Love God With All Your Mind part 2
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Part 2 in the series. According to Jesus, the greatest commandment in the Old Testament is: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37-38). How are we to fulfill this commandment, especially the part about loving God with all our mind? Jesus implied that what we think and what we believe is extremely important to God, and being a thinking Christian is a major part of our loving God. Using Dr. J.P. Moreland's book, Love Your God With All Your Mind, this class will explore how we can use our minds to love and glorify God.
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Love God With All Your Mind part 2
- 1. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies
- 2. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies How did this come about?
- 3. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Edwards Mather Harvard
- 4. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind” Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27 Heart Mind Soul
- 5. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Literacy Rate 89%-95% Edwards Mather Harvard Puritans focus on intellect, spiritual and emotional Puritans build some of the finest colleges Newton Jonathan Edwards
- 6. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Focus on Experience Edwards Mather Harvard Education started to focus on specific disciples – science divorced from theology Theology separated form other disciplines and intellectual pursuits were abandoned Newton Great Awakening George Whitefield
- 7. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Legacy of the 1800’s revivals “But their overall effect was to overemphasize immediate personal conversion to Christ instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction; emotional, simple, popular preaching instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons; and personal feelings and relationship to Christ instead of a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teachings and ideas.” J. P. Moreland, Love God With All Your Mind, pg 23 “Anti-intellectualism was a feature of American Revivalism.” George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1980 pg. 212
- 8. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Edwards Mather Harvard Secular subculture in academics Science and Religion seen at odds Draper & White A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1869-96) A History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) Newton Draper White Darwin
- 9. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Focus on Experience Edwards Mather Harvard Draper & White Jehovah's Witnesses Mormonism Newton
- 10. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Edwards Mather Harvard Draper & White Newton Today ??????????
- 11. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 German Higher CriticismHume Kant On the Origin of Species Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s Puritans Edwards Mather Harvard Draper & White Newton Today’s Cultural Perception Science = Fact Religion = Myth People look to science for issues of morality. Example: Darwinism plays a strategic part in rationalizing eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, Marxism, relativism, and genocide.
- 12. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Impact • Intellectually shallow, theologically illiterate form of Christianity. (Anti-intellectualism) • Believers grew suspicious of intellectual issues altogether. • Birth of Mormonism (1830). • Birth of Jehovah’s Witnesses (1884). • Philosophies critical of religious thought, especially from Europe (Immanuel Kant & David Hume) went unanswered. • Darwinian Evolution made the world safe for Atheists. • Growth of scientism.
- 13. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Secularization’s Influence On Culture • Darwinism plays a strategic part in rationalizing eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, Marxism, relativism, and genocide. • "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- 14. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Influence on culture • America is secularized politically and intellectually. • Not all the way down to the level of the guy on the street. • Secular subculture in American education system, mass media and upper echelons of legal system. • "they are very influential, as they control the institutions that provide the 'official' definitions of reality.“ Peter Berger
- 15. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Influence in the Church 1. A misunderstanding of faith's relationship to reason. 2. The separation of the secular and the sacred. 3. Weakened world missions. 4. Anti-intellectualism has spawned an irrelevant gospel. 5. A loss of boldness in confronting the idea structures in our culture with effective Christian witness.
- 16. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies If salt loses its saltiness • Church’s impact on society is diminished • No understanding of a Christian way of seeing the world • Christian worldview not see as important/relevant • Church is marginalize and silence • Separation of faith from reason • Authoritative foundation for knowledge and morality lost • Science filled the void • Society has to rely on political coercion
- 17. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies If salt loses its saltiness • Human rights shift • Was base on Creator • Minimalistic ethics • Replaced with do no harm • For Christians rights come for intrinsic value, now granted by the state • The Church is supposed to an instrument of reason for society
- 18. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Resulting Worldviews • Moral relativism • Autonomous individualism • Narcissistic Hedonism • Reductive Naturalism
- 19. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies
- 20. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Where are we today in the Church? Moralistic Therapeutic Deism • A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. • God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. • The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. • God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. • Good people go to heaven when they die.
- 21. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Where are we today? “…it is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith."
- 22. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Summary • Modern evangelicals emphasize experience and activism at the expense of theology • Their minds go fuzzy as they downplay doctrine • Christian are neither prepared nor inclined to enter intellectual debates • Moral confusion
- 23. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Resources
- 24. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Recommended Books to start with
- 25. ©2015 T hird Colum n Ministr ies Thank you for participating! • Register for future sessions • Suggest future topics • Be a guest speaker www.thirdcolumnministries.org/the-forum
Editor's Notes
- Stewardship of the Mind A Christian Argument for Fostering Intellectual Virtue
- Why we lost the Christian mind and why we must recover it Chapter 1, Love Your God With All Your Mind, J. P. Moreland The History of anti-intellectualism How we have neglected the use of our intellects to acquire Biblical knowledge. Historical downslide. How we have failed to engage the pseudo-rationalism of secularism and how that has lead Western society away from it’s Christian foundations. We have failed to answer criticisms rationally and thus we have lost the right to be heard in some people minds. Instead Christian ideas are mocked.
- In the 1600’s the Puritans were highly educated with a 89-95% literacy rate. Children learned how to read and write by age 6. They studies art, science, philosophy and other fields. "Ignorance is not the mother of devotion but of heresy." Puritan, Cotton Mather. Jonathan Edwards (1707-1758) Edwards is widely acknowledged to be: America's most important and original philosophical theologian and one of America's greatest intellectuals Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Jonathan Edwards," First published Tue Jan 15, 2002; substantive revision Tue Nov 7, 2006: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/edwards/ George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003), pg. 498–505. Picture: Engraved by R Babson & J Andrews; Print. by Wilson & Daniels (Public Domain)
- Historical Overview The emergence of anti-intellectualism Focus on getting someone to believe with catchy sales pitches not intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons Evangelical withdrawal The Church started to focus on feelings and emotions Critical attacks on religious thought were unchallenged Dawn of anti-intellectualism In the 1800’s there was a shift in the Church. Focus toward meeting felt needs. Focus was placed on getting people ‘in’. Grown out of the First Awakening. George Whitefield’s emotionally directed sermons. Full blown mid 1800’s. The Second Great Awakening (1800-1820). Revivals of Charles Finney (1824-1837). Layman’s Prayer Revival (1856-1858). “Anti-intellectualism was a feature of American Revivalism.” George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 1980 pg. 212 Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was a theme both of the Age of Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy. His ideas influenced many thinkers in Germany during his lifetime, and he moved philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists and empiricists “The emerging anti-intellectualism in the church created a lack of readiness for the widespread intellectual assault on Christianity that reached full force in the late 1800s. . . . .First, . . . .the views of David Hume . . . .and Immanuel Kant, altered people’s understanding of religion. Hume claimed that the traditional arguments for God’s existence . . . .were quite weak . . . .that since we cannot experience God with the five senses, the claim that God exists cannot be taken as an item of knowledge. . . . .Kant asserted that human knowledge is limited to what can be experienced with the five sense, and since God cannot be so experienced, we cannot know He exists. . . . .Confidence was shaken in arguments for the existence of God and the rationality of the Christian faith. . . . fewer and fewer people regarded the Bible as a body of divinely revealed, true propositions about various topics that require a devoted intellect to grasp and study systematically. Instead, the Bible increasingly was sought solely as a practical guide for ethical guidance and spiritual growth.” Moreland P. 23-24 "George Whitefield (head)" by John Russell - http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/largerimage.php?sText=George+Whitefield+&submitSearchTerm.x=9&submitSearchTerm.y=12&page=1&search=ss&OConly=true&firstRun=true&role=sit&LinkID=mp04806&rNo=1. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Whitefield_(head).jpg#mediaviewer/File:George_Whitefield_(head).jpg "Immanuel Kant (painted portrait)" by unspecified - /History/Carnegie/kant/portrait.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Immanuel_Kant_(painted_portrait).jpg#mediaviewer/File:Immanuel_Kant_(painted_portrait).jpg "Painting of David Hume" by Allan Ramsay - http://portraitnation.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/ramsay-and-hume/. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Painting_of_David_Hume.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Painting_of_David_Hume.jpg
- Revivalist movements of the 1730s-1750s and the 1800s, although fostering much that was good, also led to anti-intellectualism. What was omitted was a studied period of reflection and conviction, intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons, and a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teaching and ideas. An intellectually shallow, theologically illiterate form of Christianity came to be a part of the populist Christian religion that emerged. Moreland P. 23.
- Once the Church retreated from academia the Church became a target of academics. John William Draper (1811−1882) Andrew Dickson White Science and Religion Professor Lawrence M. Principe The Church was: Marginalization Trivialization Isolation from the public arena Church no longer has a voice: The reinterpretation of what the separation of Church and State meant: From protecting the Church from the influence of the state. To protecting the state from the influence of the Church. “Second, German higher criticism of the Bible called its historical reliability into question. . . . . believers grew suspicious of the importance of historical study in understanding the Bible and in defending its truthfulness. An increased emphasis was placed on the Holy Spirit in understanding the Bible as opposed to serious historical and grammatical study.” “Christians must rely on the Holy Spirit in their intellectual pursuits, but this does not mean they should expend no mental sweat of their own in defending the faith.” Moreland P. 24 “Third, Darwinian evolution . . . .”made the world safe for atheists”. Evolution challenged the early chapters of Genesis for some and the very existence of God for others.” Moreland P. 24 "John William Draper" by Edward Bierstadt - Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Draper Family Collection. [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Draper.jpg#mediaviewer/File:John_William_Draper.jpg "Andrew Dickson White 1885" by Unknown - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Andrew_Dickson_White_1885.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_Dickson_White_1885.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Andrew_Dickson_White_1885.jpg "Charles Darwin seated crop" by Charles_Darwin_seated.jpg: Henry Maull (1829–1914) and John Fox (1832–1907) (Maull & Fox) [1]derivative work: Beao - Charles_Darwin_seated.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Darwin_seated_crop.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Charles_Darwin_seated_crop.jpg
- “One tragic result of this was what happened in the . . . .”Burned Over District” in the state of New York. Thousands of people were “converted” to Christ by revivalist preaching, but they had no real intellectual grasp of Christian teaching. . . .two of the three major American cults began in the Burned Over District among the unstable, untaught “converts”: Mormonism. . .Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Moreland P. 23
- “Around the turn of the nineteenth century, fundamentalists withdrew from the broader intellectual culture and from the war with liberals that emerged in most mainline denominations at the time. Fundamentalists started their own Bible institutes and concentrated their efforts on lay-oriented Bible and prophecy conferences. This withdrawal from the broader intellectual culture and public discourse contributed to the isolation of the church, the marginalization of Christian ideas from the public arena, and the shallowness and trivialization of Christian living, thought, and activism. . . .the culture became salt less.” Moreland P. 24 “. . . . this modern understanding of Christianity is neither biblical nor consistent with the bulk of church history.” Moreland P. 25 “Christ Himself wants to shape our thinking. . . . .Jesus Himself wishes to transform the mind by renewing it.” Moreland P. 25
- Darwinism assumes naturalism and materialism which also play strategic roles.
- scientism: A view that exalts the status of science and scientific inquiry (of course, in the modern, current, Western sense of the word) to an absolutely predominant position, capable of solving, explaining, and/or passing judgment on everything. In some cases, it is equivalent to science as religion. Science and Religion Professor Lawrence M. Principe “Anti-intellectualism gives rise to the most extreme, the most morally deplorable, form of sloth. It is to be found in persons whom the ultimate objectives in life are the maximization of pleasure, money, fame, or power and who, thus motivated, express their contempt for those who waste their lives in purely intellectual pursuits. It is almost as if they wished they did not have the burden of having intellects that might distract them from their fanatical devotion to nonintellectual aims.” Mortimer Adler, Intellect: Mind over Matter The claim that science and science alone can give us knowledge is not a scientific fact but rather a philosophical view called scientism. This idea is a widespread belief in our culture today.
- With the Church retreating from academics and reason secularism filled to void in the public square. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Talking about how Holocaust. "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.” Darwinism plays a strategic part in rationalizing eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, Marxism, relativism, and genocide. "Child survivors of Auschwitz" by Alexander Voronzow and others in his group, ordered by Mikhael Oschurkow, head of the photography unit - USHMM/Belarusian State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa14532. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg#mediaviewer/File:Child_survivors_of_Auschwitz.jpeg
- America is secularized politically and intellectually. May not be down to the level of the guy on the street. Secular subculture in American Education System, Mass Media and Upper echelons of legal system - where ideas come into being are reinforced and compelled. Peter Berger "they are very influential, as they control the institutions that provide the 'official' definitions of reality."
- Moreland “Five characteristics capture the essence of the impact of anti-intellectualism on today’s evangelicalism. P. 25 1. “A misunderstanding of faith’s relationship to reason. . . . .faith is now understood as a blind act of will, a decision to believe something that is either independent of reason or that is a simple choice to believe while ignoring the paltry lack of evidence of what is believed. . . . .biblically, faith is a power or skill to act in accordance with the nature of the kingdom of God. . . .faith is built on reason. We should have good reasons for thinking that Christianity is true before we dedicate ourselves completely to it. We should have solid evidence that our understanding of a biblical passage is correct before we go on to apply it. . . . .sermons should target people’s thinking as much as their wills and feelings. . . . .Training in apologetics should be a regular part of discipleship. Apologetics is a New Testament ministry of helping people overcome intellectual obstacles that block them from coming to or growing in the faith.” “Our contemporary understanding of these important concepts treats faith and reason as polar opposites.” For instance, does good evidence for the existence of God mean that we have left no room for faith? If that were true, we should pray that currently available evidence for God would evaporate and be refuted so there would be even more room for faith! Further, with the secular culture we have a tendency in group Bible study to bypass the work of study and go directly to ‘What does this passage say to me?’ We identify our faith with subjective feelings and blind faith. We test our Christianity by our private experiences.” P. 25-27 2. “Christian teaching and practice are privatized and placed in a separate compartment from the public or . . . .secular activities of life.” We are encouraged to use our intellects in how we approach vocation, house buying, or learning to use technology. But in the spiritual life of faith, it is our hearts alone that operate. The mind is compartmentalized as a function of the “secular” life. Instead we could be dividing our church people by vocations who “spell out issues and resources for integrating ideas in those vocations (or college majors) with Christian theology?” P. 27 (Don, This might work as a class-time activity during a class period.) 3. “One . . .consequence of our . . . .anti-intellectual trends is the combined effect of weakening world missions. When we produce new believers who don’t understand theology, they can be taken over by false theologies, such as liberation theologians in Central America have done with Christian converts there. Whoever controls the thinking leadership of the church in a culture will eventually control the church itself.” P. 29 4. “When we share the gospel primarily as a means of addressing felt needs, it may well be seen as irrelevant by people who are not into feelings and by people who don’t have felt needs. Paul based his preaching on the fact that the gospel is true and reasonable to believe. (Acts 17-20) He reasoned with and tried to persuade people intelligently to accept Christ.” P. 30 5. There is “A loss of boldness in confronting the idea structures in our culture with effective Christian witness. . . . . anti-intellectualism has drained the church of its boldness in witnessing and speaking out about import-ant issues. . . . . We have to know what we are talking about in order to have the courage to speak up.” P. 30-31
- “As anti-intellectualism has softened our impact for Christ . . . .it contributed to the secularization of the culture. If the salt loses its saltiness, the meat will be impacted.” P. 32 “Most people have little or no understanding of a Christian way of seeing the world, nor is a Christian worldview an important participant in the way we as a society frame and debate issues in the public square. Three of the major centers of influence in our culture – the university, the media, and the government – are largely devoid of serious religious discussion.” P. 32 “. . . .those with the cultural say-so about who does and doesn’t have knowledge will be in a position to marginalize and silence groups judged to have mere belief and private opinion.” “Only science supposedly deals with facts, truth, and reason, but religion and ethics allegedly deal with private, subjective opinions.” P. 33 “What I do reject is the idea that . . . .science alone can claim to give us knowledge. Scientism is patently false, a philosophical view about science. Once this view of knowledge was widely embraced in the culture, the immediate effect was to marginalize and privatize religion by relegating it to the back of the intellectual bus.” “Scientism’s impact on society is “moral and religious relativism”. “Religion and ethics supposedly deal with feelings and privatized values. . . .merely subjective notions.” P. 34-35 “Once the existence of knowable truth in religion and ethics is denied, authority gives way to power, reason gives way to rhetoric . . . .civil debate in the culture wars is replaced by politically correct special-interest groups who have nothing left but political coercion to enforce their views on others. . . . .political power is a surrogate for a Higher Power.” P. 37
- “. . . . objective duty, goodness and virtue were abandoned under the guise of scientism and secularism . . . . anything whatever is morally permissible provided only that you do not harm someone else.” P. 38 “. . . .individual rights have come to dominate our public discussion of moral issues. The public square – those aspects of society where all citizens must interface regardless of personal views; for example, public schools, and government – has become naked: religious, moral, and political debate therein is no longer informed by a clear robust vision of the moral life shared by most citizens and taken to be true and rational. Once objective duty, goodness, and virtue were abandoned under the guise of scientism and secularism, the only moral map that could replace objective morality is what Daniel Callahan has called minimalistic ethics – anything whatever is morally permissible provided only that you do not harm someone else. P. 38 is a quote, see #20, cpt. 1 “Individual rights are important, and, for the Christian, they are grounded in the image of God and not in the state. In other words, the Christian believes that human rights are derived from the image of God in us; they do not ultimately come from the state. But there are more fundamental questions of virtue and duty that are relevant to the overall development of a moral outlook. For example, the abortion debate should not be framed primarily as a debate about the right to life versus the right to choice. Basically, it should be discussed in terms of this question: What does a woman or a community committed to moral virtue and duty do when faced with the question of abortion? The tenor of the debate changes drastically when issues of virtue and duty to others is brought to the foreground and rights are relegated to a secondary position in the moral context. “Until Christian can be a better job of seeing these issues and articulating them in terms of objective duty and virtue, the Jack Kevorkians will continue to win the “debate”. . . . , precisely because the Kevorkians are on the side of individual rights. If the only morally relevant question to ask a patient is whether or not he freely and competently chooses physician-assisted suicide, then we are left with no moral categories in which to introduce more basic questions of duty and virtue.” P. 38 “More than ever before, we need what the Old Testament calls wisdom. . . . .The spiritually mature person is a wise person. And a wise person has the savvy and skill necessary to lead an exemplary life and to address the issues of the day in a responsible, attractive way that brings honor to God. . . . . wisdom is the fruit of a life of study and a developed mind. Wisdom is the application of knowledge gained from studying both God’s written Word and His revealed truth in creation. If we are going to be wise, spiritual people prepared to meet the crises of our age, we must be a studying, learning community that values the life of the mind.” P. 39 “. . . . to become spiritually formed in Christ, a person of wisdom, requires that we follow Christ’s teaching in this critical area – and it was He who taught us to love the Lord our God with all our minds.” P. 39 “. . . . the church was meant to be and has often been the instrument of reason in society.” P. 40
- Moral Relativism Secularism, Functional Atheism - moral relativism morals that are based on private judgment or personal opinion Society is moving toward a dictatorship of relativism Allen Bloom - most all students entering college think truth is relative Matters of faith are increasingly becoming unwelcome in the public square - A Mind for God by James Emery White Moral relativism is more easily understood in comparison to moral absolutism. Absolutism claims that morality relies on universal principles (natural law, conscience). Christian absolutists believe that God is the ultimate source of our common morality, and that it is, therefore, as unchanging as He is. Moral relativism asserts that morality is not based on any absolute standard. Rather, ethical “truths” depend on variables such as the situation, culture, one's feelings, etc. http://www.gotquestions.org/moral-relativism.html#ixzz3SA28gZ6r Autonomous individualism Autonomous individualism independent in terms of destiny and accountability Moral authority is self-generated John Paul Sartre "Man is the being whose project is to be God.“ - A Mind for God by James Emery White Individual autonomy is an idea that is generally understood to refer to the capacity to be one's own person, to live one's life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one's own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces. It is a central value in the Kantian tradition of moral philosophy but it is also given fundamental status in John Stuart Mill's version of utilitarian liberalism (Kant 1785/1983, Mill 1859/1975, ch. III). - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/autonomy-moral/ Narcissistic Hedonism Narcissistic Hedonism, myth of Narcissus who was enamored with his reflection - preoccupied with self Ultimate ethic is pursuit of personal peace and affluence Christian ethic is self-sacrifice - A Mind for God by James Emery White Reductive Naturalism Nature is all that is real Life is accidental - product of random chance Knowledge comes from empirical verification Knowledge is "reduced" to this level of knowing. If it cannot be examined in a tangible, scientific manner, it is not simply unknowable but meaningless." pg 32 Science is the final arbiter of truth and reality - scientism Functional deification of science and technology - A Mind for God by James Emery White
- Where are we today? The National Study of Youth and Religion 2001-2005 Christian Smith (principle Investigator) "it is not so much that US Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith." "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism“ The authors find that many young people believed in several moral statutes not exclusive to any of the major world religions. It is this combination of beliefs that they label Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: 1.A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. 2.God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3.The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. 4.God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. 5.Good people go to heaven when they die.
- Where are we today? The authors find that many young people believed in several moral statutes not exclusive to any of the major world religions. It is this combination of beliefs that they label Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: 1.A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. 2.God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3.The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. 4.God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. 5.Good people go to heaven when they die.
- Where are we today? The National Study of Youth and Religion 2001-2005 (Published as book, Soul Searching.) Christian Smith (principle Investigator) "it is not so much that US Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith." "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism“
- What is an evangelical . . . and has he lost his mind? Carl Trueman wrestles with those two provocative questions and concludes that modern evangelicals emphasize experience and activism at the expense of theology. Their minds go fuzzy as they downplay doctrine. Mark Noll warned that evangelical Christians had abandoned the intellectual aspects of their faith. Christians were neither prepared nor inclined to enter intellectual debates, and had become culturally marginalized.