We’ve seen them in all manner of places—on street corners, in parking lots, at craft fairs, outside stadiums. Sometimes they’re on wearing placards, admonishing hearers to “turn or burn.” Or perhaps they’re warning America of coming judgment and doom. Others may prefer challenging individual “sinners” on the street, exposing them to their failure to live up to the Ten Commandments.  A common justification from those “witnessing” is: “You need to tell people the bad news before they can listen to the good news.” After all, isn’t the Law a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24)? Isn’t this the reality of Romans 1-3?

My friend Robertson McQuilkin has frequently said, “It is easier to go to a consistent extreme than to stay at the center of biblical tension.”  I think that the “bad-news-first bears” (J) may serve as an example of this extreme.  The point is that we should be careful about making hard-and-fast formulas (or, if you like, formulae) about communicating Christ to others. A wider read of Scripture presents a mixed bag; it isn’t a formula—indeed, a “uniformula”—announcing first, “you’re a sinner” and only then “there is a Savior.” I’m not denying hell, judgment, sin, or the need for repentance. Jesus saved his harshest message of judgment for the hard-hearted religious leaders of his day (e.g., Matthew 23), and he called on his hearers to turn/repent and align themselves with God’s kingdom agenda.  

That said, Jesus had the strong reputation of being a “friend of sinners.” He reached out to the “unlikelies” of his day—those who, according to the religious authorities, were unlikely recipients of God’s kingdom blessings:  tax gatherers, prostitutes, Gentiles, lepers, the ceremonially unclean, the demonized.  Jesus let them know that God hadn’t forgotten them, that God was interested in them. Jesus illustrated the point that people need to know you genuinely like them and take an interest in them if your message is to get through to them. 

How many of those preaching divine judgment in our day do so with tears in their eyes (Philippians 3:18)?  How many of them have the reputation of being “friends of sinners”?  How many of them truly follow in the way of the Master?  It’s a lot easier to preach a message of judgment than to exemplify Jesus, who actually got involved in the lives of others. As David Kinnaman shows in his book unChristian (Baker), the unchurched are under the general impression that they are the “project” of the professing Christian.  Most of them come away from “witnessing” encounters with the impression that Christians—however well-meaning— are also legalistic and arrogant or superior-minded.  By contrast, the incarnate Christ had earned a right to be heard by paying the price of friendship with “outsiders.” Unfortunately, many of the law-first-grace-later messengers don’t exude a friend-of-sinners demeanor.

It seems that we should be careful about a formulaic method of communicating the good news.  After all, helping people connect with Christ is more a process than it is an event. This process includes friendship, the integrity of Christian character, a loving community, and time process the implications of Christ’s Lordship. (See Greg Boyd’s Letters from a Skeptic [Victor] that nicely illustrates the process—even if you or I may not agree with all of Boyd’s arguments.)

So let’s explore whether we must follow the bad-news-first method—or if there’s more to consider. This is one of my longer pieces; so hang in there with me! Continue Reading »

One of my students graduated recently from Palm Beach Atlantic University, and he is heading into seminary and then the pastorate. He took a full platter of classes from me, and we had excellent discussions in and outside the classroom. As a graduation gift, his girlfriend asked another professor and me to write him a letter, passing on “words of wisdom” to a rising seminarian. Having attended seminary myself (Trinity Seminary in Deerfield, Illinois for my M.Div. as well as M.A. in philosophy of religion) and having served on the pastoral staff of a church in upstate New York, I wanted to pass on to him what has, by God’s grace, stood me in good stead over the years.

I had just one page to get all of this onto PBA stationery, but, as Shakespeare said, “’Tis better to be brief than tedious.” So if you’re interested, you can look over my shoulder to see what I wrote.

Dear _______,

I was asked to pass along some “words of wisdom” in light of your graduation from PBA and new start in seminary. I’m certainly honored to do so, as it’s been a joy to have you as a student in my classes and to know you as a brother in Christ. You have stood out above your peers not only in your gifts, intellect, and eagerness to learn, but also—and most importantly—in your dedication to Christ. May you ever pursue Him with pure, simple devotion and cultivate your gifts for His glory.

As you go on for further pastoral training, continue to develop Christ-oriented, soul-shaping habits outside the classroom. Seminary students often neglect spiritual nourishment, falsely assuming that doing homework in biblical studies and theology will suffice. Meanwhile, their spirit shrivels or, at best, becomes stunted. So that the Word of Christ becomes deeply embedded within, make time for Scripture memorization, meditation, and prayer. I suggest reading through the Bible each year—in addition to specific book or topical study. Be a Scripture-saturated pastor and pilgrim! And set time aside for reading insightful, stimulating books to keep your horizons broadened and your mind sharp. Let these priorities become a pattern for life. Continue Reading »

I’m excited about a new book that was delivered to my door two days ago, God Is Great, God Is Good, co-edited by William Lane Craig and Chad Meister (InterVarsity Press).  Of course, I’m pleased to have contributed an essay for the volume, “Are Old Testament Laws Evil?” 

The book contains a wide-ranging response to the arguments of the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and so on). The list of contributors includes fine thinkers across a range of disciplines such as Alister McGrath (theology), Charles Taliaferro and Paul Moser (philosophy), John Polkinghorne (physics), Gary Habermas (history), Michael Behe (biology), Scot McKnight (New Testament), among others.

Here’s the blurb from InterVarsity Press’s website: Continue Reading »

 (I thought I’d include something of a different nature on my blog—a sermon I preached on Christian slavery.)

Galatians 5:13: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

A lot of you may be familiar with the Andy Griffith Show. In one episode (“Andy Learns about America”), Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor is at the breakfast table talking to his son Opie about his history lessons.   Barney Fife, the inept, bumbling deputy, drops by.  Once he hears the topic of conversation, with great bravado, he announces that history was his best subject. 

 Andy is surprised. Barney challenges him to ask him anything. So Andy, with a twinkle in his eye, asks Barney to tell Opie what the Emancipation Proclamation is.

Of course, Barney is a history bluff, not a history buff. 

After hemming and hawing, Barney (rather awkwardly) says, “Are you kiddin’? Everyone one knows that.”

Andy: Then why don’t you tell us?

Barney: You’re kiddin’.  It’s one of the most famous proclamations in history.”

Andy: “I know.”

 After asking Opie and Aunt Bea for help, Barney finally says, “The Emancipation Proclamation was a proclamation’ is what it was”

Andy then asks: “What was it about?”

Barney rather impatiently responds: “It was about Emancipation! What do you think it was about? ‘What was it about’! Use your head, man! It’s common knowledge. There was these folks. And how else was they gonna’ get themselves emancipated, unless there was a proclamation. So they got themselves a proclamation, and they called it ‘The Emancipation Proclamation.’

Andy: “Yep,”

 Barney: “Yeah, I’m surprised at you for not knowing that, Andy! And I’ll tell you something else. I’m even more surprised that you think I don’t know about the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Andy: “We’re still waiting for you to tell us about it.”

Barney: Well, if you’re gonna’ get so smart-alecky about it, maybe I’m not even gonna’ tell ya’.”

Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation was the declaration by Abraham Lincoln that, effective 1 January 1863, “all persons held as slaves” within the rebel states “shall be then, thenceforth and forever free.”  Those who were abolitionists during that era wanted slavery to disappear.  So when I talk about “repealing abolition,” you might think this is a mistake.   Maybe you think I really mean “Repealing Prohibition,” which took place in 1933 after the thirteen-year government ban on alcohol.  Or perhaps you think I must really mean, “Promoting Abolition”—attempting as Christians to abolish oppression and even slavery in certain Muslim countries (like the Sudan, where Christians are literally enslaved).  And much could be said about this important topic, but that’s for another time. (Incidentally, I’m presently finishing a book that deals with a number of ethical challenges in the Old Testament—including slavery.) 

“Repealing Abolition,” I’m not talking about literally repealing of Lincoln’s strategic Emancipation Proclamation.  Rather, I want to encourage us to think in categories alien to our culture (which emphasizes rights and freedom—not responsibilities), but so familiar to biblical authors—that we are slaves of Christ and of one another.  If Jesus is Lord (kyrios) over each of our lives, this entails that I am his slave (doulos).  And if I am part of the body of Christ, I belong to you; I am to serve you in love.  Christian communities like ours should be slave communities. We are to be living out Scripture’s “reciprocal commands”—the one another commands in the New Testament (love one another, serve one another, accept one another, honor one another, etc.). 

 Sometimes we’ll talk of Christians as real “servants of the Lord”; we don’t use the term “slaves.”  Some biblical scholars have noted that many Bible translations have been too timid in their translation of doulos (“slave”) or syndoulos (“fellow slave”).  They tend to obscure the ancient significance of this term by translating it “servant” (or “bond-servant”) or “fellow servant” rather than the more appropriate term of subordination and ownership, “slave” or “fellow slave,” so well known in the first century. 

 Slaves belong to someone else, but servants can quit if they want to. If a slave master didn’t let you go, you had no hope.  That puts things in perspective. What would it do for our churches, for our homes, our schools if we thought of ourselves as slaves of Christ and one another?  Let’s repeal abolition and get back to slavery!  The Communist Manifesto says, “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.” But for the Christian recognizes that we will be enslaved to one master or another. We are slaves by nature; we must serve one master or the other. As Christians, we express our slavery by saying, “Not my will but yours be done.” When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we are saying, “I am his slave.”  So instead of throwing off our chains, we must think about putting them on—talk about political incorrectness!       

Let me first review important categories of slavery for Christians. Second, I’ll look at the context of Galatians 5:13. Third, I’ll address how we can apply this passage within the own Christian community.

I. CHRISTIAN SLAVERY (AND FREEDOM) IN SCRIPTURE:  Let’s look at the following passages (using the doul- word group). We’ll look at four particular categories or dimensions of slavery and freedom.

A. We’re FREE (from spiritual death, bondage to sin, Satan, etc.) in Christ.

• John 8:32, 36: and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
• Rom. 8:21: For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
• Gal. 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
• Gal. 4:7: Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
• Gal. 5:31: So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman (cp. “slavery: v. 25), but of the free woman. Continue Reading »

The past few weeks I’ve been teaching an adult Sunday school class on the relationship between the Christian faith and science. We’ve reviewed what the Genesis text says—and what it doesn’t say. We’ve also noted how two twentieth-century discoveries—the universe’s beginning at the Big Bang and the universe’s astonishing fine-tuning for life—offer dramatic support for God’s existence. In the midst of some discussion, Jim spoke up in class: “A friend of mine at work recently gave a lecture on Galileo. He’s been telling us in the office that Galileo disproved the Bible.” One thing led to another, and last week Jim, another work colleague, and I had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with Al (whom we affectionately call “Alileo”).

Al, a lawyer, has done quite a bit of research on his hero, Galileo (1564-1642). Al told us lots of interesting behind-the-scenes facts about Galileo as well as his historic significance. As the discussion went on, I pointed out that Galileo was no enemy of Scripture. He said that the Scriptures and science, when properly understood, will not conflict with each other. God’s self-revelation in the “books” of nature and Scripture—God’s works and God’s Word—will be harmonious. He wrote of this conviction in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in 1615:

I think that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with the authority of scriptural passages but with sensory experience and necessary demonstrations. For the Holy Scripture and nature derive equally from the godhead, the former as the dictation of the Holy Spirit and the latter as the most obedient executrix of God’s orders; moreover, to accommodate the understanding of common people it is appropriate for Scripture to say many things that are different (in appearance and in regard to the literal meaning of the words) from the absolute truth…. I do not think that one has to believe that the same God who has given us senses, language, and intellect would want to set aside the use of these and give us by other means the information we can acquire with them, so that we would deny our senses and reason even in the case of those physical conclusions which are placed before our eyes and intellect by our sensory experiences or by necessary demonstration.

In the same letter he affirmed: “the holy Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood.”

Incidentally, long before Galileo, Augustine (whom Galileo quotes in this letter) wrote along these lines in The Literal Meaning of Genesis (1.42-43):

it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn….If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

I mentioned how Genesis 1-2, the latter chapters of Job, and Psalm 104 (a creation psalm) doesn’t speak with scientific precision, but often creates certain pictures or images for us without giving the technical details. For example, Genesis 1 speaks of the greater and lesser lights, but this doesn’t mean that there aren’t larger bodies in space. The Scriptures often use phenomenological language—the way things appear to us—just as meteorologists speak of “sunrise” and “sunset.” Continue Reading »

Last month I blogged on the revised and expanded second edition of my book “True for You, But Not for Me”, which was recently released. Well, this month’s blog may seem like déjà vu! Early last week the UPS man hand-delivered a box containing copies of my even more recent book, coedited with philosopher William Lane Craig: Contending with Christianity’s Critics. This is the successor volume to our Passionate Conviction. Both of these books are part of a series that B&H Academic is publishing. Both books are compilations of presentations from the annual Evangelical Philosophical Society apologetics conferences,

The essays in Contending with Christianity’s Critics contain a number of arguments directed mainly at the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris). Another essay critiques Bart Ehrman’s views found in his best-selling Misquoting Jesus, which raises questions about the integrity of the New Testament text. (This essay was written by Parchment and Pen blogger Dan Wallace.) Other chapters cover new angles on arguments for God’s existence and difficulties with naturalism, the historical Jesus, and the coherence of Christian doctrine.

Have a look below at the table of contents and the endorsements (by Craig Hazen and J.P. Moreland). A good number of copies have been pre-ordered, and the book should be officially released any day. I hope you’ll find Contending with Christianity’s Critics to be a new and exciting volume to assist you in thinking through your faith as well as winsomely defending it.

Table of Contents

I. The Existence of God
1. William Craig, “Dawkins’ Delusion”
2. James Sinclair, “At Home in the Multiverse? Critiquing the Atheist Many-Worlds Scenario”
3. Victor Reppert, “The Argument from Reason”
4. Michael Murray, “Is Belief in God Hard-Wired?”
5. Mark Linville, “The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism”
6. Greg Ganssle, “Dawkins’ Best Argument Against God’s Existence”

II. The Jesus of History
7. Robert Stein, “Criteria for the Gospels’ Authenticity”
8. Ben Witherington, “Jesus the Seer”
9. Gary Habermas, “The Resurrection of Jesus Timeline”
10. Craig Evans, “How Scholars Fabricate Jesus”
11. Dan Wallace “Misquoting Jesus? Bart Ehrman and the New Testament’s Reliability”
12. Michael J. Wilkins, “Who Did Jesus Think He Was?”

III. The Coherence of Christian Doctrine
13. Charles Taliaferro and Elsa Marty, “The Coherence of Theism”
14. Paul Copan, “Is the Trinity a Logical Blunder? God as Three and One”
15. Paul Copan, “Did God Become a Jew? The Coherence of the Incarnation”
16. Steve Porter, “Dostoyevsky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution”
17. Stewart Goetz, “Hell: Getting What’s Good My Own Way”
18. David Hunt, “What Does God Know? The Problems of Open Theism”

Endorsements:

“What a fantastic idea! Assemble some of the brightest Christian thinkers and scholars and put before them the most difficult questions faced by Christian believers anywhere, and then turn them loose to answer those questions. The result: one of the finest collections of essays answering contemporary challenges to the Christian worldview anywhere in print. I consider this essential reading for anyone who wants to be on the cutting edge of Christian thought and apologetics.”

Craig J. Hazen, Ph.D.
Founder and Director of the Christian Apologetics Program
Biola University
Author of the novel, Five Sacred Crossings

“Contending with Christianity’s Critics is a tour de force. Copan and Craig have brought together an exciting, first-rate group of thinkers, and they have produced an important volume. An important feature of the book is the breadth of its coverage of issues not often addressed in similar works. I am enthusiastic about Contending with Christianity’s Critics.”

JP Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy,
Biola University, and author of The God Question

My very first book “True for You, But Not for Me”—the one with the purple cover—came out in 1998. The reason I wrote the book was that no one was really offering an accessible, practical step-by-step guide to commonly-heard relativistic and pluralistic slogans. Thankfully, the book found its niche and has done very well, and it is used as a textbook in Christian colleges and universities as well as a book study for many small-group discussions and adult Sunday school classes. Moreover, I have been heartened and encouraged by many letters and people, informing me how instrumental the book has been in their own lives.

Ten years later, I started working on a second edition (the one with the white cover), not realizing how much effort would be required to pull this off. “True” 2.0 has been significantly expanded (half a dozen or so new chapters) and completely overhauled; I left very few sentences unrevised. The result is, in my estimation, a much stronger, updated book that more effectively cuts through today’s thickening relativistic and pluralistic haze, offering a defense of objective truth and morality as well as of the uniqueness of Christ in the face of the world’s religions. I have posted an study guide online for small-group discussion at my website, www.paulcopan.com.

I hope you’ll help spread the word and put in a good word for the book in places like Amazon.com. To make the job easier, I’ve included the new table of contents as well as endorsements from Lee Strobel, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, Mark Mittelberg, and Kenneth Samples. Thanks to many of you for contributing to the success of the first edition. May God’s Spirit use the second edition as well for the advancement of His kingdom! Continue Reading »

In the next issue of Philosophia Christi, I will be revisiting the topic of Yahweh wars and the killing of the Canaanites. This article appears with two essays critical of the divine command to kill the Canaanites. This journal’s issue also contains articles discussing the topic of the moral status of Canaanite society and its religious practices as well as the alleged negative influence of religion. (To see abstracts of the articles, go here.)

The abstract for my article is as follows:

The divine command to kill the Canaanites is the most problematic of all Old Testament ethical issues. This article responds to challenges raised by Wes Morriston and Randal Rauser. It argues that biblical and extrabiblical evidence suggests that the Canaanites who were killed were combatants rather than noncombatants (“Scenario 1”) and that, given the profound moral corruption of Canaan, this divinely-directed act was just. Even if it turns out that noncombatants were directly targeted (“Scenario 2”), the overarching Old Testament narrative is directed toward the salvation of all nations–including the Canaanites.

My article is available here.

Thomas Nagel, an atheist philosopher at New York University said something very revealing in his book The Last Word:

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), 130-131.

Nagel seems to be speaking for many when he reveals what the root problem is—an unwillingness to acknowledge God’s lordship in his life. Note too how Nagel admits that a lot of smart people he knows are believers, which makes him very uncomfortable.

Let me mention another book that addresses the will in relationship to God and the available evidence. Christian philosopher Paul Moser’s book The Elusive God (Cambridge University Press) directs us to the need to consider the role of the will and “perfectly authoritative purposively available evidence” from God. Moser, with whom I have had the pleasure of co-editing The Rationality of Theism (Routledge) has been writing for some time on the dangers of cognitive idolatry and mere “spectator evidence” for God that fails to engage the will. We can easily treat discussions about God with non-believers as mere armchair theorizing rather than a topic of potentially life-altering significance. Notice the priority of the will in Jesus’ words in John 7:17: “Whoever chooses to do his will shall know whether my teaching is from God or whether I speak on my own.”

I just recently spoke at an open forum at the University of South Carolina on “God’s Existence and Why It Matters.” Below is a list of questions I raised at the beginning of my talk. I spoke of evidence, but I also addressed the topic of human need for outside assistance (“grace”) and that God has taken initiative in the person of Jesus to identify with us in our broken human condition and to bring us into a filial relationship with God. In my talk, I pointed out the deep interconnection of God, the will, and evidence. Here are some of the questions I raised to start the conversation:

• Could it be that I am looking at the evidence for God in the wrong way—like the duck-rabbit scenario? Perhaps God seems hidden from humans because we aren’t paying attention or because we don’t want God’s authority “interfering” with our lives or because we’ve determined the height of the bar over which God must “jump”?
• If a good God exists, what would God’s goals be? If God exists, what does God have to do with me?
• If a good, perfectly authoritative God exists, am I willing to acknowledge my unworthiness to receive this God’s grace? Do I make demands of God (“if God exists, then he ought to put on a display of divine pyrotechnics”) rather than ask, “What demands does God have on me?
• Do I have a right to demand evidence of God if I am unwilling to go undergo personal transformation?
• Am I open to evidence for God in whatever form it comes—or do I insist that evidence must be a certain way?
• Does my will have anything to do with my actually benefiting from evidence?
• If God exists, how would this impact my life? Is it possible to intellectually believe God exists but my life to remain unchanged by knowing this intellectual fact? What’s the point if my life remains unchanged and self-centered rather than God-centered? What’s the point of evidence if I’m not willing to be transformed by the reality of God?
• Does God want more than just an acknowledgment of his existence? What if God wants an I-you relationship with individual humans?
• What kind of an attitude does truth-seeking require? Does the fact that people want to disprove evidence for God actually reveal an attitude of non-truth-seeking?
• Is it possible that some people might hate God all the more as one piece of evidence for God is stacked on another? Is it possible for me to believe God exists and still hate God (James 2:19)?
• Can my will interfere with God’s goals for me—to relate to me and to change me from being self-centered to being God-centered and other-person-centered? Are we willing to do what a loving God wants for me so that I might find out what life really is?
• Must God leave us unavoidable evidence before I believe—or might he leave me avoidable evidence that reveals whether I am genuinely truth-seeking?
• Wouldn’t it be a strange God who made no demands on us or who didn’t care if we had our way over against God’s?
• What if accessing relationship-producing evidence is like that of tuning a radio dial to seek out universally—but not necessarily immediately available dismissible armchair evidence?

God isn’t interested in just changing our beliefs. He’s interested in changing *us*! A loving, authoritative God made us to relate to us. Are we willing to receive evidence on God’s terms?

These are some of the themes in Moser’s thought-provoking book. Whatever one thinks of Moser’s views on, say, natural theology, he is surely right to direct us to the centrality of the will and to the very goal of God’s self-revelation—namely, to reveal God personally to human beings so that we might experience intimate, personal knowledge of God through his Spirit, by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

Mark Juergensmeyer’s book Terror in the Mind of God claims that religion is violent by nature. It tends to “absolutize and to project images of cosmic war”—even if the ultimate goal is peace and order. To prevent violence and bloodshed to get to this point, religion needs the tempering influence of “rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values give to civil society” (U Cal Press, 2000 [242, 159, 243]).

Three years earlier, Regina Schwartz wrote about the “violent legacy of monotheism” (which includes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) in the book The Curse of Cain (University of Chicago Press, 1997). Belief in one God and exclusive truth claims will mean that those embracing the “one true God” will reject, hate, and remove all who do not embrace their God or worldview (63). It creates an “us-them” mentality. To preserve our identity and religious purity, they must be removed.

The “New Atheists” make the same sorts of claims. Indeed, they have been emboldened by the September 11 terrorist attacks to launch an all-out rhetorical assault on religious belief—an effort that has a religious zeal all its own!

Have these 9/11 attacks vindicated the claims of Juergensmeyer and Schwartz? Yale theologian Mirsoslav Volf’s 2008 essay “Christianity and Violence” offers a superb response to such criticisms. (It was published in War in the Bible and Violence in the Twenty-First Century, eds. Richard S. Hess and Elmer A. Martens [Eisenbrauns]). I’ll follow his discussion as well as offer some of my own comments.

For starters, we’re not denying that the Crusades, Inquisition, and Europe’s religious wars are a tragedy in the history of Christendom. But do these events reflect the essence of Christianity? Why pick these anti-Christian events as the focal point of one’s criticism? Why not look at the example of Jesus—not to mention Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and other Christian peacemakers? Indeed, violence carried out in Jesus’ name flies in the face of Jesus’ own teaching and example. Continue Reading »