Evidence Below The Surface

People often say they're familiar with an issue, even to the point of being weary of hearing about it, when they're actually significantly ignorant about the subject. What they've heard a lot of is introductory information about the topic or some of the more advanced information about it without having heard about other information of a more advanced nature. Their knowledge is partial and often misleading.

For example, they've heard a lot about gospel authorship in the sense that they've heard many introductory or intermediate discussions of Papias, Irenaeus, and other sources. But there are other lines of evidence they have little or no familiarity with.

That's one of the dangers involved in addressing topics in a shallow way. You give people the impression that there's less involved, often far less, than is actually there. Christians should keep maturing in their understanding of issues and keep trying to get other people to mature. Take different approaches toward a subject on different occasions. Mention that there's more evidence involved than what you're bringing up, and direct people to resources that provide that other evidence.

Problems With Attributing Too Much To Demons

Since Christians so often suggest that something or other is demonic, and much of the time they seem to do it with a lot of carelessness, it's worth considering the problems with falsely attributing things to demons. My focus here will be on attributing paranormal activity to demons, but the principles I'll be discussing also have a broader application. I'm not trying to be exhaustive. I'm just providing some examples:

The Sin Of Simplicity

Proverbs warns about being simple-minded. "How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?" (1:22) The simple should become wise rather than remaining simple (Psalm 19:7).

Despite all of the advantages people in modern cultures have in intellectual contexts - higher literacy rates, more widespread formal education, better technology that includes more access to information, more political freedoms, etc. - it's common for people to not only be too simple in their thinking, but to even treat it as something virtuous and respectable. Supposedly, it's good that they're such simple people who don't learn much about a subject or mature in other ways.

Jesus told us that having more makes you responsible for more (Luke 12:48). Given the intellectual advantages we have in contexts like the United States, we should have much more to show for those advantages than we do.

Be careful not to encourage simplicity where you shouldn't. The immaturity of your children, people in your church, or people in YouTube threads, for example, should be discouraged rather than encouraged. They should be held to a higher rather than lower standard and should be expected to mature over time. That includes maturing intellectually and becoming more active in disseminating information rather than perpetually looking for other people to provide the information.

Truth, Faith, And Confidence

"And faith is produced by the truth; for faith rests on things that truly are. For in things that are, as they are, we believe; and believing in things that are, as they ever are, we keep firm our confidence in them." (Irenaeus, The Demonstration Of The Apostolic Preaching 3)

Jesus And The Apostles Emphasized Maturity

For example:

"The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity." (Luke 8:14)

"Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature." (1 Corinthians 14:20)

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food....let us press on to maturity" (Hebrews 5:12, 6:1)

"your deeds of late are greater than at first" (Revelation 2:19)

What does that suggest about how so many individuals, churches, parachurch ministries, and others operate in modern contexts like the United States, where there's so much focus on introductory material and not much concern about growing up? When you look at YouTube or Twitter comment threads or listen to callers on radio programs or conversations in church, do the people involved seem to have put much effort into maturing the way they should? Are they taking on more responsibilities and doing more of the work that needs done instead of being overly dependent on other people?

"You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed." (Matthew 25:26)

A Spiritual Old Age

Martin Hengel noted that "In this connection we should not forget that simply of the second-century Christian writings known to us by title, around 85% have been lost. The real loss must be substantially higher." (The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], 55) As time goes on, we're gradually recovering more of the documents of previous centuries. It's a slow drip, but it's better than nothing.

Jerome wrote about some good advice given in a second-century letter that's no longer extant. This is good counsel to modern churches and those doing work as Christians in general:

"Pinytus of Crete, bishop of the city of Gnosus, wrote to Dionysius bishop of the Corinthians, an exceedingly elegant letter in which he teaches that the people are not to be forever fed on milk, lest by chance they be overtaken by the last day while yet infants, but that they ought to be fed also on solid food, that they may go on to a spiritual old age." (Lives Of Illustrious Men 28)

Turning Back To Make Progress

"Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better….We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021], approximate Kindle locations 355, 533)

The Death Of John Warwick Montgomery

When I was a teenager, shortly before the internet came along, I got a lot of my information about Christianity from television. One of the few individuals on Christian television (and television in general) who spoke highly of the evidence for Christianity and often articulated it well was John Warwick Montgomery. I remember occasionally seeing him on John Ankerberg's program, and I probably saw him elsewhere (maybe on D. James Kennedy's show, for example). Montgomery represented a more intellectual and generally more mature form of Christianity than what you typically encounter in modern Evangelical circles. He had a positive effect on my early thinking about religious issues, and I'm grateful for his influence in my life.

He died last week. Shane Rosenthal posted an article about Montgomery just after his death. In that article, Rosenthal links the audio of a radio program Montgomery appeared on with Rosenthal and others. I recommend listening to it. You can access it here. They interviewed some people at a pastors' conference (pastors, their wives, etc.) and asked the attendees some questions related to apologetics. The large majority wanted to use their conversion testimony or something similar in discussions with non-Christians rather than take an apologetic approach, made derogatory comments about apologetics, etc. Montgomery made a lot of good points in response, and the responses of the hosts of the program are often good. Here are a few examples of Montgomery's comments, but these aren't all of the good ones he made. I recommend listening to the whole program:

God Is No Fonder Of Intellectual Slackers Than Of Any Other Slackers

"[God] wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim. The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old. It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have. The proper motto is not 'Be good, sweet maid and let who can be clever,' but 'Be good, sweet maid, and don't forget that this involves being as clever as you can.' God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021], approximate Kindle location 1057)

Looking For Shortcuts

Because of factors like advances in technology, the increase of political freedoms, and the effects of capitalism on the world, people have more access to more information (through television, smartphones, and so on). The large majority of people don't want to make the changes needed to sort through that information responsibly (such as decreasing their time spent on less significant things and increasing their time spent on more significant things). They look for shortcuts. They become more dependent on emotions, intuitions, and such to sort through issues. They look more than they should for political leaders, social commentators, pastors, or other people to sort through the information for them, to fight their battles for them, and so forth. And it isn't just a problem with people looking for shortcuts too much. There's also a problem with poor judgments being made about which shortcuts to take. They're taking too many shortcuts, and they aren't even choosing the best ones.

It's been popular to criticize the political left in the United States for being overly emotional (style over substance, feelings over facts). Something that's occurred over time, especially in the most recent decades, is that the right (the political right, the religious right, etc.) has become more emotional.

You see it in Evangelical circles, even if it takes on a somewhat different form than it does elsewhere. I occasionally see hosts of Evangelical YouTube channels, for example, commenting in one way or another about what needs done now to get and keep a bigger audience. It's not good, and you can tell that a lot of the YouTube hosts don't like it. (Though that doesn't seem to keep many of them from doing it.) If a famous pastor gets involved in a controversy, people show a lot more interest in that than they show in a post or video about God, theology, the afterlife, or some other such topic. A tweet about a scandal pastor So-And-So is involved in will get hundreds of likes and comments, whereas something significant that's tweeted about God, apologetics, or church history will get much less of a response. A joke or family photograph will get more of a positive response than even the best theological or apologetic work. It happens in contexts as trivial as thumbnails. The first two parts of a three-part video series will have a much higher view count than the third part. The first two included an image of a famous person in the thumbnail, whereas the third didn't. What and who's popular in Evangelical circles seem to be determined by things like emotions and insignificant personality traits far more than they should be.

We should ask ourselves how we're being impacted by these things. Are we taking too many shortcuts, and are our judgments about our shortcuts as good as we like to think they are?

Stop Giving So Much Deference To Where People Are

It's often suggested that we shouldn't expect much more from people than what they're already doing. Don't expect people to think in much depth about certain issues, don't expect them to read much, don't expect them to improve their moral standards much, etc. I do a lot of work in apologetics. We're often told that we shouldn't expect much from the average person or the average Christian in that context. Supposedly, if people aren't doing more, then that proves that they can't do more, that it would be too difficult to get them to do more, or some such thing.

Where would the world be today if that kind of mindset had been adopted by the people who changed the world for the better in previous generations? Why did Jesus deliver the Sermon on the Mount? His standards were too high. He shouldn't have expected so much from people. "I am aware that your precepts in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great, that I suspect no one can keep them", said Trypho, but that didn't keep Jesus and the early Christians from putting forward those precepts and transforming the world by them (Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho, 10). What about the major improvement in literacy that we've seen over the centuries? Too unrealistic. Nobody should have ever tried to accomplish it. We should have just been satisfied with lower literacy rates. After all, most people aren't cut out, wired, gifted, or whatever other language you want to use to handle something like literacy. So, we shouldn't even try. Or how about the recent major decline in poverty across the world? Don't even attempt it. It obviously won't ever happen. Don't even try. And while you're being so apathetic and lazy, add things like the advances we've seen in political freedom, technology, and medicine to the list. Those things won't ever happen either. Don't even attempt it.

Really, though, people are often capable of not just more than they're currently doing, but even much more. That's true in apologetics and in a lot of other contexts in life. There are many contexts in which we don't need to keep the bar where it is or lower it. We need to raise it, and we need to raise it a lot. The fact that people initially resist that raising of the bar doesn't prove that they're incapable of meeting the higher standard. Often, what it proves is that they're sinful and that we need to be vigilant and diligent in keeping the standard high.

You should be a teacher by now, but are you?

Hebrews 5:12 tells Christians who were much more disadvantaged in life than we are in a lot of ways, "by this time you ought to be teachers". That's even more applicable to immature Christians in our day. People should be expected to grow as Christians and become increasingly self-reliant and increasingly productive. That includes intellectual contexts (1 Corinthians 14:20). What do you have to show for the opportunities you've had?