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AR 24:6 - The Gospel, Death and Beauty
In this issue:
EVANGELISM - the purposeful direction that can be found in death and beauty
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES - their escalating liability for demanding multiple "witnesses" as a necessary condition for addressing internal crime
SCIENCE - I just can't believe it
Apologia Report 24:6 (1,414)
February 7, 2019
EVANGELISM
In his essay for The Gospel Coalition, "Study the Culture to Better Share the Gospel" (Aug 30 '18), Joshua Chatraw begins: "Is cultural analysis a distraction from the real work of apologetics? 'We're better off sticking with evidence and arguments,' some apologists say.
"The problem with this strategy is that it deals with a world that doesn't exist. All arguments inhabit a particular context. What resonates with one culture can be unbelievable to another.
"We never engage with someone who's abstracted from culture, because humans are cultural beings, shaped by the contingencies of history, institutions, languages, and local norms. ...
"If you attempt to engage secular unbelievers with traditional apologetic arguments for the resurrection or from design, don't be surprised if they just shrug their shoulders and walk away." This just doesn't touch them where they are sensitive. Chatraw explains that "Even as late moderns live in abundance and comfort, they're haunted by the sense that 'somewhere there is a fullness or richness which transcends the ordinary.'" A steady diet of materialism builds up a hunger and often a conviction that there must be something more to life.
Chatraw (director for New City Fellows and the Resident Theologian at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh, NC) discusses two topics that often capture transcendent longing in the hearts of those who do not know God's love and forgiveness: beauty and death. As to the first: "The sense of awe we feel when we hear and see beautiful things, which sometimes even brings us to tears, has a way of challenging spiritual lethargy. ... Most people simply assume the category of beauty without ever considering where it comes from. ...
"The Christian explanation of beauty also provides a reason for Christians to create and admire beautiful things, such as music, plays, paintings, sculptures, novels, and films. Because beauty and design point beyond the creation to the ultimate Creator of beauty, there's a higher reason to create. While a committed materialist might experience the same impulse to create, he cannot provide such a powerful justification and meaning for his work.
As for death: "The terror of death seems to haunt us all ... it's there, underlying everything. A popular secular sentiment is to dismiss death by saying we merely cease to exist. While this might be easy for some to say, it's a view far more difficult, if not impossible, to maintain consistently." Chatraw develops the discussion of these topics further.
His conclusion adds: "More examples of pressure points can be explored (for example, meaning, purpose, and morality). The key is starting with the unavoidable parts of someone's life. Your ambivalent neighbor can easily write off arguments that aren't essential to her everyday experience, but it won't be so easy to write off the categories and experiences she lives each day." <www.bit.ly/2DQAOaA>
Chatraw (executive director, Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement at Liberty University) recently co-authored Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness [1] with Mark D. Allen, praised by The Gospel Coalition as "The Best Single-Volume Introduction to Apologetics" <www.bit.ly/2Sf45Vc>.
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JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
"Montana jury awards two women $35M in sex abuse lawsuit against Jehovah's Witnesses" by Seaborn Larson -- this has us wondering: Is the dam about to burst? The Watchtower Society has been under increasing legal pressure around the globe for its sluggish - even negligent - response to charges of sexual abuse. High-profile cases are pending in Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and elsewhere. This item notes that the lawsuit targeted both a local congregation and the group's worldwide headquarters. Larson points out: "Each [Witness] congregation is legally connected to the Watchtower as one entity." This arrangement could quickly become a nasty liability.
"The decision came down after a three-day trial. The Thompson Falls congregation and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the church’s institutional center in New York and Pennsylvania, will pay $4 million in compensation and $31 million in punitive damages to two women who sued the church in 2016.
"The women said Max Reyes, a member of the Thompson Falls congregation, sexually assaulted, molested and raped them over a 13-year period in the 1990s and 2000s, both before he was severed from the congregation and after leadership reinstated him 14 months later. ...
"Media reports and testimony from a comprehensive investigation into the church by the Australian Royal Commission have criticized the Jehovah’s Witnesses for policies that direct elders in local congregations to handle matters internally, rather than alerting authorities or congregation members about known sexual predators. The policies from Watchtower leadership also require accusers to have two witnesses to the sexual abuse for proceedings to begin against the accused." The Missoulian, Sep 27 '18, <www.bit.ly/2HNURKI>
NBC News also covered this story, reporting "the church plans to appeal" even as this case "was just one of dozens filed nationwide over the past decade alleging Jehovah's Witness officials have mishandled sexual abuse of children, including a $13.5 million award by a San Diego judge in 2014 to a man who was abused by a church leader when he was seven years old. ...
"Many of the allegations have surfaced as other religious groups, such as the Catholic church, have wrestled with similar abuse claims. But bringing up such accusations in the Jehovah's Witness community comes with an extra set of challenges, religious scholars say.
"In terms of reporting complaints or misbehavior or abuse, there's what they call the 'two-witness rule,'" which means that an alleged crime must be witnessed by two people before being brought to the attention of the church's leadership.
"The two-witness rule is only for internal modes of discipline and does not prevent a victim from going to the police, notes Mathew Schmalz (associate professor of religious studies, College of the Holy Cross).
"But the fear of being ostracized from the tight-knit community also prevents members from speaking out." <www.nbcnews.to/2D4lZzp>
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SCIENCE
While it's growing increasingly common for science to be seen as a threat to religion, science is having the same trust issues as other sources of authority. This is borne out by a story in Technology Networks (Nov 1 '18) titled "1 in 4 Statisticians Asked to Commit Scientific Fraud." It begins: "A stunning report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine <www.bit.ly/2WAgHVb> concludes that researchers often ask statisticians to make 'inappropriate requests.' And by 'inappropriate,' the authors aren't referring to accidental requests for incorrect statistical analyses; instead, they're referring to requests for unscrupulous data manipulation or even fraud.
"The authors surveyed 522 consulting biostatisticians and received sufficient responses from 390. Then, they constructed a table ... that ranks requests by level of inappropriateness. For instance, at the very top is 'falsify the statistical significance to support a desired result,' which is outright fraud. At the bottom is 'do not show plot because it did not show as strong an effect as you had hoped,' which is only slightly naughty. ...
"[T]he authors report how often the biostatisticians estimated that they received such a request over the past five years. The results are jaw-dropping.
"The absolute worst offense (i.e., being asked to fake statistical significance) occurred to 3% of the survey respondents. Another 7% reported being asked to change data, and a whopping 24% -- nearly 1 in 4 -- said they were asked to remove or alter data. Unequivocally, that is a request to commit scientific fraud.
"Of the less serious offenses, 55% of biostatisticians said that they received requests to underreport non-significant results. ...
"Scientists often aren't very good at statistics, and they may make inappropriate requests simply because they don't know any better. The study didn't tease that out.
"Still, this study should serve as a reminder that the ongoing reproducibility crisis <www.bit.ly/2HWATNT> may have, at least in part, a more sinister explanation." <www.bit.ly/2WEMZ1d>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Apologetics at the Cross: An Introduction for Christian Witness, by Joshua D. Chatraw and Mark D. Allen (Zondervan, 2018, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.amzn.to/2RLwFbo>
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