Aug 21, 2019 | Apologetics
Not many Christians are familiar with first century Jewish historian Josephus, which is unfortunate. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (the latter rejected purely out of anti-supernatural bias) are the most well-attested facts in all of ancient history. But skeptics insist that because the writers of the Bible, and specifically the gospels, had a religious ax to grind, it cannot be trusted as objectively historical. I’m not sure there is such a thing, but if it can be established that the basic outline of Jesus’ life and death, and the Jewish, Greco-Roman world he inhabited, all existed, then the biblical record becomes incredibly compelling.
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Jul 10, 2019 | Apologetics, Explanatory Power
Too many Christians allow low-simmering doubt into their minds because the dominant Western secular cultural narrative assumes materialism at every point, that is that the material, matter, is all that exists. And, if materialism is true, Christianity is not. In the secular West, we are programmed to be materialists. From our earliest memories media, entertainment, and education are indoctrinating us into a materialist view of reality, as if it were the true nature of reality. It is not, and scientific knowledge is making it more untenable every day. Unfortunately the average Christian in the pew every Sunday doesn’t know this, and doubt easily creeps in: maybe, they think, this Christianity thing is a bunch of hooey. It also is not.
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Jun 26, 2019 | Apologetics, Explanatory Power
Being a person of extreme apologetic bent, I’m always looking to validate Christian truth claims. Apologetics is critical in a Western culture drenched in secularism, where most people fit into one of the Triple A categories: Atheist, Agnostic, or Apathetic. For them this life is all that matters, even as short as it is, and they have no curiosity to see if there is any meaning beyond sheer material existence. As Christians we must be endlessly curious, asking the big questions all the time. So I have one to share with those who are more like me: In the history of the world where did the idea of a personal, Creator God come from? This is no trivial question. (more…)
Jun 6, 2019 | Apologetics
It’s a common theme in secular Western media that Christianity is all but on its last legs, that “nones” are the future, and that religious faith is an exhausted remnant of a benighted, pre-scientific past. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even in the secular West it’s only partly true, but in the rest of the world Christianity is exploding. I’ve read and heard this in various places, but the secularists are so dominant in Western culture that the impression we’re given is that Christianity is passe. Even in the West, especially in America, that’s laughable. Unfortunately it’s easy to accept the secular narrative because we don’t know what’s actually happening on the ground. As well informed as I think I am, a talk I recently listened to by Pastor Rick Warren opened my eyes to the relentless march of God’s building and expanding of his church. When looking at much of the sorry state of our fallen world we too often forget Jesus’ promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.
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May 6, 2019 | Apologetics
Raising children, even for my wife and I in the late stages in which we find ourselves with the youngest of our three at 17, offers a plethora (love that word) of opportunities to bring the reality of God into their lives. Christian parents in a secular culture hostile to all things Christian must understand this is a full time job. Fortunately, the opportunities are never ending because so is our God! He is, after all, the Creator of all things, and therein lies a multitude of opportunities. Having a music obsessed son offers many of those in our house.
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Apr 6, 2019 | Apologetics
I’ve been slowly reading through Frederick Copleston’s A History of Philosophy, and having recently finished the section on the great Scottish skeptic David Hume, I got to wondering if Hume might come to the same conclusions today. An impossible question to answer, no doubt, like comparing great athletes from different eras, but one worth contemplating. The entire Enlightenment project was birthed in an historical and cultural epoch when a world and universe without God had a certain plausibility to it. Science was a new, exciting phenomenon, and Christian apologetics as a discipline hardly existed. The enterprise to construct a credible explanation of reality based on experience (empiricism) and reason sans God was in its infancy, and a heady enterprise it was. Philosophers, even those who considered themselves Christians, thought they could explain reality without revelation. That hasn’t turned out so well.
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