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Apologia Report 14:46 (1,004)
December 9, 2009
Subject: Dinesh D'Souza on Near-Death Experience
In this issue:
APOLOGIA REPORT BACK ISSUE DATABASE UPDATE - an early Christmas present
JUDAISM - British Supreme Court decides who is (and is not) a Jew
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES - Dinesh D'Souza appears to accept reports from "the other side"
POSITIVE THINKING - new book finds it not so positive nor much
involved with thinking
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APOLOGIA REPORT BACK ISSUE DATABASE UPDATE
It looks like we will be sending you an invitation to register for
free access to the Apologia AR-chive somewhere around the beginning of Christmas week. Think of it as a Christmas present from the many people who have supported Apologia over the years.
As last-minute adjustments and polishing touches are being added, some thoughts come to mind about the AR-chive that I'd like to share with you. In my preparation, once more I have re-read all of the research bulletins I've helped produce. What stands out to me after having done this is a more accurate historical sense of the numerous transitions within the field of apologetics ministry over the years.
You will find that the AR-chive provides a unique histo-critical
perspective on many of the larger topics touching apologetics. This is especially evident regarding our culture wars in the West. And it is most obvious when viewing the transformation of media coverage in the nation's weekly news magazines as they move from participant guardian to amoral provocateur.
The AR-chive also has the potential to become more than a database for its users. Its wiki-like shell allows for topic-specific user input which can be used by specialists to link other resources not mentioned in the AR-chive.
In different ways, the AR-chive resembles a sleeping city. For
some, it can become an excellent entry point into the field of
apologetics ministry as a volunteer. This opportunity is not much
different from the one that Steve Hogel discovered by way of AR-talk in 1997.
An occasional seminary student, Steve signed up to observe and then join me in moderating the AR-talk discussion group. Over the years, he not only became the main moderator of AR-talk, he found other opportunities to serve in countercult apologetics - resulting in, among other things, his appointment as the Executive Director of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR).
So, when the day comes very soon now and you visit the AR-chive for the first time, be sure to look over the different ways I have suggested for us to make use of the time and talent of non-specialist volunteers in building this resource together (background in apologetics not required; all you'll need is Internet access). - RP
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JUDAISM
"British Court Ruling Raises the Question - Who Is a Jew?" -- this
item, flagged for us by Hindu Press International (Nov 14 '09, [9]),
reads in part: "In an explosive decision, the court concluded that
basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism - whether one's mother is Jewish - was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was 'benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,' the court wrote, 'makes it no less and no more unlawful.' The case rested on whether the school's test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M's mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism. 'The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,' the
court said.
"[HPI note: We believe there are state-supported Hindu schools in the UK, though we don't know how they might be impacted by this unusual ruling. The court is adopting a specific definition of
religious affiliation, that one is of the religion one says he or she
is, rather than by any other criteria. In this case, the court is at
odds with Jewish tradition that a Jew is only one born of a Jewish
mother. A parallel would be to say that a Hindu is only someone born in India or to Hindu parents, a criteria [sic] which would be rejected under this court's logic.]" For the original Times (London) report, see <www.tinyurl.com/ydcswvv>.
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NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
In his Newsweek review (Nov 9 '09, n.p.) of Life After Death: The
Evidence, by Dinesh D'Souza [1], Jerry Adler expresses disengaged contempt and describes D'Souza as "a well-known conservative political commentator starting a second career as a Christian apologist." Adler finds that D'Souza's argument draws on "quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and moral philosophy. Life After Death, along with other recent books including mathematician David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions [2], physicist Frank J. Tripler's The Physics of Christianity [3, see criticism in AR 12:44], and The Language of God [4] by the director of the National Institutes of Health, the geneticist Francis S. Collins, constitutes an effort by believers to confront the so-called new atheism on its own intellectual turf, without benefit of scripture or revelation.
D'Souza, who likens this to fighting with one hand tied behind his
back, is a frequent debating opponent of prominent atheists including Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great [5]) and Sam Harris (The End of Faith [6]). He regards the emergence of such enemies as a God-given opportunity to bring Christian apologetics into the new century. ...
"In a Jesuitical display that does credit to his reputation as 'an
Indian William F. Buckley Jr.,' D'Souza turns to his advantage one of the atheists' favorite arguments, God's apparent tolerance for human suffering. Precisely because evil so often goes unpunished in this world, he asserts, the moral code must reflect another reality, in which souls are judged, punished, or rewarded after death. ... 'Near-death experiences show that clinical death may not be the end,' D'Souza writes. Thus they support his larger point, that 'neuroscience reveals that the mind cannot be reduced to the brain … consciousness and free will … seem to operate outside the laws of nature, and therefore are not subject to the laws governing the mortality of the body.'"
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POSITIVE THINKING
Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich [7] -- in her review, Hanna Rosin says that "All the background noise of America - motivational speakers, positive prayer, the new Journal of Happiness Studies - these are not the markers of happy, well-adjusted psyches uncorrupted by irony, as I have always been led to believe. Instead, Ehrenreich argues convincingly that they are the symptoms of a noxious virus infecting all corners of American life that goes by the name 'positive thinking.'
"What started as a 19th-century response to dour Calvinism has,
over the years, turned equally oppressive, Ehrenreich writes. ... In a growing number of American churches, confessions of poverty or distress amount to heresy. America's can-do optimism has hardened into a suffocating culture of positivity that bears little relation to genuine hope or happiness."
Rosin reports that "mystical positivity seeped into the American
megachurches, as celebrity pastors became motivational speakers in robes. In one of the great untold stories of American religion, the proto-Calvinist Christian right — with its emphasis on sin and self-discipline — has lately been replaced by a stitched-together faith known as 'prosperity gospel,' which holds that God wants believers to be rich. ...
"'Where is the Christianity in all of this?' Ehrenreich asks.
'Where is the demand for humility and sacrificial love for others?
Where in particular is the Jesus who said, "If a man sue you at law and take your coat, let him have your cloak also?"' Ehrenreich is right, of course, in her theological critique. But she misses a chance to dig deeper. I have spent some time in prosperity churches, and as Milmon F. Harrison points out in Righteous Riches [8], his study of one such church, this brand of faith cannot be explained away as manipulation by greedy, thieving preachers. Millions of Americans — not just C.E.O.'s and megapastors but middle-class and even poor people — feel truly empowered by the notion that through the strength of their own minds alone they can change their circumstances. This may be delusional and infuriating. But it is also a kind of radical self-reliance that is deeply and unchangeably American." New York Times Book Review, Nov 8 '09, p7. <www.tinyurl.com/yg7lfgm>
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - Life After Death: The Evidence, by Dinesh D'Souza (Regnery, 2009, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yhg7lr3>
2 - The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, by David Berlinski (Basic, 2009, paperback, 256 pages)
3 - The Physics of Christianity, by Frank J. Tipler (Doubleday, 2007, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yg6zbrd>
4 - The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins (Free Press, 2006, hardcover, 304 pages)
5 - God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens (Twelve, 2009, paperback, 336 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ctcvvu>
6 - The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris (W.W. Norton, 2004, hardcover, 336 pages)
7 - Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan, 2009, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yjotdnv>
8 - Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion, by Milmon F. Harrison (Oxford Univ Prs, 2005, paperback, 192 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ychy95l>
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