Magic Statistics

A survey by Reginald Bibby, one of Canada’s leading sociologists, has found that Canadians who believe in God are more likely than those who do not to place a high value on such social virtues as love, kindness, and courtesy.  Theists regarded every one of the twelve traits included in the survey as more important than did the atheists.  Believers were 80% more likely than atheists to consider patience and generosity very important.  (See chart at right.)

The University of Lethbridge, where Dr Bibby holds the Board of Governors Research Chair in the Department of Sociology, issued a press release on Thanksgiving Monday, which said in part:

The old question, "Do people need God to be good?" may well have a more complex answer: "People who don't believe in God can be good. But people who believe in God are more likely to value being good, enhancing the chances that they will be good."

Dr Bibby offers a sociological explanation for his findings.

The reason for this, suggests Prof. Bibby, a prominent sociologist, is that those who are involved with religious groups are being exposed to a whole range of values that are not being propagated well by any other major source. "To the extent that people are not involved in religious groups … they're not being exposed to those interpersonal values and they're simply not holding them as strongly," Prof. Bibby said in an interview.

Bibby also highlighted the wide variance of opinion on the importance of forgiveness:  84% of theists believe forgiveness is very important, compared to only 52% of atheists.

These findings, says Bibby, point to a stark conclusion: "To the extent that Canadians say good-bye to God, we may find that we pay a significant social price."

With unrestricted legal abortion, growing abuse of the elderly, low charitable giving, fertility deficit and impending population implosion, I'd say Canada is already paying a price for declining Christian faith.

Previous related posts:

• Neuhaus: Christianity banished from Canadian public life
• Canada’s policy on abortion is not to have a policy
• Richard Dawkins, call your office—now!
• Boomers elevated individualism above common good

Here’s how to bring in the maximum amount for your house: List it at a price with few, if any, zeroes.  List it for, say, $424,855 rather than $425,000.

Researchers at Cornell University have found that houses with few zeroes in the list price tend to sell for higher prices.  After examining over 27,000 residential real estate transactions, they concluded that buyers pay more when list prices are more precise.

This phenomenon hinges on a psychological trait called the “precision heuristic” that results in people assuming that precise numbers are lower than round numbers.

[W]e conduct a laboratory study to understand the psychological mechanism behind the precision heuristic. We find that people do learn to associate precision with smaller magnitudes, and that this association biases their price magnitude judgments. Additionally, we rule out alternative explanations which posit that a precise price signals a seller's low-price strategy or her unwillingness to negotiate.

The empirical analysis indicates that a house listed at $484,700 is likely to sell for $1380 more than one listed at $485,000.

The abstract is posted here; the full paper can be downloaded via a link at the bottom of that page.

Ann Coulter has raised a huge ruckus for defending traditional understandings of Christian origins and Christian evangelism.  Talk show host Donny Deutsch (whom I’d never heard of before) became outraged when Ms Coulter said that the world would be a better place if everyone were Christian.  He accused her of wanting to wipe Jews off the earth, to which she replied, "No, we think - we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."   Mr Deutsch called her statements “absurd”, “offensive”, “hateful”, and accused her of ignorance and anti-Semitism.  Other commentators soon piled on.

The critics are the ignorant ones, for what Ms Coulter said comes straight out of the New Testament.  See, for example, St Paul’s discussion of the relationship between Christians and Jews in chapters 9-11 of his letter to the Romans.

N.T. (Tom) Wright, perhaps the leading New Testament scholar writing today, has argued that St Paul believed it arrogant of Christians to exclude Jews from evangelisation efforts.  These passages come from Bishop Wright’s 1991 book The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology.

Many Christians have come to agree with most Jews that, since the Holocaust, the church has no right to engage in evangelism towards Jews, since to say that Jesus is the true Messiah for Jews as well as for Gentiles is to be implicitly antisemitic or at least antiJudaic, hinting that Judaism is somehow incomplete. Within scholarly circles, this concern has emerged particularly as the 'two-covenant' theory, which suggests that God has on the one hand maintained his covenant with ethnic Israel intact, and on the other hand has inaugurated the Christian 'covenant' as his regular way of saving Gentiles. In this scheme, Paul is sometimes cast as the hero who anticipated two-covenant theology, sometimes as the villain against whom it makes its vital point.
. . .
[I]t is against Christian arrogance—specifically, gentile Christian arrogance—that Romans 9-11 is explicitly directed. Paul is writing, with all the weight of eleven chapters of theology behind him, in order to say that 'gentile Christians' have not 'replaced' Jews as the true people of God. The church has not become an exclusively gentile possession. Precisely because the gospel stands athwart all ethnic claims, the church cannot erect a new racial boundary. The irony of this is that the late twentieth century, in order to avoid antisemitism, has advocated a position (the non-evangelization of Jews) which Paul regards precisely as antisemitic. The two-covenant position says precisely what Paul here forbids the church to say, namely that Christianity is for non-Jews. To this extent, it actually agrees in form with the German Christian theology of the 1930s—while of course disagreeing in substance, because it denies that Christianity is the only way of salvation.

Paul holds that a deliberate policy of refusing to evangelise Jews is anti-Semitic.

Many other passages in the New Testament are relevant here; I'll cite only two.  After he was raised, Jesus instructed the disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations”.  St Paul called the gospel “the power of God to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”.

In saying that Christians are perfected Jews and encouraging Jews to become so perfected, Ann Coulter was only repeating orthodox Christian theology.  If Donny Deutsch wants intelligently to engage other religions, he should first learn something about their teachings.

You can watch the exchange here.

Recommended commentary:

• Like Ann Coulter, All Faithful Christians Believe "Jews Need to be Perfected" — John-Henry Westen, LifeSite
• On Coulter, Christians, And Jews — Steven M. Warshawsky, American Thinker

Source of Tom Wright quotation: The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, first paperback edition, 1993, p. 253.

Jennifer Green of the Ottawa Citizen is on the scene of the Ottawa Synod meeting: NAV CANADA Conference Centre, Cornwall, Ontario.  The first entry in her newly inaugurated blog covered Bishop John Chapman’s charge to the assembled clergy and laity.

This morning Ms Green reports on the debate on the controversial motion to recommend authorisation of same-sex blessings in the diocese.  The first speakers expressed support for the motion, but then other voices came to the fore.

In Cornwall this morning, delegates lined up at the microphones by the dozens. The first speakers were uniformly in favour of the motion, saying to is [sic] an obvious step forward. After all, the diocese offers pension benefits to same sex couples. It seems absurd that it would not bless their existing marriages.

But then more people spoke out against it and they did not seem like anti-gay Neanderthals.

She sounds surprised.

George Sinclair, pastor at St. Alban’s in Ottawa, said that if the church passed the motion, “We are saying we are smarter than Jesus. We are saying Jesus was wrong and we are right.”

Ms Green does not mention if anyone has raised the Windsor Report or the Dar es Salaam Communiqué.

The debate goes on.  She promises to let us know the result of the vote as soon as it becomes available.

Next week, Montreal Synod will consider an almost identical motion.

UPDATE: Kendall Harmon gets the news out before Ms Green: The motion was passed 177 to 97.

One Ottawa Anglican appears to think it likely that Bp Chapman will accept the motion and allow SSBs in the diocese.

c/p: Anglican Essentials Canada Blog

Previous related posts:

• Ottawa Anglican church considers banning marriages
• Ottawa Diocese to consider motion at odds with General Synod decision

Christ Church, Windsor, Nova Scotia, will celebrate the 125th anniversary of its church building tomorrow.  Halifax Chronicle-Herald reporter Peter Duffy recently spoke with rector The Rev David Curry.

This venerable church turns out to be the only one in the town proper to have survived the great Windsor fire of 1897. By the time it was over, three-quarters of the community was in ashes. To this day, there’s debate over the cause of the conflagration.

According to David, the minister at the time was on his knees inside, praying his church be spared the flames. Meanwhile, outside, students from the forerunners of King’s-Edgehill School were busy pouring water on the roof.

Obviously, thanks to the power of both prayer and hosepipe, the building was spared.

The photo posted at right is dated 17 November 1997.  To see a photo of the church taken in 1910, click here.

Tomorrow a special Holy Communion will be held at 10:30 am and, in the afternoon, the church will be open for guided tours and tea.  (Unfortunately, I can’t make it.)

The church does not have a website, but Rev Curry maintains a blog here.

h/t for photo: e-mail from the See of Pisiquid.

Previous related post: Father David Curry’s notes on General Synod