09AR14-24

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Apologia Report 14:24

June 25, 2009

Subject: Revisiting Scientology founder's death

In this issue:

KELLER, TIM - Christianity Today profile notes his growing

international influence

NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM - nasty hiccups found in Misquoting Truth by

Timothy Paul Jones

SCIENTOLOGY - investigating its founder's mysterious death

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KELLER, TIM

Newsweek describes Keller as "a C. S. Lewis for the 21st century, a

high-profile Christian apologist who can make orthodox belief not

just palatable but necessary." [1] Beyond his ministry at Redeemer

Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, many know him for his first

bestseller, The Reason for God [2].

Keller continues to impress us. The profile behind Christianity

Today's cover story this month, "How Tim Keller Found Manhattan"

(pp20-26), is encouraging, refreshingly free of celebrity worship.

Highlights:

After 20 years of operation, "Redeemer has a dense array of

innovative ministries, but these are not particularly what Keller

wants to share. He's talking about theological vision, what he calls

Redeemer's 'gospel DNA.'"

Jeff White, and "early associate" of Keller's, "believes Keller's

unique gift is to preach to both Christians and non-Christians in the

same terms, without making a choice between evangelism and

discipleship...."

"Redeemer doesn't participate in culture wars. ...

"Keller's PCA [Presbyterian Church of America] denomination

proclaims classic Puritan doctrine. ... Of the 65 churches that

Redeemer has helped to plant in the New York area, only 10 are PCA.

The largest is Southern Baptist.

"Pastor [Terry] Gyger puts it this way: 'He has a practical

understanding that if we are going to reach the whole city, we need a

wide spectrum of the church.' ...

"Redeemer has helped Amsterdam [Netherlands] pastors plant 18

churches, and is helping new churches in cities around the world.

"Keller realized that Manhattan may have more in common with

Amsterdam and London than it does with small towns in eastern

Pennsylvania. It may even have more in common with Mumbai. Gyger, who

now heads Redeemer's Church Planting Center, says, 'You go to Soho or

London or Berlin or Madrid or Sao Paolo, and you'll find a new kind of

international culture of young elites and professionals. We go to

these city centers and try to reach these kinds of people.' ...

"'The difference between a solid church and a terrible church is

pretty much up to you,' [Keller] tells one group [of pastors that he

is mentoring]. 'The difference between a solid church and incredible

success has almost nothing to do with you at all. It's like you are

out there paddling on your surfboard, and suddenly the wave comes and

you ride in, standing up like you're a Greek god. That has everything

to do with the wave." [6]

NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM

Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's

"Misquoting Jesus" by Timothy Paul Jones [4] -- the downfall of many

an apologetic confrontation is a drift into increasingly technical

detail which eventually eclipses the familiarity of one or both

parties. This may be followed by blind confidence in a new-found

champion who seems to offer a partial solution. Complicating the mix

is the challenge that any responsible publisher faces when choosing an

editor for higher-level academic work - one who must be both competent

and diligent in back-checking for the proper use of sources. This gets

tricky with technically complex new challenges to the faith in which

only a limited number of scholars are genuinely competent in the field

in question.

Chris Keith's critical review of Misquoting Truth brings the latter

to mind. Stoking the controversy is the mischief brought on by scholar

Bart Ehrman's numerous book-length attacks against the long-since

rejected evangelicalism of his youth. In this case, Jones is

responding to Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed

the New Testament and Why [4].

Keith writes: "Despite ... obvious strengths, numerous serious

weaknesses plague Misquoting Truth." One concern addresses "Ehrman's

disdainful description of the first disciples as [the] 'uneducated,

lower-class, illiterate.'" Keith notes that "Whether or not Ehrman is

incorrect, Jones's attempt to refute him by claiming 'Matthew the tax

collector and Luke the physician almost certainly would have possessed

the capacity to author such documents' is neutered because he fails to

build it upon a firm basis.

"Another major weakness of Jones's study is that, in the process of

making assertions in support of his argument, he occasionally handles

his sources in what appears to be a less-than-honest manner." While a

third of Keith's review is positive, it is the remaining two-thirds

(comprised of examples supporting this criticism of Jones) that brings

home the potentially grave consequences involved in such high-level

academic contests.

Keith, who is no fan of Ehrman, is forced to conclude that Jones

shouldn't have been the one chosen to oppose Ehrman. "Although Jones

provides a useful popular-level introduction to the transmission of

the New Testament, to scholars in the field of early Christian scribal

culture Jones appears as an interested and informed amateur (in the

technical sense) who has overstepped his bounds. For these reasons,

Jones's book may be helpful in, for example, a Sunday School

classroom, but should not appear in a college or seminary classroom.

For an academic response to Ehrman's highly-controversial work, one is

better suited to consult Robert H. Gundry's 2006 article [1] in

Christianity Today (to which Jones himself refers....)."

Stone-Campbell Journal, 12:1 - 2009, pp145-146. [7]

SCIENTOLOGY

"L. Ron Hubbard's Last Refuge" by Colin Rigley -- In any controversy

there are many lingering questions and Scientology is "arguably the

most controversial religion in recent history." Some long-standing

questions have been addressed in this investigative piece that centers

on the death of Scientology's founder, L. [Lafayette] Ron Hubbard.

On January 25, 1986, "A call came over [Deputy Charles Gassett's]

radio at about 7:30 a.m. It wasn't overtly mysterious, just peculiar.

Someone from the Reis Family Mortuary in San Luis Obispo [California]

made an apprehensive call to the Sheriff's Department. That morning

the chapel was contacted and informed there was a body that was to be

gathered and cremated immediately, although the man died a day

earlier. Gassett and [his partner Gary] Bang were told to make sure

there was no foul play. ...

"Gassett and Bang arrived at [Hubbard's] ranch where they were met

by Hubbard's attorney, Earle Cooley, and his doctor, Gene Denk.

"'It was like, "Here's what happened and we don't want anything

else going on here,"' Gassett remembered of their conversation. '"We

just want you to take the body and do the cremation."' ...

"Bang knew of Hubbard because he, like many others, had bought

Scientology's equivalent of the Bible: Dianetics: The Modern Science

of Mental Health. The book was advertised as a powerful answer to

life's problems, so Bang decided to give it a try. He hadn't read the

first page, however, and after coming face to face with the author, he

never did.

"'After I saw what happened, I threw the book away,' he said in a

phone interview from his Florida home. 'He left the strings of his

family [and] died by himself in [a] motor home.' ...

"The Sheriff's Department feared controversy and pressed for an

autopsy. Cooley and Denk finally agreed to allow the coroner to do an

external examination and collect blood and urine. ...

"Hubbard's blood contained traces of Hydroxyzine, also known as Vistaril.

"The last detail has proven difficult for his followers to

reconcile. Hubbard disdained 'psychs' and their medications. In

internal writings to Scientologists he often described psychiatrists

as criminals and con artists who knew they could not cure mental

illnesses. Scientologists are not against all prescribed medications,

only the psychiatric variety.

"According to the church, Hubbard suffered allergies from the

animals he kept on the ranch and was prescribed Vistaril as an

antihistamine.

"The drug, however, has another use. According to the Food and Drug

Administration, Vistaril in both the capsule and injected form is used

for relief of anxiety and tension associated with psychoneurosis. ...

"After news of Hubbard's death surfaced, Bang said, agents from the

U.S. Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service called

the Sheriff's Department because even they did not know where to find

Hubbard. They had been looking for him. ...

"The Telegram-Tribune ran a front-page story documenting a full

tour of the ranch about a week after Hubbard's death. A Scientology

spokesman named Vaughn Young led the tour; he was writing Hubbard's

biography, which was never finished. At that time Young was a

high-ranking spokesman for the church but not even Young knew where

Hubbard was until after he died. After the death, Young was called to

Creston to handle the press, despite having little first-hand

knowledge of Hubbard's last years.

"This is according to Young's accounts, which became available

three years after Hubbard died when Young fled the church with his

wife Stacy. A church statement provided by Davis stated Young was

demoted in 1987 and left soon after. Earlier in the same decade Young

was defending the church and blasting its critics. By 1989, Young's

sentiments had changed: Scientology became a cult, he said; Hubbard's

writings were doublespeak; and Hubbard himself was like 'Big Brother'

from Orwell's 1984.

"After leaving the church, Young changed his name and became known

as Robert Vaughn Young. He wrote extensively and published online

scathing accounts of Hubbard's life and death, which he believed was

the result of foul play." Many questions remain unanswered. Cover

story. New Times, May 28 '09, <www.tinyurl.com/pfm994>

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Sources, Digital:

1 - <www.tinyurl.com/ms3ool>

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Sources, Monographs:

2 - The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy

Keller (Dutton, 2008, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/letk7v>

3 - Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's

"Misquoting Jesus," by Timothy Paul Jones (IVP, 2007, paperback, 175

pages) <www.tinyurl.com/mklf8k>

4 - Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament

and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, paperback, 256

pages) <www.tinyurl.com/aj5fn4>

5 - Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard

(Bridge, 1985, paperback, 628 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/krdbqp>

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