Yearly Archives: 2015

Thoughts

On Male Monogamy

Note: This Facebook post is the rawest piece of writing I have ever published. Even today it’s hard to publish without some trepidation about being so transparent on the open Internet. But a core principle of this blog is to be honest about my intellectual and religious journey through life. I am committed to letting my past writing speak for itself, first and foremost as a reminder to me of where I’ve been. Looking back on this post now, a couple things have changed. First and foremost, I am no longer living as an unbeliever. I pray intentionally, and I have begun to read the Bible. I still see many reasons to doubt the historicity of parts of the Bible, but it has become increasingly clear to me that the Bible offers the only coherent framework for living that is accessible to me. Therefore, I accept the Bible as my guidebook for life and seek in faith to follow Christ in how I live. Secondly, the language of this piece is almost brutally jaded and unremorseful. Looking back and based on some of the feedback I received at the time, I wish it had been more gentle and treated pornography use s a sin of which to be ashamed. At the end of the post is a follow-up comment I posted a week later. (DL, June 10, 2023).

www.challies.com/articles/my-wifes-plea-to-christian-men

I want my Christian friends to read and let this article sink in.
In particular, absorb the line of thought reflected in the following quote. There are several threads in it I want to unpack.

Why do so many men, and even so many Christian men, have such weakness when it comes to sexual sin? . . . Why are so many of you failing . . .? Is it really that difficult? You would almost think that this one sin is beyond the power of the Holy Spirit. . . . The only conclusion I can come to is that you are so consumed with self-gratification that you are not willing to fight, and I mean really willing to fight, this sin. If it’s not that you can’t, it must be that you won’t.

I have some specific thoughts in response.

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Faith

Irrefragable: Examining the Word-for-word Reliability of the Gospels

“The Scripture cannot be broken.”

Jesus

The following analysis was first written in May of 2015 for a group of dear friends with whom I was working through some questions related to the Christian faith of my childhood and early adult years. Beginning in my early-mid 30s, for the first time in my life I began to seriously question the veracity and authority of the Bible. This analysis was an output of that process of questioning. (DL, Sept. 6, 2021)

Bart Ehrman’s arguments about who Jesus actually was and how he came to be thought of as he is now among Christians all take as their starting place a conviction that the four gospels which describe Jesus were not supernaturally delivered and are not literally, word-for-word true and error-free.

In order to enter into Ehrman’s arguments, one must be able to entertain the possibility that the four gospels are not 100% true and reliable guides to history. This is the key leap for a person like Ehrman who moved from evangelical faith to agnosticism. At one point he believed that the gospels are 100% historically reliable; at a later point he did not.

The parts of Ehrman that I’ve read so far delve briefly into the question of the gospels’ reliability, but mostly take it as an assumption that they are not 100% reliable. But for those in our position, the question needs more detailed attention.

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Faith

A Prayer Written in the Face of Rationalist Doubt

Note: The first half of 2015 was a time of spiritual crisis for me. Doubts and questions that had been building for years came to a head in a moment of personal and family trauma. One of the outputs of that period was this prayer which I wrote carefully but have–in truth–only seldom prayed. (DL, Sept. 12, 2021)

Maker of Spacetime and Human Minds, you who are the Author of Good and Source of Light, please hear my prayer and grant my request:

I wander in uncertainty as to your truth and the path to your right hand. I want to know you as you would be known and rejoice in the joy that only can be found in the warmth of your fellowship. 

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Faith

Presuppositions that Frame my Examination of the Scriptures

The following points were first written in May of 2015 for a group of dear friends with whom I was working through some questions related to the Christian faith of my childhood and early adult years. Beginning in my early-mid 30s, for the first time in my life I began to seriously question the veracity and authority of the Bible. These points are an output of that process of questioning. (DL, Sept. 6, 2021)

What follows is an attempt to frame the starting point from whence I begin an examination of the Scriptures. These points should be taken as a provisional and ad hoc distillation of thoughts I’ve been a long-time forming. I am happy to see them challenged or accepted as suits the reader.

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Thoughts

Sehnsucht

Note: This is a lightly edited version of an e-mail I sent on May 10, 2015. The concept of Sehnsucht was originally introduced to me by a dear friend (Gloria Repp) some years prior. Since writing this I have experienced what I only know how to describe as a kind of emotional burnout. The glimpses described her stopped. Whether from aging, emotional trauma, or some other cause I do not know. Nevertheless, it feels a bit like a part of my brain–the emotionally imaginative and hopeful part–has burnt out. Hopefully not forever. (DL, Dec. 4, 2022)

Sehnsucht is a German word. It means “longing.”

But it represents something more than that English word conveys. It is a very difficult concept for me to explain, but it’s a very important one, for it a key to my secret heart, my secret longing. In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis uses the word “Joy” in a special way. It’s a feeling he would get at certain unexpected moments while reading or walking in the countryside or listening to music. More than happiness, more than jollity, it’s like for a moment he would get a feeling or a glimpse of something deeper, more real, more perfect than this world. He would be taken beyond this world for a moment and filled with wonder; he would be surprised by joy. And those glimpses of joy begat a longing for joy, a longing for the perfect, a longing that led him to search for it in literature and music and philosophy till he found it in Christ. That longing for joy, for the perfect and complete, could be called sehnsucht,

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Politics

Facebook Discussion on Cake Baker Rights

Notes: This series of Facebook comments took place on a post on the wall of a gay friend that I believe was related to Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed by Indiana to prevent government from substantially burdening the free exercise of religion. The law, which arose in part as a reaction to the Colorado Masterpiece Cake Shop case, passed into law the day of this thread. I engaged in response to another commenter who’s content was acerbic and anti-gay. This series of comments is a good example of the kinds of discussions with strangers I had on Facebook when I was most involved with the platform. The consistent failure to actually change any minds through all this engagement (as evidenced here) is one of the reasons I ultimately left the platform. I posted on the same topic in a comment on another thread a few days later. (DL, June 14, 2023).

[Commenter 1 Name Redacted], I hesitate to engage you simply because I’m not sure it’s going to get us anywhere profitable, but silence can be its own form of complicity, so . . .

1) The formulations “degenerate minority” and “degenerate sexual deviant” are not an indicator of an open minded clear thinker. Your expression is dismissive and muddy. It basically comes across as bombastic namecalling. Perhaps you could have written something like: “You shouldn’t get extra rights at my expense simply because of your race or your sexual preference.” In this way you could have made the same point without unnecessarily raising the temperature level of the conversation and offending many of the people you’re ostensibly trying to dialog with.

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Thoughts

Morality Presupposes Transcendence

Note: This series of Facebook comments began as a response to someone I’ve forgotten on a friend’s post that I’ve also forgotten. Through all my decade plus of spiritual doubt, I never lost confidence in—and still have never lost—the observation expressed in this post that without a transcendent reality beyond the material universe, there can be no rational basis for the concepts of Good an Evil. I only have my part of the exchange. Summary comments have been added for clarity. (DL, June 13, 2023).

What the quote [OP’s Name Redacted] posted addresses is a fundamental flaw with philosophical materialism. If there is no reality beyond the matter of this universe, then talking about good and evil is meaningless.

States of matter cannot be good or evil. They are simply configurations of atoms. A supernova doesn’t have moral quality, neither does an avalanche. Both are simply matter in motion.

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Politics

The Importance of an Open Marketplace

Note: When Mike Pence signed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act on March 27, 2015, the news made the rounds in my Facebook circle, and I participated in a couple of threads on the topic. This short comment echoes some of the main points I had made a few days earlier in a longer discussion. (DL, June 14, 2023).

I had this discussion earlier on another thread, and I’ll repost some of what I said here:

I subscribe to the concept of the social contract. As members of a freely self-governing society, we undertake certain commitments to one another. In essence, we willingly agree to give up some of our autonomy in exchange for the benefits and protections of combined effort.

In regards to the public marketplace, I accept rules regarding fair and equitable trade for all in exchange for police protection, protection from unfair competitive practicies by more powerful competitors and banks, easy access to my customers and suppliers provided by the public transportation infrastructure, and (crucially) free access to the market myself regardless of my beliefs.

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Faith

On the Historicity of Genesis

Note: Like many of my peers (but unlike many of our parents or many of our children), I have made a lot of Facebook comments over the years. The writing is often unpolished, but they nevertheless offer excellent snapshots of what I was thinking at a particular time and how I articulated those thoughts for a particular audience in a particular context. This comment was made on the post of a friend who shared without comment a Gospel Coalition article entitled, “Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods.” It is an in-progress moment in the decade-long unwinding of my evangelical faith. I have cleaned up a number of typos from the original comment. (DL, Sept. 13, 2021)

My thoughts based on my understanding of various things:

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