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Over the weekend, I attended the On Guard Conference 2010, a Christian apologetics conference. Before you read any further I must quickly explain my history with Christianity.
Back in high school, I was holy rollin' like a 80-year-old on a Rascal. I knew for sure I was going into the ministry and was entirely prepared to spend the rest of my life in the service of God. Several things happened about which I would write a book (and might one day). The short version is, my church was populated with small-minded, bigots. The church split twice and once because of a situation I was involved in. A poor black woman living out of an old rusted mustang barely survived two lots down while the church sent money to missionaries in Honduras. By the time the church had sucked my soul from me and spit me out, I turned my back on it all.
Fast forward to now. I have two children and I live in Texas. They will be exposed to Christianity in some form. We visited many churches (and synagogues since they are technically Jewish) and nothing appealed to me. The primary problem I have is that traditional worship is a broken record, especially when handled by Southern Baptists. There is only so much of the same catch-phrases, slogans, and cliches I can take before I hit toxic cynicism. The other problem I have is with modern worship. There is only so much canned slides, unfamiliar songs, and slick (but only re-purposed traditional) sermons I stomach. Where others claim tradition, I claim "rut". I was on the other side long enough to see all of these things as meaningless.
I kept myself at such a distance from religion for so long, that aplogetics is entirely new to me. Christian apologetics is a discipline (and I would argue a culture as well) within Christianity where Christians defend their faith through logic, reason, and even science. Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. But here's the kicker:
In my entire life, not once have I ever seen or heard a Christian say these words: "I'm not afraid for anyone to question me about my faith. I have nothing to hide [intellectually]."
Keep in mind, growing up Southern Baptists means growing up knowing very little about your own faith and spending time around other people who are openly hostile to those who don't believe the same way.
For me, I don't know what I believe anymore. I feel burned by a long history of disappointments by my own faith. In a nutshell, God to me is very similar to my own father. He came around, did his business and is long gone. I don't and probably will never believe God is much more than a designer who set up some sophisticated systems that still work today but has moved on to other interests. I frankly think it's absurd to believe God takes the time to help somebody have the strength to make it through a job interview while somewhere else around the world a child is sold into a life of sex slavery. But I digress.
So my attendance at the conference is me intrigued by the kind of intellectual topics presented because that's not the Christianity I know or see on TV.
Friday Night
There was an opening presentation called "Defending Your Faith" by Craig Hazen and JP Moreland. Dr. Hazen is infectiously funny and a great kick-off for an event like this. Dr. Moreland, on the the other hand, is a little more rough around the edges. He started out as an atheist philosopher and converted to Christianity. Dr. Moreland is like an ex-smoker with littler tolerance for being around smokers.
After a short break, Dr. Paul Nelson presented “The Power and Promise of Intelligent Design in Biology”. Dr. Nelson's presentation did one thing for me: I realized the concept of Intelligent Design has been hijacked by crazy home-schooling nimrods who believe the earth is only 6000 years old. Dr. Nelson is a biologist and presented on how Darwinism (not "evolution") cannot explain everything. This is an important point because science, philosophy, and a belief in a higher power can co-exist and drive the desire to learn and seek more answers.
Saturday
Saturday was dense with five particularly heady presentations. Dr. Hazen opened the morning with "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead". Dr. Hazen is by far the most entertaining of the presenters. His humor and professional delivery are among the best in all of presentation world (not the theme park). I got a chance to speak to Dr. Hazen during the following presentation by Sean McDowell because I skipped it to browse their bookstore without 1000 of my fellow attendees getting in my way. I hear Sean was good, though and hopefully I can revisit his presentation later.
Dr. Moreland was on next with a presentation on worldviews. As I mentioned, he's a sort of curmudgeon. He really strikes me as a "my way or highway" sort of guy. There seemed to be an implied "dammit" after each of his points. However, the most off-putting thing he said was his claim that he has exorcised demons and is protected constantly by three angels. I just can't buy that for a host of reasons but primarily my own life experiences. Again, I don't doubt there is a god out there somewhere. I just think he is long gone and doesn't directly deal with this crappy little planet.
The following presenter, Dr. Mike Licona, was the most accessible presenter–for most people. He used lots of sports analogies lost on me because I'm not a sports guy. The audience seemed to like them though. His session was interesting because he built a case for the four New Testament gospels as reliable historical documents and I believe he proved his point. He had a great presentation and a solid set of arguments.
The closing presenter was Dr. William Lane Craig on “The Case for the Existence of God”. Holy crap was that a dense presentation. I think I would need to see his presentation several times to retain many of his points. But that's okay, it was good stuff.
Conclusions
So the conference was great. So great in fact it occurred to me if actual mainstream Christianity was like that instead of the feelings-based judgment frontal assault I grew up with, I might have never left the church. However, the conference seemed to be geared toward two types: believers (meaning Christians who want to defend their faith) and atheists, who comprise the main apologetics boogie man. "Atheist" was used constantly to refer to the kind of people they needed to stay prepared for.
As a guy who lost his faith long ago, I never doubted God's existence. However, since I think he is a deadbeat dad, I have many questions and am looking for meaning without being convinced God is real. My struggle with faith has lasted me about 25 years. I would like to have seen a session on reconciling the Bible as a whole. For instance if Intelligent Design is really using science as I heard, how do they address the Adam and Eve question? I also would like someone like Dr. Moreland to discuss why he gets three angels and conversations with God directly when clearly God never bothered with me to begin with.
The premise on which they build many of their arguments is their belief. I don't have that. So while I enjoyed the conference overall, I walked out of there with more questions. But isn't that kind of the point? For the first time in over two decades, I felt mentally stimulated by a religious event. In that, I'm intrigued.
Update
Wow. My site hits went up. Welcome apologetics people. Please keep in mind I kept my own life experiences brief because, as I wrote above, I could write a whole book on it. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find my way spiritually and, to this day, struggle. I only provided a short history so you could understand where I was coming from in my conference summary.
Also, the phrase "seemed to be an implied 'dammit'" actually was from my friend Keith Cartlidge who I didn't originally credit because he has no online presence whatsoever. Keith is a great thinker and writer and we would all benefit from him blogging but he is particularly stubborn on this issue. This paragraph is a weak attempt at encouraging him to just do it, so we'll see.
Related articles
- The Perils of Intra-Christian Apologetics (palamas.info)
- Evaluating different religions: 5 reasons to start your spiritual search with Christianity (4simpsons.wordpress.com)
- Christian Apologetics (new.exchristian.net)
- I think I feel anger more than anything (new.exchristian.net)
- Defending the faith, from infanticide to genocide (theglobeandmail.com)
- Richard T. Hughes: The Christian Right in Context, Part 1: The Long View (huffingtonpost.com)
- Southern Baptist leader attacks yoga as anti-Christian (americablog.com)
- The Spiritual Center, Ctd (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
Sex. Murder. Art. by Slayer
Thank you very much for sharing your personal history with Christianity and your thoughts on the conference. I am the Director of Reasonable Faith Dallas (www.reasonablefaithdallas.org), a local chapter of Dr. William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith ministry. We were the main sponsor of the conference. I would love to touch base further. Please feel free to email me at chris@reasonablefaithdallas.org. Take care, Chris Shannon
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mkanderson Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Chris: Thanks for the note of encouragement. I will email you later this week after my Sarbanes Oxley testing at work is complete and I have successfully gouged my own eyes out.
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MK Anderson:
Your description of your experience within the Southern Baptist church was strikingly similar to what I could say of my own, so I can completely commiserate. It wasn't until after college that I encountered what you very aptly describe as the "culture" of apologetics. Now, 12 years later, I'm working on my graduate degree in the discipline. Apologists, those training to be, and those who simply love the academic/philosophical arguments for Christianity greatly desire an intellectual revolution in Christendom. It's long past time that Christianity is seen for what it truly is (an intellectually defensible faith and worldview), instead of the unfortunate caricature that its abusers have all-too-frequently portrayed. (An excellent recent book that your post reminded me of is William Dembski's The End of Christianity.) Thanks for your post on the conference, and keep asking the difficult questions!
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mkanderson Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Melissa: I've noted the book. I will definitely check it out. I've often said that if money were no object, I'd go to seminary because of the questions that have plagued me my whole life. I've certainly lost my faith in both God and people. As much experience as I had early on, I never had satisfying answers to the most basic of theological problems. What does that say about Christendom?
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Hi,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts – great post. I was also at this conference and thought it was very interesting. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience with some Christians in the past – I hope that will not keep you from searching for the truth. I was raised in a Christian environment and went through a period of severe doubts that led me on a long in-depth study to try to understand the evidence for and against theism and Christianity. In my own search I concluded that the evidence is very strongly in favor of Christianity and once I opened myself to following God, I regained my faith. I am so thankful to go through this period of searching as now my faith is stronger than ever (more grounded in evidence you might say). If you are interested in digger deeper into the evidence, check out my blog (hainline.wordpress.com/ or my website designEvidence.info. I try to provide some reasons for believing that the Bible was inspired by God (based on fulfilled prophecies that can be verified today etc.) I'd like to at least try to answer any questions you have. I don't claim to have all of the answers but could try to perhaps help with some issues/questions …
Take care,
Allen
[Reply]
mkanderson Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Allen: Thanks for your kind words. I will check out your blog. I'm intrigued by what I saw at the conference but I'm still digesting everything. I think this will be a long, painful process.
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@Wintery Knight
I appreciate your comments on my article. It was written hastily after the conference, so please forgive the typos that I just noticed in your quotes.
While I understand your point about the tea party and Christianity, I felt the need to comment because, and I mean no offense to you personally, the analogy of Christianity needing a movement like it bothers me. One of the primary reasons I left the church, and consequently Arkansas, was my personal exposure to racist, homophobic, uneducated people. While not everyone I knew was like that, it was entrenched in both the Southern Baptist culture and in the state's culture in general.
The tea party is a political movement and over the years I've also grown disillusioned with politics. The last thing the church needs is a movement driven by anger and fear. You stated the church suffers from "inclusivism", yet my experience is quite the opposite. From the pulpit and directly by church leaders, I was told I should never date outside my race. My own mother, who was refused a third marriage ceremony by her own pastor because she was divorced (yeah, I know, but her dysfunction is for another discussion), begged me to never bring a black girl home. The sad thing is the first girl to ever give me her phone number was the cutest, sweetest girl I knew in high school who just happened to be black. I'm still angry over what might have been if the gawd-awful mentality was different there. That's just a very small example of what I experienced.
My friend who attended the conference with me is a believer. He convinced me to read Rich Mullins' biography a few months ago. That book impressed me enough to open up a little (read: weensy little bit) toward Christianity again. The reason for this was simply that Rich lived such a life of inclusion. He was more worried about helping people than politics.
It's my belief that any group involved in politics is doing it out of a need to control. Even Christians cannot agree on doctrine and I'd rather the polarizing vitriol stay out of public policy. For example, gay marriage has become a wedge issue and we honestly have bigger fish to fry. In the big scheme of things, gay marriage is on the low end of what I think our government should be worried about. Meanwhile, human trafficking is worse than it's ever been. I'd rather have our government finding ways to free children out of slavery than debating the finer points of who can marry whom or passing legislation to make sure TV commercials are aired at the same volume as the programs.
While I have grown weary of politics, my desire for spiritual peace and answers have always plagued me. In my perfect world, religion and politics don't mix at all.
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Hey Keith,
Yeah, Christianity is now on the defense. I can relate to everything you say here because I've been there and felt that too. I think as humans we feel the need to logically explain everything, and therein lies the problem with God. The belief there is a God is often referred to as faith, and faith is commonly defined as a belief in something even though you have no logical reason to believe. I don't think logic and reasoning can ever be used to prove the existence of God.
Some argue that lots of people are Christians simply because it's what they know, which is sad really. I prefer to think of my relationship with God as being a conscious decision to believe in Him and follow Him IN SPITE of what I know. I know theology sounds silly, and I know spiritual mumbo jumbo evokes lots of eye rolls. When I go back and re-read philosophical ontological arguments for the existence of God, I even roll my eyes sometimes. (Majoring in philosophy at a liberal arts university fueled my atheism.) But the truth is that I don't care.
Cutting this short for now. Lots to do. Enjoyed reading the post.
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Jen,
I appreciate your comments, but was a little confused by some of them.
I am not sure what you mean by “Christianity is on the defense”, but I thought the article below on the revolution that has been taking place amongst Christians for years in the area of philosophy might interest you.
The Revolution in Anglo-American Philosophy: How the field of philosophy has experienced a Christian renaissance over the last half century.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5352
I have never heard anyone explain biblical faith in the way that you do. Biblical faith is typically explained as trust or conviction in something you have good reasons to believe is true. The link below provides a nice, short explanation of this if you are interested.
Reasonable Faith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnVJHIeshpM
You stated that logic and reason can never be used to prove the existence of God. You might be interested in the article below.
Five Arguments for God
http://thegospelcoalition.org/pdf-articles/Craig_Atheism.pdf
If you or anyone else like to explore topics related to God, science, philosophy, etc. then some of us get together once a week. Our website is http://www.reasonablefaithdallas.org. We are affiliated with philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig’s ministry, Reasonable Faith (www.reasonablefaith.org)
Take care,
Chris
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