A prominent figure in the news lately has been Dinesh DSouza. Dinesh is best known as a hyper-conservative political commentator. His most recent book is America, and this week it is #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction. It has a companion documentary film. If youre a rabid conservative who despises Barack Obama and everything he stands for -- this is the book for you! Dinesh was a policy analyst in the Reagan White House as a 20-something Wunderkind; he has served as John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The New York Times Magazine named him as one of Americas most influential conservative thinkers. Newsweek listed him as one of the countrys most prominent Asian Americans. Dinesh has also been in the news because he is (apparently) going to go to jail. He has been found guilty of campaign finance fraud, and may have to face two years in confinement. Or not. Sentencing is yet to happen. It has been a very up and down few years for Dinesh. A couple of years ago, when he was the President of Kings College in NYC, a conservative Christian school that has as its mission training conservative evangelicals in business and finance so that they can get high level places at Goldman Sachs and such, Dinesh was caught at a hotel with a woman other than his wife (from whom he was separated). He was promptly removed from his position, even though he protested that he didnt know that Christians thought there was an ethical problem with having an intimate relationship with a woman other than your wife if you were legally separated. So hes had some high peaks and deep valleys in recent years, the best of times and the worst of times. I have known Dinesh for maybe five years now. On three occasions we have had public debates -- not on public policy and the relative merits of Obama and, say, Sarah Palin, but on another topic of interest to him and certainly to me: the Problem of Suffering. Our second debate was on November 11, 2010 at the conservative evangelical Gordon College. (The first debate was on my turf at Chapel Hill; the third was on neutral territory in NYC). Dinesh is obviously an unusually smart fellow, and he is fantastically quick on his feet -- a real challenge for anyone who wants to disagree with him. He strongly thinks that the existence of suffering in the world should have no effect on a persons faith in God. My view is the opposite. And so we have debated. Here is the debate at Gordon College, for your viewing pleasure. Please adjust gear icon for 720p High-Definition: To see this and other posts in ehrmanblog.org/video-theodicy-god-suffering-ehrman-vs-dsouza/ and join the blog by clicking the Register button!
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 17:39:35 +0000
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