Gosh it's all go on the science and faith front at the moment!
On Wednesday night the moral maze featured the topic "why are we so scared of religion?" possibly as a response to the Michael Reiss incident at the Royal Society.
By far the best witness was Steve Chalke who gave Michael Portillo and Kenan Malik a real beating. Protillo tried to trap Chalke by asking him if his real motivation (behind his ministry) was to convert people to Christianity, but was totally unprepared for his answer. Chalke argued that his motivation is to follow Jesus which means loving God and loving people. What people then do with that is their own business BUT Chalke made the point that you never change people's minds by twisting their arms (echo's of John Locke). Thus Chalke delivered the essence of the Christian gospel in a highly effective way - evangelism is a result of the Christian lifestyle, not an aim in itself. The way for Christians to transform the world is through love, not proselytization.
Next Malik tried to trap Chalke by asking why religion has a special status in being able to run state schools. Chalke accused him of talking nonsense by pointing out that the government academy scheme is open to anyone who wants to put up a couple million of their own money. Malik tried to argue that there was no such thing as secular schools, a point which Chalke laughed off as being totally fictitious seeing that the program started with a statement that there are 7000 faith schools; in which case all the others must, by definition, be secular.
All in all Chalke gave a brilliant defense of the Christian position against two opponents who were not really up to the challenge.
Funny how perspectives differ. While seeing Chalke's pont about love and service not being conditional, he just went too far. I didn't think Portillo was trying to trap him by getting him to say that where a person IS interested in a worker's faith, that would be seen as a good thing! What's the problem? Chalke ended up looking a bit foolish 'protesting too much' - was he afraid of threatening the govt funding the projects receive?!
ReplyDeleteThis is something evangelicals have to grapple with - 'being Jesus' and creating pockets of the Kingdom in this world but not completely ignoring the need for people to hear the gospel in order to be saved - or are we all too postmodern now?
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