Can Harris Habeas the Corpus Christi?

As we continue to consider Sam Harris's attempt to "demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity" in his book Letter to a Christian Nation, we come now to a glaring flaw in his argument. Part of the problem is that Harris is confused about whom he is attacking, as should be apparent when he writes:

"Consider: every devout Muslim has the same reasons for being a Muslim that you have for being a Christian.... The Koran repeatedly declares that it is the perfect word of the creator of the universe. Muslims believe this as fully as you believe the Bible's account of itself."

Harris asks his readers why they don't lose sleep about whether to convert to Islam since they (most likely) cannot prove that Gabriel did not appear to Muhammad in his cave and give him his commission. The burden of proof, he says, is not on you to disprove it, but on them to prove it, which they cannot do. Well, since you know what it's like to be an atheist with respect to Islam, you can now hopefully understand why Harris is one with respect to Christianity, as well as all other religions that rest on an unsubstantiated and unverifiable claim to divine authority.

It is at this point that Harris's confusion becomes apparent. A typical evangelical would have a difficult time responding to this argument since his faith is largely based upon his experience of Jesus not unlike that of the Muslim (or the Mormon for that matter). But if Harris's opponent is, as he claims, someone who believes in Christianity "because it is true" (such as a confessionalist), then this argument presents no problem at all.

I believe the doctrines of Christianity because Jesus rose from the dead, not because he was visited by some angel in his secret bat-cave and then wrote a tell-all book about it later. The resurrection of Christ is something so profound that it has not only not been disproven (even by his enemies immediately afterward, or for 2000 years since), but it immediately, as in a few weeks later, began to alter the course of history.

To put it another way, Christianity, unlike Islam or any other religion, is instantly disproveable. So if Harris can habeas the corpus Christi, then he will have succeeded in his aim of destroying the Christian religion. But even if he can and does, he still will have been wrong that we believed for the same reason that Muqtada al-Sadr does.

Atheists 1, confessionalists 1, evangelicals 0.

Modern Gnosticism

In response to my last post some have asked that I flesh out the differences between Reformed and evangelical spirituality.

As I mentioned, since its inception (which occurred, I would argue, as a result of the Great Awakening in the eighteenth-century) modern evangelicalism has been suspicious of tradition, authority, and institutional religion. More preferable, it is argued, is a Christianity that is simple and above all, spiritual.

This dualism that many posit between institutional and spiritual Christianity is a perfect example both of evangelical piety and modern-day Gnosticism.

(Gnosticism, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the view that the material and physical are inherently inferior to that which is immaterial and spiritual.)

The problems with this ever-present position are legion (and it may take a handful of posts to address them all), but suffice it to say for now that there is one crucial and decisive death-blow that can be dealt to modern evangelical Gnosticism, one that should settle the matter once and for all:

The resurrection of Christ.

Since Jesus rose again bodily, and since his resurrection is the dawn of a new day in God's economy, it follows that the age to come will not be a "realm of pure spirit" in which the soul will be freed from the "prison house" of the body. God's original, material creation was "good," and his re-creation is better (Gen. 1:31; I Cor. 15:40-45).

So if it's an escape from the body that you desire, the new heaven and new earth is not the place to look for it.

What does all this have to do with Christian living? Everything. Stick around, you'll see....