Dan Russ on Cizik and Chivian

In the spirit of “critical loyalty,” I offer the following reflections on the convocation presentations of Richard Cizik and Eric Chivian. I emphasize loyalty because I affirm their passion to address the very real problem of environmental degradation including global warming, and I am grateful for their willingness to forge a friendship and, hopefully, cooperation for creation care between the scientific community and Evangelical Christians.

However, I was disappointed in three aspects of the presentations. First, Chivian’s cogent and compelling description of his work on both the nuclear and environmental issues clearly explained in layman’s terms the current state of the environment and the urgency to attend to healing it. However, like most scientists, his presentation lacked the humility of the mea culpa that confesses that modern science and scientists are major contributors to creating the environmental crisis. Without their discoveries and often-blind manipulation of the natural world, we could not have damaged creation as much as we have. I know that most of the damage that they have helped create arises from unintended consequences and, in my opinion, a bit of hubris that what we can do we should do. I also think that some of this blindness arises from the hyper specialization of modern sciences that precludes or ignores the need for scientists to be educated to think systemically, historically, philosophically, politically, and ethically. In short, while I know and regret that many evangelicals and others distrust scientists because of the debate over origins, many thoughtful Christians distrust them because they were an integral apart of our unsustainable uses of fossil fuels, plastics, and atomic energy, to name a few. I hope and trust that this shortsightedness and narrow-minded education is changing, but not unlike Wall Street, why do we think the folks who were very responsible for creating the mess should be trusted to clean it up? Even if they can justifiably blame government, military, and industry for abusing their scientific discoveries, what prevents current and future scientists from losing control of their work to future politicians, military leaders, and industrialists? Scientists should be honest enough to face as one of the “brutal facts” of our current crisis their responsibility in helping create it.

My second concern is that Cizik almost addressed Chivian’s quote of Carl Sagan that we are a dot at the edge of the galaxy and there is no one and nothing out there that will help us. Obviously, if Christians buy into such a cosmological and metaphysical naturalism, we deny not only the Creator but also the incarnation. For some reason, Cizik started to address this and then interrupted himself with a digression. Christians bring to this partnership with secular scientists—remember that there are believing scientists—something that the secularists cannot offer: hope. We do not believe we are alone in the universe and merely the top of the food chain. So we can embrace all of the good science and good public policy that can heal creation right alongside our secular partners and affirm to that creation that life is larger than “the planet” and the world is not an accident of time and space and chance.

Finally, I was disappointed that Cizik’s presentation was scattered, because his part of the story is important. What he did say about Evangelicals ignoring or even opposing the environmental movement rings true, but the way he did so sounded more like an impassioned and poorly prepared sermon than like a cogent and compelling discourse. Indeed, the contrast with Eric Chivian’s remarks reinforces Professor Karl Giberson’s concern that too few Christians in the sciences or who write and speak about scientific issues are as articulate as their secular counterparts.

These criticisms are intended not to diminish either the substance of their cause or the courage they have shown in leadership. I hope and pray for their success and that their tribe will increase.

Dan Russ, PhD - director of Center for Christian Studies and author of Flesh-and- Blood Jesus

D’Souza and Christian Apologetics (?)

Denish D’Souza v Christopher Hitchens hosted by Kings College, Manhattan

http://www.isi.org/lectures/flvplayer/lectureplayer.aspx?file=v000187_cicero_102207.flv

(a response to the debate by Kirk Vanacore)

Hitchens is a prominent, if not the most prominent, face of atheism. And it seems that D’Souza is attempting to be Hitchens’ antithetical persona: the face of Christian apologetics. His latest book, “What’s So Great About Christianity,” is a converse argument to Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything” and recently he opposed Hitchens in a public debate (linked above) on the benefits of Christianity. During the debate, Hitchens articulately presented a distorted view of Christianity and God and, unfortunately, D’Souza matched his inadequacy by skewing the history of Christianity and failing to acknowledge its devastating shortfalls. Moreover, his approach to Hitchens was an insufflate representation of our faith.

D’Souza argued that Christianity has been and remains a force for good in the world, crediting it with the concept of human dignity and the creation of liberal democracy. While Jesus did speak of man’s dignity and the early church was known for valuing and caring for unwanted children, the values behind liberal democracy are not intrinsic to Christianity. The Bible speaks of equality among in the church, but it did not advocate for political self-determination. As Hitchens points out, the Medieval Church upheld serfdom. D’Souza’s emphasis on the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trails betrays his bias as he fails to mention atrocities with higher causalities such as the Crusades or the Thirty Years War. The Thirty Years War was fought by post-Reformation religious factions who placed political ambitions under a banner of religion and subsequently killed an estimated thirty percent the Holy Roman Empire’s (Germany) population. Furthermore, he downplays the executions of the Spanish Inquisition in a utilitarian manor – as if the 2,000 murders were understandable, if not acceptable, carnage. (Not to mention the number tortured and forced into conversion.) He even suggests that the ends of the Inquisition – the spread of Christianity – justified the means.

Despite the sins of Christendom, Christianity contributed positively to the world. Christians have clothed the homeless, visited prisoners, fed the hungry. In addition, many advancements in science, art, literature and philosophy were made by Christians and funded by the church. The problem with D’Souza’s argument is that the greatness of Christianity hinges upon its truth. If Christianity is not true, than it is nothing but a fantastic story – a work of fiction through which we can derive, at most, inspiration – and it’s authors would simply be a hodgepodge of Hesiods and Homers to whom we would own only literary credit. The product of these stories would simply be a mixed bag of goods and evils. Furthermore, all of the good, and the bad, would be no more meaningful than any other religion, philosophy or way of life – including Hitchens’ secularism. Because of his failure to substantiate the truth Christianity, D’Souza fails at apologetics.

D’Souza opens the debate by saying that he would “try to answer [Hitchens’] attack by using the same tools of reason and skepticism and science and evidence that is the banner under which the atheist march.” While the Bible does instruct us to defend our faith, it presents a very different approach than answering anthem with logic and reason. Peter explains that we should “always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15, NIV), but he prefaces this statement by explaining that we must “live in harmony,” “love as brothers,” “be companionate and humble” and not “repay evil for evil” (3:8-9). We are to incite questions about our hope and holiness and answer “with gentleness and respect” (3:15). Peter does not instruct us attack the non-believers philosophy, but to live with provocative hope. Hitchens describes the religious as people living in fear of God’s disapproval. And while this is distortion of the truth, the fact that Hitchens’ critique of Christianity resonates among the masses reveals that we have work to do. I would suggest that the appropriate answer to Hitchens will not be found in debates, but in the peculiar lives, lived with unworldly hope.