Thanks for pointing back to this piece. I missed it the first time you shared it.
I couldn’t agree more.
The provocative question in your headline reminded me of a favorite verse from 1 Cor 15… “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (vs 19)
But as I was looking for that verse, I noticed verse 14, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is USELESS and so is your faith.”(!)
It seems to me that a big part of the shallowness and disrepute that we see in evangelicalism comes from efforts to make it useful at the expense of truth claims that we find inconvenient.
Materialism, militarism, nationalism all fly in the face of Christian doctrine and practice but they’re all features of our evangelicalism. We’ve had to do a lot of creative reinterpretation to get there.
Usefulness and truth have to go hand in hand. Manufacturing usefulness apart from truth is a fool’s errand.
Thankyou for this. Both Kisin's analysis & your only "alternative options" gods left if the God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob and the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Messiah exist not in reality but in the necessity of the useful.
"Just useful" and not true would imply truth doesn't matter as something enhances people's behavior. The problem here is that, just like atheism doesn't provide a yard stick for morality, it doesn't provide one for 'useful' either. Useful for what? To whom? If Christianity is not true, it is not useful either, except maybe to serve certain people's agendas.
The first part of the question only makes sense if one can make a valid truth claim. If atheist materialism is true, we can't make any truth claim. We as Christians can't, but atheists can't either. If our thoughts are just the result of chemical reactions in our brain, how can we know they are real. They make appear true, but we can't know.
So in order to answer the question, there must be more than just matter. A consistent atheist should not even consider questions like these. A Christian will never say Christianity is 'just useful'. The purpose of Christianity is not and never was to be 'just useful'. The purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people with God and acknowledge His Lordship over our lives.
The problem I have with the "disillusioned atheists" is that I feel they're holding on to this delusion that they can live in a world without dogma. They're not so much disillusioned with atheism itself but rather with the fact that atheism is "becoming religious".
This isn't aimed at Konstantin since I don't know much about the guy himself. It's sort of how I feel about this phenomenon.
"Is love just a bunch of chemicals squishing around in our brains?" Well yes but I would argue that is the miracle. People argue against intelligent design, or the raw possibility of creation in the name of pure science but science doesn't fill the void very neatly either. There's much to be learned from considering the science but when I look at the science it reinforces the miraculous. That we evolved to have the right chemicals in place, the capacity for love, and that randomly happened...well then God is using chaos for miracles. That is not the universe being indifferent.
There are many disillusioned new atheists who are returning to Christ.
I see the Western Culture needs to choose its purpose, as a directionless society will collapse.
We must either choose a ‘Lust for Power & Control’ or ‘Seek Truth, Beauty & the Good’.
Yeah, I think the New Atheists got old very fast.
Thanks for pointing back to this piece. I missed it the first time you shared it.
I couldn’t agree more.
The provocative question in your headline reminded me of a favorite verse from 1 Cor 15… “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (vs 19)
But as I was looking for that verse, I noticed verse 14, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is USELESS and so is your faith.”(!)
It seems to me that a big part of the shallowness and disrepute that we see in evangelicalism comes from efforts to make it useful at the expense of truth claims that we find inconvenient.
Materialism, militarism, nationalism all fly in the face of Christian doctrine and practice but they’re all features of our evangelicalism. We’ve had to do a lot of creative reinterpretation to get there.
Usefulness and truth have to go hand in hand. Manufacturing usefulness apart from truth is a fool’s errand.
JMH, yes, I agree, 1 Cor 15.19 is a clutch verse for me.
Thankyou for this. Both Kisin's analysis & your only "alternative options" gods left if the God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob and the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Messiah exist not in reality but in the necessity of the useful.
"Just useful" and not true would imply truth doesn't matter as something enhances people's behavior. The problem here is that, just like atheism doesn't provide a yard stick for morality, it doesn't provide one for 'useful' either. Useful for what? To whom? If Christianity is not true, it is not useful either, except maybe to serve certain people's agendas.
The first part of the question only makes sense if one can make a valid truth claim. If atheist materialism is true, we can't make any truth claim. We as Christians can't, but atheists can't either. If our thoughts are just the result of chemical reactions in our brain, how can we know they are real. They make appear true, but we can't know.
So in order to answer the question, there must be more than just matter. A consistent atheist should not even consider questions like these. A Christian will never say Christianity is 'just useful'. The purpose of Christianity is not and never was to be 'just useful'. The purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people with God and acknowledge His Lordship over our lives.
The problem I have with the "disillusioned atheists" is that I feel they're holding on to this delusion that they can live in a world without dogma. They're not so much disillusioned with atheism itself but rather with the fact that atheism is "becoming religious".
This isn't aimed at Konstantin since I don't know much about the guy himself. It's sort of how I feel about this phenomenon.
"Is love just a bunch of chemicals squishing around in our brains?" Well yes but I would argue that is the miracle. People argue against intelligent design, or the raw possibility of creation in the name of pure science but science doesn't fill the void very neatly either. There's much to be learned from considering the science but when I look at the science it reinforces the miraculous. That we evolved to have the right chemicals in place, the capacity for love, and that randomly happened...well then God is using chaos for miracles. That is not the universe being indifferent.