Today on Thinking Christian there is a post regarding “Defending the Church” which asks how Christians should respond to the challenge that the Christian church has quite a sordid past. The usual suspects like the crusades, inquisitions, and pedophile priests are mentioned. How should Christians respond to Christianity’s sordid past?

Already some worthwhile comments have been made to the original post; a comment from Tyler is, I think, on the right track:

The simple answer is that we don’t have to defend Christians, or so called Christians, or the church of the past, we defend Jesus Christ and the gospel, and say that if anyone claiming to be a Christian did not act in accordance with what the Scriptures teach then we don’t defend those actions, we simply believe in Jesus Christ and His Word and what He did on the cross and what He is doing in our lives today. (Tyler / Thinking Christian site)

Well said. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that all of the charges regarding misdeeds of Christians of the past and present are entirely accurate. What, exactly, does that prove about the truthfulness of the Christian faith? Absolutely nothing.

Atheists, Muslims, and Scientologists do bad things too, sometimes institutionally, and sometimes individually, but this doesn’t prove that these worldviews are wrong. Nor do past misdeeds of Christians (regarding which we should be deeply sorrowful and sorry) do not disprove the Christian faith. Such misdeeds, by Christians and all people, prove something about people: That we are sinners to the core and in need of God. But it proves nothing about the Christian faith itself, as I’ve previously commented.

Related reading: Good People? - What makes a person “good”? Is your definition of the word built upon a firm foundation, or is it floating in thin air?

I saw an interesting post today on Thinking Christian commenting on one of Richard Dawkins’ opinions expressed in the recent Dawkins / Lennox debate (and also in Dawkins’ book The God Delusion).

Read it here: Religion Leads Logically To Violence, But Atheism Doesn’t–Richard Dawkins

I agree with Tom Gilson’s opinion on this issue, and this is an issue that is raised often (and will continue to be raised given the fact that it is often repeated by the new atheists) so it’s worth thinking about. I haven’t yet watched the debate but it should be interesting.

Lately I’ve been hanging around Foru.ms (formerly known as ChristianForums.com, RIP), mostly in the Apologetics, Christian Philosophy & Ethics, and College / Bible College forums. Recently I observed a fine example of a fallacious sort of argument that we might call “argument from overwhelming”.

Greg Koukl might call it the steamroller tactic. In its electronic, forum-based version, a person will post (usually as his/her first and only post(s) on a forum) a ridiculous amount of information, usually copied and pasted from other websites. Then, they will add their own comments as the last paragraph of the post, something along the lines of “See Christianity has been proven wrong!”

Now, I’m sure people of every religious persuasion are guilty of doing the very same thing. But this sort of tactic is dishonest regardless of who is doing it. The perpetrator can confidently fold his or her arms and gloat, since it’d be practically impossible for someone to respond to everything that has been pasted into the thread.

Anyways, the post on CF demonstrated a second fallacy. The thread I quote from below has been rightly deleted as trolling/spam, but I saved a copy of the post before it was removed. Here’s a portion of what the author actually wrote him/herself:

The truth is that all religions were simply made up by ancient peasants that didn’t have the science and facts we do today and just took a guess based on nothing which is that a ghost with magical powers created everything.

Here we have an example of the fallacy of chronological snobbery. (Which, I just learned, was coined by C. S. Lewis and friend Owen Barfield.) Essentially, it is the unjustified assumption that all thinking, art, science, etc of previous eras is inherently inferior to our own. (As an aside, this comment also uses loaded language as its author builds a straw man depiction of God.)

Chronological snobbery assumes that all “ancient” people were ignoramuses who can’t be trusted. Where the line is to be drawn in history to divide these supposedly ignorant savages from today’s enlightened, intelligent thinkers is never explicitly stated, but likely lies just prior to the birth of the person espousing such a view. I certainly hope that, a hundred years hence, everything we think and believe isn’t dismissed out of hand by those living in 2107 just because “Everyone in 2007 was ignorant of modern science.”

Even though ancient peoples were indeed ignorant of many areas of modern science, they still knew how to make accurate historical claims. For example, people knew that, generally speaking, dead people stay dead. Unless, of course many independent witnesses were convinced, to the point of their own deaths, that a dead mad had risen …

Related reading:

• The Facts Concerning the Resurrection - Dr Gary Habermas explains why even if we don’t accept the Bible as “inerrant” we can build a case for the resurrection using only facts agreed upon by the vast majority of critical scholars.
• Good people - What makes a person “good”? What did Jesus say when he was asked this question?

“At this gathering [the Council of Nicaea],” Teabing said, “many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon - the date of Easter, the role of the bishops … and, of course, the divinity of Jesus … until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal.” (Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 55)

The Da Vinci Code repeats a common claim: That Jesus never claimed to be God, and this belief was made up by much later followers. Let’s take a look at just one way that Jesus claimed divinity: He accepted worship.

First, Jesus (quoting the Old Testament) claimed that God is the only legitimate object of worship: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” (Matthew 4:10; Deut 6:13).

Second, Jesus accepted worship many times, including just a short time later when the disciples all worship Him (Matthew 14:33). Additionally:

Jesus accepted worship from Thomas (John 20:28); all the angels are told to worship Jesus (Heb. 1:6); wise men worshiped Jesus (Matt. 2:11); a ruler bowed before Him in worship (Matt. 9:18); a blind man worshiped Him (John 9:38); Mary Magdalene worshiped Him (Matt. 28:9); and the disciples worshiped Him (Matt. 28:17). [source]

Note carefully what we never find Jesus saying. He never corrected anyone by saying something like “Woah guys, you’ve got it all wrong, I may be a good teacher but don’t worship me!”

Third, in Acts we find the early Christians doing exactly what Jesus didn’t do, objecting strongly when people try to worship them. In Acts 10, Peter goes to visit a man named Cornelius, where we read: “As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.“ (Acts 10:25-26) This is exactly what we don’t find Jesus saying! A similar example occurs to Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14:11-15.

To state this briefly:

• Jesus claimed only God should be worshiped.
• Jesus accepted worship.
• Therefore, the earliest Christians considered Jesus divine and Jesus affirmed their belief.

All of this accords with what was preached in the early Christian church. In fact, the usual tenancy that often needed to be corrected was to emphasize Jesus’ divinity at the expense of His humanity!

The only way to attempt escape from this conclusion is to argue that the New Testament is not an accurate historical record. Now, besides the fact that the earliest records we have of what Christians believe are the New Testament documents, there are also many other good reasons to believe the New Testament is an accurate historical record.

Further reading:

• Jesus: A Biblical Defense of His Deity - Online version of a book which defends Jesus’ claim to deity.
• The Historical Accuracy of the Gospels - Dr Craig L Blomberg gives reasons to believe the historical accuracy of the gospels.
• Jesus? Who is He? - A quick Flash-based presentation for your kind consideration.