I was reading this link again on my last post to Mark Earley’s comment on, End of the Spear. When I read things like this I can’t help keep coming back to Professor Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, and to The Sunday Times Culture Magazine’s endorsement of the book (21 October 07) describing TGD as “Powerful arguments on the irrationality of and harm caused by faith.”
Having read the book, ‘faith’ in this book means Christianity where “Richard Dawkins quotes Sam Harris, “While religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are.” I have to ask myself are we talking about the same group of people? Are real practicing Christians like that? Harmful? Stupid?
I was struck by a few paragraphs where Mark Early says:
“Jim Elliot’s wife, Elisabeth, told the story of these men, their mission, and their deaths in the 1957 bestseller Through Gates of Splendor. It inspired a generation to missionary service in the 1900s. But the sacrifice of these men is only the beginning of this story. The way one family responded to this brutal crime is the truly sensational part, and the reason this story is worth us revisiting today.
“. . . painfully aware of the danger, after her husband’s death Elisabeth Elliott took their 10-month-old daughter and returned to live among the same tribe that killed her husband and his companions. For two years she shared Jesus with them and worked to earn their trust. As a result, many tribe members became followers of Jesus, including some of the murderers.
“Dramatized in the 2006 movie End of the Spear, this story of murder, forgiveness, and redemption holds more lessons for believers than simply a call to missionary service. It shows how a biblical response to crime can transform individuals, communities, and entire cultures.”
It is that last sentence by Earley - who should know from his personal experience in Prison Ministries - that is persuasive about what I read and know of real Christianity. “It shows how a biblical response to crime can transform individuals, communities, and entire cultures.” From objective reading could I put Mark Earley under Dawkins’ and the Sunday Times characterisation of Christians when Earley motivates the church to action by his challenge: “But as followers of Jesus we need to see crime as Elisabeth Elliot saw it: an opportunity to share Christ’s love with those who were despised. “What would it take for you and your church to see “criminals” as just such a people group? What would it take for you and your church to risk demonstrating the “scandal” of the Gospel? It might be just the very thing necessary to make the invisible Kingdom visible to a doubting world.”
Inciting Christians to be harmful to the wider community? Is that what I read Mark Earley doing in his commentary on End of the Spear? The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins has to be seen for what it is, part of The New Atheist’ Campaign Against Christianity.
