Living in Ivory Towers

I think that I have written before that I miss DC a lot, but at the same time I am excited about what it means to be an ambassador for Christ in the academic world. Relying on the Holy Spirit, I get to announce the presence of God and the kingship of Jesus in a university setting. For me, this does not mean that I preach sermons. In my opinion, I am "in Athens" but it is an Athens that is very familiar with "the unknown god." Unfortunately, this "familiarity" has bred contempt, because the familiarity has been based on a caricature of Jesus, not Jesus himself. So for me, the thing that I get to do is  to love and appreciate the people who do not know Christ - yet. It also means that I have the opportunity to challenge the presumptions and arguments of scholars who maintain that God does not exist, and that the only reality and knowledge is what we agree on.

One of the things I get to do is to write in online forums about things we are reading in the classes that I take. Here is an example of one of my entries. Initially, it concerns a premise of Peter Singer, an influential, atheistic author of The Life You Can Save, who says that  it helps the poor to give to aid agencies. The last part deals with Jesus' teaching that you should not give out of wrong motives. Singer's response to that teaching is: "Does it really matter as long as the poor get help?"  (I have omitted anything that has to do with fellow students to protect their privacy):

I have been reading Singer's argument with great interest for several reasons: 1. I know that he is a professor of philosophy who is well known for his stance on animal life, infanticide, euthanasia, and zoophilia. 2. I am sympathetic with what I see as his main argument, "We ought to do more to help the "desperately poor."
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The premise that I have the most trouble with on p. 15 is the first part of the third: "By donating to aid agencies you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care.... " I would like for it to be true that the money I give will help, but I need to be convinced that what these agencies are doing are making a difference. For example, it was interesting to me to read Singer's account of the boy with measles, an argument from pathos (p.16). It made me think of an incident that I was involved in. About a year ago I was in western Ghana. While I was there I went to see a man that I knew in the village of Ateiku. While visiting him, I met his sister who was sitting in a room softly moaning. She had been sitting there for a week with a broken femur. In Ateiku, there are no doctors, no phones, no 911, and no ambulance service. This family, like virtually every other family in Ateiku, has no car to go to the hospital that is a two-hour drive away. It would take about $200 American dollars to pay for transportation and treatment. The family has no access to this kind of cash. This lady was looking forward to living the rest of her life in that room.

Singer says, "You know that it would be curable, if only you could afford to take your child to the hospital" (p. 16). Maybe I am missing something here, but I wonder if Singer knows what he is talking about? I don't think any agency exists that overcomes the lack of infrastructure, the lack of communication, the lack of knowledge, the lack of medical personnel, as well as the lack of money to help provide medical assistance for the desperately poor who live throughout Africa.

One place where Singer's materialist presumptions leads him to misinterpret an argument is when he argues that Jesus was misguided when he advised people not to look for recognition - that is, to have egotistical, power-seeking motives - in their giving to the poor. Singer asks, "But does this really matter?" (p.65). I think that it matters a great deal. For one thing, there is the issue of the harm that occurs to others when manipulation and self-interest are in play in the act of giving (think Foucault and power plays). But as to Jesus' assumptions, his first concern is not how much cash there is to distribute to the poor. It seems that his first concern is what is good for the soul of the giver. Jesus is always interested in the soul, i.e., the essence of who we are. ("What good does it do for a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul, and what will a man give in exchange for his soul?") Jesus is interested in keeping the badly motivated person from ultimately destroying who s/he is. This way of thinking, of course, reflects a spiritual view of humanity that is simply not on Singer's radar.

Most of the time, I do not get the opportunity to deal so directly with anything having to do with Jesus. However, I am always, it seems, dealing with worldviews that reflect materialistic presumptions. I have posted this to give you an idea of what it is like. Please keep praying for me that I can be used "to put Jesus on the radar" for all those I love who have written him off.