Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a famous essay entitled, “What Does It Mean to Tell the Truth?” gives an example of a girl whose teacher asks in front of the class whether her father is a drunkard.  The child answers, no.  Is this really a lie?  “Of course,” Bonhoeffer argues, “one could call the child’s answer a lie; all the same, this lie contains more truth – i.e., it corresponds more closely to the truth – than if the child had revealed the father’s weakness before the class.”  The child is torn between two moral principles – telling the truth and honoring her father. Either way she cannot escape doing something wrong.  So she chooses what is the lesser of the two evils and tells a “lie.”  For Bonhoeffer, this is not in any way meant to undermine the importance of telling the truth (in most cases).  It is just that sometimes circumstances are such that one is “forced” to tell a lie.

I believe Bonhoeffer has here uncovered an important moral category that Christians all too often simply try to ignore or explain away.  We need to face up to the fact that moral dilemmas do occur in life.  Sometimes it may just be right to steal in order to save a starving family.  Sometimes one has to choose between saving the life of one person at the expense of another person, e.g. abortion may be justified in the highly unusual case where the life of the mother can only be saved by taking the life of the fetus.  I believe there is a need for Christian moral philosophers to address moral dilemmas as unique moral category and work through the ethical implications that follow.

A key question here is whether acknowledging such moral dilemmas undermines the notion of universal or absolute moral principles.  It is true that moral dilemmas force the ethical absolutist to acknowledge that sometimes it is right to do what is normally wrong.  I have already suggested that with moral dilemmas we must choose the lesser of two evils.  But it is important to keep in mind that the lesser evil is still an evil.  It is just that in a situation where we are facing a moral dilemma we cannot avoid doing something evil.  And a morally sensitive person will feel badly about doing this evil, will correct the wrong later, if possible, and will bring the guilt that ensues to God who is finally greater than our conscience (I John 3:19-20).

We must also be very careful not to extend the category of “moral dilemmas” beyond what are genuine moral dilemmas.  If telling the truth causes me some embarrassment, this is not a moral dilemma.  There is no commandment that says, “You shall never be embarrassed.”  To tell a “white lie” in order to save me from embarrassment is to be immoral, pure and simple. Moral dilemmas really are few and far between.  The vast majority of decisions that we face are very straightforward.  We ought to tell the truth.  We ought not to steal.  We ought not to murder.  But, sometimes, we need to make exceptions to these general principles.

The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides us with a case study of someone who wrestled seriously with the question as to whether it might ever be right to kill someone.  Bonhoeffer was a member of the resistance against Hitler and participated in several plots to kill him. Given the horrible atrocities of Hitler, Bonhoeffer felt that the lesser evil was to kill Hitler.  Was he right?  I don’t think the question can be easily answered. For a riveting account of this moral dilemma, I would recommend Eric Metaxas” recent biography, “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” (Thomas Nelson, 2010).  Bonhoeffer’s struggle with this moral dilemma raises for me some important questions with regard to the pacifist opposition to all war. Could war itself be justified in terms of a moral dilemma?

Acknowledging the existence of moral dilemmas also has some important implications for moral education.  There was a time when moral dilemmas were extensively used in values education in our schools.  “Values clarification ” it was called.  The problem here is that moral dilemmas are far too complex for children.  Good pedagogy demands that we start with what is simple and gradually move on to the more complex. I would suggest that the complexity of moral dilemmas makes them much more appropriate for university level ethics courses.  It is confusing and even cruel to ask children to struggle with such complex problems.

Preoccupation with moral dilemmas is also dangerous in that it gives the misleading impression that all moral choices are difficult.  In fact, in the vast majority of cases our moral obligations are obvious and clear cut.  Most often an understanding of what we ought to do does not require a long process of deliberation.  Of course, we my still find it difficult to do the right thing, but that is another problem.

The extensive use of moral dilemmas in moral education might also give the impression that moral values are relative.  As I have already argued, this does not at all follow.  Moral dilemmas are the exception rather than the rule.

We need, finally, to question the rationale behind the extensive use of moral dilemmas in moral education.  The hope is that moral dilemma exercises will stimulate students to think for themselves and to choose values not simply on the basis of tradition or authority, but on the basis of personal reflection.  The ultimate goal is moral autonomy.  The Christian, however, rejects the ideal of complete autonomy.  Even as adults we are called to bow before the authority of God and his Word.  The fear of the Lord is also the beginning of moral knowledge.

One final point.  The existence of moral dilemmas shows that ethics cannot be exhaustively defined by rules and commandments.  That is why there has been a paradigm shift to virtue ethics in the philosophical study of ethics in the last few decades.  People of good character will make wise decisions when it comes to moral dilemmas.

(This blog is adapted from an article in “A Christian Mind” column, in the Mennonite Brethren Herald, June 4, 1982, and is here extensively revised.)

Lois Sweet

Toronto:  McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1997, ISBN 0-7710-8319-X

pp.xv + 272,  $29.99

This is an important book which is bound to prompt much fruitful dialogue on the relation between religion and schooling in Canada.  The author, a journalist by profession, won an Atkinson fellowship in 1995-6, which gave her the opportunity to travel across the country (and to Europe) in order to gain first hand experience as to how religion is handled in our schools.  As well she was able to discuss the matter with a wide variety of Canadians of many beliefs and backgrounds.  The publication of this book was preceded with a five-part series in the Toronto Star as well as a two-part documentary on CBC-TV’s “The National Magazine.”  Both drew a huge response, a sign that Canadians are hungry for more discussion of this issue.

Sweet admits that she would never have dreamed that she would write a book like this a decade ago (p.9).  She describes herself as a secularist, but one who has come to recognize the significance of the religious experience (pp.213, 11).  Her book is prompted by a concern about our society which has somehow lost sight of the spiritual dimension to life (p.6).  And religion is denied and/or ignored in our schools (p. 239).  Sweet describes her son, now at university, discovering for the first time that Western civilization was based on religion.  “Nothing in his previous thirteen years of study had given him an inkling of that” (p.213).  A tragedy, indeed, and somewhat odd, given that schooling in Canada evolved from a decidedly Christian bias, as Sweet explores in Chapter 2.

It is this neglect of religion in our state-maintained public schools that has prompted a growing number of religious groups to set up their own schools – there are about 1,200 religiously-based schools that belong to the Federation of Independent Schools in Canada (pp. 6, 27).  Clearly the formation of religious schools is one way to address the problem of the neglect of religion in education, which is the overriding concern of the book.  But a major thrust of the book is to reject this option.  What Sweet proposes instead is a serious overhaul of our public school system.  Her central thesis is that given the pluralism that now characterizes Canada, we need, somehow, to accommodate religion in our public (common) schools.

Sweet defends her two-pronged thesis by drawing on the anecdotal experience of students, teachers, parents and educators.  The many stories are fascinating and at times moving.  This book will therefore appeal to a lay-readership.  But I would hope that academics will still read the book, even though there is little here by way of drawing on theoretical treatments of the problem.  Even when referring to experts in the field such as John Hull and Will Kymlicka, preference is given to comments made while interviewing them in person.  And there are no footnotes.

What reasons lie behind Sweet’s rejection of religious schooling as a way to bring religion back into education?  Chapters 4 & 5 record her impressions from visits to a number of religious schools (Sikh, Jewish, Islamic, Catholic, Protestant and evangelical).  A primary concern is that such schools are socially divisive and foster intolerance (ch.1).  Sweet also worries about the indoctrination that occurs in religious schools.  She is also very concerned about the lack respect for children’s and teacher’s rights in such schools (ch.9).   “[P]arents don’t have the ultimate authority over their children,” according to Sweet, “there is a need for the State to act in the interests of children” (p.178).

Sweet is further concerned that these religious schools will destroy our state-maintained system of public schools. Indeed, she also rejects the separate school system, i.e. Roman Catholic schools which are fully funded in several Canadian provinces (pp. 48, 103, 108f, 122f, 248, 252).  The ideal for Sweet is one, and only one system of state-maintained public schools.  But this will require a radical overhaul of the secular orientation that now pervades these public schools. We need somehow to bring religion back into the classroom.  If this is done, Sweet maintains, many religiously moderate parents would be much less motivated to put their children into independent religious schools (p.239)

However, according to Sweet, reintroducing religion into the classroom cannot involve the initiation of children into a particular religious dogma – an approach that was in fact rejected as unconstitutional in a 1988 Elgin County court case (pp. 13, 33).  Instead of indoctrination, we need multi-faith education about religion, along the lines of a 1994 memo from Ontario Ministry of Education (pp. 218ff.).  Sweet also recommends that a certain limited number of holy days of each Canada’s recognized religious groups be recognized through school closings where numbers warrent, using them as points of discussion (ch.10).

And above all, schools must take seriously the cultivation of religious literacy (pp. 10, 228, 239).  We need to acknowledge religious difference, and actually educate children about those differences in the classroom.  Here Sweet draws on comments made by John Hull in an interview in which he describes the approach of religious education in Great Britain (pp.224-8).

The journalistic approach taken in this book has its dangers.  While every effort is made to be fair, and the generalizations made are most often accurate, biases do emerge.  For example, much is made of the supposed denial of rights of children in religious schools in a chapter which begins with an emotively laden description of a spanking of a first-grader at an Alberta school (ch.9).   But, to link this episode with ritual genital mutilation, and to suggest that such physical abuse is responsible for violent criminal behavior in later life is simply absurd (p.170).  Contrary to Sweet, children at religious schools are generally loved for and cared for, and are viewed as having all the basic rights that she so much prizes.  Clearly there are different understandings of what is required to bring up children to be moral citizens, and we must be careful not discount the approach taken by religious schools, when, by her own admission, a major concern of many parents is precisely the failure of our public schools in this area (pp. 6, 64, 98).

A fundamental weakness arises from Sweet’s reliance on a traditional distinction between indoctrination and education.  She admits there is controversy regarding proper definitions of these terms (pp.149f), but unfortunately she rather dogmatically trots out the usual mantras concerning what these terms means. Indoctrination involves narrow initiation into a particular religious tradition.  Genuine education, by contrast, involves tolerance of dissent, autonomous thinking and behaving, and the celebration of diversity (pp.102, 159).  But, Sweet is forced to admit that the graduates from religious schools which she interviewed have become confident, critical and open citizens, who actively contribute to society at large.  The basic problem with her analysis is that she fails to do justice to the fact that nurture into a particular tradition is a necessary foundation for growth toward autonomy.  Narrowness necessarily precedes openness (see my Teaching for Commitment, Gracewing & McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993).

Interestingly, Sweet implicitly acknowledges this point in other contexts.  She is very sensitive to “the politics of recognition,” which Charles Taylor sees as the key to living in a multicultural society (p.14).  She tells a moving story of a Jewish mother who clearly identifies the seeming paradox – the more she helps her daughter to understand who she is, the better she will be able to live with others (pp.110f).  She is quite frank in acknowledging that we might have something to learn from the structure of schooling in the Netherlands where over 80% of all the schools are publicly funded religious schools (ch. 7; p.128).  Here it seems that recognizing differences has facilitated healthy integration as well as tolerance.

Sweet is also very cognizant of recent developments in epistemology.  She acknowledges that neutrality is impossible (p.7).  She realizes that there is an element of faith in every area of human study (p.212).  She approvingly refers to Postman’s End of Education in which he argues that schools have to serve some god – some story or narrative that provides a sense of meaning, continuity and purpose to life (p.150).  A secular system of education is still a value system that competes with those that are religious (p. 113).

But, these epistemological considerations as well as her sympathies with the politics of recognition support a system of educational pluralism.  However, as we have seen, Sweet is strongly opposed to religiously based schools.  And this makes the overall thrust of the book somewhat puzzling, because much of her analysis would seem to point in the direction of religious schools as a way of accommodating the interplay between religion and education

Even in the final chapter she gives us a glowing account of a unique Logos Alternative Program in Edmonton, Alberta, where five Christian schools operate under the public school umbrella.  But Sweet speaks favourably of this approach only because these schools are part of the public system of education and are housed in existing public schools which allows the children to interact with other children in the regular public program (pp.241-4).  In the end, she is still worried about their promoting “a limited kind of one-sided learning” (p.244).

What Sweet fails to realize is that the multi-religious approach to cultivating an appreciation for religion is not without its own problems.  Knowledge of other religious traditions does not in and of itself foster tolerance.  And she fails to face up to the fact that public (common) schools cannot ever make up for, or overcome, the lack of religious literacy and the religious intolerance that is fostered in the home.  The multi-faith approach to religious literacy, I would suggest is yet another expression of Enlightenment faith in universal reason. It rests on the assumption that it is possible to get an understanding of religion generally without becoming committed to a particular religion.  It allows us to participate in “the religious quest” while keeping religion at a distance (p. 8).  But this will hardly do justice to the concern of many religious adherents who value the importance of particular religious commitments.  And it is a fundamental error to associate all particular religious commitments with excessive sectarianism (pp. 17, 36, 165).

In the end, it would seem that Sweet is still captive to a secular faith-story which makes it impossible for her to go where the wind of her argument really carries her. And while she worries about the indoctrination that occurs in our public schools when religion is systematically avoided (pp. 211ff., 222), she fails to worry enough about the liberal educational tyranny that is still inherent in her multi-faith approach to religious education, and which she wants to impose on all citizens via a monolithic state-maintained system of education.

This blog is about my recently published book, The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defence of Proselytizing and Persuasion, published by Paternoster Press, in the U.K., and by IVP Academic, in the U.S.A. in 2011.

Why did I write this book?

Well, asking a philosopher why he wrote a book is a little bit like asking a mountain climber why he climbed Mount Everest.  Mount Everest is there to be climbed!  That is the way I felt about writing a book on the ethics of evangelism or proselytizing.  Indeed, I discovered that very little had been written on this topic heretofore.  So, I wanted to be the first to write a comprehensive treatment of the ethics of evangelism or religious persuasion.  What little had been written on this topic was in the main very critical of any efforts at evangelism or proselytizing.  When reading these objections against evangelism, I was disturbed by the fact that these attacks were often unfair and outright wrongheaded.  So again, I felt a need to answer these objections in the public domain by writing a book on the subject.  In part, my writing this book also grew out of my embarrassment as to what religious adherents sometimes do in the name of evangelism. Writing this book was a way of helping me to clarify this embarrassment.  I discovered that sometimes there is something immoral going on when religious adherents do evangelism.  I also discovered that Christians, and more specifically evangelical Christians, who are very much committed to evangelism, tend to skirt the subject of the ethics of what they are doing.  Indeed, one nearly gets the impression that for some evangelicals, evangelism is considered to be so imperative that the end justifies the means. Someone needed to show how terribly wrong-headed this kind of thinking is.  So I answered the call! Throughout my writing, I have been very concerned to bridge the divide that often exists between religious believers and those who are skeptical of religion.  I therefore wanted to write a book on evangelism/proselytizing that would at the same time be addressed to these two very different readerships.  Skeptics needed to hear a defense of evangelism or proselytizing, and religious believers needed to be told that not just anything is acceptable in trying to bring about conversions.

For the table of contents and endorsements of the book, see the IVP website:

http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3927

For a recent review of the book, see one by A. Morgan as found on the Amazon books website:

http://www.amazon.ca/ETHICS-EVANGELISM-Elmer-John-Thiessen/dp/0830839275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323962877&sr=8-1

The book can be purchased online from:

http://www.ivpress.com/  (in Canada, order from www.DavidCCook.ca )

http://www.authenticmedia.co.uk/

http://www.amazon.ca/

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/

Jesus described his followers as cross-bearers.  Suffering is seen as an integral part of Christian experience.  “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matt. 5:11).  We are to remember that no servant is greater than his master.  “If they persecuted me they will persecute you also…. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15: 20, 18).

There is a dimension of Christian suffering which we tend to overlook because we think of persecution and suffering primarily in physical terms.  Suffering also includes mental suffering – hate, insults, and false accusations.  Although all Christians experience (or, at least should experience) this kind of mental suffering, there are some of us who are called to endure this kind of suffering in a particular way.  Mental suffering is especially the lot of Christians involved in academic pursuits.  Christian students, teachers, and university scholars are called to serve God especially with their minds.  They seek to affirm Christ as the source of all truth.  They seek to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (II Cor. 10:5).

But Christ and the cross are foolishness to the worldly-wise, and thus Christian academics often experience contempt, ridicule and even hatred from their secular colleagues.

Sensitive Christian academics suffer when they read an attack on the Christian faith. They suffer when their secular colleagues reject or even ignore Christian answers to the problems of society. They may also suffer in terms of failure to achieve academic promotions or in getting their work published.

There is another aspect of the suffering of the Christian mind that is most often not seen in this light.  Thinking Christians are peculiarly vulnerable to the problem of doubt.  They hold a minority position and this isn’t easy.  Most of their secular colleagues disagree with many of their cherished beliefs, and often vigorously so.  And thus arises the agony, the anguish, and the mental torture of doubt.

This kind of doubt needs to be interpreted as a kind of suffering, and not as a sin, as is so often done in Christian circles.  The young Christian student experiencing doubt in a hostile university environment should not be condemned, but rather encouraged to endure this kind of suffering for Christ’s sake.

C.S. Lewis, well-known Cambridge literary scholar, and one of the greatest Christian apologists of his time, once described what it had cost him to be a Christian while at Oxford University: “His liberal and rational friends, he explained, did not object to his intellectual interest in Christianity; it was, they agreed, a proper subject for academic argument and debate; but to insist on seriously practicing it – that was going too far.  He did not mind being accused of religious mania, that familiar gibe of the natural man; what he was unprepared for was the intense hostility and animosity of his professional colleagues. Within the academic community, he unexpectedly found himself an object of ostracism and abuse” (in C.S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher, by Carolyn Keefe, Zondervan, 1979).

Lewis related those hurtful personal memories as part of a sermon he gave, in which he was trying to encourage those who were finding living the Christian life difficult.  In this sermon he also spoke of what Jesus endured on our behalf: misunderstanding, loneliness and finally betrayal and death.

The Easter message can also serve as a source of encouragement to the Christian student and scholar as they endure suffering for Christ’s sake.  We are called to share Christ’s sufferings (I Peter 2:21). Suffering for Christ is a privilege.  We are to rejoice and be glad when we suffer for Christ (Matt. 5:12).

(This blog first appeared as an article in “A Christian Mind” column, in the Mennonite Brethren Herald, April 9, 1982, and is here slightly revised.)

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of liberalism and liberal values entails that we should have a system of educational pluralism.  Of course, there are critics who would argue that it is impossible to make a liberal case for educational pluralism.  But, I think these critics have got it wrong.  However, I will admit that there seem to be some areas of tension between my case for educational pluralism and liberalism or liberal values, particularly surrounding the inclusion of religious schools which would of course be one kind of school in a genuine system of educational pluralism.  There are further what “seem” to be tensions between liberalism or liberal values and the kind of education that is offered in religious schools.  The second purpose of this essay is to address the question as to how we can negotiate these “seeming tensions.*  To achieve these two objectives, my method shall be to outline five positive liberal arguments for education pluralism and at the same time, to explore briefly the ensuing tension which seem to be inherent in these arguments.

1.  John Stuart Mill’s classic liberalism and the argument for intellectual freedom

In his wonderful essay, On Liberty, published in 1859, John Stuart Mill provides a brilliant defense of the liberty of thought and discussion.  Here he applies his defense of intellectual freedom to the area of education:

All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character,                 and diversity of opinion and mode of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education.  A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation – in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.  An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exists at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence (1978, 104-5).

Many liberal academics and educators react critically to this statement.  They don’t like it; they try to reinterpret it; they argue that the context in which Mill wrote it was somehow different from today’s context.  Indeed, times are changing, but, if nothing else, Mill’s argument for intellectual freedom is even more necessary in the contemporary world than it was in his day.

There are compelling arguments in objection to monopolies of all kinds (whether political, economic, or religious), but there is reason for particular concern about monopolies in the realm of ideas.  It is difficult to comprehend why, in liberal democracies that strongly value freedom of thought, state-maintained systems of education are considered to be appropriate.  Schooling, no matter how liberal, involves the transmission of culture.  Therefore the question of who controls the education of the young is of crucial importance.  A state-controlled system of education is inherently illiberal and undemocratic.  Coupled with the principle of compulsory education, it is an expression of the worst kind of totalitarianism.  Schooling never is, never was, and never can be value-free.

The liberal value of freedom of thought and expression entails that we need a variety of schools, reflecting a variety of ideological or religious outlooks.  It is important, however, to make one important qualification to this first argument.   While each school within a system of educational pluralism will reflect a particular ideological or religious worldview, there must also be the ideological space within each school for a critical evaluation of this worldview, exposure to differing worldviews, and the freedom of students to reject the worldview being taught within each school.  I shall return to this point.

2.  Parental rights argument

A second liberal argument for educational pluralism focuses on the issue of parental rights and responsibilities.  The family is the building block of any society.  Children belong to their parents.  Parents naturally love their children and therefore have strong incentives for looking after their best interest.  Parents are self-governing adults entitled to choose and pursue their own conception of the good life, unless it rejects some basic moral or liberal-political norms on which there is a general consensus among reasonable people in a society.  Thus, parents should have the authority and primary (though not exclusive) responsibility to educate their children in accord with their own conceptions of the good life.  This view is reflected in The Universal Declaration of  Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, which states: “Parents have the prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children” (Article 26, Section #3).

In any given society, however, parents hold differing conceptions of the good life; accordingly, parents would choose different kinds of education for their children.  Therefore, we need a variety of schools so that parents might be able to choose an education for their children which is in accordance with their own worldview and their own values.

Not all liberals will agree with this argument.  Some liberals would argue against it on the basis of children’s rights (e.g. James Dwyer, 1998), while others may argue against it on the basis of state rights.  These arguments, however, fall prey to the either-or fallacy (that is: either parents or the state have the right to educate children; or, education should be designed either in terms of children’s rights or parents’ rights).  Fortunately, there is a middle way that affirms both parental rights and children’s rights.  Parents can and should uphold the basic rights of the child, but the state also has some rights with regard to the education of children.  While affirming the primacy of parental rights, this position must not be confused with the claim that parents have exclusive rights with regard to the education which their children receive.  Instead, there are multiple bases of authority, rights and responsibilities with regard to education; the state has some rights, teachers have some rights, and children themselves have some rights.

There are two qualifications to my argument for the primacy of parental rights which must betaken into account.  First, despite the fact that there have been some outlandish claims made with regard to children’s rights in the area of education, there is still something valid about the notion of children’s rights.  Children need to be cared for and loved; they need to be treated as persons; they should be recognized as unique; they need to be helped to grow toward maturity and independence.  Secondly, as children mature, they should have increasing input in their own education.  At a certain age, children should be permitted to refuse to go to the schools their parents would have them attend.  Within religious schools, too, students should increasingly be allowed to participate in decision-making with regard to the education that they receive.

3.  Argument from the nature of liberal education

Bruce Kimball, in his Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education (1986), describes two very different ideals of liberal education.  The first, which he calls the oratorical ideal of liberal education, is unashamedly committed to passing traditions on to younger generations.  The second, which he calls the liberal-free ideal of liberal education, understands liberal education in terms of liberation; education is supposed to free students from narrow prejudices and to cultivate open-mindedness.  This second ideal has gained dominance in contemporary thought, as exemplified by Charles Bailey, who writes: “A general liberal education is characterized most centrally by its liberating aspect indicated by the word ‘liberal’ … What it liberates the person from is the limitations of the present and the particular” (1984, 20).

Certainly, children do need to have their horizons broadened and to learn to think critically about what they have been taught.  Charles Bailey and others who focus only on the liberation aspect of liberal education, however, fail to address, adequately, the question as to how we acquire that from which need to be liberated.  They further forget that initiation precedes liberation.  They also fail to acknowledge the potential value of the particulars into which we are initiated.  This brings to the fore a fundamental, though problematic, assumption underlying Bailey’s definition of liberal education as liberation from the present and the particular.  Bailey views the present and the particular as a limitation, a restriction, and an impediment from which one must be liberated.  His view, however, heads in the wrong direction.  The present and the particular, the primary culture into which a child is initiated, is a very positive and healthy thing.  Indeed, various writers (e.g. Ackerman 1980) and many researchers have shown that children need a stable and coherent primary culture.

Therefore, a new paradigm of liberal education is needed which combines the oratorical ideal of liberal education with the more common liberal-free ideal of liberal education.  This new ideal of liberal education blends initiation with liberation; teaching for commitment with teaching for critical openness.  This paradigm does not see the oratorical and liberal-free ideals as opposites, but rather as complementary.

Unfortunately, our public schools simply cannot do justice to the initiation component of liberal education.  The variety of cultures, worldviews, and religions in modern society are too great to make this feasible.  At most, public schools can teach about various religious traditions, but this is not good enough for a healthy ideal of liberal education.  Thus, a plurality of schools is needed so that a child can be sent to the school which corresponds with his or her home environment.

Some might argue that the nurturing phase of liberal education belongs in the home and that parents already have five or six years during which their children may learn particular values before they reach school age.  A counter argument suggests that there needs to be continuity between the home and the school.  The radical disconnection between the home environment and the school environment could be traumatic for children.  Children’s exposure to “an endless and changing Babel of talk and behaviour” could harm them and prevent them from developing into autonomous citizens (Ackerman 1980, 141).  A plurality of schools helps to prevent this from happening by providing continuity between the classroom and the home.

Here there is a need to add one qualification to my argument.  Religious schools must ensure that they do, in fact, recognize the liberation phase of a liberal education.  Religious schools are often unfairly charged with indoctrination.  Only when teaching for commitment fails to be balanced against teaching for openness can the charge of indoctrination be levelled.  Indoctrination only occurs when children are not given the tools to question their heritage critically, or when they are prevented from achieving normal autonomy.  Religious schools must, therefore, take care to balance initiation and liberation, teaching for commitment with teaching for critical openness.

A few practical suggestions on how to balance religious education in religious schools with other educational objectives might include the following:

i.   Religious teachers at religious schools need to be honest and authentic about their convictions and their desire to share these convictions, while enabling their students to consider these commitments freely and critically.

ii.   Religious education at religious schools should be seen as involving both initiation into a particular religion and openness to other traditions (especially as students become older).

iii.   Balanced religious education should attempt to foster cognitive growth in a rational grounding of religious convictions in atmosphere of honest grappling with criticism and doubt.

iv.   Religious education in religious schools needs to maintain an appropriate balance between the student’s psychological need for stability and the educational objective of growth beyond the secure primary culture.

v.   Religious education in religious schools needs to balance the affirmation of the existence of Absolute Truth with a commitment to humbly search for the Truth.

4.  Argument from liberal and civic virtues

Some virtues are essential to any liberal democracy:  the ability to understand others, the ability to communicate, the ability to cooperate, and the ability to cope with differences.  How do you best nurture these essential liberal and civic virtues?  It is often argued that state-maintained common schools are best able to accomplish this task by providing an environment in which children from diverse backgrounds might play together, converse with one another, learn together, and thus acquire virtues of great importance in a liberal democracy.  I should like to make the case that a system of educational pluralism is better able to cultivate civic virtues that are essential to a liberal democracy, especially the virtues of tolerance and deliberation.

As I teach ethics each year, in the context of a secular college, I ask myself: How do I provide a justification for the ethical values that I think are essential for any society?  How do I inspire my students to live according to those values?  Liberal theorists like John Rawls and Stephen Macedo would ask students and teachers within a common school to adopt a kind of epistemological neutrality, to “bracket” their ultimate commitments when liberal/democratic values are being discussed, and to limit themselves to a “public reasonableness.”  It is very difficult, however, to achieve a neutral public rationality; indeed, various writers today maintain that there simply is no such a thing.  Civic education based only on public reasonableness further requires a kind of intellectual schizophrenia from students and teachers.  It forces them to leave behind their most cherished beliefs in public discussions.

By contrast, consider what can happen at a religious school.  Here, civic values can be integrated with religious values, and so have a foundation.  Civic values can be given a particular justification within the context of a particular community that reinforces these values, both theoretically and practically.  There is a growing realization in the field of ethics that what is needed today is character formation, not just a theoretical discussion of abstract moral principles.  Virtue ethics maintains that moral character and identity can be developed only within the context of a specific community through shared practices, covenants, and symbolic meanings.  Such character formation is best developed within the context of particularist schools in a system of educational pluralism.

Amy Gutmann argues that schools should not only be concerned with cultivating an appreciation of cultural diversity, but should also teach students “how to engage together in respectful discussions in which they strive to understand, appreciate, and if possible resolve political disagreements that are partly rooted in cultural differences” (1996, 160).  How do we nurture such tolerance, a key liberal virtue, in the best way possible?  Intolerance invariably grows out of a sense of insecurity.  People who are comfortable with themselves as persons can afford to be generous with those who differ from them.  A stable and coherent primary culture is essential for children to develop the sense of identity that is in turn a prerequisite for developing tolerant and loving relationships with others.  James Banks, in a review of existing theory and research concerning ethnic behaviour in Western societies, underlines this point; “understanding and relating positively to self is a requisite to understanding and relating positively to other groups and people,” Banks argues (1985, 138).

A school that reflects a child’s cultural or religious heritage will be able to provide a safe and secure environment from which the child can gradually become aware of, and learn to tolerate, difference.  This conclusion is supported in an important study of Catholic schools by Anthony Bryk et al (1993).  Lois Sweet, in her book God in the Classroom, provides a poignant illustration of this theoretical and empirical generalization.  Esther Enkin believes that the very survival of the Jewish people depends on Jewish children getting a Jewish education and she is determined to pass on her Jewish identity to her daughter.  Enkin sends her daughter to Hebrew Day School despite knowing how important it is to teach children about living together.  “But there’s a paradox,” she says, “the more I teach her who she is, then the better she can live with others” (Sweet 1997, 112).

In giving these arguments, I am making the important assumption that each school within a system of educational pluralism will, in fact, be teaching the virtues of understanding, tolerance, cooperation, deliberation.  From a liberal point of view there are some tensions in thinking that religious schools can teach a virtue like tolerance.  For example, does not the exclusive stance taken by some religions preclude the nurturing of tolerance in students?  Is it not intolerant to label other religious beliefs as false?  Here we are up against a misunderstanding about the nature of tolerance.  Tolerance has been taken to mean tolerating, accepting, enduring, bearing, putting up with each others’ differences.  According to some liberals, liberal societies need a more thorough acceptance of differences, an acceptance that precludes criticism.  Ultimately, this attitude is itself very intolerant.  We cannot demand of a religious school that it adopt a relativistic stance with regard to its own religious commitment.  Instead, we need to admit that there are fundamental differences between members of a pluralistic society.  It is precisely because we disagree with each other that we need to be tolerant.

Tolerance has to do more with our relationship with persons than with their particular beliefs.  Different people have very different beliefs, and we simply cannot seem to overcome these differences in belief.  Tolerance is the praxis of respect for a person whose beliefs or understandings differ from your own.  Indeed, it requires that I defend your right to hold beliefs that differ from my own.  We disagree about our beliefs, but we respect each other as persons who hold these beliefs.

It might be argued that I am restricting the notion of tolerance too much.  Surely tolerance means that I respect not only persons who disagree with me, but also the beliefs that they hold.  But, what does it mean to “respect” another’s beliefs?  Although tolerance does not preclude criticizing another’s beliefs, we need to pay careful attention to the way in which we express our disagreement.  It is only disrespectful disagreement that should be labeled as intolerant.  Thus, there is no problem with religious schools teaching that other religions are false, but ridicule, satire, and misrepresentation of these religions are wrong and intolerant.

I would like to pursue one other civic virtue, that of deliberation.  In a recent essay entitled, “Discrimination and Religious Schooling” (2000), Eamonn Callan argues that education should prepare students for life in a “deliberative democracy,” in which diverse views are voiced and collectively evaluated, and in which all citizens have a part in making, applying, and revising societal norms (64).  This leads him to worry about religious schools because such schools do not lend themselves to a sufficiently open-ended discourse.  “For example, ” Callan writes, “if we want inclusive deliberation on the standing of gays and lesbians in the polity and civil society, then a deliberative arena in which all take it for granted that homosexual sex is sinful, and therefore reprehensible, does not fit the bill” (64).

I would argue that there is nothing to stop a religious school from putting alternate positions with regard to homosexuality on the table, thus practicing inclusive deliberation.  Callan fails to take into account the fact that religious groups are never completely homogeneous.  Differences of opinion will arise even within the classroom of a religious school and deliberative skills will be developed even there.  Of course, Callan will complain that even though both positions are put on the table, a religious school will still endorse only the one position, and hence it is not really inclusive.  He assumes, however, that it is possible in public schools to teach in such a way as not to endorse a position.  Even if common schools try to remain neutral, there will be an implicit, if not explicit, suggestion that there are a variety of equally valid positions with regard to sexual ethics.  To suggest this is to advocate a particular position.

Callan admits that some disagreements between reasonable people about what is good and right are simply irreconcilable (1995, 261-2).  It would seem that the issues of homosexual sex and same-sex marriage are examples of this kind of disagreement.  Callan forgets that when dealing with deep, irreconcilable differences, the aim of deliberation is not to gain agreement about the differing “convictions” about what is good and right, or to assess the reasonableness of the convictions themselves (1995, 264).  Instead, the aim of deliberation is merely to find a sufficient degree of consensus concerning how to live together in peace and harmony despite our differing convictions.

Where do we draw the boundaries, concerning what is taught about homosexuality and same-sex marriage in religious schools?  I want to suggest a few guidelines:

i.   Religious schools must be allowed to teach and advocate that which is in keeping with their religious and moral convictions concerning sexuality and marriage.

ii.   The curriculum and the teaching in religious schools should include exposure to other viewpoints with regard to homosexuality and marriage, which would vary depending on the grade level being taught.

iii.   Religious schools must distinguish between sexual behavior that they label as wrong, and the need for respect for persons, regardless of their behaviour.

iv.   Religious schools need to teach students to engage in respectful disagreement over controversial issues like sexual ethics.

5.  Unity argument

How does one foster and maintain unity within a society?  This is an agonizing question for many countries of the world today, including Canada and, more specifically, Quebec.  Fear of fragmentation underlies the brief of the Comité sur les affaires religieuses to the Quebec Minister of Education in 2004.  This brief sees the emerging model of a secular school as a more suitable response to a social context marked by the complexity and diversity of religion within society.  It maintains that programs of teaching about religion, and citizenship education are “all the more necessary since adherence to a particular group or belief system can be a source of tension in a pluralist society” (2).  Yes, adherence to a particular group or belief system can be a source of tension, but it need not be.  Indeed, in a recent article, Philip Barnes argues that religious schools have made significant contributions to unity and harmony in Northern Ireland (2005).

This might not seem to be a uniquely liberal argument, but remember that liberalism is universalist and affirms the moral unity of the species.  Remember also that classic liberalism grew out of the attempt to found a united state on a non-religious basis, due to the experience of religious wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Modern liberalism, too, is concerned with finding ways to overcome the deep differences that tend to separate people.  The question of unity has always been a key consideration when initiating a state-maintained system of schools that offer a liberal education.  For example, in his book The Myth of the Common School, Charles Glenn maintains that social cohesion was of more importance than purely educational concerns in the founding of American public schools.  At the heart of what Glenn calls “the common school agenda,” there was, and continues to be, “the deliberate effort to create in the entire youth of a nation common attitudes, loyalties, and values, and to do so under the central direction of the state” (Glenn 1988, 4).

In general, liberalism has tended to focus on recognizing the diversity of individuals, rather than the diversity of groups.  This has frequently led to a criticism of liberalism as being too individualistic.  I think it is fair to say that there is an increasing recognition that we need to pay more attention to group diversity.  We need to acknowledge the importance of particular group identities, whether these are ethnic or religious.  And when these particular group identities are given proper recognition, then we will achieve a healthy level of unity within a society.  The key to promoting harmony within pluralistic democracies is to acknowledge and respect the deeply held cultural and religious differences that exist within our society, not just among individuals, but also among groups.  The recognition of group identities, whether ethnic or religious, ultimately entails a system of educational pluralism, in which schools reflect the differing religious/ethnic identities that exist within a society.

A state-maintained system of common schools that attempts to bring about social cohesion via government decree is, in fact, counter-productive.  This is the central theme of Stephen Arons’ description of the culture of American schooling (1986).  After a careful analysis of a variety of conflicts and court cases over the control of orthodoxy in the American public school system, Arons concludes that “nothing is more certain to fragment a community than the public coercion of private decisions” (1986, 194).  Indeed, in repressing dissenting values, “seeds of future consensus and social cohesion,” the very goals so often used to defend state-maintained and controlled schools, are destroyed (196).

James Skillen argues that just as ecclesiastical disestablishment brought about unity, so, too, will the disestablishment of educational state-monopolies (1994, 92).  The works of Charles Glenn provide extensive documentation of the positive effects of educational pluralism for pluralistic societies (1988; 1989; 1995).  Allowing for schools that are expressions of cultural and religious traditions, while ensuring that these schools teach liberal/democratic values, will do much more to create harmony within a pluralistic society than the imposition of liberal values and multicultural programs within a school environment that is alien to students from minority cultural or religious traditions

I conclude by noting that in making a liberal case for educational pluralism I have had to address some tensions that seem to exist between liberalism or liberal values, and  religious commitment or the kind of education that occurs in religious schools. In each of my arguments I have made some important qualifications to address these tensions.  My approach is similar to that of Amy Gutmann who argues that there is a need for mutual adjustment between liberal values and the particular values held by various religions (1996, 165).  This means that when religious parents send their children to school, they need to be open to having the thinking of their children changed in the light of liberal democratic values that must be taught in all schools.  At the same time, it must be acknowledged that liberal democratic values too might need to change in the light of the beliefs and values of various conservative religions. Here I want to distance myself from what I like to call “liberal fundamentalism,” – a thick version of liberalism which is narrow and dogmatic. What is needed here is a thin version of liberalism, the only kind of liberalism which I believe is philosophically defensible.  A thin version of liberalism keeps the demand for agreement between competing values systems to a minimum.  What is absolutely essential is that we learn somehow to live together despite our deep moral differences.  I believe that a system of educational pluralism can contribute to such harmony within a multi-cultural and multi-religious society.

Endnote

* Although there is some dispute about the essence of liberalism, I believe, with John Gray (1995), that there is as an identifiable strand of thought and practice which can be traced to the seventeenth century.  Common and central liberal values include the following: individualism, rationality, freedom, autonomy, tolerance, equality, stress on universal human nature, liberal education, liberal democracy, finding unity midst diversity, and the improvability of human life through the use of critical reason.

Works Cited and Selective Bibliography:

Ackermann, Bruce. 1980.  Social Justice in the Liberal State.  New Haven:  Yale University Press.

Arons, Stephen. 1986.  Compelling Belief:  The Culture of American Schooling.  University of Massachusetts Press.

Bailey, C. 1984.  Beyond the Present and the Particular: A Theory of Liberal Education.  London: Routledge.

Banks, J.A. 1985.  “Ethnic Revitalization Movements and Education.”  Educational Review, 37(2):131-139.

Barnes, Philip. 2005.  “Religion, Education, and Conflict in Northern Ireland.”  Journal of Belief & Values, 26(2):123-38.

Bryk, Anthony, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B. Holland. 1993.  Catholic Schools and the Common Good.  Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Callan, Eamonn. 1995. “Common Schools for Common Education.”  In Canadian Journal of Education, 20(3): 251-271.

_________________. 2000.  “Discrimination and Religious Schooling.”  In Citizenship in Diverse Societies, ed. Will Kymlicka & Wayne Norman, 45-67.  New York:   NY: Oxford University Press.

 Comité sur les affaires religieuses.  “Religious Education in the Schools: Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Choice.”  Brief to the Minister of Education Abridged             Version.  March 2004.

Crittenden, Brian. 1988.  Parents, the State and the Right to Educate.  Melbourne University Press.

Dwyer, James G. 1998.  Religious Schools v. Children’s Rights.  Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Gilles, Stephen G. 1996.  “On Educating Children:  A Parentalist Manifesto.”  The University of Chicago Law Review, 63(3):937-1034.

Glenn, Charles Leslie. 1988.  The Myth of the Common School.  Amherst:  The University of Massachusetts Press.

_________________. 1989.  Choice of Schools in Six Nations.  Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

_________________. 1995.  Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe.  Washington, DC: Cato Institute.

Gray, John. 1995.  Liberalism. 2nd. ed.  Minneapolis:  University of Minnesota Press.

Gutmann, Amy, ed. 1994.  Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition.  Princeton University Press.

Gutmann, Amy. 1996.  “Challenges of Multiculturalism in Democratic Education.”  In Public Education in a Multi-cultural Society:  Policy, Theory, Critique, ed. Robert K. Fullinwider, 156-179.  Cambridge University Press.

Kimball, Bruce A. 1986.  Orators and Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education.  New York: Teachers College Press.

Macedo, Stephen. 1990.  Liberal Values;  Citizenship, Virtue and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism.  Oxford:  Clarendon Press.

Mill, John Stuart. 1978.   On Liberty.  Indianapolis:  Hackett.

Sandel, Michael, 1996.  Democracy’s Discontent:  America in Search of a Public Philosophy.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.

Skillen, James W. 1994.  Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism for Genuine Civic Community.  Grand Rapids:  Baker Books.

Rawls, John. 1993.  Political Liberalism.  New York: Columbia University Press.

Sweet, Lois.  1997.  God in the Classroom:  The Controversial Issue of Religion in Canada’s Schools.  Toronto:  McClelland & Stewart.

Thiessen, Elmer John. 1993.  Teaching for Commitment:  Liberal Education, Indoctrination and Christian Nurture.  Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

_________________.  2001.  In Defence of Religious Schools and Colleges.  McGill-Queen’s University Press.

United Nations.  1948.  Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Those who are familiar with Winnie the Pooh might recognize and appreciate the profundity of the above statement made by Eeyore, the melancholy philosopher.  We don’t like to believe there are such things as accidents and it is only after we have had an accident that we somewhat reluctantly are forced to acknowledge their reality.

It would seem that we as Christians have even more difficulty than others in facing up to the reality of accidents.  After all, we believe in divine providence.  Nothing happens by chance.  “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28).

The difficulty with this is that so much of life seems to be governed by chance.  We experience accidents.  Some people die of cancer, others don’t.  Some parents have children who are born healthy, while others must experience the pain and heartache of abnormalities.  Hail hits one farmer’s field, but misses the field right beside it.

This same problem is described so well in the poetry of Ecclesiastes.  “The race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong.”  The wise and learned aren’t always recognized and rewarded as they deserve.  “But, time and chance happen to them all.”  Some men get “trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.”  And all of us have to face the uncertainty of life.  “No man knows when his hour will come” (9:11-12).

The writer of Ecclesiastes, however, clearly indicates that there is another perspective from which we must view the seemingly accidental events of life.  Ultimately, what we do is in God’s hands (9:1).  It is God who has made both the times that are good and the times that are bad (7:14).

Christians believe in divine providence.  I want to suggest, however, that it is important for us somehow to do justice to the earthly dimension of our daily experience.  Here we find that much of life seems to be a matter of time and chance, even for the Christian.  We do have accidents.  Even if we believe in God, there still seems to be a chance component to life and we need to face up to this aspect of our experience.

The book of Ecclesiastes is instructive in that it interprets the events of our lives from both points of view.  From a human perspective, an accident is a matter of time and chance.  But there is another perspective – our times are in God’s hands.  Thus, in the passages referred to earlier, we find the writer of Ecclesiastes moving easily from talk about God to talk about chance, and even about accepting our lot in life (Ecc. 5:19).

He also explains why it is that life seems to be a matter of time and chance from a human perspective.  As finite human beings we cannot understand “the scheme of things” (7:24-28).  We are never in a position to see the total pattern of our lives.  It is because we see through a glass darkly that accidents seem to be the result of chance.  Really they aren’t, but they still appear to be so from our finite vantage point.

An honest recognition of the fact that much of life seems to be a matter of time and chance not only has scriptural warrant, but it is also the key to avoiding some very practical dangers.  The chief danger is that of pride.  We are constantly tempted to think that we are in complete control of our lives, that we no longer need to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are not as secure as we think; that much of our life is beyond our control; that we are completely dependent on our Father in heaven.  The best antidote to pride is a mind-set that acknowledges the chance component to life.

This mind-set will further help us to cope with the tragedies of life.  Accidents are difficult to take, especially for those Christians who tend to focus more on God’s love and care, and who thus demand that each event of their life must make sense and fit into a pattern.  The problem is that we cannot see the total pattern, and to pretend that we do will only lead to frustration and despair.  The best preparation for accidents is to be in a frame of mind where we acknowledge the possibility of the unexpected.

A balanced emphasis on both divine providence and chance will finally help those of us who tend to be a little too cautious in life.  If life is not entirely predictable, we are encouraged to venture forth in our tasks boldly.  Just as a farmer sows his seed in spring, even though he is not guaranteed a crop, so we too must act in faith and risk things for God (Ecc. 11:6).

(This blog first appeared as an article in “A Christian Mind” column, in the Mennonite Brethren Herald, May 7, 1982, and is here slightly revised.)

Another accommodation for dog-lovers – an off-leash dog park, so dogs can run freely as they were meant to do.  But, should we even have dogs in the city?  And why do we have dogs?  Not only one, but two or three dogs per family.

Perhaps we keep them for security reasons.  A dog barking in a house or a yard certainly has a way of discouraging a would be burglar.  But, have we deteriorated so far in our society that we need dogs to protect our property?

Perhaps we need dogs for personal safety.  I am sure that a woman feels a lot safer walking in an isolated park if she has a large dog with her.  But again, isn’t this a sad commentary on our society.

Perhaps we need dogs for companionship.  Given the depersonalization of our society, our reliance on virtual relationships on the internet, there is nothing like a dog right beside you, wagging its tail furiously, asking for your attention, and giving you all the attention that you crave.

I want to dare to suggest that our love of dogs is a symptom of a sick society.  Perhaps we need to spend some time addressing this sickness before we create off-leash dog parks in our fair city.

I have often felt badly about my inefficiency, and thus I was most interested when a friend told me that Jacques Ellul dealt with this problem in his book, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man (Eerdmans, 1972). 

In this series of meditations on II Kings, Ellul explains why inefficiency is deplored today.  Ours is a technological society.  We value people, and even more, machines which can get a lot accomplished with a minimum of effort and energy.  Efficiency is also at the heart of capitalism.  The more efficiently and cheaply an item can be produced, the more profit can be made.  Generally we are governed by vision of what is great and powerful and effective.

Ellul goes on to show that efficiency is not necessarily a virtue.  With God it is not efficiency, but faithfulness that really matters.

There are two kinds of kings found in the Old Testament, according to Ellul – those who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done,” and those who followed David and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  What is somewhat disturbing is that those kings who were faithful to God often met defeat, while those who were cruel and disobedient to God often were highly successful monarchs.  From man’s point of view, the disobedient kings must surely be rated the more efficient.  But God is strangely unimpressed.  He is more concerned with faithfulness, even though this leads to failure from a human point of view.

The account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness also has something to say about efficiency.  Jesus is about to begin his ministry, and the tempter, who is well acquainted with efficient ways to get things done in the world, offers him some advice.  An efficient way to get a hearing from the masses would be to satisfy their physical needs – give them bread.  But, Jesus chooses a less efficient method – proclaiming the Word of God.

To do the spectacular, like throwing oneself down from the temple, would be an efficient means of getting people’s attention (how much more so if it could be televised!).  But Jesus prefers a less spectacular approach, and consistently tells those whom he has miraculously healed not to spread the news.  An efficient way to gain all the kingdoms of the world would be to bow down to Satan, to adopt his tactics, to exercise power, or to use forceful means. But instead, Jesus chooses the way of the cross, a way that seems foolish and hopelessly inefficient.

One of the greatest temptations of the church today is to be efficient rather than faithful to God and his Word.  It may be more efficient to run a church like a business corporation, but is this being faithful to God’s Word?  Hiring consultants to run a slick campaign to raise money for church projects might be efficient, but would our Lord be impressed?  The electronic church might be more efficient that the pre-electronic church, but is it faithful to the even more old-fashioned model of the church instituted by Christ?

Paul warns us to be careful how we build the church (I Cor. 3:10-15).  There are some methods that might be efficient but they might also be unworthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Only if the church is built by those means that are faithful to its foundation, which is Jesus Christ, will it survive.  Efficiency at the expense of faithfulness always falls under God’s judgment. 

(This blog first appeared as an article in “A Christian Mind” column, in the Mennonite Brethren Herald, March 12, 1982, and is here slightly revised.)

Free Election Advice from a Philosopher!

(posted on Facebook by Elmer John Thiessen, April 25, 2011.

In election campaigns where all too often irrationality sadly reigns, there is one rational principle that I believe should govern the way we vote.  Vote against the party that is in power. Why is this a rational principle?  Because power corrupts.  This means that any party that has been in power for a while will be well along the road towards increasing corruption. The fundamental way to stop such a virus is to vote against the party in power.  Indeed, this is one of the key advantages of a democracy.  Citizens can remove politicians and parties that are inevitably becoming corrupt. In the present Canadian context it is therefore incumbent on Canadian citizens who care about democracy, and who are rational and moral, to vote against the Harper government.  

If the objection is raised that the Liberal party is equally susceptible to corruption, I quite agree.  Prior to the Conservatives coming to power we had a long reign of the Liberal party – far too long. Scandals abounded.  The Liberal government should have been turfed out long before it was finally defeated.  Let’s not again make the mistake of waiting so long.  Vote.  And vote against the Conservative government.  It is the only way to put a temporary stop to the all too evident abuses of power.

Response by Dennis Fenrick on April 30: 

Oh how the great has fallen… I didn’t realize that you had moved THAT far from Alberta.;

Actually, I’ve thought for some time that a ‘perpetual change’ policy may be a good idea, but my fear is that it would only lead to the newly elected party becoming corrupt more quickly. 

You suggest that ‘Power Corrupts’ is not only a common notion, but actually an inevitable result – a law. If that is true, and IF corruption is bad, it would be logical to not only vote AGAINST the party that is in power, but to actually pick the partly that is most likely to be the slowest to become corrupt. Does that suggest that we should vote for the dumbest or least organized party? If so, it also suggests that we have to consider the Initial Corruption Level (ICL) within the party.

So, it looks like we’re down to either Green or the BLOC.

Since the BLOC has the highest ICL (or at least the most insidious policies towards the rest of Canada), I guess we’re stuck with Green.

It shouldn’t be too hard a sell in Saskatchewan, the home of the REAL Roughriders.

 Response by Elmer Thiessen on May 1, 2011: 

Dennis, I haven’t really fallen that far! I said the same sort of thing even while I was living in Alberta. But you raise some interesting additional factors that need to be taken into account with regard to the corrupting influence of power in relation to voting. Maybe you and I should write a book on this!

 Response by Dennis Fenrick on May 2, 2011: 

I’m not sure that I’m smart enough to even READ one of your books let alone become a co-author; I’m very flattered!

If we can agree that we should vote for the party with the lowest Future Corruption Level, we can assess each party with the following formula:

 FCL = ICL + dC/dT*T

 Where:

FCL = Future Corruption Level

ICL = Initial Corruption Level 

(arbitrarily let’s set this to a scale of 1-10)

dC/dT = Rate of Corruption
(Change of Corruption / Change in Time)

(again, set this from 1-10)

T = Expected Time in power.

Since reading your free advice, I’ve done a little research (OK… VERY little research) into some of the other registered parties and suggest that if you agree with the logic, you should vote for the Western Block Party for the following reasons:

1. Their ICL is likely pretty low (1) since they’ve never held ANY power as far as I can tell.

2. Their rate of becoming corrupt is likely very low (1)
You can tell from the video that the leader doesn’t have the drive to do anything very rapidly, the least of which is to become more corrupt.

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghl2QWak070

(This video actually put me to sleep after watching on the first few minutes.)

3. The likelihood that they would get into power is virtually zero.

Therefore,  FCL = 1 + 1*0

Future Corruption Level = 1

For these reasons, if it isn’t too late, I encourage you to vote for the Western Block Party — The fact that it sounds like a gathering with some friends over a steak and a few beers is merely a bonus.

Happy Election Day.

Response by Elmer Thiessen on May 2, 2011:

 Alas, but you are too late. I have already voted and I doubt very much that the election officers will allow me to dig out my ballot from the ballot box and then revote. Besides I don’t think the Western Party was on my ballot. I am after all now living in the enlightened eastern part of Canada. I think there was a communist candidate, so you really need to do the calculations for him. But, it is all too late in any case.

I am very impressed with your forumula. The precision is absolutely amazing! And you should realize that with our combined notes, we are already well on the way to completing a book on this vital subject. My books tend to be too long and obtuse in any case, so with your help, we might be able to achieve a book length treatment of this important innovative political principle sooner than you realize. So, give it some more thought. Perhaps our next step should be some work on a copyright! Have a good evening watching the results of the election. I suppose Alberta will once again behave like a herd of lemmings and all vote in exactly the same way!

 Response by Dennis Fenrick on May 2:

 … as far as being enlightend….

Although you may be living in the enlightened part of the country*, I don’t think your personal transformation is complete.   …

Dennis Changing-My-Name-To-Flemming (the ‘F’ is silent)

*citation required.

Another note from Elmer Thiessen to Dennis Fenrick written on May 3, 2011: 

Ah yes, what a sad day for Canada. I hope you heard Ignatieff’s speech last night. That must have been the most gracious, elegant, and noble “acceptance of defeat” speech ever delivered in the history of Canada. I am praying for the man. I will miss him. He gave by far the best performance in this election campaign. And Stephen Harper – well, he will eventually have to face his Maker and give account of his destroying a good man with his attack ads. How cruel. How undemocratic. How unchristian. And Jack Layton? Well, if a young snippet of a girl can win on an NDP ticket even though she was on a holiday in the Caribbean during the campaign, it tells a lot about the Quebec sweep by the NDP. We need to be careful not to take this NDP win too seriously. The sad thing about this phenomenon is that with this election we are moving closer to the the U.S. and its polarization of the right and the left. We will never get back to a genuine deliberative democracy again. How terribly sad.

Response by Dennis on May 3:

I very much enjoyed Ignatieff’s speech. It WAS very gracious and noble, and it’s a shame that he had to give it. In fact, it’s a shame for Canada and especially the Liberal party that he was even given the chance to give such a speech. I’m afraid I could never really trust anything that the self- proclaimed Labour voting American Democrat said. From the most recent and justifiable flip-flop between “I will remain Leader” on 1 May and his resignation today, to some of his former lies, and obvious contempt for Canada, I think he did a huge disservice to his country and his party that cost us millions of dollars. Funny you should mention the young snippet of a girl — Do you suppose that Quebec took your initial advice and simply voted AGAINST the incumbent, or do you think that they actually followed through with the rest of the formula?  It’s funny that someone like that is exactly who Michael Ignatieff hopes will lead his party… “There must be someone out there, possible in the room this morning and possibly watching on television, who looks at me and thinks, ‘He didn’t get there, but I will,” Ignatieff said. “And I just hope that that person, possibly a woman, possibly a young woman, I hope it is a young woman, will hold true to that dream of public life and public service. It’s what I believed in. It’s what I’ve always believed in.”

http://www.facebook.com/l/0b419/www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-michael-ignatieff-steps-down/article2008363/?utm_content=2008363&utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=News”

Response by Elmer on May 5:

Ah yes, you and I disagree about Ignatieff.  But why?  This is what intrigues me.  You and I have heard the same speeches, witnessed the same events, we are both reasonably intelligent people, both Christians, read the same bible, and yet we interpret recent events differently, and evaluate Ignatieff in radically different ways.  There must be some deeper differences at work here, which we need to explore.  For example, I fail to see that Ignatieff holds Canada in contempt.  You are very hard on his “flop-flop” regarding his resignation, and I am quite able to understand this, even “forgive” him on this.  After all, what is a leader supposed to say just after the election results are in, and before he realizes that he himself has been defeated. I would expect denial of intent to resign at a public level, even though he may have had some different private thoughts, and I’m not sure I would even call it a “lie”.  I do fault him for making this election necessary, but even here I am more generous than you, because Harper surely wasn’t making too many attempts to cooperate with the other parties.  So is it fair to blame Ignatieff alone for the millions of dollars spent on this election?

One question:  You didn’t at all comment on my assessment of Harper’s attack ads.  Do you agree with my assessment?  If not, why not?

Why do we disagree so profoundly?  Why do Christians disagree so profoundly regarding political matters?  That is what intrigues me.  Maybe a continuing dialogue will help me to answer these questions.

Have a good day.

Response by Dennis on May 7:

Hi again Elmer, I think you may give me too much credit. I got into this because it seemed like some fun, good-natured ribbing. But knowing you as I do, I should have expected that eventually it would become a serious conversation, AND that I would have to start thinking. You darn Philosophers… always spoilin’ for an argument.  I bet you heard more of Iggy’s speeches, and have likely paid much more attention to them than I have. Generally, (and I know it’s shameful) I’m relatively poorly informed regarding the Canadian political scene. I still don’t have TV, so I get most of my news from the internet. Depending on how busy I am, or where my current interests are, I’m not usually as up-to-date as are many around me who are subject to the 24 hour news cycle or the sound bites that pepper normal television. Unless I’m travelling and staying in a hotel, I don’t get the privilege of seeing many commercials, including the Conservative attack ads, so my lack of comments on Harper’s attack ads were only because I felt woefully uninformed. Once again, back to the internet….give me a second….

OK, I just did a Google search for the terms  harper attack ads  and found this

http://www.facebook.com/l/7a98d/www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/954917–new-liberal-attack-ads-target-harper-s-contempt-for-canadians as the first hit.

I’m not sure that Harper and his crew really have a monopoly on mud-slinging. In fact it was Layton who, in the English debate, said to Ignatieff something like, “Most Canadians know that they have to show up for work if they want to get a promotion. Where were you? You missed 70% of the Votes.” I just don’t think Iggy was so soundly defeated just because Harper was able to sway the gullible voters; he lost his position simply because most people thought that he didn’t earn it.

I’m not sure why, but I can’t see my last message to you, so I don’t remember exactly how I worded everything, but I didn’t think that I came down TOO hard on the ‘flip-flop’. In fact, I think I said that I thought it was justifiable. OK, maybe calling it a lie was a little harsh, but it was only to illustrate the most recent and memorable occurrence of Ignatieff’s public change-of-story.

A couple more examples were eluded to by my ‘Labour voting American Democrat’ comment. I guess what I find most distasteful, is the fact that in both of these cases, he publically lied about things that shouldn’t really matter. Ignatieff has claimed he that he never voted in a foreign country, yet he told the Glasgo Herald in 2004, “I am an American Democrat. I will vote for Kerry in November.” In “Identity and Politics: A Discussion with Michael Ignatieff and Sean Neeson”, he said that in 1997 he voted Labour because, “I wanted the rascals out.” Now, this isn’t to start an argument about whether it is right or wrong to vote elsewhere; in either of these cases, I don’t really care. The point is, he lied about it, unnecessarily. It makes me wonder if it was compulsively.

That is not to say that I think that Steven Harper is sinless. Maybe I’m biased (possibly), or maybe I’m ill-informed (likely), or maybe I’ve just been living in Alberta facing away from the sun too long (definitely), but I think Harper may do a good job. In the last five years, because he has had to appeal to (and make deals with) those trying to overthrow him, he was forced to abandon or compromise some of his promises. I’m sure many people think that that makes him as much a liar as Ignatieff, and maybe they are right, but I don’t think so. Hopefully, now that he has a majority and can actually govern the way that he always intended, he will be able to keep the promises that he made when he was first elected. If nothing else, over the next four years, Canada will see his true colours and we’ll know if we made a mistake or not. I think THAT will be a welcome change from the posturing, compromising, and campaigning that we’ve been subject to over the last five years. Ignatieff may be right when he says the best thing for the Liberal party will be a Conservative Government with an NDP opposition, but I doubt it.

At the risk of bringing up another potential sore point, and as a bit of an aside…. Ralph Klein had the same types of promises when he first ran in Alberta. Somewhat different than Harper, he was wildly lauded before he was elected, but when he started to actually implement the changes that he promised, many Albertans were shocked and angry. The fact is, he was elected with a pretty simple platform…. reduce the size of the Government, eliminate the deficit, then eliminate the debt. He followed that plan swiftly and immediately. The belt-tightening caused much wailing, but after several years of doing exactly what he was elected to do, when the books were in order, the money started flowing again back into health care and then back into education. You may not have appreciated him personally, but I think he was honest, and he did the job he was hired to do. I hope Harper can do the same thing — (OK, not ALL of the same things. He doesn’t need to get gassed and yell at the homeless.)

Getting back to your questions about disagreement, “Why do we disagree?”  Well, I think for many years, it has been my nature and it has been your job!  Don’t philosophers live for a good argument? All kidding aside, there is nothing like a good argument to encourage learning. Even in this (hopefully) light-hearted discussion, I’ve spent a few hours pouring through websites looking for information to support my opinions. Of course, in those searches, I’ve had to endure much information that contradicts my personal beliefs, (I won’t send you those links) but even in these few days, I’ve become more aware of who our leaders are.

Further you ask, “Why do Christians disagree so profoundly regarding political matters?” You don’t think that it is only in political matters do you? Even though Christians are SUPPOSED to be ‘set apart’, I think we are just as opinionated as anyone else. Whether it’s Conservative vs Liberal, or Arminianism vs. Calvinism, we all seem to have an opinion. When some of us are actually foolish enough to think that our opinions should matter to someone else, sometimes sparks start to fly.

This is kinda fun…. thanks Elmer.

Response by Elmer on May 9:

 I am so glad that I made you think!! This has been a delightful conversation, and yes, it was meant to be light-hearted, though with just a tiny effort to be a little serious! I have really been doing quite a bit of thinking about the fact that Christians disagree about many things, including politics. I am enough of a rationalist to think that ideally, if we as Christians share the same commitment to Jesus, and read the same Scriptures, and if we are reasonably intelligent, then surely we should be able to come to agreement on things. So, I am genuinely trying to come to a better understanding of this problem. By the way, the Roman Catholic journal First Things has an excellent article/editorial on this very issue in the last issue. It is well worth reading –

 http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/ideology-and-transcendence

Question:  I really believe our bantering about the election merits a wider audience.  I enjoyed reading your refinements om my rational principles of voting against the party in power.  Woul you be at allavers to my putting our exchange on my blog?   I would want to do some editing to eliminate some of the commetns that are of a more personal nature, and I would want you to have a look at the changes I make and approve of the final draft before I publishe it on my blog.  Tell me what you think – and please be honest. This is instead of a book length treatment of  the topic!!

 I wish we could get together for a visit. Do drop by if you are ever in Ontario.

Response by Dennis on May 9:

Hi again Elmer, I’m glad you made me think too, and I’ll definitely look at the article you posted. I’m honored that you think our exchange is worth sharing. As it is, this is a fairly public forum — at least as far as our facebook friend list goes. I was surprised that in the last few days, several people have mentioned that they have been following this thread. If you want to clean it up for a more public consumption, I have no objection. I haven’t given much thought to why Christians disagree so I won’t comment now. I guess I just expected that since we all have our own (sometimes stupid) opinions, we will likely disagree on things. It is an interesting question, though. I will definitely read the linked article and give it some thought.

on their treatment of truth

in Colossians Remixed (InterVarsity Press, 2004)

This is written as a personal letter to Brian and Sylvia, based on a letter I actually sent to them shortly after their book came out.  In part I take this approach because I know Brian, and have dialogued with him on occasion.  Also, I think it is important for us as scholars to model critical and loving dialogue.  This letter will focus primarily on Part II of  Colossians Remixed, where the authors deal with the topic of truth. 

 Dear Brian and Sylvia:

Brian, I know that you have been wrestling with the epistemological implications of post-modernism for quite some time.  In 1995 you wrote Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be, co-authored with J. Richard Middleton (IVP).  I studied this book carefully and benefited enormously from your treatment of  “biblical faith in a postmodern age,” a phrase you used as the subtitle of this book.  I found myself in essential agreement with your critique of modernism.  You want to affirm the insights of post-modernism while avoiding the relativism that often follows such an affirmation.  Again early in Colossians Remixed you explicitly say that you are not relativists (p.48).  But, it seems to me that you have not quite overcome the relativism that invariably seems to accompany post-modernism.  You use an imaginary critic to raise some possible criticisms of your treatment, but because you are in “control” of the dialogue (a power regime?),  I felt that you silenced your critic too soon.  So I want to push his/her criticisms a little further.

Why do I believe you are still relativists?  At times you explicitly reject absolutes (p.34; cf. p. 200).  You seem to be in agreement with Phillip Kenneson’s article, “There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It’s a Good Thing Too” (p. 128).  Further, even though you say that you are not relativists, you really don’t spend a lot of time showing how you are not relativists.  I felt that each time you seemed to be showing why you are not relativists you tended to skirt the central issue involved.  For example, while Chapter 7 is titled, “What is Truth?” you skirted the problem of the status of truth by moving to the topic of incarnating the truth.  I agree that truth needs to be embodied in a person.  But that is not a definition of truth. On page 130 you explicitly reject a definition of truth as correspondence between ideas and reality.  But, why can’t truth be defined as correspondence with reality, and be embodied in a person at the same time?  You seem to fall prey to the either-or fallacy in this passage, as you do elsewhere.  For example, on page 119 you suggest that we should be committed to Jesus Christ, not to rationality.  Why can’t one be committed to both? 

Back to the importance of incarnating the truth.  I agree that Christ was the incarnate word of God (p. 130).  I agree that the Christian community is called to incarnate the truth of Jesus Christ.  But, if you place all the emphasis on Christians incarnating the truth, and if we as human beings are always situated, finite, and fallible, then you are still stuck with relativism.

On page 127 you agree with Richard Rorty when he suggests that there are no external criteria by which final vocabularies can be evaluated.  You then provide some criteria by which to evaluate “any” worldview.  That sounds pretty universal to me.  However, you then go on to make the criteria of such evaluation internal to the worldview itself.  Not only is this inconsistent, but the latter claim commits you to full-blown relativism.  We need criteria that anyone can use to evaluate his/her and other’s worldviews. 

I want to return to your claim in page 130 where you say that “from a biblical perspective, truth is not a correspondence between ideas and facts.  Truth is embodied in a person.”  Where do you get the idea that the Bible does not affirm the correspondence theory of truth?  You need to prove this.  I think a good case can be made that from a biblical perspective, truth is viewed as correspondence between human ideas and objective reality.  Jesus warned his disciples not to be misled by people who would claim that they are the Messiah, or by false prophets (Matt.24).  Error and falsity surely must be measured in terms of what is objectively true.  Jesus also talked about knowing how to interpret the appearance of the sky but not being able to interpret the signs of the times (Matt. 16).   “Get it right,” Jesus is saying.  Indeed, Jesus repeatedly uses the expression, “I tell you the truth” (e.g. John 10:1, 7).  “Speaking the truth” is different from Jesus claiming, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  John is described as testifying to the truth, but Jesus qualifies this by saying that human testimony alone is not sufficient to establish truth (John 5:33).  Paul talks about suppressing the truth by wickedness (Rom. 1:18).  He urges us to think about “whatever is true” (Phil. 4:8).  Again and again Paul is concerned with sound doctrine, urging Christians not to pay attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth (e.g. Titus 1:9, 14).  I find these and many other passages suggesting, at least implicitly, that truth is correspondence between what we say and objective reality.

This is not at all to reject your notion of an embodied, relational epistemology of love (p. 129).  I agree that these are additional descriptions of the meaning of truth as found in the bible.  But, these don’t preclude the notion of truth as correspondence between our ideas and reality, which I believe must in some way be the basis of these other descriptions.  I agree that all too often appeals to the truth of the gospel have served as a means for the church to evade its responsibility to live faithfully before the world (p. 128).  But, this isn’t necessarily the case.  It is possible both to affirm truth with a capital “T” and to embody the truth by living faithfully before the world.  Faithful Christian disciples affirm and practice both.

I would also suggest that you are over-reacting to the notion of absolute truth (pp.34, 157, 162, 200).  I think I know what you are really after – you want to get rid of humans mistaking their claims as absolute.  So do I.  But the psychological fact remains that no-one can escape absolutizing what they say.  As Wm. James puts it, we all absolutize like infallible little popes.  This is part of the human condition. Further, we still need an ideal, or a heuristic principle of Truth with a capital “T”.  To reject the absoluteness of the human grasp of truth is not the same as saying that there are no absolutes.  In the end I also think you contradict yourself.  On page 170, you correctly identify a contradiction in the postmodern imagination.  A statement of postmodernism cannot be made without sounding absolutistic.  With regard to ethics, you clearly advocate one way of life as good and the other as bad.  Two themes running throughout your book are a rejection of oppressive empire and consumerism.  I appreciate the way that you develop these themes and agree with you.  But are you not proposing that oppressive empires and consumerism are wrong, really wrong, and when you do this are you not affirming “absolutes”? 

I can hear you, Brian and Sylvia, objecting to my critique by saying that I am still suffering from a modernist hangover, or that I am still a foundationalist, or that I suffer from Cartesian anxiety (p.117).  My reply to this is that I am not at all a Cartesian foundationalist.  I am not looking for an absolutely certain starting point.  I admit that we cannot reach absolute Truth.  I acknowledge my own uncertainty and doubt.  I agree entirely with your critique of foundationalism and modernism.  But I think you are over-reacting.  Your critique does not entail that we need to dismiss modernism entirely.  Here is where I believe that you again succumb to the either-or fallacy.  I believe the insights of modernism and postmodernism can be reconciled, and indeed, need to be reconciled.  So how can this be done?

It seems to me that you need to distinguish more sharply between the human search for truth, and Truth as an ideal.  Here I include a section of my book In Defence of Religious Schools and Colleges  (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001, pp. 212-214).

            Emphasis on the particularity of human reason is not without its own pitfalls, however.  It does away with the notion of truth and the search for a common truth.  What postmodernists reacting to the Enlightenment fail to realize is that without the notion of truth, they have in fact undermined their own critique of the Enlightenment.    Why listen to postmodernists if they are merely one voice among many other relative voices?  Postmodernists further invariably contradict themselves!  They seem unable to avoid talking about their post-modern viewpoint as better than that of old-fashioned modernism.  Better in terms of what?  It seems difficult not to talk about objective and universal truth in some sense. 

            It is here where I see the need to arrive at a more thorough reconciliation of the epistemological insights of modernism and postmodernism.  Yes, there are limitations inherent in our search for truth and we need to be honest about these limitations.  However, I in no way want to do away with the notion that human beings must, and invariably do, attempt to transcend these limitations in their search for universal truth.  Without balancing the emphasis on limitations with an equal emphasis on the need to try to transcend these limitations, we end up with epistemological relativism.  While the human search for truth may be relative, we still need a notion of Truth with a capital “T” (see Figure #1:  Ladder of Truth – as found on p. 214 of my In Defense of Religious Schools and Colleges, and on p. 69 of my The Ethics of Evangelism)                                

        Here it might be helpful to return to [Thomas] Nagel [1986].  Although we cannot get a view from nowhere, according to Nagel, there is within each of us an impulse to transcend our particular personal point of view.  This occurs because we recognize that it is merely a point of view, a perspective, and not simply an account of the way things really are.  “The recognition that this is so,” he writes, “creates pressure on the imagination to recast our picture of the world so that it is no longer the view from here” (1986, 70).  In other words, each of us is aware of the possibility that our particular perspective might be wrong, and so we aspire to “the view from nowhere,” to a view uncontaminated by any perspectival factors.

            This aspiration which drove the Enlightenment is admirable, but what we cannot do is transcend our particularity in any absolute manner, and it is here where we need to listen to what the postmodernists have to say.  For Nagel, this quest for self-transcendence is bound up with a realist account of human knowledge, that is, an account in which “the universe and most of what goes on in it are completely independent of our thoughts” (92).  Without this approach of “critical realism” (i.e. a critical search for truth about objective reality) we remain stuck in the quagmire of relativism or scepticism.

William James captures the heart of my diagram when he says that the absolutely true is “that ideal vanishing point towards which we imagine that all our temporary truths will someday converge” (1968, p. 170).  I concede that we as human beings are stuck with temporary truths.  But, we still need a goal of absolute truth. 

Where does this absolute truth reside?  In God.  Why the need for Truth with a capital “T”?  Why the need for James’ notion of “the absolutely true” as an ideal vanishing point?  Here are some suggestions:

            a.  Epistemological need:  This is the only way we can do justice to the realization that our particular perspective might be wrong, and that we aspire to “the view from nowhere,” a view uncontaminated by any perspectival factors.

            b.  Logical need:  Why do we argue with one another?  We do so to correct error.  And how do we recognize error?  We can only do so in relation to some ideal that is not in error.

            c.  Psychological need:  We cannot avoid treating our temporary truths as though they were, for the time being, absolute truths.  We treat our convictions as functional absolutes.  At the same time, we feel the need for an ideal of absolute truth.

            d.  Proselytizing need:  We are by nature proselytizing animals.  In writing your book, you were trying to persuade the reader that your point of view was in fact true.  Indeed, you end the book with a plea to readers never to give up their tenacity for truth (p. 233). 

            e.  Theological need:  Contrary to what you say on p.130, I believe the bible teaches that truth is somehow correspondence between ideas and the way things really are.  The omniscient God is an absolute reference point.  God speaks.  God spoke creation into being.  He calls us to adjust our lives to the way in which he created all things. 

Can I prove the existence of this Truth with a capital “T”?  No.  Here I think you will agree with me.  Ultimately this is an item of faith, but not blind faith.  I have just given several reasons why we need the notion.   And even post-modernists acknowledge this need in their “weaker” moments.

Enough for now.  As you can see, I have read your book carefully.  And again, I want to say that I found your work very inspiring.  The above criticisms are offered in love and in our common pursuit of a more complete truth.

Blessings on you both,

Elmer