|
| |
REYNOLDS |
|
 |
The Weird World of Internet Infidels
by John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic] 8/22/07
There are some really weird Christians out there, but then given our size that is not surprising.
But spend some time watching the inbred world of Internet infidels and Christians can relax.
This is not to be smug, but to remove a worry that I often find in young Christians. There are few enough actual infidels in the US that Christian young adults often only meet the “best case” infidels through a few books. (There are so few actual secularists in the US that often they will claim anyone who says “other” or “no religion” in a survey. This number includes many theists.)
Contributor
John Mark Reynolds
John
Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of
the Torrey Honors Institute and Associate Professor
of Philosophy at Biola University.His
personal website can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.com and
his blog can be found at http://scriptoriumdaily.com.
[go to Reynolds index] |
Richard Dawkins has his faults, but he is a fine writer and a good pitchman. He is excellent at playing the role of an Oxford scholar.
This gives a false impression of what infidelity actually looks like when practiced.
It is as if almost all Christians died out and we were only known through the writings of C.S. Lewis and public life of Alvin Plantinga.
There are disadvantages to numbers. The cultural space between Christian philosophers and Christian lay people is by size much larger than the gap between their philosophers and the “street infidel.” There are simply fewer of them in the US so that their best leaders are harder to miss.
This sometimes leads Christian young adults to fear that there are even better arguments to be found than are in the popular infidel books.
This is reasonable to assume given their experience with American Christianity. Given its vast size, market forces tend to make the worst most obvious while the better is “hidden.”
It can take years to discover a Richard Swinburne or a Dorothy Sayers in the din of pop culture Christianity.
The good news is that the Internet exposes the truth about American infidelity. It is easy to find the best “anti-Christian” arguments, they are not particularly new, and there is not a hidden bench of talent.
Infidelity can throw a good punch on Bill Maher, but that is about as far as it goes. This is not to say that it is easy to dismiss philosophical naturalism or sophisticated attacks on Christianity. The problem of evil is difficult for Christianity. Philosophers like Edward Wierenga have hard work to do to defend attributes of God against charges of incoherence. It is to say that Christians have heard these arguments and have philosophically respectable answers to them.
Christians on the street who care about apologetics or philosophy become aware of difficulties in Christianity quickly. We read the best popular books on the difficulties of the faith (written by some of the leading skeptics) and these lead pretty quickly to the best philosophers whose work support these pop-infidel writings.
Christian philosophers or apologists (with only a few exceptions) soon gain respect for the intellectual powers of our colleagues on the other side. In the world of professional philosophy of religion, there is great mutual respect on all sides.
The same thing is not true, in my experience, for street-level infidel “apologists.” They show almost no respect for the strength of their opponents, are often unaware of the best attacks on their position, and engage mostly with sneers and disdain. Because of the vast size of American Christianity, it is possible for them to be utterly unaware of the force of the arguments of a Bill Craig.
Recently I wrote a blog post on non-religious reasons to admire Jesus, but the street reaction was illuminating.
Here is the sort of thing one often meets in the world of Internet infidelity:
Your savior is 2000 year old Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree…
And you question *other* people’s judgement if they DON’T believe that?!?
What was this person thinking?
It appears that he or she believes Christian doctrine so foolish that just “translating” our ideas into modern English will show them to be foolish. This would be effective, if this person had paid any attention to what Christian doctrine is. All those Christians who think Jesus is one of the “undead” must worry, but the rest of us don’t have to worry.
The other (charitable) possibility is the idea that Christians are so mentally fragile in their beliefs that a good dose of ridicule will wake us up to our intellectual difficulties. The religion of Charles Williams, Thomas Aquinas, and Eleonore Stump is not so likely to collapse under this sort of assault, but the Internet infidel has not respect for Professor Stump, if he or she is even aware that the good doctor exists.
The Internet infidel has (apparently) never asked why people believe the Christian story. Or if he has it has not occurred to him to ask the question charitably. The other possibility is that he or she simply intends to be offensive.
I believe being a “secularist” (life without the world of the spirit) is bad for a culture and worse for man. I assume that the infidel who wrote the comment above believes the same sorts of things about Christianity . . . but the attack he has chosen shows no respect for his opponents.
Hard, pointed, dialog is great. Parody is fun. On the other hand, the world of Internet infidels shows little or no respect for their opponents.
Perhaps it is Jesus Christ Himself who keeps us from imitating the disdain of the infidels. Whenever I write a parody, my conscience requires me to write a balancing piece that makes clear my respect for the arguments of my opponents. Why? My Lord commands that I “love my enemies” and pray for them. Of course to even mention prayer often brings only disdain and discussion of invisible unicorns and sneers from the infidels. But even if they were right that my prayer for them does nothing for them (and I doubt this), prayer for my enemies does do something good for me.
You cannot despise a man for whom you pray.
Of course, I do not always live up to this standard, but pointing this out makes me sorry and helps me try to do better.
The good news for a Christian is that I do not have to try alone. There is a community of shared belief and the power of the Holy Spirit within me to help in this job.
So I started out with wonder at the weird world of Internet infidels, but ended wondering at my own failure to love my enemies, pray for them, while still engaging in the joy of the rough-and-tumble of intellectual life.
What am I to be?
Never be frustrated. Never be joyless. Never stop learning. Always be skeptical. Always respect my foe and the possibility I might be wrong . . . even about everything.
There is peace and joy in this realization. So I pray for the Internet infidel (and I hope he or she tolerates this eccentricity) if for nothing else because it makes me more loving in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. ExileStreet
copyright
2007 John Mark Reynolds
§
|
q