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AR 20:13 - Defending the resurrection of Christ
Apologia Report 20:13 (1,242)
April 1, 2015
In this issue:
ORIGINS - convinced that "humans have defeated natural selection, domesticated the planet, and can now modify themselves free of physical limitations"?
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST - "Today’s counterpart" to the most popular work on the subject of a generation ago?
YOGA - critic finds that Christian and Hindu objections to pop-yoga "are strikingly similar"
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ORIGINS
Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life on Earth by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans [1] -- Eileen H. Kramer (Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston, Georgia) notes: "Cofounders of a biotech start-up firm (Excel Venture Management) and coauthors [Enriquez and Gullans] assert that humans have defeated natural selection, domesticated the planet, and can now modify themselves free of physical limitations. Convincing the reader of these ideas requires explaining technical background, addressing safety issues, and justifying research priorities. The authors, however, never explain how cells get from DNA to phenotype, not admitting that genetic engineering manipulates complex, biochemical processes. Likewise, they omit that human influence, 'unnatural selection,' often still includes accidents such as acid rain, white nose syndrome, and the Fukushima disaster. Both authors assume that we should eliminate chronic disease and perfect humanity, because the developed world is replete with peace and plenty - this despite droughts in California and Texas, colony collapse disorder, and multi-drug-resistant bacteria. Our readiness for human enhancement through 'nonrandom mutation' is an open question that needs solid information rather than hubris. ... VERDICT Those curious about biotech industry promotion will find this title useful, but others should steer clear." Library Journal, Mar '15 #1, p108.
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RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? A Surgeon-Scientist Examines the Evidence, by Thomas A. Miller [2] -- begins by praising the popular success of Who Moved the Stone, by Frank Morison [3], which "impressed thousands of readers a generation ago." Reviewer Craig L. Blomberg explains that "What really made the book persuasive, however, was that Morison was not a biblical scholar but a lawyer and he cross-examined the evidence with the rigor of a persistent prosecutor. ...
"Instead of beginning with principles of jurisprudence [like Morison], Miller appropriately reviews the limits and nature of the scientific method. ... Science can no more prove George Washington lived than it can disprove the resurrection. Instead one has to utilize historical tools, particularly the nature and credibility of testimony to a particular event. ...
"Miller appropriately questions whether we have reason to believe its authors had access to and recorded reliable testimony. Miller answers with a resounding affirmative on four main grounds: the proliferation of manuscripts and their remarkable overall agreement, the comparatively early dates of their writing, the care with which each was written and the overall archaeological corroboration of what can be tested....
"Miller conversely summarizes rebuttals to the Jesus Seminar, the Da Vinci Code, and Bart Ehrman that attempt to counter this confidence in Gospel reliability.
"From here, Miller turns to the details of Jesus’ crucifixion and crucifixions more generally in the ancient world [which] militates against all theories that Jesus did not really die on the cross. Other classic alternatives—that the disciples went to the wrong tomb or that Jesus would have been allowed to be eaten by wild animals and/or thrown into a shallow grave—are likewise rebuffed. ...
"Why is this such a perennially important topic? Miller turns to this question and gives the classic Christian answers. ...
"What Miller does not do is also what Morison did not do, nor C. S. Lewis, nor Josh McDowell, nor most other popular-level apologists and that is treat in any detail the 'fourth L'.... The main arguments against the legendary nature of the accounts do not emerge here: women uniformly as the first witnesses, crucifixion meaning cursed by God in the Torah, the change from worshiping on the Sabbath to Sunday, the problem of dying for a known lie, the lack of true parallels in other mythology, and so on. ... While a Richard Dawkins can insult thousands of scientists who believe for being deluded, it is in fact the natural sciences whose students and professors disproportionately populate Christian organizations on university campuses around the country and the world today. It is also good to have an up-to-date book that is short, to-the-point, and readable...."
Blomberg finds that "Today’s counterpart [to Who Moved the Stone] may well turn out to be Thomas Miller’s Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?" High praise, coming from Blomberg, and far better than the fawning pages of multiple pre-arranged endorsements which crowd the introductions to so many evangelical books today. Denver Journal, Feb 16 '15. <www.goo.gl/Ok6EmN>
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YOGA
Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture, by Andrea Jain [4] -- Religion Dispatches(Jan 29 '15) posts a helpful interview in which Jain (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University—Purdue) describes her book as "a comparative study of modern yoga, its popularization, and its intersections with consumer culture." She reflects on her discovery of "a global yoga industry in which popularized varieties of postural yoga reflect dominant consumer demands and desires." She also observes that "pop culture varieties of postural yoga are often dismissed from any serious consideration of what yoga is. Many have even implicitly and explicitly criticized popularized yoga as illegitimate or a corruption of yoga orthodoxies. But their portraits of postural yoga are misleading.
"The key message for Selling Yoga's readers is that yoga has been perpetually context-sensitive, so there is no 'legitimate,' 'authentic,' 'orthodox,' or 'original' tradition, only contextualized ideas and practices organized around the term yoga. In other words, the innovations unique to pop culture yoga do not de-authenticate them simply because they represent products of consumer culture."
Jain finds that "one frequent misconception is
that there is a blanket acceptance of yoga as an acceptable consumer
choice. Yet, Selling Yoga illuminates a number of growing movements
that oppose popularized yoga and even sometimes court fear of it.
"Some Christians ... warn about the dangers of yoga given the perceived incompatibility between what they believe is its Hindu essence and Christianity. I call their position the Christian yogaphobic position.
"Some well-known Americans, such as [Albert] Mohler, add that yoga's popularization threatens the Christian essence of American culture. Hindu protesters, most notably the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), criticize yoga insiders for failing to recognize yoga's so-called Hindu origins and illegitimately co-opting yoga for the sake of profit. I call this the Hindu origins position.
"The two are strikingly similar, most significantly insofar as they lean on the misconception that yoga is definitively Hindu. ...
"Another unfortunate but common misconception is that yoga is a mere commodity of global market capitalism or, at best, 'spiritual, not religious.' ...
"If one closely evaluates examples from popularized yoga, it becomes apparent that it can have robust religious qualities. ...
"Recent articulations of yoga are not necessarily more or less religious and are not more or less authentic than earlier ones. In fact, there is no 'authentic' or 'original' yoga as there is no 'authentic' or 'original' Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or any other religious complex."
Jain describes her admiration for the "modern hero" Ida C. Craddock (1857-1902), who was "an American social radical and early modern yogi in a period characterized by attempts to legally enforce narrow interpretations of what it meant to be a 'Christian nation.' ...
"Craddock sacralized sexual intercourse, which is not radical by today's popular American standards and, in Schmidt's words, may even seem 'mundane' to the contemporary reader. However, for the mainstream turn-of-the-century American, it was antisocial heterodoxy. ...
"Craddock identified as a Unitarian but also as the pastor of the Church of Yoga. The fact that a woman could be so polymorphously religious reflects the realities of modernity and its pluralizing processes, but it also reflects yoga's malleability." <www.goo.gl/Vs2Fds>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life on Earth by Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans (Current, 2015, hardcover, 384 pages) <www.goo.gl/mKuAWv>
2 - Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? A Surgeon-Scientist Examines the Evidence, by Thomas A. Miller (Crossway, 2013, paperback, 176 pages) <www.goo.gl/GQIbix>
3 - Who Moved the Stone, by Frank Morison (Zondervan, 1987, paperback, 192 pages) <www.goo.gl/sFNzcx>
4 - Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture, by Andrea Jain (Oxford Univ Prs, 2014, paperback, 264 pages) <www.goo.gl/huJVfj>
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