Posted by Anthony on August 24, 2010
I was recently invited to submit articles for consideration in a mag called Christian Video Magazine. I was delighted to take them up on the offer. My first article was published today in their August edition.
You can read my article online here.
You can forward it along in pdf, here.
You can read my article where it is found in the whole magazine, in pdf, here. (start at page 15)
Interestingly, our online apologetics conference presenter Robert Velarde also appears in this edition. Check his article out. It’s worth it.
Excerpt:
“He has set eternity in the hearts of men…” So begins chapter three, verse eleven, of the book of Ecclesiastes. I bet everyone sometimes falls into the habit of thinking that the only real things are those things we grasp with our five senses, but I would also wager that we have all experienced the angst and restlessness that shows that our rat race lives cannot provide us all the satisfactions we need. Christianity would offer another interpretation for that unsettled feeling: it is homesickness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on June 11, 2010
Athanatos Christian Ministries is launching an book club. The year long membership delivers one book a month for just $10 a month- including shipping! The books selected continue to influence Christian thought and provide useful insight for apologists in particular, Christians in general, and readers of all stripes, as they grapple with Truth. The list includes both fiction and non-fiction and the authors span centuries and countries.
To learn more and sign up click here.
Current line up (subject to revision)
(In no particular order)
- G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy | Amazon Link | Buy Direct
- Blaise Pascal’s Pensees | Amazon Link | Buy Direct
- George MacDonald’s Lilith | Amazon Link | Buy Direct
- Simon Greenleaf’s Testimony of the Evangelists
- Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
- Martin Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
- John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
- William Paley’s Natural Theology
- The Apologies of Justin the Martyr
- John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress
- David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Posted by Anthony on May 25, 2010
I try mightily to keep myself from having unexamined beliefs. I turned one up, though, in the last month or so, no doubt because of the writing contest and online apologetics conference I was working on. The writing contest, for example, is labeled as a Christian writing contest. I began to think about how an endeavor like writing, or any endeavor at all, could justify being termed ‘Christian’ and realized I had never really thought about it much before, and had rather accepted the presumptions that had been handed down to me. I hate it when I do that! Even if the presumptions are right!
However, what I turned up when I began my examination may surprise the reader. In Evangelical circles, the Christian sub-culture is a constant temptation and Christianese the prevailing language, which I myself attack in this post warning about Christianese and shibboleths. There is a silly sense within Christendom that you can slap the label ‘Christian’ on front of something and you’ve sanctified it. The truth usually is that it’s merely been rendered more marketable within the Church.
The reader would be wrong if he thought that the presumption handed down to me was the one I just described, however. The understanding that I had received regarding such things was that there was in many areas no distinctly Christian perspective on human endeavors. The slogan often is, “We do not need Christian X, we need Xers who are Christians.” (Where X is the activity in question). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on May 13, 2010
Yesterday’s post talked about the ‘hyper-defense of God.’ What I wanted to confront was the sort of insistence on giving God credit for things that the place of the individual human, and the Church in particular, has in carrying out God’s plan. I gave as an illustration the fact that salvation is by grace alone through Christ- ie, accomplished by the power of God- and yet Paul can say elsewhere that he ‘saves’ people.
Yesterday, I wanted to build towards addressing the notion that God expresses his love for us, and we express our love for God, without reference to any other person. Surely, there is room for such a thing, but I argued that actually, according to the Scriptures, God expresses his love for us through Christ- who is yet manifest on this earth in the Church, which is his body (Eph 5), and according to the same Scriptures, God asks that if we are grateful for what he has done for us, we direct our thanksgiving, love, mercy, etc, to each other. Christians should not, when come across some need to be met or good deed waiting to be done, simply pray that God will meet that need or accomplish that need, without considering if they themselves ARE the answer to that prayer. The hyper-defense of God has Christians going so far out of their way to make sure that God gets the glory that they wouldn’t dream of lifting a finger of their own… since no human is worthy.
I said yesterday, and I will repeat today, that God’s choice to use unworthy humans (the ‘weak’) to carry out his purposes on this planet only add to his glory in my book.
But hyper-defenses of God pop onto my radar in numerous places. The connection with love gets on my nerves because that particular one results in brothers remaining needful while other brothers could provide succor. It’s a tangible harm.
There are other harms, too. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on May 6, 2010
If anyone has wondered where I am- I’ve been working on the final details for the online apologetics conference: http://onlineapologeticsconference.com/
It starts tomorrow morning (Friday, May 7th) and goes until Saturday. I speak on Saturday… on Harry Potter, Phillip Pullman, Carl Sagan, etc.
Posted by Anthony on April 27, 2010
http://onlineapologeticsconference.com/
People can test out the conference format by visiting the conference hall, here.
- Cast a vision for ‘literary apologetics.’
- Call upon leaders in the Church to explore ways to communicate the faith through the arts in a deliberate manner.
- Explore strengths and weaknesses to apologetics in general and apologetics through the arts in particular.
- Begin the process of laying a theological foundation for engaging in ‘literary apologetics.’
- Connect Christian artists with each other and with those who can help propel them to success.
Presenters:
Keynote:
Plenary
Workshops
Posted by Anthony on April 26, 2010
Readers of this blog know that I have an interest in Antony Flew, having even had the honor of corresponded with him. Click here for a list of posts I’ve written regarding Dr. Flew. The short story below may be understood better by some if you read this particular post of mine where I discuss the Flew-Wisdom parable.
In order to better get a sense of my overall picture of things, you might (after reading the story below) want to read my short story titled, to your surprise no doubt, “Mother Teresa Goes to Heaven.”
Antony Flew Goes to Heaven
When the man opened his eyes the first thing he beheld was a garden. It was the assault on his being that alerted him to this fact. His sensory scouts went out and scoured his surroundings and came back with the report- first from the nostrils: here were delicate scents of flowers and dirt; and then the eyes: there were well ordered paths with ivy crawling up rocky walls; now touch: he realized he was lying on his back with blades of grass tickling his ear and when he flexed his fingers into the earth there was that soft moistness you always associated with good soil; the ears came announcing: birds here, birds there, birds everywhere, and somewhere yet unspotted a fountain, detected by alternating gurgles and tinkling; taste came back disappointed, as it had nothing yet to disclose.
It was comforted soon enough. The man sat up and saw at once the hanging branches of a fruit-laden tree. While feeling no pangs of hunger he knew he was famished. He stood up and strode with purpose to the tree and helped himself liberally. In his subconscious a fear flickered that he may be plucking his lunch from Augustine’s orchard. He set the fear aside and ate his fill.
He returned to the patch of soft grass that he had been lying when he had first awoken. There seemed nothing else to do. So he sat. It was the cool of the day and he was content enough to enjoy the tender breeze that played on his cheeks. That breeze, the man couldn’t help but think, seemed to be made just for him each and every time. It was the cool of the day, and suddenly the man knew that he was not alone. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
