Duped by Da Vinci?

So in case you have not noticed, Dan Brown has become a very rich man. I have read that he has sold over 40,000,000 copies (translated into 44 languages) of his latest novel, THE DA VINCI CODE; not to mention the movie coming to the big screen in a couple of weeks, I believe.

Why is his book so popular? Well, I have read the book and all I can say is that he is a literary genius. I picked the book up on a Saturday afternoon at the Barnes & Noble by my house, and I finished it sometime the following morning. It is simply a book that is very hard to put down. Vince Flynn, author of Separation of Power, said “THE DA VINCI CODE sets the hook-of-all-hooks, and takes off down a road that is as eye-opening as it is page turning. You simply cannot put this book down. Thriller readers everywhere will soon realize Dan Brown is a master.”

What has been “eye opening” for me is the number of Christians I have read about who have seemingly begun to question the Bible, the historical Jesus, and their faith as a result of this book. It makes me want to scream, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THIS IS A FICTION NOVEL. Sadly, Dan Brown does nothing to help in this regard. Interestingly, right at the beginning of the book he says FACT: … “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”

Really? Hold on just one minute. All documents in this novel are accurate? Well, except of course the Bible!

I mean after all does not the story hinge on the following “facts”:

1. JESUS NEVER CLAIMED TO BE GOD.

4. JESUS WAS MARRIED TO MARRY MAGDALENE.

5. THEY HAD A CHILD.

6. THE HOLY GRAIL IS NOT THE CHALICE OF THE LAST SUPPER, BUT THE ROYAL BLOOD LINE FOUND IN THEIR OFFSPRING.

7. THE NEW TESTAMENT IS A PRODUCT OF MEN WHO WANTED TO ACHIEVE A POLITICAL AGENDA.

8. THEREFORE, JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT CONCERNING JESUS IS ONE BIG COVER UP!

Consider some of the things Brown says concerning the Bible.

1) “The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did no fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book” (231).—Man there is a lot of straw in this statement!


2) “Jesus Christ was a historical figure of staggering influence, perhaps the most enigmatic and inspirational leader the world has ever seen…Understandably, His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land…More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relatively few were chosen for inclusion—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John among them…The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great” (231).—I think he needs to check his facts!

3) “Fortunately for historians…some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950’s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert” (234).—I think he should check his facts again!

This is just a taste of what you will read when you read Dan Brown’s latest. The sad thing is that many people think that Dan Brown has discovered something new! Reading this book was a reminder to me why we need to do apologetics.

First, we do apologetics because we are Commanded to—1 Peter 3:15 says we must always be ready to make a defense of the faith, Jude 3 says contend for the faith, Philippians 1:7 says we are partakers in defense of the gospel. Doing apologetics is not a suggestion, it is a command. Second, we do apologetics because we need to Answer false teaching—2 Corinthians 10:5-6 says we destroy argument and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God, Colossians 4:5-6 says we are to conduct ourselves wisely toward outsiders so that we may know how to answer each person, 2 Timothy 2:24-25 says that the Lord’s servant must correct his opponents. Third, we do apologetics because Reason demands it—In Isaiah 1:18 God says “Come now let us reason together”, Jude 10 says don’t be like unreasoning animals, Matthew 22:37 says to love God with all of your mind. Fourth, and finally, we do apologetics because we need to Save Christianity from attack. If you do not think that Christianity is under attack, just read THE DA VINCI CODE.

And remember the words C. S. Lewis told us in the Weight of Glory,

To be ignorant and simple now, not to be able to meet the enemies on their ground, would be to throw down our weapons and betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

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Intelligent Design

Fox News ran a piece this morning about a scientific discovery concerning the shapes of letters and symbols in all languages here. It is argued, in this report, that the shapes of letters and symbols in all languages appear to be derived from a common form in nature.

The idea came about as a result of a study of how robots see the world. Robots “employ object-recognition technology to navigate a room by recognizing contours. A corner is seen as a "Y," for example, and a wall is recognized by the L-shape it makes where it meets the floor.”

Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist at Caltech, and one of the scientists involved in this study, said that he did not think it a coincidence that the shapes of these letters, which the robots employ, look like the things they really are in nature. Changizi, and his colleagues, think that all languages throughout the ages use these common symbols which humans are good at seeing.

"Evolution has shaped our visual system to be good at seeing the structures we commonly encounter in nature, and culture has apparently selected our writing systems and visual signs to have these same shapes," Changizi said.

What is the point of this study? To show that “the figures we use in symbolic systems and writing systems seem to be selected because they are easy to see rather than easy to write," he concludes. "They're for the eye.”

Can a phenomenon like this be explained from a purely naturalistic worldview? I suppose it can, for intelligent people like Changizi think that it can. I think there is an issue of fundamental importance lying beneath the surface of this new discovery, however. It’s the issue of information, or code, or language. Why is it the case that this code or structure is common in all shapes of letters and symbols? Notice it is assumed that this is a result of evolution. Can evolution account for this rather uniform and highly complex system?

I suppose that the structure and uniformity of the shapes of letters and symbols is rather similar to the structure and uniformity of the DNA code. Thus, perhaps I can use a rather similar argument concerning this new study with one that I use for DNA. I think it is a rather widespread assumption that information cannot arise spontaneously. In order for information to arise it is necessary that there be an expenditure of energy, as well as an act of intelligence. Energy is what places the letters into the code, and intelligence is what directs the sequence. For instance, energy is required to write into the sand, but intelligence is needed to write “Help, we are stranded with no food or water and we are going to die!” (Or even something as simple as S.O.S. is just as complex). If we throw a bagful of letters in the air we wouldn’t expect the letters to land on the ground and be arranged into the sentence “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit”. The throwing of the letters into the air requires energy; the arranging of letters into an intelligible sequence requires intelligence.

I suppose, further, that we would think it rather absurd that anything other than intelligence could explain or account for an event like throwing a bag full of letters into the air and having them hit the ground arranged into a sentence like the one noted above. I even suppose we would think it absurd that anything other than intelligence could explain for the arrangement of the letters S.O.S. (the arrangement, as well as the ability to “see” or perceive and understand what these letters mean).

What if we gave the thrower of the bag of letters, or the writer in the sand, enough time, as well as random assortment of letters? I suppose that this is a rather difficult question to answer. How much time is needed? How would we be able to prove, still, that it was the result of something other than intelligence? How can we be sure that with the passing of time the code would become more complex so that it reached the point of perfect complexity (S.O.S. or “In a hole…”)?...and so many more questions.

If we wouldn’t assume that these two events are a result of anything other than an intelligent agent performing the act, then why would we assume that the complex and uniform code inherent in anything else (say DNA, or this new discovery concerning the structure of the shapes of letters and symbols) is something other than a result of an intelligent agent performing the act?

I suppose this is a good place to end the discussion. Thoughts?

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A Hero With a Thousand Meanings?

Don't worry this is not some sort of Joseph Campbell--Luke Skywalker equals Jesus Christ which equals your mama--kind of a thing. Rather, I have a confusing question, or perhaps a perplexing paradox, or perhaps a muddled mystery, and this is where all of the B&B faithful and unfaithful alike come in.

Since I was a little boy I have always loved the term HERO. I love everything about this word: I love how it sounds when it rolls off one’s tongue; I love what this word represents and who has represented this word. Allow me to name a few of my favorites: Heracles and Theseus, Hector, Achilles and Odysseus, Aeneas, Beowulf, Arthur and his Knights, Robin Hood, Aragorn and Frodo, Hester Prynne, and Alyosha Karamazov.

You will notice, as I did when I was preparing this list, that these are perhaps all fictional characters (although I like to think that these are all real people in a real world that I would like to travel to someday). Interestingly, when I was trying to think of Heroes who have lived in our time, though there are many, I could only think of one name; Mother Theresa. Now, certainly Mother Theresa looks nothing like these people I have listed above. However, I consider, and will always consider, her a hero, or perhaps a saint. Perhaps with the dawning of the Christian world and the evolution of words, the term hero has become synonymous with saint? Nevertheless, I think that Mother Theresa is a hero.

What makes Mother Theresa a hero? More importantly, did Mother Theresa know she was a hero? It is the latter question which I wish to discuss. I suppose I would think it strange that Mother Theresa would have called herself a hero. I've never heard her say any such thing, nor have I read any such thing that supposes or quotes Mother Theresa saying such a thing. But I think such a thing is true of Mother Theresa, and were she to say such a thing I would not consider her any less a hero for having said it.

This is an interesting point, I think. Mother Theresa never considered herself a hero. I suppose if you were to ask Mother Theresa if she were a hero she would have said “Of course not…I am just doing my duty” or something quite like this. This is not true of the heroes above (except perhaps Frodo—I will come back to this in a minute). The heroes, especially the heroes of the Greeks, believed that they were heroes and declared themselves to be such. One of my favorite lines in the Iliad is just after Andromache begs Hector to stay with her and not go back to the battle, Hector says,

Wife, I too have thought upon all this, but with what face should I look upon the Trojans, men or women, if I shirked battle like a coward? I cannot do so: I know nothing save to fight bravely in the forefront of the Trojan host and win renown alike for my father and myself. (Book VI)

I don’t suppose that Mother Theresa thought like this. Although she did, perhaps, have her heavenly father’s renown in mind, I don’t think that she cared about hers. She would have thought it foolish to even suppose that what she was doing, in her small world in India, mattered at all to anyone else in the world. She did not do these things to be a hero, and yet I consider her a hero for having done these things.

I suppose that this is different from Homer’s heroes and the rest of the Greek heroes, as well as the Roman hero Aeneas. I suppose this is even different for Beowulf, Arthur and Robin Hood, Aragorn, Hester Prynne (in a way) and Alyosha Karamazov. Perhaps the one exception to this is Frodo who considered the ring to be more of a burden than a blessing, and who at times wished he had never been given the ring. I think it was through Frodo’s weakness (humility perhaps is a better word) that he became the hero (quite unlike the rest of the heroes listed above).

There is a distinction going on here. I don’t know if you see it, but it is an interesting one. Allow me to put it in the form of a question, and I will leave our discussion at this point. Why is it the case that we suspect the heroes of our imagination to believe they are heroes and declare themselves to be heroes, but we would consider those, not in our imagination but in reality, who believe that they are heroes (at least on the scale of Heracles and Beowulf) to be LUNATICS? And those who would declare themselves to be heroes we would consider to be LIARS? Blinded by their own hubris? Why is it the case that those who seek to be heroes are not considered heroes, but those for whom the whole hero idea is the last thing on their mind we would consider to be heroes? This, for me, is puzzling and I have yet been able to solve it.

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About that Wounded Side ...

I don't want to take attention away from Drewdog's attempt to engage us on the “ontological” aspect of what a Christian is. I'm mulling on how to tackle that one. But, while I muddle through that one, I thought I'd toss out a datum on the collateral discussion of the bodily resurrection.

Like every other minister of the gospel of any kind whatsoever, this past Sunday I had some things to say about this. All of them were, I trust, utterly orthodox, conventional, traditional, Biblical; no Marcus Borgian hoohaw about bodiless resurrections.
Without going into a full-blown apologetic for the bodily resurrection of Jesus, I pointed to a couple of facts that argue powerfully for this notion.

On one hand there is the scandalous particularity of the incarnation itself. When the Eternal Son of God becomes incarnate, it's a whole 'nuther ballgame – theologically, philosophically, every-other-wayically. God now has hair on a head and a beard. He has eyes, and they have a color, as does his hair and beard. God has arms and legs, hands and feet, flesh and blood. And, it's not just any old flesh and blood. It's Jewish flesh and blood, taken from the body of His mother. God has a mother now! She birthed him in a scandalously particular place named Bethlehem, at a specific time in history.

You don't go very far with these ideas before you create enough hostility, scandal, and outrage to get yourself crucified. And, then there's the ultimate (up to that point) particularity – God dies.

This kind of thing will spin off in all sorts of directions for fruitful meditation. But, I want to keep the focus on the body. Without a body, there's not death. Jesus gets a body in the first place, precisely so he can die. Spirits don't die; bodies do. Bodies live because a spirit united to them (see Genesis 2 for the details). The spirit departs and the body's dead, as James tells us (Jas. 2).

Ooooookay. The particularity of the Incarnation doesn't “prove” the bodily resurrection, but it is powerfully ... uh ... suggestive, right? I mean what kind of “recovery” or “victory” over death is it if it doesn't entail a bodily resurrection?

And, it is a resurrection of a particular body (in Jesus' case), not a recreation or a renovation or a resuscitation. The body that died is the body that rose from the dead.

How do I know that this is what the Apostles are reporting?

Well, several things – there is sufficient gross continuity between Jesus' body before death and after resurrection that he's recognizable. He was a male before death, and a male after death. His visage either side of death is so similar that the disciples on the Emmaus Road must have their faculties of perception hindered, lest they recognize Him before He pleases.

And, then there's that business with the nail prints in his hands and feet – acquired before death, but present after resurrection. If that's not continuity between the pre-death body and post-resurrection body, I don't know what is.

And, here's the datum I'm still pondering, as I've never seen it treated before – the wound in his side. THAT, dear readers, was acquired AFTER his death but before his resurrection. Yet, it's still there after his resurrection. What do you make of that?

Maybe there's not much to make of that, other than this: that the body of Jesus, his “bodiedness” is so critical, so necessary, so irreducibly a part of his identity that in the resurrection he cannot have a body that lacks this detail, even though he never had it when alive.

What do you make of this?

BQ

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What Does It Mean To Be a Christian?

A Christian, simply put, is a person who follows Jesus Christ. Luke 9:23 records Jesus stating that "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me." Thus, being a Christian involves repentance, allegiance, and imitation.

The gospel is the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is indeed the Lord of the world, and that He is reconciling all things to himself. A Christian is one who recognizes the Kingship of Jesus, and willingly submits to Him (by the work of the Holy Spirit) now, knowing that one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

I know that I am a Christian because I have acknowledged my sinfulness before God and have repented of it; I have placed my life in submission to King Jesus; and I am committed to extending His kingdom as I am increasingly conformed to His image by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Any thoughts?

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When do 2 become 1?

For a while now, I have wondered when exactly a couple is considered married. Let me offer 3 points and a conclusion.
1) Biblical View
First, sex without a public commitment is not a marriage:

16 If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. 17 If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins. - Exodus 22

A couple that has the cart before the horse must make their marriage public by the standards of their culture.

On the other hand, neither does marriage consist only of a ceremony:

10The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry." 11Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." - Matthew 19

Jesus says there are 3 types of people who don't marry:
1. Those who were born unable to marry
2. Those who were disabled from marriage in some way after birth
3. Those who have chosen not to marry

This is strange - How can someone be born unable to marry if marriage is simply a public ceremony? What disability can prevent someone from standing before witnesses and pledging their lives to one another? The answer, of course, is nothing.
However, if sexual union is required for marriage, then those who are physically unable to join with the opposite sex are therefore unable to marry. (I'm sure there willl be debate about this point)

2) Possible Implications
If marriage is just a lifelong commitment to love one another, exchange of rings, and a ceremony, what necessarily prevents two men or two women from marrying? On the other hand, if sexual intercourse is foundational to marriage, then only a man and woman can be married.

3) To Consummate
What is the definition of "consummate" in the context of marriage?

To complete (a marriage) with the first act of sexual intercourse after the ceremony (Dictionary.com).

Consummation is not an optional bonus - it is the completion of the marriage. In other words, by this definition, a couple isn't married until the marriage is consummated.

Conclusion - I see that marriage requires two essential components - public commitment and private consummation.

As always, I could be wrong. If you disagree with this post, let's chat!

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Mystery of a Different Sort

Will someone please explain a great mystery to me?

I was in Hastings a while ago, searching for a murder/mystery writer I had not read before. I found a goodly selection of his stuff, and wanted to read the back cover copy. If that looked promising, I planned to search for the order of publication and start at the beginning of a series.

What goobered it all up for me was a very loud piece of combination rap-rusty-jagged-metal-music playing loudly over the store's PA system. “Surely, it's just some demanding customer, insisting on a preview,” I thought.
Nope. When I circled the long aisle to peer into the CD section, there was no one there but a glassy-eyed blank-faced slouchy clerk of ambiguous gender. If I had been in an ornier mood, I'd have requested a full-volume preview of the 1812 Overture, the last section with the cannons, dontcha know. Or maybe the climax of Stravinski's Rite of Spring. Or, which Shostakovich symphony is it that is about 90 percent timpanis? That would work. Volume cranked up to where it would crack a bank vault door.

Ok. Here's the mystery I don't understand. Why or how do marketeers suppose that filling the air with trash sound is supposed to make customers purchase stuff? Is there research to support this idea? I don't seem to be able to go anywhere without encountering a boiling sea of noise. Wal-Mart – curse their marketeers – have just installed this blaring speaker at every checkout line. When I complained to the checker, she just rolled her eyes. “Others complain too?” I asked. “We all hate it. Everbody hates it.” Her look was flinty.

Restaurants are some of the worst offenders. I refuse to eat in any Chili's, or Johnny Carino's, especially if I have company with me. I have to shout across the table to be heard. Once I insisted on ordering in a quiet voice. The waiter couldn't hear me. When he asked me to speak up, I mouthed at him, “No. Get the manager over here. Now.” When the manager said, “I can't hear you,” I softly said back at her, “Why not??” The customer's always right, huh? She turned the music down. I never went back. And never will.

What, exactly, is the big deal? Am I the only customer who is NOT deaf?

BQ

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So, What about Chivalry?

The background of this bit is a review of Harvey C. Mansfield's book Manliness by Christina Hoff Sommers in The Weekly Standard, 10 April 2006, Volume 011, Issue 28. For a while, you may read the whole thing here, or drop me a line and I'll send you a copy that I've saved.

Ms. Sommers is the author of The War on Boys which got some folks' blood-pressure up a while ago. Google the title and you'll find pro and con reviews galore.

She begins her review of Mansfield's book with these words:

One of the least visited memorials in Washington is a waterfront statue commemorating the men who died on the Titanic. Seventy-four percent of the women passengers survived the April 15, 1912, calamity, while 80 percent of the men perished. Why? Because the men followed the principle "women and children first."

The monument, an 18-foot granite male figure with arms outstretched to the side, was erected by "the women of America" in 1931 to show their gratitude. The inscription reads: "To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic. ... They gave their lives that women and children might be saved."

Today, almost no one remembers those men. Women no longer bring flowers to the statue on April 15 to honor their chivalry. The idea of male gallantry makes many women nervous, suggesting (as it does) that women require special protection. It implies the sexes are objectively different. It tells us that some things are best left to men. Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.

Since the Pub seems occupied by the manlier sorts of persons, I thought I'd ask what you think of chivalry (Sommers uses the term "gallantry" rather than chivalry, but this is what she's talking about, I'm pretty sure). Is it outdated? Do you think men today seek to be chivalrous? Or do they avoid being chivalrous? Don't men today have a clue as to what chivalry (or gallantry) is?

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