07AR12-26

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Apologia Report 12:26

July 19, 2007

Subject: Salvo: cultural apologetics, with an attitude

In this issue:

BUDDHISM - Newsweek cites growth among American youth

CULTURE - new Christian magazine critiques culture with satire

+ anti-religion book surge sign of a cultural shift, revival of secular humanism?

+ new book a sweeping critique of trend in "pop science media" to explain away religious experience

MISION CARISMATICA INTERNACIONAL - critical look at the troubling G12 movement

RELIGION, GENERAL - Newsweek brings back Stephen Prothero to pooh-pooh the "fashionable" idea that all religions are the same

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BUDDHISM

"BeliefWatch: Budding Buddhists" by Lisa Miller -- "Diana Winston, the author of Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens [1], has been teaching Buddhism to youth for more than a decade, and she says she's seen it change from a fringe practice to something normal and accepted, especially on the coasts. (In the middle of the country, Winston says, kids sometimes practice Buddhism in secret; they write to her, looking for someone to talk to.) Mahagony Gamble, who oversees the high-school and young women's division of SGI-USA - the Buddhist sect known for the chant 'Nam myoho renge kyo' - says membership has exploded in the past two years, and a growing number of the new members are kids from non-Buddhist families who show up at meetings with their Buddhist friends from school." Miller fails to explain that "SGI" stands for Soka Gakkai International and seems oblivious to its controversial side. Brief. Newsweek,

Jun 11 '07, n.p. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18999841>

For an overview of criticism regarding SGI, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_Gakkai#Criticism>

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CULTURE

The staged photo suggests a homeless person sitting on the ground propped up against a fire hydrant and holding a cardboard sign which reads: "WILL CRITIQUE CULTURE FOR FOOD." You'll find this in the second issue of Salvo <salvomag.com>, a satirical, well-designed, glossy Christian magazine from the conservative ecumenical group, Fellowship of St. James, that also publishes Touchstone magazine.

Salvo's masthead names apologists Greg Koukl and Hugh Ross as regular columnists. At the bottom, their respective ministries, Stand to Reason and Reasons to Believe, are named as "partner organizations" with Salvo. The list of names on Salvo's editorial advisory board include yet others who are known for their work in apologetics: Frank Beckwith, Paul Copan, William Dembski, Norm Geisler, Gary Habermas, Craig Hazen, Phillip E. Johnson, Frederica Mathewes-Green, J.P. Moreland, Mitch Pacwa, and Ron Tacelli - the last two (as well as Beckwith now) being Roman Catholic, and Mathewes-Green Greek Orthodox.

The theme of the inaugural issue, which appeared early this year, concerns the idea that what one believes about the origins of life becomes the basis for one's worldview. It includes the article, "How intelligent design advocates have undermined their own cause" by Hugh Ross (p80).

The second issue focuses on topics related to sex and gender and how one's sexual behavior may be the single best indicator of what a person's stance in fact is. Features cover pornography addiction and its connection to violent crime, the myth of gender identity as advanced by "queer theorists," and how bestiality is the logical extension of current attitudes toward sex.

"Believe It or Not" by Lynn Andriani -- fans the flames of controversy sparked by "a recent spate of anti-religion books [that] has hit the bestseller lists, signaling perhaps a cultural shift." The summary goes further, suggesting that this is evidence that "the dominant role of religious conservatism in today's politics and culture may be fading."

Andriani opens by saying "you have to go back 40 years to find a time when the country grappled with such a crisis of faith, an era marked by Time magazine's 1966 cover story 'Is God Dead?'." She lists the leading atheist books (as well as a predecessor or two) and introduces others that are on the way before chronicling the contrasting religious bestsellers and new titles that respond to those of the atheists - 20 books in all. Cover story. Publishers Weekly, Jun 4 '07, pp22-23.

Another magazine's cover story, "The New Atheists" by Ronald Aronson, sees the anti-religious book frenzy as movement "toward a revival of secular humanism." The Nation, Jun 25 '07, pp11-14.

And while we're on this atheist rabbit trail, consider Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials, by Donna Freitas and Jason King [2]. "Freitas and King believe that Philip Pullman - whom the New Yorker called 'one of England's most outspoken atheists' - is a theologian in spite of himself, and that Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy [3] is a religious classic on the order of the Chronicles of Narnia. Here, the authors attempt to show that the Pullman novels are not about killing off God, but rather, annihilating an understanding of God that is antiquated and unimaginative. Analyzing lengthy scenes from the novels, they find Pullman's views pantheistic, rather than atheistic." Publishers Weekly, Jun 11 '07, p54.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6450076.html

The Spiritual Brain: How Neuroscience Is Revealing the Existence of God, by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary [4] -- "neuroscientist Beauregard and journalist O'Leary mount a sweeping critique of a trend in 'the pop science media' to explain away religious experience as a brain artifact, pathology or evolutionary quirk. While sympathizing with the attraction such 'neurotheology' holds, the authors warn against the temptation to force the complex varieties of human spirituality into simplistic categories that they argue are conceptually crude, culturally biased and often empirically untested. ... Never shrinking from controversy, and sometimes deliberately provoking it, this book serves as a lively introduction to a field where neuroscience, philosophy, and secular/spiritual cultural wars are unavoidably intermingled." Publishers Weekly, Jun 11 '07, p56.

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MISION CARISMATICA INTERNACIONAL/G12

"Encountering G12: Analyzing the 'Cellular Vision' of Cesar Castellanos: Part 1" by Ricardo Becerra -- an introductory look at the aberrant G12 cell group movement. Its parent congregation in Colombia has grown so strong in Latin America that it has been described as "one of the ten largest churches in the world" by World magazine. Becerra describes how this mix of cell groups, intensive weekend retreats (known as "Encounters"), aggressive discipleship, and Word-Faith teaching has gone off track and continues to spiritually derail a growing number of Christians across the globe. MCOI Journal, Spr '07, pp8-13.

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RELIGION, GENERAL

"True or False: The Major Religions Are Essentially Alike" by Stephen Prothero, chair of Boston University's Department of Religion and the author of Religious Literacy [6] -- "At least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful - and all are true. ...

"According to this multicultural form of wisdom, the world's religions are merely different paths up the same mountain. But are they? ... If practitioners of the world's religions are all climbing a mountain, then they are ascending very different peaks and using very different tools.

"You would think that multiculturalists would warm to this fact. But instead they try to flatten out diversity by pretending that the differences between, say, Judaism and Taoism are more apparent than real. ...

"[U]nderstanding real religious diversity - the undeniable differences demarcated by religious boundaries - is essential to understanding the powerful role that religious beliefs, practices and institutions play in the world today.

"I do not believe that we are witnessing a 'clash of civilizations' between Christianity and Islam. But it is a fantasy to imagine that the world's two largest faiths are in any meaningful sense the same, or that interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims will magically close the divide between them. ...

"Coming at the problem of religion from the angle of difference rather than similarity is scary. But the world is what it is. And both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually understand whatever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting." Newsweek, Jul 2 '07, n.p. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19389350>

Mortimer Adler's book Truth in Religion [7] nails a lot of the differences between Christianity, Islam and Judaism from a non-evangelical perspective. The booklet Are All Religions One? by Doug Groothuis [8] also compares Christianity and Islam in brief, along with Non-dualistic Hinduism. Harold Netland's books Dissonant Voices [9] and Encountering Religious Pluralism [10] also take on the idea, perhaps championed most successfully by Process theologian John Hick, that all religions are basically the same.

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Sources, Monographs:

1 - Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens by Diana Winston and Noah Levine (Tandem, 2003, hardcover) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0613980735/apologiareport>

2 - Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials, by Donna Freitas and Jason King (Jossey-Bass, September 2007, paperback, 256 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787982377/apologiareport>

3 - His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), by Philip Pullman (Laure Leaf, 2003, paperback boxed set)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440238609/apologiareport>

4 - The Spiritual Brain: How Neuroscience Is Revealing the Existence of God, by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary (HarperSanFrancisco, September 2007, hardcover, 384 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060858834/apologiareport>

5 - Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, hardcover, 304 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060846704/apologiareport>

6 - Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007, hardcover, 304 pages) <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060846704/apologiareport>

7 - Truth in Religion, by Mortimer J. Adler (Touchstone, 1992, paperback, 180 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0020641400/apologiareport>

8 - Are All Religions One? by Doug Groothuis (IVP, 1996, paperback, 32 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877840989/apologiareport>

9 - Dissonant Voices, by Harold A. Netland (Regent College Pub, 1999, paperback, 336 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573830828/apologiareport>

10 - Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith & Mission, by Harold A. Netland (IVP, 2001, paperback, 360 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/083081552X/apologiareport>

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