I often hear that conservative Christianity is opposed to “real” science and that if Christians had anything to do with it, science would never have arisen.  The great problem with statements like the one above is that they are false.  The belief that Christianity is somehow opposed to science has been repeatedly defeated, and yet it seems to rear its ugly head often.

Many authors and books take up the task to defend the Christian faith against her enemies by showing that many of the commonly held beleifs about Christianity and science are false.  Rodney Stark, for instance, in his book, For the Glory of God spends an entire chapter showing how Christianity led to the rise of science.  He writes,

In contrast to the dominant religious and philosophical doctrines in the non-Christian world, Christians developed science becaue they believed it could be done, and should be done.  As Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) put it during one of his Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1925, science arose in Europe because of the widespread “faith in the possibility of science…derivative from medieval theology.”

He goes on to argue that science arose in Europe because, in contrast to other (especially atheistic) worldviews, Christianity provided the “fundamental theological and philosophical assumptions” necessary for its genesis.  Christianity beleived in a truth that could be discovered and in a God who encouraged such discovery.  The God of Christianity created a lawful universe that functioned within those laws.  Islam, on the other hand provides a picture of Allah that discouraged scientific advances,

Allah is not presented as a lawful creator but has been conceived of as an extremely active God who intrudes on the world as he deems it appropriate.  Consequently, there soon arose a major theological bloc within Islam that condemned all efforts to formulate natural laws as blasphemy insofar as the dnied Allah’s freedom to act.

Further, Stark shows that the “Copernican Revolution” was not exactly a ground-shaking revolution from the supposed “Dark Ages” but was instead the natural outworking of a scientist building on the ideas and accomplishments of others before him who happened to be Christian scholastics.  According to Stark,

The term “Scientific Revolution” is as misleading as “Dark Ages.”  Both were coined to discredit the medieval Church.  The phrase “Dark Ages” is of recent origins, probably first used by the British historian Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) in his History of Civilization in England (1859).

Contrary to what many of us have been taught in high school, the church was not opposed to the science of Galileo (though there was a political issue and a serious personality conflict) and Galileo was not opposed to the church.  Copernicus was not the first to suggest that the sun was the center of the universe.  The “Dark Ages” were not ages of ignorance and stupidity, merely a different kind of learning that did not focus on the Greek and Latin classics and philosophies.  And, finally, no one in Columbus’ time believed the earth was flat.  This concept is soundly refuted here and in this Jeffrey Burton Russell’s Inventing the Flat Earth.

Christianity and science do not stand opposed to each other, but Christianity and naturalism do.  The conflict then, is not over science but over worldviews.  Christianity certainly argues that God’s world is worthy of our investigation because God is glorified in truth, and in a greater understanding of God’s creation, humanity is better served and God is glorified.  A better and more complete critique of Christianity vs. Naturalism in science is offered by Plantinga in Where the Conflict Really Lies.

Christians need not fear science and must not blindly accept the arguments that science and faith cannot be joined together.  They were joined together at the genesis of Science and there is no reason for them to be separated today.

Another book to consider on this subject is The Savior of Science by Stanley L. Jaki

Today, a new story about The Navy Seals is in the news.  Apparently, a group of US Special forces that includes members of Naval Special Warfare Development Group (formerly known as SEAL Team Six that killed Bin Laden) performed a daring rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted, two aid workers in Somalia during the night last night.  These stories captivate our attention.  The courage, tenacity, and ability of these soldiers and their daring missions are the stuff of Hollywood.  But why do we love these stories so much?

The answer to this question is not the same answer as to why we love our iPods so much.  Steve Jobs famously said that people often “don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”  No, people do not have to be shown a hero to know that they want one.  There is something in our souls, deep from within that cries out against injustice in the world and craves a savior, a redeemer, a rescuer.

Bonnie Tyler (yes I went there) sought it out in the arms of a man.  We find comfort in heroes of our world, both real and the Hollywood version.We tell and re-tell the Navy Seal stories and Seal Team Six members are practically celebrities.  And who couldn’t help but cheer Liam Neeson in Taken hoping that they could do the same if their own daughter was in danger.

But there is more.  There is something larger that cries out for deliverance and salvation.  Augustine said it this way,

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you

In Romans 8, Paul tells us that all of creation

waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

You see, we love the Navy Seals and crave their stories because we all need a hero.  Every inch of our being and all of creation cries out for salvation.  We are in need of a savior to rescue us.  We are lost, we are alone, we are weak, but Jesus is strong.  He came, not merely as a teacher or prophet, he came as the Son of God proclaiming the good news of the gospel,

   The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

In his first advent Christ overcame Satan with the cross and the empty tomb, but he is coming again, and this time as a triumphant king with a flaming sword in his hand.  He is the great redeemer, the great rescuer.  He is our hero.  We love hero stories because they are shadows of the greater rescue that we need and that, as believers, we have experienced.  The heroes of this world pale in comparison to the Great King who saves all who will call upon his name.

I received an early copy of Tullian Tchividjian’s latest book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything and have just now gotten around to finishing it.  It lived up to it’s hype.  I found it to be refreshing and invigorating.  This book bleeds the gospel and grace and a reader can help but walk away feeling refreshed.

I was concerned going into the book that it may be wrought with the nastiness that surrounded his attempted ouster at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.  Instead, what I found was a book that focused on the gospel lessons that Tchividjian learned through that difficult time in his life.  He shows how he became aware that he was dependent, not upon the gospel, but upon the approval of others and the success of his own ministry. Pastor Tullian traces his discoveries through the book of Colossians with personal stories and other anecdotes intertwined.  One can’t help but see the impact that the gospel and the writings of men like Michael Horton has had on Tchividjian’s life.

He writes,

My passion, as a preacher and a pastor and a Christian, is to show others how the gospel of grace really speaks with practical hope into everything that fallen people will face in this broken world.  My goal is to make real for others, at their point of deepest need, the truth of what Jesus did.

His passion, as spelled out above, was certainly fulfilled in this book.  I better understand the gospel and its power in my own life as result of reading this book and would commend it to all.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said?  The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.

Tim Keller The Reason for God pg. 210

Buy The Reason for God

When you start reading Luther, or Edwards, or Whitefield, though your doctrine may be theirs, you soon find yourself wondering whether you have any acquaintance at all with the mighty God whom they knew so intimately.

J.I. Packer Knowing God pg.83

Yes, I know, I am way behind the evangelical reading curve because I just now got around to reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God.  As one reading this book late in the game, it had much to live up to.  After all, The Reason for God has been called Mere Christianity for a new generation and has blurbs on the back from Rick Warren, Christianity Today, and the Washington Post.  So, how does it shape up for me?

First, Mere Christianity is what it is because it has stood the test of time.  Before we can give this title to Keller’s work, it needs also to stand the test of time.  However, I do believe that it will stand the test of time.  It is incredibly well written and enjoyable.  The apologetics in the book are approachable and the stories are captivating.  His synthesis of many of the best arguments in support of the resurrection in chapter thirteen is one of the best and most succinct that I know.  Keller does a good job of mixing his academic acumen with his pastoral heart in this book.

Second, Keller has done well to engage postmodern culture.  It is fairly obvious that the predominant sin of this generation (and probably of all generations) is that of idolatry.  Keller shows that materialism, self-love, and even inclusive are all forms of idolatry and that they simply do not stack up to good reason.  However, he presents his arguments in a way that can be appreciated in the postmodern world, he is dogmatic, but not preachy.  He teaches with questions as well as sermons.  he invites readers to discover the truth through his carefully guided questions and he refutes many of the typical stereotypes of Christianity such as the false belief that Christianity limit’s one’s personal freedom,

In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.  Those that fit with the reality of our nature and the world produce greater power and scope for our abilities and a deeper joy and fulfillment.

Finally, Keller clearly presents the gospel.  I couldn’t help but feel when reading the last few chapters that Billy Graham could have written them.  The gospel is proclaimed clearly and the necessary response to the gospel spelled out.  Keller leaves little room for anyone to walk away from this book and only appreciate it as literature.

This book is unlike any other that I can recall in my library.  Believers will be challenged to deepen their faith.  Skeptics will be shown that even their skepticism is rooted in faith or belief in something.  Keller offers a better way, faith in the one true God of the universe.  This is a great read.  I took a while to get to it, but I am blessed for having spent time with it.

I love books.  I especially love Bibles.  I appreciate the care with which many are bound, I like the smell, and of course, I love the broke-in feeling of an old Bible.  My heart is warmed when I flip through my Nelson New King James Study Bible that carried me through high school, college, and most of seminary before it simply became too fragile with loose pages to carry.  Today, my primary Bible is a beautiful ESV Heirloom Bible (which is no longer available from the publisher) given as a gift from my previous church when I left to become the pastor of Malvern Hill.

I also admit to really appreciating one other Bible–the one on my Kindle.  Nothing beats the convenience of my Kindle.  Having a Bible, plus several commentaries, plus an extensive library for my perusal and research readily available in a device that fits in my back pocket is solid gold.  I find myself reading more and more on my Kindle because it is so convenient.  However, I am growing concerned that maybe the format in which I am taking in information has something to do with the way that I am shaped by the information.  This has been alluded to in a recent article, How the Physical Form of a Bible Shapes Us, by Davide Neff,

Today, many of us use Bibles with no physical properties of their own. They borrow their frame from computers, iPads, and smartphones—also markers of middle class existence—but created for individual use. Will this digital revolution cement the decline of family spirituality that was once fostered by the family Bible? God knows.

Indeed, God does know, and it is too soon for us to know just exactly how we are to be shaped by these changes.  However, I beleive there are more concerns than simply the medium through which we receive the message.

I’m a parent, and Angela and I have made it a recent goal to get our kids (who are both still very young and cannot read) to spend time, not just in family devotions, but to spend a few minutes alone each morning “reading” their own Bibles.  It is our hope that this will result in a disciplined life of Bible intake.  But, we also realize that our kids need to see us immersed in the Bible if we ever hope for them to find value in it.  They see us constantly with electronic devices.  I fear that if my Bible reading is constantly done on an electronic device, my children may not immediately be able to distinguish between Daddy playing angry birds and daddy reading about the birds that fed Elijah.

Finally, in addition to my concerns about how the medium shapes me and how my children perceive of my love for the Word of God, I have two other concerns.  My kindle simply does not speak to me through my sermon and class notes that my old NKJV reference Bible does.  I don’t read through it and find dates scribbled and highlighted verses.  And, lastly, I’m just not convinced that I learn the same way through my kindle that I do from my leather bound ESV Bible.  I’m not alone either.  A 2011 University of Washinton Study suggested that e-readers are not ideal for academic reading.  The study reported the following,

“Most e-readers were designed for leisure reading – think romance novels on the beach,” said co-author Charlotte Lee, a UW assistant professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering. “We found that reading is just a small part of what students are doing. And when we realize how dynamic and complicated a process this is, it kind of redefines what it means to design an e-reader.”

Further, and perhaps more important for our purposes of Bible reading,

The digital text also disrupted a technique called cognitive mapping, in which readers used physical cues such as the location on the page and the position in the book to go back and find a section of text or even to help retain and recall the information they had read.

Cognitive mapping is a technique that your brain uses in memory.  Surely you’ve experienced this in your Bible, you can’t remember the verse, but you can remember the place where it was and, if you underlined it, you can find it rather quickly.  E-readers simply do not offer that as an option.

So, where does that leave us?  Reading the Bible in any format is certainly better than not reading it at all.  E-readers and other electronic devices are beneficial and will be used far into the future.  However, for the reasons listed above, I can see no reason one should abandon paper Bibles and many reasons that traditional Bibles should still hold a dominant place in our lives.

So, should you bring your iPad to church?  I’m certainly not the police on this and I don’t think we should be legalistic one way or the other.  I know it’s convenient, but convenience doesn’t always equate with quality.  For instance, those rib eye steak specials advertised at interstate truck stops certainly appear convenient, but somehow, I doubt that the quality is up to par.  Maybe the same thing is true with our Bibles.

Tim Tebow has become a polarizing figure.  Of course, as far as I can tell, it is difficult to see how.  He is young, athletic, humble, hardworking, clean cut, and articulate.  He is the kind of player that most coaches dream of having on their teams, and yet it is becoming obvious to many that Tebow is a thorn in the flesh for many sportscasters.

Though I have no intention of predicting Tebow as a great NFL quarterback–I’m just not sure whether he has that ability or not–I do think that for a Heisman trophy winner with an incredible work ethic and so many intangibles under his belt, it would be best to delay judgment until he has actually performed on the field.  After all, regardless of his play on the field, the great thing for any NFL team is that his lifestyle off of the field is very unlikely to garner negative media attention along the lines of dog-fighting, domestic abuse, or drug charges.

However, regardless of what Tebow does on the field, it does appear that his life off of the field has tainted sportscaster’s view of the man.  Tebow is an outspoken Christian and his religious convictions seem to tarnish his reputation for many in the news media (remember his pro-life Super Bowl commercial) and sports media.  Of course, this has been vehemently denied, but an article published recently by Brian Phillips reveals the implications of a secular worldview against an outspoken Christian athlete.

I’m sure there are people who manage to escape the demographic rooting pattern this creates. But in broad strokes, it’s fair to say that how you feel about Tebow depends on how you feel about youth groups and Elisabeth Hasselbeck and, I don’t know, WWJD bracelets and raft retreats with a lot of bonfires and swaying.

There you have it, at least one person in the sports media is ready to own up to the fact that his opinion of Tebow as a football player is affected by his opinion of Tebow as an outspoken Christian.

Worldview determines everything (Arthur Holmes says it is “pre-philosophical”).  In academia, Christians are discriminated against because they are believers.  Of course the argument usually sounds more like, “the research into intelligent design is not real science,” but coincidentally, that is oddly reminiscent of , “Tebow can never be an NFL quarterback.”  There is no evidence to back these claims up (at least not yet on Tebow with whom Denver fans have fallen in love), but the claims are made never-the-less.  The reason: A secular worldview is dominated by the prince of the air who opposes all things godly.  Therefore, Tebow has to be a bad guy, not because he’s a bad QB, but because he’s a solid believer in Jesus.

Brian Phillips is at least honest in his estimate of Tebow even if he is unfair,

I find myself half-consciously rooting for Tebow to fail, even though I have nothing against him, have lots of religious friends, am not especially tribal by nature, and wouldn’t want to be responsible for the nacho-related deaths of any prominent evangelical leaders, even if I detest their politics. Doesn’t matter. The part of me that wants to eat pork and not stone people just switches on and cheers for the blitzing linebacker.

Phillips reveals the underlying principle behind his rejection of Tebow and the culture’s rejection of the people of God.  Ultimately, it’s not a rejection of Tim Tebow, but of Tim Tebow’s God.  As we labor to see a Christian worldview prevail and as believers see opposition, rest assured, the opposition of the culture is opposition to our God, but in the end, he will not be mocked.

Some ministers in the pulpit feel robbed of an authoritative message.  Much modern theology offers them little more than holy hunches, and they suspect that the sophisticates in the pew place more faith in science texts than in preaching texts.  For some preachers, therefore, fads in communication become more alluring than the message…In spite of the “bad-mouthing” of preaching and preachers, no one who takes the Bible seriously should count preaching out.  To the New Testament writers, preaching stands as the event through which God works.

-Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching

The minister should preach as if he felt that although the congregation own the church, and have bought the pews, they have not bought him. His soul is worth no more than any other man’s, but it is all he has, and he cannot be expected to sell it for a salary. The terms are by no means equal. If a parishioner does not like the preaching, he can go elsewhere and get another pew, but the preacher cannot get another soul.

- Edwin Hubbell Chapin