A New BBC Program On The Enfield Poltergeist

BBC Radio 4 aired a new program on the Enfield case earlier today. You can listen to it for free on the page I just linked. (Click the play button in the lower left of the photograph.) They interviewed a few of the eyewitnesses (Rosalind Morris, Graham Morris, Richard Grosse), played some recent comments from Janet and Margaret Hodgson (apparently comments made around the time when The Conjuring 2 came out in 2016), and played some older clips of other eyewitnesses discussing the case.

Here are some of my thoughts on the program:

- Something subtle that people often overlook should be noted at the outset. As far as I know, none of the Enfield witnesses have recanted. We're now a little more than forty years past the start of the case, and all of the dozens of individuals who claimed to have seen one or more of the paranormal phenomena have stood by those claims.

- The initial disinterest and skepticism of so many of the witnesses is striking. In this BBC program, Graham Morris repeats what he's said before about how reluctant he and his colleagues at the Daily Mirror were to get involved in the case to begin with (6:34-7:30) and how skeptical he generally is about the paranormal (8:27-8:39, 39:29-39:40). He still thinks a scientific explanation will eventually be found for the Enfield phenomena, but he acknowledges that science has no explanation at this point. He's said, and repeats in this program, that he wouldn't have believed in the phenomena if he hadn't witnessed them himself, and he goes as far as to suggest that nobody should believe in such events without having witnessed them (27:39-27:50). Despite that excessive skepticism, he acknowledges that paranormal events occurred in the Enfield case. He also refers to other skeptics who came to the Hodgson house, witnessed paranormal events there, and left believing in the authenticity of the case (27:51-27:57). Rosalind Morris also refers to her initial skepticism (9:12-9:17), and she seems to express agreement with Graham Morris' comments about expecting a scientific explanation to eventually be found for what happened at Enfield (39:40-39:45). Think of how significant it is that people who are so (overly) skeptical of the paranormal have spent the last forty years maintaining that they witnessed paranormal events in the Enfield case.

- Richard Grosse isn't as skeptical as the Morrises, but he does refer to how reluctant he was to get involved in Enfield and how he told his father he wouldn't visit the Hodgson house unless more significant events started occurring (10:57-11:36). He was eventually convinced that the reported events were significant enough to warrant a visit, and here (until 44:06) you can get a brief description of what he experienced at the house.

- Since Grosse hasn't gotten much attention as an Enfield witness, despite being the son of the chief investigator of the case, his comments during this recent BBC program were especially significant. He discusses what it was like to interact with his father about the case while it was going on. I don't recall hearing this much from Grosse about these subjects in any other interview, documentary, or anywhere else.

- There's a lot of discussion of the poltergeist voice during the program. Most of what's said about the subject is just a repeat of what's been said many times before. But from 24:57 to 25:45, Rosalind Morris and Grosse comment on how the voice wasn't traceable to anybody in the room and can't be explained by ventriloquism. It's significant to get that sort of testimony from witnesses who were present when the voice was speaking. In some ways, they're in a better position to judge the voice than we are. They may have picked up on details that we can't reconstruct.

- Like so much other coverage of Enfield, this program significantly underestimates the evidence supporting the authenticity of the case. They give too low an estimate of the number of witnesses involved, wrongly refer to the events stopping in 1979, say nothing about the scientific tests done on Janet's paranormal abilities, say nothing about the poltergeist voice coming from people other than Janet and Margaret and from non-human sources, understate the number of witnesses to Janet's levitation on December 15, 1977, etc. See my previous posts on Enfield for a better idea of how substantial the evidence for the case is.

Forty Years Ago Today: The Enfield Poltergeist

On this day in 1977, one of the best-documented paranormal cases of modern times began, a poltergeist in England. The case involves a quadruple-digit number of incidents spanning a few decades, with dozens of known witnesses, including police officers, reporters, and individuals who had been skeptical prior to what they witnessed. I've discussed the case in depth in the past, and you can access a collection of my posts here. Those who read my initial posts may want to check the comments sections of the threads, since I've posted some updates since the time when the original posts went up.

If you don't have much familiarity with the Enfield Poltergeist, start with this December 26, 1978 radio documentary that aired on BBC Radio. It's hosted by Rosalind Morris, a BBC reporter who investigated the case and witnessed some of the phenomena. The documentary is about forty minutes long and includes interviews with a lot of the eyewitnesses. During the first few minutes, for example, you'll hear from one of the family's neighbors, Vic Nottingham, discussing how the poltergeist's knocking followed him as he walked through the house and occurred in each room upstairs (apparently simultaneously) when he and two other men were there. Later in the program, Rosalind Morris and John Hasted refer to videos of the voice phenomena, though a video from Stewart Lamont is the only one I'm aware of that's available to the general public today. (Lamont's video includes both the voice phenomena and some knocking.) The documentary includes a lot of valuable information and is well worth listening to.

Hank Hanegraaff's Promotion Of Eastern Orthodoxy

Somebody recently told me he's heard that Hank Hanegraaff has been attending an Eastern Orthodox church. This individual was also concerned about a report that Hanegraaff had become an Orthodox catechumen, though some people with a close relationship with the Christian Research Institute (CRI) told him that it's not true.

Before I cite some of Hanegraaff's recent positive comments about Orthodoxy, I want to give some examples of how mixed his comments about Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy have been over the years. He'll make comments that are highly supportive of Orthodoxy at one point, but identify himself as an Evangelical, or at least seem to do so, at another point. In response to a call beginning at 47:22 on his October 15, 2014 radio program, he distinguishes between what Orthodox believe about the Apocrypha and what "we" believe. On the other hand, in response to a call at 40:17 on his May 5, 2016 program, Hanegraaff misrepresented the history of eucharistic doctrine, as if there was agreement about an Eastern Orthodox view of a eucharistic presence during the first millennium of church history. A little past the 50:00 point in his February 8, 2017 program, he comments that "I have the scripture as my rule of faith and practice", which sounds Evangelical, but may not be intended that way. He doesn't use a qualifier like "alone". Near the beginning of Hanegraaff's March 8, 2017 radio program, he commented that Mary is "the apex of all of humanity" and "the model for all that we are to become in Christ", going on to say that "while Islam venerates Muhammad, Christianity venerates Mary". Later in the same program, when discussing other topics, he seems to affirm some Evangelical and non-Orthodox positions at some points, yet uses more ambiguous language and language that seems more in line with Orthodoxy at other points. See the call on baptism and salvation at 23:13 and the call on the imputation of Christ's righteousness and confession of sin at 46:51.

Bart Ehrman Is Wrong About Irenaeus

Earlier this week, I reviewed the first part of a debate between Bart Ehrman and Richard Bauckham. Ehrman raised the popular objection that Irenaeus had too much of a role in giving us the gospels' authorship attributions. Other critics focus more on Papias in this context, but Ehrman seems to assign a larger role to Irenaeus.

I've already discussed some of the problems with Ehrman's view. Some of our extant sources who predate Irenaeus name the gospel authors and/or describe them in some significant way. Irenaeus cites earlier sources when discussing gospel authorship. The gospels were circulating in such a manner that their authorship would have been widely discussed long before Irenaeus wrote. And so on.

What I want to do in this post is discuss how inconsistent Ehrman's hypothesis is with the larger context of Irenaeus' life, including his writings. Ehrman is attributing some behavior to Irenaeus that's highly unlikely in light of what else we know about the man.

Ehrman's Errors In His Debate With Bauckham

Bart Ehrman and Richard Bauckham recently discussed the gospels on Justin Brierley's Unbelievable? radio program. The first part has been posted, and the second should be available later this week. Neither scholar holds a traditional view of the gospels, but Bauckham is much closer to a traditional perspective.

Since Ehrman repeats many of the errors he put forward in his exchange with Tim McGrew last year, I'll point readers to my review of that discussion. Ehrman keeps asking for external evidence for the traditional gospel authorship attributions prior to Irenaeus, even though Ireneaus himself cited pre-Irenaean sources. See the examples cited in my response to the Ehrman/McGrew exchange. We also have evidence for pre-Irenaean testimony outside of Irenaeus, which I also cited in that previous post. I discussed the sources in the comments section of a thread at another blog here. Go to that page and use the Ctrl F feature on your keyboard to search for my last name. See here regarding Polycarp's likely role as a witness to gospel authorship prior to Irenaeus.

Atheists Flunking The Outsider Test

I recently listened to John Loftus and David Marshall discussing Loftus' outsider test and a book Marshall wrote about it. See here and here. Near the end of the first program, Justin Brierley (the host) and Marshall discussed the growth of Christianity in China. Even though Brierley and Marshall made important points about how Christianity is growing in China and the role of miracles in that growth, Loftus ignored what they'd said and returned to discussing people who believe what their parents taught them, how unimpressive it is that Christianity has survived for so long, etc. But China isn't a Christian culture, people who convert to Christianity in China on the basis of miracles aren't just accepting what their parents or culture taught them, and Christianity isn't merely surviving in China. Loftus' response was irrelevant and evasive. In the second program, he acknowledged that he doesn't know much about Christianity in China.

Craig Keener has a lot of material on miracles and the growth of Christianity in China in his book Miracles (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011). I wrote several posts about his book here, including excerpts of his comments on China. Here's a post about hostile corroboration of Christian miracles, in China and elsewhere. And here's a post I wrote about Christian and non-Christian miracles witnessed by skeptics who then changed their position.

While Christianity is so large and growing, atheists remain such a small minority of the population. Atheism hasn't been doing well with outsiders.

The Gospels' Many And Significant Agreements On Jesus' Childhood

A recent book by Peter Enns was discussed on the latest edition of the Unbelievable? radio program. Enns was on the program with David Instone-Brewer. One of the issues that came up was the historicity of the infancy narratives. Enns, Instone-Brewer, and the host, Justin Brierley, referred to how different the accounts in Matthew and Luke are, and not much was said about agreements between the two. Brierley referred to how the narratives are "almost two completely different stories".

Here's an article I wrote last year that gives thirty examples of agreements between Matthew and Luke regarding Jesus' childhood, including some that are of an unusual nature or meet the criterion of embarrassment. I also discuss some of the reasons why it makes sense for the two sources to differ to some extent. The agreements between Matthew and Luke are often underestimated, while their differences are overestimated, and all three participants in the Unbelievable? program furthered that misconception.

How To Lose The Dispute Over Same-Sex Marriage

I just listened to Michael Medved discussing same-sex marriage with a guest who wrote an article on a related subject. I think the guest was on for close to half an hour. He kept referring to same-sex marriage as a right, and he referred to opposition to state recognition of same-sex marriage as evil. As far as I recall, he was never asked where that alleged right comes from, whether people have a right to other forms of marriage as well, such as incestuous marriage and polygamy, or on what basis we should conclude that opposition to state recognition of same-sex marriage is evil. Instead of focusing on a universal aspect of opposite-sex marriage that distinguishes it from same-sex marriage, such as how opposite-sex marriage promotes the unity of the sexes in a way that same-sex marriage can't, Medved focused on how opposite-sex marriage can produce children biologically. His guest raised the usual objection that not all opposite-sex couples can or do have children, whether because of sterility or for some other reason. Medved responded that it wouldn't be appropriate for the government to do something like test people for sterility before recognizing a marriage, but he didn't explain why or explain how his original appeal to the biological production of children remains valid in spite of the objection raised against it. A caller referred to how offended he was, as a Christian, by the position of Medved's guest, and he commented on how some black individuals he knows are offended by the comparison between opposition to same-sex marriage and opposition to interracial marriage. He also referred to how old the opposite-sex view of marriage is. But he never explained why he was offended, why the black people he described were offended, why anybody else should agree with their reasoning, or what significance the oldness of opposite-sex marriage has.

When opponents of same-sex marriage so often argue so poorly for their position, is it any wonder their position keeps dropping in popularity? Last year, I wrote a few posts about how to approach this issue in a more effective way: part 1, part 2, part 3.