A brief Introduction:While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.
To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.
There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.
Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.
Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.
Here Begins my Blog
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That’s not what I want to talk about. The ‘person’ in question (I use the term ‘person’ here loosely, as definitions can change over time ) is an atheist and secular humanist. His position on abortion follows naturally from his atheism. I’m not saying it follows logically, as in my book an atheist who subscribes unconditionally to Darwinism would recognize that abortion flies in the face of most evolutionary principles. After all, if our biological purpose is essentially to reproduce, hundreds of millions of humans thwarting that purpose by the droves would seem to be quite contrary to our evolved nature. So, not logically, but naturally.
Why naturally? Because if you take God out of the equation and you believe that morality is an evolving thing as well and that there isn’t any objective right and wrong, it follows logically that Man himself, and each individual man and woman, becomes the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong and the sole arbiter of how one defines ‘person.’ On these terms, an atheist can believe whatever he wants about anything he wants. In short, the atheist acknowledges a final regress: himself.
It is no surprise that the majority of pro-lifers are religious people and that the majority of pro-choice ‘persons’ are not. This list of every country and its percentage of pregnancies terminated in legal abortion reveals some pretty straight forward trends. Is it a surprise to anyone that the former bastion of institutionalized atheism, Russia, aborts more than 50% of its children while the thoroughly Roman Catholic Panama comes in at .02% ? Read the rest of the entry… »
Obviously, the Church is still making an awful lot of Christians. This can lead leaders and thinkers in the church to conclude that the problem is that Americans are just reacting the way the Bible said people would react to the Gospel. I don’t think this is accurate. We aren’t talking about the reaction of a hostile tribe in South America that doesn’t know better. We are talking about a growing population of people that began Christian but then fell away. In other words, we had 5 to 18 years with these folks and we still lost them.
The level of Biblical illiteracy, even among Christians, is high. I could give anecdotal report after report from my own ministry… 13 year olds that don’t know how many disciples Jesus had… unawareness that Jesus was a Jew… belief that one must do good works to be saved… this list can go on and on. I am not by any means the only person to encounter this trend.
On the assumption that the reader agrees this is a problem, the question is what to do about it. Read the rest of the entry… »
I am currently promoting my Birth Pangs series and thought it would be a good idea to point to a few places where I have argued that turning the tide in America today means changing the way we witness. In particular, using narrative, whether visually or in text.
America is increasingly a mission field in its own right. Just as missionaries have to learn the language of the natives before they can present the Gospel effectively, so too do we need to do the same in America. This does not mean (per some trends in apologetics today) adopting the ‘language’ and methodologies wholesale. For example, some aspects of post-modernism provide legitimate insights into the nature of reality. However, much of post-modernism needs to be rejected as rubbish. Nonetheless, if we want to communicate with a Pomo person, we have to be able to speak their language, presenting truth in their context, without necessarily accepting as truth that context.
Fiction and narrative in general are effective measures for presenting ideas that would otherwise be incomprehensible to someone or, if presented explicitly, would be rejected. Unfortunately, the use of narrative as means to transmit ideas is left in large part to secularists and nonChristians. In my view, this needs to change, if only because it is increasingly becoming the only way to present the Gospel or Christian ideas to people in a way that they won’t reject at the start.
To read more about my views you can browse this blog, beginning with these links:
I’d like to direct churches and Christian organizations to the following website promoting an ‘Internet Evangelism Day.’ As so much of my own witness occurs online I really appreciate what these folks are trying to accomplish. If you feel like you or your org should be ministering more through the Internet and don’t know where to start take a look at these guys: http://www.internetevangelismday.com/index.php
Here is an excerpt of a blog entry I posted at the ChristianPost. It was probably a good time to poke the boys at Godisimaginary.com in the ribs, anyway. I know, cheap thrills.
In Judges 12, the Gileadites find a way to distinguish between friend and foe by compelling captured refugees to say the word ‘Shibboleth.’ Evidently, Ephraimites couldn’t pronounce it correctly, saying instead ‘Sibboleth.’ Those that said that latter were struck down while those who said the former were allowed to pass.
‘Shibboleths’ abound in society, including among Christians. Unfortunately, even among Christians, a Shibboleth isn’t simply a quick way to distinguish where a person stands in relation to you but is used in a manner akin to the Gileadite’s use, thankfully, of course, without the resulting slaughter.
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In other words, Christianese is a Shibboleth in the ears of the nonBeliever. The moment you begin engaging in Christianese you are at risk of being dismissed or marginalized in the eyes of the person you are talking to.
The Internet is filled with skeptics and scoffers poking fun at various aspects of Christianity as though they were the substance of Christianity when in fact they are slogans and phrases that are more part and parcel of Christianese- how the things are communicated- rather than the actual substance of Christianity.
Here is a second clip from a Q and A that I gave this summer. There are at least three questions here and they all surround the notion of free will, why God would tolerate bad things, why he doesn’t act, and the like. Enjoy.
The evidence of societal decay is all around us. The California Supreme Court decision is not an isolated event. Despite eight years with a Republican president, much of that with a Republican-controlled legislature, abortion is still legal and rampant, and Roe v. Wade the “law” of the land. The cure, it would seem, is better legislative efforts and more efficient grass-roots campaigning for wholesome politicians. I don’t think so.
I should hasten to add that I think there is a proper place for attempts to advance decent legislation. I even doubt that we’ve done it enough. Yet, I should note that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will become a states’ rights issue, and even if all 50 states abolished abortion, there will still be people getting abortions. We can successfully resist the gay agenda and preserve the traditional understanding of marriage, and yet there will still be gays. Moreover, even the straight community is filled with sexual immorality.
Many historians have attested to a phenomenon called the "cycle of nations." All nations go through a cycle of various levels of freedoms. Most nations start out in bondage, which they use to propel themselves into faith, then courage, then liberty, then abundance. After a time of abundance, they enter into stages of selfishness, then complacency, […]
We've heard a lot of talk about change in this country over the past couple of years. But the only lasting and positive change that can occur is the spiritual revival that needs to begin in the hearts of Christian believers across this great nation. Our country was founded upon a complete dependence upon God, not government. Our liberties were based on […]
"In a things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing incorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you." Titus 2:7,8 […]
What happens to a tree when its root system is destroyed? The tree can no longer access the nutrients it needs, and it begins to weaken. The leaves wilt, the branches droop, the fruit ceases to grow. Eventually, the tree dies. America was formed and developed from biblical roots, but today our leaders chop away at our foundation. They deny the core of our pu […]
) is an atheist and secular humanist. His position on abortion follows naturally from his atheism. I’m not saying it follows logically, as in my book an atheist who subscribes unconditionally to Darwinism would recognize that abortion flies in the face of most evolutionary principles. After all, if our biological purpose is essentially to reproduce, hundreds of millions of humans thwarting that purpose by the droves would seem to be quite contrary to our evolved nature. So, not logically, but naturally.
