Dawkins' God Delusion Divorced American ... - Biola University

28 MISC.
BIOLA CONNECTIONS ❄ SPRING ’07
Renewed Skepticism
Princeton religion professor Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond
Belief, was among those honored at the “Scripture and Skepticism” conference held
in January at the University of California, Davis.
Just prior to the 2004 presidential
election, I was walking with my wife
through a popular mall in Orange
County when I noticed something
strange about the music that was playing. It
sounded like any other pop song, only the lyrics
were clearly about repentance and forgiveness.
The song, it turned out, was “Between You and
Me” by the band “DC Talk” (which stands for
“Decent Christian Talk”).
The song was just one of many popular
tunes being played by a cable music provider.
Yet I couldn’t help but be struck by the mainstream
acceptance it seemed to have. Meanwhile,
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was
playing in the mall’s movie theater and was fast
becoming one of the biggest blockbusters in
movie history, eventually grossing more than
$370 million in domestic receipts.
After the presidential election, my
mouth dropped as I watched reporters on The
News Hour With Jim Lehrer seek advice from
megachurch pastor Rick Warren on how
Democrats could better connect with evangelical
voters. Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life,
was the fourth highest-selling book in 2004.
By all accounts, evangelicals had become
the culture’s new power brokers, being credited
with determining elections, box-office hits and
No. 1 best sellers. In 2005, Time Magazine featured
a cover story entitled “The 25 Most
Influential Evangelicals,” in an attempt to identify
who was leading this wave of cultural and
political influence. In 2006, evangelicals continued
to make headlines, often appearing at
center stage in debates on traditional marriage,
immigration and the war in Iraq.
The sudden rise of evangelicalism took
many by surprise, especially liberal scholars and
atheists who were now being asked, for the first
time, to be more tolerant of religious views.
After the 2004 election, the Society for Values in
Higher Education began writing what is now
called “The Wingspread Declaration on Religion
and Public Life: Engaging Higher Education,”
which calls for, among other things, increased
Judith Calson / San Jose Mercury News
religious literacy in students’ education, civility
in religious discussions and helping students
connect their spiritual development with their
intellectual growth.
This mainstreaming of religious tolerance
has led to renewed efforts to undermine the
validity of Christianity as an acceptable worldview.
One such effort is the “Scripture and
Skepticism” conference held at the University
of California, Davis, on Jan. 25-28. The conference,
sponsored by The Committee for the
Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER),
aimed to use the historical-critical method to
challenge the historicity of both biblical and
koranic texts, and attempted to lump evangelicalism
together with radical Islam.
During the conference, CSER announced
the launch of “The Jesus Project” — not to be
confused with its cousin, “The Jesus Seminar” —
to examine the evidence for the historical Jesus,
using skepticism as a way of demythologizing the
gospel accounts. CSER plans to release its findings
to universities, colleges and seminaries
beginning in March 2007 in hopes of taking
back some of the turf lost to evangelicals in
recent years.
The renewed skepticism brewing in academia
— including books like Dawkins’ God
Delusion (see page 7) — will be among the many
challenges facing Biola University as it enters its
second century of educating students to impact
the world for Jesus Christ. But its faculty of
engaging scholars, who led the evangelical
response to “The Jesus Seminar” with the publication
of Jesus Under Fire (Zondervan, 1996), has
never been more ready for the challenge. Since
the publication of that book, Biola has added 65
full-time faculty to its academic community
from a variety of disciplines. With all the energy
and scholarship taking place on campus, and
with theological skepticism on the rise, the
coming years are sure to be invigorating.
Rob Westervelt
(M.A.’97), Editor