The Death Of Stephen Braude

He died last Saturday. He was a major figure in paranormal research. I learned a lot from him. He had a rare combination of breadth and depth of knowledge of the field, carefulness, and communication skills. He worked at an unusually high level in a context that's unusually difficult, one that's been neglected and is often despised, despite being so important. One of the ways you can measure somebody's significance is how often you wanted to hear from him in important contexts. There were many times over the years when a paranormal issue came up, and I wanted to hear from Stephen Braude.

You can find him referred to in a lot of places in our archives, by me and by others who have posted here. Here's a Psi Encyclopedia article that provides an overview of his life and paranormal work. I've often recommended his book The Gold Leaf Lady (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2007) as an introduction to the paranormal. I'd still recommend it as a good place to start, both in terms of an introduction to the paranormal and as an introduction to Braude. Here's a video he participated in around the time the book came out. It's about fifteen minutes long and will provide you with an overview of Braude's background and the book. I've also linked this video in the past, in which Braude discusses some of the paranormal cases he studied the most, like the Ted Serios case. During the last several years of his life, Braude did some interviews about various paranormal topics with Jeffrey Mishlove. You can find them by running a search with Braude's name at Mishlove's YouTube channel.

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:

Tim Keller's Death

Here's a discussion Gavin Ortlund had with Collin Hansen a few months ago concerning a book Collin wrote about Keller. I've had a quote from Keller's book on prayer that I hadn't gotten around to posting yet, so this is an appropriate time to post it. I'll include another good passage that I've quoted before from the same book.

"Consider the petition 'O Lord - give me a job so I won't be poor.' That is an appropriate thing to ask God for. Indeed, it is essentially the same thing as to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Yet the Proverbs [30:7-9] prayer reveals the only proper motivation beneath the request. If you just jump into prayer without recognizing the disordered nature of the heart's loves, your prayer's intention will be, 'Make me as wealthy as possible.' The Proverbs 30 prayer is different. It is to ask, 'Lord, meet my material needs, and give me wealth, yes, but only as much as I can handle without it harming my ability to put you first in life. Because ultimately I don't need status and comfort - I need you as my Lord.'" (Prayer [New York, New York: Dutton, 2014], 86)

"If you forget the costliness of sin, your prayers of confession and repentance will be shallow and trivial. They will neither honor God nor change your life….Stott argued that confessing our sins implies the forsaking of our sins. Confessing and forsaking must not be decoupled, yet most people confess - admit that what they did was wrong - without at the same time disowning the sin and turning their hearts against it in such a way that would weaken their ability to do it again. We must be inwardly grieved and appalled enough by sin - even as we frame the whole process with the knowledge of our acceptance in Christ - that it loses its hold over us." (212)

D.A. Carson On Colin Hemer

I recently came across D.A. Carson's eulogy of Colin Hemer after seeing it linked by Lydia McGrew.

The Death Of Michael Heiser

I still don't know a lot about him, and I haven't read any of his books yet, but I listened to his Peeranormal podcast for years. I'm grateful for the work he and his colleagues on that podcast did to address some issues that have been so neglected by so many Christians. He'll be missed.

Ravi and the onus probandi

i) Some folks think Christians have a duty to denounce alleged ethical lapses by Rav Zacharias. Now  I do think lots of Christians are too quick to hand out the halos. But they could condition a eulogy. "Assuming he's not guilty…" And even if he's guilty of serious moral failings, while that rightly  tarnishes his reputation, it doesn't discredit the positive impact of his ministry. 

ii) But suppose I don't have an informed judgment regarding the allegations. Do I still have a burden of proof? It's not like I have a duty to have a considered option on the issue. Life is short. We make time-investment decisions. We prioritize. 

It isn't even possible to have an informed judgment about most propositions. Consider the countless number of things that happen around the globe in a single day. Or consider the infinite realm of mathematical truths. 

Or, to take a different kind of example, consider the sex lives of the Hollywood stars. Surely I have no duty to inform myself about that. Why waste my time on that? Why fill my mind with that? 

iii) A potential objection to what I said is that it parallels atheists who say that lacking belief in God carries no burden of proof. Or does it?

One problem with the comparison is the question of scope. The existence or nonexistence of God has implications for literally everything. Ravi's moral character isn't remotely analogous. Does every proposition, however trivial or ephemeral, bear a burden of proof? Or is there a threshold? God lies at one end of the continuum–the very end. 

Larry Hurtado

https://www.michaeljkruger.com/a-tribute-to-larry-hurtado-scholar-doktorvater-and-friend/

Blaspheming St. Rachel Held Evans

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/blaspheming-st-rachel-held-evans/

Rachel Held Evans

Here's an article that was posted at Christianity Today, then withdrawn a few hours later. It strikes me as a very balanced article. It's not a hit-piece.

"I leave this life with no regrets"

It's been however many years since I used to watch Charles Krauthammer on Fox News. Nowadays I get my news from the Internet. Admittedly, I sometimes read his essays. 

1. In libertarian circles he will forever be remembered and reviled as a Neocon warmonger. I'm not saying that's fair. As I've remarked in the past, I think where the so-called Neocons went awry is because they were more rational than the enemy. It's like that old Star Trek episode ("The Galileo Seven") where Spock tries to use logic on the ogres. Rationality is wasted on an irrational adversary. It's not that Muslims are unintelligent. They range along the same Bell Curve as everyone else, but Islam is intellectually stultifying. 

2. Krauthammer brought cool detached rationality to news analysis. That's so lacking in today's knee-jerk, hysteria driven culture, with the social media lynch mobs, academentia, and crazed Democrats. The culture has become so reactionary and polarized. 

3. In a sense, the very best minds are wasted on news analysis because the news is so ephemeral. Krauthammer has affinities with other Jewish intellectuals who focus on politics, viz. Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Richard Posner, Milton Friedman, Paul Wolfowitz. Very cerebral, rather aloof pundits. 

4. Krauthammer was a conflicted agnostic. I don't know why he was agnostic. It may simply be that he saw no evidence of divine activity in human history. 

5. Because atheism/agnosticism are so unsatisfying, there are two opposite approaches one can take:

i) Because this life is all there is, you can't afford to fritter away your opportunities. Every battle is mortal combat. There are no second chances. So fight to the death. Make your mark. Make your life count. 

ii) Because this life is all there is, don't become too invested in anything. Don't take things too seriously. You and your ideological opponents are headed to a common oblivion. Nothing lasts. Nothing ultimately matters. 

Perhaps that accounts for the detachment of secular Jews like Krauthammer and David Berlinski. Rather like Buddhism. Avoid making enemies because, in the long run, nothing makes any difference. A certain kind of detachment may reflect a tragic outlook on life. A resignation to futility. 

Krauthammer was a very rational man. But high IQ is worthless on your deathbed. 

To my knowledge, his final public words were:

I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.

I can't relate to people who say they have no regrets. It's striking that someone so analytical, so reflective about human affairs and our place in the cosmos, was apparently so lacking in self-reflection, self-examination, that he had no regrets. And that from a psychiatrist! 

Perhaps, though, that was part of his agnosticism. Have low expectations. All is fleeting. There's not much to hope for, so why waste time on soul-searching?  

The Death Of Guy Playfair

I was sad to learn this evening that Guy Playfair died this past Sunday. As the article just linked notes, it was the morning a new BBC program on the Enfield Poltergeist aired.

I only interacted with him briefly, in an exchange of a few emails last year. He was courteous and helpful, but was busy with other matters at that point and wasn't able to say much. I was hoping to have further discussions with him in the future, but it wasn't to happen.

I don't know how anybody could read his book on Enfield, This House Is Haunted (United States: White Crow Books, 2011), and not have some respect and gratitude toward the man. One of the passages that's stood out most to me summarizes what I have in mind:

Last of the great revivalists

http://reformedperspective.ca/billy-graham-1918-2018-the-last-of-the-great-revivalists/

Billy Graham

A few random thoughts about Billy Graham. I'll begin with a theological criticism, then say some positive things:

i) Decisional evangelism has a fundamentally flawed understanding of conversion. Decisional evangelism basically eliminates saving faith. To make a decision is an act of the will. That pertains to the field of action. Responding to the altar call is an act of the will.

That's not the same thing as faith. Faith requires assent, conviction, an intellectual reorientation. We have a different view of God, assuming we even believed in God. We have a different view of ourselves, especially in relation to God. 

An act of the will is not an act of faith in the sense of assent or conviction. There's no essential change of heart and mind. It's just about something you do. 

Saving faith has a volitional component in the sense of commitment. But that can't be a substitute for believing and trusting in Jesus. Reciting a formulaic prayer (the sinner's prayer), like a magic incantation, or performing a ritual, like the alter call, isn't saving faith. It gives people false assurance.

ii) Graham was a great preacher. He had a fine speaking voice, and he was a natural, commanding public speaker. Intense and singleminded. He also had a nice Southern lilt. 

iii) That said, the South has produced many great preachers. I'm sure many Southern preachers are his equal or superior orators. 

In addition to natural ability, he was saintly. And that lent an aura of holiness and authority to his preaching. 

iv) He illustrates how much God can do with a man of modest intellectual endowment, who's totally devoted to God. Graham wasn't a great scholar, philosopher, theologian, or apologist. But you don't have to be great to do great things. Conversely, many very talented people waste their talent on what's trivial and ephemeral.

v) Graham threw his considerable influence behind the inerrancy of Scripture, at a time when evangelical institutions were drifting. As I recall, he wrote the preface to Harold Lindsell's The Battle for the Bible. I expect that endorsement all by itself gave the book an audience.

vi) Graham supported the prolife movement. That wasn't a given for a Baptist of his generation. Prior to Roe v. Wade, many evangelical denominations were soft on abortion. Walter Martin, ten years Graham's junior, is an example of a Christian leader to came of age when the evangelical movement was soft on abortion, and he was never able to make the transition to a harder line position. 

vii) Graham publicly opposed the candidacy and reelection of Barack Obama. 

viii) As a young evangelist, Graham had a famous falling out with a fellow evangelist turned apostate Charles Templeton:

"I believe in the Genesis account of creation simply because it's in the Bible. I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible   literally, when I proclaim it as God's Word, I have power. When I stand before the people and say, 'God says,' or 'The Bible says, 'the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. People respond. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don't have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of each theological dispute, so I've decided, once and for all, to stop questioning and to accept the Bible as God's Word." 

"But Billy," I protested, "you can't do that. You don't dare stop thinking. Do it and you begin to die. It's intellectual suicide."

http://www.templetons.com/charles/memoir/evang-graham.html

Templeton was oblivious to the irony of his statement. Atheism is intellectual suicide. Naturalistic evolution is intellectual suicide. If that's the case, then reason is the byproduct of blind evolution. 

And anyway, if there is no afterlife, if everything we cherish is the result of blind evolutionary conditioning, then what's so bad about intellectual suicide? There's no face behind the mask. The mask is it. 

Graham was not a great thinker, but his instincts were right. 

The Great Last Words Of A Great Man

J. Gresham Machen died on this day 81 years ago. Here's something I saw Tim Roof link on Facebook about Machen's last words. And here's something Michael Horton wrote on the subject many years ago.

A Skeptic Of Christianity Complimenting R.C. Sproul

Listen to the first few minutes of Robert Price's latest podcast. He also makes some positive comments about John Warwick Montgomery. Price doesn't believe in the existence of God, he's a Jesus mythicist, and he's debated William Lane Craig, James White, and other Christians.

Carrie Fisher and Helen Roseveare

I'd like to make one more point about Carrie Fisher. I don't have a problem with people who are saddened by her death. And I don't think it's a zero sum game, where you have to be terribly finicky about whose life and death you comment on. But we do need to raise the bar so that we have a standard of comparison. For instance, here's a truly admirable woman, who died this year. Indeed, died the very same month as Carrie Fischer:

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2016/12/07/a-woman-of-whom-the-world-was-not-worthy-helen-roseveare-1925-2016/

Carrie Fisher

Newsfeeds are clogged with headlines and eulogies regarding Carrie Fisher's death.

Some performers make a film famous while some films make a performer famous. She became famous, not because she was a great actress, but because she acted in a famous film (or franchise). Neither she nor Hamill had the starpower to sustain a career–unlike Ford. 

That said, making allowance for Lucas's juvenile sense of humor and  cliche-ridden situations, I thought she was good in The New Hope. There's only so much you can do with the sophomoric dialogue. 

She was miscast as a sex slave in Return of the Jedi. That's not something she can pull off. But then, that entire film was consistently abysmal. 

I don't recall her in The Empire Strikes Back, but that's because it was mainly about Luke Skywalker's inward and outward odyssey.

I see many people praising her for mitigating the stigma of mental illness by openly discussing her bouts of depression and bipolar disorder. 

That would be a significant contribution, if true. But is there any hard evidence that mental illness was widely stigmatized before she went public, destigmatized after she went public, and destigmatized due to her going public? Or is that just something people say to make her life seem more consequential? 

Finally, she predeceased her mother. That will be extremely hard on her mother. 

Prepare to die

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (Jas 4:13-15).

Anton Yelchin, best known as Chekov in the Star Trek reboots, and the hapless, doomed murder victim in Alpha Dog, was killed in a freak accident at age 27. 

This is a reminder that we can die in a flash. Many enjoy a normal lifespan, but that's just a statistical average. You can die in your prime. He didn't even die from a drug overdose, or cancer, or rock-climbing, or mountain-biking. It was completely unpredictable. 

We should be prepared to die at anytime–because we may. 

Sting like a bee

My knowledge of pro sports is fairly limited, but Muhammad Ali was a figure that guys my generation grew up with. He was the dominant star athlete of his generation. 

i) On civil rights, he took a more confrontational approach than King. Although King's nonviolent philosophy proved to be a more effective strategy and tactic than the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam, King's approach tended to foster a certain passivity. Get gov't involved, then let gov't solve the problem. Ali's individualism and self-reliance was admirable.  

ii) He was one of the all-time great boxers. That raises the question of how to rank athletes. Let's take a few comparisons. It's easy to win a round of poker if you've been dealt a winning hand. More impressive is a player with a pair of clubs who can beat a player with a full house. How to turn a losing hand into a winning hand by successfully bluffing your opponent. How to win with nothing.

It's my impression that MMA fighters like B.J. Penn and Anderson da Silva have more natural talent than Rich Franklin. Something about their innate reflexes. 

Not only does that make it easier to win, but when you have that much raw talent, the risk is to coast on your talent. By contrast, Franklin had to develop his full potential to be competitive. And he had to compensate by outthinking opponents. 

Likewise, George Foreman was 7 years younger than Ali. In sports, that's a significant advantage. Since Ali couldn't outpunch Foreman, he had to outwit Foreman. Had to bring something to the game above and beyond physical ability. Had to use strategy. He conserved his energy while making Foreman expend his energy. Once Foreman's stamina was spent, Ali moved in for the kill.

In terms of absolute physical ability, Foreman might have been his superior, but Ali was able to adapt and compensate. By the same token, you have champs like Pete Sampras who excel despite physical impediments (thalassemia).

Compare that to, say, Michael Jordan. There's just something about his natural coordination that sets him apart. If you're ranking an athlete based on native ability, that's one criterion of greatness. If you're ranking an athlete based on factors that offset natural limitations, that's a different criterion of greatness.

iii) Apropos (ii), it's my impression that Ali changed technique. As a young boxer, he was fleet-footed. Very nimble. Later, he became more of a slugger.

It may be that the 5-year interruption in his career (the draft controversy) cut into his physical prime, and by the time he returned, he lost his youthful edge, so he had to retool. A man's physical prime is narrow. An athlete's physical prime is narrower, because he pushes himself to the limit. A champion's physical prime is even narrow because he must be at peak performance to beat the best.

iv) Apropos (iii), who's the greater champion–an undefeated champion, or a champion who comes roaring back after defeat? Some champs are unstoppable until they are stopped, and they never rebound. They never regain their former momentum, viz. Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Brock Lesnar.

v) In some ways, he was not an admirable person. Ali was very promiscuous. And he betrayed Joe Frazier's friendship. Ali could be competitive to a fault. Sacrificing things that are more important for his almighty career. 

vi) Of course, one thing that set Ali apart was his witty, charming personality. The catchy one-liners. Take the classic interviews with Howard Cosell. The mock aggression. The quick, clever repartee. 

vii) How far you can fall depends on how high you are. There's the drastic contrast between Ali in his prime and the shell of a man after dementia pugilistica hollowed out his physical and mental health. The brain damage robbed him of the very things that made him a star. Gone were the quips. Gone the physique. Gone the indomitable spirit. 

Aging and illness are the great levelers. The most talented, brilliant, or beautiful people are still mere mortals, like the rest of us. If they live long enough, they will be reduced to utterly ordinary people, dependent on the mercy of others. Like Nebuchadnezzar, Ali was arrogant and boastful. Like Nebuchadnezzar, illness demoted Ali's pride and pretensions. From "the Greatest" to a helpless, pitiful figure. Not a Christian, he had nothing to fall back on when his body gave out. 

Antonin Scalia: An American Originalist

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/02/16478/