Keller takes on another challenge to Christianity

In the third chapter of Tim Keller's book The Reason for God, the author discusses another complaint leveled at Christianity -- that it is a straitjacket, that it appears to be culturally narrow. Again, Keller does a good job refuting this.

As he has done in previous chapters, the author shows how this objection is self-refuting. If you complain that all truth-claims are power plays, then so is your statement. If you echo Sigmund Freud and say all truth claims about religion and God are just psychological projections to deal with your guilt and insecurity, then the same is true of your statement. Those who complain about truth claims of others are, of course, making truth claims for themselves.

Then there is the complaint that Christianity is socially divisive because it requires particular beliefs. Critics say a liberal democracy like ours does not need common moral beliefs. There should be total openness and inclusivism. But liberal democracy is based on an extensive list of assumptions which are foreign to many other cultures. So even a liberal democracy is based, like any other community, on a shared set of very particular beliefs. Thus, there is no such thing as a totally inclusive community. Every human group holds in common some beliefs that by definition will create boundaries.

Keller says we cannot consider a group exclusive just because it has standards for its members. He poses a far better set of tests to judge whether a community is open and caring: which community has beliefs that lead its members to treat persons of other communities with love and respect? Which communities beliefs lead it to attack and ridicule those who violate its boundaries?

The author takes on the complaint that Christianity is a cultural straitjacket, forcing people from diverse cultures into a single mold. He contrasts this by explaining Christianity has been more adaptive of diverse cultures than secularism and other worldviews. Look at Islam, for example. The center and majority of its population is still in the Middle East. The same is true for Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. On the other hand, Christianity started with Jews in Jerusalem, spread to the Mediterranean world, was received eventually by barbarians of Northern Europe, was taken up by Western Europeans, and eventually ended up in North America. Today most Christians in the world live in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Keller has an interesting statistic -- at the current rate of growth, within the next three decades 30% of the Chinese population will be Christian. How has Christianity managed to infiltrate radically different cultures? It allows freedom of expression and adapts well to the form of every culture. As one historian put it, "No one owns the Christian faith." It is not a Western religion that destroys local cultures.

But doesn't Christianity limit personal growth because it constrains freedom to choose our own beliefs? Keller says this is not true. In many cases, as he puts it, "confinement and constraint is actually a means to liberation." He uses as an example playing the piano. It takes years of practice, which is a restriction, a limit on freedom. But this discipline eventually unleashes your ability that would otherwise have gone untapped. He asks a good question: "If we only grow intellectually, vocationally, and physically through judicious constraints -- why would it not also be true for spiritual and moral growth?"

Keller says people often tell him we all have a right to define right and wrong for ourselves. He asks these people, "Is there anyone in the world right now doing things you believe they should stop doing no matter what they personally believe about the correctness of their behavior?" They usually answer in the affirmative. He responds by another question -- "Doesn't that mean that you do believe there is some kind of moral reality that is out there that is not defined by us, that must be abided by regardless of what a person feels or thinks?" Of course, he is right. Once again, he has caught people in a self-refuting statement.

He ends the chapter by talking of love. One of the principles of love is the loss of independence in order to gain greater intimacy. Freedom is not the absence of limitations but finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us. Keller ends the chapter by saying, "The love of Christ constrains. Once you realize how Jesus changed for you and gave himself for you, you aren't afraid of giving up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in him."