Randal Rauser's Blog, page 80

Things I Learned from My Father: Everyone has a name

This past Saturday, family and friends gathered in Kelowna, B.C. to celebrate the life of my father, John Rauser. During the event, my brother Rick shared three things he learned from dad. Rick did an excellent job, and I wanted to share one of the things he learned below. So, consider this a guest-post from my brother. And to hear more from Rick Rauser, you can visit his YouTube channel.

My dad and I watched a great deal of professional tennis in the 1980s and on this specific occasion I was watching an early match of the 1987 U.S. Open. In the early rounds of these major tournaments the draw was designed so that high-ranking players would match up with low-ranking players. I was watching a first-round match between tennis superstar Boris Becker and another player, a low-ranked player who I had never heard of before. My dad came in and said, “Who’s playing?” I replied, “It’s Boris Becker against some no-name guy.”

My dad said, “Don’t call him a no-name. He has a name.”

I can’t tell you the impact these two simple sentences made on me, especially the way dad spoke them, as if it was one of the most urgent and important things I could possibly learn. His tone told me, “Listen to this. This is important.” I can’t get those words out of my head. I hear my dad speaking these words any time I interact with a person occupying a role that our society describes as anonymous: grocery store clerks, hotel maids, gas station attendants. I used to be a teacher, and I always remembered those words when I would think about the quiet, shy students who sat alone at the back of the room. I always hear my dad saying, “Don’t call him a no-name. He has a name. Everyone has a name.”

Tim Wilkison. Image credit: https://www.timwilkisonacademies.net/...

By the way, because of my dad’s observation, to this day I still remember the name of Boris Becker’s opponent that day. His name was Tim Wilkison. He lost that match against Becker, and although in his career he never reached the highest ranks of professional tennis, he did go on to win a total of six ATP tournaments and was once ranked as high as number twenty-three in the world. Today Tim Wilkison is 51 years old and he is a highly-respected instructor and director of scouting at the Charlotte International Tennis Academy in North Carolina. He is happily married and has a son who plays NCAA tennis at the University of North Carolina.

Everyone has a name.

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Pete Buttigieg and the Christian Defense of Same-Sex Marriage through Experience

Pete Buttigieg (right) and Chastain

In his book The Bible Made Impossible, Christian Smith identifies a problem with the use of the Bible as a source of doctrine. He calls that problem pervasive interpretive pluralism, and as you can guess, the term refers to the fact that Christians hold many contradictory positions which they believe are consistent with Scripture. As a result, Christians often find themselves puzzled over the disagreement with other Christians: how can they disagree with me? The Bible seems so clear!

So, for example, countless Calvinists have wondered how a Christian could possibly be Arminian. Many complementarians have looked askance at egalitarians. Many congregationalists have been flummoxed by the zeal with which some Christians defend bishops. Baptists have found themselves puzzled by the baptism of infants. And so on.

All this presses the question: how do Christians end up disagreeing in the first place? What is the genesis of pervasive interpretive pluralism that leads some Christians to be Arminian episcopal pedobaptists and others to be Calvinistic congregational baptists?

That’s a huge question, and not surprisingly, it has several answers. In some cases, disagreement may be attributable to ignorance (those individuals lack the evidence/knowledge to make the right judgments) or sinfulness (those individuals recognize the truth and yet culpably reject it).

But another significant factor concerns the different role that people grant to particular types of experience. Consider, for example, the case of same-sex relationships. The traditional Christian prohibition on these relationships is based on several factors. Central to that condemnation is a particular interpretation of several key biblical texts (e.g. Leviticus 18 and 20; Romans 1; 1 Corinthians 6), but Christians may also appeal to a range of other sources of evidence including natural law arguments, slippery slope arguments, church authority and tradition.

Not surprisingly, same-sex affirming Christians take a different approach to those biblical texts and the other arguments as well. However, in many cases, one suspects that their different stance is itself deeply shaped by (or distorted by… it depends on one’s view!) different experiences including the following: (a) personal experience of same-sex attraction, (b) the experience of knowing somebody (e.g. a sibling, a good friend) with same-sex attraction, and/or (c) the experience of knowing same-sex relationships which appear to have positive formative impacts on the individuals who participate within them.

For an excellent example of this kind of reasoning, consider a recent speech from American presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Mr. Buttigieg professes to be a Christian and to be a gay man in a same-sex marriage which, so he also professes, has produced precisely the kind of positive formative impact (or, one might say, “spiritual fruit”) that is indicative of genuine marital relationships. This is how he put it:

“being married to Chastain has made me a better human being because it has made me more compassionate, more understanding, more self-aware, and more decent. My marriage to Chastain has made me a better man. And yes, Mr. Vice-President [Pence], it has moved me closer to God.” (source)

To sum up, in addition to one’s biblical exegesis, theological and/or philosophical arguments, and traditions, one might be shaped by experience. And Buttigieg is suggesting that his and our assessment of the moral licitness of same-sex marriage should be informed by his marriage to Chastain and the spiritual fruit it has produced within him.

There is no doubt that experience is, to some degree, a legitimate source of theological reflection and doctrinal construction. For example, the man who takes a cessationist view (e.g. he denies that sign gifts are operative today) may need to revise his position if his wife appears to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. And a complementarian who believes that women should never be allowed to teach men in church may find himself reconsidering his position if he hears a powerful sermon preached by a woman.

To be sure, I’m not claiming that these individuals would thereby be justified in rejecting scripture based on these kinds of experiences. The claim, rather, is that experience could lead them back to the texts they believed excluded speaking in tongues or women preaching in order to reread those texts in light of this new set of experientially-derived data. This process reflects what philosophers refer to as pursuing reflective equilibrium.

This brings us to the question: which kinds of experience have some degree of veridical force such that they may shape the way we read biblical texts in pursuit of reflective equilibrium? Could a putative case of speaking in tongues provide sufficient reason to overturn one’s cessationist reading of the Bible? Could a powerful woman preaching be sufficient to revisit a complementarian reading of key biblical texts?

And what about the claim that particular same-sex relationships have the kind of positive formative impact that appears to produce spiritual fruit? Do you grant any veridical force to the claims of individuals like Pete Buttigieg in your assessment of same-sex marriage? Why or why not?

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Random Thoughts on the Death of My Father

My father and mother with my daughter in 2006.

I recently wrote an article describing my last visit with my father. He passed away on the morning of April 3rd, two days after his 85th birthday. Given the number of people who linger for years in the purgatorial twilight of dementia, his relatively quick demise (he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in December 2017) was a relative blessing.

Since Dad died, people have offered various laments and consolations, but I am filled only with gratitude and peace. We had a good run of it, and in the catalogue of human suffering the world over, the loss of a parent in their 80s is comparatively low on the scale.

When one person expressed their regrets, I thanked them while replying with thankfulness for the life lived and the relative painlessness of his departure. The person observed, “But we also lament what could have been.” Perhaps. To be sure, it is possible that dad could have lived to be a centenarian with a razor-sharp mind to the end, but it is also possible that he could have collapsed of a heart attack at 42. Rather than lament what greater possibilities could have been realized, I prefer to be thankful for what I did receive.

Regardless, we all walk a slightly different road of lament. There is no right or wrong to the journey of grief and the dawning of hope and acceptance that lies beyond. There is only the road itself which must be walked.

Over the last few years, I have drawn solace from varied sources including the atheistic metalcore band Architects. (Betcha didn’t see that one coming!) A few years ago, the band faced the untimely death of a bandmate to cancer. Their own struggle with mortality is expressed powerfully in many songs. Here’s a stanza from “Death is not defeat”:

Holding on tight to what’s left of our time

We’ve hidden away, but it’s in the design

Why do we fight what we can’t define?

Don’t be afraid, we all cross the same line

It’s true, we all cross the same line. I’m also happy to agree that death is not defeat. However, as you can guess, I have a very different take than the Architects on the nature of that defeat: they defiantly shake their fist at fate as mortality closes in, whereas I look to the hope of a life beyond life; they are like the 300 Spartans doomed to defeat at the Battle of Thermopylae whereas I believe the battle has already been won:

O death, where is your victory?

    O death, where is your sting?

One of the crucial stepping stones in growing up involves children coming to terms with the mortality of their parents. Sometimes the lesson is early and especially horrific as when my friend’s father committed suicide while we were still in grade school. What an awful way to face the fact of a mortal parent.

I am forever grateful that I never faced such an awful shock. Instead, I gradually acclimated to the mortality of my parents. I would put the major moment of transition at exactly twenty years ago, April 1st, 1999. That was the year that my father turned 65 and I suddenly found myself grappling with the reality that he was a “senior citizen”. In commemoration of that sober event, I wrote the following poem:

Father, whither have you gone?

You’ve grown old before me.

With the bondage of time

And that wicked mortality.

I fear I have not used

Our years to the best

I fear more each day,

That too soon you’ll find rest.

‘Time to grow up lad’

I fear you might say.

‘Time to be on your own

And forge your own way.’

Have I really grown up

to become a man?

I’m not ready, I’m scared

I need your steadying hand.

As Christians, I know

We have a greater destiny.

Fellowship and communion

for all eternity.

So to God be the praise!

Now and forever more.

But dear Dad, tis enough,

Please grow old no more.

Please grow old no more? Needless to say, that was a futile request. Like all of us, Dad grew older without fail and eventually crossed the line, that same line that each of us will cross one day. Such is life in this mortal coil that it is accompanied, without fail, by death.

As I gaze out the window this April morning, I look upon the gradual dawning of spring and the promise of new life. And yet, that new life has not, as yet, come to the northern prairie. It still remains a promise, a hope, a future reality. Such is my place on this journey as I find myself still in the midst of death, living in Holy Saturday and waiting, as yet, for the dawning of Easter morn.

But that Easter morning will come, and new life with it, for death is not, and never shall be, defeat.

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On Retreating into Mystery: A problem for Christian apologists?

Ever since Antony Flew published his short parable of the invisible gardener, atheists have complained that theism is a hypothesis forever in retreat. Or, to shift metaphors, rebutting theism is like nailing the proverbial jelly to the wall: as soon as you drive the hammer in, the jelly breaks free, sliding on to greener pastures (oops, that’s another shift in metaphor; this is getting out of hand).

Here’s a typical statement from A.C. Grayling who describes the “religious apologist” in a perpetual retreat into mystery:

“The last resort of the religious apologist is, familiarly, to invoke ineffability. The apologist challenged to explain what is meant by the word ‘god’ is apt to say that god is a mystery, too great for our finite minds to comprehend. Again, familiarly, this closes down conversation, which of course is a useful result for the apologist.” (The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 25.)

Yeah, well, you know what else “closes down conversation”, Mr. Grayling? Sweeping indictments of vaguely defined groups like “religious apologist”.

Alas, Grayling is engaged in a classic case of poisoning the well. Now, if I were to echo Grayling’s rhetorical method, I would say that poisoning the well is a “useful result” for the humanist apologist like Grayling. But the truth is that it isn’t really “useful” for anything beyond indoctrinating people within one’s doxastic community. And, ironically enough, that’s precisely what Grayling is doing here: he’s laying the groundwork for cavalier and sweeping dismissals of dissenters from one’s doxastic position based on the assumption that they are irrational and only concerned with propping up their beliefs rather than seeking truth.

Ironically enough, by engaging in this behavior, Grayling makes himself liable to the very charge he levels at others, namely the charge that he is more concerned with perpetuating belief in his in-group rather than pursuing truth.

As for the appeal to mystery, the reality is that we all find ourselves at times accepting particular things as true without knowing how they are true or even when some good evidence suggests they are false.

For example, any good philosopher can provide reasons why the average layperson should question the existence of objective moral values and obligations and embrace nihilism instead. That average layperson may not know how to rebut those arguments. As a result, the layperson may find the status of the moral universe has been placed in peril. But then she holds her newborn infant in her arms and she knows with every fiber of her being that there is good and evil, right and wrong. Though she cannot, as yet, rebut the arguments of her adept philosophical interlocutor, she retains her convictions by taking a step into mystery. In the words of Art Garfunkel:

But the ending always comes at last

Endings always come too fast

They come too fast

But they pass too slow

I love you and that’s all I know

Is this step into mystery something unique to theists? Hardly! I’ve met many atheists over the years who were dissatisfied with some aspect of their worldview. For example, like our hypothetical layperson, some did not know how to sustain a satisfactory conception of the good and the right within an atheistic moral universe. They were persuaded that nihilism must be wrong: they just didn’t know how. And so, they backed into mystery as readily as any “religious apologist”. Did they do something wrong? I don’t think so. Eventually, each one of us must decide our comfort level with mystery, but it is facile and deluded to think that one does not, or ought not, ever retreat into mystery.

To read a proper treatment of mystery and its role in Christian theology in particular, I recommend James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of its Presence, Character and Epistemic Status .

In conclusion, I am puzzled how a philosopher as adept as Grayling would indulge in such flat-footed analysis. Indeed, you might even say that is something of a mystery.

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Dabney’s Disturbing Defense of the Elation of the Elect in the Destiny of the Damned

Robert (I ain’t foolin’ around!) Dabney

In 1878, the Anglican priest and theologian, Frederic Farrar published a monograph defending hopeful universalism titled Eternal Hope. In the following year, Presbyterian theologian Robert Dabney published a review article critiquing two works including Farrar’s book.

Dabney was a defender of the view that hell consists of eternal conscious torment: hence, the title of his review essay, “Eternal Punishment.” Full of Calvinist spit and vinegar, Dabney is always interesting to read, and this review essay is no exception. But while there is much to engage, in this article, I will focus on one argument that Farrar makes in critique of eternal conscious torment along with Dabney’s rebuttal.

We will orient ourselves to the discussion by beginning with Dabney’s summary of Farrar’s reasoning. Dabney observes,

He [Farrar] represents the orthodox as teaching the odious idea that the saints will find an important element of their bliss in gloating over the despair and torments of those once their fellow-sinners. Among his proofs are citations from Thomas Aquinas, who says that the happiness of the saints will be enhanced by the law of contrast ; and from Jonathan Edwards, teaching that the knowledge of the nature of the torments from which divine grace has delivered them will enhance the gratitude of the redeemed.

Obviously, this sounds grotesque, and if that’s what eternal conscious torment requires of the elect in heaven above, you might conclude that this is a good reason to reject eternal conscious torment. But then Dabney  provides his response:

Ought not an honest mind to have seen the difference of these statements from his charge? Canon Farrar, let us suppose, has been saved from a shipwreck, in which a part of his comrades have perished. But can he not apprehend how adoring gratitude and joy from his own rescue would be increased by comparing himself, reclining safe and warm before the genial fire, with the battered corpses tossing amidst the sea-weed, while yet his whole soul might be melted with pity for them?

It’s Dabney’s response – so apparently reasonable on its face – that I now want to subject to critique.

Dabney appears to concede the joy that the elect will find in the damnation of the wicked in one sense: they will indeed have a greater sense of gratitude and joy as they contemplate their own salvation in contrast to those “battered corpses tossing amidst the sea-weed.” (Eww, what an image!)

But what Dabney doesn’t concede is that there is any malice in this pleasure.

There is some surface crediblity to Davney’s response. I can definitely imagine deriving some added relief when contemplating my good fortune (or blessing!) in contrast to those less fortunate (or less blessed) blokes who lost their lives. And presumably, this added relief is not immoral or otherwise improper. Rather, given the circumstances, it is wholly natural.

But how things change when one shifts from thinking of one’s “comrades” to one’s own child. So let’s redo the story:

Imagine that a parent is saved from a shipwreck in which his daughter perishes. Can he not apprehend how adoring gratitude and joy from his rescue would be increased by comparing himself, reclining safe and warm before the genial fire, with the battered corpse of his daughter tossing amidst the sea-weed?

I trust that you can appreciate how grotesque that sounds. Furthermore, I trust we can now appreciate that the only reason the original story didn’t sound grotesque is due to the fact that one doesn’t typically have a deep love for and connection with one’s comrades. Thus, Dabney’s defense depends on the emotional distance one has toward the drowned individuals in the example.

Needless to say, when the comrades are close, as they are (for example) in a military unit, then the loss of comrades while one survives and returns to peacetime frequently leads not to an increased adoration, gratitude, and joy at one’s survival but rather a deepened pain, suffering, and survivor guilt, a pain that can lead to depression, despondency, and even suicide. To reiterate, Dabney’s entire illustration depends on one’s emotional distance from the damned.

But it’s worse than that. According to an orthodox understanding of the doctrine of the new heavens and new earth, there is no more suffering or sadness for those who are resurrected to eternal life (Revelation 21:4). That state of emotional satisfaction and unmitigated pleasure is baldly inconsistent with even the minimal compassion that Dabney describes as a “whole soul” being “melted with pity” for the lost. There is no room in the resurrected state of glory for souls, as Dabney puts it, melted with pity for the lost. There is only joy.

Thus, to the extent that the state of the redeemed and the state of the lost are understood to be concurrent, as they must be in eternal conscious torment construals of hell, it is difficult indeed to avoid the unseemly, if not abhorrent, view that the redeemed derive great pleasure as they contrast their blessed estate with the horrific torturous suffering of the damned. To think of oneself as saved and one’s child as damned only draws the abhorrent nature of this doctrine into even sharper contrast.

Farrar’s objection stands.

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Prayer, Hypocrisy, and Hospitality: A Response to Stephanie Borowicz

This week, the first Muslim woman ever was sworn into the Pennsylvania State Legislature. The Christian politician who prayed to open the session, Stephanie Borowicz, made a point of using the name “Jesus” no less than 13 times in her prayer.

(To make matters worse, Borowicz’s prayer was a rambling mess of theological confusion which eschewed trinitarian form in favor of fatuous, unthinking christomonism: “God, forgive us. Jesus, we’ve lost sight of you. We’ve forgotten you, God and our country. And we’re asking you to forgive us, Jesus.”)

When Borowicz was later told that it was probably not advisable to use the name “Jesus” 13 times in a prayer opening a public session of government in which a Muslim politician was being sworn in, she indignantly replied that she would not be silent about her faith. One can’t help but wonder how indignant Borowicz would’ve been if a Muslim Imam had opened with a prayer saying “Allah, the one true God of the prophet Jesus…”?

In her book Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, Christine Pohl refers to hospitality as the power of recognition, of acknowledging others different than you and treating them as you would like to be treated, with courtesy, dignity, and respect. The fact is that isn’t that hard to be hospitable toward those who do not share your beliefs. It starts by making room for others, considering things from their point of view, and simply trying not to be a jerk about your beliefs.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. (Matthew 6:5, KJV)

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The Last Visit with Dad

My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease on a rainy afternoon in December 2017. Afterward, we went out for lunch to a restaurant downtown. Dad got confused and thought we were in Mexico. “Wow,” I joked, “It’s a lot cheaper to go on vacation when you have Alzheimer’s!” Gallows humor is a dark and welcome companion on this journey of pathos.

Pathos. Some diseases evoke anguish. Alzheimer’s, by contrast, is the embodiment of a slowly accumulating, smoldering sadness. The pity and sadness that accompany Alzheimer’ are compounded when it strikes a parent, one that once seemed an impregnable source of strength and support.

Dad was that. Growing up, he had no shortage of stories from his years in the “school of hard knocks”. He came to Canada in 1952 as an 18-year old who didn’t speak the language. Gradually, he worked his way up from being a farm hand to working various hard jobs. My favorite image was the time he was working the oil fields on the northern prairie. At night he slept “in forty below beside an open flare pit to keep warm, with two frozen oranges in my pocket.” As I grew up with a hot meal every night, I often thought about those two frozen oranges.

Last week, I flew home for a visit. Dad is no longer responsive. By my estimate, he has lost at least forty pounds since I visited at Christmas. He is now being prepared for palliative care, so the likelihood is that this will be our last visit.

As I leaned in to make a connection, he suddenly reached out and grasped my cheeks. So, of course, I grabbed my phone to record the moment for posterity. Moments of connection with an Alzheimer’s patient are increasingly meager and fleeting. This was likely my last moment of meaningful interaction with Dad on this earth.

The day that we drove out to the care home, there was a heavy fog hanging over the lake. As we passed over the bridge, we could see it disappearing into the fog. There is something disconcerting about being forced to drive into a fog. But when you’re on the road and traffic is moving, you don’t really have a choice. There is no direction to go but forward.

That image provides a fitting metaphor for the road that lies ahead. Whether the ailment is the ceaseless progression of Alzheimer’s or mortality more generally, we all have one choice: continue to drive forward into the fog, that fog of mortality that will claim all of our loved ones and, someday, us as well.

Hopefully, we may do so with thanks for the road we’ve traveled and anticipation for the future that lies ahead.

 

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My Choice of Ten Articles to Represent My Decade of Blogging

Since I started blogging at the Christian Post in March 2009, I have written approximately 3000 articles (though most of them — since 2010 — have been here, at randalrauser.com). Now, in celebration (Or commemoration? Recognition, perhaps?) of ten years of blogging, I have decided to select ten articles, one from each of the last ten years.

Are these my best articles? By what metric? Are they my favorites? I can’t claim that because when you write 3000 articles, you lose track after a while. However, these are broadly representative of the various topics I have addressed over the years: a dollop of theology, a dash of popular culture, a call for civility, an exercise in defensive apologetics.

Many Christian apologists devote the bulk of their time to articulating specific arguments for Christianity. That has never been my primary focus. Instead, I have focused on articulating a suitably robust, generously orthodox, and culturally engaged understanding of Christianity while responding to objections and critiquing alternative perspectives. Among those alternative perspectives, my primary focus has been on atheism and naturalism. For more on my perspective and its epistemological underpinnings, see the section “What does Randal believe and why?” on the About Randal page of this website.

And now, without further ado…

2009: “Can Christians call God ‘Mother’?” I am a systematic theologian by training. So it is somewhat ironic that I don’t write about first-order theological topics that often. However, I do so on occasion, and this article is an early example. This article was reposted at randalrauser.com in 2011 but it originally appeared at The Christian Post (where my articles that are no longer available online). In the article, I present an overview case for the theological rationale behind the use of female metaphors, pronouns, and names for God in our theological discourse.

2010: “Doing your belief inventory (or how not to be a fundamentalist)” One of the most significant ways to help people develop a strong Christian faith is by helping them see that they can (and indeed, should) have various degrees of conviction toward different Christian doctrines. Not every hill is one to die on. I provide a commendation of this process of becoming self-aware in this call to develop a “belief inventory” regarding Christian doctrine and personal belief.

2011: “Quote others the way you would have them quote you” My long concern for people to steelman other people is on display in this article where I offer a critique of the practice of quote-mining while defending a long-time victim of the practice: Martin Luther. Do I always follow the advice in this essay by carefully seeking to understand each quotation from an interlocutor in its immediately literary and social contexts? Alas, no. But I do try.

2012: “How good is God Behaving Badly? A Review” I have reviewed many books over the years (links to more than eighty reviews are found on the Reviews section of my website). This remains one of my favorites. I picked up David Lamb’s book God Behaving Badly at an academic conference, read it on the flight home, and wrote a review the morning I got back in the office. Interestingly, a couple of years later a reviewer on Good Reads named “David Lamb” gave my book The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver, and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails a measly 2 star rating. Was it the same David Lamb? You be the judge!

2013: “Errant statements in an inerrant book” One of the biggest questions I have faced through the years is how to make sense of the Bible. I have literally written dozens of articles on the topic, but I would probably recommend beginning with this one. It’s essential reading especially for evangelicals and exvangelicals who are hung up on a particular understanding of biblical inerrancy.

2014: “Stop supporting World Vision? On the ethical vision of some conservative evangelicals” Over the years, I have devoted a lot of firepower on the evangelical church. After all, this is my tribe, and critique, like charity, should begin at home. Moreover, I’ve seen the damage produced by the evangelical church up close, and this ridiculous boycott of World Vision was a great example, so I said my piece.

2015: “The Myth of the Free Thought Parent” In this article, I take aim at atheists, naturalists, humanists, secularists, and freethinkers who are sufficiently lacking in self-awareness that they actually believe they are not inculcating a worldview in their children. That is false: we all are teaching our children a way of looking at and living in the world, and the sooner we come to terms with the fact the sooner we can begin to direct some critique at our own worldview rather than simply focusing our critiques on others.

2016: “Why you can’t say the total evidence supports (or does not support) Christianity” This simple article is an exercise in epistemic humility. Once we recognize that none of us can possibly have mastery of all the evidence available to all people, we will hopefully be more circumspect in leveling sweeping charges of irrationality at others.

2017: “The Hiddenness Argument Revealed: A Review” One more book review made it onto my list. In this case, it is my review of J.L. Schellenberg’s The Hiddenness Argument, a real gem of a book that provides a valid and plausible (but in my view, unsuccessful) case against theism. Still, if we all wrote books in the way that Schellenberg does, the world would be a far more civil and intellectually rigorous place.

2018: “Is God’s Love ‘Reckless’?” Sloppy religious language bothers me and saying God’s love is reckless is sloppy, plain and simple. It’s important for Christians to think about what they’re singing. And in this article, I make the case that they should not be singing this popular praise and worship song.

So, that’s it, a random sampling of 10 articles from a corpus of more than 3000. Feel free to take a gander through this back catalogue and share your thoughts.

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It’s been ten years since I started blogging. Sigh…

I started blogging ten years ago this week. For the first couple of years, I was a blogger for Christian Post. But that wasn’t sustainable for two reasons:

First, Christian Post is conservative-evangelical-fundamentalist and I was a bit of a firebrand who was constantly seeking to challenge (inflame?) fundamentalists with my brand of righteously indignant prophetic fury. So yeah, that didn’t go well… (Fortunately, I’ve mellowed somewhat in the last decade. And so, ironically enough, I was invited last year to write articles for CP. Of course, I get paid nothing for my efforts, which (sadly enough) is not a cut from my usual income for writing online.)

Second, I grew sick and tired of click-bait crowding the margins of my incisive articles.

And so, in 2011 I launched my website and blog. While none of those original articles are still available online, fortunately, I reposted several of them at my website. Here is a link to my first article “Atheism in Dallas,” from March 2009.

This is the 2878th article posted at Randalrauser.com. Add to that the 200+ articles I wrote for Christian Post and that adds up to … a lot of articles, thousands upon thousands of hours of time, and thousands of dollars in expense (it turns out that running a website is expensive).

You might think that after ten years I would have some profound insights to share. But no, not this morning. However, be sure to check back for my 2879th article, for in blogging there’s always tomorrow.

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Do not create unnecessary stumbling blocks to Christian faith

In my opinion, one of the absolute biggest mistakes that Christians make occurs when, in the midst of sharing their faith, they include an unnecessary stumbling block as part of the essential package.

To be sure, mere Christianity has its share of genuine and non-negotiable stumbling blocks. Among them, I would suggest, are doctrines of sin, judgment, incarnation, atonement, general resurrection, and so on. The mistake comes when we present additional doctrinal demands into our presentation of mere Christianity, additional demands which constitute wholly unnecessary stumbling blocks for entry into Christian faith. Here is a partial list:

Hell as eternal conscious torment
The unconditional election of a subset of the population to salvation (i.e. Calvinism)
Historical readings of particularly troublesome biblical violence passages (e.g. 1 Samuel 15)
Theories of a young earth, global flood, and/or the non-evolutionary origin of life
Dispensational readings of Revelation with a special attention to the modern nation state of Israel
Inerrantist/literalist readings of the Bible

Vincent of Lérins (died c. 445) famously referred to his Christian commitment as a “faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” While clearly hyperbolic, that mantra does provide an excellent starting point for keeping the main thing the main thing.

So which stumbling blocks are truly essential and which are not? To be sure, there is no universal agreement on precisely where that line is to be drawn. And you may ultimately disagree with my assessment by concluding that one or more of 1-6 do indeed belong within its confines.

Fair enough, I would simply ask you to consider carefully what your list of stumbling blocks is. And always be sure not to include more stumbling blocks than is necessary when you share the Gospel with others.

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