Ravi Zacharias on Culural Relativism and the Emasculation of Truth

Recently on Ravi Zacharias's "Just Thinking" podcasts, one of Ravi's sermons was divided into a powerful four part series entitled " CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND THE EMASCULATION OF TRUTH." I thought it was especially relevant considering my last post on Rob Bell and the "celebration of ambiguity," (to use the words of Dr. Brown).
Ravi points out three ways in which truth has been emasculated:

1) Revelation has been replaced by reason.

Do not misunderstand. No person familiar with Ravi Zacharias would ever accuse him of being anti-intellectual. He is not against reason in the least. He is simply warning us not to look to reason apart from revelation in our search for wisdom and truth. God gave us intellectual capacity as a gift, but we need to acknowledge the source.

Isaiah 55:9 ESV
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

2) Truth has been perverted by agnosticism.

This is exactly what Dr. Brown was referring as the "celebration of ambiguity." Of course, this did not seem to stop Rob Bell from unambiguously taking a stand against the biblical teachings on marriage! This is the theological garbage that issues from Christian pulpits when revelation is replaced by reason.

3) The propositional has been replaced by the visual.

We have transitioned from a culture that that seeks for truth in the written word, to a culture that gets information from television, YouTube, and other pictorial/video means. Pictures can be quickly apprehended without much thought, but at what cost? The result of this is intellectual sloth. We don't want to read the book; we'd rather watch the movie. We have come to the point where rather than read widely and think deeply about important issues, we would rather watch a TV program or video which provides soundbite explanations of trivial issues, and that requires little or no thought on our part. Understanding  propositional truth has become a chore and fallen by the wayside.

Neil Postman made this observation in Amusing Ourselves to Death:

In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture. I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth." I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture.

With that I will end my comments and direct you to Ravi Zacharias's four part podcast series, "CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND THE EMASCULATION OF TRUTH."

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I Believe in Jesus

Watch "Mo Sabri - I Believe In Jesus" on YouTube

What does it mean to say, "I believe in Jesus"?

A rapper from my own hometown of Johnson City, TN, recently came out with a song entitled "I Believe in Jesus." Based on the song title alone, one might mistake Mo Sabri for another Christian rapper like Toby Mac, or Lacrae. After a brief cameo from Jason Witten, the video opens with a quote from scripture--but not the Christian scripture--the Muslim Qur'an.

And the angels said, "O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary."

Surah 3:45

Here are the lyrics to the song,

Verse 1:
This ain’t a song about bottles in the club
This is about a role model filled with love.
A teacher, a preacher, with guidance from above,
Sent to represent a message of peace, like a dove.
In the West, they call him Jesus, in the East they call him Isa,
Messiah, Christ, the same person that you speak of.
Ask me why I wrote this song, and I will tell you because
There’s too many people silent, it’s time for me to speak out.
The son of a virgin, they say it is illogical, probably improbable, but God made it possible.
Gabriel told Mary that her son would be phenomenal,
His voice was always audible, the opposite of prodigal,
He overcame the obstacles, people attacking him. He was a walking hospital,
with heathen he was compassionate.
He healed the sick, raised the dead. Shout out to Lazarus.  I’m talkin’ about Jesus of Nazareth.

Chorus:
If we don’t have peace, we’ll end up in pieces.
Treat people the way that you want to be treated. 
If you do believe it, sing it and repeat it.
I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.
Jesus. I believe in Jesus. I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.
Jesus. I believe in Jesus. I am not afraid to say that I believe in Jesus.
Nananananana, Nanananana, I believe in Jesus. Nanananana, Nanananana I believe in Jesus.

Verse 2:
Ah, I’m just a follower of Jesus.
What that means is I follow what he teaches.
I’m not the type of person that just wants to give speeches.
I’m trying to be the person that will practice what he preaches.
Yeah, cause I’ve observed people just say the words.
But faith in him now is more like a verb. That’s why I wrote this verse.
To remind us to serve. Cause if you haven’t heard, faith is dead without works.
How can we say we believe that God exists when we always act the opposite.
It’s ominous, how we only care about our own accomplishments,
and we’re quick to break our promises. We got to put a stop to this.
We all sin. I know that we are human.
But we cannot keep  on using the same excuses.
Now is the time  we need to prevent the abuses.
Listen up, I got the solution.

Chorus

Verse 3:
Why does our religion always have to cause division?
In reality, we’re all more similar than different.
Jesus wanted unity, but nowadays it’s missin’.
We gotta use our vision if we want to do his mission.
Can’t you see we’re all children of Adam, brothers and sisters.
If you don’t agree, you haven’t read the scriptures.
Picture when Jesus comes back to Jerusalem.
Will he be happy with the way you’ve become?
We’re livin’ wrong. But today’s a new dawn.
So sing along to this song like David singing the psalms. 
Now raise up your arms to give alms with open palms.
Cause Jesus brought a message, let’s follow it till we’re gone.
Shout out to my dad and mom for blessing me in my youth.
God’s insistent proof that his message is the truth.
This song is just a lesson to remind me and you,
to ask ourselves this question, “What would Jesus do?”

Chorus

These lyrics are vaguely positive, similar to most of the songs played on mainstream Christian radio. Will Mo Sabri be touring soon, perhaps opening for Group 1 Crew or Rapture Ruckus? Probably not. If the Qur'anic allusion did not give it away, Sabri is not a Christian, but a Muslim.

With his song, Mo has given us a unique learning opportunity. Many Christians may not realize that Muslims do believe in Jesus, and that He is a prominent figure in the Qur'an. Could it be that Christians and Muslims are just long-lost kin who actually worship the same God? Christians are known for their doctrine of justification by faith, but what does that really mean? If Muslims also believe in Jesus, does that mean they will be saved too? Can Muslims like Mo Sabri ever be followers of Jesus in the same sense that Christians are followers of Jesus?

As Mo has artfully pointed out, there do seem to be a lot of similarities between what the Qur'an says and what the Bible says about Jesus. In both books, Jesus is miraculously conceived in Mary, a virgin. In both books, Isa is called a prophet, the Word of God, and Messiah.

There are some important differences. For starters, the New Testament claims that Jesus was beaten and crucified by the Roman authorities, died on the cross, was buried, but rose from the dead on the third day. After appearing to His disciples over the course of 40 days, He ascended into heaven. The Qur'an states that Jesus was never crucified and did not die, but simply ascended to heaven.

And [for] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah ." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. Rather, Allah raised him to Himself. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.

Surah 4:157-158

Why is this such a big deal? Because the Christian hope of salvation is rooted in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul explained it in his letter to the church in Corinth,

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:12-23, ESV

In other words, in the Christian worldview, we are saved from sin, death, and hell by grace alone, obtained through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. If He did not die on the cross and raise again from the dead then Christian faith is meaningless, because the object of our faith would be a powerless lie. This is not a problem for the Islamic worldview because it is works based. As long as a person practices the Five Pillars of Islam, and their good deeds outweigh their evil deeds, Allah (the Arabic word/name for 'God') will allow one into heaven. One can also get to heaven by dying as a martyr in a jihad (holy war).

An even more important difference between Christians and Muslims is that Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate, whereas Muslims believe He was merely a man. Hopefully, in spite of all the all the similarities between Christianity and Islam pointed out by Mo Sabri, my readers noticed that there was no mention of Jesus being God. The Qur'an states clearly that Jesus is not God, not the One and Only Son of God, or divine in any way.

They have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary.

Surah 5:17

  The Bible states in multiple places that Jesus is God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ...

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1, 14

For in him [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

Colossians 2:9

...waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ

Titus 2:13

But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom."

Hebrews 1:8

 These are just a few of the Bible passages that point to Jesus' divinity, but I think these are more than sufficient to make my point. The Bible says that Jesus was God, but the Qur'an denies Jesus was God. This presents a problem. Only one view of Jesus can be correct (although both of them could be wrong). Either Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, or He didn't. Either Jesus was the God-Man of the Bible, or He wasn't. To quote a Muslim scholar,

Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.

Avicenna

To be fair to Mo Sabri, I do not know all he was trying to get across with the song. He may have simply been promoting peace and tolerance. If so, he ought to be applauded. However, if he was claiming that Christianity and Islam can both be equally true, as may in our pluralistic culture claim, he is dead wrong. For true tolerance to take place, there must be disagreement. When we disagree, but respect other people and their differing ideas, we are tolerating them. If by "tolerance" we only mean that we accept varying beliefs as equally valid, this is not actually tolerance, but agreement. Every worldview or philosophy simply cannot be equally true, and it is folly to claim that every idea can be true.

Without the division and petty quarreling decried by Mo's song, how can we tolerantly discern whether Christianity or Islam accurately portray Jesus?

First of all, the New Testament was written much earlier than the Qur'an. Picture yourself at a murder trial. Should we believe the testimony of witnesses living at around the same time and location of the murder, or should we believe the testimony of someone living several hundred years after the murder took place? The fact of the matter is that the New Testament was written by people who either were present during the events of Jesus' life, or who know folks who were. The latest of the Gospels, John, may have been written as late as the 90's AD, as span of about 60 years from Jesus' crucifixion. If we assume the Qur'an faithfully records the words of Muhammed, the Prophet was not born until about 570 AD--about 540 years after Jesus--and obviously could not have been present to accurately discern whether Jesus was crucified or not.

Second of all, the early followers of Jesus endured violent persecution, and often death, for their testimony about Jesus. They had nothing to gain (at least not in this life) for claiming that Jesus was God in the flesh, who had been crucified but rose from the dead to save humanity from their sins. New converts were persuaded by the Apostle's testimony to what they had seen and heard, appeals to fulfilled prophecy, and miracles according to the book of Acts. No one at that time was forced to become a Christian. In contrast, when Muhammad and his followers were persecuted, Muhammed raised an army and began spreading the Islamic faith by force. He gained wealth and power, but performed no miracles--at least according to the Qur'an.

It seems much more probable that contemporaries of Jesus would no better what happened to Jesus than a self-proclaimed prophet living over 500 years after the fact. The fact is that most scholars believe that Jesus was an historical figure, who was crucified by the Roman authorities, buried by Joseph of Arimathea, and on the third day some of Jesus' women followers discovered His tomb empty. His disciples, who began to doubt Jesus was the Messiah after His arrest and crucifixion, soon afterward began to boldly proclaim that they had encountered the risen Jesus in the city where He had been crucified. Even Jesus' skeptical brother James was converted when he claimed to have met Jesus alive from the dead. Later, the most dangerous opponent of the Church, who had Christians thrown in prison and executed, became a Christian after he encountered Jesus.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

1 Corinthians 15:3-9

  We need to ask ourselves, does the testimony of the Qur'an or the testimony of the Bible better account for the birth of Christianity? Think about it.

Could Jesus have survived multiple beatings and crucifixion by professional Roman soldiers?

If He did somehow survive crucifixion, would He have been strong enough to fight through pounds of linen wrapping, remove His gravestone which probably weighed a ton or two, and fight off the guards watching His tomb before appearing to His disciples?

Even if He did all this, would His disciples have proclaimed His glorious resurrection, or would they have encouraged Him to see a doctor?

If the disciples, or some other party had stolen the body or mistaken which tomb He had been buried in, why didn't the authorities dispel the news of His resurrection by producing His corpse?

Did over 500 people have a mass hallucination, or did He really appear to them?

It seems to me that the Bible's account of Jesus must be more accurate than the Qur'an's account, and this means that Jesus really was crucified and rose from the dead. If He did rise from the dead, the Christian claims of His divinity must also be true. If Jesus is the risen God-Man of the Bible, then salvation is by grace alone, obtained through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. The Christian view of salvation is much more secure than the Muslim view because it depends on what Jesus did on the cross and not what you or I do. More importantly, it is more secure because it is true.

If the Christian worldview is true, the Islamic worldview cannot be true where it differs from the Christian worldview. Mo Sabri cannot be a follower of Jesus in the same sense as a Christian because the Jesus he follows never existed. The Jesus of the Bible is a person of well established historical fact, so we ought to follow Him instead of the Qur'anic Isa.

Why does our religion always have to cause division?
In reality, we’re all more similar than different.

Actually, we are only superficially similar. The fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam cause the division. Only one religion can be true, and the facts are on the side of Christianity. However, this does not mean that Christians can never get along with Muslims. Jesus taught us,

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Matthew 5:9

  However, living in peace does not require us to agree with conflicting points of view, or accept all views as equally true.  

Has Science Destroyed the Need for God?

In most of my blog posts, I usually think an issue through fairly thoroughly, and study hard the ideas I blog about before even publishing a post. This will not be one of those posts. This post will most likely be a somewhat discombobulated collection of thoughts on the relationship between science, science fiction, and religion. It may have the inkling of some conclusion, but my main purpose at this point is to simply get these thoughts out of my system.

I have been watching reruns of the sci-fi cult classic Firefly today. Firefly is set in a distant future universe in which humans have used a process called terraforming to colonize formerly uninhabitable planets and moons. As I enjoyed the science fiction of the show, I began to wonder how plausible terra forming might be in science fact.

This lead further to a Google search of terraforming, and then a search on Amazon for books on the subject. As it turns out, some serious thinking has been done on the concept of terraforming Mars and Venus (and probably the moon, but I didn't find any literature about terraforming that particular celestial body). On a more terrestrial scale, a strong movement in favor of seasteading has emerged in recent years to colonize the earth's oceans.

The primary motivation for seasteading is freedom from the taxes and laws of strong, centralized governments (the Serenity, spaceship of Capt. Malcolm Reynolds and crew on Firefly, serves much the same purpose). The primary motivation for terraforming is the fear that one day humans will exhaust the resources of our home planet. Whatever the motivation for making the inhabitable habitable, new worlds and the possibility of new rules and new ways of living is exciting. This is one of the things that made Firefly so entertaining.

Science has given modern humanity access to myriad new worlds and ideas. This has led some to reject old ways of living and seeing the world. The Christian worldview that gave rise to modern science is now mocked as arising from tribal, bronze age myths. But is this justified? Have we evolved beyond the need for a supernatural God, Christian or heathen? Has science proven religion to be an outmoded superstition? Has scientific fact shown that the supernatural is only mythical? Can we actually burst the bonds of faith, or cast away the chords of a transcendent Creator and Lawgiver?

I think not. Not even close.

If the natural world is all there is, there is no reason to think that any one thing is greater than any other thing. Yet, everyone persists that somethings are important, and some actions are better than others. Oh, there are certainly some who give lip service to nihilism, but none if those people actually live as if there were no good or bad, right or wrong. For the seasteaders, is freedom really better, or is it just their personal preference? If there is no inherent worth in the continuing survival of the human race, why bother with terraforming?

If we have causes or moral standards they are real or they or not. Unless, and until, humans are prepared to give up completely on any notion of moral duties (right and wrong) or moral values (good and bad), then we can never be rid of God.

I do not believe this will ever happen. We know intuitively that some things are true, and some are not--even if we cannot agree on what is true. We know intuitively that some things are beautiful, and some things are ugly--even if we disagree on what is beautiful. We know intuitively that some things are good and some things are bad--even if we disagree on the value of things. We know intuitively that some things are right and some things are wrong--even if we disagree about the details of a moral standard. We know intuitively that freedom is greater than tyranny. We know intuitively that life is better than death.

1. If God does not exist, then moral duties and values do not exist.
2. Moral duties and values do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Contrary to what some scientists and sci-fi authors have concluded, we cannot evolve beyond our need for God. Science needs truth, and truth must transcend us. We cannot run far enough to escape from God in the ocean, or on Mars, or in the science lab. Nor do most people really want to, if it means abandoning truth, beauty, meaning, or morality. As I warned at the top of the post, these are just some random musings, but I hope I've got my readers thinking. At the very least I've gotten these thoughts out of my system.