Introduction: How to Reach a Culture of Radical Unbelief
1. “Science, ‘Frauds’ Trigger a Decline in Atheism,” The Washington Times, March 3, 2005, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/mar/3/20050303-115733-9519r/.
2. The editors suggested that atheism was in decline because it was losing its scientific underpinnings and atheists themselves were no more moral than religious people. On one hand, advances in physics and biology provide evidence of a designer rather than random processes as their source, and on the other, atheism has, to quote Alistar McGrath in the same article, “turned out to have just as many frauds, psychopaths and careerists as religion does.”
3. Kimberly Winston, “Poll Shows Atheism on the Rise in the US,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-08-13/national/35491519_1_new-atheism-atheist-groups-new-atheists.
4. Kimberly Winston, “9/11 Gave Birth to Aggressive, Unapologetic ‘New Atheists,’” The Christian Century, August 27, 2011, www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-08/911-gave-birth-aggressive-unapologetic-new-atheists.
Chapter 1: No Selling Required
5. “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Summary of Key Findings,” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, http://religions.pewforum.org/reports.
6. Timothy Shriver, “Shopping for God,” The Washington Post, March 10, 2008, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/religionfromtheheart/2008/03/shopping_for_god.html.
7. Ibid.
8. Stacy Weiner, “A Leap of Faith,” The Washington Post, May 9, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801012.html.
9. Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Make-Your-Own Religion? More and More Americans Are Doing It, According to New Book ‘Futurecast,’” Huffington Post, September 15, 2011, www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/15/make-your-own-religion_n_964570.html.
10. “Bishop Orders Episcopal Priest to Renounce Islamic Faith,” USA Today, March 15, 2009, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-15-priest_N.htm.
11. Weiner, “A Leap of Faith.”
12. Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage, 2006), 46–47.
13. C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1979), 67.
14. Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos: Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma or Disaster (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1995), 44.
Chapter 2: The Big Picture
15. The Don Johnson Radio Show, March 13, 2005, audio available at donjohnsonministries.org.
16. Daniel C. Dennett, “The Bright Stuff,” New York Times, July 12, 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/opinion/the-bright-stuff.html.
17. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 198.
18. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 347.
19. Thomas Dubay, Faith and Certitude (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985), 111–112.
20. Gregory Koukl, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 62.
21. For example, Tom Clark of the Center for Naturalism (www.centerfornaturalism.org) is an atheist who argues that most atheists spend too much time simply attacking Christianity rather than presenting a comprehensive worldview alternative. You can hear him present this case on the January 22, 2009 episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reasonabledoubts/Msxh/~5/6LlLky6z23M/rd30_fwvd2_judgement_day_with_guest_tom_clark.mp3.
Chapter 3: The State of the Doubter’s Knowledge
22. Hugh Hewitt, In, But Not Of: A Guide to Christian Ambition (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 172–173.
23. Koukl, Tactics, 48.
24. Randy Newman, Questioning Evangelism: Engaging People’s Hearts the Way Jesus Did (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2004), 42.
25. Lewis, God in the Dock, 97.
26. Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2011), 116.
Chapter 4: Love and the Meaning of Life
27. Edward Current, “An Atheist Meets God,” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlTBBKTO68.
28. Thomas Jefferson, quoted in Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), 51.
29. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), 51.
30. For example, see Alistar McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Books, 2007). Along with his own critique of Dawkins, McGrath cites many others who are “embarrassed” by Dawkins’ theology.
31. Terry Eagleton, “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching: A Review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion,” London Review of Books, October 19, 2006.
32. Rodney Stark, What Americans Really Believe (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 120.
33. Edward Feser, The Last Superstition (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2008), 4.
34. Dawkins, The God Delusion, 15.
35. Jean Daniélou, God and the Ways of Knowing (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 122.
Chapter 5: The Reason for the Rules
36. Rick Reilly, “The Grinch Who Stole the Homer” ESPN The Magazine, June 29, 2009, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4263659.
37. Gordon Graham, “Kindergartner Suspended for Bringing Toy Gun to School,” Fox19, Nov. 9, 2011, www.fox19.com/story/16003464/kindergartner-suspended-for-bringing-toy-gun-to-school.
38. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (New York: Twelve, 2007), 212.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., 111–112.
Chapter 6: What Jesus Meant by That Whole “Born Again” Thing
41. For a fuller discussion of the poll data, see Ronald J. Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005).
42. Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, 17.
43. Jean Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), 75.
44. See also Psalm 74:13 and Psalm 77:16.
45. Optatus of Milan, Donat, V, 1; PL, 11, 1041, quoted in Jean Daniélou, “The Sacraments and the History of Salvation,” www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=681.
46. Esther was a type of Jesus in that she also was a member of two families who interceded with the king to save her people. Esther was a Jewish girl who won a contest and became King Xerxes’ queen (Esther 1–2). Xerxes did not know at the time that Esther was Jewish, so when Haman, a trusted nobleman close to the king, devised a plot to kill all the Jews in the land, Xerxes went along with it (Esther 3:6–15). Esther’s cousin Mordecai convinced her that she had to do something to stop the annihilation of her people, and Esther bravely went before the king to intercede on their behalf (Esther 4:1–5:2). There are many more interesting twists and turns within the biblical account, but the bottom line is that Esther’s plea was successful and the Jews were saved (Esther 5:3–9:17). Just as he had done with Moses, God providentially placed Esther in the royal family so she could have access to the seat of power when that became necessary to save the Israelites. Both Moses and Esther are people who illuminate Jesus, the one who has membership in the divine royal family necessary to save us.
47. Richard White, “Justification As Divine Sonship,” in Scott Hahn, Catholic for a Reason: Scripture and the Mystery of the Family of God, Leon Suprenant, ed. (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 1998), 107.
48. Scott Hahn, “The Mystery of the Family of God,” in Hahn, Catholic for a Reason, 11.
Chapter 7: Why Hell Is Fair and Heaven Won’t Be Boring
49. James Lileks, Notes of a Nervous Man (New York: Pocket Books, 1991), 167.
50. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), 59.
51. Regis Martin, The Last Things (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 92.
52. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 75.
53. Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), 163, excerpt available at www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hell.htm.
54. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 289.
55. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology—Death and Eternal Life, trans. by Michael Waldstein (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 206.
56. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 290.
57. Ibid.
58. Dr. Reaps, “Emmanuel Kelly, The X Factor 2011 Auditions, Emmanuel Kelly FULL,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=W86jlvrG54o.
59. David Kerr, “X Factor star gives credit for success to Catholic mom,” Catholic News Agency, Oct. 25, 2011, www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/x-factor-star-gives-credit-for-success-to-his-catholic-mom/.
60. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), 134.
61. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V.
62. G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 58.
63. Kreeft, Fundamentals, 160–161.
64. Joel Stein, “A little bit of heaven on earth,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 21, 2007, www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-stein21dec21,0,6843058.column.
65. Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You: “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 88.
66. Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2004), inside cover.
67. Martin, The Last Things, 109.
Chapter 8: How to Think About the Bible
68. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Anchor Books, 2006), 250.
69. Russell Pregeant, Reading the Bible for All the Wrong Reasons (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2011), 2, excerpted at Ministry Matters, www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/1611/reading-the-bible-for-all-the-wrong-reasons.
70. Jim Merritt, “A List of Biblical Contradictions,” infidels.org, www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_merritt/bible-contradictions.html.
71. Ibid.
72. Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (Madison, WI: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1992), 164, excerpted at http://ffrf.org/legacy/books/lfif/?t=contra.
73. Ibid.
74. Roger Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 75.
75. Vishal Mangalwadi, “Why Christianity Lost America,” Revelation Movement, December 10, 2011, www.revelationmovement.com/instructors/blog_post/38.
76. Ibid.
77. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1965), 4.
78. Ibid.
79. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 73.
80. C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003), 247.
81. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, 16.
82. Michael J. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture: His Thoughts on the Nature of Biblical Inspiration, The Role of Revelation and the Question of Inerrancy (Waco, Texas: Word, 1979), 96.
83. John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 36, italics added for emphasis.
84. The Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1993), 133.
85. Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 60.
86. Ibid., 61.
87. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 207.
88. This is not to say that we need to accept all the methods and philosophical presuppositions of the historical critical method used by such groups as the Jesus Seminar. The problem with their approach is not so much the idea of wanting to get to the “historical Jesus,” but that they work within an unsupported naturalistic framework.
89. “Frequently Asked Questions,” Losing My Religion, http://losingmyreligion.com/faq.htm.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid.
92. For a good discussion of the necessity of interpretation, see chapter 1 of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993).
93. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 67.
94. Pregeant, excerpted at www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/1611/reading-the-bible-for-all-the-wrong-reasons.
95. The anagogical refers to the fulfillment of God’s plan, but that fulfillment can already be present in some form. The New Jerusalem is already here in a certain sense in our worship, for example, but it is not present in its fullness.
96. Joe Kovacs, “Did Jesus actually reveal name of the Antichrist?” WorldNetDaily, July 30, 2009, www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=105527.
97. Ibid.
Chapter 9: The God Hypothesis
98. The Don Johnson Show, “Discussion with Jason the Ex-Christian,” August 1, 2011, available at http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-jason-the-ex-christian/.
99. Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 45.
100. Mitch Stokes, A Shot of Faith (to the Head): Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 82.
101. J. P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997), 132.
102. Douglas Groothuis, “Jesus: Philosopher and Apologist,” Christian Research Journal 25, No. 2 (2002): 28–31, 47–52, www.equip.org/articles/jesus-philosopher-and-apologist/.
103. Lewis explicitly chronicles his intellectual journey to Christianity in Surprised by Joy and includes autobiographical allusions to his story in much of his fiction, including The Great Divorce. Among the writers and friends that influenced his decision, Lewis cites Plato, MacDonald, Herbert, Barfield, Tolkien, and Dyson (Surprised by Joy [London: Fount, 1977], 180).
104. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 21.
105. Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 29.
106. Ibid., 49.
107. Ibid., 49–50.
108. Ibid., 49.
109. This term refers to Rudyard Kipling’s book Just So Stories, which offers extraordinary accounts of various phenomenon, such as “How the Whale Got His Throat” and “How the Leopard Got Its Spots.”
110. Koukl, Tactics, 62.
111. Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 52ff.
Chapter 10: Christianity and Pagan Myths
112. “Atheists Squander Nativity Scene Spaces at Santa Monica’s Palisades Park,” laist.com, Dec. 10, 2011, http://laist.com/2011/12/10/religious_protest_at_palisades_park.php.
113. Rene Girard, “Are the Gospels Mythical?” First Things, April 1996, www.firstthings.com/article/2007/10/002-are-the-gospels-mythical-11.
114. Derek Murphy, Jesus Potter Harry Christ: The Fascinating Parallels Between the World’s Most Popular Literary Characters (Portland, OR: Holy Blasphemy, 2011), Kindle locations, 3358–3361.
115. In this book, pagan will be used to refer to those who are neither Jewish nor Christian. Nothing demeaning is intended by the use of this term.
116. David Marshall, Jesus and the Religions of Man (Seattle, WA: Kuai Mu Press, 2000), 9.
117. Ibid.
118. Cyclopædia, art. “Atonement” (abridged). Quoted in John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 392–393.
119. Ibid., 393.
120. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1987), 130.
121. See also Jean Daniélou, God and the Ways of Knowing (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2003), 19.
122. Marshall, Jesus and the Religions of Man, 10. Here Marshall is referencing Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Benigno Aquino Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
123. Fulton Sheen, Philosophy of Religion: The Impact of Modern Knowledge on Religion (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1948), 215.
124. Robert M. Price, Jesus Is Dead (Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press, 2007), 279.
125. Ross Douthat used this phrase on the April 20, 2012 episode of the HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher, www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/245-episode/synopsis/quotes.html#/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/245-episode/index.html.
126. This is affirmed by Nostra Aetate, Vatican II’s “Declaration of the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions”:
Men look to their different religions for an answer to the unsolved riddles of human existence. The problems that weigh heavily on the hearts of men are the same today as in the ages past. What is man? What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is upright behavior, and what is sinful? Where does suffering originate, and what end does it serve? How can genuine happiness be found? What happens at death? What is judgment? What reward follows death? And finally, what is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and toward which we tend?
Throughout history even to the present day, there is found among different peoples a certain awareness of a hidden power, which lies behind the course of nature and the events of human life. At times there is present even a recognition of a supreme being or still more, of a Father. This awareness and recognition results in a way of life that is imbued with a deep religious sense. The religions which are found in more advanced civilizations endeavor by way of well-defined concepts and exact language to answer these questions.
(Nostra Aetate 2 in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents [Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 2004], 738.)
127. He Is There and He Is Not Silent is the title of one of Schaeffer’s books (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1972).
128. Gerald McDermott, God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? Insights From the Bible and the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2007), 31.
129. McDermott seems to think that El Elyon is a Canaanite deity, which would imply more of a general source of revelation for Melchizedek. On the other hand, Scott Hahn and others, including St. Thomas Aquinas and Luther, suggest that Melchizedek is actually Noah’s son Shem, which would indicate that he had firsthand experience with special revelation. See Scott Hahn, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), 425.
130. Don Richardson tells this story and provides the ancient references in Eternity in Their Hearts: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures Throughout the World (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2005), 14–28.
131. That is why Nostra Aetate 2, in Vatican Council II, states that the Church “rejects nothing of what is true and holy in [pagan] religions” (739). It notes that, in their attempt to answer life’s biggest questions, other religions have recognized a supreme being and tried to live accordingly.
132. Christensen, C. S. Lewis on Scripture, 52.
133. Ibid., 54.
134. C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, 43.
135. Nostra Aetate 2, in Vatican Council II, 739.
136. Sheen, Philosophy of Religion, 241.
137. C. S. Lewis, Weight of Glory (Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis) (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 128–129.
138. Jean Daniélou, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions” in Introduction to the Great Religions (Notre Dame, IN: Fides Publishers, 1964), 24.
139. Karl Rahner, “Experiences of a Catholic Theologian” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, eds. D. Marmion and M. E. Hines (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 301.
140. Pope John Paul II speaks along these lines in answering the question of why there are so many religions in Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 80–81. He refers to Nostra Aetate in noting that people turn to various religions to answer life’s biggest questions, but all “have one ultimate destiny, God, whose providence, goodness, and plan for salvation extend to all” and that even as the Church can affirm the “semina Verbi (seeds of the Word) present in all religions” and a “common eschatological root present in all religions,” the “Church is guided by the faith that God the Creator wants to save all humankind in Christ Jesus, the only mediator between God and man, inasmuch as He is the Redeemer of all humankind.”
141. Daniélou, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” 25.
142. George Bradford Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford, England: Clarendon, 1956), vii.
Chapter 11: The World Is Not Enough
143. A term popularized by Douglas Copeland in his 1991 book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. It refers to the generation born after the World War II baby boom, generally from the early 1960s to early 1980s.
144. Ilya Shapiro, “Is That All There Is?” TCS Daily, April 19, 2005, www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2005/04/is-that-all-there-is.html.
145. Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (New York: Random House, 2004), xiii-xiv.
146. Ibid., xv.
147. See Charles Colson and Harold Fickett, The Good Life: Seeking Purpose, Meaning, and Truth in Your Life (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2005), chapters 22–24, for good discussions of conscience and other knowledge of God that is available to everyone.
148. Henry and Richard Blackaby and Claude King, Experiencing God (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2008), Kindle location, 95.
149. Charles H. Kraft, Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1989), 39.
150. Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 367.
151. Aldous Huxley, quoted in Huston Smith, The World’s Religions (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 19.
152. Eric Metaxas offered these excellent thoughts on leisure on the May 23, 2012 episode of Breakpoint. (Transcript available at www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/19424):
For most people, “leisure” is synonymous with inactivity. It’s what we experience when we aren’t “doing something.” Since we think of leisure as being passive, it makes sense that we fill our “leisure time” with passive entertainments.
But that’s not how Christianity understands leisure. In his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture, the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper called leisure a “condition of the soul.” It’s not the same thing as inactivity or quiet. It is “the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion—in the real.”
Leisure, he writes, consists of “a celebratory, approving, lingering gaze of the inner eye on the reality of creation.” It’s about seeing the world as God made it, affirming its goodness, and thus transcending the hum-drum and cares of our everyday existence.
According to Pieper, “Only someone who has lost the spiritual power to be at leisure can be bored.”
That doesn’t mean that entertainment is bad per se. The problem, as Naughton says, is that “leisure understood only in terms of entertainment lacks meaning that is satisfactory to the human heart and mind.” It can’t satisfy us no matter how much of it we shove down our gullet.
Thus, we should ask ourselves why we watch a certain TV show or visit a certain website. Is it to relax or unwind, or is it because we are restless and afraid of being still or, even worse, afraid of the Real?
153. Blaise Pascal, Pensees 133/169, ed. and trans. Alban Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin, 1966), 66.
154. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 80.
155. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), Kindle locations, 1388–1392.
156. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 50.
157. Ibid.
158. Kreeft, The God Who Loves You, 89.
159. St. Augustine, Confessions (New York: Penguin Books, 1961), 21.
160. Alcorn, Heaven, 160.
161. Kreeft, The God Who Loves You, 89.
162. St. Augustine, Confessions, 170.
163. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 78.
164. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 136.
165. C. S. Lewis, Weight of Glory, 32–33.
166. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” a lecture given in 1946, in Walter Kaufman, ed., Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre (Amsterdam: Meridian Publishing Company, 1989), reproduced at www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm.
167. Al Gore, “Moving Beyond Kyoto,” New York Times, July 1, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/opinion/01gore.html?_r=1&ei=5090&en=b53eb681db2b0e17&ex=1340942400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all.
168. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Kindle locations, 1531–1535.
169. The Discourses of Epictetus iii.24.2.
170. For an interesting example of this principle, see Nancy Sherman, “A Crack in the Stoic’s Armor” on the New York Times Opinionator Blog, May 30, 2010. She interviews soldiers who used Stoic principles to survive war. However, as one veteran explained, at some point it’s time to get back in touch with your emotions: “I’ve been sucking it up for 25 years, and I’m tired of it.” Article available at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/a-crack-in-the-stoic-armor/?hp.
Chapter 12: Up Close and Personal With God
171. Mo Willems, Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct (New York: Hyperion Books, 2006).
172. Christian Smith, American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 173.
173. J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler, In Search of a Confident Faith: Overcoming Barriers to Trusting in God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Books, 2008), 136.
174. Ibid.
175. Holly Pivec, “Exorcising Our Demons,” Biola Connections (Winter 2006): 10–17, available at http://magazine.biola.edu/article/06-winter/exorcising-our-demons/.
176. For more in this area, see such thinkers as Francis Schaeffer, Chuck Colson, Richard John Neuhaus, and Nancy Pearcey.
177. Pivec, “Exorcising Our Demons.”
178. Moreland and Issler, In Search of a Confident Faith, 155.
179. That is not to say that overtly physical manifestations of the demonic are the main way demons work or that we should focus on having “power encounters” with them. They usually operate (at least in the materialistic West) in much more subtle ways, such as lying and temptation. Neil T. Anderson, one of evangelicalism’s most well-known spiritual warfare authorities, is a veteran of many overt experiences with demons, but, as noted in the Pivec article referenced above, he won’t usually talk about these episodes, because he doesn’t want to detract from the more common and primary demonic tactics of deception.
180. Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 365.
181. This is not to say that all experiences must be authenticated by witnesses. Personal and interior experiences of the “numinous,” for example, as described by Rudolph Otto in his classic work The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950) are perfectly valid evidences for God. Also, the witness of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is valid and self-authenticating evidence for the truth of Christianity. However, I think you are going to have a much harder time talking to a skeptic about these types of evidences.
182. Moreland and Issler, In Search of a Confident Faith, 140.
183. Blackaby and King, Experiencing God, 170.
184. Michael Novak, No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 96.
185. Augustine, Confessions, 177–178.
186. God’s use of miracles is given far too little attention in Western Christian evangelism. Craig S. Keener has done his part to remedy that situation with Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011). I highly recommend this important two-volume work.
187. See Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle (New York: Image Books, 2004) for just one of many classic examples.
188. I’ve heard eyewitness testimony of this phenomenon from friends I trust.
189. Joel Rosenberg, Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2009), 387.
190. Deadliest Catch, Season 8. This episode, titled “Release the Beast,” originally aired July 17, 2012.
191. Trevor Freeze, “A Story of God’s Protection in Joplin,” Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, June 16, 2011, www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=7967.
192. James S. Spiegel, The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief (Chicago: Moody, 2010), 26–27.
193. I don’t have chapters in this book on evil and suffering, primarily because there are so many good resources already available. For a nice short summary, see Peter Kreeft, “The Problem of Evil” at www.peterkreeft.com/topics/evil.htm.
194. William P. Alston, Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 306.
195. Ibid.
196. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 157 (Section 277).
197. The Gay Science, in which this passage appears, also contains Nietzsche’s first use of the term God is dead (Section 108) and the famous parable of the madman (Section 125), in which a “crazy” man warns the townspeople about the harsh consequences they can expect now that they have “killed” God.
198. For a good commentary on this passage, see Paul S. Loeb, “Suicide, Meaning and Redemption” in Manuel Dries, ed., Nietzsche on Time and History (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008) available at http://ups.academia.edu/PaulLoeb/Papers/823236/Suicide_Meaning_and_Redemption.
199. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 157.
200. Moreland and Issler, In Search of a Confident Faith, 143.
Chapter 13: Hypocrisy, Sex, and Other Causes of Skepticism
201. Frank Turek, “Sleeping With Your Girlfriend,” Townhall.com, March 2, 2009, http://townhall.com/columnists/frankturek/2009/03/02/sleeping_with_your_girlfriend/page/full/.
202. Edward Feser, “The Road from Atheism” Edward Feser’s blog, July 17, 2012, http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/07/road-from-atheism.html.
203. Kevin Vost, From Atheism to Catholicism: How Scientists and Philosophers Led Me to the Truth (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2010).
204. Feser, “The Road from Atheism.”
205. Lewis recounts his conversion story in Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1955).
206. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967), 11–12.
207. Vost, From Atheism to Catholicism, 185.
208. John W. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2008), Kindle locations, 436–439.
209. Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, vii.
210. Gaudium et Spes 19, Vatican Council II, 918.
211. Loftus, Why I Became an Atheist, Kindle location, 454.
212. James S. Spiegel, Hypocrisy: Moral Fraud and Other Vices (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999).
213. Russell Baker, Growing Up (New York: Congdon and Weed, 1982), 61.
214. Elizabeth Landau, “Anger at God Common, Even Among Atheists,” CNN Health, The Chart Blog, January 1, 2011, http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/01/anger-at-god-common-even-among-atheists/.
215. Paul Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing, 1999).
216. Spiegel, The Making of an Atheist, 68–69.
217. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless, 16.
218. Elizabeth Stuart, “Fatherless America? A third of children now live without their dad,” Deseret News, May 22, 2011, www.deseretnews.com/article/700137767/Fatherless-America-A-third-of-children-now-live-without-dad.html?pg=all.
219. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless, 130.
220. Ibid., 134.
221. Ibid., 135.
222. Ibid.
223. Michael Shermer, speaking in Nine Conversations: A Question of God, a PBS documentary. Transcript available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/nineconv/transcend.html.
224. G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World (Public Domain Books), Kindle location, 405.
225. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless, 136–137.
226. Mortimer Adler, Philosopher at Large (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 316.
227. Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 143.
228. Brant Hansen, “The Big Objection: Our Culture, the Bible, and Sex,” Air 1 Radio, Dec. 7, 2011, www.air1.com/blog/brant/post/2011/12/07/The-Big-Objection-Our-Culture-the-Bible-and-Sex.aspx.
229. When I refer to nature and natural in this section, I am using the terms in the classical, scholastic sense. That is to say, I believe creation and everything in it has a nature and is intended to live according to that nature, although sometimes it does not. As a result, not everything that occurs in the universe is “natural.” Eyes that do not see are not operating “naturally” in the classical sense, for example. They are not fulfilling their purpose by operating according to their inherent nature. This is an important distinction to understand when talking to skeptics, because they will often use the term natural to refer to anything that happens under the sun. For example: “Humans have a desire for unrestricted sexual license, therefore it is natural.” That is not the way I am defining the term.
230. G. K. Chesterton, “Ecclesiastes.” This poem is available at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ecclesiastes-2/.
231. Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatto and Windus, 1941), 270–273.
232. Spiegel, The Making of an Atheist, 72.
233. Paul Johnson, Intellectuals (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007).
234. E. Michael Jones, Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Behavior (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993).
235. Spiegel, The Making of an Atheist, 70–80.
236. I understand that the meaning of sex certainly does not seem obvious to many in our culture. However, that only shows the extent to which we have gone to suppress the truth. Part of my argument in this section is that sexual immorality is so egregious precisely because it involves refusing to accept truth that is so plain and clear. It’s like God is shouting in our ear with a megaphone while standing in front of a huge neon billboard, yet we ignore him. That is not to say that all of the subtleties of sexual theology will be obvious to all, but the basics are not hard to discern. For example, the idea that men and women are made for each other and that procreation is inextricable from this relationship is a truth every culture in the history of the world until ours has accepted without debate.
237. There is more to abortion than just sexual sin, of course, but the primary motive for abortion is a desire for sexual license. Arguments about personhood and the health of the mother, etc., are basically all a smoke screen to hide the plain desire of pro-abortion advocates to have another form of birth control. I write more about this on my blog at donjohnsonministries.org. Just select the “abortion” category.
238. John Paul II, Original Unity of Man and Woman: Catechesis on the Book of Genesis (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1981), 114 (From the January 16, 1980 lecture).
239. Matthew Lee Anderson, Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2011), 125.
240. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Purity: The Mystery of Christian Sexuality (Steubenville, OH: Franciscan University Press, 1989), 7.
241. Anderson, Earthen Vessels, 127.
242. The thoughts in this section are taken primarily from a series of weekly lectures Pope John Paul II gave in 1979 and 1980. These lectures are known as his “Theology of the Body” and are available in several forms. The communion of persons referenced here is from the November 14, 1979 address: John Paul II, Original Unity of Man and Woman: Catechesis on the Book of Genesis (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1981), 70.
243. Peter Kreeft, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven—But Never Dreamed of Asking (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), excerpted at www.peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.htm.
244. Feser, The Last Superstition, 224.
Chapter 14: Telling the World Its Story
245. Vincent Miceli writes that atheists make “what seems like a valid appeal to the reason of their fellowman. In reality, however, upon closer analysis this appeal to reason is seen to be counterfeit; it is nothing more than a massive propaganda assault upon the mind intended to swamp the light of reason with its intensive passion. Not the compelling force of evidence, but the compulsive force of passion pressed into the service of half truths and downright falsehoods is ceaselessly employed to fashion conformity and unanimity of mind in favor of atheism” (Vincent P. Miceli, The Gods of Atheism [Harrison, NY: Roman Catholic Books, 1971], 460).
246. Richard John Neuhaus, “Telling the World Its Own Story,” Catholic Education Resource Center, www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0081.html.
247. Ibid.