21AR26-21

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AR 26:21 - Engaging ancient Christianity's global identity

In this issue:

CHURCH HISTORY - debating whether Christianity is "a mainly white, Western, and often oppressive religion"

ORIGINS - John Lenox's answers to Stephen Hawking's claim that no God is needed to explain the Universe

REASON - have we "moved away from the notion of a single universal rationality?"

UFO CULTS - "a tapestry of Eastern spirituality, Born Again Christianity, and New Age doggerel"

Apologia Report 26:21 (1,526)

May 28, 2021

CHURCH HISTORY

A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity, by Vince L. Bantu [1] has a simple thesis, writes Dean Flemming (professor of New Testament and missions, MidAmerica Nazarene University). This volume - which won Christianity Today's History/Biography "Award of Merit" (Jan/Feb '21) - argues that "Christianity has always been a global faith. ...

"Bantu narrates a fascinating story of Christianity's roots in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, India, and China, a tale that is seldom told. In the process, he shatters the pervasive misperception of Christianity as a mainly white, Western, and often oppressive religion that was exported to the rest of the world. Carefully researched, the book describes vibrant ancient churches in the non-Western world with indigenous leadership and a contextualized theology, patterns that speak to the church's identity and mission today." Flemming concludes: "Bantu has rewritten the script for how we understand the character of global Christianity. I commend him for it!"

An excerpt in the Dec '20 issue of CT emphasizes that we should never think of Christianity as becoming global, for it is and always has been. Bantu, a Fuller Seminary prof, begins: "Following the valuable work of prominent missiologists, it has become commonplace among 21st-century Christians to highlight the significant demographic shifts in the global church. The fact that the majority of Christians now live in the Global South has led many to speak of what the scholar Philip Jenkins has called the 'coming of global Christianity.'

"Contemporary missiologists have drawn needed attention to the demographic shifts of the 20th and 21st centuries and given helpful challenges to what North Park Theological Seminary professor Soong-Chan Rah calls the 'Western, white captivity of the church.' However, in noting such developments, there has been an implication that global diversity is exclusively a 20th-century innovation of the Christian movement. Too many people, both Christian and non-Christian, still perceive Christianity as the white man's religion.

"Contemporary missiology has often advanced the church's cultural self-understanding by highlighting the unprecedented recorded numbers of Christians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. However, the modern global church has often been presented as emerging from centuries of a Western-majority church, when the reality is quite the opposite in several significant respects." <www.bit.ly/3tYZAwE> (paywall awaits)

For a counterpoint, consider White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, by Robert P. Jones (sociologist, founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute) <www.bit.ly/3gFN1Th> [2]. Simon & Schuster calls this "An indispensable study" (Kirkus, starred review) which draws on "history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience [to present] a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for white Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation. As the nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in America, Christianity's role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has been largely overlooked."

Jones takes no prisoners, accusing "white Christians - from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast" - of not being merely "complacent or complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project of protecting white supremacy and opposing black equality that has framed the entire American story. ... White Too Long is 'a marvel' (Booklist, starred review) that demonstrates how deeply racist attitudes have become embedded in the DNA of white Christian identity over time and calls for an honest reckoning with a complicated, painful, and even shameful past. Jones challenges white Christians to acknowledge that public apologies are not enough - accepting responsibility for the past requires work toward repair in the present."

Writing in National Review (29 October '20), Robert Cherry (professor emeritus, Brooklyn College) challenges Jones's controversial "racism index" (“The more racist attitudes a person holds, the more likely he or she is to identify as a white Christian”), expressing his concern that "Jones began with a view that racism is the only explanation for any unwillingness to support his visions of white supremacy." <www.bit.ly/3i3ER7X>

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ORIGINS

God and Stephen Hawking, 2nd ed. (due out July 23), by John C. Lennox [3] -- the publisher explains: "The Grand Design [4], by eminent scientist Stephen Hawking, is the latest blockbusting contribution to the so-called New Atheist debate, and claims that the laws of physics themselves brought the Universe into being, rather than God. ... Lennox, Oxford mathematician and author of God's Undertaker [5], exposes the flaws in Hawking's logic. In lively, layman's terms, the book guides us through the key points in Hawking's arguments - with clear explanations of the latest scientific and philosophical methods and theories - and demonstrates that far from disproving a Creator God, they make his existence seem all the more probable. A new and revised edition of the stirring reply to Hawking's claims that God is not needed to explain the Universe."

For more on Hawking's Grand Design from our past issues, visit <www.bit.ly/2Tj33IV>

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REASON

The Territories of Human Reason: Science and Theology in an Age of Multiple Rationalities, by Alister E. McGrath (Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford and Director, the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion) <www.ianramseycentre.info> [6] -- IVP notes: "We may think of the world as an ontological unity - but we use a plurality of methods ['multiple rationalities'] to investigate and represent this world. This development has called into question both the appeal to a universal rationality, characteristic of the Enlightenment, and also the simple 'modern-postmodern' binary. The Territories of Human Reason is the first major study to explore the emergence of multiple situated rationalities. It focuses on the relation of the natural sciences and Christian theology, but its approach can easily be extended to other disciplines. ... McGrath offers a major reappraisal of what it means to be 'rational' which will have significant impact on older discussions of this theme. He sets out to explore the consequences of the seemingly inexorable move away from the notion of a single universal rationality towards a plurality of cultural and domain-specific methodologies and rationalities."

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UFO CULTS

New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family, by Joseph L. Flatley [7] -- there is so little current information available related to Urantia, arguably the largest <www.bit.ly/2StdgSJ> of the UFO cults, that we felt it worth passing on this profile of a related spin-off. Feral House - perhaps best known as the publisher of Anton Szandor LaVey <www.bit.ly/34pIJbi> (no cozy romance novels in this catalog!) - introduces the book thus: "Gabriel of Urantia is the leader of a UFO religion based in the desert of southern Arizona. He has spent the last three decades weaving together his belief system, a tapestry of Eastern spirituality, Born Again Christianity, and New Age doggerel. In a compound near the Mexican border, his disciples tend the garden, take classes, and serve their guru while they wait for the end of the world." Flatley is described as "a journalist who has spent years investigating Gabriel and his cult, the Global Community Communications Alliance."

For those who can't get enough, he also has an eight-part podcast, "The So-Called Prophet from Pittsburgh,” <www.anchor.fm/pghprophet> for which he "traveled the country speaking to Gabriel's ex-followers, cult experts, and people who knew Gabriel before he was a so-called prophet."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity, by Vince L. Bantu (IVP, 2020, paperback, 256 pages) <www.bit.ly/3nqdUMo>

2 - White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, by Robert P. Jones (Simon & Schuster, 2020, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.bit.ly/3aHJi3I> (and also available in paperback mid-July)

3 - God and Stephen Hawking, 2nd ed. (due out July 23), by John C. Lennox (Lion Hudson LTD, July 2021, paperback, 112 pages) <www.bit.ly/3ifDWBp>

4 - The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Random House, 2012, paperback, 208 pages) <www.bit.ly/2S9UnnT>

5 - God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, by John C. Lennox (Lion Books, 2009, paperback, 224 pages) <www.bit.ly/2RSAd1N>

6 - The Territories of Human Reason: Science and Theology in an Age of Multiple Rationalities, by Alister E. McGrath (Oxford Univ Prs, July 2021, paperback, 304 pages) <www.bit.ly/3gCLq0t>

7 - New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family, by Joseph L. Flatley (Feral House, June 2021, paperback, 272 pages) <www.bit.ly/32FDqna>

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