Canaanite Rumble

Artwork by Paul Baker

Apologetic shark Matthew Flannagan has attacked a review by Thom Stark with a long and tendentious blog item. Flannagan is undoubtedly a smart fellow. It takes a truckload of smart to defend the indefensible (in this case, genocide). In fact you might even get the impression that Matt could sell the Emperor a whole wardrobe full of nice, new invisible clothes.

Matt may have bitten off more than he can chew this time, though. Thom Stark has responded. Clearly I'm shamelessly biased in this rumble, but even so Stark is both the more lucid, readable and good humoured of the two. More fun is to follow as this is apparently only the opening salvo in the exchange.

Entering the fray is another blogger with a well-deserved reputation of his own. Deane Galbraith offers some extremely pertinent observations. Verily, did not the Spirit move mightily when Deane wrote:

Shark 'n tatties

The background to Stark’s reply is a series of recent attempts by various conservative evangelical Christians to argue that the genocidal conquest of “Canaan” ordered by the Israelite god Yahweh was in some way a good thing. Some of these attempts, such as those by Matthew Flannagan and Nicholas Wolterstorff, are by people who are not even biblical scholars, and whose attempts to grapple with the texts expose their lack of expertise, sometimes to the point of being simply embarrassing to read.

Amen to that! Shark and tatties anyone?

The Apostle of Slick Apologetics

Yup, we're talking William Lane Craig. I've never understood why thinking evangelicals (yes, there are a few of them) could possibly take this guy seriously. He has the chutzpah of an insurance salesman and a voracious capacity for memorising 'cue-card' responses to any objection he's likely to encounter. Put him up against someone who, unlike himself, is in contact with reality, and he puts on quite a performance.

Performance is the key word. There are true believers in the audience and an apologist has to score points early and often in order to cover up the fact that he's way out on a limb. Get 'em laughing, get 'em nodding, pull in some applause and then ride the wave of "stuff the details you'se smart-arse heathens, I'm in denial and ya can't get me!" If all else fails, muddy the waters and get them to think, "hey, wow, this guy is so smart I have no idea what he's talking about!"

Slick Willie appears all over the place. Dear lord, I believe the guy was even in New Zealand a while back. An upcoming engagement will find him in Atlanta at a conference sponsored by something called the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Also present will be current number four on the biblioblogger hit parade, Matthew Flannagan. Flannagan, a Kiwi who writes for the local right-wing monthly magazine Investigate, displays less showmanship but greater substance, but the tune is inevitably the same. At the end of the day all apologetics amounts to the same hill of beans, though it's wise to especially avoid those that have been contaminated with Reformed ketchup. At least Slick Willie can be mildly entertaining... the more cerebral Calvinista are just plain scary.

Plantinga on the Bible

Just You, me and Calvin, Lord!

Two quotes from Reformed apologist Alvin Plantinga - cited by Matthew Flannagan in his PowerPoint presentation that attempts to rescue Yahweh from charges of genocide against the Canaanites.

“An assumption of the enterprise is that the principal author of the Bible—the entire Bible—is God himself (according to Calvin, God the Holy Spirit). Of course each of the books of the Bible has a human author or authors as well; still, the principal author is God. This impels us to treat the whole more like a unified communication than a miscellany of ancient books. Scripture isn’t so much a library of independent books as itself a book with many subdivisions but a central theme: the message of the gospel…”

Cute quote huh? Isn't it nice to see that, when the ancient texts are put through the theological sausage machine, they come out with "a central theme: the message of the gospel." Well, that should be obvious, and I trust you're as suitably "impelled" as I am. Too bad Jews don't see it that way - they obviously don't like sausages! And too bad various Christian denominations have differing understandings of what exactly "the gospel message" is.

But wait, there's more...

“By virtue of this unity, furthermore (by virtue of the fact that there is just one principal author), it is possible to “interpret Scripture with Scripture.” If a given passage from one of Paul’s epistles is puzzling, it is perfectly proper to try to come to clarity as to what God’s teaching is in this passage by appealing not only to what Paul himself says elsewhere in other epistles but also to what is taught elsewhere in Scripture.”

So you see, gentle reader, that proof texting is OK after all. Cut 'n paste to your heart's content, it's "perfectly proper," indeed it's the Reformed thing to do.

Let's recap. Assert a unity that clearly doesn't exist and anchor it in Calvinism. Then - on the basis of this fantasy - pillage the Good Book for handy proof texts to back up your preformed Reformed dogma. Very neat.

Plantinga is described as an analytic philosopher, but I'm not sure what analytic means given these examples, other than speculating that the root word might be anal.

He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics. Plantinga is a Christian and known for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend orthodox Christian beliefs. (source)

I haven't read the Plantinga tome Flannagan mined his quotes from, but assuming they're representative they do less than nothing to make me want to delve into anything else the man has written. Never trust an apologist, no matter how many honorary degrees and published works they boast. Ever.

Famine of the Word

WordPress user

Well, not quite. Blogger has had issues, and some of us have been unable to post until a few hours ago. Which just goes to prove that WordPress isn't alone in having bugs. I sat down last night to make a couple of observations on Matthew Flannagan's petulant comments regarding Deane Galbraith, but alas, Satan hindered the effort by striking down Blogger...

Oh well, the moment has passed. I do wonder, though, whether and when Matt is going to address the substantive issues that Thom Stark raises in his online review of the Copan travesty book.

Don't mess with Thom

Apologists have long been used to an easy run when it comes to delivering their comedy lines with a straight face. Who's willing to challenge them? Most of those who can and should simply shrug their shoulders. They're crazies, right?  So why bother.

That's a really bad move.  It leaves the apologists crooning to their home-crowd admirers.  See, we're right, 'cos nobody can answer our talking points.

Then along came Thom.

Thom Stark, I think it'd be fair to say, doesn't suffer fools gladly.  When braying jackasses set out to defend themselves against the indefensible, Thom doesn't sit back and mutter ineffectually to himself... he picks up the proverbial jawbones of said asses and lays lustily into them with unrelenting point-by-point refutation.

And - hallelujah! - he has a sense of humor too.

Yes, there are those who take offence at Thom's style. But then, as someone recently put it, pouting about Thom's 'direct' approach is a bit rich when these same aggrieved apologists are happy to think of Yahweh as a righteous murderer of the innocent.

Thom is the author of The Human Faces of God, my nomination for the best biblical studies book of 2010.  And don't overlook his free book-length review of Paul Copan's hugely flawed Is God a Moral Monster.

A kindly word of advice to Matt Flannagan.  If you want to take him on, then you'd best do your homework thoroughly, and even then I'd definitely think twice...

Just ask Richard Hess.

Stark crunches Copan

Oh man, a book-length three hundred and seven page book review! As announced on Religion at the Margins, here is the ultimate rebuttal to Paul Copan's cosy and creative contextualising of the Canaanite genocide (links below). And nobody could bring the passion to the task that Thom Stark does. This guy is like a rottweiler, and while I'm no fan of canine rottweilers, a Canaanite rottweiler is another matter entirely.

In case you missed previous episodes, Copan is a scholar who thinks the nasty genocide stuff in the Old Testament is much overstated. Yahweh is no moral monster, because, um, well, who knows... Maybe because it'd upset the theological, doctrinal and devotional applecart. The task at hand then is to explain away the indefensible. Copan is, on this matter, of the same view as New Zealand Reformed apologist Matthew Flannagan. The task restated, dear reader, is to put your mind at rest, and to salve your tender conscience lest it be disturbed by the blood and screams of dying children murdered at the command of God.

Thom is the author of the brilliant The Human Faces of God, which while coming from a committed Christian perspective, refuses to make excuses for the texts of terror. It is an honest eyeballing of the evidence. An overview has been presented here before. The review, like the book, is approachable by an interested non-specialist, so while the length may be formidable, the content is anything but. Here's Thom's opening paragraph.

I am a Christian. Sure, not by fundamentalists’ standards, but I’m a Christian nonetheless. I say this at the outset because I don’t want my intentions to be misunderstood. In critiquing Paul Copan’s apologetic defenses of our frequently morally problematic Bible, my aim is not to turn anybody away from the Christian faith. In fact, I am critical of apologetic attempts to sweep the Bible’s horror texts under the rug precisely because I believe such efforts are damaging to the church and to Christian theology. After having read and critiqued Paul Copan’s latest apologetic effort, I am obliged to say that I can only recommend this book to atheists who are looking for a good book to give to their Christian friends to show them what’s wrong with Christianity.

Ouch!

Anyone who has been seduced by the arguments presented by the genocide deniers badly needs to download Stark's review. If you have an eReader that handles PDFs, that could be a nifty way to engage with this amazing review.

Links:
Thom's brief introduction on Religion at the Margins.
The Review in PDF (all 307 pages).

On snarkiness in diverse places

One of these days I'm going to learn not to respond to a comment on an apologetics blog.

For some reason unknown to me Thom Stark is on a charm offensive over at Matt and Madeleine Flannagan's blog. It's all apologies, hugs and sweet reconciliation (well, sort of.)  An aside by Matt, however, left me puzzled.

Thom, Gavin is just showing how nasty the NZ theological scene can be. I did my PhD at Otago and some people still there have a snark reflex reaction towards conservatives. I suspect its more about me than it is about you.

Yup, that's his take on this post.  Proof, if any more was required, that hardline Reformed folk have a severely limited appreciation of humor.

Not that I deny the occasional descent into snarkiness. Apologetics tends to do that to me...  As Matt writes of himself, "I just call it as I see it."

But Matt has a long memory.  To my protestation that I've never been part of an Otago cabal, he rejoins that I was a contributor on the now defunct Dunedin School blog which published some "lovely stuff" about him.

Well, to that I plead guilty. I was invited by Deane to post there, though as with Matt, our only contact has ever been virtual.  Whether Matt wants to call me a liar or not, as he now infers, his name didn't come up once, to the best of my recollection, during that time.  My total contribution there was perhaps five posts, none of which, I believe, mentioned Matt at all.  Later Deane and others based in Dunedin decided to crop the posts and refocus on "reception history,"  and I was left with but one post flapping in the cool Dunedin breeze (on the meaning of the term 'evangelical'.)  Shortly thereafter, sadly, the plug was pulled completely.  At no stage, as far as I'm concerned, was that blog intended to be a "snark reflex reaction to conservatives" any more that Matt's blog is intended as a "snark reflex reaction" to mainstream biblical studies.

Now consider the tone of Matt's further response.

But I am sure you really don’t have any issue with me at all this is all just coincidence and it’s a mistake to see any of this as evidence of some kind of hostility towards me at all... try reading what people actually write it’s a lot more sensible than attacking straw men)... But I am sure this [is] all a coincidence as well. When the same authors try and draw attention to Stark[']s illtempered comments about me, that’s a coincidence as well. There is not a group of theologians at Dunedin in Otago who write snarky stuff about Conservative theologians like me, nor do people associated with this group right [sic] nasty stuff about me designed [to] ridicule me and denigrate my scholarly credentials, it’s all just a coincidence.

Clearly Matt is himself a master of the genre.

Will Matt be Mad?

Philosophy of Religion? What's that?

Whatever it is, it's associated with Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig. It's also a hobby horse much ridden, whip flailing, on the MandM blog, New Zealand's most widely read biblioblog - number 6 on the latest Top 50 ranking - co-authored by Matthew and Madeleine Flannagan.

With names like Plantinga (see my earlier rant) and Craig associated with the discipline you'd have to be a tad leery of what the field was offering anyway. No surprise then that there are those who note "a general tension over the legitimacy of philosophy of religion in philosophy as a whole." The line that divides it from apologetics, for example, seem to range from hazy to non-existent. Now a challenge arises from within the bosom of the beast, so to speak. Keith Parsons has blown the whistle.

Keeping an eye on the truth was also a matter of practical importance for Parsons, who was alarmed by the support for Intelligent Design creationism among philosophy of religion’s most influential names. These include Alvin Plantinga and Peter van Inwagen, who led the subfield’s resurgence in the 1970s and ’80s, and William Lane Craig, an Evangelical who popularizes the subfield’s arguments for God in widely-attended public debates. “One of the things the really active conservative Christians covet enormously, more than anything else, is intellectual respectability. And they think they have found it in some of the arguments from these philosophers of religion,” Parsons said.

Whether or not you agree with Parsons' rejection of theism, he makes a good deal of sense on specific issues. If we're going to talk meaningfully about Christianity, it can't help to have a non-discipline loudly interjecting implausible pretensions into the discourse.

Another Apologist Mops Up the Blood

Another day, another apologist trying to save Yahweh from himself. This time it's Douglas Earl riding in to the rescue on a nag entitled The Joshua Delusion.

Thom Stark, who reviews the book on Religion at the Margins, puts Earl's work in the context of earlier attempts by Paul Copan and New Zealand's very own Matthew Flannagan. In a lengthy but tightly argued piece he (forgive the metaphor) puts it to the sword.

Why do people insist on excusing the inexcusable? What possible motivation has anyone got to sweep the texts of terror under a rug of exculpation?

There's a lot worth saying in Stark's review, despite its somewhat intimidating length. Maybe it's appropriate to put in another plug here for Thom's The Human Faces of God which I count as one of the best (and most honest) discussions of these issues in print. But if you're even faintly interested in the horror passages of the Bible, and how they relate to an informed and compassionate Christian worldview, for heaven's sake steer well clear of the Lord's "bush lawyers."

Mrs. God

Asherah receiving a very poor divorce settlement

Tim Bulkeley has some interesting podcasts about... Mrs. God. Across on his alternate blog 5 Minute Bible, Tim confirms that Yahweh was joined at the hip - historically speaking - with the nubile Asherah. I hadn't listened to Tim's stuff before, but whoa, this chap has a fantastic voice; professional, deliberate, paced, authoritative. Not a Kiwi accent you understand, but British (but then, hey, nobody's perfect.)

But wait, there's more: He's promising to tackle the issue of those unfortunate Canaanites sometime soon too. I do hope he stays away from the slop bucket Copan and Flannagan drink from; that would be horrendously disappointing given the build up.

Anyway, the first in the series is online - Why do you read? Or: Was God Married? I'm a bit worried about the distinction Tim makes between a historically married god and a theological entity who wasn't, but it'll be interesting to see where it all leads. Do give it a listen and see what you think.

Addendum: Tim has responded to this posting with a further podcast. I appreciate his taking the time to clarify. I might make some further comments downstream, but for now... thanks Tim!