In his first article, ("Who's to Blame?" TSR, January/February 1999), Farrell Till sought to show that Christianity was to blame for the activities of radical elements in our society. His argument: Guilt by association. In a second article ("The Two Faces of the Bible," TSR, May/June 1999), he backtracked saying only that it was reasonable to think that some Christians might be suspect. His argument: You are what you read.
In his third attempt ("A Poor Selling Job," TSR, July/August 1999), desperate to prove something, he proposed that he is right unless it can be proven that the Bible can instill high moral principles in Christians. His argument: If the Bible causes Christians to do right, then it must also cause them to do wrong. The argument is as bankrupt as those which preceded it.
The central theme in Till's argument is that Christians are equally influenced by the positive or negative accounts that they read in the Bible. When Christians read the positive things (e. g., God is love), they rush out and love people. When they read the negative things (e. g., homosexuality is sin), they supposedly run out and persecute people.
The Bible records many events in history. Those dealing with God's judgment against evil are unpleasant. Paul tells us that they are examples to Christians so that they should not lust after evil. On the other hand, the Bible speaks of God's love and how He readily shows mercy to sinners. Christians are told to go into the world and spread this message.
The Bible clearly describes God as one who demands high moral character from those whom He has created and judges those who revel in doing evil. The Bible just as clearly reveals God to be merciful and quick to forgive those who sin.
This is not lost on Christians who read all the Bible and not just the few verses that capture the imagination of skeptics. Till would have us believe that these two concepts are incompatible. They are not. The proof is seen in the methods used by parents and teachers to influence a child's behavior. Following the example that God has set, parents and teachers punish children when they do bad and praise them when they do good. The effect is that children, wanting to avoid punishment and desiring praise, seek to do good.
So it is with Christians. The parts of the Bible that describe the wrath of God serve as a warning. Christians heed that warning and avoid activities that warrant punishment. However, when Christians read those parts which depict God's mercy and forgiveness, they naturally seek to incorporate such things into their lives.
Within the Biblical context, the unwholesome parts of the Bible do not negatively influence moral values. Instead, they reinforce the wholesome parts and drive Christians to seek the highest moral character.
Till's misunderstanding of Biblical context leads to his illogical application of the Scriptures. In this respect, he is consistent. We can look at the comments from his latest article and see an abundance of distorted arguments that he and skeptics employ to support their ideas.
Wanting it both ways, Till equates the contribution that violence on television is said to make to violence in our society with that which he speculates is contributed by the historical accounts of violent activities found in the Bible.
Violence on TV contributes to violence in society because kids watch TV constantly and receive a steady diet of violence. By contrast, no one other than Mr. Till, and certainly not kids, purposely and constantly immerse themselves in the Biblical accounts which depict violence. Only the twisted mind of the skeptic could conclude that constant exposure to outside influences will have the same impact as rare and infrequent exposure to outside influences.
Till then ponders why movie producers do not depict the more unsavory parts of the historical record when they dramatize Bible stories. Are skeptics so naive? No one produces movies for children that include the unsavory parts of life. Such things are not deemed fit for children because children are innocent and impressionable.
Even TV shows for adults only go so far. Many have homosexual characters. However, while these shows may depict somewhat explicit sexual activity between heterosexual couples, they purposely do not depict or even suggest the unsavory sexual activities in which homosexuals engage. Deviant behavior does not sell to parents who have children watching.
Certainly, the Bible can be explicit in its depiction of homosexuality and other activities. That does not mean that such activities should be explicitly portrayed in movies watched by children. One would think that Till, who has children, would be more sensitive to this issue. Perhaps, skepticism has distorted his thinking.
Citing Biblical verses out of context, Till, like skeptics in general, never quite seems to grasp the importance of context. He is able to accurately quote verses, yet understanding them escapes him. He becomes fixated on certain verses, for example those which speak of homosexuality or of witches. Even though these verses will appear in a section that lists a number of activities that God says are wrong, Till claims that they exert unusual power and influence over Christians.
Till concludes that the verses on homosexuality and witches will bring out the worst in Christians while those verses nearby will engender little or no response. One verse supposedly results in a fanatical intolerance while the next is met with indifference. Till's conclusions possibly reflect that which he espoused in his early years when he hired himself out to preach.
Taken in context, we should expect Christians to react to each of the sins listed in the Bible in the same manner. If they do not, then the normal scientific response would be to look for some factor which would cause one to discriminate between one sin and another. We know that skeptics like to determine right and wrong based on personal preference. Christians do not have that option.
How, then, do we explain the actions of people like Fred Phelps. Is he a Christian who righteously reacts to what the Bible says about homosexuals but then ignores everything else the Bible says? Or, is he a man predisposed to hate homosexuals who uses the Bible to get what he wants? If Phelps were to equally condemn all forms of sexual immorality, whether homosexuality or a President's adultery, there might be stronger grounds for concluding that the Bible is influencing his actions. He does not. There is no evidence that the Bible exerts any influence over his actions.
The motives of any person must be suspect who labels himself a Christian and then condemns sin without promoting the greater Biblical themes of mercy and forgiveness available from a loving God. The clear context of the Bible is condemnation of sin enveloped by the forgiveness of God. Till quotes verses as if context did not exist and would have people believe that Christians must be as ignorant as he.
^Maybe, kinda, sort of, perhaps reasoning:^ Till cites two examples ostensibly to prove his point. They further illustrate weaknesses in his reasoning. Regarding the definition of the Hebrew words, ben and yalad, referral to the Hebrew lexicons is sufficient to establish that the words have the meaning I ascribed to them and are used in that manner. Further, few people would conclude that a 430 year span could be bridged by four generations. It is obvious that the genealogy in Exodus does not name every direct descendent from Levi to Moses. Those who believe that the genealogy must be complete must also contrive to reduce the Egyptian sojourn from 430 to about 200 years in order to be consistent. Translation from one language to another can be difficult and context often determines which of several possible meanings should be ascribed to a word. In this case, the 430 year context dictates which definitions of ben and yalad to use.
In the second instance, Till confuses speculation and probability. On approaching the site of an automobile accident, one may speculate on various scenarios to explain how the accident occurred even though no evidence exists to substantiate any one scenario. That speculation would not mean that the scenarios are improbable.
One may freely speculate on the unknown details of history so long as that speculation accurately accounts for the known facts. Till says that such speculation would be a complete fabrication. That may be, but people still do it. The scenario I proposed using the Biblical accounts was consistent with the information that we have. While Till rails against my scenario because I speculated on unknown details, he is unable to argue that my scenario was inconsistent with that information which was given. Thus, his frustration.
Who labeled the Khmer Rouge skeptics? Here, Till failed to grasp the argument I presented despite its simplicity. Till has me labeling the Khmer Rouge as skeptics (which I did), but he then failed to grasp the significance of this. The label put on the Khmer Rouge is immaterial even if it fits.
The point is that the Khmer Rouge are not Christians nor do they espouse Christian ideals. By using the example of the Khmer Rouge, I was able to show that great atrocities have been committed in places and under circumstances that cannot be linked to Christianity. Consequently, the investigator who finds both Christians and non-Christians associated with atrocities would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that Christianity is the cause of atrocities.
What exactly did Hutchinson say about Fred Phelps? In this instance, Till correctly concludes that I accused him of misrepresenting my position. He then argues that it is only necessary to accurately quote that which a person says in order to accurately convey what a person meant. Only a skeptic would think this way.
Most people know that it is possible to misrepresent a person by accurately, but selectively, quoting what he said. For example, a person could accurately quote the Bible as saying, "The wages of sin is death," and then state that the Bible says everyone is going to hell. The quotation is accurate; the conclusion is not.
Till certainly quoted me accurately, but not completely. He neglected to include the first word of that quote, the word "maybe." Could the omission of such a simple word have altered the meaning of the quote? In this case, it did. The argument I conveyed was that any number of factors could explain why Fred Phelps acts the way he does. Maybe (or one example is that) he has always personally hated homosexuals. Till failed to grasp this very simple argument.
Is Christianity responsible for all kinds of evil? Till says that I falsely accused him of saying that Christianity is responsible for all kinds of evil. Rather, he explains, he merely said that Christianity has been responsible for numerous moral atrocities. He and Bill Clinton share a common bond.
Till offers two examples, the Salem witch trials and the inquisition. Of the Salem witch trails, we both agree that they were marked by hysteria. Till says it was religious hysteria. However, we see a similar hysteria very recently in the prosecution of day-care providers. I would theorize that child exploitation may have been at the heart of the Salem witch trials as they were with the day care providers. For those unfamiliar with the case, it involved psychological exploitation of children by police and prosecutors to get the children to say things that were not true. The adult day-care providers were then convicted based on what the children had been led to say. Certainly, Till did not conduct much of an investigation of the events in Salem and not enough to even begin to judge what happened.
Regarding the inquisition, Till leaves out crucial points. The targets of the inquisition were often those who had a different perspective on the Bible. So, was this a case of Christians persecuting non-Christians or non-Christians persecuting Christians? Till does not seem to know.
In addition, the inquisition was often secular in nature. Those in authority saw an advantage to promoting the inquisition as a mechanism for getting rid of the opposition. Even those who initiated the inquisition, a religious hierarchy, seem to have been more intent on preserving their authority than in promoting the gospel. During the period of the inquisition, some discovered that the preaching of the gospel was a more effective tool for rooting out heresy than was hanging.
All in all, Till has again shown the bankruptcy of skeptical thinking when it comes to criticizing the Bible.
(Roger Hutchinson, 11904 Lafayette Drive, Silver Spring,
MD 20902; e-mail, RHutchin@AOL.com)
