Book Review: C. Stephen Evans. "Philosophy of Religion: Thinking About Faith."

In this short book, C. Stephen Evans has done an admirable job of making the incredibly complex world of the philosophy of religion attainable to new students in this field. As such, this work would make a very helpful textbook at the introductory college level. Throughout this work, Evans does a remarkable job of defining the seemingly unending array of technical verbiage, while giving helpful illustrations to explain their usage to the reader.

"Philosophy of religion," as a technical term, is the particular branch of philosophy which, as its name suggests, grapples with religious truth claims and beliefs through the grid of reason and logic. Among the topics covered in this book are:

• the classical "proofs" for the existence of God, 
• the validity of religious experience, 
• the nature and possibility of miracles, 
• particular objections to theism (such as evil and the apparent contradictions of science), 
• and the unsettling difficulties related to religious pluralism.

Each one of these topic could easily fill an entire volume.
In this reviewer's opinion, the most helpful aspect of this work is the way that Evans fairly and evenhandedly deals with skeptics' attacks on theism. While Evans eventually does show the rationality of theism (and particularly Christianity) in each chapter, I don't think anyone could accuse Evans of attempting to deal with the skeptic's challenges unfairly or impatiently. Where he sees weaknesses in the theistic position, he does not attempt to hide them. Where he sees strengths, he likewise argues back with equal force. 

No chapter of this book should be seen as an outright apologetic defense of theism in general or Christianity in particular. It is not a book on apologetics. On the other hand, Evans does his best to show over and over again that belief in God is rational, logical, and coherent in the face of a number of threats and claims to the contrary.

In his chapter on the classical proofs for God's existence, for instance, Evans does not pretend to claim that any one 'proof' would compel all rational thinkers. On the contrary, he does assert that the preponderance of the evidence points in a cumulative way towards the existence of God. Likewise, in his concluding chapter on religious pluralism, he admits that Christians in particular have appeared to be arrogant in their claims of religious exclusivity, and yet he concludes this book by acknowledging the inherent humility of Christianity, even as it regards our evangelistic mission.

In conclusion, I think three groups of readers will find this book helpful.

1) First, the student who is interesting in determining for himself whether theism in general and Christianity in particular holds any water logically and rationally; 2) secondly, the non-theist who has many skeptical reasons to deny the validity of religious faith, but who nonetheless is open to reviewing his presuppositions; and 3) finally, the pastor who is interested in presenting some of the logical basis and rationale for Christianity to his congregation in an accessible manner.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard.

Will the Real 'Religion of Peace' Please Stand Up? President Obama and the Question of Islamic Terror

Faced with yet another recent outbreak of violence and murder in the Mid East, this time incited by an unflattering YouTube video of the Prophet Mohammed, the Obama Administration is once again plagued with the dilemma of how exactly to label this type of brutality.

Unlike his predecessor who commonly identified these forms of evil as "Islamic Terror," President Obama has repeatedly and emphatically denied that Islam--as a world religion--is in any way a source of the problem.

Following his long-standing policy, President Obama has again insisted that this recent outburst of sudden violence, resulting in the brutal and violent death of a US diplomat, does not fit with the real "Religion of Peace."  Islam, as his formal policy goes, is a religion of tolerance and peace. These sorts of outbursts, we are told, simply do not fit the paradigm.

One wonders how much longer the Administration expects the general public to be patient with this kind of reasoning. Let's consider this matter more deeply.

Philosopher of religion Anthony Flew (1923-2010) identified an informal fallacy that he dubbed the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. (No surprise there, Flew was British of course!) In this maneuver, a claimant denies that a universal category is ever truly broken by a given counterexample that stands against his claim. Accordingly, no exception could ever be given that denies his own general rule. Here is an example of how it works:

Smith: All Scotsmen are loyal and brave.
Jones: But McDougal over there is a Scotsman, and he was arrested by his commanding officer for running from the enemy.
Smith: Well, if that’s right, it just shows that McDougal wasn’t a TRUE Scotsman.(1)

If Smith claims that all A are B, and Jones produces a counterexample of A that is non-B, Smith simply denies that Jones' example truly represents A rather than altering his own categorical universal. 

I think it is apparent how the Obama Administration has committed this logical fallacy over and over again. Each and every time that Islamic-related violence fans its deadly fires, we are told that these incidents don't represent the "true Islam." If the malefactors are ever identified as Islamic at all by Obama or his Press Secretary, we are told that they do not represent the "real version" of Islamic religion.

But given that the counterexamples seem to proliferate monthly and ubiquitously around the globe, one wonders where exactly this "religion of peace" paradigm can be found in the first place. Bin Laden (we are told) didn't represent the "real" Islam when his henchmen slammed jetliners into the World Trade Center. Nor Al Qaeda. Neither did Saddam Hussein when he released biological agents on his own people. Nor Ahmadinejad when he repeatedly threatens Israel with extinction. Nor did Al Zarqawi. Nor Hamas. Nor do the current massacres of Syrian civilians. Nor the bombers of Christian churches in Nigeria and Kenya. Nor any other Salafist jihidist groups for that matter.

Accordingly, it seems impossible for the Obama Administration to admit that Islam is, at best, a deeply flawed and tragic imposter of a "religion of peace." Any time a counterexample is given to add evidence that Islam is an intrinsically violent and dangerous religion, that counterexample is passed off as being "No True Muslim."

Perhaps it is time that we recognize the religion of Islam for what it is. 

(1) http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Follow on Twitter @matt_everhard.

Book Review: Charles Spurgeon. A Defense of Calvinism.

A Defense of Calvinism is a brief tract written by the preeminent Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), long considered to be the Prince of Preachers.

Although many Christians today recognize Charles Spurgeon as one of the most able preachers, and certainly among the most quotable pastors of all time, and certainly the last 200 years, most do not realize that he was also an ardent Calvinist.

Although Spurgeon rarely mentions John Calvin by name in his sermons, and quotes him directly rarer still, this small booklet was meant to show his own unequivocal alignment with traditional Reformed Theology ("Calvinism") as against the Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinistic trends of his own day.

In this brief work, Spurgeon defends the doctrines of total depravity, election, limited atonement, and perseverance on Biblical and logical grounds. Here, he explains that the doctrine of the Reformers (and Calvin in particular) is nothing other than the Biblical theology of Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles.

At the end of this tract, Spurgeon explains how the sovereignty of God in election does not in any way stand in opposition to the doctrine of human responsibility, and does not preclude man as a moral agent, responsible for his own sin.

This short work will not likely take the reader any more time than half an hour, and will greatly enhance his understanding of Spurgeon's theological foundations as well as that of Calvinism.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Gnostic Nonsense

So, if you haven't heard, some more Gnostic papyri has been found, and surprise surprise, it seems to say that Jesus had a wife.  Read more here.

Discoveries like this are anything but new, though they are always touted to be of great importance.  If this scrap of paper does anything it reveals our general lack of knowledge on the whole subject.  However, that's not to say that an unbelieving friend may not still engage you on this subject.  "Hey!  Did you hear that Jesus may have had a wife?!  I wonder how that affects what the Bible says."  What would you say to a comment like that?  Most of us would have no idea where to start.  

Thankfully, Dr. James White, an actual expert on the subject, gives us some wise talking points and a few opinions of his own.   Enjoy!    A Note to the Secular World:  Do Your History

Eyewitness Experiences and the Existence of God

Do eyewitness encounters with God “count” as an apologetic for the existence of God? If so, how in the world can one man’s experience with God, for example, at a burning bush (or the Apostles' claim to have seen the Resurrected Christ for that matter) be a proof for God’s existence if the skeptics themselves have not seen these events with their own eyes? Can such experiences be validated?

The White Stag Illustration

Let me try an illustration. Suppose that a large group of persons went together on a camping trip into the woods, some three hundred people. And let’s suppose that ten men are sent out to fetch water from the stream while the others stay back. And let us further suppose that those ten men witness with their own eyes the most beautiful, pure white stag, drinking from the stream.  They cannot believe our eyes! An albino buck! These men immediately return to the camp to tell everyone what they’ve seen. Most are skeptical. Some are not interested. A few are curious. Eventually the first ten men lead another ten people back to the stream, right to the same place they saw it, and sure enough--it is gone!

Logically (remember: we are interested in reasoning clearly) does the fact that the second envoy failed to see the white stag prove that the first group’s experience didn’t happen?

One man says “I didn’t see anything!”

Another man says, “I didn’t either!”

A third says “I’ve never even heard of a white stag!”

A fourth says “That’s patently impossible!”

The ‘Logic’ of Unbelief

Quite often, the logical thinking of the skeptic goes something like this…

a. I’ve never seen a white stag.

b. I can not believe what I have not seen. 

c. Conclusion: Therefore there are no white stags.

Obviously there is a fallacy between points ‘b’ and ‘c.’ The fact that one observer has not personally beheld any given object or phenomenon does not make it impossible a priori.

Nevertheless, the question remains, How do we validate other people’s claims of religious experience? If a skeptic has not experienced a given phenomenon (such as grace), how can he weigh the claims of those who have? Is there any objective way that he can weigh the evidence? I think there is.

Weighing the Claims of Witnesses

1. Agreement in Testimony: First, in the White Stag Illustration, the witnesses have the benefit of not being alone. If only one man had seen it, we might have reason to suspect that he’d been smoking something on the walk to the brook. But the fact is that nine others saw the same thing, and their testimony agrees. In Christianity of course, we have the benefit of 2.2 billion other people making the same claim of having experienced the grace of Jesus Christ! It’s hard to dismiss 2.2 billion people! And that is only counting those alive on the planet today, not to mention the billions that have lived in prior centuries.

2. What Do They Stand to Gain? Secondly, we can ask whether the witnesses stand to gain anything by making such a claim. Are they planning to write a book about it? Are they selling the rights of the interview to Katie Couric? Are they going on a speaking tour to make millions? Will there be a Pixar animated “White Stag” movie forthcoming? If there is clearly something to gain personally, we might weigh their claims with some degree of dubiousness. 

3. What Do They Stand to Lose? On the other hand, we might also ask if their experience puts them in such a position that they are now going to suffer because of their experience. I can tell you that Moses’ claim to have seen God at the bush did not exactly make life easy for him. It made his life infinitely more complex. It brought him into the cross-hairs of Pharaoh. It brought great suffering to the Egyptians in the ten plagues. It would eventually cause Aaron and Miriam to rebel against him. And ultimately, it placed upon his shoulders the additional burden of leading the people of Israel who, throughout much of the Pentateuch, amount to a bunch of whiners and complainers, and grumblers, and faultfinders!

As for the Apostles, we can say without any hesitation that their having seen the Resurrected Christ was a decidedly “inconvenient truth.” Their claim to have seen Jesus Christ raised from the dead cost ten of the remaining Apostles their lives. James was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down. The only apostle who lived was John, who was exiled.

In fact, I can go even further and state that being a Christian believer is the hardest life any mortal could possibly choose. Our people, from day one, AD33, have been chased, mocked, beaten, burned at stakes, tossed to lions, systematically persecuted, hated, lied about, slandered and falsely accused. 

Add to that the fact that we as a people willingly choose to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, tithe on our income, volunteer or time, deny the cheap pleasures of this world, retain our sexual purity within marriage, and many other marks of sacrifice—one wonders why anyone would willing choose Christianity if God had not first chosen us.

Conclusion

So if there are multiple witnesses whose testimonies agree, and those witnesses stand to gain nothing by their claim (at least in regards to this fading world) and in fact have everything to loose for their confession, eyewitness testimony turns out to be a very powerful apologetic for God’s existence. 

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard

Book Review: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Preaching and Preachers. 40th Anniversary Edition.

Preaching & Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is simply stated one of the best texts on the duty and glory of preaching the Word of God that I have ever read. I must confess right out of the gate that I was predisposed to like this text. My own mentor and dear friend, Dr. Wilfred Bellamy (the former Coordinator of the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church) was himself raised under the teaching ministry of  Lloyd-Jones. Thus, Lloyd-Jones' unusual manner of up-lifting the office of the preacher and the blood-bought ardor of declaring God's Word is "in my genes," as it were. 

Overall Analysis
As a general summary, this 340-page work features all of the main subject headings with which a preacher must come to terms. Lloyd-Jones has very candid and often practical advice on virtually every aspect of the sermon: from preparation in the study, to the written manuscript, to the delivery of the sermon with voice and body, to the preacher's living relationship with the congregation. But far and away, the strength of this book is the unusually high role of preaching that DMLJ assigns to the God-ordained ordinance of Gospel preaching.

He says famously, "To me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called" (p. 17).  From cover to cover, DMLJ does not back down from the statement. Those who labor in the study and pulpit as their life's work will find their strivings constantly affirmed as they seek to proclaim the glory of the Gospel to a dying world. In that sense, those who take their work of preaching with eternal regard will find their hearts strengthened to persevere in their labors.

Lloyd-Jones disdained the idea that a pastor has "more important" things to do than preach. The CEO leadership  model, the professional counselor model, and the entertainment-based story teller model must all die a hard death according to Lloyd-Jones. And he slays them relentlessly throughout. The true power of Christian ministry, according to The Dr. is in the pulpit of a man with Bible open who has been ordained of God to announce the Gospel with authority. "It is preaching alone that can convey the Truth to people, and bring them to the realization of their need, and to the only satisfaction for their need" (p. 50).

If anyone has heard Lloyd-Jones preach (thank goodness 4,000 of his messages have been recorded and are now available on digital formatting; see p. 343) he will quickly realize that The Dr. himself held a pulpit ministry based seriously and zealously on proclaiming Biblical doctrine. Long can a listener wait for a joke or personal illustration in his own sermons. They will not come. Lloyd-Jones approached the sacred desk several times weekly during his pastorate at Westminster Chapel ready to declare the revealed will of God without compromise and with death-knell seriousness.

Controversial Statements
I don't think many readers today will make it through this text without disagreeing with DMLJ somewhere. More still will close the book with broken toes! Among the many practices that Lloyd-Jones would like to see piled on the trash heap of history are: the praise band (he saw entertainment-oriented worship coming a mile away), "worship leaders" which he viewed to be taking up too much of the preacher's time, lay preachers (because they are not ordained to do the work but instead are hobbyists), personal testimonies, recorded or videotaped sermons (ironic since thousands are blessed by his sermons still today), and even homiletics classes where preachers learn "techniques" to improve their delivery. The latter, he regarded as a "prostitution" of the calling and "an abomination" (p. 130). Obviously, there is much room to disagree!

Spoiler Alert: If you are Hawaiian shirt-wearing, stool-sitting, coffee-sipping preacher who weekly walks onto the platform to have a "conversation" or "dialogue" with the congregation, you will find yourself kicking against the goads in every chapter. After only a few pages, one gets the idea that Lloyd-Jones would disdain most of today's practices of video introductions, power-point presentations, movie-clips, and the endless barrage of personal anecdotes. At one point, Lloyd-Jones even tells preachers to leave their endearing stories about their children at home!

Unction
Perhaps the last chapter of the book is the best. Here, The Dr. discusses one of his hallmark doctrines, the unction (or anointing) of the preacher. Lloyd-Jones has a doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit that is slightly unusual for a Calvinist. He views the filling of the Spirit not as a general spirit-led life of fruit-bearing, but rather a dramatic anointing of the Holy Ghost especially available to preachers as they declare the Law and Gospel of Christ. In my reading of this work, he does not seem to strongly distinguish the "baptism" of the Spirit from the "filling" of the Spirit.

To defend this position, Lloyd-Jones does a careful study of the New Testament usage of the phrase "filled with the Spirit" and demonstrates that it does not appear to describe the daily walk of a faithful Christian (as most would have it), but rather the unusual moments of Holy Ghost fire that fall upon a man while testifying to Christ crucified and raised again. 

Here, he pleads with preachers to plead for themselves in asking the Holy Spirit to endow their ministries with power. "Do you always look for and seek this unction, this anointing before preaching? Has this been your greatest concern? There is no more thorough and revealing a test to apply to a preacher" (p. 322).  And again he writes, "I maintain that all of us who are preachers should be seeking this power every time we preach" (p. 339).

Essays
This 40th anniversary edition of Preaching & Preachers comes newly supplemented with six essays from some of today's most well-known preachers. Among them are Kevin DeYoung (editor), John Piper, and Ligon Duncan. These are short 3-page essays, mostly laudatory, which generally showed an appreciation for Lloyd-Jones' legacy. The contribution of the inclusion of these essays was minimal in my view, other than to give the reader a mental break from The Dr's relentless attack on wimpy preachers!

Some Minor Criticisms
Personally, this reviewer finds little fault with this work and generally appreciates the tenor and tone of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' up-building of the work of the anointed pulpiteer, as well as his excoriation of the  "professional."

The only concern that I had with this book is that Lloyd-Jones found very little room to compliment or affirm hardly one of his own contemporaries. Although he shares a number of interesting anecdotes related to his observations of preachers (many of these quite amusing) I did notice that most of his positive examples were of his own ministry. I found the tendency to use his own ministry as the north-star example of good preaching a bit tiring. On the other hand, he did compliment many ministers such as Whitefield and Spurgeon--it is just that all whom he seemed to appreciate are long dead!

Any time Lloyd-Jones begins an anecdote, "One time I heard a preacher..." you can be sure a counter-example is forthcoming. To listen to Lloyd-Jones discuss his contemporaries, one gets the idea that no one else was doing what he was doing in his own day and age.

Legacy
All told, this reader (himself an ordained man of the Book) found this work to be one of the most affirming works on the nature and worth of expository preaching. Preaching is "logic on fire....preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire!" he shouts. "What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence" (p. 110).

The average preacher who often wonders if he is making any difference in this world--a question that we all struggle with from time to time--will find himself greatly affirmed by hearing the now-gone voice of a man who believed Gospel preaching is the most important work in the world.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following on Twitter @matt_everhard

10 Free E-Books (You're Welcome!)

In light of my recent post on the benefits of having a Kindle or other e-reader, I thought I would post some of the best works of theology and fiction that you can get free (read: no cost) on your device.

No strings attached....Seriously.

1. The ESV Bible. The ESV is the best English translation available today. Thank goodness that Crossway publishers is more concerned with giving away the Gospel than making money!
2. John Bunyan. Pilgrim's Progress. The classic allegory of "Christian" who is making his way from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Read my review of this work here.
3. Andrew Bonar. The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. RMM was a Scottish Presbyterian pastor in the 1800's. As a poet and preacher, M'Cheyne inspired multiple generations of Christians with his selfless devotion and warm piety.
4. Johann David Wyss. The Swiss Family Robinson. Read a good classic aloud to your children once in a while. This work is full of surprising lessons about Christian discipleship.
5. A.W. Tozer. The Pursuit of God. One of the classic works of spiritual formation in the last century. Long before Piper wrote Desiring God, Tozer was speaking on the God-exalting life from a Chicago pulpit.
6. Martin Luther. Small Catechism. One of the great didactic works for children. A surprisingly relevant discussion on the central tenets of Christianity.
7. Jonathan Edwards. Selected Sermons. Newbies will find Edwards' sermons to be the easiest and most accessible works that the great American Puritan wrote from New England centuries ago.
8. J.C. Ryle. A Sketch of the Life and Labors of George Whitefield. A simple and short read on the basics of one of history's most revered evangelists.
9. John Foxe. Foxe's Book of Martyrs. The classic work on the lives of many of Christ's martyrs.
10. Robert Louis Stevenson. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I love this fictional work, so I threw it in here. Stevenson gives us a most unusual glimpse into the doctrine of total depravity.

 You're welcome. If you really want to pay me back for all this free stuff, just follow me on Twitter @matt_everhard. We'll call it even!

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.