Christianity, Science and Scientism

Conspiracy Theorists are mad scientists

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, a number of people have sent me messages promoting conspiracy theories.  

Bill Gates, Jews, Tasuku Honjo...  

All fact checked by reputable news agencies and discredited.  Yet some tenaciously cling to them. 

The rise of fake news hasn't helped.

The truth is what’s at stake.

Science is the best method by which we can arrive at the truth.

Science and Scientism are not the same.  

Science is just a method of discovering information and evaluating whether it is truthful.  

Scientism is the religion that believes science can answer every question even though it can’t.

I’ve been reading John Lennox lately and it struck me that just because there is a commitment to science, it doesn’t mean the truth has been attained.

Everything is a hypothesis and the straw man hypothesis we classify as “fact,” is just the best there is until it’s credibly disproven.

But we should be cautious about when to classify a hypothesis as fact.

Some hypotheses can be re-classified as fact because it’s well evidenced, over a long period of time, and is therefore considered reliable.

But others are not and should remain mere hypotheses.

Even then, something credibly classified as fact, should be open to re-evaluation if new credible evidence comes to light.

Most conspiracy theories are just hypotheses with little supporting evidence. 

Sometimes they are just supported by other hypotheses masquerading as facts but are actually hypotheses unproven.

Conspiracy theorists jump to conclusions too quickly.

And in so doing, they cause great harm, to others as well as themselves.

The recent and tragic death of the flat earth “researcher” in his home-made rocket is a salient example.

Christians should be committed to the truth, and so 

if the scientific method is the best way we can investigate a matter to find the truth,

then we need to be good scientists, curious, open-minded, detached, cautious, methodical and not quick to jump to conclusions, guarding against confirmation bias, confident to call it either way: 

i.e. if there is insufficient evidence then we say its unproven; 

if there is sufficient evidence then we say its either proven or disproved.

According to John 14:6, when we seek the truth, we seek Jesus, and through Him, God.

A commitment to truth, is a commitment to God.

Knowing Jesus

I have just been reading Jacob Fronczak's book Yeshua Matters, a book that describes his journey in discovering the historical Jesus.

He writes:

Christians generally understand that they should be like Jesus Christ, but most of us don't know enough about Jesus to make this aspect of discipleship a daily reality in our lives.

There is no Christianity without Jesus Christ. He is at the centre of everything we believe in. He is our connection with God. We literally worship and adore him.

But we hardly know anything about him.

But how can we be like someone we don't know anything about?

Think about it for a while, and even scarier questions begin to emerge. What if Jesus isn't anything like what most of us think?

What if the real Jesus doesn't look anything like the stained glass windows and children's book illustrations? Even worse – what if we're not really following his teachings? What if Jesus wouldn't agree with either of our political parties' platforms? What if the core of his message is different then we think it is? What if we think we are doing a great job following him but in reality we would have been kicked out of the upper room?

What if we have lost a really pivotal idea of who Jesus is?

Pick up any popular book on American Christianity and you'll read about problems. The church has problems. Christianity has problems. We aren't functioning correctly. In some way, we're broken; we're sick. People are leaving churches, youth aren't keeping their faith into their college years, pastors are suffering from burnout, and church doors are closing all over the country.

Some of our churches are experiencing great numerical success, but statisticians like George Barna remind us that even as the majority of Americans claim to have had a conversion experience, and even some churches experience huge growth, only a tiny fraction of professed believers are truly committed to the faith, and most churches are struggling. If anything, the Western church appears to be shrinking. We're getting weaker, smaller. Slowly but surely, we're circling the drain.

Spare me the Bible verses about the narrow path if you find. I have read the New Testament, in the New Testament Church wasn't sick or dying. It grew exponentially. It rocked its world. It set in motion a movement that now encompasses the globe. Why don't we generally see that kind of movement in the church down the street?

Every book I have read has a different solution. Maybe we don't love hard enough. Maybe we don't pray hard enough. Maybe we don't evangelise enough. Maybe we haven't fully grasped God's grace. May be we're not satisfied enough involved. Maybe we're not committed to making disciples. Maybe we have failed to engage the culture. Maybe we have forgotten what our mission is. In short, these are all problems. But what is the source of these problems? Why aren't we doing all those things?

To me these problems sound like symptoms. The church at large hasn't found the real root of the issue, the real disease. Not yet.

I have been going to church for longer than I can remember. I have wondered, along with everyone else, what the problem is. Why doesn't our church looked like Acts 2 or 1 Corinthians 13 or Philippians 4? Why aren't church attendees becomingconverts and why aren't converts becoming disciples? Why do people in in church complain so much? Why do they leave at the drop of a hat? What's with the backbiting and shallowness? Where is the depth? Where is the passion? Where is the commitment? Where is the community? Where is the Love?

As committed Christians, we are so close to the answer. We are on the cusp of it. We are standing on the solution, and we don't even know it. We sing about it and church and hear about it from the pulpit.

The solution is Jesus, and the problem is that we have lost sight of who Jesus is.

Not only that, we have lost sight of so much of what Jesus came to do, of what Jesus' core message was, and even to whom Jesus' message was originally delivered.

In place of the real, living Jesus, we have substituted a theological formula, a set of beliefs, a litany of dogma. We have substituted the apostles' Creed for the teachings of the apostles. We have substituted the Nicene Creed for the person of Christ. I am not saying that beliefs are bad – they are good, they are necessary, and Christians cannot afford to be slouches when it comes to theology – but theology and beliefs are no substitute for a real relationship with a real person, the real historical Jesus.

The only solution to Christianity's problem, the only cure for her illness, is to bring back a personal, intimate knowledge of Christ, to really encounter him, to meet him afresh, to get to know him as the first Christians did. We have to know Jesus better. If necessary, we have to sacrifice everything else in order to know Jesus better.

There is no other solution. There is no way to sustain a Christianity that is not fully, completely centred on the historical person of Jesus Christ, and there is no way to centre our lives on Jesus Christ if we don't take the time and effort to know Jesus as well as we possibly can.

Jesus is all we have – our only connection with the father. If we get one thing right, it had better be Jesus.

"On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."

If you are a disciple of Christ, then wherever your spiritual journey takes you from here, it must be informed by an accurate conception of Jesus. The picture of Jesus in your mind must match the real historical person of Jesus. In this chaotic world of full of differing and contradictory beliefs about Jesus, you cannot afford to be any less than crystal clear on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Today, thanks to the efforts of centuries of biblical scholarship, we know that Jesus was a practising Jew. We know that our faith is built on nothing less than the blood and righteousness of a Jewish rabbi from a backwater town in Israel.

And I think this matters. Yeshua matters. The fact that Jesus was a practising Jew matters. It changes how we see him, how we here his teachings, how we follow him. It changes how we see ourselves and how we see his people, the Jewish people. It changes how we live and how we do church. It changes our message. Or at least it should.

Pages 143-146.

Logos: Judaism and Christianity Collection

I think understanding Jewish perspectives on law would give considerable insight into Jesus' teaching and also on his comments and debates with the Scribes, Lawyers and other religious authorities of the day.  It would also put to rest the misunderstanding that has arisen over time that Jewish law, both written and oral, are somehow mutually exclusive from Grace as we understand it as Christians.

Without understanding this perspective, passages such as Mat 5.17 and his teaching that we should obey the Rabbis because they "sit in the seat of Moses," are problematic.

For me, exploring these Jewish perspectives has really broadened my understanding and given depth to my investigation into such questions as to who is Israel, who is a Jew, what is legalism, and what is the New Covenant.  The answers to which I have found to be quite influential on one's hermeneutical thought.

I'm glad to see that Logos has gradually built up its resources from Jewish writers who can bring this rich perspective to us believers with a Gentile background.  Prominent amongst these authors is David Flusser. 

He was a professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Flusser was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and received the Israel Prize in 1980, for his contributions to the study of Jewish history.  Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball department of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, credited him with pioneering "the modern study of Christianity in the state of Israel in a scholarly context".

Flusser was a devout Orthodox Jew who applied his skills in Torah and Talmud to the study of ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, as well as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He scrutinized the ancient Jewish and Christian texts for evidence of the Jewish roots of Christianity. While critically distinguishing the historical Jesus from the visionary portrayal in the Gospels and other Christian writings, Flusser saw Jesus as an authentic Jew, misunderstood by his followers.

David Satran, a professor of comparative religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said, "Dr. Flusser was rather remarkable in his strong insistence that not only was Jesus a Jew from birth to death, but that Jesus did nothing that could be interpreted as a revolt or questioning of the basic principles of the Judaism at the time."  Personally, Flusser viewed Jesus as a tsadik with keen spiritual insight and a "high self-awareness" that near-contemporaries similarly expressed, such as Hillel in the Talmud and the "Teacher of Righteousness" in certain Dead Sea Scrolls.

Flusser pursued his research at a time when many Jews blamed Christianity for Nazism. During the trial, the Gestapo officer Adolf Eichmann refused to take an oath on the New Testament, insisting he would only swear "in the name of God." Flusser commented in an editorial in the Jerusalem Post: "I do not know who is the God in whose name Eichmann swore, but I am certain that it is neither the God of Israel nor the God of the Christian church. It should now become clear to the strongest Jewish opponents of Christianity that Christianity per se imposes limitations, and that the greatest crime against our people was not committed in the name of the Christian faith".

Flusser published over 1,000 articles in Hebrew, German, English, and other languages. The results of his many academic writings can be found in his book, Jesus (1965), whose augmented second edition The Sage from Galilee (1998) was updated to incorporate his later research and views on Jesus.[1]
 
When Logos released the Judaism and Christianity Collection on pre-pub pricing, and I noticed that Flusser's works were a significant proportion of the collection, then I could hardly refuse to put in an order. I've already read Jesus (1965) as a hard copy but look forward to reading the other two titles, "Judaism and the Origins of Christianity" and "Judaism of the Second Temple Period."

I'm unfamiliar with the other authors so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

[1] Source:  Wikipedia.

The Shack

With 8 million copies already sold and still more still flying off the shelves, William Young's novel "The Shack" has clearly captured the imagination of a significant proportion of the Christian community.

The Shack is a novel about a man whose daughter was abducted by a serial killer at a holiday camping ground. As time draws on and the crime remains unsolved the man descends into depression. He receives a note inviting him to meet at the Shack with "Papa."  Aware that this is his wife's nickname for God, he wonders whether or not this is someone's idea of a sick joke.  

Yet still intrigued, he takes advantage of his wife's weekend away to investigate. There, at the Shack, he meets three apparitions who represent themselves as God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son.

The novel sets up what every Christian must secretly desire, the opportunity for a one-on-one interview with God, to ask any question that has ever puzzled the believer. It's in the answers to these questions that the book has its power.  

The book conveys a sense of God's all-encompassing and heartwarming love for mankind and leaves the reader with a greater sense of love for community and acceptance of diversity. Both are important things to consider in the Western world as society adapts to new technological modes of interaction which reduce face to face engagement and relaxed immigration policies have allowed new ethnic groups to grow in different societies. In this sense, the book goes some way towards breaking down racial and religious intolerance.

The Shack has fuelled considerable controversy because of its positions regarding the nature of God, Humanity, Sin, Salvation and the Bible.  

On God and Humanity, it takes an egalitarian view of the Trinity and rejects the hierarchical order of authority traditionally held by Orthodox Christians. In Young's Trinity, God the Father has no authority over God the Son. He goes further to say that the believer is meant to join the circle of relationship as an equal partner. The reader has to put aside the idea that "no one can see God, and live."  Some of the ideas seem very similar to the now discredited Agnostic teachings.

On Sin, he rejects the concept of God's punishment (p119). He likens sin to a disease which needs to be cured. Certainly sin brings its own calamity but that does not mean that God himself does not inflict punishment. The image of God as a judge who passes sentence for certain is a prominent concept.

On Salvation, Young gives the impression that everyone has already been saved through the work of Christ and God is but waiting for everyone to accept it.  A form of universalism.

On the Bible, Young rejects the idea that God has stopped overtly communicating with His people, leaving the Bible (p63) as the sole source of contemporary revelation. He is correct but does not then go on to add that the bible disciplines these communications by providing a standard by which they can be authenticated (1Th 5.7, 1Jn 4.1).  

There is a lot more in the book but this should be sufficient to suggest that The Shack should be read guardedly.  Few things or people are wholly good or bad.  This is one book that needs some sifting.

Don't let anyone try to deflect serious discussion of this book by saying its  a work of fiction.  Using a dialogue between fictional characters as a means to convey a treatise on philosophy or some other subject of academic study is an age-old format.  Plato, Aquinas and Abelard all used it.  The Shack deserves to be treated seriously.

In the end the Shack is a great book to challenge modern readers to check if the concepts conveyed in the Shack are authenticated by the Bible and open up a new way for Christians to engage with one another in discussion and debate.

Prov 18.17

Written Torah and Oral Torah

In most legal systems, there is a written code of law and an accompany body of regulation that deals with situations not envisaged by the original statutes.

The English Common Law system is a good example. Parliament sets out the Statutes and the Judges develop common law principles and precedents that guide real-life application.

The Torah is structured in a similar way. It too has a written component, being the Pentateuch and establishes a hierarchy of courts of elders for adjudicating real-life situations, by applying the commandments. Over time, a system of rulings, precedents, and principles were developed. This has been captured by the Oral Torah and preserved in the Talmudic writings. The highest court of elders became known as the Sanhedrin in Christ's day.

As time passed, a system of principles were developed to resolve contradictions between different commandments; between commandments and Oral Torah rulings; and between different Oral Torah rulings.

For example, Oral Torah could never abrogate Written Torah. This principle is applied by Jesus in the dispute over Corban and the Commandment to honour one's father and mother (which had come to mean to provide for them in their old age). Another is the principle of preserving life as taking precedence over any other commandment. Jesus applies this principle when healing on the Sabbath. A third principle involves the infrequent taking precedence over the frequent. An example of this is illustrated when Yom Kippur (a fast) falls on a Sabbath (a feast). Since a Sabbath can be celebrated next week then the fast should be observed as it won't roll around for another year. Interestingly this principle was applied in attempting to rebut Jesus over Sabbath healing: "Why couldn't you have done it tomorrow?"

Thus many of the disputes between the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadduccees and other religious leaders can be understood once this framework is grasped.

Unfortunately, the Oral Torah (idiomatically called the "yoke") became elaborate and complex. Rulings were made for almost every part of the minutiae of life. Jesus proclaimed a revisionist view of the Oral Torah (or Halachah), disputing with the Hebrew authorities that its complexity had created a barrier to salvation (Matthew 23.4, 13). This is what he meant in Matthew 11.28. His "Yoke" was light compared to the conventional "Yoke" of the day.

Interestingly, Jesus never disputed the Sanhedrin's right to make rulings (idiomatically called "binding and loosing"), in fact, he encouraged obedience to them (Matthew 23.1-3) but debated with them from within the framework of principles for resolving contradictions between the Commandments and/or Oral Torah rulings.

Thus if we believe in observing the Written Torah and the Written Torah establshes the authority of the hierarchy of courts and the creation of Oral Torah then we have to recognise the authority of Oral Torah. However Jesus' example shows us that we can abrogate the Oral Torah when it contravenes the framework for assessing how or if it should be applied.