Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thoughts on the Brave New World



Dr. Michio Kaku, a popular Theoretical Physicist from the City University of New York, remarked in a May 2011 interview that the human society on planet Earth was steadily progressing from a “Type Zero Civilization” – the old world of tribal, sectarian conflict embroiled in war because of cultural barriers – to a “Type One Civilization”: a globally integrated, “multicultural, scientific, tolerant society.” If we can communicate with someone across the world in an instant, initiate trans-national economic programs such as the European Union, and speak a near-global language (English), then Kaku believes we are on our way to a truly global society – in his mind, a scientific utopia in which rationality and tolerance trumps the bitter exclusivity of religion, and war becomes but a memory.
            At first glance it’s difficult to determine the proper reaction to this revelation: should we be filled with hope for a potential future in which everything that marked the human race as fallen – conflict, strife, corruption, greed, vanity – could be eradicated in a completely transformative scientific revolution? Or should we be troubled at the thought of man’s brilliance unleashed, determined to “fix” the world? I suppose it depends on the sort of tools required for such a task.
            It is a question as old as the human conscience, as old as the ability to peer beyond ourselves and see that something is wrong with the state of things. Perhaps we were too content in our old world of savagery and passion – perhaps we were not determined enough, like the brightest scientists of the modern age, to not only understand the workings of the world but also seek to improve it. Perhaps even when the course of human existence was changed in the moment of the Incarnation, when the one true God became flesh, we were not yet disturbed or moved enough to change things. But that would be operating under the assumption that man, in all his ambition and brilliance, can endeavor to change the human condition.
            In accordance with the online knowledge forum Big Think, several scientists were asked to envision a world without religion. Robert Wright, author of Evolution of God, offered that the moral progress “required to save the world” could exist without religion, but was quick to say that the perfect society need not shed religious ideas per se – merely that any religion allowed to exist must be perfectly tolerant of other beliefs. The famed evolutionary biologist (and self-avowed enemy of religion) Richard Dawkins commented, in his customarily sardonic way, that in the godless world “we could get on with our science as science and not have to worry about whether we are giving offense to people who get their beliefs from holy books rather than from evidence.” Dawkins also pointed out that our public discourse would move away from anything dependent upon absolutist criteria, but rather those criteria that are based on suffering. This latter idea is not a pleasant one, particularly if it indicates a movement away from an absolute moral code. Nevertheless, Dawkins perceives this movement not as an abolition of morality, but rather a redefinition.
            According to these brilliant men, we could still achieve a healthy and moral world should the dangerous evils of Islam, Christianity, and other world religions happen to fall away. In fact, according to Kaku we might even have a better shot at it were all the cultural barriers to disintegrate. If only the human race could rally together and forget those things that divide us; if only we could be like the truly enlightened men who understand the inevitable triumph of scientific reasoning. Of course, it only takes a single person to reject the utopian philosophy and embrace his own, to make himself a god over other men, for the system to fall into chaos. We need only look to such individuals – Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, and countless others – who have proven the incurable illness in man’s soul.
In listening to the theoretical musings of the world’s smartest men, I sometimes feel as if I had fallen backwards in time, rather than forwards. It would appear that we are trying to recapture the philosophy of the Enlightenment – that man is the undisputed master and corrector of his world, capable of self-perfection. And what of the philosophical shifts that occurred in that movement’s wake? The rational naturalists gave way to the Romantics, who wrestled with the heart as well as the head, who began to observe a beauty in the world and a tragedy in the human spirit. The rise of Industrialism gave us hope in the machine, and a chance at betterment at progress – until the machine was twisted into weaponry and used to slaughter men. Since the rise and fall of our two great wars and the ruinous aftermath, we are still locked in philosophical struggle to understand why, in the words of Dr. Janusz Bardach, “man is wolf to man.” Were we to deny the crippled state of man’s conscience, of his inexplicable aversion to the moral, his amazing capacity to abuse his own life and the lives of others, or his clinging to hatred and rejection of compassion, we would become fools indeed. But then again, “Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Cor. 1:20).
As the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a distinct advantage. We know that man’s condition is not that of the material which the enlightened have endeavored to mend, but that of a spiritual fabric unraveled and unworthy before the Holy God. Not only this, but we know the one true cure, the one thing that fixes the broken man and makes him whole. This beautiful knowledge is no secret to us, though it may be a mystery, and we are not burdened but rather privileged with the task of setting it loose upon the world. Perhaps this issue, like all other issues of the earth, comes back to faith – do we believe that God can fix man’s condition? Perhaps we will never see the laying down of arms in the world of men, but we are promised that sight in the Kingdom of God. That is a braver, newer, and more wonderful world than we could ever hope to imagine.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Worth Fighting For: The Secular Case for Evangelism

For those friends of mine reading this that don’t know, I am a Christian – and each of you have a different conception of what exactly that means. For my own part, I don’t just mean I belong to a global community or sociological people group that identifies itself on government forms and standardized tests as “Christian” – though I do mean that in part. What I really believe is something far more radical and, perhaps, harder and more offensive to accept: I believe I am a child of the One True God, purchased in death and reconciled in life to a glorious destiny by the Son of God, and therefore born again of the Spirit of God. My faith meets at the nexus of two planes – an ineffable sense of the Love that built the world and somehow saves a soul, and the concrete knowledge of a God who entered history, in a specific time and specific place, who laughed and wept and prayed, whose feet felt the dust of Canaan and whose blood really did trickle down a cross, changing the world for all time. 


 I believe these things. You may look at them now and either agree wholeheartedly, or perhaps shake your head in skepticism – but in either case, we can understand each other. You can demand of me a proof that will obliterate any shadow of doubt; you can demand of me an explanation for the tragedies committed in the name of so-called “religion”; you can demand of me a real, no B.S. answer about why an intelligent, rational human being should believe that an old dusty book is the unassailable Word of God; but the one thing you cannot demand of me is that I shut up and let everyone just believe what they want to believe. 


 I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in this refusal to stay quiet, and I don’t think that refusal grants you the ammunition to assail my character. This is something that has bothered me for quite some time. As a man who identifies himself as a Christian, I spend most of my day interacting with those who don’t share my beliefs. This fact doesn’t surprise me; I was taught in early youth to recognize a world that mostly disagrees with me. Still, even as a young man I have heard one criticism of my faith more than any other, and it goes something like this: “The problem with Christians is that they’re always trying to shove their beliefs down everyone’s throats. Why can’t they just keep to themselves, practice their beliefs quietly, and let other people worship their own way? Why can’t they accept that their religion isn’t the only right one, and that all religions are just trying to get at their own forms of truth? The world would be a much more peaceful place.”


There’s a reason why Christians are always trying to “force” their beliefs on others (though we really shouldn’t use that word, because to most people “force” really means “asking if they know about Jesus” or “handing out pamphlets on the street”), and it derives from a character quality that most of the world, atheists and agnostics included, normally admire: compassion for others. If I really believe with sincere devotion that we are setting fire to a world built upon perfect justice and are destined to reap every last twisted sewing – if I told you there was a chance of being healed, of being finally cleansed of pain and heartache, of rediscovering true joy and the perfect homestead we once abandoned – if I believe this is the truth, and yet say nothing, what sort of person am I? The man who knows a way to help his friends but turns away out of pride, or fear of rejection? 


 But that’s so arrogant and condescending of you, claiming you’re trying to save me because you know the “real” truth. How does telling me I’m not merely wrong, but also ignorant, really help me? Why do I have to drop everything and give my life completely to a religion in order to find happiness? Why can’t you just accept me the way I am? These are all valid questions, and you’re right to ask them. But don’t you see, it doesn’t matter if you think that I’m wrong, that Jesus never really existed and he certainly didn’t “die for your sins.” Even if I am wrong, you can’t begrudge me the fact that I loved you enough to try and articulate to you something I earnestly believe. If I’ve done anything to earn your respect, at least permit me to offer you a taste of the draught that saved me, pulled me from the depths, and restored me to life. If I’m an earnest believer, you should see the change in me anyway. Don’t begrudge me the chance to explain why. 


 This doesn’t stop with Christianity. Any man who has given himself over to an ideal – be it something particular like the love of a woman or devotion to country, or something abstract like Freedom or Truth or Human Rights – cannot be faulted for shouting his ideas from the rooftops or from the platform at a protest. He cannot be called intolerant or proud for giving his life on the field of battle, or staring down the barrel of a gun in the name of his beliefs. If every religious devotee or political idealist just kept to himself, we would live in a world much sadder and darker than it already is. Even if you think there is no objective Truth, you must still respect the idea of Truth enough to accept those who live and breathe and die by a Truth they hold to be sacred. If none of us are prepared to fight or defend or evangelize for the things we believe in, why do we believe? 


 When you can articulate to me a utopian model not grounded on some conception of truth, or bricked and mortared with ideals built by the sweat of true believers, than I will say we have no reason to evangelize. But until then, I am not ashamed to proclaim what I believe to be the truth of the Christian Gospel. It is an idea that has earned men not fame or fortune, but the threat of execution and the cold walls of prison. It is an idea that has changed the world, from the action of social institutions in ending poverty to the changing of one man’s heart in a darkened room, when he had already abandoned hope. It appeals to the humble child and makes children of learned scholars. In short, I believe it to be the truth, one worth fighting for. I don’t believe I condescend when I tell you about it; in reality, I believe you condescend when you accuse me of narrow-mindedness or intolerance or hatred. I am not silent, nor do I retreat into private, inoffensive religiosity, because I still believe in something more important than myself or the shallow niceties of politically-correct company. 


The world is full of radicals, and chances are you agree or at least acknowledge the legitimacy of some of them; why do you reject Christianity's legitimacy out of hand? What has it done to warrant such a dismissal? You might agree with Gandhi: you have no quarrel with Christ Himself, only His followers. You might think the people of the Church are judgmental and hypocritical. True, some of them are; but many more have given their hearts and lives for something they saw to be beautiful and true. Many have spent long nights praying for their apathetic friends, not out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, but because they honestly love and care for others with a desperate passion. In the end, we are all believers in something; we would be fools to say otherwise. 


 You are all my friends, and I love you. Perhaps you disagree with what I’ve written, and are currently entered into complete and utter rage. If that’s the case, please – let’s talk about it. If you’ve really read all this, and still think that “let’s talk about it” is some covert tactic of mine to try and convert you, then I don’t think you actually read it. So please, the discussion forum is wide open.