Thursday, 26 June 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

“If only atheists were the skeptics they think they are.”

This article presents an interesting challenge to nonbelievers and believers alike, I think. Based on some of the published thoughts of the great mathematician and thinker, Blaise Pascal, Edward Tingley makes an interesting point about skeptics who claim to be interested in the truth about God. The real seeker for truth will follow the path wherever it leads. Tingley says that most skeptics abandon the search when the material evidence runs out, but base their conclusions of the unknowability or nonexistence of God on just the same lack of evidence that they claim believers base their faith upon. They “prefer their own commitments over reason.”

That belief in God is not irrational (contrary to reason), and shouldn’t be so, is a fairly easy position to defend and one that is conceded by many thoughtful nonbelievers. The real issue is that logical argument based on empirical evidence (that which can be perceived by the five physical senses according to the methods of the physical sciences) does not compel belief. Unbelief is also a rational position and a simpler one since it supposedly doesn’t rely on conjecture, but limits itself to the more tangible possibilities of natural science. But the question true skeptics should be asking is, “What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God’s existence to the powers of my senses?” If the search for God reasonably leads beyond material evidence into the ways known only by the heart, committed seekers are bound to follow. But rather than facing the facts, many atheists and agnostics unwittingly and irrationally limiting their choices to those that suit them:

We are told we should face the facts. Well here they are: The only world in which strictly empirical evidence is the road that we should take in our views about God is a world in which God either shows himself by such evidence or simply does not exist. Those are the options that the agnostic and the atheist like, and it is because they like them that they never pay any attention to the further fact that accompanies these: God might await us down another road. There are three options, not two.

In a world in which God both exists and hides, relying upon conclusive evidence is the way to be wrong about God. Reason delivers three options, but the agnostic and the atheist are not listening to reason; they hear only the options they like, and simply pick the one that suits them.

… It is not true at all that he cannot believe without evidence; he has already done so, having arrived at his commitment to evidence without evidence. Evidence is not his only vehicle of locomotion, and he should admit it. He should notice what his heart is already doing for him, when he lets it.

The whole article is well worth reading and thinking over. I really haven’t done it justice here. But I said at the beginning that this article presents a challenge for believers as well as unbelievers and I want to say something about that. This isn’t something explicitly stated in the article, but I think it’s true because many believers have a tendency to limit their understanding of God by confining it to beliefs with which they are most comfortable. Many Christians, especially those who like to indulge the unbelievers in debates over the evidence, fall into the trap of confining their commitment to God to rational beliefs. They too prefer to spend most of their time below the tree line, content with a relationship with God that fits well with their own understanding and desires rather than follow the ways of the heart up toward the summit, “onto the icy slopes out past the limit of concrete evidence” where our footing is less sure and the risks to our comfort are greater in pursuit of the reward of intimacy with God. There is no passion to know God, only to know truths about Him. We need to follow our hearts where our heads can’t take us.

All this is no excuse for irrational religion. Our rational faculties are a gift from God, meant to be used well. They serve to guide the heart, but they have limits that the heart is able to surpass. If we choose to follow God only within those limits, are we really much better off than the unbelievers? Pascal had a brilliant mind and was also a passionate believer. We can learn as much from him as the skeptics can.

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Thursday, 3 April 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

In August of 1999 my family took an unforgettable trip to Israel with other members of our church to visit some of the many interesting archeological and historical sites in that country, the birthplace of the Christian faith. It was very good to learn more about the time and places of Jesus’ life and ministry in context. I came away with a renewed appreciation for the historical significance of my faith and a lasting desire to learn more.

One of the best places on the Web for news of an historical nature about the Holy Land is Todd Bolen’s Bible Places website and blog. They are a great educational resource. It has been especially helpful in setting the record straight on sensational news media controversies like “The Tomb of Jesus” and 60 Minutes’ recent treatment of the James Ossuary. It’s interesting to see how the popular media take sides in each of these cases; how much more skeptical they are of the authenticity of the James Ossuary than they are of the Jesus Family Tomb. The common slant is one to undermine the historical basis for the Christian faith. This seems to be their way of observing Easter for us. From these accounts the bias seems deliberate, not due to ignorance or sloppy editing of interviews. I wonder how much damage this sort of thing does to the public opinion of Christianity. Discovery Communications (who bills itself as “The number-one nonfiction media company“) and CBS certainly command a wider audience than the rebuttals ever will, but those of us with any stake in the truth will always dig deeper. For those who do, sad to say, it’s not surprising that there is so much distrust of the popular news media these days.

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Monday, 24 March 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

In all of my life I have never had to have an internal surgical procedure. That changed in late February. I guess I was overdue. I discovered that I needed to get a couple of hernias patched. These days this surgery is considered a low risk, outpatient procedure and I had a lot of confidence in the surgeon and the surgical method he would use so I wasn’t terribly worried or scared. Still, finding out for the first time that you are going to be laid out on a table, knocked out for a few hours and… was a little disconcerting. I’ll spare you the medical details. Anyone who has been through this knows them already. Those who haven’t probably don’t care to know them. I’m more interested in looking at the spiritual side of the experience: how to make the best of it. Read on if you’re interested.

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Thursday, 6 March 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Cor. 12:12-26)

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Thursday, 14 February 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:1-8 ESV).

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Thursday, 27 December 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I never tire of reminding people that Christmas lasts twelve days and it takes all of Advent to prepare for it.  More each year I try to observe Advent in the old way, as a time of preparation for receiving Christ anew in to my life. I still enjoy some of the parties and festivity that lead up to Christmas Day, but spiritually I try to keep those in the background and focus more consciously on what the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus Christ) means for the world and for me. I’m not always as “successful” as I think that I should be but I’m hardly disappointed and I keep trying. Robert Webber’s book, Ancient-Future Time is a very inspiring description of the ways in which Christians can use liturgical year observances to deepen their faith and open their lives to God’s transforming power. I’ve been using some of Webber’s ideas to guide our “Prayer at Six” meetings during Advent. Here’s a summary: Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, 22 November 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I once took a trip to Disney World with my family and we stayed for a week. Much of it was fun, but after a few days in that world I began to have an uneasy feeling. Disney World is a fabricated experience that is made to be as totally enveloping as possible. Everywhere you go there are amusements, entertainments, displays and details that seem to blur the line between fantasy and reality. The transportation, the restaurants and living accommodations are all part of the design. I went into a building designed to look like a church in Norway which wasn’t really a church building. The apartment we stayed in was modeled to look like a tree house out of Swiss Family Robinson but it wasn’t built in a real tree. I saw robots designed to look and act like humans and humans dressed up and acting like robots. After a few days of living in this world I looked up at the stars in the night sky and the thought crossed my mind, “at least those are real, aren’t they?” As much fun as Disney World was, especially for the kids, I was happy to get back to the real world. But how real is the world I live in? Read the rest of this entry »

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Monday, 15 October 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

When I was looking around for a devotional topic for last week’s Prayer at Six meeting, I came across the evening devotional for that date (October 8th) in Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening. The 20th verse of the book of Jude exhorts us to “pray in the Holy Spirit.” In this devotional reading, Spurgeon gives his rendition of what this means. First, he characterizes prayer as a two-way relationship with God when he says that, “Only the prayer which comes from God can go to God.” Prayer is a conversation with God, not a monologue. Prayers that are entirely self-motivated have little effect. He then goes on to describe five qualities of praying in the Spirit. We considered the first one at this evening’s meeting: “Praying in the Holy Spirit is praying in fervency. Cold prayers ask the Lord not to hear them. Those who do not plead with fervency, plead not at all. As well speak of lukewarm fire as of lukewarm prayer—it is essential that it be red hot.” This got me to thinking about what fervency means for prayer. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, 13 September 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I’m not a huge fan of Brian McLaren, but I really like what he has to say in the following video. The programmed worship experience does seem pretty hollow after awhile. And the attitude that we are consumers of the worship experience rather than participants in an offering of worship seems rather prevalent in many churches. The tight control and planning that goes into many programmed worship services is suffocating sometimes. I think much of it is motivated by the fear of what visitors might think if something a little off the plan happened. But who can really know what’s in the mind of the brave soul who walks through your church doorway for he first time? They might be turned off by artificial feel your well executed program!

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Thursday, 6 September 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

For devoted Christians who struggle with clinical depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia this book will be a godsend. The author is a trained theologian and Anglican priest who has experienced these forms of mental illness and anguish first-hand. The title comes from a translation of the last verse of Psalm 88.  Subtitled, “A Christian Response to Mental Illness“, the book is not so much a chronicle of her experience as it is one of her effort to find meaning in that experience through her Christian faith. Christians have often experienced suffering in one form or another, but mental illness bears a stigma that makes it a form of suffering that is often borne in secret. In sharing her struggle, the author reveals remarkable insight and courage with a touch of humor. She bravely confronts those who do not understand her experience–from fellow Christians with less than helpful advice to secular psychiatrists who show bafflement or even distain for her religion–even while accepting from them whatever is true or helpful. The only true enemy she has is her illness and its symptoms. She comes through her struggle wounded but transformed by the experience, a whole person, able to find meaning in it in the light of her faith in Christ. Read the rest of this entry »

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