Critique One - Part One - Slaying Straw Men

In this 'Critique One' I will be concerned with Bertrand Russell's 'Why I Am Not a Christian". I will not post a point-by-point response, but will share thoughts as they come and where I feel they warrant attention. My first comments are on his opening thoughts on 'What is a Christian'.

"We have to be a little more vague in our meaning of Christianity. I think, however, that there are two different items which are quite essential to anybody calling himself a Christian...you must believe in God and immortality...you must have some kind of belief about Christ." Mr. Russell says that a Christian "...must have at the very lowest the belief that Christ was, if not divine, at least the best and wisest of men." He also states that while he personally does not think "...that Christ was the best and wisest of men..." but that "...I grant Him a very high degree of moral goodness."

It is interesting that Mr. Russell speaks of God and Christianity here without once referencing the Bible. To what does he look for his definition of a Christian? His own ideas? Popular Culture or Opinion? Political Institutions or Committees? Isn't Christianity at least somewhat concerned with Christ? Doesn't Christ appear most often in the Bible? This is especially confusing since the definition of a Christian appears in the Bible and is quite simple. Acts 11:26 says, "The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." Quite simply, a Christian is a disciple of Christ (which is to say he or she follows, or belongs to Christ, or is in fact a 'little Christ').

I fear Mr. Russell needs to begin by erecting this 'straw man' so that he can spend the remainder of his treatise torturing and bludgeoning it until finally all who read or hear his position will beg him to put the poor fellow out of his misery. If some fallacious 'straw man' is in fact his target, then I agree it needs to die. In fact, don't waste any more time on it at all. I'd just as soon Mr. Russell look true Biblical Christianity in the face and explain why he chooses not to be a disciple, or follower, of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Christ.

As for Jesus, Mr. Russell make more assumptions about his character and generously allows the description of "a very high degree of moral goodness." Again, we look at scripture and see that through both implication and direct answer Christ claims to be God, nothing else. C.S. Lewis says it this way in his 'Mere Christianity', "I am here trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."