Monday, January 24, 2011
The Underestimated Agreement Of The Gospels
Timothy and Lydia McGrew have been discussing an argument for the historicity of the gospels that they call undesigned coincidences, which you can read about here. The same sort of argument has been applied to other portions of the Bible, such as Acts and the letters of Paul. It's an argument that has multiple implications, and I want to address one of those here. I won't be limiting my discussion to undesigned coincidences, though what I'm going to discuss is somewhat related.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Faith & Practice of Al-Ghazali
This is the intellectual autobiography of Al-Ghazali, Islam's greatest thinker. He suffered a crisis of faith in mid-career. He ran through a number of different strategies to regain his faith. He finally took refuge in Sufism.
This gives you a view of Islam from the inside out by its leading intellectual. What's revealing is the fact that he has no good reasons to be, or remain, Muslim. His fallback was mysticism, but that's hardly adequate. For one thing, various religion have mystical traditions. So even if his (confessedly faint) mystical experiences were authentic, that fails to single out Islam as the true claimant. And, of course, mysticism can be deceptive-as even the contemplatives admit.
http://www.ghazali.org/works/watt3.htm
This gives you a view of Islam from the inside out by its leading intellectual. What's revealing is the fact that he has no good reasons to be, or remain, Muslim. His fallback was mysticism, but that's hardly adequate. For one thing, various religion have mystical traditions. So even if his (confessedly faint) mystical experiences were authentic, that fails to single out Islam as the true claimant. And, of course, mysticism can be deceptive-as even the contemplatives admit.
http://www.ghazali.org/works/watt3.htm
The Early Development of Mohammedanism
Here's a classic work on Islam, now available online:
http://www.muhammadanism.org/Margoliouth/early_mohammedanism/early_mohammedanism.pdf
http://www.onread.com/book/The-Early-Development-of-Mohammedanism-Lectures-Delivered-in-the-University-of-London-May-And-June-1913-1331210
http://www.onread.com/book/The-Early-Development-of-Mohammedanism-797255
http://www.muhammadanism.org/Margoliouth/early_mohammedanism/early_mohammedanism.pdf
http://www.onread.com/book/The-Early-Development-of-Mohammedanism-Lectures-Delivered-in-the-University-of-London-May-And-June-1913-1331210
http://www.onread.com/book/The-Early-Development-of-Mohammedanism-797255
Tiger Mom
"Tiger Mom" Amy Chua has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Here's a clip of an interview she did recently with Charlie Rose in which she offers some inspirational tips on childrearing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjRaU8hRVJs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjRaU8hRVJs
For Pro-Choice Skeptics: Why the Inconsistency?
Since its sanctity of life Sunday, I thought I'd post this for our pro-choice skeptical friends:
I post this video not for the purposes of angering people (though it should anger you if you have a normally functioning conscience), but to ask one question:
I post this video not for the purposes of angering people (though it should anger you if you have a normally functioning conscience), but to ask one question:
Why is it that pro-choice atheists, skeptics, and other unbelievers will reel in horror over a girl throwing puppies in a river, but condone a woman's "right" to have her own unborn child dismembered in her own womb?So, have at it in the combox my skeptical friends. It will be interesting watching you try to justify your inconsistency.
What Should Christians Make Of UFOs?
Nearly a decade ago, a book was published on UFOs and related phenomena by Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark. The book is Lights In The Sky And Little Green Men (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002). It argues, among other things, that a small percentage of UFO reports, claims of alien abduction, and related phenomena are credible and are best explained as demonic. I read the book, but I wasn't aware that Ross' ministry, Reasons To Believe, produced a video on the subject along with Stand To Reason. Earlier today, I saw a link to the video on YouTube from the Stand To Reason blog.
This is a subject I haven't studied much. And I didn't agree with everything in the book cited above. But I thought it made a lot of good points, and what little I know of this subject does suggest to me that a small percentage of what's being reported is demonic or supernatural in some other sense. I also agree with Ross regarding the high unlikelihood that any aliens, if they exist, would visit this planet.
This is a subject I haven't studied much. And I didn't agree with everything in the book cited above. But I thought it made a lot of good points, and what little I know of this subject does suggest to me that a small percentage of what's being reported is demonic or supernatural in some other sense. I also agree with Ross regarding the high unlikelihood that any aliens, if they exist, would visit this planet.
How the Dawkins stole Christmas
Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot
But Dawkins, who lived just north of Whoville, did NOT!
Dawkins hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
Whatever the reason, his heart or his shoes,
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the Whos,
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Dawkins frown,
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.
For he knew every Who down in Whoville beneath,
Was busy now, hanging a mistletoe wreath.
“And they’re hanging their stockings!” he snarled with a sneer,
“Tomorrow is Christmas! It’s practically here!”
Then he growled, with his Dawkins fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find some way to stop Christmas from coming!”
For tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys,
Would wake bright and early. They’d rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise!
Noise! Noise! Noise!
That’s one thing he hated! The NOISE!
NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
Then the Whos, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
And they’d feast! And they’d feast! And they’d FEAST!
FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would feast on Who-pudding, and rare Who-roast beast.
Which was something Dawkins couldn’t stand in the least!
And then they’d do something he liked least of all!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They’d stand hand-in-hand. And the Whos would start singing!
They’d sing! And they’d sing! And they’d SING!
SING! SING! SING!
And the more Dawkins thought of this Who Christmas Sing,
The more Dawkins thought, “I must stop this whole thing!”
“Why, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!”
“I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! But HOW?”
Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
DAWKINS GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!
“I know just what to do!” Dawkins laughed in his throat.
After a little girl of six pointed out some flowers, Dawkins asked her what she thought flowers were for?
She gave a very thoughtful answer. "Two things," she said, "to make the world pretty and to help the bees make honey for us."
"Well, I thought that was a very nice answer and I was very sorry I had to tell her that it wasn't true. Her answer was not too different from the answer that most people throughout history would have given. The very first chapter of the Bible sets it out. Man has dominion over all living things. The animals and plants were there for our benefit. We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. Flowers are for the same thing as everything else in the living kingdoms, for spreading 'copy - me' programmes about, written in DNA language. That is EXACTLY what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self sustaining process. It is every living objects' sole reason for living."
For more sleep-inducing adventures and narrow-minded escapades, check out Dickie Dawkins when he was a kid!
History matters
Does it matter that the events recorded in the Bible are historically true? Can we have Christianity without historical accuracy? Does it make a difference if a guy named Abraham ever existed as long as we live like Jesus and love our neighbor? Well, I suppose that depends on how you define Christianity. The distinction is whether Christianity is primarily an ethic or a gospel:
"If religion be made independent of history there is no such thing as a gospel. For 'gospel' means 'good news,' tidings, information about something that has happened. A gospel independent of history is a contradiction in terms." –J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p. 121
"The historicity of the patriarchs can never be, to us, a matter of small importance. The religion of the Old Testament being a factual religion, it is untrue that these figures retain the same usefulness, through the lessons that can be drawn from their stories, as actual history would possess. This prejudges the answer to the fundamental question, what religion is for. If, on the Pelagian principle, it serves no other purpose than to teach religious and moral lessons from example, then the historicity is no longer of material importance. We can learn the same lessons from legendary or mythical figures. But, if according to the Bible they are real actors in the drama of redemption, the actual beginning of the people of God, the first embodiment of objective religion; if Abraham was the father of the faithful, the nucleus of the church; then the denial of their historicity makes them useless from our point of view." –Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology, p. 67
"And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ...And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." -Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 15:14, 17)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
A tale of two pilots
Jacob DeShazer was an American pilot in the Doolittle Raid, whereas Mitsuo Fuchida was the lead Japanese pilot in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
On DeShazer:
On DeShazer:
During his captivity, DeShazer persuaded one of his guards to loan him a copy of the Bible. Although he only had possession of the Bible for three weeks, he saw its messages as the reason for his survival and resolved to become a devout Christian. His conversion included learning a few words of Japanese and treating his captors with respect, which resulted in the guards reacting in a similar fashion. After his release, DeShazer entered Seattle Pacific College, a Christian college, and began studying to be a missionary, eventually to return to Japan with his wife, Florence, in 1948.On Fuchida:
DeShazer, the Doolittle Raider who bombed Nagoya, met Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming close friends. Fuchida became a Christian in 1950 after reading a tract written about DeShazer titled, "I Was a Prisoner of Japan," and spent the rest of his life as a missionary in Asia and the United States. On occasion, DeShazer and Fuchida preached together as Christian missionaries in Japan. In 1959, DeShazer moved to Nagoya to establish a Christian church in the city he had bombed.
After recuperation, he [Fuchida] spent the rest of the war as a staff officer. Fuchida was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped, attending a week-long military conference with the Army. He had received a long distance call from Navy Headquarters asking him to return to Tokyo and returned to Hiroshima the day after the bombing on a party sent to examine and assess the damage of the bomb. Later, all members of Fuchida's search party died from radiation poisoning but Fuchida suffered no symptoms. . . .
After the war, Fuchida was called on to testify at the trials of some of the Japanese military for Japanese war crimes. This infuriated him as he believed this was little more than "victor's justice". Convinced that the Americans had treated the Japanese the same way and determined to bring that evidence to the next trial, in the spring of 1947, Fuchida went to Uraga Harbor near Yokosuka to meet a group of returning Japanese prisoners of war. He was surprised to find his former flight engineer, Kazuo Kanegasaki, who all had believed had died in the Battle of Midway. When questioned, Kanegasaki told Fuchida that they were not tortured or abused, much to Fuchida's disappointment, then went on to tell him of a young lady who served them with the deepest love and respect, but whose parents, missionaries, had been killed by Japanese soldiers on the island of Panay in the Philippines.
For Fuchida, this was inexplicable, as in the Bushido code revenge was not just permitted, it was a responsibility for an offended party to carry out revenge to restore honor. The murderer of one's parents would be a sworn enemy for life. He became almost obsessed trying to understand why anyone would treat their enemies with love and forgiveness.
In the fall of 1948, Fuchida was passing by the bronze statue of Hachiko at the Shibuya Station when he was handed a pamphlet about the life of Jacob DeShazer, a member of the Doolittle Raid who was captured by the Japanese after his B-25 Mitchell ran out of fuel over occupied China. In the pamphlet "I Was a Prisoner of Japan" DeShazer, himself a former U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sergeant and bombardier, told his story of imprisonment, torture and an awakening to God. Fuchida became more curious about Christianity but couldn't find a Bible at the time in post-war Japan, but in the spring of 1949, again at the statue of Hachiko he met a man from the Pocket Testament League selling the New Testament of the Bible, and he bought one. Later that fall, while reading the Bible, he understood for the first time why the young lady had forgiven her enemies and took his first steps in becoming a Christian. In May 1950, he and Jacob DeShazer met for the first time, as friends.
Home Sweet Away From Rome
A popular tactic in Catholic apologetics is to tout conversions to Roman Catholicism. This fosters the impression that Roman Catholicism is on a rising tide. Here's something I ran across recently which may be a more reliable indicator of demographic trends. Of course, this is just a sample. But it's something to ponder.
Friday, January 21, 2011
A hot water bottle and a dolly
For more about Dr. Helen Roseveare and her ministry, see here, here, and here. She's also written several books (e.g. Digging Ditches).
Theological homophobia
I’d recently ran across the claim that Norman Geisler has compared Calvinism to “theological racism.”
Charges of “racism” are typically thrown around by liberal pundits. Indeed, Geisler’s analogy reminds me of homosexual activists who try to draw a parallel between racial discrimination and discrimination against sodomites. Yet I assume Geisler believes that impenitent homosexuals are hellbound.
Pilgrim's progress
My question then, is if indeed it was prophesied that the House of Israel would be taken into the 'wilderness' as part of the new covenant, after they were sifted through the nations [Isa 30:28,38][Amos 9:9][Jer 15:14][Jer 17:4], how do we distinguish biblically between descriptions of the final post-judgement 'heaven' and the historical location of the House of Israel's punishment?
i) Certain eschatological imagery carries over from the OT into the NT, including NT prophecy. Therefore, I don’t think it’s limited to the OT, or ethnic Jews.
Although stock imagery can be used to illustrate a specific situation, the imagery isn’t tied to that situation.
ii) There are fairly literal descriptions of the general resurrection, the resurrection of the just, and the resurrection of Christ (which is the prototype of our own). That’s an anchor for extrapolating certain features of the final state. For bodies don’t exist in a vacuum. They occupy space. A physical environment.
Moreover, Jesus could eat. Indeed, we’d expect a body to eat. The fact that a body is naturally immortal doesn’t mean you can’t starve to death if you don’t eat.
His glorified body retained scars. So that suggests a fairly high degree of continuity between his mortal and immortal body.
iii) And we’re talking about many embodied persons in fellowship. That implies a concrete, interactive environment.
iii) Metaphors are analogies. So analogies, to be meaningful, must have some literal counterpart.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
UNCG Outreach Report 1-19-2011
INTRODUCTION: I had several profitable conversations with many students about the truth of God's grace yesterday. I handed out at least a hundred ministry cards with the gospel on it, and spoke with many, many unbelievers. Notable conversations were with one man of the Baha'i faith, two agnostics, and several people who claimed to be Christians but couldn't really explain anything about the gospel.Question of the Day: In your personal opinion what does it take for a person to go to heaven?
Our Bahai friend
This man was the first person I spoke with face to face after handing out a few ministry cards. After handing him our ministry card he said, "What is this?" and I said, "I am a pastor of a local Christian church and this card has to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ; do you know what the gospel is sir?" He said, "Uh, no, why don't you tell me what it is?" So I started explaining the gospel to him and he interrupted me and explained that he held to the Baha'i faith. He then asked me if I knew anything about Baha'i and I said "very little". He then tried to turn the tables and proselytize me (which happens sometimes) and I he told me that the Baha'i believe the gospel of Jesus just like Christians. Then I said, "Let's see if that's true; please explain to me the main teachings of Baha'i." He then said that Baha'i had prophets and I said, "You mean Baha'u'llah, right?" He said, "Yes, but I thought you said you didn't know anything about Baha'i?" I said, "No, I said I knew very little about it, but I did know that." So he continued. He came to the point where he explained that Baha'u'llah was a prophet of God and I asked, "He's the second coming of Jesus Christ right?" He said yes and I said, "Well, there's the problem. Jesus warned us about false prophets and false Messiahs who would seek to mislead many saying that they were the Messiah (Matthew 24:4) and Jesus said that there were certain signs that would accompany His return, Baha'u'llah didn't meet those requirements, therefore Baha'u'llah was a false Messiah that preached a false gospel.
At this point he got a little hot and bothered that I would say such about his prophet and asked me, "Have you read Baha'i literature?" I said, "no", he said, "How can you say such things about Baha'u'llah and Baha'i when you've never read our literature?" to which I calmly responded, "I don't need to, if it contradicts the clear teaching of Christ regarding His second coming, Baha'u'llah didn't meet that criteria, then I know on the authority of Christ's teaching that Baha'u'llah is a false Messiah with a false gospel." Apparently some folks standing by didn't appreciate my Baha'i friend getting a little hot under the collar during our conversation and someone called the cops.
Here comes the heat!
The police officer arrived in his patrol car, walked up to us, and so I quickly but courteously ended my conversation with my Baha'i friend and then introduced myself to the officer with a warm handshake while identifying myself, told him my purpose for being there, and at his request I gave him my driver's license. This officer was one of the two that arrived on the scene in the Fall semester after an atheist came up and stood right in front of me laughing at me and blowing smoke on me when I was open-air preaching at UNCG on 8-24-2010. This officer kindly asked me to do all that I can to avoid upsetting people while distributing literature and talking to them. I assured him that I would, then I thanked him for his service to the community, and then gave him a parting handshake. As an aside, I want to remind my Christian readers that we must always show the utmost respect to the civil authorities as they are ordained by God for the general protection and welfare of society and for the punishment of evildoers (Rom. 13:1-5; 1 Peter 2:13-17). We must do this whether they are kind or cruel and we must obey them as long as they don't command us to do something that is sinful or prohibit us from doing something that is explicitly commanded in Scripture (Acts 4:19-20, 5:29). However, even when we disobey in those circumstances, we must still be polite and respectful and accept our punishment as the will of God (1 Peter 2:12, 15; 3:15; Philippians 1:29).
Talking to three day laborers
UNCG always has some kind of construction work going on, and I saw three men sitting outside on the brick patio of a nearly completed building having a smoke break, so I walked over to talk to them. After introducing myself, I asked them what it takes for a person to go to heaven? In a group of three, its almost always the case that one person is more talkative than the other two. So, the most talkative man of the group stated that you can worship whatever you want, as long as you are sincere about it. I then asked him that if I called the maple tree behind him "Jesus" and then bowed down and repented and believed on my maple-tree Jesus and feverishly worshiped it, would do me any good on the day of judgment? He said "Yes". All three men agreed that as long as I was sincere enough, it didn't matter what I worshiped, I would still go to heaven when I die. I then asked, "Since your criteria for whether a person goes to heaven or not is the degree of their sincerity, when the terrorists flew the planes into the World Trade Center on 9-11, they were sincere enough to die for their beliefs, so did they go to heaven?" Then the shuckin' and jivin' started and two of them slowly made their way back to the workplace.
One man was left finishing his cigarette and I sat down beside him, asked him his name, and he said "Omar". He said, "Preacher, I want to ask you one question, if what you believe is true, why is it that most people don't believe it." I said, "Omar, that's a great question, one that the writer of 2/3 of the New Testament had to deal with. The Apostle Paul gave God's answer to that question in Romans 9." Then I began reading and explaining God's sovereignty in salvation from Romans 9:6-23 and Ephesians 1 and he was transfixed on me. I explained to him that most people are created for destruction and that they will glorify God in said destruction; but that God has chosen some to receive mercy through faith in Jesus Christ and that that is one of the reasons I am out there today. I explained that the preaching of the gospel is the means that God uses to gather in His elect, and at that point, he seemed to get convicted. I then explained the good news to him in a way I thought he could understand it (i.e., sin problem > Jesus' active obedience throughout His life > Jesus' passive obedience on the cross > faith in what Jesus did on the cross = justification). We shook hands, he thanked me for my time, and I was off.
A happy agnostic
The next conversation I had worth reporting was with a young, agnostic student who listened to our debate with the UNCG Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics. I asked him why he was an an agnostic and the only really good reason he could give me was the problem of hypocrisy in the church. He said it drove him away from "organized religion". I asked him if he liked "disorganized religion" instead. He laughed and I agreed with him that hypocrisy in the church is a real problem and then I went on to explain that many people are religious but not converted and briefly explained the doctrine of regeneration and the problem of false conversions in evangelicalism. I told him that I used to be a skeptic and so he asked me why I became a believer, and I said, "Because the Holy Spirit did a work of regeneration in me as I just described to you." I then went on to explain, "It was only when I had the light of Christ that I was able to make sense out of things like moral realism, human nature, evil, and scientific and logical paradigms. He wanted to talk more and was a great guy, but he had to scoot.
An unhappy agnostic
After having several other conversations with people, I spoke with another agnostic student named Jessica. Based on Jessica's body language and eye-rolling, she wasn't interested in talking, but I persisted. I asked her if absolute truth existed, she rolled her eyes and said no. I then asked her if that proposition itself was absolutely true and she hesitated a little and said "uh, I don't know." I said, "How can you be sure that absolute truth doesn't exist if you can't know if that sentence itself is true?" I'm not convinced that she was following me, so I moved on to ask her what basis she has for grounding moral standards given naturalism. She hedged a little in her answer and I suggested "Do you believe society makes up moral standards?" and she said, "Who else, if not society?" and I said, "Well, I'd argue that morality is ultimately grounded in God, but that's not what we're talking about just yet, so I want to know how you can condemn another society's actions if each individual societies get to make up their own morality?" She said, we don't. I said, "Really? Do you really think what Nazi Germany did to 12 million people was okay?" She said, "Yeah, I guess" (eyes-rolling). I then said, "So, what you're telling me is that it would be okay for a society to legalize the torturing of little girls for fun?" She agreed that it would and I said, "Oh c'mon, you don't really mean that do you? What about if it was your little girl?" to which she responded, "Well, I wouldn't personally agree with it, but I'd have no choice since society said it was okay." I then said, "You've just given me a great example of why I am thankful for being a Christian. You see Jessica, you may think that what I believe is hooey, but if you begin with the Christian God, you can declare something to be wicked even though society says its okay because God has the final say-so in any matter. I then explained to her, that contrary to her intellectual beliefs, she actually lives in a way contradictory to said beliefs and expects moral order, uniformity in nature, and the absoluteness of logical laws. I then asked, "Do you care that you are being irrational by contradicting yourself like that?" and she rolled her eyes again and said, "Not really." I then said shook her hand, thanked her for her time. Please pray for Jessica, she had a very hard heart.
IN CONCLUSION, I've said it before and I'll say it again: more and more intelligent people I witness to don't care that they are irrational; that they hold to mutually exclusive and contradictory beliefs. As long as they are comfortable, they are quite content to ride the wave of irrationality. I think this is providential, for it is a call for Christians to focus on the gospel as the power of God unto salvation while not leaving the rest of the apologetic task undone.
Involuntary commitment
Pearls of wisdom from Scott Windsor:
OR - when talking about THIS incident, the focus should remain on the REAL PROBLEM of the state of mental health in Arizona and the United States.
i) Since I’m not a resident of Arizona, or a mental health professional, I don’t have an informed opinion to offer on that score. Of course, Windsor has never let his ignorance stand in the way of firmly held opinions–as his exchanges with James Swan over Luther bear out.
ii) I will say, in general, that we’re dealing with tradeoffs. On the one hand there are horror stories involving the mentally ill, who “fell through the cracks.” The “system let them down.” All things being equal, some people ought to be institutionalized.
But, of course, there are also horror stories regarding involuntary commitment. That creates unique opportunities for institutional abuse. To begin with, it’s hard for patients to report abuse, since they are cut off from the outside world. And even if they manage to report abuse, that is easily discounted–since the complainant is crazy, right?
In addition, totalitarian regimes employ involuntary commitment to punish dissidents. Although we’re not at that point in the US, liberals would like nothing less than to turn the US into a police state, with liberals in charge.
So we tend to have the swinging pendulum. When there’s a horror story about a madman who should have been institutionalized, there are predictable cries for stricter mental health laws. But when there’s a horror story about institutional abuse, there are predictable cries for laxer mental health laws.
To seize this for other topics (even worthy ones) seems to be opportunistic at the expense of those in mourning. THAT was the point of "My 2 cents."
i) There’s nothing wrong with using an incident like the Arizona rampage to make a case for unborn babies. To the contrary, you seize the opportunity when a suitable illustration is fresh in the public imagination.
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