Even the atheists agree: William Craig thrashed Christopher Hitchens in their recent debate. In The West Wing, we see Bartlet preparing for a debate as real politicians do, by practising against someone playing his opposition, presumably having studied the other guy first. Craig is formidable, but his arguments don't change, so it's odd that his opponents apparently don't take advantage of knowing what he's going to say. Transcripts and audio of his previous debates are available, and his arguments are also in his book, Reasonable Faith. Chris Hallquist responded convincingly to the arguments in Reasonable Faith: a review like that should be a starting point for anyone debating with Craig.

Anyhoo, Hallquist's review of Craig's book brought back some memories of my time in evangelicalism, specifically about how I was taught to do evangelism. (Reminder: Evangelicalism is a particular subset of Christianity, emphasising the inerrancy of the Bible and the need for personal repentance and faith; people who believe in evangelicalism are evangelicals. Evangelism is the process of making converts; people who try to make converts are evangelists. Clear? Then off we go.)

When I tap on the dashboard, I want you to recite "Two Ways to Live" as quickly and as safely as possible

Sometimes non-Christians are disturbed to learn that evangelicals commonly receive training in evangelism, as if such training were somehow cheating. But there's nothing inherently sinister about wanting to be better at evangelism, especially if you value the sort of propositional consistency I've mentioned previously: evangelicals who evangelise are anticipating-as-if there's a Hell, rather than merely speaking-as-if they believe it (I've previously mentioned an evangelical evangelist who definitely anticipates-as-if there's a Hell).

The training provided to a typical church-goer doesn't cover spanking ill-prepared atheists in formal debates, but rather the every-day evangelism which is the responsibility of every Christian. It might start off with overcoming the British reticence about religion to get Christians to casually mention to friends and colleagues what they do on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. The church itself would put on fun events (film screenings, dinner parties, Ceroc nights) to which you could bring non-Christian friends, and there'd be a "short talk about Jesus" in the middle. Once people know you're a Christian, you might get to talk to them about it, so the training goes on to having conversations about Christianity with non-Christians, maybe learning some sort of salvation schema like Two Ways to Live and some answers to common questions.

What kicked off memories of this was Hallquist's review of Chapter 1 of Craig's book. I remember being told to try to move the conversation away from issues like theodicy or the reliability of the Bible, to personal issues of sin and repentance. If you watch the BBC documentary on Deborah Drapper, you'll see her doing this several times, using Ray Comfort's Are you a good person? script. If you'd like to see Christopher Hitchens win for a change, you can also listen to an unfortunate Christian trying the script on him.

Bad faith

The advice to move the argument to personal issues reflects the common evangelical belief that philosophical debates and requests for evidence are a smokescreen: the non-Christian knows there's a God really but just doesn't want to worship him. One Biblical source for this belief is this passage in the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome, where Paul says that God's nature is clear from creation, so that people who don't worship him have no excuse (verse 20).

Hallquist quotes Craig:

[W]hen a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God. -- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, my hyperlink

Craig advises Christians to ask objectors "If I answered that objection, would you then really be ready to become a Christian?" This is something like the rationalist technique of getting to the core of disagreements by asking "Is that your true rejection?" (see also The Least Convenient Possible World). However, Craig departs from the rationalist use of this technique in that he seems to argue it cannot legitimately be applied in reverse ("If I substantiated that objection, would you be ready to leave Christianity?"). He also takes the stance that non-Christians are culpably arguing in bad faith.

Hallquist's review does a better job of arguing against Craig than I can, so you should read that if you come across assertions that Christianity is evidenced by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, or indeed, if you should happen to get into a debate with William Lane Craig. Rather, as is traditional, let's end by drawing out some practical applications, and then go in peace.

Evangelism training

• One of the less memorable new phrases invented by Neal Stephenson in Anathem is Hypotrochian Transquaestiation, which means "to change the subject in such a way as to assert, implicitly, that a controversial point has already been settled one way or the other". Watch out for this, for example, in the switch from discussion of the existence of God to whether you are a good person.
• Cognitive biases exist, and seeking a person's true rejection is a useful technique if the debate seems to be going nowhere. However, it cuts both ways, so...
• Beware of your conversational role. If you've accepted a passive role as potential buyer and the evangelist's active role as sales-person, there are thoughts which won't occur to you (like the seeking the evangelist's true rejection).
• If you're aiming for dialogue rather than the buyer role, it's probably not worth discussing things with someone who sees every argument you raise as evidence of your culpable self-deception. Craig's position on an atheist's motivations together with his experience of the witness of the Holy Spirit serve as a fully general counterargument to anything the atheist says (but note that knowing Craig is in possession of this argument doesn't itself invalidate his specific arguments). If you find yourself in conversation with an evangelical evangelist, it is worth asking whether they agree with Craig.
  • One exception where it would be worth arguing is if there are people watching, as in a public debate, online, or if you found yourself at one of those evangelistic dinner parties.

Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, has let us know that the real reason for the floods in the north. It's the gays.

"We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate," he said.

"In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as 'the beast', which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want," he said, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws highlighted its determination to undermine marriage.

"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."

The non-sequitur in that second paragraph is breathtaking, isn't it? The reference is to Revelation, chapter 13. Revelation has been favoured by loons since it was written (I particularly like this version, myself). The beast is usually thought to be the power of ancient Rome, possibly Emperor Nero himself, whose burnings of Christians and insistence on worship of deified emperors are clearly just like a secular democracy which is trying to give its citizens equality under the law.

Dow is quoted alongside a couple of other evangelical Bishops saying less insane stuff about global warming, with the vague hint that God is telling us off for being nasty to the planet. They're probably wishing they had chosen to speak out at a time when their episcopal colleague wasn't hell-bent on emptying churches throughout the north. Good luck to Dow in his quest, anyhow.

Hassan Butt appears to be one of those people you don't hear about often enough: a Muslim speaking out publicly against terrorism and calling on Muslims in the UK to reform. His article in The Observer is worth a read, as is the one giving Tony Blair's thoughts on British Islam. Both links come from those Drink Soaked Trots, who I commend to you for sensible commentary if, like me, you're a bit of a leftie.

The original drink-soaked trot, Christopher Hitchens, points out in Slate that God also hates women, or at least, those who are slags.

Roy Zimmerman, the Tom Lehrer for the Noughties, has some new videos out. Squeee!, as I believe the saying goes.

Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual covers the rise and fall of the American evangelical preacher.

For guitarists out there, there are also videos on how to play Jerry Falwell's God and Creation Science 101. For the non-guitarists, Zimmerman intersperses his guitar lesson with some choice words on Falwell (though not quite as choice as those of Hitchens, who you might think was promoting a book at the moment, or something).

Christopher Hitchens has a new book out. It's called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I'm not sure what it's about.

Hitchens also wrote an Londonistan Calling, an article in Vanity Fair, in which he mentions the Undercover Mosque programme I discussed a while ago.

An illuminating aside from the Q&A which followed the article: "I've heard a lot of secular Pakistanis complain that the cops, when they think we better go talk to the community, walk straight past them and head for the imam at the mosque, assuming that he's the one they want to talk to." It's the sort of thing that Dawkins bangs on about in The God Delusion ("Why the chaplain? Why not the cook or the gardener?") combined with a naive multi-culturalism which assumes that people can be divided into faith blocs based on their ancestors' country of origin.

I don't know whether Hitchens is right that the government is weak when it comes to sticking up for secular democracy. You might think that last year's veil controversy represented some sort of stirring in that direction, but that seemed more like veering to the right in search of votes than any sort of coherent policy. As Hitchens points out, faith schools and the government's choice of so-called community leaders are far more interesting than what Jack Straw's constituents choose to wear.