Book Review: The End of Reason

I have added one more notch to my belt of book reading for this year. Ironically, this wasn't on my tentative reading list for this year. This was also my first book by Ravi Zacharias, and I have to admit that I wasn't disappointed. Officially, this was a rebuttal to Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation. Unofficially, it was a systematic approach in apologetics. It was a good book altogether and I enjoyed reading through it. I recommend it to anybody looking for a response to the new atheist movement.

Here are some of my thoughts about this book. It was smaller in size so it made for a quick read. He did a good job of taking the different parts of Harris' argument, explaining it, and then explaining the falsehood behind it. I found a big contrast between the way Zacharias approached apologetics and the way Keller approaches apologetics. Of course you have to take into account that this book wasn't clear propositional apologetics, but rather a response to Sam Harris' accusations. Zacharias also does a great job with illustrations. He is able to put together an argument (or destroy one for that matter) with simple illustrations and reasoning. He also shows the many flaws in Harris' argumentation. He explains how he is unfair in his accusations and doesn't use the the same standard upon himself.

I wish that Ravi Zacharias would have been a little bit more respectful in his response. He never crossed the line into rude or cynical, yet he did make Harris' out to be an idiot a lot (not that he isn't). He constantly would besiege Harris' accusations with logical responses, but would sometimes push towards mockery. He did say on the safe side of the line, yet I wish he would have been slightly more respectful in his argument.

Overall, this was a good book. I wouldn't say that it is a must read like the last few books that I have read though. It was a short, intriguing book that I think would be beneficial for anyone to read.

Resistance of God's Moral Order

Though Viktor Frankl was an inmate in Auschwitz, he didn't blame God for the Holocaust. He laid the blame for that horror at the feet of men and women who thought like Sam Harris. Listen to Frankl's words in The Doctor and the Soul:

If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity, and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone.

I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment - or, as the Nazi liked to say, "of Blood and Soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.

Taken from The End of Reason by Ravi Zacharias, pg. 62

Sunday School Answers

Anyone that has spent any substantial amount of time in church knows what I am talking about when I say the term "Sunday School Answer". Even more so, you know the type of person that uses them. It's usually a guy, family is heavily involved in church, but probably doesn't work in full-time ministry, they usually wear argyle and have their hair combed perfectly (This is purely speculation). You get into Sunday School or Small Group or whatever you church calls it, the teacher gets into the lesson and in an attempt to integrate the class they start to drop questions about the bible and spirituality. Then come the "answers". You know what I'm talking about. The perfectly molded answer from the dude in the argyle that makes you feel like sub-par Christian. Apparently he has his junk together, either that or he's lying through his teeth. Is he wrong? Are you wrong?

I had some good talks about this lately. I have constantly found myself apprehensive about praying among friends at the fear of looking self-righteous. I was with a group of very close guy friends the other night and felt a heavy desire to pray with them. Immediately, I felt the fear of coming off as being self-righteous. I tried to put that fear away and sequentially lead into a 5 minute preface on how I missed spontaneous corporate prayer. After this long dissertation, I asked my close brothers if it would be ok if we all prayed together and to my surprise they were excited at the thought.

This got me thinking. Why do we get so upset at the Sunday School answers? I've never wanted to be "that guy" in Sunday School that answered all the questions perfectly. I was even scared the other night at asking everyone to pray because I didn't want to come off as "the perfect Christian". I think this is where we find the dichotomy. Here's the difference: they become Sunday School answers when they are insincere. When we are just saying a statement to appease the people around us and make us look like a Super Christian then it is nothing more than a Sunday School Answer. On the other hand, if we are truly speaking the truth of the Bible and seeking to practice Christian disciplines out of sincerity, it ceases to be a Sunday School Answer. One one side we don't want to come off as a Super Christian and on the other hand, some of us find it cool to be on the verge of the world and still be a Christian. The answer: Seek Christ and allow Him to transform you into His likeness, not for your glory, but for His. That way, you will be neither self-righteous nor a fence-sitter.

So as always, I challenge you. Seek sincerity in your life. Seek Christ's likeness in yourself and allow that to manifest itself. Remember: God only looks for in us that which God produced.