Jesus Among Other Gods by Rav...

Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias A CRITICAL LOOK BY JASON PREU

First and foremost, thanks to Jen for loaning this book to me. I haven’t felt such a strong response to a non-fiction book in a long time and I appreciate that feeling. Why the written response then? Well, this book angered me so much that I felt writing about it would be the only way I could give you (Jen) worthy, extended feedback about what I thought.

I’ve read Zacharias’s bio and credentials and have no doubt about his knowledge or his convictions. Having said that, I find this book seriously flawed. My criticism is two-fold: 1) I sense an anecdotal arrogance informing the entire text. This surprises me considering the title and supposed point of the book. Anecdotes are not at all convincing tools to help build a strong argument. This leads me to 2) Zacharias doesn’t seem to use language geared towards a non-believing audience. In effect, he’s preaching to the choir. He tells Bible story after story but does not contextualize their significance for those who do not recognize the Bible as an authoritative text. This is a major flaw for an argumentative book, a flaw that in the end renders Zacharias impotent in providing a substantial, coherent argument for his claims about Christianity’s supremacy among religious systems. Further, this lack of attention to a non-believing audience and subtle arrogance made it impossible for me to finish the book. I read the first 50 or so pages and then, frustrated that Zacharias wrote the book to an audience already convinced of the validity of his claim, skipped around the rest of the book. The tone and technique did not once change and I felt let down and discouraged by this.

I completely disagree with Zacharias’s assessment of postmodernism. Questions raised by postmodern theory are legitimate and important, albeit difficult to face and oftentimes blurred by posturing language. Furthermore, for better or worse, postmodernism is much harder to write-off by labeling it a “mood” and Zacharias does himself a disservice in this book by choosing to do just that. Postmodern issues cannot be so easily overlooked. Here’s an example of postmodern thought applied to a Christian, theological problem:

If there is only one, static Truth – whose Gospel is True? We have four versions of Jesus’s life – are they all true individually, or only when taken as a whole? What about the contradictions? Further, can we know Jesus solely from another’s account of him? What about the history of Bible compilation and who decided what books to include and which to leave out?

Christians make objective claims based upon subjective retellings. These multi-perspective claims are the sort that postmodernism seeks to explore and discuss. As an aside, I’ve read comparisons of Socrates and Jesus, in terms of their ethics and attitudes towards living. Another parallel between the two is that they are both largely known today due to writers who outlived them and decided to write about them. The relationship between an author, reader, and textual meaning is also a postmodern concern.

I kept a log while reading this book. Eventually, I realized that I would end up writing a book myself if I kept noting every criticism I had. But, as I mentioned above, since I lost interest in Zacharias’s technique and approach I decided to include my noted criticisms for you to look over. What follows are my comments regarding specific passages/pages. I wrote the majority of these before I began to hop around the text. It might help to reread the referenced page so as to put my criticisms into context:

vii – I disagree with Zacharias’s making synonymous a spiritual notion and a religious one. There seems to me a stark difference between the two. Spirit connotes something inherent to a human while religion connotes something constructed by a human. Eastern (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) “religions” often posit philosophies of living, not rigid dogmas. This lack of insistence about a single, correct answer is probably part of the appeal.

viii – Do Vedic teachings have anything to do with the current state of Vedic nations? Turn this criticism inward: Do we blame or praise Christianity for our own country’s successes or failures? Who’s missed the mark when nations fail: the leaders of the country or those that follow them? At any rate, this criticism of Vedic nations is a terrible, sweeping generalization that, when applied to, say, the antebellum Southern U.S. should give all Christians pause – the doctrine of dominion “allowed” slavery and the annihilation of Native Americans.

ix – All religions can offer a similar, and equally defensible exposition of their uniqueness. Why would you follow any religion if you didn’t consider its message unique?

4 – I wholeheartedly disagree that god is the first casualty when religious ideas mix together. At the minimum, such mixing allows for the enlargement of what god is. God, as a religious conception, will always undergo change in the institutions built up around that conception. Look at the history of Christianity. That religion (and that religion’s vision of god) continues to evolve. God, as an innate idea in the human mind, will never be silenced by any manner of religious mixing. Humans will always have need to believe in something god-like.

Zacharias’s argument here reeks of some sort of religious eugenics or “separate-and-unequal-clause”. It smacks of elitism and is an altogether exclusionary and insulting sentiment.

4 – But all religions, plain and simple, can be false.

4 – I would argue that Western society has focused so much on Christ because of Christianity’s historical practices of indoctrination and attempted annihilation of any foreign culture that it encountered. Consider the 10s of 100s of years before Christ…the focus was where? Further, due to Christianity’s early insidiousness, if unable to annihilate a belief system, co-modification of the Other became the back up plan. Cultures that Christianity encountered had no choice but to focus attention on Christ.

5 – Why is the gospel of Thomas not in the Bible?

12 – What sort of “ultimate purpose” does a Christian theology offer? That we suffer through life to be blessed in heaven, but only if we’re “good”? To the best of my understanding, “you” cannot live in heaven because “you” are inextricably tied to your functioning brain. I have a lot of trouble with the underlying notion that because a woman did something she wasn’t supposed to, humans were sentenced to die, but then Yahweh took form as Jesus to renounce that sentence and allow each of us the opportunity to sit in eternal happiness by Yahweh’s side. For one, it sounds like any and every other myth humans have forever told each other. Two, it makes me ask, “To what end?” Why is there such an emphasis on the ethereal and fear of the physical in Christianity? Why is one realm so much better than the other?

13 – I find it suspect that just because Zacharias was unsatisfied with the answer his majority religion provided he sought a religion that offered him an answer he wanted to hear.

15 – How often does one hear of a religious conversion taking place while the convert is content with his or her life? If the Truth is the Truth it would seem to follow that it shine through no matter the seeker’s disposition. In a related aside, if you say, “The Bible is the Word of God,” then you have to take it as the word, the Truth – all of it. You can’t pick and choose (well, you can, but that raises more postmodern questions about authorial intent). And, to see the Bible as Truth seems suspect by virtue of our knowledge of how the book came together and the internal inconsistencies it contains.

15 – The quotes here do nothing more than give us the critic’s interpretation of the text (another postmodern concern). Could not Jesus have been speaking metaphorically, as in “Follow my example”? And, if this is metaphor, could not the entire Bible be metaphor, myth, a record of humanity grappling with its mortality?

16 – I’m not sure I read Wilde’s poem in the same light. Look at the last four lines: now think about what I said prior regarding religious conversion and discontentment.

18 – Again, I must ask – to what end God’s design? Does knowing that it is God’s will that your child died on her 5^th birthday do anything to give your or her life any purpose? Is the sole purpose of life then to worship a god and hang out forever together in death? And what of that 5-year-old? Is she forever 5 years old?

33 – Finding this dull. It reads, as I think does most holy, historical texts, like sci-fi/fantasy. Replace the familiar names with names like Zoltar, Kryptor, or Bizzlo and you’ll see what I mean.

35 – This top paragraph is arrogant. I find no attempt at truth or even a coherent argument anywhere here.

55 – WHOA! This whole argument hinges on whether the Bible is indeed a true and correct record of all things historical (which it isn’t) and that the Bible gives its readers a full picture of Jesus’s life (which it doesn’t). There is a lot of time and detail missing in both respects.

73 – The Catholics would argue.

166-7 – This is the crux and the whole problem for arguing the supremacy of one faith over another. You can go back and forth for eternity. This very same book could be written from a Muslim or Jewish standpoint and cite just as many historical and scriptural references. The Jews don’t believe Jesus was the son of god and Muslims think it an insult to god to claim god took human form. What makes one right and the others wrong when all make a claim to objective truth?

Random (I couldn’t find the pages these responses address):

Why does the Christian god care? And if it cares so much, why bother with maintaining all of physical life and suffering? Why not just take us all to heaven and end the whole mess? I often hear the analogy – God is like a parent who sometimes must make decisions the child cannot understand. To that I say, it is a cruel and neglectful parent who watches its children suffer, whatever that parent’s plan.

Zacharias’s Scope’s argument is terrible and ends up working against him. Further, his claim that our intelligence emerges from nothingness is provably false. It emerges from the way our brains have evolved and this is experimentally verifiable – cut away part of your brain, you’ll see where your intelligence lies.

What upsets me about most religions, and particularly the big 3, is that they have the audacity, to say, “We have the one answer to all life’s questions.” Human life and all its complexity is, and always will be, a mystery. Even should a god exist, what answer is there for you then? You’re just as in the dark as before:

- I made you.

- Why?

- That is beyond your comprehension. Just trust that it’s for a good reason. Don’t worry about dying. Just don’t cause any trouble and when you do die you’ll be here with me and all the other people who never caused trouble.

- But what about those who did cause trouble?

- Fuck ‘em. I am infinite love, but not for those who disobey.

- Isn’t that a bit childish?

- Shhh...relax...don’t think that maybe the idea of me is hardwired into your brain in order to make it easier for you to live and function on a day-to-day basis in a universe whose only meaning is put there by you...shhhh...

What we are: stardust collected. The universe made aware of itself. The Big Bang happened and this universe is the physical evidence. Who knows what came before? All we can work with is what came after: Life. We are all a part of that original, dense, star stuff and in that sense we are all one and the same. The universe made aware of itself. Someday, all information will be available to us without pause and we will be able to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Collectively, we will become the god we’ve always imagined to exist somewhere outside of us. Of course, this is provided we don’t destroy ourselves first. (But, if you think god’s already out there, hanging in the aether – then it ultimately doesn’t matter whether you live or die, right?)

To anyone who is serious about their religion (or lack thereof), I recommend diving into texts written outside of their own religion’s authorship or context. Keep your faith (or lack thereof) about you at all times, but don’t be afraid to really get involved with ideas that present an opposing view. Engage your faith, exercise it, and continually test it. Otherwise, what kind of faith have you got? A rather lazy faith, I’d suppose. Take what you know to be true (or false) about god and step into the world. Then listen, listen to what the world says to you regarding what you know to be true. The object here is not to shatter or destroy your faith or, should you have no faith, cause you to become imbibed with holy spirit, although both are possibilities. Rather, the object is to explore what your beliefs rest upon, the conditions to which your beliefs are a response and the grounds in which your beliefs are rooted. If you’re a believer, you’re not going to hurt anyone or piss off god by asking questions. And if you don’t believe, you might just find the answers you’re looking for.