Tag: Jesus

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From Christianity to Atheism?

By Jim Spiegel

When reading or hearing the stories of atheists, certain patterns tend to emerge.  One standard account goes like this:  I was a devout Christian but along the way became dissatisfied with certain aspects of my faith.  As I learned more about the Bible I realized that it is loaded with problems.  After examining it more closely, I concluded that it is horribly unreliable and really just a bunch of made up stories, essentially religious fairy-tales.  This realization, combined with all of the hypocrisy I witnessed among Christians, essentially spelled the end of my faith.  So now I’m a completely fulfilled atheist.  Examples of this basic story abound on the Internet, such as here and here.

Now there are a few things about this journey to un-faith paradigm that bother me and that from a rational standpoint don’t add up.  For one thing, it strikes me as odd that so many atheists moved directly from giving up Christianity to giving up theism.  The Christian faith is just one of three major brands of theism (along with Judaism and Islam).  To falsify one form of this general religious perspective is not to falsify it in all of its forms.  After rejecting Christianity, why not look into one of the other major versions of theism?  Perhaps such atheists will insist that in discovering the Bible is a book of fairy tales they have basically discovered that all religions “of the book” (in this case, all three including the Old Testament) are baseless.  But, then, we may ask, why limit one’s theistic alternatives to these three traditions?  Why not consider generic theism or a non-religious philosophical theism such as that espoused by the likes of Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle?—at least until one has thoroughly reviewed the evidences for God.  Some thinkers, such as Antony Flew late in his career, have done just this, all the while keeping an open mind about the possibility that the world creator had revealed himself in some special way.

The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt
The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt

Another unsettling fact about many atheists is their rejection of Jesus Christ, not just as a religious figure or, more specifically, the God-incarnate savior of humankind, but in toto.  That is, in rejecting Jesus Christ as Christians believe in him, one need not also reject his teachings.  One can deny that Jesus is “Lord” but still recognize his wisdom, even philosophical genius, as evident in his many brilliant discourses and parables.  One might even reasonably say that Jesus is a great philosopher.  As Doug Groothuis shows in his fascinating little book On Jesus, the itinerant Nazarene is undeniably a profound and innovative philosophical mind, whatever else he might be.

Suppose a religious tradition emerged which had as a core teaching the notion that Immanuel Kant was divine and somehow God’s envoy to save humanity from our moral faults, such as by assiduously following the Categorical Imperative, praying in Kant’s name, and so on.  Now if I decided, as I think we all should, that Kant is not the savior, would it make sense to also completely disregard him as a philosopher or otherwise ignore his many valuable insights about ultimate questions?  The same might be said of many other great thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, Hume, and Plantinga.  The fact that none of these thinkers is divine is no excuse to completely ignore them as philosophers and sources of great wisdom.  In fact, we should study their teachings closely regardless of how they might be misconstrued from a religious standpoint.  Other people’s overestimation of their ultimate identity or moral goodness is no reason to ignore their philosophical genius.  Yet, this is what most atheists and other non-Christians do when it comes to Jesus.  They seem to assume that rejection of him as God-incarnate and/or savior of humanity is tantamount to rejecting him as wise or even as a significant ethicist or philosopher of religion.  But these two things are far from equivalent.

For this reason I often implore Christians-turned-atheists to return to Jesus, if only as a student of the man’s philosophical acumen.  Jesus’ logical skill, ethical teachings, anthropological insights, and cultural criticism (usually aimed at religious leaders, which should please any atheist)—not to mention his rhetorical genius and unparalleled influence on world history—all merit close study.  For these reasons we can all benefit from a better understanding of Jesus, whether we call him Lord or merely a great human thinker.

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Santa, Jesus, and the “Reason for the Season”

By Amy Spiegel

I love the Christmas Season with a fanatical zest that sometimes borders on the ridiculous. My house is currently decked out with more lights than Santa’s Workshop. (I must confess, however, that my devotion is counter-acted with my loathing of cold weather and since Jim is not the most festive enthusiast of the holiday season, our decorations are limited to the interior of our house, i.e. the limits of our furnace’s reach.) I wish I could say that my celebration of Jesus’ birth is restricted to “the reason for the season” but I will be frank and say that while I love the solemnity surrounding the birth of the Savior, I embrace many of the secular trappings as well. I suppose it is a bit like planning a child’s birthday party. While there is no denying that the party is for the guest of honor, the event becomes bigger than that. I certainly don’t think Jesus minds sharing the limelight, as long as everyone remembers who the birthday Boy is. A party is still a party, right and I haven’t seen too many five-year-olds complain “Everyone is having too much fun and should really be paying more attention to me!” He is typically in the midst of the all the chaotic frivolity and enjoying himself too much to notice he isn’t the center of attention. If a five-year-old is able to grasp this concept, then, I am fairly confident, so can the Son of God. Then why is it that people get so uptight about “The Reason for the Season”?

Now I am certainly not advising believers to run out and embrace the rabid materialism that is represented by old Saint Nick and his minions, but nor do I believe in hum-bugging your way through the season and calling it religious purity. While I am often annoyed by the myriad Hallmarkish movies out there that define Christmas as “a season to bring families together” or “a time for love,” my annoyance isn’t really that these themes of family and love outshine the celebration of Jesus’ arrival on the planet but rather that they are given outside of the significance of that arrival. Going back to the birthday party analogy, there is nothing wrong with kids having fun at a party. In fact, that’s part of the point. I seriously doubt any child would feel honored by a gathering of his friends in which everyone solemnly sat around just staring at him and saying “It’s your birthday.” In the same way, however, there comes a time in the party where everyone does come together to sing “Happy Birthday” and acknowledge the reason for being there.

A few years back, there was a big to-do regarding whether to say “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Holidays,” or just try to avoid speaking at all during the month of December lest we offend anyone. I do find it frustrating that despite the fact that most Americans observe Christmas in some fashion, the minority often wins cultural battles over faith in the public square. So I went about dispensing holiday cheer with an almost combative zeal. I could almost see in someone’s reaction to my “Merry Christmas” whether we were on the same “team.” And that was when the uneasy realization settled in that just as Christmas is not about how many gifts are under the tree or a puritanical refusal to have fun, it is also not about beating people over the head with baby Jesus. When my attitude changed from winning to sharing my joy with others, I was surprised to see the change in people’s response, whether they were on my team or not. Jesus can kick Santa’s butt, and I am pretty sure He can handle the Scrooges of this world as well.

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Green Grass and Rocky Deserts

By Amy Spiegel

A few years back, I did a Bible study on the life of Moses. Throughout the study, I struggled with a bit of snobbery against the Israelites who seemed like the most pathetic band of “stiff-necked” people ever collected. God turns the Nile into blood, sends a variety of pests to plague the Israelites’ oppressors, and tops it off with the incredible deliverance of the firstborn sons of his people. Then He sends them off into the desert and at the first sign of trouble, they panic and say they wish they were back on the brick-making assembly line. Granted, the first sign of trouble was the entire Egyptian army herding them into the Red Sea.  Nevertheless…this event does not bode well for the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land and what might have been a quick trip there turns into a disaster that makes National Lampoon’s Family Vacation look like a dream excursion and highlights the need to consult Mapquest before setting out on any journey. This pattern of miraculous works followed by tests of faith is repeated throughout all of their sad wanderings to the point where one considers taking Moses aside and saying “Maybe you should reconsider God’s offer to, shall we say, wipe the slate clean with this lot and start afresh.” Seriously, herding cats would have to be a more rewarding vocation. But eventually they arrive in Canaan, establish the nation of Israel and begin their whole dysfunctional pattern again:  miraculous deliverance, test of faith, scoring a big “F” on the test, divine discipline, repentance, miraculous deliverance, and so on. 1500 years later, enter Jesus. Sent as the ultimate Savior, foreshadowed by Moses, he collects a group of followers who seem to be direct descendants of the knuckleheads who gave Moses such a hard time. Obviously, Jesus had the whole “omniscience” thing going on, so at this point one has to begin to question God’s purpose rather than the knuckleheads’ capacity for understanding.

There is definitely a temptation to feel a sense of superiority in reading about the Israelites’ rebellion issues or the Gospels’ descriptions of the disciples’ lack of comprehension (I mean, really guys, I understand when Jesus says “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” that there might be some room for interpretation, but when He says “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life,” did that really leave you scratching your heads and thinking “Hmmm, wonder what He means by that?) I have often wished to be among the few who traveled in the desert with Moses, waiting for that moment when he draws the line in the sand (literally) proclaiming “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” I am so ridiculously (and unrealistically) confident that I would be among the first to jump aboard the Moses Express to Godly Obedience. I have also fantasized, as perhaps many of you have, about being among Jesus’ disciples. Maybe not one of the twelve, but somewhere in the back row, waiting for a characteristically cryptic Jesus question, ready to raise my hand in fine Sunday School fashion and yell “Oh, oh! I know!”

Something has recently struck me though in regards to my desire to experience the stories of the Bible first hand. According to the Savior I so desire to see, I am in a better spot today. When speaking of His ascension, Jesus says He is going away so that the Holy Spirit can come. It doesn’t appear that He was giving us something second best, a sort of spiritual teddy bear to keep us company until He gets back. If we believe the doctrine of the Trinity, He is giving us something equally good. So why do I begrudgingly accept the indwelling of God as if this were a consolation prize? I suppose it has a great deal to do with the limitations of our physicality. We have a great deal of difficulty valuing the unseen over the material. And yet, perhaps the Israelites would lie in their tents at night whispering, peering over to our side of the fence, saying “If only we had God living inside our hearts rather than in the tabernacle. Then we could obey.” I suppose it is our nature to constantly suffer from the “grass is always greener” syndrome. Fortunately, however, we all will someday meet in the middle and bask in the eternal glory of God where all good things meet. In heaven, by God’s grace, I will kiss the feet of Jesus, and the Israelites, who, despite their bad sense of direction, have beaten me there by a few thousand years, will get their indwelling Spirit. Until then, I will try to be content with my allotted grass and look forward to greener pastures ahead rather than longing to be back in rocky deserts.

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

By Amy Spiegel

Our daughter Maggie, age 5, loves classical music. Now, please don’t take this as obnoxious mommy-bragging. She has chosen this genre completely on her own. But to balance that statement, I will add that our three-year-old’s favorite song is “Smoke on the Water” and the older boys are huge Weird Al fans. Anyway, for the last several months, Maggie has been somewhat frustrated in her ability to enjoy the likes of Bach and Beethoven due to the fact that her CD player is broken. The radio still works, however, so we often tune in NPR for her as she is going to sleep. Recently, however, we discovered an all-Christmas station and this has replaced Performance Today for the time being.

Listening to endless renditions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and “It’s Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas,” I have noticed something rather unexpected about a great number of Christmas carols:  Many of them are really, really depressing. Now of course you have many that are upbeat to the point of irritation, but they seem to be in the minority. “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas,” “Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Blue,” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” are just a few of the oldies but goodies; there are also many newer, more hip yet equally disheartening Christmas songs out there. Perhaps the people in charge of programming have a rather pessimistic view of the holidays which compels them to disproportionately tilt the scales in favor of the somber, but I’m not so sure. Even more explicitly religious carols are more solemn than celebratory. Maybe we are supposed to be a little sobered by the events surrounding Christ’s birth. Maybe there is more of Good Friday present in the stable than we care to admit.

Of course, there are many reasons why we might try to obscure the more gloomy aspects of the Christmas story, turning it into a Disneyesque, sanitized version of the truth. For myself, I find this time of year horribly depressing already. It’s overcast most of the time, cold but with little snow. Immediately upon returning from Thanksgiving, I hauled out the ole Christmas decorations and after deciding that the tree and nativity weren’t enough to raise my serotonin, I cleared out several shelves of Christmas lights at Dollar General, cooked enough Christmas cookies to feed several squadrons of elves and commissioned the kids to create a wide variety of Christmas crafts. (Nothing says “Celebrate the birth of the suffering servant” like a wreath made out of marshmallows and an M&M Christmas tree.). Now before having done much reflection, I would have said this feverish decorating frenzy stemmed from a great devotion to celebrating Jesus’ birth, but now it seems all about me and very little to do with the person of Jesus. Certainly the circumstances of his birth read more like something out of Charles Dickens rather than any invention of Walt Disney—poor family without shelter; young mother with a reputation in tatters, etc.

My kids love hearing the stories of their births—how we rushed to the hospital for some, how we thought others would never decide to exit the womb, and so on. What would Joseph and Mary tell Jesus about his arrival? How they were tired and homeless, without friends and family in a strange town? How it was obedience to a much hated foreign power that drew them to the place of his birth, not the latest medical technology? Did they understand that 33 years later, their first born son would travel the same road to deliver himself into the hands of that same authority? Of course, they knew he wasn’t just their son. He was God’s. Sent for their sake, as well as our own, He had his own agenda to fulfill in obedience to the Father.

When we sing songs rejoicing over the birth of Jesus, we rarely have in mind the Son of God dying on the cross for our sin. For it is quite a sorrowful thought to see that helpless babe surrounded by filth and poverty because we are incapable (and unwilling) to save ourselves. As we gather together this Christmas to celebrate Jesus’ Birthday let us rejoice in great humility. Let us commemorate Mary’s desperate cries of labor, tears of joy and sorrow mixing into one flow: Joseph’s humiliation and pride as he welcomed God’s son into such a humble backdrop. And may our hearts fill with gratitude and repentance as we ponder the words of William Chatterton Dix’s in one of my favorite Christmas carols, “What Child is This? Why lies He in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding?  Good Christian, fear; for sinners here the silent Word is pleading.  Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you; hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!” Let us remember the miracle of his birth always keeping in mind the sorrow of his death and the victory of his resurrection. What child is this indeed!