‘Current Affairs’ Category

In a recent piece entitled “Religion in Canada is going extinct as atheists come out of the closet” communications professional Daniela Syrovy argues that it “doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that religion [in Canada] is in decline.” She buttresses this remark with some impressions—church attendance noticeably in decline, church buildings being sold off—and stats from a recent study by three mathematicians (“Mathematicians say religion heading toward extinction”; for the actual piece of research, see Daniel M. Abrams, Haley A. Yaple, and Richard J. Wiener, “A mathematical model of social group competition with application to the growth of religious non-affiliation”) that seem to indicate that religion is headed for extinction in nine western democracies, including Canada.

To a math ignoramus like me (I don’t think that my father, who nearly did a PhD in mathematics, ever got over having such a numskull for a son!), the stats, supported by a host of mathematical formulae, look very impressive. The one big glitch is that we are talking about human behavior. First-century Rome—things looked grim for organized religion. Just around the corner was the fervour of Christianity. As Barry Kosmin, a demographer of religion at Trinity College in Connecticut rightly noted, “Religion relies on human beings. They aren’t rational or predictable according to the laws of physics. Religious fervor waxes and wanes in unpredictable ways.” So true.

Actually, this study by Abrams, Yaple and Wiener is simply a mathematical variant of a model that has been employed and found wanting in historical studies, namely, the secularization thesis. In a nutshell, this thesis argued that as societies became more sophisticated technologically, religion waned and declined. The thesis sounds pretty convincing: as more is explained about the world in which we live, the less we need to rely upon religion and deities. Kind of like that episode of the first Star Trek, where the adventure-loving humans encounter the god Apollo, who sees an opportunity to reassert his control over mankind through superstition and fear. But Capt. Kirk—the quintessential rationalist—tells him that mankind had outgrown their need for such gods and such beliefs.

This view seemed to make sense in the 1960s, when humankind seemed on the verge of great advances and the future seemed so rosy because of science. But fifty years on, western men and women are not so sure, and, as Syrovy admits, “Faith exists and is evident in everyday life” [what she means by “faith” is not at all clear]. Or to put it in more (post-)modern jargon, spirituality is flourishing as never before since the sixties, replete with crystals, Buddhism meditation, vampires, and converts to Islam.

Syrovy notes that “an estimated 12% of the world’s population are atheists and if the mathematicians have it right, over half of Canada is headed in that direction. Today, it feels great to say it loud and proud: religion is going extinct. Thank goodness.” Of course, majorities this way or that are not what this issue is about: rather, it is about truth. If 90% believe one thing and 10% another, and the minority are right, what matters that I am in such plentiful company? And when I look back at the twentieth century with its great social experiments in atheism—Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, the Pol Pot regime—I confess I am not as thrilled at the prospect of nationwide atheism as she is!

Dr. Haykin has recently reviewed The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi by Peter Popham. Find this review and others here on our Book Review page.

“If the college you visit has a bookstore filled with t-shirts rather than books, find another college.” —Al Mohler.

Wise advice indeed! About a year ago, one of the best bookstores in the Greater Hamilton area in Ontario, namely McMaster University’s bookstore, decided to trade in most of its books for McMaster kitsch, including oodles of t-shirts and hoodies with the Mac logo. I was utterly horrified and, as I would say in British English, I was gobsmacked! I could not believe my eyes when I saw the transition taking place. Thankfully, we have Bryan Prince’s bookstore down the road in Westdale. Still it is quite amazing that a first-class University like McMaster has a piddly number of books in their bookstore—or whatever the store should be called now that it has denuded itself of books.

In this regard, I was glad to see the bookstore at the University of British Columbia, where I was last week, it is still the real thing—I hope it stays that way!

A good sign of the fact that we live in a hyper-sexualized culture is the way the term “sexy”—which used to have a distinct meaning of sexually alluring—has morphed over into a variety of spheres where the adjective has no business being used: course descriptions, cars, and cameras, for example, are all sexy—or not, as the case may be! Personally, I can’t stand this abuse of the adjective, and especially when even Christian authors routinely use it in such ways. But surely the latter simply indicates that even among Christians, the hyper-sexuality of our culture is re-shaping their world as well—witness the adoption of the frankly absurd eisegesis of the Song of Songs that sees in the ancient text all kinds of blatant sexual activities that titillate the modern palate.

Here we need to step back and take a lesson from the French language (my Francophone friends will love this!). The French have a wonderful word to capture the veiling of one’s intimate feelings and doings, pudeur, a “holy bashfulness” (HT Alice von Hidlebrand, the Catholic philosopher). Surely, the time is ripe for such a response to this moment of our cultural sexualization. This is not Victorian prudishness, but—if I read the Puritans aright—a proper biblical approach to sex and the marriage bed.

Listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash. Love so much of their stuff. Their “Long time gone” (1969) defined so much about my life in that era when it was written. Of course, as with so much of the music of that era, the tunes and lyrics were both remarkable, almost classic as soon as they were crafted. But the deeply resonant tunes often cloaked philosophical approaches that would prove destructive to occidental cultural structures.

Take “Cathedral,” for example. The drug theme—the mention of “flying” and being high—reminds one of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” (from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). But half-way into the song, there is this—words that echo the attitude of so many in the sixties and that shaped so many in the days following that heady era:

“I’m flying in Winchester cathedral.
All religion has to have it’s day
Expressions on the face of the Saviour
Made me say
I can’t stay.”

“Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ
For anyone to heed the call.
So many people have died in the name of Christ
That I can’t believe it all.”

What seemed patent to so many in the sixties, the seeming bankruptcy of western Christianity with its lies and death-dealing, has faded in the forty years between then and now. Why? Because Jesus Christ is greater than his Church. No doubt Christians have lied and dealt death in the name of the Lord of life. But their failures are not to be ascribed to Jesus. And in the light of the fallout of the sixties and the realization that the heroes of that era—Che and John Lennon, Krishna and Herbert Marcuse, Danny the Red and Eldridge Cleaver, Cher and RFK—were but clay, choosing to follow the pure-hearted Jesus is but wisdom.

When this song was penned I too would have said, “Open up the gates of the church and let me out of here!” But five years later, I came to love Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Expressions on his crucified and risen visage made me say, “Here is where I want to stay and nowhere else.”

What a contradictory culture we live in. Militant about protecting young children from possible sexual abuse and physical harm (there is such a case going on right now in southern Ontario)—and rightly so—but also adamant about the right to slay unborn children—and yes, they are children too—in the womb. It is blatant hypocrisy.

Does not such government-condoned slaughter of utterly helpless babes here in Canada undermine any right we have to feel moral superiority to the Nazi regime in their treatment of the Jews or the slaveholders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? For all our purported concern for the helpless and disenfranchised, is it not sheer hypocrisy when we will not extend that concern to the enwombed?

I must confess to having enormous admiration for that most controversial of figures, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), about whom two or three new books have appeared this year. The reason for my admiration will become plain in part from the following extract from A Declaration of the Army of England upon their March into Scotland To all that are Saints, and partakers of the faith of God’s Elect, in Scotland, which was issued July 19, 1650. In it Cromwell made this excellent statement:

“Is all religion wrapped up in that or any one form? Doth that name, or thing, give the difference between those that are the members of Christ and those that are not? We think not so. We say, faith working by love is the true character of a Christian; and, God is our witness, in whomsoever we see any thing of Christ to be, there we reckon our duty to love, waiting for a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of God to make all those Christians, who, by the malice of the world, are diversified, and by their own carnal-mindedness, do diversify themselves by several names of reproach, to be of one heart and one mind, worshipping God with one consent.”

With elections facing both Canada and the United States, some bitter words are being uttered by adherents of the different political persuasions. And even Christians have allowed what Cromwell here calls “the malice of the world” to influence them in harsh remarks about political opponents. I suppose this is a danger to which young men are prone and some of the comments I have read that have deeply disturbed me by their attitude have been written by younger brothers. But folly and malice are no respecters of age!

There are Christians today who make the heart of the gospel a political position or an economic perspective. Surely Christians may differ on such issues. As Cromwell rightly says: “Is all religion wrapped up in that or any one form?” He was talking about making ecclesial issues the heart of the gospel. In our day, some, and some who should know better, are making this political policy or that economic strategy essential to gospel truth.

The gospel touches on political and economic realities for sure—not one square inch of this universe is not owned by King Jesus, and we look forward to a glorious theocracy one day in the new heavens and the new earth in which there will be true liberty—but till then, we must learn as Christians to disagree in love on such secondary issues. Yes, have convictions; but love all who love the Lord Jesus.

If we cannot love our brothers and sisters who disagree with us in this and must hit them verbally with invective and name-calling, how on earth will we ever love those that reject the gospel and take very contrary positions to ours on matters far more weighty?

Darrin Brooker, a very close friend, alerted me to the fact that it has been suggested that Dr. Henry Morgentaler be awarded the Order of Canada. I was personally deeply distressed by this, for this man has made it his life’s goal to promote abortion throughout this fair nation—which is nothing less than the slaughter of countless innocents—and we are considering honouring this man with one of our nation’s highest honours!

I love our country and have been greatly exercised by the way what is wrong has been promoted as a good and what is good has been treated as a merely cultural artefact and outmoded. Goodness never goes out of style; and what is wicked does not change its hue because of a different cultural scene.

There is a poll that The Globe and Mail is conducting regarding this—please take the time to register your opinion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/poll/static/nationalPoll.html.

Understanding Islam is imperative. Such knowledge is vital for stability in the Middle East and, with the spread of jihadist terrorism, it is now essential for the larger sphere of global peace. More importantly, such knowledge is vital for the great task that the Church has in our generation, namely, the planting of gospel churches among Muslim peoples. And as with other spheres of human insight and understanding, such knowledge must come from first-hand contact. Far too much so-called knowledge in the West about the Muslim world is sketchy at best and utterly untrustworthy at worst. Western Evangelical Christianity, confident that it is not influenced by the secular press, has become an unwitting perpetrator of far too many myths about the Muslims.

Westerners, even Evangelicals, tend to adore the present and future, and look with disdain on the past. But such an attitude is fatal in any work seeking to be fruitful among Muslims, where the contours of the past are constantly being recalled. And so to understand Islam we must remember the past, and especially our past encounters with Islam.

There are some very good blogs out there, especially Christian ones. Whoever said Christians don’t think (the charge is as old as Marcus Aurelius and older), should think again about such an uninformed statement. Search the web and find some of these thoughtful Christian bloggers.

Some of the greatest minds in the history of humanity—Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Pascal, Edwards—have been Christians and spent their lives thinking through the implications of Christianity for all of life.