Television

In general I haven't been much of a television watcher in recent years. I did grow up watching TV several hours a day, so I know what it's like to be deeply shaped by its messages. But in recent years I've cut down on my TV intake considerably.

But in the last two weeks or so I've watched quite a bit more. Comedies, medical dramas, crime shows, talent competitions, and of course newscasts. Just this evening I watched the news on PBS, a CBS comedy, and then the second half of House, then at 9pm they went to the beginning of 24 on Fox, a show I truly despise and am very glad they're finally canceling. But as I switched the channels to ABC, NBC, or CBS, or even one of the several independent channels, I saw vivid images of sniper bullets killing cops and EMS in an urban American setting juxtaposed a few seconds later with the theme song for Two and a Half Men, then the twinkling eyes of stars dancing to win a competition. Every one of these images was arresting and captivating and deeply unnerving.

In the course of a few seconds I saw images that evoke fear and images that evoke fantasy, but in all of them there was an escapist mentality at work that in their rapid fire visual procession short-circuits any critical thinking. If you're on the right, 24 will reinforce the meme of eternal vigilance against the enemy who is always out there and is probably in here too. Please be afraid, our sponsors require it. If you're on the left, we only need to watch the evening news to see the militia crazies and their plans to kill cops because they somehow are the front line of the NWO. Please be afraid, our sponsors require it.

If your not especially political, you can watch a crime drama, a dance show, a slapstick comedy and be lulled into a blur of flashy images and snazzy one liners or mental tongue twisters that can keep you occupied just long enough to ignore what is actually going on in the world outside, or even the world inside you, or, me. Please be anesthetized, our sponsors require it.

I turned off my TV and walked away. Can I do the same with my computer?

Smithsonian Institute on Human Evolution

Take the time necessary to walk through this very impressive site that goes into extraordinary detail of human origins, and yet in such a way that is accessible to those not familiar with the technical information. It's not coming from anything approaching a "Christian" viewpoint, yet that actually affirms to me that it has gotten a firm grip on the issue. As a Christian I want to be as intellectually honest as possible (since my God is a God of truth). I am a strong believer in "common grace" which exists amongst all people, so science can exist and flourish among those who don't share my theological convictions. Biological evolution isn't a "one off" proposition, it is a cumulative effort that has its strength in the gathered evidence over several scientific disciplines. If all truth is God's truth, then any accurate representation of reality is going to confirm God's authorship. Evolutionary biology in no way contradicts God's creative agency in bring this world about. The only issue is how we read God's two books, natural and special revelation.

Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Watch

We live in interesting times. I haven't seen as many conspiracy theories mainstreamed in the past year as I have in all the years before that I've been keeping track of politics. We have the Obama birthers, the 9/11 truthers, the death panelers, FEMA campers, or any other of the multitude of bizarre theories supposedly secretly being foisted upon by some dangerous cabal. In one sense of course what we're seeing right now is not unique. History is replete with various conspiracy theories purporting to explain the seemingly unexplainable. And it should also be said that there are actual conspiracies that are real. History has its fair share of groups who have conspired to effect the ends they desire, either through covert manipulation or through violent action. The important task before us here is to distinguish between these two types of conspiracy theories.

The main focus of this site will be to address the false conspiracy theories being mainstreamed by extremists, because this kind of conspiratorial thinking has dangerous consequences in terms of public policy. Recent European history is enough reason to be wary of Conspiracy Entrepreneurs who are able to galvanize masses of people to commit atrocities that as individuals they wouldn't have the inclination or power to ever do.

We'll be looking at the more popular conspiracy theories out there such as the ones mentioned above, but we'll also look back at some of the older ones from years ago that still inform the thinking of many fringe groups and isolated extremists.We'll also look into some of the more arcane theories that don't make the front page, but do shed light on the thinking processes of those who hold to them. By the way, even though I mentioned only political conspiracy theories above, we'll also be addressing religious/spiritual, scientific, and historical conspiracy theories. These different types of conspiracy theories do often dovetail and overlap with each other, so the distinctions will necessarily be blurry.

I'll also share some of the better material out there that analyzes conspiracy theories, some from an academic perspective, but also some popular web sites and other sources that either propound or expose various conspiracy theories. So in the days and weeks ahead I look forward to exploring the not so wonderful world of crazy conspiracy theories. Be sure to bring your Dramamine, the ride may get bumpy!

Glenn Beck as the Mad Hater

The Rise of the Evangelical Evolutionists (part 2) Some definitional issues.

In my previous post on this topic, I spoke about the dichotomy between evolutionary materialists and evangelical creationists of various stripes. In this post I'd like to go into more detail about what some of those differences are and then also offer up some alternatives that are, in recent years, bubbling up from within evangelical Christianity itself. But first, let's unpack some of the distinctions that divide most evolutionists from most evangelicals. As in every debate, there's the first problem of what any of the terms even mean. And this debate is no different. Ask any average person what "evolution" means and you're guaranteed to get as many answers as people you ask. Likewise, if you ask the average person what "evangelical" means and you're just as likely to get as many answers as the number of people you ask. And also, if you ask people what is meant by the term "creationist" you're going to get a wide variety of answers, depending of course where the person answering is "coming from" ideologically and religiously.

Now for me, why this is important is because in some sense I consider myself to be all three. I believe evolutionary biology and cosmology to be scientifically accurate, thus I'm an evolutionist. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is the unique source of salvation to a lost and dying world. I believe in all of the early church creeds, and to boot I'm also a Reformation Christian of the Calvinistic variety, so I'm about as evangelical as you can get. And as a consequence of my religious convictions I can be called, in a certain respect, a dreaded "creationist" insomuch as I believe that all that is is a result of God's creation of everything ex nihilo (out of nothing). I'll save my defense for this position for a future post. I just thought it would be appropriate to say where I'm coming from right from the get go.

In this post I'd like to get to some of the definitional issues: what do we mean when we say evolutionist, evangelical, and creationist?

Although I'm sure there are far more than three varieties of evolutionists, and I'm sure I'll be guilty at least in some degree of oversimplifying the issue, here I'd like to offer up three basic definitions of what it means to be an evolutionist.

The first is the most well know, in that it is represented by the most outspoken advocates of the new atheism, most notably Richard Dawkins the eminent evolutionary biologist who has written some of the best material out there on evolutionary biology but who has also become the most outspoken polemicist against theism and Christianity in particular. As an aside, it may well be worth noting that some atheists consider Dawkins to be a bit of a blowhard who reflects a sentiment which might more accurately be called anti-theism. Many atheists aren't nearly as angry as he seems to be and simply look to the evidence and don't see the necessity of believing in a supernatural god. As a Christian I can respect this particular form of atheism much more, since it works with the evidences before us and comes to a conclusion different than mine. Also, many times this "softer" type of atheism is as much a form of agnosticism which recognizes that our knowledge of the physical world doesn't offer up "proofs" of God. The evidence mitigates against belief in a supernatural being that creates all that is, but, at least among the agnostically oriented, they allow that we are simply too limited in our knowledge to say definitively whether there is or isn't a god. This view might be best expressed by Antony Flew, though he left the reservation a few years ago when he co-wrote "There Is A God." His earlier atheism represented an intellectual type that looked at the evidence and made its decision on that basis. Thus, when he saw evidence contrary to the atheistic framework, he had the intellectual honesty to make an adjustment to his views. But then again I'm a theist and a Christian, so I would say that.

The second view we're considering here is that of theistic evolutionists who aren't evangelical in their understanding. This is the view that has predominated among the mainline churches, synagogues, and to a much lesser extent, liberal mosques. These are the main monotheistic expressions that I know something about. I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about polytheistic understandings of evolution amongst traditional cultures, let alone views of evolution amongst those who hold to forms of pantheism. My knowledge of those faith communities is simply too sparse to be able to speak with any competence.

Among those who accept evolutionary biology, but who are also theistic in their beliefs, the mainline variety typically has accepted the modern scientific method pretty much uncritically and adjusted whatever theology they hold to in order to fit whatever view in the scientific community is popular. At one time it included such (now) nonsensical ideas as social Darwinism, phrenology, and other such momentarily popular ideas. It seems that science and religion can both be quite susceptible to moments of "narrow logic" overriding critical thinking. But I digress. Overall however, the main issue evangelicals have had with the mainline acceptance of evolution is that any supernatural or miraculous understanding of God's interaction with the world is jettisoned in order to accommodate an essentially materialist understanding. So while mainline or liberal theologies may be technically theistic, they're at best deistic in their understanding of God's engagement with the world he created and generally speaking reinterpret key passages of scripture which describe miraculous events in purely naturalistic terms. They end up offering up nothing much better than Thomas Jefferson's notoriously redacted "bible" that excised any passages that even smelled of anything miraculous. What ends up being left is nothing more than a bland form of moralism that is just as motivating as a high school civics class.

Finally, regarding evolutionary viewpoints, there is the evangelical evolutionary view, which is the view to which I subscribe. But I'll save the details of that view for my next post, since it needs the space of a separate post to do it justice. Next up I'll address the notoriously difficult task of trying to define what is an evangelical. Almost no one is agreed as to what that means, especially in the (post) modern American context
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Well, this post has already gone longer than I planned. So the definitional issues regarding what it means to be an evangelical and a creationist will be dealt with in due course  So in the days (I hope!) to come expect to see some of my thoughts on what it means to be an evangelical, what it means to be a creationist, and finally what it means it means to be an evangelical evolutionist.

How Christian Were The Founders?

In today's New York Times Magazine they have a long essay about the effort of some Texas conservatives to have textbooks changed so that they reflect what they, the conservatives, believe to be America's "Christian" lineage. Anybody who knows me for more than five minutes knows how I feel about that idea. But I'm curious as to what others think about this? Should America be thought of as having been founded as a Christian nation? Is it a Christian nation now? And digging a little bit deeper, does any geopolitical entity qualify as a Christian nation? Obviously this all depends on what meaning you attach to all of the key terms. What is meant by the term nation? What is it to be Christian, both individually and corporately as the church?

Templeton Foundation Big Questions series: Evolution and human nature?

The Templeton Foundation has a Big Question series, and the latest one deals with whether evolution can explain human nature. What nice about the way they address this issue is that they offer up a large variety of responses instead of the usual Manichean dichotomy that's so prevalent. I have had a chance yet to read through all of the essays, but I thought I'd throw this out there anyway as a good way to show the range of views regarding this very important issue.

Book of Eli review

I just saw the Denzel movie Book of Eli. It's definitely as violent as promised. As a big fan of the whole post-apocalyptic genre I really looked forward to this movie, especially in light of what I've read about the spiritual content that is so obvious throughout the movie. It's not much of a spoiler to say that the "book" in question is the King James Bible that Eli is traveling west to deliver to some mysterious destination where it will be safe. In the movie, Eli is clearly the good guy. Though he's a good guy who can do some serious bad to those in his way. Like I said, if you're at all squeamish about bloody violence, this movie may not be your cup of tea. On a side note, I appreciated a few neat cultural references to the same post-apocalyptic genre. I won't say here what they are, but look closely to the scenery and you'll get a chuckle or two in the course of the movie.

Gary Oldman is, well, Gary Oldman. And he's about as good an actor to play the evil character as you could ask for. After all, he's so good at being bad. My personal favorite portrayal of his was in the Fifth Element.  In this movie however, he's not nearly so refined and well dressed in haute couture. But he is just as depraved. The interesting dynamic between these two characters is that they both see the bible as being incredibly powerful, but in diametrically opposed ways. Eli is driven by a voice telling him to go west so that the book can be protected, whereas Carnegie (a fantastically ironic name for the villain) sees the "good book" as a means to gain tyrannical power over the populace.

The complexity in the movie is that both the villain and the hero use violence to achieve their ends. Eli, however, does seem to know that his violence is contrary to what the book that he's carrying says. Yet, since this is the bible we're talking about, despots the world over have gladly used the useful passages to justify their own violence, conveniently ignoring the passages that would constrain any action on their part. But the bible does offer up the requisite material for both the pacifist and militarist. I guess it's all in how you read it. The movie is complicated. It seems appropriate, since it's dealing with a complicated book.

Christ and cross centered ethics

Unless our ethics are grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ, they will either fluctuate from one extreme to the other. On the one extreme our ethics will become so divorced from any concrete grounding that they will become completely relativized. Ethics in this scenario becomes entirely culturally conditioned and has no center. On the other hand, if our ethics has a center apart from the person and work of Christ, even if biblically based, then it becomes too concrete and cannot adapt to the vast variety of cultural contexts spanning human history. That kind of ethics ends up becoming a one size fits all model that forces the facts on the ground to be twisted and contorted in order to fit them into that rigid system.

In contrast to these two extremes, Christ and cross centered ethics offers up a grounding of ethics in the life lived by Christ as our model exemplar. Even the previous revelation given to the Israelites through the law of Moses is seen in a new light because of Christ's incarnation. He both fulfills the law, thus satisfying its demands, but also gives an even higher standard than what the law called for as taught by Moses and the rabbis.

But finally, Christ on the cross gives us a full grounding of our ethics in a way that no other system can ever give. The reason for this incomparability is because Christ on the cross isn't a system, it's a person, God the Creator, entering into history through the person, Jesus of Nazareth, in order to redeem an estranged creation. All of history, whether human or otherwise, is impacted by this radical intervention by our Creator God. No part of creation is exempt from this and thus everything has ethical implications, whether our personal ethics, our political ethics, our economic ethics, or our environmental ethics, which includes both our interactions with the animal and the plant world.

As creaturely beings, along with the rest of creation, we have been radically impacted by this intervention by God through Christ Jesus. God began the work of restoration with Christ's resurrection. It will find its consummation with his return when all things will be made new. That day is not yet here, but we have been given a model in Christ's life, death and resurrection. We partake of his kingdom work when we enter into the mystery of his sacrificial life and death, knowing that we live because he died and lived again. The women and men who surrounded him during his ministry, and whose eyes were opened to who he is, were radically transformed by this new reality. They went from hardened disbelief and arrogance to living lives of self sacrificial service to each other and to all around them. This transformation in their lives proved to be more powerful than anything Rome or Jerusalem could ever wield. That is the same transformation that we have available today if we would only see him for who he is and what he has truly affected.

Pray for Michael Spencer (Internet Monk)

Please keep Michael Spencer, also known as the Internet Monk, in your prayers. He's been diagnosed with cancer and is beginning chemo next week. For those of you who may not know Michael or his writing, he's been a prolific blogger who has been a tremendous blessing to the church, even when he's critiquing the church's failings. In fact, that's when he's been the biggest blessing. This is the biggest challenge Michael has faced and he needs fervent prayer, both for healing, but also for his emotional health. Also, please pray for provision for Michael and Denise, as this sickness has cost him his job at the school and his health insurance runs out next month. Please, if you can, give a gift of whatever size to help them out. Just link onto the chemo link above and you'll see how to contribute. His ministry has enriched my life, and many many others, greatly. Help if you can. He's a brother in need and Christ has called us to bear each others burdens. This is an opportunity to do just that.

What would be the theological impact if we found extraterrestrial life?

I just read a short piece on the BBC's website about how we're more likely than ever to find some sort of alien life forms off of planet earth. As Christians, what would be the impact on our theology? In particular, how would it impact our understanding of our uniqueness as creatures made in the image of God as distinct from the rest of the earthly creation? In popular fiction as well as in various 3rd kind encounters, not to mention abduction accounts, the aliens always look remarkably like us. I believe, by the way, that this is a typical anthropomorphism of our hopes and fears and most likely has no basis in actual reality, but ascribing humanesque qualities to otherworldly creatures. Since westerners largely don't believe in angels anymore, aliens have taken their place. Nonetheless, if there are planets orbiting other stars similar to our own sun that are themselves similar to our own planet earth, and the universe is as vast as we've come to understand, then it makes sense to expect that some form of sentient life forms must have developed on those planets as it has here. And since our planet and star seem to be relatively average in comparison to what we've discovered so far, it seems pretty obvious that it's just as likely that other worlds have evolved just as much as ours if not more so. So with this in mind, if (and I would say when) a new world is discovered that has biological life, what does that do to our understanding of the Biblical text? Are the Judeo-Christian scriptures able to handle this kind of development? I would say that it can. But then again, I'm a Christian. I would say that. Christianity, after all, survived the Copernican revolution. And it seems to be surviving the Darwinian revolution as well, though with some bumps in the journey. Will Christianity adapt to and survive the exo-biological revolution?

The Rise of the Evangelical Evolutionists

It used to be that the terms evangelical and evolutionist were oxymoronic. If you were one, then you obviously couldn't be the other. Evangelicals generally were seen as being the stalwarts of biblical authority, and in light of that authority most evangelicals held to some form of direct (or directed) creation by God of all that currently exists in the world. Some held to the young earth view, which sees the earth and the cosmos as being only thousands of years old, because that's considered by them to be the most plain sense reading of the early chapters of Genesis. Other evangelicals accepted that the earth and the cosmos are much older, as in billions of years older, but nonetheless still held to a form of creationism, which, though divided by their various views in the details, nevertheless all agree in rejecting Darwinian evolution as the explanatory framework to how speciation has come about. Some accept a limited form of evolution, such as micro-evolution, but reject macro-evolution. Some go so far as to accept a limited macro-evolution, but reject that humans are part of that equation, saying instead that humans were specially created by God distinct from all other creatures. And in more recent years, there has been the very popular movement called Intelligent Design or ID for short. They've argued that they accept an ancient earth and cosmos. They also accept limited evolutionary activity, but that certain physiological functions are so complex that Darwinian evolution cannot satisfactorily explain them. Thus these functions are deemed to be "irreducibly complex" as so only an "intelligent designer" can explain their existence.

On the other side of the aisle are the evolutionists.Traditionally they've been seen as holding to scientific materialism. And some certainly do. We need look no further than the New Atheists to see that at work. Though to be fair to many who do hold to scientific materialism, most are not as crass, provocative and dogmatic (dare I say fundamentalistic?) as Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris. These are the loudest voices, and of course they're going to get the most press, if only because of their offering up the neat dichotomy of faith versus reason. Once again, it offers up the comforting bromide that if you're a person of faith, reason must necessarily be checked at the door, and if you're a person of reason, faith is seen as the foolish superstition that holds poor men and women in its insidious grip for far too long, keeping them in the dark (ages) about origins, sex, and anything else that helps us to actualize our expressive individuality.

But there are those who have advocated for the evolutionary viewpoint who consider themselves to be Christian, or at least theistic. Some have been relatively orthodox in their views, but in many cases, those arguing for the evolutionary viewpoint have come from the mainline denominations and have been considered to be liberal in their theological perspective. To be "liberal" in theological circles, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, is to so reconcile the scriptural narrative to modern science as to rob it of any supernatural content, such as miracles, the direct action of God on the natural world contrary to how natural laws normally work. Once again, in each of these cases, the false dichotomy has been offered up that faith and reason are diametrically opposed to each other. Theological liberals are guilty of giving up too much to the scientific materialists. Too often theological liberals have ceded clear language of miracles to naturalistic explanations when the writer clearly understood the event in supernaturalistic terms.

Part two coming up.

John Polkinghorne on the dangerousness of scientific and religious belief

There is one important difference, however, between scientific belief and religious belief. The latter is much more demanding and more dangerous. I believe passionately in quantum theory, but that belief doesn’t threaten to change my life in any significant way. I cannot believe in God, however, without knowing that I must be obedient to his will for me as it becomes known to me. God is not there just to satisfy my intellectual curiosity; he is there to be honoured and respected and loved as my Creator and Saviour. Beware! Let me utter a theological health warning or, rather, promise: “Reading the Bible can change your life” John Polkinghorne.

I haven't read any of his books yet, but if this is any indication of who he is then I can't wait. The above quote comes courtesy of An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. And since Christians across the world are celebrating the birth of our Savior, who is called the Word/Logos made flesh, we know because He is the font of all knowledge. Praise God and Merry Christmas!

It seems our President is an Augustinian Democrat

This morning's speech by President Obama struck me as being the most Augustinian speech by an American politician that I've seen in my lifetime. It did confirm what I had suspected all along: That he was more moderate than either his most liberal supporters or his most conservative detractors thought. His acknowledgment of our fallen human condition, though not expressed in explicitly Christian terms, nonetheless shows that he understands that the hyper idealism that drives many on the left is not what shapes his understanding. Again, he's not the pacifist that either his most left-ward supporters had hoped or the hard right had feared and, I believe, secretly wished for too. The hard right, just like the hard left, both have an overly idealized vision of the world in which they each have the secret "key" to understand everything. This causes them both to see everything in starkly black and white, Manichean terms and also causes them to see the political "other" as an eternal enemy to be stopped at every turn. Thus, when I read or watch the far right in their interaction with Obama, they want him to be as far left as possible. This theme, or meme, gives energy to their cause. Anything that contradicts this is either ignored or seen as being one more example of his dastardly plan. It's typical conspiratorial thinking that predominates in the extremes of the left and right.
Well, this is turning into a post more about Obama's critics than about him. Suffice it to say I was very impressed by his speech today. It illustrated a nuanced understanding of the human condition that has been largely absent in most political discourse. If this speech reflects even a part of who the President is, than I'm very glad he's the man God has placed in power at this dangerous and troubling time. A realist with idealistic aspirations is not a bad combination.

Final Notification

Getting a "Final Notification" from any one of the "Christian" websites I happen to belong to, tells me nothing, except that they seek to coerce me into accepting their terms.
Getting 'final notification' notices is now so common-place, that I ignore the term all-together. It's emotionally coercive. Some of the sites that use this terminology are considered "Christian." Sadly, that means nothing. Coercive commercial techniques aren't considered anti-Christian by these entities. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But as a Christian, in my naivete, maybe I should be. I thought being Christian should illustrate something better.

Two Bodies

Wounded, bleeding, flailing
and even my best success
a failing.
Slipping, sliding
inching ever closer
as the shoreline
slips away.
Grasping at straws
as the one who grasps me
breathes into my gasping
breath.
My body broken
dies a little bit
more today.
My body broken
by hands unforced.
My body broken
by me.
And yet your body
breaks and bleeds
every day
for me.
Your body broken
calls out to me
to die
to me.
Your body broken
nourishes
my body
with new life
that my old body
can never see.
The old wounds of your
new body
call to my wounds.
Bloodied, broken, bruised
still seen
still touched
still real.
Renewed, restored, reborn
resurrected.

And once again, my savior looks like this.

Genocide and Forgiveness

Tonight I watched the finale of a film about the Holocaust, from the perspective of a survivor who decided to "forgive" the Nazis who experimented on her and her twin sister during the war. Questions were raised about whether she even had that right to forgive those beyond her own experience of persecution. The film gave us a very complicated woman, Eva, who decided for her own sake, to forgive those who had tortured her and her twin sister on behalf of the Nazis. She decided to forgive not only those who had done these crimes against her and her sister, but also decided to forgive the entire German people and the Nazis among them for what they did. Then, later in the film, she, Eva, visited Israel, and more importantly, the Palestinian territory, to try to work her "forgiveness" into their fabric. The experience, however, for her, was unnerving to say the least. She found herself being the person who represented "power" (as an Israeli) being confronted by those who knew no power of any sort. They confronted her with the many crimes that were committed by Israelis against Palestinians on a daily basis, including outright murder. She saw, if I may say so myself, and I don't know I have this right, the discomforting sight of being on the other side the victimization table. I think she was not able to see herself as belonging to a people who could ever do such a thing. She had "forgiven" those who had victimized her from a perspective of innocence. And certainly, as a child, she was indeed innocent. In that sense she could forgive those who had violated her and her sister from a vantage point of actual innocence. In other words, they had no power to resist the violence against them. In this she was correct. Yet, when she ventured to scenarios which reflected a picture which had Jews, Israelis, being in positions of actual power, she did not have the emotional or intellectual framework available to her to allow that her own people could be guilty in the way (though not by any means in the way Nazis had been numerically) other oppressors had been before. And yes, including the Nazis. That's the most disturbing part of this. Could a people, a people victimized so horribly, become a people capable of the same horror?
This is where forgiveness takes into account, and must take into account, that every human being has within himself and herself the ability to forgive and yet also has the ability to be the perpetrator of the greatest crimes known to humanity. This brings to mind that we must always be attentive to what stirs within us as much as what drives those we would be against.

Sun coming out from hiding

Twitter Evangelism

Tonight I discovered that Twitter is a powerful means to interact with people, whether far away geographically, or ideologically. I interacted with someone who "follows" me on Twitter about both politics and religion. It was fascinating. He's someone who is "conservative" politically, and who I thought was similarly conservative, i.e. orthodox, in his Christian convictions. Yet at the end, after finding out he believed in some pretty wild conspiracies regarding certain birth certificates, I also came to find that he questioned the basics of the reliability of the Christian text.

This exchange was enlightening to say the least.

It showed me that many among "Christian" conservatives are driven as much by a mindset that is governed by a conspiratorial way of seeing the world that not only questions our current President's origins, but also questions the foundational origins of the historic Christian faith. This, quite honestly, surprised me. It betrayed a radical skepticism that I hadn't assumed for the person I was interacting with about these issues. In my initial interactions, I saw the typical Christian conservative expressions. And in this I assumed that he had a basic trust in the reliability of the text governing Christian life. It was only as we engaged, back and forth, about political issues, that he mentioned the "birther" issue. That was my first clue. Then, within minutes, he asked about 'sources' and 'codices' regarding the basis of scripture. My first inclination is to think that he's been overly influenced by Dan Brown nonsense. But I don't want to prejudge. He may simply be examining the textual variants that do actually exist. But the fact that he brought it up so quickly after offering up the 'birther' argument does make me wonder if he's operating from a framework that is inherently conspiratorial and unrealistically dualistic. Other topics came up that, I think, point also to an either/or mindset, such as a strong focus on illegal immigration issues. In any case, it's been a good conversation so far. He's been receptive to what I've had to say so far. I hope it can be fruitful and help us both come to a better sense of what is true. In any case, it's been really interesting.