Recently Read

According to the New Testament, the first, most-basic quality of a church elder is simple: he must be trustworthy. In the words of the text, the ideal pastor is above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2) and blameless (Titus 1:5). He leads an honorable life, reeks of integrity, has a rock-solid reputation.

Speaking of our fifth President, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson once said, "Monroe was so honest that if you turned his soul inside out there would not be a spot on it." That's the idea.

As I read The Ten-Year Century by Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone, it made me think that as the pace of change continues to snowball, the quality of trustworthiness will, if anything, become even more important. Aren't you thankful for those people you can count on to do their best to do what's right?

- - - - - - - -

The genre of short story isn't dead. But it ain't what it used to be either. The Valetudinarian, a story by Joshua Ferris recently published in the New Yorker magazine, is a step in the right direction. It's about a grouchy old widower who thinks he's dying before he decides to live. This one will likely entertain more guys than girls. Either way, it's one fine piece of fiction. Read any good short stories lately?

- - - - - - - -

I recently finished Antony Flew's much-talked-about book, There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. People who are up on recent debates about the existence of God, or on the recent history of the Churches of Christ, might remember that in his atheist days Flew participated in a four-night debate with the late Thomas B. Warren. To see what Flew says about that, see this post.

And what would Karl Barth say about Flew's "conversion" to Theism, but not Christianity? A lot. For the skinny, you can check out three previous posts:

Natural Theology: Is it Christian?

Karl Barth's Rejection of Natural Theology, 1

Karl Barth's Rejection of Natural Theology, 2

Antony Flew on His Debate with Thomas B. Warren

Yuck! Raining again today. So for the afternoon, this big group of extended family I'm with is planning to get out and go shopping.

We did much the same thing yesterday. Packed up and went to the mall in Holyoke, Mass. Of course, once we were about halfway there, the sun came out and we knew we should have gone swimming. So on the way home, we consoled ourselves by stopping at a roadside stand that had freshly-picked ears of butter-and-sugar corn. That and burgers cooked on the grill. Mmm Umm.

At the mall, I finally wound up in the Borders Bookstore. I remembered that in a couple of weeks, I'm supposed to do a presentation on "The Existence of God." So I was looking through the Religion section and came to that book I'd heard so much about a year or two ago: There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew.

I've read the first section so far. All along, I was hoping to find a section on Flew's debate with Thomas Warren of the Churches of Christ. Here's an excerpt:

The 1976 debate with Thomas Warren in Denton, Texas, had an audience, on different days, from five to seven thousand. . . .

Debates in the United Kingdom typically took place before small academic audiences. Thus my first exposure to a mass audience in the context of a debate was my encounter with the late Professor Thomas B. Warren, a Christian philosopher. The debate was held on the campus of the North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas, in Denton, on four consecutive nights starting on September 20, 1976, dates that coincided with the first of that year's U.S. presidential debates between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Before an enthusiastic audience, Dr. Warren wielded an impressive array of charts and slides.

Interestingly, a good part of his case was an attack on the theory of evolution, which at that time seemed to me to be a novel undertaking. When Dr. Warren asked if I believed there could be a being that is half ape and half human, I responded that this was sort of like determining whether someone is bald. My supervisor Gilbert Ryle was positively egglike, and there is no doubt that everyone must call that bald. But if we go one hair at a time, it is not easy to define who is bald and who is not.

However, given my current views, a few of my very declarative statements from that debate may be of interest in depicting the fervency of my atheist convictions at that point:

"I know there is no God."

"A system of belief about God" contains the same "sort of contradiction" as "unmarried husbands or round squares."

"I myself am inclined to believe that the universe was without beginning and will be without end. Indeed, I know of no good reasons for disputing either of these suggestions."

"I believe that living organisms evolved over an immeasurably long period from nonliving materials."

I was impressed with the hospitality of my hosts, but the debate ended with both Warren and I sticking to our guns (pp. 67-69).

By the way, here's the homepage for the Warren-Flew debate on video.