Surviving Religion 101 ... by Michael Kruger

I just started the book but want to leave a log of reactions to the chapters. If you have read or are reading the book, join in. If no one reads the book, or wants to comment, thats fine; I am OK with this being either a personal log of thoughts, or a group thing.

Preface and Intro ----- The book is set in the structure of personal letters to Krugers daughter. It is a nice laymans framework. The setting of the book is that Kruger is writing to his daughter Emma. She is going Chapel Hill and attend religion classes at UNC. Kruger, himself, attended and was taught by Bart Erhman. The setting of the book is pretend personal letters to a daughter named Emma.

I do not know much about the personal life of Michael Kruger and I am not sure if this is an actual daughter, or an imaginary daughter for the purpose of writing the book.

Chapter 1 CONTENT
The Author warns against unbridled suspicion that heretics are going to get you if you go to university, and on the other hand, naive overconfidence. Both extremes are pitfalls. The author gives 3 bits of advice:
1- Remember your an 18 year old and it is no reasonable to think you can go toe to toe with a university professor. You do not have all the answers.
2&3 Just because you do not have the answer, that does not mean that there is no answer.

There are several paragraphs on the value of opposition (What does not kill you makes you stronger). There is also advice suggesting Emma find a sort of theological support group, a band of brothers to fight the theological battle to come.

COMMENTS
In the preface and intro, he warns that the Evangelical Church is good in the gospel departments of Gospel and Ethics, but is not preparing late teens for the academic/spiritual challenge of university. I look around the church I attend and I think we might keep about 1/2 of the kids that go off to university. The need for the book is painfully obvious. On the other hand, the book hits a nerve that troubles me. Among some in the Church, there is an anti-academic; anti-theological tradition. This book seems to target the 18 year old going to university, but I am troubled that this is only one part of the problem in evangelical churches.

Hazelelponi said:

"They have three children, Emma, John, and Kate."

Dr. Michael J. Kruger | Reformed Theological Seminary

I thought that would be helpful for you to know... Emma is his actual daughter.

Click to expand...

I was interested in that.. thanks.

CHAPTER 2
Chapter 2 has presuppositional apologetical method in the background. The author does not mention it, but the content of Chapter 2 is too close to presuppositional apologetics not to notice it. He mentions a book by Thomas Koons that he draws from to speak of scientists as always coming from the perspective of their own worldview. I am not familiar with the book he mentions.

There is a humorous anecdote that made me smile. He speaks of accidentally going into a wrong Church, but it is something you have to read to get the chuckle. The anecdote is used to illustrate how all subjects, including historical sciences, are looked at through presuppositions and colored glasses.

There was a stunning comment he made at the end. He stated that the mainstream theology of the big universities is not really main stream. Kruger said that the largest 10 seminaries in the USA are evangelical. Kruger warns that when university "Religion 101" professors say "most scholars agree" they are talking in a bubble. The majority (evangelicals) are discounted because they are outside the bubble and actually, we, as evangelicals are now the majority.

After 2 chapters, I am already convinced. This book is needed and useful. It would be worth exposing our upper teens and young adults to the idea's in this book.

CHAPTER 3
Chapter 3 concerns the charges of intolerance because Christianity says it is the only way to God. The chapter is also about the error of relativism. Intolerance and relativism go in the same chapter because secularism charges Christianity with being intolerant because it does not view truth as relative. Kruger mentions that if all religions are a path to God, then Christ died for nothing.

CHAPTER 4
Chapter 4 again feels like pre-suppositional apologetics. He makes the case that the only actual (objective) morality can only be found in obedience to God. In one paragraph Kruger quoted Richard Dawkins mentioning "the preposterous idea that we need God to be good." Kruger mentions that Dawkins response misses the point. We are not saying atheists cannot do something good, but that the atheist has no adequate grounds for for morality. Atheism requires moral relativism because it is grounded in personal opinion. Furthermore, evolution cannot establish any basis for an ethic. Certain studies have determined that rape is advantageous to certain species because genetic material is passed on even when animals cannot find a willing partner. When morality is based in individual opinion, then is the evil of the Nazi genocide of Jews based upon mere personal opinion?

Kruger mentions that many college students see sexual morality as very individual and relativistic. But the irony comes when you talk about racial equality, pollution or other subjects like this at university, then suddenly morality is objective.