Book Review for: A Place for Truth: Leading Thinkers Explore Life’s Hardest Questions (edited by Dallas Willard)

In 1992, a chaplain named Kelly Monroe led a small group of Christians at Harvard who were inspired by the idea that the school’s motto--Veritas (truth)—was more than a historical anomaly. The group hosted the university for a whole weekend of lectures and discussions that explored some of life’s most important questions. The goal was to restore the university as a setting for pondering deeper questions, searching for real answers, and developing community around the quest for truth. Thus the Veritas Forum was born.

Now twenty years later, more than one hundred universities in North America and Europe have hosted their own Veritas Forums. Thousands of students and faculty have participated in this quest for truth helping to restore meaning in the academy.

Daniel Cho remembers being a freshman sitting in the crowd at the first Harvard forum back in 1992. Now the Executive Director of the Veritas Forum, Daniel says his life was profoundly shaped by the coherence of life, truth, and beauty in Jesus Christ that he tasted over that weekend within the community of seekers.

In the book A Place for Truth (2010 InterVarsity Press) Dallas Willard, along with Cho, has collected some of these remarkable transcripts featuring outstanding Christian intellectuals that deal with questions about truth itself, and several truths in particular. “The Veritas Forum,” Willard writes in the book’s introduction, “is interested both in the current status of truth on campus, and in how the basic claims of Christianity are now treated there. Its aim is to restore the university to its age-old character as a “place for truth.”

When the Veritas Forum made its way to Yale University in 1996, it was Richard John Neuhaus’s turn to bring “light and truth” (appropriately enough, the English translation of the University’s motto: Lux et Veritas). Neuhaus, in a lecture entitled Is there Life after Truth?, poses the question “Why should God have become humanum, to become one of us?” He answers, “To assert truth in public. It’s the great task of our generation, to learn how to do it persuasively and winsomely, and in a manner that does not violate, but strengthens the bonds of civility.”

Os Guiness describes 1989—the year the Soviet Union fell—as the “Year of the Century.” He remembers some of his favorite scenes of that extraordinary time: the dismantling of the Berlin wall, Soviet gun barrels filled with flowers, and the knocking down of the statues of the men-gods—Marx, Lenin, Stalin. Guiness says his favorite image that year was the nightly scene in November, when more than three hundred thousand packed Wencelas Square in the Czech capital of Prague to listen to then-dissident Vaclev Havel as he painted the contrast between the “Velvet Revolutionaries” and the Soviets. As Guiness recounts, the very quick-witted Czech crowd chanted: “We are not like them. We are not like them.” Some of the contrast, he says, was in the fact that the Velvet Revolutionaries would not reply to violence with violence. Perhaps a more striking dissimilarity was that the Soviets, Guiness says, were people of propaganda and lies, whereas the revolutionaries were people of truth.

“We realize how they were aware that there were only two ways they could bring down the Soviets,” Guiness reports in the Veritas Forum at Stanford University in 2005. “Either they had to trump Soviet power with equal or more power—” (which would have been unthinkable as the Velvet Revolutionaries were only a handful of dissidents— “or they had to counter Soviet power with another type of power altogether.” The dissident counter to the muscle-power of the Soviets, according to Guiness, was the power of truth. And he tells the 2005 Vertias Forum attendees at Stanford University: “And the unthinkable happened. They won.”

But Guiness also says that while the West applauded the tremendous courage and principled stand of the Czech dissidents of 1989, in many parts of America there isn’t a similar solid view of truth on which anyone could make such a stand today.

He sums up the prevailing opinion on holding to a truth-based worldview this way: “Anyone who believes in an objective truth, or an absolute truth, is Neanderthal and reactionary.” To this opinion, Guiness arugues that, “far from being Neanderthal and reactionary, truth is a very simple, fundamental, human gift, without which we cannot negotiate reality and handle life.” He asserts that truth is absolutely essential for a good human life.

“Equally important,” argues Guiness, “truth is absolutely essential for freedom.”

Guiness says that he’s been on campuses where today it is simply worse to judge evil than to do evil. This outcome appears to be a result of what Guiness, in his Veritas Forum presentation, calls the two challenges of truth. “There are two ways we can go. And we’re always tempted by these two: One way is to shape the truth to our desires. The other way is to seek to shape our desires to the truth.”

Os Guiness and Richard John Neuhaus aren’t the only scholars A Place for Truth records from the various Veritas Forums that have taken place on campuses. Timothy Keller, popular speaker, author, and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, spoke on “The Exclusivity of Truth” at the University of Chicago, which hosted a Veritas Forum in 2008. Keller focuses on the exclusive truth claims in religion, and the five ordinary ways people deal with the subject.

Francis Collins, speaking at CalTech in 2009, presents “The Language of God,” a talk that deals with The Human Genome Project, DNA, and his reasons why scientific and spiritual worldviews don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The book even showcases a debate called “Moral Mammals.” At this 2009 Veritas Forum held at MIT, Peter Singer and John Hare debate whether atheism or theism provides the best foundation for human worth and morality.

The “Sense of an Ending,” which the book clarifies was a multi-media lecture-performance with integrated images, sound clips, and illustrations at the piano, was given by Jeremy Begbie at UC Berkeley in 2001. The speaker admits that the title of the talk is purposely similar to a 1960s book by Frank Kermode. “In a lot of narrative fiction, the ending gives the whole story a unity, gathering the strands together, resolving the discord and dissonance into what [Kermode] calls a “grand temporal consonance.

N.T. Wright is also recorded giving his talk “Simply Christian” at the Veritas Forum at Georgetown University in 2006. “The Whole Gospel for the Whole Person” was the subject of Ronald Sider’s presentation in 1995 at Harvard (the university of the original Veritas Forum). Astronomy was the background of scientist Hugh Ross’s talk at Michigan in 1995.

A Place for Truth is available here.

David A. Horner’s Mind Your Faith Purports to be a Student’s Guide to Thinking and Living Well

David A. Horner (D.Phil, University of Oxford) says that his new book Mind Your Faith is the result of some fourteen years as a student in undergraduate and graduate university education.

It’s worth noting that he concurrently conducted thirty years of nearly continuous university ministry in the United States and Europe. His brother, and long-time Campus Crusade staff member, Bob Horner, has also devoted his entire life to engaging students in secular universities with the person of Jesus Christ in creative, winsome, and compelling ways. David says that growing up in the shadow of his older brother Bob, he developed a love of the university and a desire to influence it.

The university world, he writes, can be a confusing place, filled with many competing worldviews and perspectives. With his book, David Horner hopes to restore sanity to the collegiate experience and give students essential tools for thinking contextually, logically, and “worldviewishly.”

As president of the Illuminatio Project, David’s aim is to bring the light of a classical biblical vision of goodness, truth, and beauty into the thinking of the church and culture through strategic research and communication.

In the book Mind Your Faith, Horner discusses the impact of the Veritas Forum. Founded at Harvard University in 1992, Veritas (which happens to be the motto of Harvard—Latin for “truth”) sponsors public forums at secular universities to engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all life.

Apologetics, writes Horner, is based on a Greek word found in 1 Peter 3:15, apologia, which means “rational defense.” He says that Christian apologetics is the art and science of explaining and defending the truth claims of the Christian worldview.

As to why apologetics and general ministry on college campuses are so vital, the book points out this statistic: In 2010, 6.7 percent of the world’s population held college degrees—up from 5.9 percent in 2000. As of 2007, 40.4 percent of American adults aged 25-34 held at least a two-year degree or higher, which put the United States in the top 11 globally in post-secondary education.

As to the spiritual demographics of these American college students, Steve Henderson (author of the Christianity Today article “A Question of Price Versus Cost”) says: “More than 52 percent of incoming freshmen who identify themselves as born-again upon entering a public university will either no longer identify themselves as born-again four years later or, even if they do still claim that identification, will not have attended any religious service in over a year.”

According to Horner, part of the issue comes down to worldview. A worldview, he defines, is the set of beliefs, attitudes, and values that shapes the way we see the world and our life. “Your spiritual and moral well-being in the university and beyond, then depends crucially on how you think about what is real, about what is important and valuable, about how to live and why.”

Horner also says that college is a marketplace of ideas. “Our absence from the university disengages a thoughtful Christian presence from the give-and-take of the university’s marketplace of ideas.” Horner says this absence—and resulting disengagement—limits the perspectives to which students and faculty are exposed and the possible impact that biblical truth can have on them.

At the very outset, Horner seeks to clarify the target of his information. He states that Mind Your Faith is written primarily for those who are (1) university students or college-bound high school students, (2) followers of Jesus who aspire to grow and flourish as his followers while in college, and (3) attend a secular university.

Horner also addresses the question: Should I attend a Christian or secular university? He says that it depends on a number of factors, including what you want from your college experience and what opportunities are available. But Horner stresses in Mind Your Faith, that of prime importance are the ideas you embrace. “Ideas have consequences; what we believe will determine how we behave, and ultimately who we become.” He shares that to understand the nature of the Holocaust, we must see that it did not begin at the death camps, but in books and classrooms and courtrooms and cafes—in short, the marketplace of ideas. Horner soberly reminds us that the origin of this dark moment in history lay not in the activities of Nazi thugs but of bookish intellectuals and their students.

In a chapter somewhat circularly titled The Truth about Truth, Horner reminds the reader of the historical Christianity of many of the country’s oldest universities. “The most common epigraph over entrances to American university libraries is a statement by Jesus: ‘The truth shall set you free.’” Its Latin translation Veritas Vos Liberavit also serves as the motto of Johns Hopkins.

The way to find common ground: Think contextually.
Assumptions, writes Horner, are underlying ideas that are not explicitly stated but are crucial for understanding those that are. “Often the most important ideas are unarticulated.” Horner argues that thinking well involves being aware of this and asking good questions that can help bring them to the surface. He even astutely points out that in the Gospels, Jesus is asked 183 questions. He asks 307. Horner even insists that asking thoughtful questions is a general life skill, one that can help those who struggle with making friends to draw people in.

Horner also assigns to worldview the three big questions, which he says are: What is real? Who are we? What is good? He says that these big questions and their answers share certain connections. He also insists that each distinct worldview falls into one of three categories—theism, naturalism, and pantheism. But Horner adds that many thinkers today have added a fourth category of worldview: postmodernism. A leading thinker of postmodern thought, Lyotard, writes that he defines postmodern as "incredulity toward meta-narratives."

From part 1 of the book--Mind, Mind Your Faith moves to the equally large topics of Faith and Character, providing sound and cogent arguments that any college student should be able to employ when the temptation to waiver in his faith presents itself.

David Horner is professor of philosophy and biblical studies at Biola University in California. He also serves as a research scholar for Centers for Christian Study International, an effort to develop intellectual Christian communities within secular university contexts.

A couple of years ago Robert Scott and a Muslim scholar friend shared a platform at a London university to talk about the “reasonableness” of their respective faiths. Scott says that his friend, Asad, had the idea to show secularists that they could reason with one another and explain how their respective faiths had a reasonable foundation. The point was to challenge the ideology of atheists, who assert that people of faith are irrational and dangerous.

The talk drew a mixture of atheists, Christians, and Muslims, which was precisely the point, says Scott. He describes an encounter with a Muslim student afterwards, who came up to him and asked, “I hope this doesn’t sound too silly, but where do Easter bunnies come from? Are they in the Bible?” Scott asserts that the question, however bizarre, highlighted a certain amount of confusion in the questioner’s mind.

Robert Scott also recounts another episode in which he was hosting a Pakistani family in his home. They asked a different question: “Why, when we have so much in common, do you eat pork?” He says a female Bengali friend made a similar point to his wife: “Why, when you are respectable and modest, don’t you cover your head like me?” He even admits that another friend asked: “Why do you have Christmas trees in your house, when they’re a pagan symbol?” Scott explains that many Begalis believe that trees themselves contain evil spirits and, believing this, they therefore refuse to walk in the woods. So, obviously a tree is a dangerous thing to bring into your home!

Robert Scott believes there are two broad themes that emerge from these questions. First, he says, is the problem of cultural symbols, which he argues that many Muslims are confusing with biblical Christianity. But the analysis doesn’t end there. He admits that the second issue is that of outward practices. Western Christians don’t tend to adhere to rules about food, drink, and clothing—unlike Islam.

Scott writes that what further complicates the second issue is the fact that some Christians across the world today do have such outward practices, as did other Christians in the past.

As a results, he argues, many Muslim people think that a lack of outward practices means that many Christians living in the twenty-first century Western world aren’t truly living biblical lives—and are not pleasing to God.

These and other matters are addressed in a book titled Questions Muslims Ask: What Christians Actually Do (and Don’t) Believe. Author Robert Scott oversees international outreach at St. Helen’s Bishopgate Church in London, where he hosts meetings for better understanding with Muslim and Christian partners. Peter Riddell, formerly professor of Islamic Studies, London School of Theology, says the book “focuses upon real questions posed by Muslims to real Christians on a regular basis.” Questions Muslims Ask is being published by InterVarsity Press and is currently in the editing stage. The expected release date is January 2012.

 Not unlike some of Josh McDowell's previous well-known apologetics works, this Coffee House Chronicles book, Is the Bible True...Really?, is written more like a play, set in Dallas, Texas inside a Religious Studies class in the fictional Opal University. The opening interaction between Nick, a freshman from a Bible belt town (and family and church) and Dr. William Peterson sets the stage for an intellectual battle over the reliability of the Bible. But unlike most apologetics texts, it also finds balance with the human and emotional element as well.

As the story continues with Nick conversing with a female friend he'd met at orientation, he finds that there are students who've already been moved away from the fundamentals they grew up with--in large part due to the teaching of Dr. Peterson. His friend Andrea, seeking to re-enforce the arguments put forth in Nick's class, shows him a Youtube video entitled Zeitgeist, the Greatest Story Ever Told, which depicts a plagiarist Christianity simply borrowing from other religious stories that were circulating years before Jesus’ birth. At first, Nick eschews the content, reasserting his belief that the Bible is God’s Word. He even tells his friend, “God’s Word is not going to come back void and I trust His Spirit speaks through me even when I don’t know what to say.” But as the weeks pass, he becomes discouraged. He finds it difficult to reconcile his beliefs with what we is learning in class.

The progression of Nick’s story isn’t unlike many young college students who arrive on campus full of faith and exuding conviction and then, after being gradually worn down by antithetical arguments, succumb to doubt, temptation, and unbelief—in that order. While Nick could not agree with outright atheism, he felt betrayed by Christianity.

The “betrayed” young man ascends higher in Dr. Peterson’s academic class and even enrolls in a Textual Criticism class, where he plan to write a paper refuting the Bible and Christianity. It’s at this point that another character enters the story, a former college football standout, studying for his doctorate, whose scholarship places him in a teaching assistant role to Nick’s professor, Peterson. It is Jamal Washington, by whom Nick is at first star struck, that responds to Nick’s doubts in ways that contrast to the more simplistic answers his former Christian friends had given him. Jamal makes himself available to Nick as well as to Dr. Peterson, whose semester-long absence from school is due to a terminally ill family member. Jamal's and Nick’s quality time discussing the intellectual aspects of the Biblical reliability debate draws in some of Nick’s friends who have also found skepticism since their arrival at Opal.

Between casual meetings over lunch or coffee and the impressive classroom lectures, one of which is scrutinized by a contemporary of Peterson’s, Jamal manages to share a wealth of convincing evidence as to the Bible’s reliability. Over time, it not only serves to restore Nick to his faith, but motivates him to be evangelistic, even with his professor, whose sister’s passing serves to soften him and make him more open to spiritual matters.

Is the Bible True... Really? presents plenty of documented (but unknown outside of academia) proofs of the Bible’s accuracy and even helps debunk the myths presented by the other side. The academic portion can be weighty in some parts of the book, but overall the human interest generated by the story’s handful of characters makes it a much quicker read than most apologetics works of this quality.

Is the Bible True... Really? (2011 Moody Press)

Wanting to refute that "the concept of an eternal, unchanging, all-powerful God was based on the writings of hopelessly flawed human beings--writings which had been edited and embellished over time, full of factual errors and contradictions" Mark Mittelberg deeply examined his own beliefs, and years later brings us The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense.

The Reason Why was originally the work of Robert Laidlaw a century ago. The version published this year by Tyndale is authored by Mark Mittelberg, who has a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and graduated magna cum laude from Trinity International University. Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager and Lead Like Jesus, says that he highly recommends this remake of a classic.

In this book's introduction, Mark Mittelberg defines the term "Spiritual Vertigo"--the dizzying feeling you suddenly get after being knocked off your spiritual moors by opposing arguments or claims. "The process of examining beliefs can be very unsettling," he reports. On the other hand, he also says that it can force you to refine your assumptions and beliefs to make certain you know where they are pointed and why.

For Mark Mittelberg, this epiphany took place years ago in an Introduction to Philosophy class in college. "I felt like I was in over my head." One day Mark's professor stood in front of his class and systematically challenged what he called the Traditional View of God. According to Mittelberg, his professor proclaimed that the concept of an eternal, unchanging, all-powerful God was based on the writings of hopelessly flawed human beings--writings which had been edited and embellished over time, full of factual errors and contradictions. Mittelberg writes that he'd wanted to refute what the professor was saying, but later realized that he'd never thought deeply about many of the beliefs he'd grown up with. That realization marked the beginning of Mittelberg's quest to know the reason why.

The original version of The Reason Why was written by Robert A. Laidlaw, an innovative and highly successful businessman in New Zealand. According to the book, Laidlaw originally wrote his version of The Reason Why to explain his faith to his employees at the department stores he founded in Auckland. Initially Laidlaw printed five thousand copies, thinking such a "large quantity" would probably last a lifetime. But strong interest in the book called for an immediate reprint. The original The Reason Why has now been published in numerous forms and translated into more than thirty languages. Worldwide, there are now more than fifty million copies in print.

Mittelberg says he was first exposed to Laidlaw's book around the time he felt "spiritual vertigo" in that philosophy class. He read through it, in fact, several times, finding its information and anecdotes to be down-to-earth and helpful. Mittelberg also says that the book served to dramatically reinforce his faith. "I keep going back to the simple brilliance of The Reason Why," he continues, "and as a result I have given away literally hundreds of copies to people with all kinds of faith-related questions." Mittelberg finds that its stories still pack a punch, but that over the years its language and some of its examples needed an update. He also asserts that the original book's repertoire of reasons needed an expansion to address more of the issues being raised in our current culture.

In his book, Mittelberg proceeds to expand upon some key faith issues using scientific and philosophical arguments. In the chapter Is There a God? he takes on Stephen Hawking who, in his recent book The Grand Design, declared that "spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God." Mittelberg insists that Hawking cannot escape the principle that design points back to a designer. "Only a few pages later (in The Grand Design) [Hawking] says that 'the universe has a design and so does a book. But unlike the universe, a book does not appear spontaneously from nothing. A book requires a creator.'" Whereas Mittelberg claims, "I think it's safe to say that if [his book] needed a designer, the universe needs one countless times more... Cutting-edge science is now telling us that the building blocks of our world...appear to be precisely balanced and finely tuned for life to occur and flourish." Names like Fred Hoyle, Werner von Braun, Anthony Flew, and Lee Strobel make an appearance in the same chapter as Mittelberg makes a compelling case for the existence of God, evidenced by a need for a creator.

The argument seems almost a natural precursor to the next one... Can the Bible be Trusted? Mittelberg cites proofs such as consistency, historical reliability, textual superiority, archaeological verifiability, supernatural activity, and spiritual authority in favor of the trustworthiness of the Bible. But he also laments what pollster George Gallup observed, that "Americans revere the Bible but, by and large, they don't read it."

In the chapter titled Is Divine Forgiveness Available? Mittelberg raises key faith questions and then proceeds to answer one common and difficult question after another--questions like: If God died for all, then can we assume that everyone will be saved? How could Christ suffer for my sins when they were not committed until two thousand years after he died? If God knows what will happen ahead of time, then isn't it already predetermined, leaving us with no choice at all? Why didn't God just make us incapable of disobeying his will and therefore unable to sin? Can faith really make sense in this age of reason? Why should God judge my sins as worthy of death? Mittelberg acknowledges that these are questions that his readers or their friends have asked. Given that he is a sought-after speaker and a leading strategist in apologetics, one has only to assume that his version of The Reason Why gives answers that are cogent and memorable. Judge for yourself. Order your copy here.

Resources to inspire, lead, and educate.

During an unprecedented 2010 study by America's Research Group, Christian colleges were polled on critical areas of Scripture and core faith questions . . . and the results are shocking! Discover how these institutions address the cultural battlefield of science, religion, and the accuracy of the Bible. Parents, get tips for choosing colleges, the relevant questions to ask, and whom you should ask. Already Compromised by Ken Ham and Greg Hall

When an atheist wants an answer, will you have one? Bestselling author Ray Comfort has collected some of the toughest questions people will face in defending their faith and offers sound biblical responses. Each issue addressed in the book is one that has been raised by genuine atheists. Ray is the co-host of an award-winning television program, with actor Kirk Cameron, and blogs daily to hundreds of unbelievers. The Defender's Guide for Life's Toughest Questions by Ray Comfort

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best over 45 years ago: "We must face the sad fact that at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning , when we stand to sing... we stand in the most segregated hour in America." What an unfortunate reality that many of us still have today! Have you heard the question, "is your church a white church or a black church?" No, it's God's church! Be part of this powerful movement to make everyone welcome in God's house. Church Diversity by Scott Williams

Shannon O'Dell believes no matter how small or low on finances, your church can become a relevant force transforming lives! He has witnessed the power of God transform churches from the inside out. Shannon and his family answered God's call to become part of a rural community church, which so far has sparked eight campuses and three satellite house churches. Transforming Church in Rural America by Shannon O'Dell.