An Intellectual Journey

In my early adult life I began to wonder about God and Christianity.  And I began to ask myself questions along these lines:

Is this Christian faith—that I say I believe—something I really do believe?  Or, is it something I’ve just accepted because it is what my parents have handed to me?

Can the Christian faith hold up to hard questions and intellectual scrutiny?  Or, is it simply a blind leap in the dark?

This began a process that has prompted much thinking, questioning, searching, self-reflection and study.  I am not a brilliant person.  But I have enough intellectual capability to think and reason and investigate.  And this has led me to discover and read authors such as:  Paul Little, Ravi Zacharias, G.K. Chesterton, Josh McDowell, Philip Johnson, William Lane Craig, C.S. Lewis, James Sire, Norman Geisler, Frances Schaeffer, Os Guinness, J.P. Moreland, Charles Colson, Paul Copan, N.T. Wright, Lee Strobel and many others.

I have discovered that the Christian faith has an incredibly deep and rich intellectual heritage.  It turns out the hard questions have actually been asked and wrestled with for a long time.  In fact, I found that questions I would have never even thought to ask have been grappled with for many centuries.

Have all my questions been answered?  No!

But I realize, now, that no worldview, philosophy, or scientific approach can answer all the questions.  There are simply things we do not know.

It’s almost like “life” says to all of us, “There are things you don’t get to know.  Get used to it!”

Do I still have faith in Christ at this point in the process?  Yes.  I still believe.  My heart still tells me that He is the way, the truth and life.  I cannot walk away from that conviction.  This may sound strange to those who do not share my convictions, but the truth of Jesus seems as true to me as the fact that I breathe.  But now my intellect is satisfied that it is a reasonable faith based on truth that is supported by credible evidence.

Dan Marler

Oak Lawn, IL

Speaking The Language of God's Kingdom

Heard noted theologian, Bishop N.T. Wright, speak a while ago.  He said, love is the language we will speak in God’s coming kingdom.  But we can learn to speak it now.  I really liked that line.  “Love” is the language of God’s kingdom.  Here’s a good question for us:  are we becoming more and more fluent in God’s language?

Christian Virtues

According to historian and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, people in the first century did not understand “humility”, “patience”, “chastity”, or “charity” to be virtues.  If you think about it, you can see how these would not be sought-after qualities—they don’t have the “what’s-in-it-for-me?” factor. The value of these virtues came to us, according to Dr. Wright, through Christianity.

Nadia, Rachel and Dan Are Living It Up In Madison

Nadia, Rachel, and I are spending the night in Madison, Wisconsin.  I know, you’re probably thinking to yourself:  “Man, those three really know how to live it up!”

How true.  The deal is that we are on our way to our friends’ [Dave and Roxanne] house for a few days but we had to stop for the night.  After leaving home this afternoon, we made a stop near Milwaukee to hear acclaimed theologian and author, N.T. Wright speak at the Elmbrook Church.

I enjoyed his talk.  It was interesting and substantive.  His talk was based on his most recent book, titled:  “After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters”.  The basic subject is the development of Christian character.  Paraphrasing Dr. Wright:  Vice comes to us relatively easily, but we must grow up into the virtues. 

The development of virtue requires effort.  It’s not that the Holy Spirit is not involved, of course, He is.  But He develops virtue in us, in part, as we engage in spiritual disciplines.  In a certain sense, says Dr. Wright, the development of virtue takes practice.

Dr. Wright took questions from the audience after his talk and a couple of folks in the audience had him stumped, several times.  Fortunately, I was there, and was able to step to the platform and handle some of the more difficult questions for him….

…Oops, sorry, during those last two sentences I had some kind of neurological episode and entered that make believe world that I occasionally drift into, where I’m completely divorced from reality.  I apologize.

Anyhow, here I now sit at a Best Western Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin.  Nadia and Rachel are arguing about what to watch on TV and it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes open.  It’s been a long day and we need to get up and get going in the morning.  So, I’m done.  Oh…listen, yep…yep, that’s my phone ringing.  I should have known.  It’s N.T. Wright calling again with some follow up questions.

You know what?  I’m tired.  It must be another one of those episodes happening.  I’ll apologize for that last paragraph in the morning.

Review of "Passionate Conviction"

"Passionate Conviction" is a collection of essays gathered from several Christian apologetics conferences which were held by the Evangelical Philosophical Society, “the largest society of Christian philosophers in the world”. Counting the president of the society, their membership is now up to three.

That’s a joke. Relax. Actually, there are a significant number of Christian philosophers.

The book is divided into six parts with each part containing at least two essays:

Part 1, Why Apologetics?
Part 2, God (which includes arguments for His existence)
Part 3, Jesus
Part 4, Comparative Religions
Part 5, Postmodernism and Relativism
Part 6, Practical Application

It is a good and helpful book, although, it is typical of books on apologetics in that the writing can be a little dry. In fact, if you will quickly fan the pages of the book you will actually get a little poof of dust. (I know, the jokes are getting worse as we go along, but I’m amusing myself, slightly.)

My favorite chapters were:

In Intellectual Neutral, by William Lane Craig. Craig argues for the importance of deep thinking and study—in other words, “the intellectual life”—to the life of faith. He quotes J. Gresham Machen, “The church is perishing to-day through the lack of thinking, not through an excess of it.”

Living Smart, by J.P. Moreland. This deals with “integration” which has to do with unifying areas of our lives that involve diversity and yet, are part of the whole of who we are and what we believe as followers of Christ.

Christ in the New Age, by L. Russ Bush. It’s interesting how many really old ideas have become part of what is now considered to be “New Age” thinking. It’s also interesting to see how effectively New Age thinking has penetrated and influenced American culture; including the Christian church.

Reflections on McLaren and the Emerging Church, by R. Scott Smith. I found this chapter interesting because I find the “Emerging Church” movement to be interesting. I’m somewhat fascinated by what “catches on” and captures the thinking of a group of people. By the way, for a very helpful book on the subject of the Emerging Church, check out “Why We’re Not Emergent”, DeYoung and Kluck.

Dan Marler