Jesus or Skeptic? The New York Times Gets Confused

Adam Grant seems like a pretty smart guy. According to his CV, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in organizational psychology and his B.A. from Harvard University, magna cum laude with highest honors, Phi Beta Kappa honors, and the John Harvard Scholarship for highest academic achievement. He is a professor at Wharton College at the University of Pennsylvania and he's written a best-selling book. Grant's writings have also been features in the New York Times. In fact, his most recent piece, entitled "Why Men Need Women," just ran last Sunday—prime time in newspaper circles.

Certainly, an academic of this caliber knows how to properly cite his sources. But as smart as Professor Grant may seem, he made an egregious error in his Times piece. In discussing how Mary Gates, Bill Gates' mother, had inspired both him and his wife, Grant wrote:

"Mary read a letter aloud that she had written to Melinda about marriage. Her concluding message was reminiscent of the Voltaire (or Spiderman) mantra that great power implies great responsibility: ‘From those to whom much is given, much is expected.'"[1]

It's a great thought. Grant obviously thought it was powerful enough to include in his story. But, he's woefully confused on the origin of the teaching. The quote originates not with Mary Gates, Stan Lee, or Voltaire, but with Jesus Christ! The quote is taken from Luke 12:48 which reads in part "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more" (ESV).

Grant seems to be truly ignorant of the origin of Mrs. Gates' quote, instead attributing the idea to a much weaker concept that Voltaire helped popularize. How could an academic miss this? And how could the New York Times editors miss this? Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson claimed that rigorous fact-checking and truth-testing are "a fundamental part of our job as journalists."[2] I realize that one cannot source every quote by every individual, but we are talking about misattributing a quote from the man who changed the course of humanity more than any other in history!

The truth is that both an academic and the editors at The Times missed this is because there is a much more pervasive dearth of religious knowledge in our culture, especially in the news media. There have been books written on it. The folks at The Media Project continue to sound alarms over it. But, The Times and other mainstream news outlets continue to be willfully blind on the question of religion. They seem to be falling for the classic blunder, the one that thinks, "because religion isn't important to me, it really isn't important at all."

Of course, Jesus' teaching was important enough to Mary Gates that she would quote it. That same teaching then influenced Bill and Melinda Gates to give incredible amounts to charity. To me, that seems important. Perhaps The Times could hire someone with a little working knowledge with Jesus and His sayings, just in case they make a lasting mark on our society.

References

1. Grant, Adam. "Why Men Need Women." New York Times. July 21, 2013, page SR1. Accessed online at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/why-men-need-women.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

2. Brisbane, Aurthur. "Update to my Previous Post on Truth Vigilantes." New York Times.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/update-to-my-previous-post-on-truth-vigilantes/ Accessed 7/24/2013.

Seeing Jesus as an Intellect

Who is Jesus? The question has been around as long as Jesus has! From the time that Jesus began ministering; people have been asking "Who is this man?" Jesus is portrayed many ways in the Bible. Some of His titles in the Bible include:

• Savior
• Messiah
• The Lamb of God
• The Light of the World
• The Second Adam
• The Son of God
• The Word made flesh
• Lord of Lords
• King of kings

Of course, people continue to try and add dimensions to Jesus that they find relevant. Recent book titles that invoke Jesus include Jesus: CEO, Jesus is my Superhero, Jesus the Prophet of Allah, Jesus the Rebel, Jesus the Outlaw, and The Good Man Jesus & the Scoundrel Christ. These are simply examples of people trying to see Jesus as a reflection of their highest ideals; even the former head of the Soviet Union,Mikhail Gorbachev, called Jesus "the first socialist"![1] Obviously, people view Jesus through the lens of their assumptions and what they want Him to be.

Do Christians miss aspects of who Jesus is by our assumptions?

Even Christians who seek to properly understand Jesus can overlook aspects of who Jesus is because of their preconceptions. If I gave 100 people a blank sheet of paper and asked them to write their top ten attributes of Jesus, I would get many answers. I'm sure several would repeat some of the titles I've listed above. But I doubt that I would get one "Jesus is an intellectual" or Jesus is a master logician". The concept of Jesus as a logician is not any stranger than Jesus as a master carpenter, Jesus as teacher, Jesus as CEO, yet we never seem to equate Jesus with intelligence.

Why not?

Jesus relates to the Intellectual

Simply put, the modern church has not placed a sufficient value on intelligence as a necessary means for worshiping God. We tend to divorce concepts of faith and rational thought. Faith is seen as "spiritual" while knowledge is seen as "worldly." We believe Jesus was sinless and a champion of the downtrodden and we seek to do likewise. But Jesus also commanded us to love our God with all our minds (Luke 10:27) and He modeled this when He engaged with those who would question His actions.

USC professor of Philosophy Dallas Willard captures the idea of this concept well when he says:

"In our culture and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well-informed," "brilliant," or "smart."[2]

Dallas Willard goes on to write:

"Often, it seems to me, we see and hear his deeds and words, but we don't think of him as one who knew how to do what he did or who really had logical insight into the things he said. We don't automatically think of him as a very competent person. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and walked on water, for example--but, perhaps, he didn't know how to do it, he just used mindless incantations or prayers. Or he taught on how to be a really good person, but he did not have moral insight and understanding. He just mindlessly rattled off words that were piped in to him and through him. Really?"[3]

But can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if He were not smart? If He were divine, would He be dumb? Or uninformed?  Once you stop to think about it, how could Jesus be what Christians take Him to be in other respects and not be the best informed and most intelligent person of all: the smartest person who ever lived, bringing us the best information on the most important subjects.

In fact, John's gospel starts by identifying Jesus as the "Logos." Many Bibles translate that a "word" but the implication of Logos is not merely a word but an intelligent, rational thought. Logos is the root of our word logic and Jesus as the Logos is the embodiment of logic.  He used is throughout His ministry. His aim in utilizing logic was not to win battles, but to achieve understanding or insight in His audience, so He'd challenge the woman at the well or have the twelve disciples pick up twelve baskets of leftovers after He fed 5,000, trying to help them draw conclusions from His actions. (He even chided the disciples for not doing so.)

The church today needs to begin seeing this missing aspect of Jesus' nature. We complain and lament that our institutions of higher learning have kicked God out of the classroom, but has the church kicked the professor out of the pew? Do we never offer any kind of vigorous intellectual message so a PhD could look forward to church as a time of intellectual stimulation? Do we water down our messages so much that we never seek to stretch our congregations even just a bit, to make them a little bit smarter? Do we believe that Jesus was the smartest man who ever lived? And will we seek to love God with all of our minds as well as with our hearts, all our souls and all our strength?

For more on this topic, see: Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived.

References

1. Haberman, Clive. "Israel Welcomes Gorbachev as a Hero". The New York Times. June 16, 1992. <http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/16/world/israel-welcomes-gorbachev-as-a-hero.html> Accessed 7/22/2013.

2. Willard, Dallas. "Jesus the Logician". DWillard.org < http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=39> Accessed: 7/22/2013

3. Ibid.

God and Our Technology

Does God care about our technology? Of course He does!  When God first created man, Genesis 2:15 tells us "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Of this Keil writes, "Man was placed there to lead a life of repose, not indeed of inactivity, but in fulfillment of the course that was assigned to him."1 The idea of human beings tending and bringing out the best of God's creation has always been a part of God's plan, even before the fall.

Tending and keeping also includes learning about the creation so we can produce better and better results for everyone. That's really what our modern day technology does, when used rightly. We can marvel at the complexity and consistency of God's created order and harness that knowledge for the betterment of people and the world as a whole. Technology, when used rightly, should always bring glory to God.

However, many times we corrupt technology and use it to glorify ourselves or to serve our selfish desires. Below is a clip from Dr. Walt Russell that perfectly illustrates the point. During a recent theology class at Harvest Christian Fellowship, Dr. Russell gave a great object lesson on how instead of thanking God for the technological advances he allows us to discover, we turn technology into an idol. For the full series of talks, visit http://deepfaith.harvest.org/.

References

1. Keil, C.F and F. Delitezsch.Commentary on Old Testament. (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans Pub., 1991. 84.

Who Should Be Able to Speak in the Abortion Debate?

During her filibuster to try and stop the Texas abortion bill that was just signed into law, Texas state Senator Wendy Davis said, "This legislating is being done and voted on—look around the room—primarily by men." In making that statement, Davis invoked an argument that has been used many times in the abortion debate: that since men cannot get pregnant they lack the real knowledge of what abortion means for women. A blogger at the Abortion Gang web site makes the same claim even more clearly when she writes:

"I want to silence all the male voices in the abortion discussion… In fact, the majority of persons in government who are anti-choice, are men. And none of them can get pregnant. The people who are making decisions that affect the lives of women, CAN'T EVEN GET PREGNANT! And so, I want to silence the voices of all men." (Emphasis in the original.)

The interesting thing, though, was that the Davis clip was featured on Rachel Maddow's news talk show on MSNBC. If you don't know, Maddow is an open lesbian who says she's in a committed relationship with her partner, Susan Mikula. So, other than spending a lot of money on insemination treatments, Maddow has the exact same chance of getting pregnant as any man in the Texas state government: none at all. Yet, Maddow felt she was quite in the right to discuss the issue and lead with this argument by Davis.

If pro-abortion supporters like Davis and the Abortion Gang are going to argue that the opinion of someone who cannot get pregnant should count less than those who can, then thy should be consistent and ban lesbians from the debate. In fact, they should have no infertile women or post-menopausal women speak to the issue, either.

It is clear that a standard such as the ability to get pregnant falls woefully short of a good argument in whether such a bill as was before the Texas representatives should be passed. Davis knows this and she was hoping to trade on people's emotions rather than making real arguments. Maddow seems to have bought it, even though her actions in engaging with the debate directly contradict the point that Davis implies. Such contradictions are worthy to be ignored.

Atheists, Pink Unicorns, and God

I've written before about atheist Internet memes, these static images with a slogan or question are meant to quickly prove the atheists' point that belief in God is just so ridiculous it can be this easily disproven. But such attempts usually backfire, showing the poster as the one who really doesn't know the arguments in question, or even the subject matter of the meme itself.

I stumbled across one just the other day that truly underscores my point. A group of atheists who manage a couple of pages on Facebook page look to be responsible for the image to your right. The meme is meant to answer the Christian demand that if atheists want to state a proposition like "God does not exist" or "God is a fictitious being" then they should be able to provide arguments and evidence for their position.

Many atheists have responded to the demand by saying that one cannot prove a universal negative. They say it's like trying to prove that invisible pink unicorns don't exist. As the meme says "prove to me the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist and I'll use your method."

OK, let's give this a try:

1. The property of color is defined as a visible property.
2. An object that has a visible property must be at least visible in that property.
3. An invisible object is defined as an object that is not visible (e.g. lacking any visible property.)
4. The Invisible Pink Unicorn has the property of color (namely the color pink.)
5. The Invisible Pink Unicorn lacks any visible property.
6. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is visible (from 1,2 and 4)
7. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is not visible (from 3 and 5)

As my argument shows, belief in an invisible pink unicorn requires believing in a contradiction, that it is visible and invisible at the same time. Any belief that entails a contradictory belief cannot possibly be true, so this serves as definitive proof that invisible pink unicorns cannot exist anywhere. This means that one can prove a universal negative; it is impossible for an invisible pink unicorn to be real.

So, now the burden rests on the atheist to disprove God in like manner. Remember, the meme says if I prove it, they will use my method. Now, of course many will try to offer arguments that are either invalid or unsound. But offering just any argument doesn't do the trick. A sound argument must support its conclusion with its premises, just as I did above. I made sure I defined my terms and I didn't make any leaps in assumption when laying out my premises. Therefore, my conclusion necessarily follows.

I was able to show that a universal negative can be proven and I was able to meet the atheists' challenge. What are the odds that they will give a serious attempt to actually act on their words and use my method?