If our heritage is one of cultural engagement, what happened to the evangelical movement? What happened to the legacy left behind by men and women like William Wilberforce and Elizabeth Fry?

Well, I’ve written before about an argument that erupted in Christian churches about a hundred years ago. I’ve talked about how one group of scholars got together and decided that Jesus was merely a wise and moral teacher. He went around doing a lot of good, but he never actually performed any miracles. I mean, miracles don’t really happen, do they? Of course not. So, let’s dispense with all the nonsense about virgin birth and walking on water and healing sick people and all that. Let’s especially do away with the silly notion of a bodily resurrection. Jesus was just a wise and moral teacher, and we would do well to learn from him. Let’s not say he was God in a body.

But the other side of the theological spectrum maintained their belief in Jesus as God — Jesus as second member of the Trinity — Jesus as sinless, supernatural and divine.

There was actually a deeper argument that led the two camps to these two positions. It had to do with the way we read the Bible. Theological liberals said we shouldn’t take the Bible literally when it talks about things like sin and miracles and people being unable to save themselves. They believed that the Bible is really just trying to teach us how to be better people. So, we take the moral and ethical teachings to heart. We leave the rest behind, chalking it up to primitive people trying to understand the unknowable God of the universe.

Theological conservatives fought against liberalism tooth and nail, publishing a series of 12 short books called The Fundamentals (that’s where we get the term “Christian fundamentalist” from).

Sadly, the conservative group thought it was so important to defend their doctrinal purity that they felt justified in ignoring social concerns. In fact, bringing up social concerns like feeding the hungry and caring for marginalized people came under some suspicion from conservatives. They began to think that if you talked about human rights, you were probably a liberal.

Liberals seized on this moral high ground and began to criticize capitalism, advocating something akin to a Christian socialism, believing it might be possible to bring about a truly Christian society through political and social action.

Conservatives chose to focus on evangelism. Liberals chose to focus on social and political concerns.

Now, you tell me: Did the conservatives have a point? What about the liberals? Did they also have a point?

Is it possible to bring the two concerns back together, and — if so — how?

The idea of Christians being involved in social concerns is hardly new. In fact, we have a long history of working for social and economic justice.

One historian (J. Wesley Bready) notes how prior to the Evangelical Revival in the 19th Century, England was sliding headlong towards chaos and anarchy. Life-expectancy was low. Alcoholism was high. Gambling was prevalent. Abuses against women and children were atrocious. Bear-bating. Bribery. Corruption. He writes, “Such manifestations suggest that the British people were then perhaps as deeply degraded and debauched as any people in Christendom.”

But then something happened. Things began to change. Slavery was abolished. The prison system was reformed. Working conditions improved. Education became available for poor kids. Bready continues:

Whence, then, this pronounced humanity? — this passion for social justice, and sensitivity to human wrongs? there is but one answer commensurate with stubborn historical truth. It derived from a new social conscience. And if that social conscience, admittedly, was the offspring of more than one progenitor, it nonetheless was mothered and nurtured by the Evangelical Revival of vital, practical Christianity — a revival which illumined the central postulates of the New Testament ethic, which made real the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of men, which pointed the priority of personality over property, and which directed heart, soul and mind, towards the establishment of the Kingdom of Righteousness on earth (J. Wesley Bready, England Before and After Wesley: The Evangelical Revival and Social Reform).

In other words, what kept England from devolving into a bloody revolution like France? The social conscience provided by orthodox Christianity. What activated activists like William Wilberforce and Elizabeth Fry? They were not simply content to engage in evangelism, leaving those evangelized to sort things out on their own. They worked tirelessly to overturn corrupt systems and promote social justice and political and economic reform.

Why?

They didn’t do these things in spite of their Christianity. They did these things precisely because of their Christianity.

If John Wesley was the leading figure of such revival in England, similar things came in the wake of the American revivals led by Charles Finney. Though he was known as a fiery evangelist, Finney’s background was as a lawyer and his concern was as much for reform as it was for revival. In fact, he believed that the lack of cultural engagement on the part of Christians grieved the Holy Spirit and kept revival from coming in many places.

It’s no wonder that a small army of abolitionists and missionaries arose out of those tents where Finney preached. They took medicine and education to the remotest corners of the world — not as evangelistic tools but as expressions of their newfound love and compassion for all people.

Today is the 40th Anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Is there a better example in the 20th Century of a man whose Christian beliefs led him to engage the culture around him? He was not content to simply preach the gospel; he was compelled to live the gospel — even if such a life would lead to his ultimate death.

Christian revival has always led to social and cultural engagement. That’s a matter of historical record in both America and England.

Now the question is: Where are the Wesleys and Finneys of today? Are there any Wilberforces or Frys and Kings out there?

Another question: Have you ever felt your Christian beliefs pushing you to get involved in something outside of the four walls of your local church?

“All I am in private life is a literary critic and historian, that’s my job. And I’m prepared to say on that basis if anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends or novels, then that person is simply showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I’ve read a great many novels and I know a fair amount about the legends that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels are not that kind of stuff.”

C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, Walter Hooper, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), p. 209

I went to school. I attended classes here, here and here (though that last one probably won’t claim me anymore). Eventually I started working my way toward a Doctorate in Philosophy here (and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for my wife telling me she was pregnant with our third daughter — something about having to choose between food on the table or initials after my name).

In each of those institutions of higher learning there were multiple scholars who had specialized in studying Christianity — devoted huge chunks of their lives to learning the history, languages, etc. that make Christianity what it is.

And these are not the only places of such scholarship. There are literally hundreds of colleges, universities and seminaries across the globe where rigorous and careful study of the Christian religion takes place. And it has been this way for nearly 2,000 years.

This is not the case for the Mithraic religion.

In fact, from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s there was really just one guy who could claim any level of scholarship and expertise in the field of Mithraic studies. That guy’s name: Franz-Valery-Marie Cumont.

He was a brilliant man — especially learned in the fields of history and archeology — and his scholarship is invaluable to many — particularly those who study comparative religion.

But he was just one guy. There was no community of scholarship with which to compare and contrast his theories. And, several decades after his death, most of his theories were denounced.

It doesn’t make him a bad guy. It just makes him a bad source to cite when you’re trying to disprove Christianity.

And that’s where most of the people who claim that Christianity actually stole the majority of its ideas about Jesus from Mithras go wrong.

Cumont had this idea that the Mithras cult as it existed in 2nd Century Rome was the same as the Mithras cult as it existed in 4th Century BC Iran and India. No credible historian believes this anymore. The only people who mention it are people who don’t do their homework.

Scholarship is hard, but it’s sometimes necessary. The historicity of Jesus’ Resurrection is too important to take shortcuts. So, let’s check our sources carefully. And, more importantly, let’s check our motives.

Again, I want to end with a couple of questions:

Why would someone want to disprove Jesus’ Resurrection? What might they gain from believing it to be a myth?

Last night, Susan Fulford left this comment:

You do realise of course that the resurrection story was quite a common theme in the mystery religions at least 400 years before the supposed death of Jesus. In fact if you check your classsical history and check the cult of “Mythras” , you will find that Mythras was around (according to the Persians), around 400BC. His birth date was 25 December and he had 12 helpers or “disciples” who preached his doctrine. Also he was put to death but rose again. The Mythras cult was not the only one which expounded the resurrection story. there were several, all of which existed 100’s of years before Jesus lived. I suggest you read up on these mystery cults so that you can get a more informed and wider view of the historical background. That is, look at all the facts!

Ordinarily I would just delete this. I doubt she is really interested in any kind of dialog and probably meant to just be a pain in my side. But this business about Jesus’ Resurrection is important. If it is true, it is the most important business in human history. So, I’m going to take on the idea that Christianity borrowed from the cult of Mythras.

I fear this may bore some of you. I’ll do my best to make this concise and interesting. Again, this is one of those statements that gets made from time to time as an attempt to shut the mouths of Christians who insist on speaking of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus as if it actually happened. It would be wise to have some kind of response at the ready.

Okay — to set the stage: There was a time when Mithraism actually competed with Christianity for people’s loyalty. Today, Islam is on the rise. Celebrities join the Church of Scientology regularly. You might have a friend who recently announced that they have become a Buddhist.

You never hear of someone joining Mithraism anymore. It is essentially a dead religion.

But it’s still a factor in this one arena: It is where skeptics (usually — as we shall see — skeptics who haven’t done a lot of homework) are most likely to point and claim that Christianity is a copycat religion.

This theory comes from some strange books that have been released in recent years (The Christ Conspiracy and Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled by Acharya S and The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty are among the most popular). These books make the claim that what we believe about Jesus is mostly stuff the ancient Persians believed about Mithras first. Only later did people take those beliefs and apply them to Jesus. In fact, the theory is now being bandied about that Jesus never actually existed but was created (a theory no historian in his or her right mind actually believes).

Among the things allegedly borrowed from Mithraism:

• Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25 in a cave
• Mithra was an itinerant teacher with 12 disciples
• Mithra performed many miracles and promised his followers eternal life
• Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace
• Mithra was buried in a tomb and rose from the dead after three days
• Mithra’s followers continued to spread his teaching and celebrated his resurrection annually — on the day that has now become Easter
• Mithra’s followers referred to him as the Good Shepherd, the Lion, the Lamb, the Way, the Truth and the Light, Logos, Redeemer, Savior and Messiah
• Mithras wanted his followers to gather on the first day of the week to celebrate a “Lord’s Supper”
• These gatherings would be overseen by “Fathers” and the Father of all the Fathers (kind of like a Pope) lived in Rome

Okay, I’m going to spend some time delving into all this in the coming days. I’ll need to do a little background first — to talk about Mithraic studies in general over the past few decades.

For today, I’d like to hear from you.

Does any of this matter? Why should we care whether or not Christianity has incorporated ideas and concepts from other religions — even myths?

Christians have always been pioneers in the fields of education and learning. For various reasons (some good and some bad), Christians have always started schools, teaching people not only Christian doctrine but to read and write well, to appreciate and understand science, medicine and mathematics. This has been true since the days of Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria (both of whom differed from other educators in that they admitted male and female students).

Contrary to what some would have us believe, real Christians have always championed the cause of education — from the middle of the second century to this day.

But why? Why has education always been so important to Christians?

Plantinga sums up the real reason why education and learning are so important for Christians (or at least why they should be):

The point of all this learning is to prepare to add one’s own contribution to the supreme reformation project, which is God’s restoration of all things that have been corrupted by evil (Engaging God’s World, xii).

How is this different or similar to the ways in which you see Christian institutions approach education and learning?

The guys who started the Protestant Reformation were great with words and slogans.

Sola Scriptura

Sola Fides

Sola Christo

Sola Deo Gloria

In making a doctrinal statement, they carefully chose words with a certain precision. Scripture alone (and not the traditions of men) was their guiding force. Faith alone (and not works) was the pathway to justification. Christ alone (and not a Church official) was their Mediator. God alone (and not the church) would receive the glory.

But there was another phrase that they used — perhaps more powerful than any of the others — at least in terms of its world-changing impact.

Post Tenebras Lux

After darkness, light.

They were stating their belief that the Roman Catholic Church had held Christians captive, chained in darkness. What they believed God was doing through the Reformation was bringing his light to bear on this despicable darkness.

“Dark” and “light” are loaded terms — easily as fraught with ambiguities as “truth” and “falsehood”. No one comes out opposed to truth and in favor of falsehood. Instead, they try to depict their viewpoint as being real truth — a different kind of truth perhaps. Likewise, no one stands up and makes a case for remaining in the dark. Everyone prefers light to darkness, right?

Well…not according to the Bible. But we’ll talk about that later (I know I keep saying that, but I want to do this a little bit at a time to make sure I’m thinking correctly and everyone’s keeping up).

The early Reformers did exactly what the Religious Right did — rhetorically speaking. The Religious Right said that they were “Pro-Family” — as if the Secular Left was “Anti-Family”. The Reformers said that they were in favor of light — as if the Roman Catholic Church preferred darkness.

And it worked for a while.

The problem is that neither the Reformed side nor the Roman Catholic side realized that there was another side in the debate. There were folks who weren’t interested in Roman Catholicism or Reformation theology. And they decided to launch an attack in the 18th Century — a time not just of reformation but of revolution.

This was a time when lots of philosophers saw an opportunity to eliminate not just church tradition but the Bible itself as a viable source of knowlege and guidance. They believed that it wasn’t just Roman Catholicism but religion itself that blinded people and kept them in the dark. Now that people were coming of age, they could be trusted to figure out the world by human reason alone.

Thus was born “The Enlightenment”.

And one of their most important slogans was borrowed from the Reformation 200 years earlier: Post Tenebras Lux.

Everyone loves light, right? Who wouldn’t want to be enlightened? Would you rather stay in the dark with the cavemen? Light is always better, isn’t it?

Do you suppose there was some downside to “The Enlightenment”?

It’s been a while since I posted something about Aquinas, but his arguments for God’s existence still occupy my thoughts. These days, the debate over whether or not God exists has shifted. We don’t hold a medieval worldview anymore. Aquinas believed his proofs were as much scientific as they were theological, but now there is an ever-widening gap between scientific language and theological language (not necessarily science and theology — just the language the two camps tend to employ) which many people have a difficult time bridging.

Many contemporary thinkers think it’s unlikely that a scientific demonstration of God’s existence can be given. They point to Aquinas’ prior faith in God as the basis for the proofs he offers. In other words, Aquinas believed in God and reasoned from that belief to a pre-determined conclusion. Of course, the same can be said of Hume and others on the other side of the debate. People tend to believe what they believe and reason outward from the belief.

Some have even come to question what terms like “God” and “exists” actually mean. If God exists, how does God exist? The traditional notion of God as a personal, loving Father and all-powerful Creator who is actively involved in our world, who desires community with humans is now seen as naive or superstitious.

Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was one of the most important and influential theologians of the last century. He suggested a new definition of faith: “Ultimate Concern”. Tillich was an existentialist and claimed that God doesn’t exist in the same way everything else exists. But he followed that up by saying that if God doesn’t exist in the same way everything else exists, then maybe God doesn’t really exist at all.

Tillich came to believe that the representation of God in the Bible is really a picture of ultimate human experience. He rejected the belief in a personal God and said that God was really just “the ground of our being.”

If that language sounds a little inaccessible, it is. It took a man named John A.T. Robinson to translate these ideas into popular language. In 1963, Robinson published Honest to God. In it, Robinson suggested that the life of Christ contains an example for all to follow and insights for all to share. Rather than viewing Jesus Christ through the lens of deity, he said, we should view him through the lens of human potential. The truly good life became actualized in Jesus and was now possible for the rest of us. That, he said along with Tillich, is the real truth and strength of Christianity.

The language and nature of the debate over God’s existence has shifted substantially, but the fact of the debate has not. People exist. The world exists. But does God exist? And if so, how does God exist? And how do you know?

When I was a kid, we used to sing a song called “He Lives!” The chorus went like this:

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.

He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart.

You ask me how I know he lives?

He lives within my heart.

This is what is known as “The Argument from Religious Experience”. I know it because I’ve experienced it. But is that a good enough reason? Would that kind of argument ever convince someone else?

Thomas Aquinas set out five ways or “proofs” of God’s existence.

IN WAY ONE, Aquinas offered the evidence of change in the world. He wrote, “Now anything in process of change is being changed by something else.” Using Aristotle’s idea of an Unmoved Mover, Aquinas reasoned, “If the hand does not move the stick, the stick will not move anything else. Hence one is bound to arrive at some first cause or change not itself being changed by anything, and this is what everybody understands by ‘God’.”

IN WAY TWO, Aquinas focused on cause and effect in the world. “Now if you eliminate a cause you also eliminate its effects, so that you cannot have a last cause, nor an intermediate one, unless you have a first.” Aquinas did not believe in an infinite chain of causes and effects reaching back into eternity. “One is therefore forced to suppose some first cause, to which everyone gives the name ‘God’.”

IN WAY THREE, he takes up the idea of being and non-being in the world. The fact is that things exist, but they don’t really need to exist. On top of that, there was a time when they did not exist, and there will be a time when they no longer exist. “Now everything cannot be like this, for a thing that need not be, once was not, and if everything need not be, once upon a time there was nothing….” Aquinas asserted that if nothing in the world needed to exist, there must have been a time when nothing existed. Logic told him that nothing can come from nothing. “One is forced therefore to suppose something which must be, and owes this to no other thing than itself; indeed it itself is the cause that other things must be.” In this, Aquinas actually sounds a lot like Anselm. Both believed that objects in the world have contingent existance (they can exist, but they don’t have to exist), but only God has necessary existence (God must exist to be God). If God did not exist then nothing could exist, because creation is dependent upon God’s necessary existence to exist at all.

IN WAY FOUR, Aquinas concentrated on degrees of goodness and perfection in the world. “For example, things are hotter and hotter the nearer they approach what is hottest. Something therefore is the truest and best and most noble of things, and hence the most fully in being; for Aristotle says that the truest things are the things most fully in being.” Aquinas went on to write, “There is something therefore which causes in all other things their being, their goodness and whatever other perfections they have. And this we call ‘God’.”

IN WAY FIVE, Aquinas pointed to goals and order in nature. “For their behavior hardly ever varies, and will practically always turn out well; which shows that they truly tend to a goal, and do not merely hit it by accident. Nothing that lacks awareness tends to a goal, except under the direction of someone with awareness and understanding; the arrow, for example, requires an archer. Everything in nature, therefore, is directed to its goal by someone with understanding, and this we call ‘God’.”

There you have the five ways or “proofs” of God’s existence offered up by perhaps the most brilliant mind of medieval theology and philosphy. His ideas have been debated and criticized, but they’re still around. Like most people with an “NT” temperament (I’m an INTJ for those of you interested in such things) I find that Thomistic Spirituality really resonates with me.

Now, let me ask you a question: Do you think any of these Five Ways might be helpful if you were talking to someone who didn’t believe in God or wasn’t sure? Which one(s) and why?

Thomas Aquinas began by asking three questions:

1. Is it self-evident that there is a God?

2. Can it be made evident?

3. Is there a God?

Aquinas himself was convinced that the existence of God was not self-evident. You can’t describe God the way you describe a tree or a mountain. You can’t see, hear, smell, taste or touch God. He was also convinced, though, that the natural features of the world provide a great deal of evidence for God’s existence.

In order to prove God’s existence, Aquinas began with what people saw and experienced every day. Unlike Anselm, he did not believe that understanding the term “God” is enough to show that God exists. He rejected Anselm’s a priori Platonic proof, which begins in the mind, and concentrated on five a posteriori Aristotelian proofs, which begin with the real world.

Aquinas figured:

The awareness that God exists is not implanted in us by nature in any clear or specific way. Admittedly, man is aware of what by nature he desires, and he desires by nature a happiness which is to be found only in God. But this is not, simply speaking, awareness that there is a God, any more than to be aware of someone approaching is to be aware of Peter, even should it be Peter approaching. Many, in fact, belive the ultimate good which will make us happy to be riches, or pleasure, or some such thing.

In other words, God is not obvious.

So, Aquinas rejected Anselm’s Platonism and thought it was impossible to climb from “truth” to “Truth” and call that Ultimate Truth “God”.

There are some today who argue with the very existence of truth (never mind “Truth” or “Ultimate Truth”). Perhaps, if Aquinas lived today, the question he would wrestle with would be: If we can define neither truth, Truth nor Ultimate Truth, can the term “God” have any meaning at all?

In other words, in a world where truth has not merely gone out of fashion but is considered non-existent, how can one become convinced of the existence of God? And what kind of God would that be?