13AR18-02
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Apologia Report 18:2 (1,138)
January 9, 2013
Subject: "Free speech is dying in the Western world"
In this issue:
FREE SPEECH - "new restrictions are forcing people to meet the demands of the lowest common denominator"
HOMOSEXUALITY - academics labor over many pages to explain what is going on within Christianity Today
ORIGINS - are theistic evolutionists "defending a dying paradigm?"
PROCESS THEOLOGY - is God "dependent on the world for his own self-actualization?"
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FREE SPEECH
"Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech" by Jonathan Turley -- begins: "Free speech is dying in the Western world" due to "well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony." The first examples given are related to Muslims who find themselves "provoked." Turley observes: "It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance."
Another way of putting it for Turley is the effort to "confine free speech in the name of social pluralism." He cites the example of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority "passing a new regulation banning any [advertising] message that it considers likely to 'incite' others or cause some 'other immediate breach of the peace.' ...
"Such efforts focus not on the right to speak but on the possible reaction to speech - a fundamental change in the treatment of free speech in the West." Yet another phobia has assailed us, fear that "speech that might provoke a violence-prone minority. Our entire society is being treated as a crowded theater, and talking about whole subjects is now akin to shouting 'fire!'"
"The new restrictions are forcing people to meet the demands of the lowest common denominator of accepted speech, usually using one of four rationales." These are: Speech is blasphemous, hateful, discriminatory, and deceitful. Turley's discussion of the first three will be familiar. However, in regard to the last, he writes that "there has been a recent effort to carve out a potentially large category to which the First Amendment would not apply. While we have always prosecuted people who lie to achieve financial or other benefits, some argue that the government can outlaw any lie, regardless of whether the liar secured any economic gain. ...
"The dangers are obvious. Government officials have long labeled whistleblowers, reporters and critics as 'liars' who distort their actions or words. If the government can define what is a lie, it can define what is the truth." Washington Post,
Oct 12 '12, <www.ow.ly/gzkaQ>
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HOMOSEXUALITY
"Evangelical Elites' Changing Responses to Homosexuality 1960–2009" by Jeremy N. Thomas and Daniel V. A. Olson (both at the Department of Sociology, Purdue University) -- the abstract reads: "Although popular culture war depictions have often presented evangelical elites as intransigent in their opposition to homosexuality, we find that during the last several decades, evangelical elites have actually been subtly but significantly changing their moral reasoning about homosexuality. Based on content analysis of the popular evangelical magazine Christianity Today, we identify the shifts that compose this change, and we propose that various combinations of these shifts align with and map onto four overarching responses to homosexuality. We suggest that the development of these responses demonstrates a trajectory of change that portends the increasing liberalization of evangelical elites' positions and attitudes on public policy debates related to homosexuality. We argue that these changing responses are largely the result of underlying shifts in the sources of moral authority to which evangelical elites have been appealing when making arguments about homosexuality."
The "four overarching responses to homosexuality" are: "Biblical Intolerance" (the Bible rejects the behavior), "Natural Intolerance" (here "the role of the Bible is implicitly downplayed and instead, science, medicine, and the natural order ... subtly emerge to become the *de facto* sources of moral authority"), "Public Accommodation" (a combination of the first two), and "Personal Accommodation" (in which "there may be evidence pointing to a fourth response to homosexuality" based upon the increasing frequency in CT of opinion from "progressive evangelicals" such as Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell. (Thomas and Olson read a lot into media attention given to contrasting views.) Sociology of Religion, 73:3 - 2012, pp239-272.
POSTSCRIPT (Jul 31 '16): Also see "The True Story of a Conservative Refugee" by Robert Oscar Lopez (May 26 '16) <www.goo.gl/oKcWRR>
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ORIGINS
"Deity Added" by Casey Luskin -- reports that "While 21st-century biology is moving beyond the standard neo-Darwinian model of evolution - sometimes adopting the same critiques made by proponents of intelligent design - theistic evolutionists appear stuck in the mid-20th century, defending a dying paradigm."
Luskin refers to Lynn Margulis, the late premier scientist and member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, who "explained in a 2011 interview [ <www.ow.ly/gAcvy> ]: '[N]eo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change [which] led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.'
"According to Margulis, 'new mutations don't create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.'"
Science journalist Susan Mazur "reported that there are 'hundreds of other evolutionary scientists (non-creationists) who contend that natural selection is politics, not science, and that we are in a quagmire because of staggering commercial investment in a Darwinian industry built on an inadequate theory.'"
Luskin also notes that "Eugene Koonin of the National Center for Biotechnology Information [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] stated in Trends in Genetics [ <www.ow.ly/gAcEx> ] that breakdowns in core neo-Darwinian tenets, such as the 'traditional concept of the tree of life' or the view that 'natural selection is the main driving force of evolution' indicate that 'the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair.' 'Not to mince words,' Koonin concluded, 'the modern synthesis is gone.'" Salvo, #22 - 2012, pp54-56.
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PROCESS THEOLOGY
"A Christian Option or a New Religion?" by Rob Haskell -- one of the most concise profiles on the subject that we have seen. The introduction finds that process theology is "well-crafted for the needs of both modern and postmodern people" and addresses two crucial concerns of both groups: freedom (where "by re-imagining the meaning of cause and effect ... process theology has made room for materialist freedom), and evolution ("an overarching metaphysical principle" which goes beyond biological theory and applies to the divine as well).
Haskell explains process philosophy beginning with founder Alfred North Whitehead's bedrock or "organic" emphasis on the importance of time and occasion. This is applied to Whitehead's view of God and an evaluation of process philosophy overall.
Seven core doctrines of process theology are discussed (too complex for us to attempt a summarization). This is followed by Haskell's biblical evaluation of process theology, which centers on omnipotence, impassibility and creation.
Haskell concludes that "Process thinkers do attempt to find coherence between the Christian Scriptures and their ideas, but the attempt ultimately fails.
"Two notions in particular will continue to create dissonance with the biblical account of God. First, the idea that God's power is limited, and second, the notion that God is dependent on the world for his own self-actualization." Evangelical Review of Theology, 36:4 - 2012, pp302-315.
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