The Thoughts of Ryan-C

*Previous Chapters Can Be Found Here*

Chapter 3 of Keller’s book is entitled Christianity is a Straighkacket. In this chapter, the main issues at hand are that communities will be unavoidably exclusive to some effect, it make take some restraint to be free, and that Christianity isn’t culturally rigid. People are always jabbing at Christianity and saying that it is unfairly exclusive and that it needs to be a community open to all, despite beliefs or practices. Christianity is open to all, but there requires some conformity in belief and people don’t like this. Keller uses a very good example to show how exclusivity is prevalent in all communities. Imagine that a board member for the gay lesbian and transgender community center announces that he has had a religious experience and now feels that homosexuality Is wrong and imagine a board member of the alliance against same-sex marriage announces that she discovered that her son is gay and now feels as thoth same-sex marriage should be legal. No matter how thing work out eventually these members will be asked to step down because they no longer share a common interest with the rest of the group. Both of these groups are practicing their beliefs and neither of them is narrow in their decision to remove members, they are just being communities. The next section focuses on the idea that people think Christianity is culturally rigid and that all Christians must conform to ‘Christian’ culture or else. The pattern of Christian expansion goes beyond all other religions. Islam has stayed mainly in the Middle East and , Confucianism, and Hinduism have mostly remained in Asia. On the other hand Christianity has taken a different course. It started out with the Jews in Jerusalem, went to the Hellenists in the Mediterranean, then to Northern Europe, West Europe and North America. Currently most of the worlds Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The spread of Christianity has tanscended all other religions and cultures by not requiring a cultural conversion, but a personal conversion. “Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith… in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christian didn’t have to enter Jewish culture… The Converts had to work out… a Hellenistic way of being Christian. [So] no one owns the Christian faith. There is no ‘Christian Culture’ the way there is an ‘Islamic Culture’ which you can recognize from Pakistan to Tunisia to Morocco…” The next Issue is that Christianity limits personal growth and potential because it restrains us from our freedom to choose our own beliefs. The simple argument is that freedom I’d not the absence of restrictions and guidelines, but rather finding the liberating ones. Technically there is no one that believes in true moral freedom. If you ask someone if there is anyone in the world that they believe should stop their behavior despite what they personally believe about their own acts, they will invariably say ‘yes.’ Their own statement concludes that there must be some form of moral restraint in order to have true freedom. The final topic is the issue of love. In a love relationship there has to be giving and taking on both ends. Most religions would say that a deity does not have to make these sort sacrifices because of their divine nature, but this is where Chrisianity differs. Christ has already met us half way and done his part of the relationship. He has already served us in the greatest manner instead of forcing us to ‘do’ the relationship on our own. When you fall in love you want to please your beloved to the greatest extent. You research everything about them to find out what they like and what they want and you sacrifice your own needs to make their desires fulfilled. In the same way the love of Christ restrains Christians. One you realized what has been done for you, you aren’t afraid to give up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in Him.

The fourth chapter in the book is called The Church is Responsible for So Much Injustice. Obviously many events in history that are rather disgusting have occurred by the hands of Christians. There are no doubt many character flaws among Christians, but obviously the church is filled with broken and immature people who have a long way to go. The next point is made about violence. As previously mentioned, many horrible things are done in the name of religion, but that is no reason to discount it. If you look at the most heinous regimes of our time, they were not done in the name of religion because they took God out of the equation and were done in the name of human reason and power. Obviously there is no excuse for violence on either side and it must be address accordingly. Fanaticism is another aspect of Christianity that has worked against Christianity. Keller argues that the people whom we view as fanatics are overbearing, self-righteous, opinionated, insensitive, and harsh, and instead should be fanatically humble, loving, forgiving and understanding. The problem is not that they are overly Christian but that they aren’t being Christian enough. The rest of the chapter is about justice in Jesus name (abolition of slavery, civil rights, and others). I will not go into detail, but Keller wanted to show the other side of things in which Christianity promotes justice instead of hindering it.

Chapter five was particularly interesting. It is entitled How Can A Loving God Send People to Hell? In our culture it is easy for a person to like a God who loves and does not condemn, but a loving and condemning God makes us uneasy because it doesn’t allow for us to do as we please. There is a historical factor that can explain this logic. In the past man was ruled by the metaphysical, but as science came to be and man realized that they could control the world around them *to some effect* they attempted to shape the metaphysical world to their own liking as well. This ’spirit of modernity’ gave us the power to determine right and wrong and conform our religious beliefs to our own liking instead of conforming ourselves to our religious convictions. This is a fight for power and a fight to overthrow Gods authority and it is a very dangerous fight to fight. If we are so accepting of a forgiving God, why is it offensive to believe in a judging God? In our western thought it makes sense, but other cultures will accept this doctrine without question because they haven’t been brought up the same way. Therefore how can we judge a doctrine from a western point of view and expect a right answer. We need to look at Christianity transculturally. If Christianity is the transcultural truth of God then at some point it is going to conflict with and offend every human culture at some point, if it just fits in with what we want and believe then it has to as flawed as we are. This is not the case. Some will argue that a God of judgement cannot be a God of love, but if you saw someone that you loved doing something harmful to themselves or others wouldn’t you be angry out of your love and concern for them? Is God’s anger not justified by His motives? He is angry at evil and injustice because it is destroying His creations peace and integrity. Another argument is that a loving God would not allow hell. I can’t even begin to paraphrase and explain Keller’s reasoning, so you will have to read this section for yourself. He give an amazing argument that cannot be easily summed up. People will often say “Well, I believe in a God of love, so that means that he can’t be judging and allow for hell and blah blah blah,” but where did they get this idea? If you look at human history for the past 2000 years we do not dominantly see a God of love. The only source of this idea is from the Bible and that same Bible also tells us that he is God of judgement. “The belief in a God of pure love - who accepts everyone and judges no one - is a powerful act of faith. NOt only is there no evidence for it in the natural order, but there is almost no historical, religious textual support for it outside of Christianity. the more one looks at it, the less justified it appears.”

The final chapter in this review is entitled Science Has Disproved Christianity. The basic gist of this chapter is how do we expect to explain the metaphysical with the physical. Logically it cannot be done to the extent of proving every little thing. Most people that use science to disprove Christianity would say that science doesn’t allow for miracles but “it is one thing to say that science is only equipped to test for natural causes and cannot speak to any others. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist.” If a creator God does indeed exist then he would able to move around particles and create and change as he pleases and to say that one does not exist is a tremendous leap of faith; a leap of faith that can neither be demonstratively proven or disproven. Despite popular belief, science is not in conflict with Christianity. Richard Dawkins leads many people to believe otherwise, but he is just a fanatic with crappy sources. Many Christians view evolution is compatible with creation (minus philosophical naturalism) and according to recent polls 40% of scientists feel that religion and science are compatible and complimentary.
Jesus didn’t use His power of miracles to have lasers shoot out of His eyes or to make dogs fly, He used it to help people and to aid in restoring the world to perfection. Modern people think of Jesus’ actions as a disruption to natural order, but Jesus did them to restore natural order. His miracles are a promise to our hearts that restoration is coming.

I apologize for all of the length and grammatical errors. I hope it opened your eyes and that you enjoyed reading it.