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Apologia Report 14:34
September 3, 2009
Subject: Deepak Chopra's Third Jesus "slipshod"
In this issue:
CHRISTOLOGY - Chopra's Third Jesus, the wrong one - again
FAITH - is it innate, or not?
ISLAM - more cautious responses to internal criticism, signs of coexistence?
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CHRISTOLOGY
The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra [2] --
Robert Schmidt's review is to the point: "Using very slipshod
argumentation bolstered by misappropriated quotations from the New
Testament and the Gnostic gospels, Chopra champions himself as the
redeemer of the Redeemer. Yet, the process by which Chopra maps new
meaning onto the words of Christ displays his ignorance of first
century Israel and reduces his work to something laughable and better
classified as fiction or fantasy. Through Choprian lenses Jesus
becomes a non-dualistic, spiritual guru who, in simple and plain
language, tells people that the world of pain and evil is illusory,
that the kingdom of God is within each and every one of us because we
are all one with the divine, and that to see beyond distinction,
beyond the world of illusion is to be freed from karma and ushered
into a state of salvation or God-consciousness. Jesus, far from being
the Emmanuel, the incarnate God with us, is just a spiritual teacher
like the Buddha who had himself arrived at God-consciousness. Jesus
and he are one and the same, inviting others to realize the same
truth; God is one and you are it.
"While Chopra's writing style is clear and easily accessible to the
layperson, his work is neither rigorously academic nor true. Chopra is
guilty of bad history, bad theology, bad logic, and blatant untruths.
... I will restrict myself to dealing with Chopra's treatment of the
Jesus of history, the Jesus of the New Testament, and the Jesus of
non-duality...."
Chopra supporters will probably find Schmidt's review a bit harsh;
this is regrettable, because he identifies many valid concerns.
Chopra promotes his book partly on the idea that "we know almost
nothing about the historical Jesus." The "we" here is telling. If it
refers to those coming from the New Age worldview, the statement would
appear to fit very well.
"In the end, Chopra's book leads to a Jesus who sees beyond
distinction and is both 'impersonal' and 'loving.'" This, as Schmidt
explains, is an illogical source of comfort. The Denver Journal, May
'09, <www.tinyurl.com/nbkhbp>.
Also see Robert Velarde's review in Christian Research Journal,
32:1 - 2008, p46 <www.tinyurl.com/n5gsns> and the reviews at
<www.tinyurl.com/lpd69y> and <tinyurl.com/nlbzqo>.
---
FAITH
"(Un)wired for God: Religious beliefs may not be innate" by Sharon
Begley -- reports that "In a paper last month in the online journal
Evolutionary Psychology [1], Gregory Paul finds that countries with
the lowest rates of social dysfunction - based on 25 measures,
including rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually
transmitted disease, unemployment, and poverty - have become the most
secular. Those with the most dysfunction, such as Portugal and the
U.S., are the most religious, as measured by self-professed belief,
church attendance, habits of prayer, and the like.
"I'll leave to braver souls the question of whether religiosity
leads to social dysfunction, as the new breed of public atheists
contends. ... [Paul] posits that, rather than being wired into the
brain, religion is a way to cope with stress in a dysfunctional
society - the opium-of-the-people argument.
"This doesn't have to be an either-or proposition, however. The
brain may indeed be predisposed to supernatural beliefs. But that
predisposition may need environmental input to be fully realized. ...
"'Researchers sometimes claim we're hard-wired for things, but when
you peel through the layers of the experiments, the details matter and
suddenly the evidence doesn't seem so compelling,' says psychologist
John Spencer of the University of Iowa.
"Before we decide that a behavior is innate and wired into our
neurons, it would be a good idea to examine whether it withstands
changes in our circumstances. If the new neuroscience has taught us
anything, it's that the lives we lead can reach into, and change, our
very brain circuitry." Newsweek, Aug 31 '09, n.p.
---
ISLAM
"Where freedom is still at stake" (no byline) -- notes that the latest
Muslim figure to face the accusation of heresy "in a violent and
threatening way ... is an Egyptian scholar, Sayed al-Qimani, whose
profile has risen since he agreed to accept a prize from his country's
semi-secular cultural authorities. Mr Qimani's work - which would be
unremarkable in any Western context - applies the familiar techniques
of empirical research to early Islamic history.
"As so often these days, he faces not punishment by his own
government but the potentially lethal consequences of being denounced
as a heretic by several influential groups in the quarrelsome world of
Egyptian Islam. ...
"So who will speak up for Mr Qimani and similar outcasts?
Statements in his defence would carry huge weight if they came from
prominent Muslim figures, especially those who happened to disagree
with his ideas on Islamic history.
"Perhaps people living in the repressive atmosphere that prevails
in much of the Islamic world can be forgiven if their courage falters.
But what of the Muslim diaspora? So far, just a handful of Muslims
living in the West have spoken out unequivocally for the rights of
coreligionists with dissonant views to live in safety.... There should
be more of them. Indeed, there is an opportunity here for somebody. It
turns out the French thinker Voltaire probably never uttered the words
so often ascribed to him: 'I do not agree with what you have to say,
but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.' So the way is
clear. Let some Western Muslim sage be the first philosopher to make
that pronouncement, and mean it." The Economist, Aug 8 '09, p14.
The same issue of The Economist carries the companion piece, "The
battle for a religion's heart" (pp52-53), which asks: "Which trend
will prevail among the world's 1.4 billion Muslims - violent
confrontation or peaceful coexistence?" In response, the unnamed
writer reports that "the good news, from Islam-watchers in Egypt, is
that the appeal of the most violent kind of Islamist radicalism has
been waning for some time. ...
"Muslim doubters, revisionists and reformers ... have had to mute
their voices for fear of being branded apostates. Some of them are
again speaking out, though it still takes a lot of courage. ...
"The strongest recent critique of global jihadism has come from a
figure who is himself controversial in the West: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an
82-year-old Egyptian who lives in Qatar, and a familiar figure,
through his broadcasts, to Muslims across the world. He is a canny,
theologically conservative populist, whose scathing references to Jews
and homosexuals have made him persona non grata in America and, as of
2008, Britain. ...
"In a hefty new book, titled The Jurisprudence of Jihad [3], Mr
Qaradawi restates his belief in the right of Muslims to resist
'aggression', and 'foreign occupation'. But he castigates al-Qaeda's
notion of global jihad as 'a mad declaration of war on the world' that
seeks to 'drive believers shackled towards paradise'. Repeating his
call for a 'middle path', away from either defeatism or destructive
zeal, Mr Qaradawi suggests that the best arena for today's jihad may
be the 'realm of ideas, media and communication.'"
And though "personal piety has been growing for a generation, and
some are jaded by it; they are looking for new ideas.
"Significant, in this light, is the recent award by Egypt's culture
ministry of a prize to one of the country's most combative secularist
writers, Sayed al-Qimani. The Egyptian authorities would hardly have
dared to offer such a prize a decade ago. ...
"Several of [Qimani's] dozen books, most of which are daringly
revisionist accounts of early Islamic history, have been banned at
al-Azhar's orders [al-Azhar being "Sunni Islam's greatest
university"], despite Mr Qimani's protests that he remains a believer,
albeit of a relatively non-doctrinaire sort."
Nevertheless, "so far the government has stood unusually firm on Mr
Qimani's side, partly because intellectuals have rallied to his
defence, but perhaps also in a sign that it senses growing public
impatience with the Islamists' cries of blasphemy. More unusually
still, Mr Qimani has been invited to air his views on television,
including on one programme where he challenged any cleric to an open
debate. None took up the offer.
"In a land where pious words saturate airwaves and canonical texts
fill bookshelves, the prominence of relatively secular types like Mr
Qimani marks a trend.
"Their following may be tiny compared with the adulation enjoyed by
Mr Qaradawi. But it may be that on his declared jihad-ground of modern
communications, the preacher will be facing not infidel crusaders, but
fellow Muslims who want change and refuse to be intimidated."
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Sources, Digital:
1 - <www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP073984414.pdf>
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Sources, Monographs:
2 - The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra
(Harmony, 2008, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/n5gsns>
3 - The Jurisprudence of Jihad [Fiqh al-Jihad], by Yusuf al-Qaradawi
(apparently not yet available in English)
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