Why is this not being addressed by churches?
Do you have an experience where a Christian group stifled apologetics? Tell me about that, and why do you think they would do that, in view of the situation I outlined above? My experience is that atheists (as much as I tease them) are FAR more interested in apologetics than church Christians – they are the ones who borrow books and debates, and try to get their atheist wives to go to church after they becomes interested in going to church. Why is that?
A couple of thoughts:
– Christians confront a deep double standard, to which Darwinism has greatly contributed, by which the atheist position is considered the normal “secular”one and the Christian or other theist position a sort of disloyalty to the public good. Consider all the books written recently promoting the idea that “fundamentalists” ( = Christians who take their faith seriously) pose a danger. Such books are fashionable because their premise is false and therefore the readers are safe, and merely indulging themselves in hostility and prejudice. It’s like going to a scary movie except that the books create a scary situation for their targets (more below).
– Books about the dangers of jihadism are less fashionable because their premise is true, and therefore learning about jihadism imposes a moral responsibility to decide how one will address the actual danger. In Canada and Europe, prominent writers suffer prosecution for writing books about jihadism that “offended”some. And this problem is very difficult to even address, for reasons I explain here. Christians, Jews, and gay or anti-gay activists are special targets of censors. When in recent memory did anyone writing hate literature against Christians face comparable dangers or penalties?
– Secular materialists use fashionable words like “skeptical” to describe themselves, when they are not skeptical at all. That confuses discourse and enables remarkably fatuous people to shape public opinion. While working on The Spiritual Brain, I confronted an astonishing fact: The secular materialist would accept any materialist premise, no matter how implausible, to support his view. In fact, I sometimes ask, is there any proposition fronted in the name of, say, Darwinism (as I did here, that you regard as absurd? I often get blank looks or protests that Darwinism is science and there are no such propositions, and an immediate change of subject. Well, when we hear that, at least we know who we are dealing with.
– The Christian/theist labours under no such disability. He can accept a materialist explanation when it fits the facts, but not otherwise. But by acting this way, he becomes – in the eyes of the secular atheist – untrustworthy. He can’t be relied on to just shout the party line.
The upshot is that, the Christian risks more, speaking out, and is far more responsible for the need to have intelligent ideas. It’s much safer for Christians to bury themselves in fluffy Christian books and sweat off the flab in Christian weight loss programs, and little by little accommodate themselves to the reigning orthodoxy. After a couple of decades, they don’t even know.
How many readers have had this experience: One catches up some years later with a former small prayer group member, now twice divorced and in therapy, dressed like … oh let’s not go there, and talking a mile a minute, dumping all her programs, unsolicited, on her hearer, absolutely convinced that she bears no responsibility for her situation except insofar as she never indulged herself enough?
I am pleased to know you haven’t encountered it. But I have. The main thing to see is that she is now much more in tune with the world around her than she was when she was studying her way through Paul’s Letter to the Romans a decade and more earlier.
She’s not the one who will be standing in the dock; it’ll be her long-ago group study mate who refuses to recite some ridiculous orthodoxy about transvestism, Wicca, or Islam. But who is obviously more sane? And if you are committed Christian or observant Jew, who would you rather be? I mean, if God is watching.
All freedom comes at a cost: Courage. If people are unwilling to pay it, they could at least try to avoid assisting the persecution of those who can. But the problem is, the longer they avoid the conflict with reality, the less the benefits of freedom matter to them anyway. They don’t even understand what the brave are doing or why.
That’s the real risk that Wintery Knight’s silent passive Christian faces. In a few years, she doesn’t notice any conflict because there isn’t one. Instead of reading trashy Christian novels, she is now reading trashy secular ones because she is “free in the Spirit,” … and her therapist says it is good for her. Which settles it.