07AR12-41
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Apologia Report 12:41
November 7, 2007
Subject: Two sides to Antony Flew's conversion
In this issue:
ATHEISM - "engaging" book describing Antony Flew's conversion to theism found to be "almost upstaged" by its appendix
+ New York Times offers an opposing view of Flew's conversion
BIAS - imagine a huge parade of sexual perversion that isn't news
EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT - Winfried Corduan lays out "The Rise and Diffusion of Postliberal Theology"
ISLAM - expert calls successful terrorist rehab "deprogramming"
MORMONISM - when Christian apologists Jerald and Sandra Tanner met LDS apologist Hugh Nibley
TELEVISION - the sweeping shift of programming into the paranormal
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ATHEISM
There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese [1] -- reviewer Ray Olson explains: "Flew's 1950 paper 'Theology and Falsification' shot down dogmatically antireligious Wittgensteinian logical positivism but came to be seen as equally devastating to religion. His philosophy of religion remained atheist on rational grounds (his newfound theism is rational, too, not at all sectarian), and he was the most considerable philosophical advocate of atheism until 2004, when he announced that he had changed his mind because of what accumulating scientific evidence persuaded him to believe. 'The laws of nature,' the teleological organization of life (i.e., toward an end), and 'the existence of the universe' structurally indicate a directive or presiding intelligence. He tells how he reached his present position by reviewing his career as a philosopher of religion and then the specific lines of reasoning that led to his change of mind. He couldn't be more engaging and remain an analytic philosopher, and the appended essays by Varghese (a critique of 'new atheist' *non*philosophers Richard Dawkins and company) and N.T. Wright (a brilliant explication of the doctrine of the Resurrection) almost upstage him!" Booklist, Oct 1 '07, p28.
For background and a lengthy technical review by Gary Habermas in Philosophia Christi, journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, see <http://tinyurl.com/yufku9>.
Mark Oppenheimer's "The Turning of an Atheist" recounts a very different version of Flew's journey from atheist to deist, more than suggesting that crafty evangelicals took advantage of a very old man with a very poor memory.
"...it seems somewhat more likely that Flew, having been intellectually chaperoned by Roy Varghese for 20 years, simply trusted him to write something responsible [in There Is a God]. Varghese had done him so many kindnesses.... Varghese also gave Flew adventures, jetting him to Dallas and New York, putting him in a DVD documentary, getting his name in the papers. If at times Flew could be persuaded, by a letter or a phone call from an American atheist, that Varghese and his crew were not the eminent authorities on science they made themselves out to be, he was always happy to change his mind back. These Christians were kind and attentive, and they always seemed to have the latest research.
"To believe that Flew has been exploited is not to conclude that his exploiters acted with malice. If Flew in his dotage was a bit gullible, Varghese had a gullibility of his own. An autodidact with no academic credentials, Varghese was clearly thrilled to be taken seriously by an Oxford-trained philosopher; it may never have occurred to him that so educated a mind could be in decline. Habermas, too, speaks of Flew with a genuine reverence and seems proud of the friendship."
"Still, Oppenheimer writes, "At a time when belief in God is more polarizing than it has been in years, when all believers are being blamed for religion's worst excesses, Antony Flew has quietly switched sides, just following the evidence as it has been explained to him, blissfully unaware of what others have at stake."
New York Times Magazine, Nov 4 '07, pp. 36-41 <http://tinyurl.com/2tkwbr>
For Varghese's response to the Times see <http://tinyurl.com/2lwr34>
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BIAS
"400,000 people, and no media?" by Kelly Boggs -- asks why a huge parade of "men and women [who] walked down the street, completely naked, performing sex acts" failed to receive significant news coverage. Just guess what the answer might be. Boggs' lengthy description isn't pretty, but neither is the future if such behavior continues to spread. Baptist Press, Oct 5 '07, <http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=26566>
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EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT
"Theology Built on Vapors" by Winfried Corduan, a founder of the International Society of Christian Apologists <isca-apologetics.com> -- important because Corduan once again succeeds in making his subject matter clear for the average non-technical reader. Subtitled "The Rise and Diffusion of Postliberal Theology," the article is a response to the Emerging Church movement (ECM) in which Corduan eventually acknowledges parallels with postmodernism, while avoiding a confusion of the two terms. (At the same time, if you are unclear about what postmodernism is, this article will be of little help.)
Corduan finds that "many of the traits of [the ECM] are derived from postliberalism under a very thin guise." The defining of terms accounts for much of what he writes. "Neo-orthodoxy and postliberalism appear to be very similar, but postliberals wish to see themselves as quite different." Postliberalism "is a new method of doing theology that opposes the watered-down concepts of liberalism and embraces the content of the Bible." Ironically, in doing so, "it repudiates evangelicalism as much as liberalism." He describes "the essence of postliberalism: to take the narrative of the Bible as it is given, not to subject it to our criteria of truth or acceptability, but to subject ourselves to the story of the Bible as the overarching paradigm for our lives." Corduan fails to explain adequately why the verification of truth is essential to postliberalism. He puts it another way: "postliberalism sees itself as avoiding the red herrings of defending a story that does not need to be defended by human beings, and placing ourselves under its authority." Further, postliberalism teaches that "To apply the tests of historicity to the biblical narrative is to compromise it and to miss its meaning." For many evangelicals this is nonsense, and Corduan makes the connection more than once. Knowing & Doing, Fall '07, pp4-7, 21-27. <http://tinyurl.com/2g6qym>
(Note: The above URL results in a 32K Adobe Acrobat file download named "current.pdf")
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ISLAM
"U.S. tries rehab for religious extremists" by Simon Montlake -- describes how "A counseling program that employs Muslim clerics to rebut extremist views of detainees has steadily reduced their numbers over the past four years in Singapore, suggesting that religious-based rehabilitation may offer an alternative to indefinite detention without trial in the US-led war on terrorism."
Montlake describes the operation in Singapore with much detail and explains that American military leaders are considering a similar approach. Of interest: "Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technological University and a consultant on the Singaporean program" refers to the entire process as "deprogramming." (There's that pesky "D" word again! Social scientists must gripe in their sleep because it won't go away.)
For the US to undertake such an effort would require a university-size venture. We're talking 25,000 Iraqis in custody, estimates Montlake. How likely is that? Christian Science Monitor, Oct 9 '07, <http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1009/p01s04-woap.htm>
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MORMONISM
"A Winter Saturday at BYU" -- this subhead appears in the second installment in a Christian apologist's biography by Ronald V. Huggins currently being serialized in the Salt Lake City Messenger as "Jerald Tanner's Quest for Truth" (Issue 108, and 109 - 2007).
What happens when a healthy tornado slams into a modern 10-story brick office building? I saw the fresh result of such a meeting during the mid-1970s in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The structure survived, but everything in it that wasn't really heavy was either sucked out of a window and sent for miles or it remained to be thrashed about as if it had spent time in a blender.
This description strikes me as an apt illustration of the initial encounter between the Tanners and the late LDS apologist Hugh Nibley. Huggins describes this at significant length as a section in this bio. Jerald Tanner, who recently went home to his reward, is the tornado. If you'd like a good example of what an apologist must be prepared for when s/he encounters a willing, able and prolific opponent, look no further.
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TELEVISION
"A Person Could Develop Occult" by Alessandra Stanley -- "In the aftermath of 9/11 many series tried to tap into what appeared to be a religious renewal. ... None of these shows found the kind of mass audience that turned 'Touched by an Angel' into a major hit from 1994 to 2003. Networks returned to the more rewarding topics of sex and violence." Stanley reports that now, in a rapid and sweeping shift, television has rushed for the paranormal.
"Vampires have day jobs as detectives, store clerks reap souls for the Devil, reporters time-travel to get their stories straight, cheerleaders walk through fire and people of all kinds talk to dead people...." If you're interested in a quick review of all the shows and what they offer, Stanley offers a comprehensive survey. New York Times, Oct 14 '07, pp1, 11. <http://tinyurl.com/2dlo49>
(Note: The odd title is a play-on-words from the lyrics in one of the songs from the old hit musical "Guys and Dolls.")
Brooks Alexander explains why this interest in the occult is no surprise, given the growth of the "New Atheism" in recent years. His article in the SCP Journal, "Ironies of Disbelief" (31:2 - 2007, pp4-21) describes this at length and calls attention to the materialistic Buddhism of Sam Harris as "Exhibit A" to support his findings.
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese (HarperOne, November 2007, hardcover, 256 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061335290/apologiareport>
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