drug laws, John Ashcroft, when he was U.S. Attorney General, tried to stop Oregon from allowing doctors to assist in patient suicide. This week the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that the federal government cannot bar the dispensing of controlled substances for assisted suicide in the face of a state provision permitting it.

Thankfully, it is a limited decision. The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the assisted suicide—except by implication. But it does suggest that six justices are sympathetic to it. If assisted suicide is ever permitted, it will soon become involuntary euthanasia, as it has in Holland.

I don't like to be an alarmist, but unless we do something—such as getting more justices like Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas on the Court—we will soon have Dutch-style euthanasia in America.

Some good news this week from the Court: On Thursday it unanimously ruled that a New Hampshire law requiring parental notification if a teenager is seeking an abortion can stand. An exception must be added for medical emergencies, but on principle, parental notification still passes constitutional muster. This vindicates the incremental strategy: Chip away at Roe.
On this anniversary, Christians must resolve to go on fighting, not only on behalf of the unborn, but addressing a broader question: Does our society have the capacity to rule itself according to what is the common good, adhering to its founding principles of the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Or will it be swept up in the notion that the only thing that matters is that individuals can choose for themselves whatever they want?

Don't give up this struggle. We must resolve to fight smarter and harder—for as long as it takes. Get links to further information on today's topic
For printer-friendly version, simply visit http://msg1svc.net/servlet/Gateway?p=pfm&u=37543&et=H&s=8021&da=0 and click on Today's Commentary. The printer-friendly link is on the left-hand column.Copyright (c) 2006 Prison FellowshipTHIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

The Cost of 'Choice': Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion by Erika Bachiochi, ed.

Human Dignity in the Biotech Century by Charles Colson and Nigel Cameron, eds.

BreakPoint WorldView: "The Power of Poetry: What We Can Learn" by T. M. Moore

"Civil Disunion: Seeking Happily Ever After for Marriage in America" by Glen Lavy

"BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a daily commentary on news and trends from a Christian perspective. Heard on more than 1000 radio outlets nationwide, BreakPoint transcripts are also available on the Internet. BreakPoint is a production of The Wilberforce Forum, a division of Prison Fellowship: 44180 Riverside Parkway, Lansdowne, VA 20176.

Logic

"Logic has fallen into severe disfavor and people are quite startled when they are confronted with it." - Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

Tricked by "Truthiness"

It is bad enough that author James Frey’s best-selling and Oprah-propelled “memoir,” A Million Little Pieces as been outed as largely fictional by Smoking Gun's piece, "A Million Little Lies." (No one I’ve read is denying that Frey’s book is riddled with fiction posing as fact.) Oprah now says she still stands by the book. Frey has issued no real apologies. Rather, “truthiness” (it would be nice if it were true) is good enough, so long as it inspires people. One benighted blogger even defended Frey by saying that memoirs in postmodern times don’t have to be truthful. (To his credit, he later recanted and pulled the post.)

What we don’t find in Frey or Oprah is repentance: the humble stance that admits wrong, apologizes, and promises to do better. Instead, we get spin and the redefinition of terms (shades of Clinton and “is”). Oprah says it was the publisher’s responsibility to label the genre; but it doesn’t matter since it has helped people with addictions. But it has been pointed out in The New York Times that Frey’s book would not likely have become a best-seller as a novel. The lie of authenticity was essential to its illicit ascent. And one spunky reader is suing the publisher for fraud. She bought a “memoir” and she got a novel. Good for her.

Amidst all the dizzying spin and excuse-making, Christians should rejoice the ultimate story of redemption—the life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ—is factual, verifiable, authentic, and incomparable. As Os Guinness wrote years ago, “Christianity isn’t true because it works. It works because it’s true.”

Buddhism and Nonbeing

While paging through Dostoyevsky's "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," which I read a ridiculously long time ago, I happened upon this description of Buddhism, although it is not specifically named. Despite all the rosey descriptions of Buddhism to the contrary (and despite the beautiful photographs in the American Buddhist magazines), Dostoyevsky is dead on in his assessment of a deadening religion:

"Religions appeared worshipping the nonbeing and self-annihilation for the sake of an eternal repose in nothing ness."

Christianity: In the beginning was the Word. John, chapter one, verse one.

Buddhism: In the beginning was the Void.

On Being a Curmudgeon

"Being a curmudgeon is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Someone has to hoist the warning flags and raise some issues that the fast-track proselytizers might overlook." (Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, p. 136)

This book is highly recommended for its critique of the effect of the digital world on literacy. Thanks to Josh Sowin for reminding me of this quote (which I first read soon after the book's release in 1994).

Truthiness is nuttiness

Linguists Vote 'Truthiness' Word of 2005

By HEATHER CLARK
The Associated Press
Friday, January 6, 2006; 10:47 PM
ALBUQUERQUE

A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is "truthiness," defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts. More.

[The article goes on to quote someone who says that unless we get truth and facts together "we're not going to make much progress." Quite so. Facts are what make statements true. That is, a declarative or indicative statement needs a "truth-maker" or state of affairs to which it corresponds in order for that statement to be true. If there is no truth-maker, the statement is false. Truth is not a quality of gender, skin pigment, consensus, power, or expert opinion. It is a quality of statements that reflect or represent reality.

Years ago, Charles Fair wrote a book called The New Nonsense (1974) in which he lamented the rise of "willful personal belief." This, in essence, is "truthiness"--one takes something to be true simply because one chooses or wants it to be true. It is "true for me." That makes truth mighty easy--and terribly cheap. Let's apply it: I am the greatest living philosopher, or so I wish. And it is thus true. What a relief. What a crock!

For more on what truth is, see my book, Truth Decay, especially chapters three and four.]

Unpublished Letter to The Rocky Mountain News by Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

[It appears that they will not published the following letter, which nails the point in a sizzling and logical manner.]

Dear Editor:

Lisa Jones’s response (12-29-05) to Paul Campos’s editorial about intelligent design (ID) is so tiresomely typical of the non-arguments reflexively intoned in the attempt to discredit ID. Those who have concluded that ID is purely religious and utterly unscientific waste no time employing this conclusion as an unstated premise. From there, they are off and running—questions begging and insults flying. And after all the rabid rhetoric has been emitted, do we see any semblance of a logical argument as to why ID should be deemed unscientific? No. But this is precisely the point at issue in this debate, is it not?

Sincerely,
Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

Alaska Statehood, 1959

On January 3, 1959, the President of the United States signed the following statement, using several pens.

"The procedural requirements imposed by the Congress on the State of Alaska to entitle that state to admission into the Union have been complied with in all respects, and that admission of the State of Alaska into the Union on an equal footing with the other States of the Union is accomplished."

Alaska thus became the 49th state of the United States and a new flag was unveiled, soon to become obsolete when Hawaii became a state a few years a later. This occured on my second birthday. I was born in the territory of Anchorage, Alaska in 1957.

Posing, Not Impressing

Contemporary America is flooded with people posing and mugging for cameras. Everyone now poses; it is almost a reflex. You have big ticket, poster posers: Bill and Melinda Gates along with the omnipresent Bono posing page after page after page in Time magazine in a story about their philanthropic activities (all of which, according to Jesus, should be done in secret and certainly not posed for). Many of my students—none of which are celebrities, to my knowledge—pose for their photos on the class web page. Photos of most Christian “personalities” are highly posed, some even with a rather ungodly “come hither” look about them. Few ever look humble. Television “personalities” are probably the best posers of all, God help them.

But everyone now thinks he or she has the right to be a celebrity—or at least to look like one. So, they strike their poses: trying to radiate confidence or beauty or intelligence or hipness or sensuality. As Thomas De Zengotita says in Mediated, we are all method actors now.

Compare this with a mall and humble photograph of the Christian devotional writer, Andrew Murray (d. 1917), found in a book of his on holiness. We see his profile, his eyes closed, his head tilted down. He seems to be at prayer or perhaps in meditation. He is not posing. He is not saying, “Look at me, aren’t I________.” He is simply being before God, the Audience of One. No pose will impress the Almighty, who sees to the marrow of our being.

"A Few Tips on Restoring Civility"

[This was published in The Rocky Mountain News in August of 2005.]

A lot of people in America are ticked off. We are frustrated, bugged, and hassled for myriad reasons. Much of our discontent has plagued humanity almost from the beginning. But much of our contemporary agitation stems from technologies that corrode common decency and invite incivility. While humans cannot delete death or abolish taxes, we can recover some civility by disciplining our technologies. The following recommendations won’t shake the world, but they might make life more civil and less agitating. The motivation is simply the Golden Rule, as articulated by Jesus: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Noise. Americans are awash in unwanted noise. Much of this is beyond our control, but some is not. When unwanted decibels rise, our hearts pounds and our heads hurt. We may even become ill. (The American military blasts heavy metal music into enemy territory in order to disorientate before attacking.) Unwelcome and unavoidable music from other automobiles accosts us at stoplights and in parking lots. Subwoofers assail us while in our homes and cars, and while on walks. Cell phone yelling invades our consciousness just about everywhere, including on bike trails and in bathrooms. Cell phone rings (with their annoying customized ring tones) resonate everywhere: at concerts, church services, funerals, and in classrooms.

Still, noise can be controlled. When playing music in the car, one can turn down the volume and/or close the windows when in earshot of others. Subwoofers, however, are another story. Rendering them civil is on the order of making Attila the Hun a pacifist. Subwoofers embody incivility. Perhaps legal restrictions are the only hope. Nevertheless, subwoofer users could moderate the roar when they come in range of others. Cell phone users could refrain from calls when they are interacting with others face-to-face and not broadcast their comments to everyone in range. (I once heard a woman on a cell phone loudly discussing her grieving process while she bought books at The Tattered Cover.) Ringers can be turned off or put on throb when they would disturb others. After all, we once lived without them.

Speed. Americans are always in a hurry—and often for no reason. “Time is money,” said Ben Franklin. So we rush about all the time—at work and at play—frightened of losing any time. Other cars drive too slowly. Checkers are too leisurely, talking to customers! Even the automatic checkers (with their annoying robotic “voices”) are not efficient enough for us.
Since most moral philosophers consider patience a virtue, we might try practicing it for a change. Surely one can wait a few seconds without losing a fortune or having a conniption. What if the person ahead of you says a few personal words to the checker? Maybe the checker needs encouragement. If the driver ahead has a pathological disorder that doesn’t allow her to break the speed limit, you don’t have to flash your lights, honk, tailgate, or make obscene gestures. You might try out the pathology yourself and observe life at a legal speed. Or (more likely) you can pass in due time and take your chances with the law. Perhaps the snail-paced driver is at an age where driving any faster would endanger everyone.

Television: Television is the great dynamo of incivility. It destroys conversations by bombarding us with distracting images and sounds. And TV is nearly omnipresent, showing up in restaurants and even emergency rooms—places where unmediated conversations were once considered a priority.

What to do? Turn off as many TVs as possible and see what happens. When associating with others, don’t depend on the TV for stimulation. (What’s on TV is usually pretty uncivil anyway.) Instead, enter into the lost art of conversation that honors the thoughts and feelings of others. Eat at restaurants with no TVs. Purchase a TV-B-Gone, a universal remote control that turns off many TVs. I once zapped nine public and unneeded screens in one triumphant weekend. Some civility was restored, and the beast, while not disarmed, was incapacitated for a season. By the way, there are far better sources for find out what is going on in the world than TV, such as magazines, newspapers, and the Internet.

This only scratches the surface of civility. But think on this. If you apply the Golden Rule to matters of noise, speed, and television, your life and the lives of those around will surely change—and change for the better.

· Douglas Groothuis is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of Truth Decay.

Letter in the January 1, 2006 Denver Post

Facts about Jesus Christ

Re: The birth of a 'mad sect,"' Dec. 25 John Aloysius Farrell column.

John Aloysius Farrell discredited Christianity as historically uncertain. This is incorrect. Farrell dismisses Pliny's and Josephus' references to Christ; yet they in fact corroborate the existence of Christ and certain significant facts about him. Other ancient historians, such as Thallus, Tacititus and Suetonius, mention Christ and his followers as well. These references alone put the lie to Farrell's claim that there is little proof of Jesus' existence. Farrell demeans the Apostle Paul's letters by saying that he "paints no portrait of Christ, the man from Nazareth." But Paul had no need to repeat facts about the earthly life of Christ, since these were already known to his readers. However, Paul does refer to several facts about Jesus' life and teaching, particularly his Jewish ancestry, crucifixion and resurrection. Although Farrell downplays the Gospels, they were written only a few decades after the events they describe by eyewitnesses or those
who consulted eyewitness - impressive credentials for ancient literature. "The Da Vinci Code" to the contrary, the four Gospels were not selected for merely political reasons, but because of their connection to reliable witnesses, the agreement of their teachings, and their early use in the church.

• Douglas Groothuis, Littleton The writer is a professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary.
  

An American Irony: Yoga, Yes; Design, No

A few years ago, the Aspen, Colorado, public schools implemented a program in their elementary schools to teach yoga. A local pastor led a fight against this and argued very wisely. He claimed that yoga is intrinsically and inextricably religious. That religion, of course, is Hinduism. The teaching of a religious practice—such as yoga or Christian prayer—in a state school is unconstitutional. Of course, the yoga proponents typically labeled him as a fearful fundamentalist who was against peaceful practices that were merely for relaxation and cultivating good health. Sadly, yoga is now a tax-supported part of elementary education in Aspen, Colorado, thus flagrantly providing state support for the religion of Hinduism. (Yoga has become so mainstream in American culture that a good number of Christians practice it, thinking they can separate the religion from the exercise. They are wrong, as I was quoted as saying in a The New York Times story this summer. See also my Christianity Today essay on this.)

Now consider the controversy over intelligent design (ID). While the theory appeals to empirical evidence and proven principles of design detection used in sciences such as archaeology, cryptography, and SETI, the critics claim that it is inherently religious and, thus, unscientific. This, of course, begs the question as to whether a religious belief might have some scientific support. Moreover, critics of ID inflate the claims of ID far beyond what ID claims for itself: namely, that some features of the natural world are better explained on the basis of intelligent causes as opposed to unintelligent causes (chance and necessity in tandem and without assistance). That is a minimal, modest, and retiring sort of claim metaphysically, since it does not specify who or what the design or designers might be. (That debate can be carried out philosophically.) Nevertheless, opponents of ID claim this violated the establishment clause of the Constitution by “establishing religion.” This is Nonsense. It attempts to disestablish the de facto religion of naturalism.

Anyway, back to yoga. Why is it that something so deeply rooted in Hinduism can be accepted in the public schools (and unopposed by the ACLU, who should have supported the pastor), while ID is considered an offense to the very marrow of the American system of law? Why this egregious double standard? Whether or not a belief is designated “religious” depends entirely on whose interests are being served by it. Yoga, it is believed, confers benefits to anyone who practices it. It can help the atheist or agnostic become relaxed and healthier. There is the payoff. And why not let the children in state schools share in yoga’s benefit? ID, however, does not serve any interest of secular people. On the contrary, it brings the secularist worldview (philosophical materialism) into question on the basis of empirical evidence. It directly challenges the stranglehold that materialism has over established science. Of course, it does serve the interests of the First Amendment (freedom of speech: in this case, the speech of those who would challenge Darwinism in tax-supported schools) and it in no way establishes any religion, since it leaves open who or what the designer might be and makes its argument not from any sacred scripture, but from nature. That is hardly an altar call. Nevertheless, ID is a direct assault on the citadel of materialism: the premise that unintelligent causes can exhaustively explain biological systems.

Now, in light of the above let us think of a new strategy. Maybe we can claim that yoga is really based on the idea of a designing intelligence that instructs us on how to use our designed bodies better. Yoga could only work if the sages who intuited it knew how to open the body to optimal function by perfecting it according to a design plan and that design plan is yoga. Then, the ACLU might come running! And perhaps we can present ID as a mental exercise that helps calm the nerves—an emotional tonic that relieves the stress of thinking that humans only happen to emerge after eons of purposeless and unguided evolution. Students could chant, “I am designed. I am designed,” over and over again—or just chant “I am D I am D” until a higher level of consciousness is achieved. No, I think the ACLU would still smell blood.

• Douglas Groothuis

Letter on Intelligent Design in the December 30, 2005, Rocky Mountain News

'Design' does make testable hypotheses

Dr. Andrew Ross' letter of Dec. 22, "Intelligent design can't meet scientific criteria," says that intelligent design does not conform to the scientific method, particularly concerning testable predictions and the modification of hypotheses according to evidence.
First, there is no iron-clad scientific method. Scientific enterprise is more untidy than Ross apparently thinks, as many philosophers of science, such as Thomas Kuhn, have noted. Second, intelligent design does predict that certain organisms will display certain empirically detectable signs of design, such as irreducible complexity, where all the component parts must be present at once in order for the organism to have the necessary function.

Moreover, intelligent design predicts that biological features deemed vestigial will be found to have function. Consider "junk DNA." Darwinism predicts that DNA will contain large areas of useless material left over from previous organisms. Intelligent design predicts that if DNA is designed there would be very little or no "junk." Scientists have now found that there is no "junk" in DNA.

Furthermore, intelligent design theorists such as biochemist Michael Behe, are attuned to the evidence and are quite willing to revise their hypotheses on that basis.

• Douglas Groothuis Professor of philosophy, Denver Seminary Littleton

He is Back At It

Today while looking around at an electronics store (not common for me), I remembered that I had my partially rehabilitated TV-Be-Gone in my pocket. Well, well… I had followed some advice on line on how to replace the batteries and put a larger than standard battery on top and only one of two smaller batteries on the bottom (because I ran out of the smaller ones and had not yet bought another one). Nevertheless, my newly equipped device performed well in an unnamed store. I lost count, but I must have zapped about twenty sets! Someone at Amazon.com mentioned that Sony’s go off almost immediately, and I found that this is true. Oh joy, Oh bliss! One of my well-aimed shots turned off about ten intelligence-reducers at once, all of which were perched a hellish wall of TVs. That felt so good. It was probably a personal best for single zap result. The performance of this subversive device will probably only improve when I get that other battery.

After a long and sad hiatus from TV zapping (due to battery failure), I am back. TV world beware. You never know when or where the public TV screen may go blank—so that minds may not go blank.

TV-B-Gone May Not Be Gone!

A techno-savvy friend of mine emailed and alerted me to the fact that there are two more batteries underneath the top battery (the only one visible when you take off the cover) that need to be replaced as well. So, I should be back in the TV-zapping business. The saga continues.

Telling Editorial on the Dover Decision

Here is an editorial from The Seattle Times by David Klinghoffer on the egregious Dover intelligent design decision. It is well worth reading.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

[The following is by the famous Transcendentalist. While I don't share this overall worldview, this quote deserves curmudgeonly approval.]

"...but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it---else it is none."--from "Self-Reliance."

Clarification on ID Letter

My letter to The Philosopher Magazine lacked an important nuance. The Discovery Institute folks (whom I generally endorse on the ID issue) only want the public schools to allow ID as a challenge to Darwinism. They do not want to mandate that both be taught, partially because ID is not an full-fledged theory as yet. This was one of the problems in the Dover case, which would have made a statement about ID mandatory in the classroom. That statement also refered to a book that may have not been the best for the public schools. The Discovery Institute was not behind the strategy used in the Dover case.

Letter on ID in "The Philosophers Magazine"

[This was published in most recent issue of The Philosophers Magazine. I corrected one typo in the first sentence.]

Dear Editor:

I must both commend and correct comments in the same issue and on the same subject. In his column “Provocations” (Issue 30) Michael LaBossiere rightly claims that Intelligent Design (ID) theory is a legitimate scientific competitor with Darwinism. Darwinism claims that life shows no signs of designing intelligence, and ID advances the opposite thesis on the basis of empirical evidence and principles of scientific explanation.

However, in a news story on Flew’s rejection of atheism, we are told that ID theorists are “leading a partially successful campaign to stop the theory of evolution being taught as fact in the schools.” This isn’t quite right. It makes it sound like ID advocates want to censor Darwinism. Rather, ID theorists argue that Darwinism should be presented as a scientific explanation for the development of the biosphere—but only along with ID as an alternative scientific theory. Both theories claim to best explain the facts of the matter. ID proponents believe that they should both be taught as claimants to fact and judged by their explanatory virtues. Neither should be taught alone as dogma.

Sincerely,
Douglas Groothuis
Professor of Philosophy
Denver Seminary

Debate over Intelligent Design Theory

[This is a story from the December 21, 2005 Rocky Mountain News called "Debate Over Intelligent Design." I am quoted at the end, and quoted correctly.]

Fallacy Finders Dream

[This letter was published in The Rocky Mountain News today as as response to my Dec. 10, 2005 article, which is posted on this blog. Please identify the logical fallacies in this diatribe and share this with the blogosphere.]

'Design' column shows we're getting dumber

Douglas Groothuis' Speakout column of Dec. 10 on intelligent design, " 'Design' critics often employ straw men," is further evidence of the dumbing down of America. Remember the last time religion intruded itself into science, when the church condemned Galileo for teaching that the Earth revolved around the sun? How did that turn out?

Five hundred years ago the Muslim countries were the scientific leaders of the world. Why did this change so drastically? Because the Western world began the scientific revolution when it rejected supernatural explanations and sought natural causes that would be amenable to testing and verification, the essence of science. This tradition has served us so well, why would we want to abandon it now?

If people like Groothuis insist that schools teach nonscientific alternatives in science classes, then why stop at intelligent design? Why not teach the flat Earth theory in geography class? How about astrology as an alternative to astronomy, and shouldn't alchemy be taught in chemistry classes? Maybe Groot- huis and others would prefer seeing a doctor trained in voodoo as an alternative to traditional medicine?

When we allow the possibility of supernatural agents, anything goes and nothing can be logically disputed or verified by others, so scientific progress stops.
If we start mixing science and religion in the public schools, then we had better make sure that our children and grandchildren start learning Chinese. Because America will have unilaterally disarmed itself in the future battle for scientific and technological supremacy.

James J. Amato Woodland Park

More on Christmas Loneliness

[This is not written by me, Doug Groothuis; it is written by someone who wanted to remain unnamed. It worth pondering.]

It’s all well and good for healthy families that churches close so all can stay home this year on a Christmas Sunday. But many do not realize the sense of normalcy and essential fellowship Sundays provide for many single parents. Many do not realize the chaos and heartache single parents live with, which is exacerbated by the Christmas holiday season. Yes, we have children but they are torn between two worlds, often worlds that are threatening to them or which try to work alienation from us into their hearts. When this heart-alienation is successful, even having them with us on a Christmas can be very difficult to bear. When they are not with us, we worry and cannot enjoy a family gathering, or worse, we sit at home alone.

I have gone home alone after almost every Christmas Eve service in the past 20 years since my family celebrates on Christmas Day. At times I wished the service were 3 hours long. I can say I have learned to love that quiet time at home though; it has become a necessary time in the presence of God, a healthy ritual release of sorrows built up over the year. These days, even if I get an invitation I turn it down for that reason. I need that sacred space that comes only once a year. Now that the children are grown and gone, a different kind of heartache sets in; one of years that cannot be regained and dreams of happy intact family life that will never be experienced. As they marry, they are again divided between two more worlds, spending time with in-laws. Family gatherings become triggers for painful memories, year after year accumulated, and creating a lump in the throat as I watch other family members with their children happily hugging both mom and dad, and mom and dad kissing and showing off gifts and exchanging knowing glances. I look away. I should be happy! And I am, really, for them. I have a wonderful, large family. I get by quite well, I tell myself. It could be far worse, I say. And tomorrow, this will all be over, for another year. It’s like a recurring dream from which I awaken grateful, December 26th morn.

If you know someone who is a single parent, and you find out they will not be alone on Christmas don’t assume everything is fine: let them know you understand that they have struggles and give them a hug and pray for their hearts and tell them they are loved –and show them! Sorrow can be very serious business this time of year.

Christmas Loneliness

Christmas time is here,
Happy time of year.

Or so the song goes... But for many among us—more than some might imagine—Christmastime is a season of extended and burning unhappiness called loneliness. Happiness is not triggered by the beginning of the marketing blitz for Christmas shopping. Nor are those with small or sad or nonexistent families especially heartened by all the riot of required family festivities and family feeling. The lonely are asked what their Christmas plans are. The reply is in so many words, “There are no special plans. We will just hunker down at home—alone, again; and wait for it to end.” That’s a bit lacking in holiday cheer, is it not? And some do not even have a house in which to sulk. Others have houses, but no homes, but rather prisons. Many languish in prisons of other kinds.

For many, loneliness is intensified at just the time when a culture (supposedly) celebrates the Great Visitation, “God with us.” But are we with each other? Do we know each other? Can we see past the surface into the inner pain of our brothers and sisters? Loneliness is the great secret of postmodernity, and it deepens during times when we pretend mightily otherwise. As many critics have noted, community is breaking down in contemporary America. Community means (in part) civic participation: attending PTA meetings, voting, knowing your neighbors, volunteering, reading and grading student papers (instead of relying on machines to grade multi-guess charades), and much more. (See the revealing book, Bowling Alone.) Instead, we tend to cocoon: people whirl about in their iPod worlds, charge around in huge metal behemoths within a cacophonous cauldron of loud, rude, over-amplified sounds, stalk about in public muttering into the air (that is, to a distant cellular phone recipient), stare into video screens, playing video games with no one.

That is enough, or more than enough. Is there a solution? No, there is no grand solution—this side of the Eschaton. But there are small, simple steps to break up the glaciers of loneliness in our midst.

I leave it to you to tell this web log what these small acts of kindness might be. I further bid you divulge a few sentences of loneliness this holiday. It’s a poor excuse for the richly-textured realities of embodied community, but it might help. Or perhaps not.

Doug Groothuis comments in article about Christmas controversy

The Rocky Mountain News of December 10 ran a story on controversies over the religious nature of Christmas, in which I am (accurately) quoted.

Review of a new book on manners

The New York Times has reviewed Lynn Truss's insightful and humorous new book about the decline in manner called, Talk to the Hand. I recommend this book for all curmudgeons.

Groothuis on Intelligent Design

Speakout: 'Design' critics often employ straw men

By Douglas Groothuis, Special to The Rocky Mountain News December 10, 2005

Ever since President Bush advocated that the intelligent design critique of Darwinism be allowed in public schools, a riot of public pronouncements has condemned the design perspective as retrograde, unscientific and downright ominous.

A number of logical fallacies are routinely employed in efforts to debunk intelligent design. In such cases, intelligent design is criticized and dismissed on the basis of an argument that is illogical and therefore false. One need not be an expert in Darwinian biology to sniff out these basic blunders. In this brief space I will note just one: the straw man argument.

In the straw man argument a position is made to look ridiculous and then the caricature is knocked down. Intelligent design is repeatedly presented as a plan to institute religious and unscientific dogma in the public schools. The facts, however, speak otherwise. Intelligent design's think tank, The Discovery Institute, says this: "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." The controlling premise is the effort to discern the best explanation for a natural phenomenon, given the available empirical evidence: a fundamental precept of scientific investigation. Unlike creationism, intelligent design makes no appeal to religious texts, but invokes empirical evidence, as well as the principles of design detection, which are already used in sciences such as cryptography, archaeology, forensics, and in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Mathematician and philosopher William Dembski argues that certain features of the natural world exhibit patterns that are best explained on the basis of design (or intelligent causes), rather than on the basis of mindless nature (or unintelligent causes).

For example, even if we didn't know from history that an eccentric artist was responsible, we would identify the presidential faces carved into Mount Rushmore as designed because natural patterns of erosion cannot explain them. The complexity of the phenomenon fits a specifiable pattern: the faces of the presidents, which we recognize from other sources. Similarly, archaeologists distinguish ancient artifacts from naturally occurring objects on the basis of design detection. The complexity discovered in certain objects fits a specifiable pattern indicating that intelligent causation was at work.

Intelligent design proponents argue that some organisms indicate specified complexity, and that these organisms are better explained by intelligent causes than by natural law and chance alone. The DNA code is an example of specified complexity. It contains a language that is not reducible to the laws of chemistry and physics, which do not specify its content. The odds against all the factors required for DNA to come together through the operations of mere matter and chance are vanishingly small.

Similarly, biochemist Michael Behe argues in Darwin's Black Box that certain molecular machines are irreducibly complex, which means that all of its basic parts are required for its function, as with a mousetrap. The bacterial flagellum, for example, is a highly complex outboard motor attached to a bacterium. A gradual process of mere chance and natural law is insufficient to explain this irreducible complexity, Behe argues, since the motor function could not exist in evolutionary predecessors that lacked any of the many necessary parts.

However, Darwinists insist that intelligent design invokes God to cover ignorance of natural processes. This is exactly wrong. The design inference is not based on ignorance, but on increased knowledge of the microscopic realm and on the well-established principles of design detection. When Darwinists refuse to admit intelligent cause as a possible explanation for specified complexity, this only reveals that they define science such that intelligent causes are disallowed in principle. But this approach is not a discovery of science itself. It is rather a philosophical commitment to materialism (the belief that reality is reducible to impersonal physical laws).

May these few considerations spur readers to assess rationally intelligent design's actual arguments and to avoid the logical fallacies so often employed in place of intelligent thought about life's origins.

Douglas Groothuis is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary.
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Discussion of propositions, philosophers, postmodernism

Susan Arnold gives some reflections on metaphysics on her blog. The responses address propositions, the worth of philosophy, postmodernism. and more. I posted a fairly long response to this (mostly about propositions), which can be found at: www.deut64.blogspot.com.

Paul Campos, Against Materialism

Paul Campos, columnist for The Rocky Mountain News, has written an outstanding critique of philosophical materialism, which takes Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith, as its point of departure. If you appreciate the article, please send him an email.

Blaise Pascal on Flies

366. The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the creaking of a weathercock or pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not reason well; a fly is buzzing in its ears; that is enough to render it incapable of good judgement. If you wish it to be able to reach the truth, chase away that animal which holds its reason in check and disturbs that powerful intellect which rules towns and kingdoms. Here is a comical god!

Rebecca Merrill Groothuis's Comments on Feminism

Christians for Biblical Equality has published some excerpts from Rebecca Merrill Groothuis's 1995 booklet, The Feminist Boogeywoman. This summarizes some of the arguments made in her first book, Women Caught in the Conflict. If carefully considered, these comments deflect about 90% of the worries about what is now called "Evangelical Egalitarianism." The essay can be found here: http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/E-Journal/2005/05fall/05fallgroothuis.html

O, My! Charles Colson on Oprah

Charles Colson has a commentary on Oprah Winfrey in his Breakpoint column today.

His comments are on target, except near the end when he says, "I'm not saying not to watch Oprah. She has wholesome guests, etc." This is wrongheaded in the extreme. O has sponsored more New Age authors--Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Gary Zukov, etc. --than anyone else in the history of television. She brought on her yoga teacher to lead the audience in yoga exercises. (I know these things from reading or hearing about them; no, I have never watched the program and will not.)

I know of a person (who will remain nameless) who wrote a bang-up proposal and several chapters for a book that critiqued O's worldview. It was rejected by two publishers, largely because they feared reprisals from O herself or her throng of entralled sychophants. I know of a thinking Christian woman who dared criticize O in a Christian's woman's group and was taken to task because "She does so many nice things." Since when is that a test of godliness or biblical orthodoxy?

Let us face the facts: O is a false prophet, whose status as a cultural and spiritual icon is a sad commentary on America's theological stupefaction (not to put a fine point on it). Yes, she raised herself out of poverty and abuse. Good for her. Yes, she give a way a ton of money, but probably far less than 10% of her income. Yes, she is relentlessly positive--and relentlessly present on her magazine covers. But these considerations do not excuse her sponsoring of ungodly philosophies or justify her role as a New Age guru to the mindless and mesermized masses.

My Tribute to My Father (revised, 3-18-06)

What can I say about my father—so long gone, so impossible to forget? Harold Fred Groothuis was born on December 28, 1927 in New York. He died in a small plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska on this day in 1968. Walter Cronkite ended the evening news that day with a short comment to the effect that "Alaska labor leader, Harold Groothuis, was killed in a plane crash in Alaska today along with several others who were serving on a government commission to investigate labor abuses." I watched that in my bedroom on that dreadful, world-changing day. I was not quite twelve years old.

Dad was leaving Point Barrow, Alaska along with other volunteers who were part of the Governor’s Employment Advisory Commission, created by then Governor Walter J. Hickel. They where investigating charges of the mistreatment of Alaska native workers there. Only one of passengers of the propeller plane survived. Not long ago my mother sent me a letter from Alaska native leaders in Point Barrow, which expressed their sorrow and thanks for my father's commitment to their people. At Dad's funeral, a Presbyterian minister eulogized Harold Groothuis as a man who represented "people who worked with their hands." So he did. First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage, Alaska was filled and overflowing with mourners.

Dad came to the territory of Alaska in the mid-1950s (it became the forty-ninth state on my second birthday—January 3—in 1959), worked as a laborer, and lived in a packing crate with a few other men. He then went back East for a visit to friends and family. There he met a young Italian woman named Lillian Cominetto, who would become my mother. It was love at first sight for both. He returned to Alaska, but wrote Mom love letters. They married in New York 1955 and then traveled back to the frozen north, leaving behind all their relatives. Why write of my father now, thirty seven years after his tragic, unexpected, and unforgettable death? I am a man of many written words—too many, perhaps—but I have never written of my father in anything but personal letters. I want to pay a short tribute to his short life of forty years, without becoming maudlin or sentimental.

Dad was a big man—big in size (six feet, four inches and well over two hundred pounds) and big in personality. Many were drawn to his love of life, his strong opinions, and his commitment to causes and friends. As my mother said today on the phone, "He would do anything for his friends." He was a union man all the way, and a staunch Democrat. This, to my mind, was the right thing to do at that time. The Democratic party of that day—the party of Hubert Humphrey, for example—was a far cry of what we see now. Dad campaigned for Humphrey's candidacy for President in 1968 by delivering two speeches on Anchorage, Alaska television, which were broadcast live. I remember that Dad mentioned that Nixon refused to debate Humphrey. This was a character defect in Dad's eyes. I agree. Well, HHH (as Hubert Horatio Humphrey was called) lost, and Dad was killed a few weeks later. "There is a time for every purpose under heaven," as Ecclesiastes reminds us.

Dad had a fierce love for his family, for his job, for his friends, for Alaska, for food, and for life. He was an avid sportsman (hunting and fishing) and camper. He once shot a huge Kodiak Black Bear that was charging him. That bear (or part of it) ended up on our living room floor. (For those who don't like hunting—and I don't—this can be construed as self-defense; although they were on a hunting trip.) He was an intense man who neither suffered fools gladly nor could be accused of being low key or nonchalant. Because of his strong opinions, he had a few enemies. One of his enemies (a union malcontent) once threatened to blow up our house. We spent the night elsewhere. Dad had a temper that could get the better of him. He had attended a Presbyterian church as a child, but only attended sporadically as an adult. I was sent to Presbyterian Sunday School for a few years. However, Dad believed in God and had deep moral convictions. As a Christian, I can only hope he made his peace with God before that small plane hit the ground. Dad was a faithful husband, a good provider, and a loving—if sometimes imperious—father. I loved him deeply and I miss him every day of my life in one way or another. He wasn't there for the turning points in his only child's life: the graduations, the wedding, the achievements (such as they are). My dear mother says—and she is the expert, of course—that he would have approved. In any event, I can claim the truth of Romans 8:28 for my life no matter what.

This is my tribute to Harold Fred Groothuis, who died on this day in 1968, serving the laborers of Alaska and loving his small family. I will never forget him, nor will anyone else who knew him well.

TV, Violence, and Women

Dear Ms. Ostrow:

Re: "Mayhem for Profit: TV's Assault on Women," by Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post, November 20, 2005.

I do not watch television, but I try to discern what is going on in "the vast wasteland" through reading articles such as yours. I was further horrified, sickened, and repulsed by the heinous acts described in your piece. It seems that most in America have lost any sense of moral discernment, outrage, or restraint. They do not know how to attend to their souls. (Yet Jesus warned that it is possible to lose one's very soul.) These television depictions of atrocities are gratuitous and worse: they desensitize us to real evils perpetrated against women (and others).

Thank you for bringing these things into focus through your article--and for not condoning the insanity that has swept through our culture. I have critiqued the form (apart from specific content) of television in my book, Truth Decay. You can read a chapter from that book here, if you are interested.

http://www.facingthechallenge.org/groothuis.htm

Best,
Douglas Groothuis
Professor of Philosophy, Denver Seminary

The Cellular Telephone and High-tech Cretins

Yesterday, while looking through Barnes and Noble, I heard something we all too often hear--one side of a conversation moving around a public place. Yes, it was the cellular telephone: the bane of contemporary existence. It would not be a bane if people were civil and tasteful, but typically they are not. While trying to locate the new live Cream recording (the first in 38 years), I heard the stuttering, mumbling sounds come near me. Again, I was haunted by unwanted words... (The man could not complete a sentence in one try--or even three. He had a vocabulary of at most ten words, all of which were clustered in various cliches. It was pathetic just on that level. I wouldn't mind overhearing the polysyllabic pundit William F. Buckley speaking on a cell phone, but he probably won't be doing that in public.)

I hoped against hope that the incoherent acoustic blasts would move on and way from me. But they didn't. So I moved into the books section--only to be haunted by the cell yell still. At least three times this roving rude-machine intersected me in that haunted place. I learned (against my will) that Shawna and her spouse were "a piece of work" and that Shawna was generally screwed up, as did other helpless listeners who were attempting to find music or books or even read books. (How often is it possible to read books in public any more?)

What can be done about these high-tech cretins? Perhaps someone--even I--should have simply said, "Excuse me. Your conversation is bothering people. Please stop." Of course, that could have triggered fisticuffs and/or a law suit. Calling down "fire from heaven" would have been less embarrassing (since I could pray it under my breath), but probably less effective--given God's mercy and all.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Apology for Curmudgeonhood

Unless someone is obnoxious, everyone will remain hypnotized.

Open Letter to "The New Yorker" by Robert Velarde

[My student and author, Robert Velarde, has written an insightful response to a recent article in The New Yorker about C.S. Lewis. This is a model of what a good apologetic letter to the editor can be.]

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the recent article "Prisoner of Narnia" by Adam Gopnik. As a C.S. Lewis scholar, I appreciated many of his insights.

One particular area of disagreement, however, involves this statement regarding his conversion to Christianity: "Converted to faith as the means of joy, however, Lewis never stops to ask very hard why this faith rather than some other." Although Mr. Gopnik does briefly mention an argument set forth by Lewis regarding Christ being who he claimed to be (i.e., God), it is not true that Lewis did not think "very hard" about the truth of Christianity as opposed to other religious and non-religious options.

In his book Miracles, for instance, Lewis makes a case against naturalism(the material world is all that exists) and for supernaturalism. In thatbook Lewis observes that the explanation for reason provided bynaturalism--that reason is a product of chance and time--is not viable. On the basis of naturalism, there is no reason to trust reason. (A contemporary defense of this argument is found in C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea by Victor Reppert.) Lewis also argued against pantheism, referring in Mere Christianity to its explanation of evil as illusory as "damned nonsense."

Lewis also utilized a form of logic known in philosophy as "abductive reasoning" in order to arrive at his conclusions regarding Christianity. Abductive reasoning, used in much scientific endeavor, appeals to the best explanation. This line of reasoning is clear in Lewis' argument from longing or desire. In Mere Christianity he writes, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

In short, Lewis did indeed think "very hard" about the intellectual optionsopen to him. He became a Christian, at least in part, because he believed Christianity offered the best explanation for reality, not because ofpersonal preference or because he failed to carefully consider alternatives.

As a minor correction, the article refers to the Lewis book A Grief Observed incorrectly as A Grief Portrayed.

Cordially,
Robert Velarde,
author, The Lion, the Witch, and the Bible: Good and Evil in the Classic Tales of C.S. Lewis (NavPress, 2005)

Review of "One Nation Under God," from The Denver Post

Study of prayer paints a portrait of America

By Douglas Groothuis Special to The Denver Post

One Nation Under God, by James P. Moore Jr., tackles a big subject in a unique way. It is not simply about prayer: how and when and why to pray or even to what being one should pray. It doesn't even offer advice beyond what can be sorted out from its many examples of prayer. Nor is it a standard history of America or some aspect of American experience.

Rather, Moore looks at the history of America in light of its prayers. He notes that despite "the role of prayer in American life, historians, even religious historians, have neglected this important part of the country's past, as well as the spirituality and even patriotism to which it is so often joined."

The author is a professor of business at Georgetown University. Nevertheless, he demonstrates deep knowledge of his subject by addressing America's hymns, anthems, art and literature related to prayer.

"If prayer represents the most private, innermost thoughts of an individual or of a people, then it must convey something rather special about us as Americans and the times in which we have lived," he writes in the prologue. Each chapter takes a period in American history and considers the role of prayer during that time, ending with "The Innocents: September 11, 2001, and Beyond."

Moore does not limit his investigations to the prayers of the clergy but considers a variety of people from many walks of life, including American Indians before the arrival of the Europeans, Benjamin Franklin, Elvis Presley, Frank Lloyd Wright, J.C. Penney, Cesar Chavez, Jackie Robinson and many others.

But he does not neglect the prayers of theologians such as Jonathan Edwards or evangelists such as Billy Graham.

Moore does not address "the efficacy of prayer" (a topic of many books and studies) nor does he propose a detailed theology of prayer. Instead, he chronicles the prevalence of prayer in American life without offering much commentary or correction, except to reprimand the secularists who discount it.

Moore seems to believe prayer is more than a person's psychological need for cosmic significance. He never debunks prayer or tries to explain it away.

It is true that theistic religions emphasize prayer as communication with a personal being. However, there are many forms of non-theistic religion - many of which make up a significant minority in American history. Buddhism is one such religion. The Dali Lama, a spiritual exemplar for many, says that Buddhism has no need for a creator and so does not encourage prayer but rather meditation.

The fact that theistic religions have similar practices of prayer does not clearly support the notion that prayer is their unifying factor and their truest meaning. Christians pray in Jesus' name, considering him the divine mediator between God the Father and sinful humans. Muslims pray directly to Allah according to the teachings of Muhammad, and find no need for a mediator. Jews pray to neither Allah nor Jesus, but to the God of the Covenant.

These are not minor differences that can be erased by noting their common practice of addressing a deity. One might consider the possibility of praying wrongly, just as one might vote wrongly or invest wrongly.

Prayer is not simply a personal and private practice by some or most Americans. On the contrary, our sense of prayer and the worldview behind our prayers have decisively shaped the nature of American history and will continue to do so. As such, this is a fruitful area for study and reflection.

Douglas Groothuis is a professor of philosopy at Denver Seminary and the author of On Jesus.

From Douglas Groothuis, "On Jesus" (Wadsworth, 2003), chapter 5

Jesus' Epistemology: Character and Knowledge of God

In recent years, philosophers have begun to rediscover the role of moral character in epistemology. Philosophers still rightly ask what makes beliefs qualify as knowledge (truth plus justification or warrant), but more philosophers are now asking what makes believers good candidates for knowledge. What qualities best suit a person for attaining knowledge? What traits taint a person’s capacity to know what ought to be known? This is called virtue epistemology; it has a long pedigree going back to Aquinas and Augustine in the Western tradition. Intellectual virtues have classically included qualities such as patience, tenacity, humility, studiousness, and honest truth-seeking. Vices to be avoided include impatience, gullibility, pride, vain curiosity, and intellectual apathy.[i]

There is a strong emphasis on character—both virtue and vice—
in Jesus’ epistemology, which is closely intertwined with his teachings on ethics and the knowledge of God. He not only gives arguments and tells parables, he calls people to intellectual rectitude and sobriety. Jesus’ familiar moral teaching about the dangers of judgmentalism contains an epistemological element easily overlooked.

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person’s eye (Matthew 7:1-5).

This passage is often taken out of context to forbid all moral evaluation, as if Jesus were a relativist. But Jesus has something else in mind: a clear-sighted self-evaluation and a proper evaluation of others based on objective standards. Jesus stipulates that all moral judgments relate to the self as much as to the other. Therefore, when one judges others, one is implicitly bringing oneself under the same judgment. One will be measured by the same measurement one employs. In light of that, a person needs first to search her or his own being for any moral impurities and seriously address them (“take the plank out of your own eye”). Only then is one in a good epistemological and ethical position to evaluate another, to “see clearly” the speck in someone else’s eye.

If one fails to evaluate oneself by one’s own standard, one cannot rightly discern the moral status of others. In other words, proper moral evaluation requires a knowledge of the self, and allows no special pleading. The hypocrite is not only morally deficient, but epistemologically off-base as well. By failing to be subjectively attentive to one’s conscience, one fails to discern moral realities objectively. Thus people will often condemn others overly because they ignore or obscure their own transgressions.

Jesus gives further incentive to evaluate situations justly—that is, to be virtuous knowers—when he warns that people will be held accountable before God for every word they utter. Their judgments issue from their character, and their character will affect their destiny.

Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in them, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in them. But I tell you that people will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned (Matthew 12:35-37).

Jesus sometimes deemed the character of his hearers as interfering with their ability to know and apply the truth of his words and actions. In a quarrel over his own identity, Jesus accused his hearers of not understanding their own Scriptures or the testimony that John the Baptist gave on Jesus’ behalf. Nor did they have “the love of God in their hearts.”

I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if others come in their own names, you will accept them. How can you believe [in me] if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? (John 5:43-44).

One might think this is an ad hominem fallacy. Jesus is attacking the person, not the argument. But Jesus does not replace an argument with a negative assessment of character; rather, he explains their inability to believe in him according to their over-concern with social status, which precluded their seeking truth. Giving more evidence or arguments does not serve Jesus’ purpose here; instead, he ferrets out their character defect and its epistemological consequences.

While Jesus warns of vices that keep people from understanding his message, he also lauds certain virtues as conducive to spiritual knowledge, as when he says, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:16-17). A willingness to conform one’s will to God’s will is a requirement for discerning Jesus’ authority in relation to “the Father”—a key to understanding Jesus’ identity. He makes a comparable, though broader, statement in the Sermon on the Mount concerning persistence in seeking.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8).

He similarly ties the knowledge that leads to freedom to whether or not one will be his disciple: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Fidelity to Jesus leads to knowledge that liberates.

Yet in several cases, Jesus refuses to grant a sign or answer an argument because his hearers would not learn anything from such a response. They are not seeking truth, but resisting it. So he does not owe it to them. When pressed for a miraculous sign on demand, Jesus demurs and accuses his audience of being spiritually unfaithful (Matthew 16:1-4). A sign would have had no beneficial effect. Similarly, when Jesus is questioned as to his authority, he says he will answer only if his questioners say whether they take John the Baptist’s activity to be from heaven or merely human. This sets up a dilemma from which they cannot escape. If they say John’s authority is from God, Jesus will ask why they didn’t follow John. If they say John’s authority is only human, the crowds who rightly accept John as a prophet will reject them. “So they answered Jesus, ‘We don’t know.’ Then he said, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things’” (Matthew 21:23-27). Jesus smoked out their presuppositions and forced a dilemma instead of providing an answer they would not have accepted anyway. In so doing, he uncovered their bad character that hindered their knowing.

[i] See Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

Report on Doug Groothuis Lecture

On the evening of November 9, I spoke for about an hour on “Christianity and Science: Strangers, Enemies, or Friends?” to about 250 people at the Student Union building at Colorado State University. I also showed about 14 minutes (about the bacterial flagellum) of video from the remarkable Intelligent Design DVD, “Unlocking the Mysteries of Life,” which can be purchased at Access Research Network: http://www.arn.org/. Timberline Church (Fort Collins, Colorado) sponsored the event and made copies of the audio portion (minus the DVD part, I think). If you are interested in purchasing this, you can contact them: http://www.timberlinechurch.org/ If you’d like a copy of my detailed lecture outline (with links and bibliographical material), please email me: Doug.Groothuis@densem.edu.

Afterword to "Meltdown" by Marcus Honeysett, published by Kregel, 2004

Marcus Honeysett has written an engaging and important primer on postmodernism, a subject that typically resists lucid introductions. While other books by evangelicals put postmodernist thought into historical and intellectual context, they often lack the requisite apologetic critique so evident in Meltdown. Yet a successful Christian apologetic requires the refutation of the postmodernist denial of objective truth and normative rationality. This is because apologetics must appeal to rational arguments to defend the objective truth revealed in the Bible. Without objective truth (or what Francis Schaeffer called “true truth”) and rationality, apologetics has no tools with which to work.

Meltdown is an extraordinary book for at least two reasons. First, the author’s assessment of postmodernism (the philosophy) and postmodernity (the set of contemporary cultural conditions in the West) is dead-on. Unlike not a few evangelical authors, Honeysett discerns that postmodernism is not our great liberation from modernist metanarratives. Rather it is a truth-denying, authority-denying philosophy set against the truths authoritatively revealed in Holy Scripture and in Jesus Christ. Instead of fruitfully opening people to all kinds of spirituality (Christianity included), postmodernity discourages rational discourse, is hostile to Christian truth-claims, and encourages relativism and philosophical pluralism. Against the flow of many evangelical trendsetters, Honeysett has not made his peace with postmodernism—and for this we should be grateful.

Second, Honeysett states his case in an understandable but intellectually responsible and deeply challenging fashion. This combination of being both accessible and accurate on challenging topics is indeed rare. (He also exhorts when needed, which is refreshing in a book not lacking in academic substance.) This is no simple task when dealing with such daunting themes and authors as complex (and often opaque) as Derrida, Baudrillard, Foucault, and Butler. Honeysett navigates the conceptual terrain deftly, summarizing difficult material without over-simplifying, analyzing it logically (often exposing internal contradictions in postmodernist theory), and assessing it biblically. He shows a knack for discerning just where postmodern thought collides with Christian truth, why this matters (and not just to academics), and what we should think about it.

It is encouraging that postmodernism is vigorously opposed by a number of Christians, especially among those leading the renaissance in Christian philosophical work in the analytic tradition—a tradition that is antithetical to the continental waters in which postmodernism was spawned.[i] Yet too many evangelical theologians have been accommodating to postmodernism in significant ways. For example, after discussing 1 John 1:1-3, an evangelical theologian, attempting to engage in apologetics, writes, “Postmodernity concurs. No human being knows anything for certain”[ii] The author implausibly sees John as merely giving his own impressions of Jesus, not as marshalling convincing and evidence for the objective reality of Christ. He thinks that the posture of epistemological uncertainty is appropriate for doing apologetics in the postmodern world. But this is ill advised for at least five reasons.

First, the Apostle John would never agree with the statement, “No human being knows anything for certain,” since he himself evinces certainty that Jesus is the Christ and endeavors to make this known throughout his apostolic writings (John 20:30-31; 21:24-25). Second, most postmodernists are not skeptics, but nonrealists or antirealists. Roughly speaking, skeptics hold that objective truth exists, but that it is not knowable. For nonrealists or antirealists, knowledge is not difficult but easy. Just assent to the language game (or social construction) in which you find yourself—unless you deem it a totalizing metanarrative like Christianity—and stop worrying about what doesn’t exist: objective truth. (Philosophical realism, on the contrary, claims that objective truth exists and can be captured through the right methods.) Honeysett clearly makes this point about nonrealism and antirealism throughout Meltdown. Third, if one is certain that no human being knows anything for certain, then it is not clear how one could know this proposition to be true. It looks self-refuting. If so, the statement is necessarily false, and falls into the same illogical ditch that so many postmodernists already occupy, as Honeysett adroitly notes. Fourth, there are plenty of counter examples of propositions that we know for certain to be true: (1) “Torturing the innocent for pleasure is always wrong,” (2) “The law of noncontradiction is universally true,” and (3) “There is a physical world.” Fifth, Scripture repeatedly promises that confident knowledge of God is possible for humans rightly related to their Maker (see Romans 8:15-16).

Honeysett’s treatment of Jean Baudrillard (who is something like an updated French nihilistic version of Marshall McLuhan) is, to my knowledge, the only Christian critique of this important thinker who challenges the very notion of objective reality in our media-saturated environment. Baudrillard has recently emitted some egregious statements about the twin towers of the World Trade Center committing suicide on September 11, 2001,[iii] which some have taken as grounds for dismissing him without reflection or critique. But despite his penchant for flamboyance and his tortuous prose, Baudrillard is a thinker with which to reckon.

Honeysett also keenly assesses key aspects of postmodern culture, which is every bit as important to understand as postmodernist philosophies. Few may read the philosophers, but all imbibe the culture. First, Honeysett investigates the postmodern ethos of the university culture—something he knows well as a thoughtful campus minister—and shows how to respond to it with integrity and intellect. I especially appreciated this advice in light of my twelve years of involvement in campus ministry. Sadly, evangelical campus ministries often fail to engage the intellects of students, leaving them prey to “arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This must change if Christianity is to win a fair hearing on intellectual matters.

Second, in discussing “postmodern Bible reading,” Honeysett rightly argues that too many Christians have swallowed a postmodernist rejection of all objective authority, which has corrupted their understanding of the Bible as God’s authoritative revelation of objective truth. The answer is to return to Scripture as the ultimate source for truth; it should not be deemed a subjective, self-help tool. This cannot be underscored too strongly. A popular and contemporary evangelical writer claims that a strong view of biblical authority is merely a modernist invention that postmodernist Christians should throw off as an aberration.[iv] This leaves the Christian in the postmodern ocean with neither an anchor nor a rudder for navigating the intellectual storms of the day. The question of biblical authority is a crucial issue at all times. Postmodernism has not rendered it a moot point.

Third, Honeysett notes that postmodern ideas have similarly undermined a biblical understanding of the church, which is too often viewed as more of a consumer item than as an institution founded by the divine Son of God for his glory (Matthew 16:13-19). Since American evangelicals are notoriously weak on ecclesiology (given their proclivity for individualism, innovation, and parachurch entrepreneurialism), this reminder comes as a needed tonic.
Fourth, Honeysett forthrightly attacks postmodern influence in culture as “immoral,” because it rejects God and fills the void with the autonomous self and its God-denying principles. Although he does not quote him, Pascal’s warning fits the spirit of Honeysett’s critique. “When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving toward depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point”[v]

Fifth, Honeysett observes that a leading engine of the postmodernist rejection of truth and authority is television, in both its nature and its content. Christians should, therefore, engage it critically and carefully and not be swept away with its unreality (as Baudrillard warns). Honeysett is one of the few evangelicals who understands that communication media are not neutral, but invariably shape their content according to their form. As McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” As long as evangelicals have their minds shaped by the medium of television (which favors the graphic over the textual and the titillating over the edifying), they will remain intellectually enfeebled and unable to discern and disarm the deceptions of postmodernism.

Honeysett concludes this rousing and thoughtful primer by emphasizing the need to proclaim
the “authentic Jesus” in a postmodern world of pluralism, syncretism, and outright hostility to the gospel. The authentic Jesus must be presented to the watching world in terms of a fully biblical and philosophically defensible concept of truth, a concept that cuts against the grain of postmodernism. While so many evangelicals scavenge for food among postmodernist philosophies, the worldview outside of Christianity that is gaining the most adherents has no truck with postmodernism whatsoever. It wins converts and promotes a view of civilization based on the concept of authoritative, universal, absolute, and objective truth. That worldview is Islam.[vi]

My hope and prayer is that Meltdown will be read and discussed by high school seniors in preparation for college, Christian university students and campus ministers, and by anyone who wants to make sense of the postmodern world and speak to it in the name of Jesus Christ, who is nothing less than the Truth Incarnate and the only hope for erring mortals east of Eden (John 14:6).

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary, where he chairs the Philosophy of Religion Masters Degree program. He is the author of ten books, including Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism (InterVarsity Press, 2000).

[i] For an excellent example of Christian philosophy in the analytical tradition, see J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003).
[ii] John Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics (Oxford University Press, 2002), 166. See also 232.
[iii] Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism, Chris Turner, trans. (New York: Verso, 2002), 8.
[iv] See Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2001), 52-56.
[v] Blaise Pascal, Pensées. A. Krailsheimer, trans. and ed. (New York: Penguin, 1966), 699/382, p. 247.
[vi] See Irving Hexham, “Evangelical Illusions: Postmodern Christianity and the Growth of Muslim Communities in Europe and North America,” in John Stackhouse, ed. No Other Gods Before Me? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 137-160.

Doug Groothuis to Speak at Colorado State University

I am slated to give a lecture called, "Christianity and Science: Friends, Enemies, or Strangers" at Colorado State University (Fort Collins) on November 9 at 7:00 PM at the Lory Student Center Theater. The event is free and will include a detailed lecture outline with many sources and links. You can find directions here: http://www.sc.colostate.edu/mapshours.asp. The event is sponsored by Timberline Community Church. Your prayers for this outreach are much appreciated (Ephesians 6:18).

Review of Brian McLaren, "A Generous Orthodoxy"

Jeremy Green, a 2005 MA gradute of Denver Seminary (Philosophy of Religion), has posted his excellent review of Brian McLaren's book, A Generous Orthodoxy, at Denver Journal. You can find it here: http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2005/0400/0406.php

Doug Groothuis Review of "Restless Souls"

My review of Lee Schmidt's book, Restless Souls, was published in The Rocky Mountain News on November 2, 2005. It can be found here: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/books/article

Critique of the Megachurch

Pastor Susan Arnold, worship Pastor of New Day Church in Boulder and Denver Seminary philosophy student, has written a superb critique of the megachurch on her web log. I highly recommend reading it. http://www.deut64.blogspot.com

--Doug Groothuis