Goodby, Charles. I'm staying Here

I recently finished Farwell to God, by Charles Templeton, evangelist turned critic of Christianity. The book was published in 1995, and he passed away five years ago. His criticisms of Christianity, and his reasons for rejecting it, boil down to three major arguments, although each has intricacies that I'll try to deal with.
1. Inconsistencies between portrayals of God in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and natural revelation. Templeton calls the God represented in the Old Testament, bloody, tribal, and in no way loving. He points to a number of stories, such as the Israelite escape from Egypt and their subsequent conquest of Canaan, to make the point that the Hebrews God was for them alone, and his love extended only to them. This differs from the God in the NT, who claims to love everyone, which is fine, except for the doctrine of Hell. Of course, he also argues that a loving God is inconsistent with natural disasters and suffering today.
2. The Bible contains too many problems to be the wholly inspired Word of God. Templeton cites differences in the Gospels, a variety of classic "contradictions" and different facets of the teachings of Jesus and Paul to support this claim.
3. Christians don't live in a way that is consistent with their teaching, mostly because it's impossible, and a lot of "Christians" are simply products of their culture. He argues that Christians don't agree with each other, much less the Bible, and that the disparate teachings of the people who call themselves Christians does not give credibility to the group as a whole.
Templeton concludes the book with a summery of what he DOES believe: evolution and humanism. Not original or clever, but at least a response to his problems with Christianity.

Although many of his beliefs have been answered in the past, often by better communicators and thinkers then myself, it is my blog, so I'll write the broad responses that I would give to Templeton's problems.

1. The "inconsistencies" of the portrayals of God in various levels of revelation are simply incomplete revelations. We need all of the Revelation to fully understand God. The bloodiness of the OT was necessary to demonstrate to us the high price of sin. The claim that Hell and Love don't mix is irresponsible Hell is justice, and it is impossible to extract justice from love. There is no point at which love for the individual can supersede justice, because justice is THE loving response. As far as a loving God not providing us relief from natural disasters, Templeton does not look at it from the broader viewpoint, the one that is outside of humanity. Natural disasters and suffering are the result of original sin. God allows sin to continue on the planet because He cannot remove it without destroying all sinners, whom He loves. So God allows suffering to force us to look for a better place, namely, His resting place for us. The proper role of suffering in this sin filled world is to help us realize that we need God, that not everything is as it should be.

2. A lot of Templeton's textual criticisms sound hollow and repetitive. None of them are original with him, and he lacks real evidence for what he says. For instance, his biggest criticism of the Gospel is the "late" date at which they were written. The problem is, he cites no evidence for his dates. In essence, his argument runs like this: The gospels were written to far after Jesus death to be a reliable record of his life. Upon cross examination, he offers no evidence for his dates, or any reason to assume the gospels are unreliable, except things that he considers "unreasonable" such as miracles and the resurrection. He is very critical of the different accounts in various NT books in cases such as thebirth of Jesus, the Ascension, and the Resurrection. This argument stems directly from the presupposition that there is no God. If God exists, than He is certainly capable of miracles, whether that be resurrection, turning water into wine, or walking on water. As for as the supposed inconsistencies in teaching, most are a result of different facets of a complicated issue: Women's role in the church, the responsibilities of Church leadership and grace vs. justice.

3. On his third major point, Templeton is at least a little right, although he abuses his point. He points to hypocritical Christians, and says that they make it difficult to believe in their God. He's right. Christianity is to a certain degree a culture as much as a religion. Templeton looks at all the branches of Christianity, including Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and says that until everyone can come to some consistent belief system, there will be no convincing him. He also points to cultures, and notes that religion is normally a result of upbringing. While that may be true, it provides no argument as to the truthfulness. His acceptance of agnosticism puts him in the minority of religious opinions, so he only accepts numbers as an argument in his favor.

Templeton gives a lot of "reasons" for his lack of faith, but they are no more or less reasonable for not being religious. His presuppositions have changed from Christian to agnostic, and expects his readers to follow him blindly into his presuppositions without questioning them. Underneath it all, Templeton rejected belief in God. He creates a complete structure of arguments, but provides nothing to hold them up. In my faith, I can point to an ultimate Cause, a Creator, and an all knowing God to explain and hold up what I cannot understand. James Sire refers to the worldview on which our beliefs hand as the elephant, and encouraged believers to examine theirs. Templeton has pointed and laughed at my elephant, but doesn't realize he doesn't have one.

Once & Future King: Not Arthur

I haven't posted in two weeks, but it's only half my fault. I've spent most of the last nine days up north, again. In the meantime, I have read two excellent books, T.H. White's The Once and Future King and the ever uplifting Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. (Which Ellie lists as one of her favorites. I enjoyed both, and I'll work both in, if you're patient with me.

The Once and Future King is well written, but it has probably one ot the most difficult trio of main characters for a believer to deal with. Arthur, is the same noble child king turned wise ruler we know from the legend, Guinevere, the adulterous queen, and Lancelot, his best knight, best friend, and the one his queen is sleeping with. As I said, a hard trio to deal with. Each are noble and heroic in their own way, and each have a monstrous fault. Lancelot and Guinevere for the obvious reasons, and Arthur for his premarital affair with his half-sister (no, he didn't know at the time, and yes, she did) Anyway, he probably should have not tried to kill his son/nephew.

Arthur is troubled, both in the beginning and end of the book by the pervasiveness of Might throughout his realm, and his knights equation of it with Right. He begins the Round Table as a response, to channel Might to work for Right. This is successful, initially, but as problems in England, and further abroad in Europe are resolved, the arm of Might gets bored. Arthur turns his knights onto a spiritual quest, the quest for the Holy Grail. (No, not Monty Python and the Holy Grail) Although it's Lancelot's son, Galahad, who can find the Grail, Lancelot is denied only because of his affair with Guinevere.

Of course he can't tell Arthur this, but as the Quest is concluded, Arthur is left with a worse problem than before. His knights that were only interested in Might were essentially rejected at the beginning of the quest. The knights that believed in Right either died along the quest, or succeeded, and were taken to heaven as a result. So Arthur is met with more Might than ever, and less Right. Near the end of the book, he starts to think about other options to achieve Right. His primary thought moves toward either national socialism or communism, I can't tell. In any case, he theorizes that the removal of property, of ownership, would remove jealousy, and thus, eliminate war.

We know that didn't work, but Tozer points out in his second chapter that as believers, we need to move toward that ideal. When I hold onto a possession, I play keep away with God. Abraham was not allowed to keep his only son closer to God. Of course I make excuses, "I'm not Abraham, I don't have his faith." Perhaps not, but why? Is it because I won't let go? Perhaps the real difference is that Abraham believed God, and I didn't quite trust him with everything. White would have us believe that the eradication of boundaries could produce a perfect society. White underestimates the sinfulness of the human heart. He quotes Jeremiah 17, but misses the real meaning. The perfect society won't come until the Prince of Peace reigns perfectly in ever heart, but also physically, over the whole world. Until then, we must be satisfied to uphold him as the current King in our hearts and minds and families and churches.

One of the fascinating things about White's story is that he really tries to make Lancelot a sypathetic figure. He is torn between his love for guinevere, and his loyalty to his hero and king. It doesn't seem to matter too much, until Lancelot goes on the Quest for the Grail. At some point we learn that the real hang up in Lancelot's life was not his illicit affair with his best friends wife, also known as the queen of England, but the fact that he thought of God as a Person rather than a force. Yes, I can see how that would be a problem. In actuality, the problem is not viewing God as personable and knowable, the problem is not reconciling your life to that view. I'm miserable when I try to push God away, because it is my ultimate purpose to glorify Him, and one of the best ways to glorify Him is to know Him.

As Tozer puts it, we must pursue Him. Tonight, it is striking me just how difficult it is to truly pursue God. One would think that warding off big sins would be enough, but there a thousand small thought patterns, a hundred attitudes we engage in which alienate us from God. Among evangelicals, and most notably myself, it seems to be pride. Pride at what I know, pride that I'm not "like that sinner there." And these thought patterns cannot be defeated once, it is not jumping from the temple mount. It is a walk, and a step here, a step there, these are the battles in which we must doggedly chase after our only Hope.