Objections to Christian Belief (Review)

[struggle4progress]

D.M. MacKimmon et al
Penguin
Middlesex:1963
95 pp

This is a collection of four essays, by four Cambridge churchmen, successively covering moral, psychological, historical, and intellectual objections to Christianity

The shortness is a result of the fact that the essays originated as four lectures to a general university audience, with the object of stating clearly and in as sharp a form as possible the nature of the objections, from the viewpoint of persons living "with one foot in Christian belief and the other resolutely planted in the radical unbelief of the contemporary world"

Many of the objections will be familiar, if only briefly stated; others are more interesting. In the former class, one notes (for example) the reasonable standard questions about whether "Christian morality" (1) consists of a legalistic code based on some revealed divine will that must be accepted or (2) simply arises as the natural outcome of an effort to describe what we should do to become defensible moral agents -- such as behaving with appropriate restraint or (3) might be something else. In the latter class, there are interesting psychological issues about the degree to which "behaving in a Christian manner" might merely be a disguise intended to distract ourselves and others from our own actually somewhat-less-respectable natures

Attempts to consider objections seriously, and to encourage people to understand the consequences (rather than merely engaging in vapid dismissive apologetic rhetoric), was common in liberal theological circles fifty years ago, though it provoked an organized counter-attack by fundamentalists which has perhaps shaped US media coverage since then

[pbmus]

1. Link please...

[struggle4progress]

2. No link: I wrote that, old book in hand

[pbmus]

3. .....

https://thebibleisnotholy.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/objections-to-christian-belief.pdf

[struggle4progress]

4. Thanks!

[pbmus]

5. Of course, good read..

[MineralMan]

6. Objections to and Arguments for Christianity

are a commonplace. The central problem, I think is that there is no definable Christianity. The difference in perspectives, ethical codes, and even actual beliefs are so wide-ranging in Christendom, that the "not all Christians" argument can always be brought into play to dismiss objections. We see that in the Religion Group on DU all the time.

I do not believe there is a solution to this. One can object to something like dominionism and get acknowledgement that it is a danger to our system of government from many. However, the same many will declare that their brand of Christianity isn't like that and has no such destructive ideas. They will dismiss the objection, because it does not apply to them.

We do not often see one branch, denomination, or sect of Christianity condemning another. That puts everyone in a bad position. However, all Christians will agree that everyone probably should be a Christian. All will argue against atheism, or any number of other things, in concert. Few, if any, however, will call fellow Christians and Christian groups to account in any real way.

Until the disparate structure of Christianity begins to criticize some of its own adherents, there is little chance any outside group can influence the bulk of Christians.

[Mariana]

7. "We do not often see one branch, denomination, or sect of Christianity condemning another."

After reading your post, I'm wracking my brain trying to think of the last time I heard a Christian say something like, "I get that they believe that's what Christ really stood for, and I'm sure they're sincere in their faith, but I think they're wrong because ... " This just doesn't happen very often, does it?

It is much more common for them declare that this or that person, group, or denomination isn't Christian. This is very convenient. If all the crazies are non-Christian, they don't reflect on the Trve Christians at all, and there's no need to bother criticizing or condemning them.

[struggle4progress]

8. The point of this particular book was that Christians should be aware of objections,

stated as strongly as possible with the aim of producing some real tension in their beliefs, rather than as easily-demolished straw men

I will explain why I do not feel your objection very sharply

Tensions in Christian doctrine do not per se distress me but seem to me the keys to a useful reading. Perhaps because Marxian-style dialectical readings convinced me to begin again taking Christianity seriously, at a time when I had largely set it aside, I regard the tensions as unavoidable and informative

It is merely commonplace to note that we are all predisposed to interpret whatever we encounter in terms of our own preconceptions; and so it is also commonplace that people often handle religious doctrines and religious texts as mirrors of themselves. So I expect a person's understanding of "Christianity" might inform me more about that person than about "Christianity" -- and by reflecting this observation back on myself, I find I have posed myself the less-than-straightforward task of examining my own understandings as a source of information about who I really am

But in my experience, people's meanings when they speak of themselves as "Republicans" or as "Democrats," as "Americans," as "scientists," as "good people" -- or in any number of other ways -- vary in ways rather similar to the ways their meanings vary when they speak of themselves as "Christians." For this reason, your objection that "Christianity" is ill-defined (based on the diversity of proclaimed versions) drives me no further than an unsatisfied, "Yes, well, of course"

With regard to influencing people whose views differ from mine, I would note: that there are very many people who disagree with me on one or another matter (not always immediately religious); that influencing them all is quite impossible; that the relative importance of the disagreements depends on what those other people would actually want to do and their prospects for actually doing it; that my time is so limited that doing one thing always precludes doing something else; and that therefore I must choose a small number of things to attempt in practice. Obtaining a unified agreement among supposed adherents about what-Christianity-is does not survive my personal triage