In Memoriam

Timothy Keller died this past week of pancreatic cancer. It seems he had about as decent and peaceful of a passing as a person can have, even telling his children that he was ready to go. 

Keller was an Evangelical minister, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. He impacted... how many lives? Thousands, easily. Tens of thousands? Millions?

And his impact will live on.

I want to share about his impact on me. 

In a previous post, I shared about how personal experience was one factor that has helped me hang on to my faith through this deconstruction process. Another factor which has been an anchor for me, is the personal reading, research, and learning I have done in the study of apologetics*. One of Keller's books in particular was a significant part of that. In a way, I could have thanked him for helping me keep my faith.

"The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism" was published in 2008. I read it for the first time, I believe, in or around 2015. I've read it twice more since. Keller has this gentle, fatherly way of presenting arguments for God and in defense of God's character that are grounded in logic, reason, and evidence. I never had the opportunity to hear him speak, but I imagine that the affection you can sense leaping from the pages was even more apparent in person.

What I identified with in "The Reason for God" was the struggle between conservative and liberal religion. Keller found both truth and falsity in each side and was able to settle on a middle ground. A middle ground that felt more comfortable to me, even before I was jaded by religion. It's like I told you - I never have fit well into boxes.

The first half of the book dispels certain arguments against the existence of God, and the second half of the book presents arguments and evidence for the existence of God - specifically, for the God of the Bible, for Jesus, and for the main beliefs of Christianity. It's incredibly well done. Sensitive enough for seekers, compelling enough for believers.

Rather than further summarize the book, I'd like to honor Timothy Keller by sharing with you some of my favorite parts. I hope they inspire you. I hope they make sense outside of their context! If not, you might need to pick-up your own copy of the book (please remember I don't profit from your purchase).

"[C.S.] Lewis recognized that modern objections to God are based on a sense of fair play and justice. People, we believe, ought not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak - these things are all perfectly natural... If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgment." (26)

"One of the principles of love - either love for a friend or romantic love - is that you have to lose independence to attain greater intimacy. If you want the 'freedoms' of love - the fulfillment, security, sense of worth that it brings - you must limit your freedom in many ways. You cannot enter a deep relationship and still make unilateral decisions or allow your friend or lover no say in how you live your life. To experience the joy and freedom of love, you must give up your personal autonomy." (48-9)

"In the most radical way, God has adjusted to us - in his incarnation and atonement... In the most profound way, God has said to us, in Christ, 'I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I'll serve you though it means a sacrifice for me.' If he has done this for us, we can and should say the same to God and others." (50)

"The tendency of religious people, however, is to use spiritual and ethical observance as a lever to gain power over others and over God, appeasing him through ritual and good works. This leads to both an emphasis on external religious forms as well as greed, materialism, and oppression in social arrangements. Those who believe they have pleased God by the quality of their devotion and moral goodness naturally feel that they and their group deserve deference and power over others." (61)

"Many of the beliefs of our grandparents and great-grandparents now seem silly and even embarrassing to us... Our grandchildren will find many of our views outmoded as well. Wouldn't it be tragic if we threw the Bible away over a belief that will soon look pretty weak or wrong? To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible's teaching is offensive to you assumes that if there is a God he wouldn't have any views that upset you. Does that belief make sense?" (116)

"We have a longing for joy, love, and beauty that no amount or quality of food, sex, friendship, or success can satisfy. We want something that nothing in this world can fulfill. Isn't that at least a clue that this 'something' that we want exists?" (139)

"If there is no God, then all moral statements are arbitrary, all moral valuations are subjective and internal, and there can be no external moral standard by which a person's feelings and values are judged." (159)

"According to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God." (169)

"If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, then ironically, you may be looking to Jesus as a teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior... You are trying to save yourself by following Jesus." (183)

"We usually begin the journey toward God thinking, 'What do I have to do to get this or that from him?' but eventually we have to begin thinking, 'What do I have to do to get him?' If we don't make that transition, you will never actually meet the real God, but will only end up believing in some caricature version of him." (238)

*Apologetics, if you aren't familiar with the term, is the discipline of defending the faith through reasoning, argument, discourse, or writing. There is a shocking amount of evidence for the claims of Christianity, for the accuracy of the Bible, and even for God. Shocking, because as Christians we are told to have "blind faith". I don't think many people realize exactly how much evidence is out there. Our faith doesn't need to be "blind". I'll write a blog on that sometime... though it would have to be more than one, as a single blog would not even contain it all...