Possibly this one.
From that article.
If you love science, you will be amazed at what Metaxas writes about water. He pulls together many different writers in, I think, a clever and thoughtful way. I don’t think he mentioned the angle which got my student. BTW, I do not feel comfortable giving out my student’s name.
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Certainly - nobody here has the right to that. Thanks for respecting those confidences.
Indeed Metaxas has (in the past) shown that he does have a very thoughtful side. You just wouldn’t know that if all you saw is what he’s promoting now, having gone deep into a rightwing propaganda hole. It is a sobering picture of what partisanship is doing to otherwise bright minds.
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You know… I wonder how many prejudged the title. I caught myself doing the same, and decided to listen to the first several minutes. I get his point even as offensive as it is. What if apolitical pastors were Hitler’s favorite kind of pastor?
I don’t know how much me and Metaxas would agree about politically. But I can appreciate his attitude and hope that me and him might have that conversation one day.
(No lie, it goes back nearly 20 years to when you silenced my buddies who were interviewing you. You responded to their hoorah about the person God uses to deliver a generation, by talking about the unanticipated character of such a person.)
Christian nationalism is evil and it isn’t Christian.
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One may be a political theologian without being a Christian nationalist.
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Hmmm… an article by Wilson on xtian nationalism caught my eye last week and I went back and gave it a listen on the way to work this morning. So funny that the feeling I got listening to it was like listening to a scientist explain the ether after Einstein.
Comes down to one very simple question about whether reasonable people can disagree about the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures.
(Wilson would probably be flustered by having to see what Calvin says about this)
I haven’t read Metaxas’ book - nor do I intend to. But just going off your comment here, I’d say that the only political pastors Hitler had any use for would have been the ones that made their politics and ‘Xianity’ useful to Hitler for his murderous, despotic purposes. Any pastors that spoke truth to power or that challenged his treatment of marginalized people would have quickly found themselves herded right along with all those into the concentration camps.
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With a bit of ironic flourish, TGC has a meaty article by Keller front page this morning.
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Those pastors DID find themselves herded right along with all those into the concentration camps.
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Perhaps related to all this, my son challenged me the other day with a question: Can you think of any autocrats or dicators in history (from either the economic left or right) who weren’t socially conservative? Can you think of a single socially liberal one? It would seem there is only one mentality that hungers for concentrated political power of a more tyrannical sort: the social right.
So perhaps it is no wonder that too many conservatives today still have that old, demonic, Constantinian cataract blinding them to most of what the New Testament teaches. They confuse the Kingdom of God for the kingdoms of this world and want the latter to adopt what they view as the inherent authoritarianism of the former. It’s what makes them see Jesus brandishing guns over his neighbors rather than hanging on a cross. They want to aim for heaven and get the world thrown in, but they end up aiming for the world and getting neither. This is perhaps one of the most ironic reasons why it is so important for us all to remain and promoite biblical literacy in our culture today. Because those who don’t read what’s actually there are easy prey for the now (and ever) politically-perverted versions of it. They end up admiring despots like Putin.
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I like the question and what I see being asked is whether any totalitarian leader withheld the imposition of their (disagreeable) views.
Reminds me of a question I considered once of what happens when a society disagrees on what it means to be a human being. The example was with the issue of whether eating meat should be forbidden.
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I wonder if Nero would have filled the bill? Of course he wasn’t a driving force toward installing a dictatorship, just a twisted inheritor of that power.
Yeah - I don’t know about Nero, other than how loathsome his reign was.
I suppose there may be something unsurprising about this [potential] observation, though - psychologically speaking. Because those who are more “rule-followers” (i.e. many of whom will be on the more socially conservative side of the spectrum) will also tend to harbor higher expectations of rule-adherence for those around them too, and favor stiffer penalties for transgressors. Especially if the rule-follower has experienced some personal success, and even historical/cultural success with their endeavors, thus very much having something to protect should they feel it threatened. That mentality will probably score high on the “let’s get this society ‘cleaned up’ by any means necessary” approach to life, politics, and religion. Whereas the “Se la vie” liberals are perhaps a bit more libertarian on those social fronts, and therefore not so likely to pander for, or to, moral tyranny.
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So hydrogen bonds point to God?
With statements in the book such as
what do you think?
I’m thinking of the hymn
Blest be the hydrogen atom that binds
I do not know all the reasons why this PhD thought this, but if you read Metaxas section on water, I hope you would be as awe-struck as I was. These physical properties of water make life possible and if that angle were only a few degrees different water would not do everything needed for life. I imagine to my PhD student it pointed to something that was not a coincidence or accident.
Where my associations go is to Luke’s Gospel and Peter falling at Jesus feet calling him Lord. Sometimes you experience something which overwhelms you with the presence of God. There is a word for this which escapes me at the moment. If you ever have it- you will not forget it and as Peter recognized God in Jesus, I think my PhD student had that kind of experience. Sorry if this is not adequate.
Luke 5: 5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. 7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. 8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. 9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken
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