Paul Kurtz, author of Humanist Manifesto II, has launched another salvo against religious and occult superstitions. Kurtz has previously written on many of the topics addressed here. Whatever the reason for the repetition, there is little that is "new" in the New Skepticism. Kurtz aims, as before, to defend a pragmatic, constructive skepticism in contrast to more total and nihilistic skepticisms.
Kurtz briefly surveys the history of skepticism from Pyrrhonism to Post-Modernism, a genuinely fascinating topic that he manages to make rather bland. Rather narrow mindedly, Kurtz can't bear to allow skeptics such as Pierre Bayle to be genuine Christians. They always must be hiding their anti-Christianity for fear of punishment -- even though Bayle resided in a most tolerant Protestant Holland.
Kurtz briefly summarizes a constructive case for reliable and objective knowledge and turns to a strangely organized critique of religion and the paranormal. As in previous publications, much of this material -- critiques of reincarnation, hypnosis, faith healing, etc. -- is always interesting and helpful. He closes this section with an overwrought discussion specifying all the irrational psychological tendencies that lead people to hold religious beliefs. The book concludes with a critical and constructive foray into ethics. This is by far the weakest part of the book, where his misunderstandings of his foils play heavily. For example, he very heavy-handedly wants to beat on libertarians (perhaps he has run into too many obnoxious Randians), but in doing so he shows a horrid knowledge of basic economics and economic history (making Adam Smith into a libertarian!).
I take the central pillar of the book to be his constructive case for knowledge. It too is replete with problems. His suggested solution to the so-called "ego-centric" predicament relies on much dogmatic assertion and requires language to perform some amazing magical feats. His accounts of knowledge and truth shift back and forth between subjective and objective constructions. At some points he resorts to name-calling alone (e.g., "Ethical Nihilism is infantile"). In all these questions, Kurtz offers little in the way of meaty philosophical specifics.
An interesting tension in the book arises between the overwhelming "irrational" tendencies propelling humans toward religious beliefs and the New Skeptic's almost pristine lack of any such tendencies. Nowhere in that list, of course, does Kurtz describe the basic drive of non-Christians to suppress their knowledge of God (Rom. 1). At one point, Kurtz concludes that, "otherwise rational and highly intelligent beings constantly deceive themselves...." Yes, especially secular skeptics.
Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Dr., Buffalo, NY 14228.
History of the Westminster Assembly
This year marks the 350th anniversary of the opening meetings of the Westminster Assembly, and amid the various scheduled commemorations, one could do very well to read or reread Hetherington's bicentennial account of the Assembly's work, which has been recently reprinted by Still Waters Revival Books.
Hetherington's 413-page account is intended to be a popular history of the Westminster Assembly (of course by nineteenth century standards!) "within the reach of all Presbyterians, even those whose means were more limited than their inclinations." In this more popular vein, Hetherington writes a fair though unashamedly Presbyterian history of the Assembly, a view which he thinks ought not to "perish under a load of unanswered, yet easily confuted, calumny." So, Hetherington's vindication of Presbyterian efforts stands in contrast to other accounts, such as D. Neal's 1837 history of the Puritans, a work more sympathetic to Independency/Congregationalism.
But though this engaging and stirring vindication of Presbyterian efforts will warm the hearts and minds of Presbyterians, everyone would benefit from reading of the Christian intrigue, seriousness, and struggle of that time. It is almost like reading science fiction -- another world, inside out from our own, where national concerns and life and death issues are the topics most alien to contemporary Christian "needs."
Hetherington's history begins with a hundred-page overview of English Protestant history leading up to the calling of the Assembly. Worthy of reading on its own, this section is a handy summary, full of joyously calm but biting commentary: He speaks of Elizabeth's devotion to "idle pageantry" and "her obsequious servants the bishops." The Puritan response in the face of bloody persecution is described as "the requirements of conscience are stronger than a sovereign's threats." One's mind can run giddy anticipating paragraphs that begin with such simple statements as: "Some of the Puritan party had procured a printing press..."
Quite apart from the reading pleasure this history provides, it is an ongoing primer on the many subtle stratagems employed by States to undermine Christ's church. Despots greedily protect their power by flattery, favor, licensing, preserving illiteracy, silencing "meddling," declaring truces, invoking tolerance, and standing as judges in their own cases. There is no new despotic pretext under the sun. To their credit, those believers, especially the Scottish Presbyterians, were very adept at seeing through the arrogance of official State prestidigitation. We tend to get caught up in the Republican/Democratic magic show.
Following his overview of English Puritan history, Hetherington devotes a chapter to the opening of the Assembly itself and describes the four major views of church government initially represented: Episcopacy (hierarchical church authority), Erastianism (subordination of church to state authority), Independency (distinct congregational church authorities), and Presbyterianism (non-hierarchical appellate church authority, distinct from the state). The Episcopalians quickly and obediently removed themselves at the King's wink, leaving the remaining parties to do the serious work over the next few years.
Two separate and fascinating chapters are respectively given to describing the Presbyterian debates with the Independents and Erastians. Hetherington takes special efforts to draw out the rather dastardly connections between the Independents, especially Philip Nye, and Cromwell. Hetherington highlights the Independents' rather underhanded tactics and especially their deliberate attempts to delay any serious progress at the Assembly until Cromwell had a military advantage over the king. Similarly, the Presbyterians later had to contend with Erastians, whose view the English parliament overwhelmingly supported. Baillie, one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Assembly, described the Erastian parliament thus: "The pope and the king were never more earnest for the headship of the Church than the plurality of this Parliament."
Hetherington closes his account by discussing the Assembly's successes (most notably in Scotland) and tragic losses (largely at the hands of Cromwell the destroyer). Hetherington recounts the intriguing hopes of some members of the Assembly to forge a broader Presbyterian Union of Reformed churches throughout Europe and that the Reformed in Holland, especially, made efforts to link themselves with the anticipated successes of Westminster.
In the end, England once again embraced the evils of Episcopalian government, and its adherents once again persecuted in a way that they were never persecuted. Hetherington maintains that the biggest error of the Assembly was its political mix, and so he exhorts: "Let all political influence be distrusted and avoided, and let political intrigue be utterly unknown in all our religious deliberations."
Still Waters Revival Books, 4710-371 Avenue, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6L 3T5.
The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back
In this book, Peter Jones, professor of New Testament at Westminster Seminary, California, aims to show, in popular form, that contemporary expressions of feminism, environmentalism, occultism, homosexuality, multi-culturalism, eastern mysticism, etc. are part of a revival of ancient Gnosticism. The author asks, "Are these apparently disconnected issues really part of coherent pagan ideology poised to impose its religious belief system on the New World Order (the Age of Aquarius) of the twenty-first century?" Jones answers "yes" to this thesis and aims to support it "not from pure description or prophetic speculation, but from the vantage point of real history."
Jones sets his task as that of following "the unstinting efforts of Christian thinkers such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Marcellus, and Athanasius, who fought tooth and nail against the infiltration of pagan Gnosticism into the church." The book is divided into five chapters. The first lays out the thesis (above) and stresses the "life and death" consequences of fighting the New Age ideology. The purpose of the second chapter is merely to repeat the same thesis (Ancient Gnosticism = New Age) through the statements of New Agers, Gnostic scholars, and other Christian researchers like Jones himself. Chapter three describes ancient Gnosticism via six topics: cosmology, redemption, Christology, theology,sexuality, spiritual technique. Chapter four uses the same topics to parallel New Age ideology. Both religions, following Jones's five topics downplay or deny a created reality, seek self-redemption through realization, advance a purely spiritual, non-historical Christ brother-spirit, embrace an impersonal and unknowable god, seek an androgynous sexuality, and use techniques such as prayer chants and self-meditation. The fifth and final chapter documents recent clashes and forecasts others between the church and New Age adherents, exhorting the church to be prepared.
Given all the panicked warning in the book, I found it odd that the author provided no Christian critique of New Age/Gnostic thinking. His discussion merely stands Christianity and New Age thinking next to each other, almost as equally coherent, well-structured opposites. Though he rightly assumes the truth of Christianity and mocks New Age thinking, he gives no reason to embrace one or the other. The uninformed reader is left with grave warnings and exhortations to fight. With what? Why?
In its own right, though, the author's case is rather unconvincing. Yes, some expressions of environmentalism, feminism, multi-culturalism, etc. are New Age/Gnostic, but many others are not, and instead trace their philosophical roots to equally anti-Christian but non-Gnostic sources. Not everything does or need fit into a Gnostic mold. It might have been a more provable thesis to show that New Age/Gnosticism is just one more expression of the broader non-Christian motive of egalitarianism.
Though probably not solely this author's fault, I find it discouraging and patronizing that today when we speak of "popular" books we mean books that resemble television more and more -- books with cutesy attention-sustaining sub-titles throughout the text, books with "grabber" anecdotes at the beginning of each chapter, books with plenty of exclamation marks and tabloid news overstatement.
The author is certainly correct to warn the church about the growing intolerance for Christianity, but to be genuinely prepared we need to better understand the subtleties and variations of our opponents and realize that New Age thinking is only one among many equally influential and dangerous trends.
Presbyterian and Reformed Publ. Co., Box 817, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
