Further to my previous post, I’ve seen several other examples lately of people taking offense when Christians have the audacity to claim that the Gospel is actually true. First we have a commenter on the old Discuss DaVinci Code Blog who was apparently offended that the site claimed that the traditional biblical story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is actually true. (See also my reply below their comments on that same page.)

Next we have a person’s review of the book The Illustrated Guide to World Religions by Dean C Halverson. I have not read the book, but I noticed this particular review as I was browsing Amazon today (as I do FAR too often …) Anyways, here’s their review in its entirety:

The goal of this book is to teach about other religions so people can use that knowledge to convert others to Christianity. If that’s not your goal, don’t bother. I find it very offensive and am throwing it away.

And my reply (posted in reply on Amazon):

Why would you find this offensive? Are you saying all Christians should abandon their own beliefs and believe like you do? If not, what exactly are you suggesting here? As far as I know this book makes no suggestion or approval of coercive techniques of evangelism, so I don’t see the problem with attempting to more effectively share the Christian message with others who belong to different faiths.

If the book contains factual inaccuracies, then that is a different matter. But no viewpoint (whether it be Christian, Muslim, pluralist, secularist, whatever) is neutral, so please don’t disparage this book merely because it is written from a Christian point of view, because there is no worldview-free book about religion.

Further reading:

• Christianity is true. (Are you offended?) - Tackles similar themes to this post re offense at claiming something is true.
• Tolerance - What is the real meaning of tolerance? Greg Koukl’s thoughts on the matter with my comments.
• Tolerance Part 2: Stating Facts = Hatin? - Does profoundly disagreeing with someone mean you are intolerant of them? No, in fact, it gives you a wonderful opportunity to be tolerant!

Over at his blog Fides Quaerens Intellectum Christian philosopher Johnny-Dee writes:

I think the objection goes like this: It is wrong for you to believe that your belief is true because it implies those who adhere to other religious beliefs are wrong. This objection is rife with problems in validity and soundness, but I’d like to ignore all of that for now. Consider what the objector is suggesting: Christians should have a belief that they do not think is true. [Full post]

Sometimes when a person expresses offense when Christians claim that Christianity is true (not just “true for me” but absolutely and objectively true for everyone) they may indeed object because they hold to an incorrect and inappropriate conception of tolerance, as I’ve commented on previously (see Tolerance and Stating Facts != Hating). But more often they are objecting because of a similar but subtly different reason, namely that they are making what I’ll call a category error regarding religious truth claims.

When some people express offense that a Christian believes Christianity to be really true, they are conceiving of Christianity as being in the realm of personal (relative) opinion rather than objective truth. That is, they see choice of religion as being like choosing your favorite ice cream flavor: A person isn’t “wrong” because they prefer vanilla over chocolate. So too, the erroneous argument goes, a person isn’t “wrong” because they prefer Baha’i over Christianity. Greg Koukl talks about this using the ice cream / insulin analogy:

There is significant confusion on this point. Americans think of God, religion, and morals like ice cream and not like insulin. They choose religious views according to tastes, according to what they prefer rather than according to what’s true. [Full post]

Of course, this raises the question of whether choice of religious belief is really like choosing our favorite ice cream flavor. Hmmm, after adding the picture above I really crave ice cream … Ahem. Like I noted in my article Aren’t there many different paths to God? for From Today On (also posted here):

If someone is dying and needs medicine, you need to give them what will heal them, not what they like best. In the same way, Jesus gives us what we need, and ultimately what is best for us. There are many different paths, but they don’t all eventually lead to the top of the same mountain. Some veer off to the left and the right; others climb entirely different mountains! And if God is real, truth about God is not like ice cream; it’s like medicine, and only what is true can heal.

Further reading: Three Tough Questions and Their Answers by philosopher Michael Horner, including “Aren’t all religions the same?”

Is a person a Christian merely because they have been born into a Christian family? Of course, the thoughtful answer is no, even though a person may subconsciously subsume some surface-level measure of their parents’ faith, yet never allow it to make any deeper impact on their life. And then people wonder why have never experienced this “faith” thing!

Rev Victor Shepherd notes in his excellent recent book Do you love me? And other questions Jesus asks:

Christians of every generation are slow to hear that God has no grandchildren. God certainly has children: We become God’s children as we seize Jesus Christ in faith and vow never to let go. Grandchildren, however, are those who try to ride the coattails of their parents’ faith, sooner or later to find that what they assumed to be possible - faith at arm’s length, faith secondhand, faith on the cheap -isn’t possible.

If you today are wondering if you have been living as a grandchild, and not a child of God, I implore you to please take a moment to consider what it means to be living a Spirit-filled life! It may be the most important few minutes of the rest of your life!

What is Christmas about? Linus (Lucy’s blanket-wielding little brother from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts series) tells us:

Linus is quoting from Luke 2:8-14 in the Bible, King James translation. Hat tip to Between Two Worlds for the video link. Like many of the commenters there, I wonder how long it will be before this scene is “edited” out of A Charlie Brown Christmas to make it more politically correct, especially considering that the scene was almost cut out of the original.