Jan 18, 2022 | Culture, Plausibility
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I learned Jordan Peterson’s daughter, Mikhaila, had recently become a Christian. If you’re not familiar with Peterson, five or six years ago he became a cultural phenomenon by speaking what to most people is common sense, but not in the Canadian university setting in which he worked. One piece on him put it well, “Mr. Peterson is the canary in the toxic coal mine of political correctness and petty thought police.” He became a Youtube sensation back in 2015 when he started to challenge leftist Canadian groupthink. He then published a best seller called 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, which launched him into a popularity he seemed to endure far more than he enjoyed. A good introduction is a documentary you can see on Amazon Prime called The Rise of Jordan Peterson. (more…)
Jan 13, 2022 | Plausibility
That, my friends, is from the first sentence in a college textbook my son purchased for a class on how chance can work such wonders as the human voice. If you don’t believe me, get yourself a copy of Your Voice: An Inside view 3: Voice Science & Pedagogy by Scott McCoy. On second thought, just believe me. It’s not surprising, is it, because according to the secularist, materialist, Darwinian view of reality, everything is a product of chance—every single thing. Now, if you’re a Christian, or any person with a shred of common sense, you will realize the absurdity of “evolutionary science.” Yet, the dominant narrative of the secular West is that chance can in fact explain every single thing. Not things created by human beings, mind you, because we know chance can’t create anything, not pencils or computers or cars or glasses or tables or anything. Things that humans create have function and purpose, obviously, and we know they are designed and made with a specific end in mind, a telos (purpose), or as Aristotle called it, a final cause. Let’s looks at Aristotle’s four causes, or why things exist: (more…)
Jan 5, 2022 | Plausibility
When I pray I always seem to thank God for revealing himself to us in creation, Scripture, and Christ because I am blown away that God reveals himself in ways that makes doubting his existence and who he is, for me, impossible. I freely admit I find it difficult to believe in an invisible reality, an invisible God, and an invisible life after death. At the same time, I find it impossible to believe in any of the alternatives to Christianity, especially materialism (matter is all there is). As I daily confront this difficulty, I’m always brought back to the idea of God’s revelation. Thankfully, he has not left us benighted, i.e., in a state of moral or intellectual darkness, or unenlightened. Without his revelation that is exactly what we would be, without light. And without light we run into things we can’t see, and it hurts. We wonder, why didn’t anybody tell us that was there. And God says, I did! So, what has this to do with progressive revelation? (more…)
Dec 25, 2021 | Theology
No, it wasn’t Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus and a manger, shepherds keeping watch by night, a choir of angels, a bright star or wise men from the east. Actually, that first Christmas was the fulfillment of something that came way before that, and if you want to know the true meaning of Christmas you have to start there, when Christmas became necessary. I’m talking about the story of Adam and Eve told in Genesis 3, and something we call “the fall.” That is where the first Christmas really happened. You’ll remember that the serpent deluded Eve into thinking being like God might be a good thing, and Adam the solid leader he wasn’t, went along with it. Bad move. At once they realized they were naked, and did what human beings have done ever since, sewed fig leaves together to try to cover their nakedness. No, people don’t use fig leaves anymore, but they do the same thing; with their own works they try to cover their nakedness, sin and death. That is no more effective then Adam and Eve’s effort. Human religion is futility in action. Then we get a picture into Christmas, and what was in effect the first Christmas: God promises, and we can take it to the eternal bank: (more…)
Dec 24, 2021 | Theology
In my previous post on the dysfunction that was much of Mars Hill church, I focused on The Church being full of sinners, saved sinners, but sinners nonetheless. So to be surprised when “stuff” happens, and sinners act like sinners, is silly. Even a cursory look through the New Testament makes it apparent that perfection isn’t in the cards for Christians, even though in the 19th century and part of the 20th there were perfectionist movements in the church that claimed just that. This was such an influential movement, as hard as that is to believe today, that the great Reformed theologian B.B. Warfield saw the need to write a substantial book on it called, Studies in Perfectionism. In fact, when I became a Christian in 1978 the idea was still such an influence in the church, even if not taught outright, that when I discovered his book in the mid-1980s it felt like a life saver. Fundamentalist Christianity, a version of which I was born-again into, has always had a tendency toward works righteousness, which was a burden I could not bear. (more…)
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