Nobody Knows The Day Or Hour

A couple of years ago, I had a discussion on Facebook with a non-Christian who was raising the popular objection that early Christianity had falsely predicted the timing of Jesus' second coming. You can click on the link just provided to read the discussion in its entirety while it's available. But I want to post my end of the discussion here for those who don't have access to Facebook and in case it wouldn't be available on Facebook in the future for whatever reason.

How Much The Conclusion Of Luke 2 Contradicts Roman Catholic Mariology

Protestants typically overlook or underestimate the closing verses of Luke 2 when addressing Catholic Mariology. There are several problems for the Catholic view of Mary in those verses, and the cumulative effect is highly significant.

I've discussed these issues in Luke 2 many times, but my comments are scattered across various posts over the years. I want to gather some of those comments in one place and supplement them with some other points:

Did Jesus ride two donkeys?

Caleb Jore recently wrote a good post addressing a common objection to Matthew 21:7. He discusses some problems with a popular Christian alternative to the skeptical interpretation and offers another reading that avoids the problems with that Christian alternative and the skeptical view.

Another recent post on the same blog, by Lucas, discusses some recent trends in scholarship that are favorable to Christianity.

The whole blog is worth following. There's a lot of good material there.

Only Talk About Heavenly Things

"Remember how Mr. Bunyan pictures it. When Talkative came up to gossip with Christian and Hopeful, he chattered away upon all sorts of topics, and they were wearied with him. To get rid of him, Christian said to Hopeful, 'Now we will talk a little about experimental godliness' and when they began to speak about what they had tasted and handled of divine truth, Mr. Chatterbox dropped behind. He did not like spiritual conversation, neither do any of the breed. The holy pilgrims were not so rude as to tell him to go; they only talked about heavenly things, which he did not understand, and he went of his own accord. I believe that result is sure to follow holy conversation and sound preaching." (Charles Spurgeon)

The Thief On The Cross On The Day Of Judgment

Here are some good comments on the subject from John Piper. They're also applicable to deathbed conversions more broadly.

Dreams Of The Afterlife

Over the past several months, I've come across some resources I want to recommend on paranormal issues. These are subjects often discussed among nurses, hospice workers, and other people working in relevant fields, covered on television, and brought up in books, YouTube videos, conversations about family experiences, and elsewhere. But the large majority of Christians are very poorly prepared to address these topics.

Water Without Baptism In Many Contexts

My last post discussed some problems with a baptismal justification view of John 3:5. A related point worth noting is that there are many other significant references to water that don't seem to be about baptism in the gospels and earlier sources. Not only is it unlikely that John 3:5 is referring to baptism, but it's also unlikely that the references to drinking the water of life in 4:14, having water within you in 7:38, and being spiritually washed in 13:10 are about baptism. And notice how that series of non-baptismal references to water and spiritual life in John's gospel adds weight to a non-baptismal reading of chapter 3. To cite another example from the gospels, it's doubtful that the comment about waterless places in Matthew 12:43 is meant to be taken as a reference to places without baptism. Rather, the water is referring to something other than baptism. Similarly, Jesus' references to how the religious leaders of his day needed to wash and cleanse themselves (Matthew 23:25-28, Luke 11:39-41) weren't solely or primarily about getting baptized (Luke 11:41), much less about being justified through baptism. There are many examples of references to water, washing, dryness, thirst, and such in the Old Testament, such as in the Psalms, that likewise aren't about baptism. This kind of material, which is found frequently in periods of time predating when baptismal justification supposedly went into effect (after Jesus' resurrection), illustrates how much potential there is for later references to water, washing, and such to have something other than baptism in mind. We need to be careful, accordingly, about taking passages like Titus 3:5 as references to baptism. The pre-baptismal justification of somebody like Cornelius can be referred to with a term like "cleansing" (Acts 15:9).

How did Nicodemus interpret John 3:5?

As I mentioned in a recent post, one of the problems with baptismal justification, such as the view of it advocated by Tertullian, is that it involves so much discontinuity. It's common to allege that baptismal justification didn't go into effect until after Jesus' resurrection, for example. So, even though Abraham is repeatedly cited as the primary example of how people are justified after the time of Jesus' resurrection (much like Jesus' appeal to Abraham prior to the resurrection), we're supposed to believe that we're now justified in a way that has less continuity with Abraham's justification, since baptism is now the normative context in which justification occurs. And even though John's gospel is structured in such a way as to highlight Jesus' pre-resurrection soteriology and associate it with how people who read John's gospel can be justified, we're supposed to think baptism has been added as a requirement since the time Jesus made those statements John highlights. (For a discussion of the relevant material in John, see the section of the post here on John's gospel, for example. And there are other relevant posts in our archives.) If baptism didn't become justificatory until after Jesus' resurrection, then there's a higher degree of discontinuity with multiple types of baptism practiced in the Christian movement prior to that time, namely the baptisms of John and Jesus discussed in John 3:22-4:2. We're told that Cornelius' justification prior to baptism in Acts 10 is an exception to the rule. But it's continuous with how people were justified prior to that time. And what occurred in Acts 10 is referred to as if it's normative in 11:17-18 and 15:7-11 (in the context of how people are justified, not some other context, like whether speaking in tongues is normative). Furthermore, other passages, like Acts 19:2 and Galatians 3:2, seem to likewise treat a scenario like that of Cornelius as normative. The "hearing with faith" of Galatians 3:2 sounds strikingly similar to Cornelius' justification as he heard the gospel proclaimed and believed what he was hearing. What's described in Galatians 3:2 sounds more like Cornelius' situation than a baptismal context. (For a response to the common suggestion that Galatians 3:27 warrants including baptism earlier in the passage, see here.) And if the Galatians were justified as Cornelius was, then Paul's appeal to Abraham and Genesis 15:6 just afterward makes more sense accordingly. And so on. I'm just citing several examples here among others that could be discussed. Justification through faith alone, apart from baptism, involves more continuity and makes more sense of the evidence as a whole.

What I want to focus on in this post, though, is a particular aspect of that evidence. John 3:5 is often cited in support of baptismal justification. And it's often noted, in response, that Jesus speaks of how people are (not will be) born again and criticizes Nicodemus for not understanding what he (Jesus) was referring to in the passage, which makes more sense if the reference to water was about an Old Testament theme rather than about baptism and an aspect of baptism that wouldn't go into effect until after the resurrection of Jesus. But notice, also, that the timing of John 3:5 provides a lot of opportunity for interpretation of Jesus' comments there, regardless of whether the interpretations were correct. (Nicodemus would have interpreted what Jesus said, and other people may have been interpreting it as well, depending on whether others were told about the conversation and/or that portion of it prior to Jesus' resurrection.) We're often told that nobody interpreted John 3:5 as anything other than a reference to baptismal justification prior to the Reformation. I've demonstrated elsewhere, such as here and here, that that claim is false as it pertains to the post-apostolic era. But notice how problematic the claim is even by the standards of the people making the claim.

If baptismal justification didn't go into effect until after Jesus' resurrection, and John 3:5 is immediately followed by references to multiple types of baptism that weren't justificatory (John 3:22-4:2), why think Nicodemus and anybody else who was interpreting John 3:5 at the time would have been interpreting it as a reference to baptismal justification? In other words, it seems that the earliest interpretation of John 3:5 was likely one that didn't involve baptismal justification, even by the standards of the people advocating the baptismal justification view of the passage.

You could get around part of the force of this argument I'm making by proposing that Nicodemus was agnostic about the meaning of the passage, that he interpreted John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal justification, but didn't expect it to go into effect until sometime in the future, or something like that. But that wouldn't change the fact that the evidence as a whole, as outlined above, suggests that it's more likely that Jesus' comments wouldn't have been taken as a reference to baptismal justification at the time. Even under a scenario in which Nicodemus (and whoever else) was agnostic about the meaning of the passage, agnosticism is significantly different than the sort of clarity advocates of baptismal justification often suggest. So, all of this is further evidence against the notion that there was universal agreement about interpreting John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal justification prior to the Reformation.

The Best Arguments For The Enfield Poltergeist

In a post last year, I made some recommendations about how to begin studying the Enfield case. What I want to do in this post is make some suggestions about how to argue for the case's authenticity.

Because the evidence for it is so multifaceted and so strong in so many contexts, and because there's some variability in which arguments will persuade which people, there are many approaches you can take that would have some merit. I'm not suggesting that the approach I'll outline below is the only one that should be taken. You can make whatever adjustments you think are appropriate to my recommendations, but I'll discuss a few of the arguments I would include. I'll start with a couple that I think would be the easiest to use, then mention some that are harder to articulate, but have a lot of value.

The Plausibility Of Alleged Doublets And Other Parallels In The Bible And Elsewhere

Critics often object that the similarities among two or more events reported in the Bible make it unlikely that all of the reports are historical. Sometimes it's even alleged that the similarities suggest it's unlikely that any of the reports are historically accurate. Supposedly, there must have been some single underlying tradition that was developed in different ways by different sources and eventually took the form of reporting multiple events, even though there actually was only one event or no event at all. Jesus' feeding of the five thousand and his feeding of the four thousand surely didn't both happen, especially the lack of anticipation on the part of his disciples in the context of the second miracle. Similar reasoning is applied to the accounts about Abraham and Isaac and their wives in Genesis 20 and Genesis 26, the multiple accounts of the healing of the blind in Matthew (in contrast to only one similar account in the other Synoptics), etc.

A variation of this kind of objection is to allege that a Biblical source is too similar to an extrabiblical one. Old Testament passages must have been derived from similar ancient accounts in other cultures. Claims made about Jesus in the New Testament are too similar to ancient pagan mythology. And so on.

Are Gnostic and pagan documents part of Roman Catholic tradition?

In the mid 1990s, I met a man online named John Wallace who impressed upon me the value of hostile corroboration. He made good use of the corroboration of Christianity that we have from ancient non-Christian sources. I also read some material in Philip Schaff's church history that left an impression on me in that context. A series I wrote on the canon of scripture several years ago has a segment about hostile corroboration of the New Testament canon, and it concludes with a quote from the material in Schaff's church history I just referred to. Ever since I came across Wallace and Schaff's work, I've given a lot of attention to hostile corroboration as a line of evidence. You can find many traces of it in my work over the years.

I often think of that line of evidence when I see Catholics and Orthodox claim that Protestants are relying on Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox tradition when we accept our canon of scripture, interpret it in light of ancient sources, or some such thing. They act as though anything outside of scripture should be equated with Catholic or Orthodox tradition. I know that hostile corroboration has long been a large part of what shapes my views on matters like the canon of scripture and scripture interpretation. When Bible translators make judgments about how to render the Biblical text, Biblical commentators decide how to best interpret certain Biblical passages, and so forth, they rely partly on information they're getting from Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Trypho, Celsus, Porphyry, archeological artifacts, and other ancient non-Christian sources. And something like a New Testament manuscript or a catacomb inscription isn't always accompanied by an extensive statement of faith on the part of the individual(s) who produced the manuscript or inscription. Think of the absurdity of suggesting that everything from Josephus to Celsus to an ancient New Testament manuscript from a largely unknown source is equivalent to Roman Catholic Sacred Tradition.

But many Protestants are taken in by that sort of argumentation. And many Catholics and Orthodox think they're arguing well when they utilize such poor arguments. That's largely because we're such a secular, trivial culture that doesn't think and talk about issues like these nearly enough.

If a Catholic or Orthodox just wants to argue that part of what Protestants are relying on is Catholic or Orthodox tradition, then that qualifier should be added upfront rather than later in the discussion. And they should justify their claim about partial dependence on their tradition and explain why that partial dependence allegedly is problematic. A Protestant doesn't have to accept, and shouldn't accept, the assumption that all or even most of the church fathers or other early Christians were Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. And even if they had been Catholic or Orthodox, Catholics and Orthodox often depend on information they get from Protestant or other non-Catholic or non-Orthodox archeologists, historians, Bible translators, patristic scholars, etc. So what? All of us make our historical judgments, including judgments about matters like religion and morals, on the basis of testimony or other evidence from sources outside our church, denomination, or ecclesiastical movement. Again, so what?

Protestants Aren't The Only Ones With Solas

To add to what I said in my last post, it's important that Protestants keep in mind that we aren't the only ones with solas. We use the sola terminology more explicitly and more often than others, but we aren't the only ones who accept such concepts. Every rule of faith has parameters. It includes some things while excluding others. It doesn't have to be sola scriptura in order to be sola something. So, if a Catholic, Orthodox, or somebody else wants to complain that he doesn't understand how sola scriptura works in some context, you can ask him if he understands how his own sola works in that context. If he claims that Protestants are being inconsistent by doing X while affirming sola scriptura, ask him if he's being inconsistent by doing X while affirming his own sola. It's often adequate to say, "Scripture is to me what your rule of faith is to you."

It's remarkable how large of a percentage of objections to Protestantism consist of the sort of inconsistencies on the part of the objector that I've been addressing in these last two posts. Take away those inconsistencies, and you take away a large percentage of what many critics of Protestantism consider their best objections.

How To Handle Canonical Issues

An important step in addressing objections you get from a critic is to ask how much the objection could be applied to his belief system. That can help you communicate better with that critic, help you better explain to him why his objection is problematic, or get him to abandon the objection or adjust it or his handling of it in some way, for example. The value of taking that approach is especially significant in the context of interacting with Roman Catholics, since Protestants so often interact with Catholics and since they so often raise objections to Protestantism that they should be holding against their own belief system if they were to be consistent. But you sometimes come across that sort of inconsistency with Eastern Orthodox, atheists, and other groups as well.

One of the most popular objections raised against Protestantism is its supposed inability to justify its acceptance of a canon for its rule of faith, scripture. There is no table of contents in scripture, we rely on means outside of scripture to arrive at our canon, we supposedly accept our canon because a Roman Catholic authority of some sort gave us that canon, and so on. But it's not as though Protestants are the only ones who have a canon for their rule of faith. Every rule has a canon. So, ask yourself whether the group the person you're interacting with belongs to (e.g., Catholicism) handles its own canonical issues in a way comparable to how you handle yours. Is there a table of contents within the Catholic rule of faith? No. Do Catholics arrive at their canon by means outside that canon? Yes. And so forth. In fact, since the Catholic rule is so much larger and more complicated, the process of sorting through canonical issues is more difficult for a Catholic than it is for a Protestant. There are ongoing disputes among Catholics about what qualifies as tradition and what doesn't, which papal teachings are infallible and which aren't, who's been a true Pope and who hasn't been, etc.

Similarly, when atheists and other critics of Christianity claim that the canon of scripture was decided by Constantine or the Council of Nicaea, claim that Irenaeus gave us our canon of the gospels, or some such thing, we shouldn't just respond by explaining how erroneous their historical claims are. We should also notice that they make a lot of canonical judgments themselves and often approach those canonical issues in much the same way Christians do. In discussions about politics and matters like separation of church and state, they'll accept a canon of Thomas Jefferson's writings or some portion of that canon based on whatever they've been told by whatever scholar or other source they've consulted. They'll accept what a high school teacher, college professor, television documentary, book, web site, or some other source told them about the canon of Supreme Court rulings on a particular topic, what the Court said about the issue in question, and so on. We all do this type of thing many times and in many contexts in our everyday lives. So, when a Christian accepts a Biblical canon based on trusting various authority figures (parents, pastors, denominations, a historical consensus of professing Christians, a consensus of Bible publishers, etc.), that isn't much different than what atheists and other non-Christians do in other contexts. Whether an atheist or some other critic is being inconsistent in the objection he's raising will have to be judged case by case, but the possibility that he's being inconsistent should be considered and should be considered earlier rather than later in the discussion.

A lot more can be said about these issues, and we've said a lot more elsewhere (e.g., in my series of posts arguing for the New Testament canon and summarizing the case for the Old Testament canon here). But I want to reinforce the point that it's important to take a critic's objections and apply them to his belief system early in a discussion. That can go a long way in helping the discussion develop well. Protestants need to get better at doing that, especially with Catholics, but also with other groups.

Was there a papacy in the early church?

There's been a lot of discussion of the papacy lately on some popular YouTube channels. For example, Cameron Bertuzzi recently had Joe Heschmeyer and Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers on his channel, along with some Protestants arguing for the other side. Here's a good one-hour summary, from Gavin Ortlund, of the problems with arguments for the papacy. The Other Paul has been producing a lot of good material on the subject as well, often with Geoff Robinson. Steven Nemes has been making a lot of significant points, such as in this recent video on Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22. You can find collections of our posts on these issues here and by clicking on the relevant post labels, like Papacy.

Jesus Saw Light

One of Steve Hays' last posts before his death in 2020 was about the original text of Isaiah 53:11, particularly its reference to how the Suffering Servant will see light. He had written on the subject in a post the previous year as well. He had a lot of interest in the theme of light in scripture in general, and he thought (probably rightly) that the inclusion of a reference to seeing light in Isaiah 53:11 implies the Servant's resurrection. Since this resurrection is tied to the Servant's unique status, such as his unique work of atonement, the resurrection seems to be something better than the general resurrection that everybody will experience. In the context of Isaiah, an unusual resurrection like the one attributed to Jesus makes more sense.

And that brings up another issue that doesn't get as much attention as it should. It's good to argue in the traditional, more direct ways for Jesus' resurrection, by appealing to the general trustworthiness and historicity of the relevant sources, by appealing to aspects of the documents that are unlikely to have been fabricated, by appealing to hostile corroboration, and so on. But we can also argue for the resurrection more indirectly by appealing to prophecy fulfillment. Given the evidence we have for Biblical prophecy in general and Isaiah's prophecies and the Servant Songs and related passages in particular, we have reason to expect the figure who fulfilled those passages in Isaiah to have risen from the dead accordingly. It would be surprising if Jesus' life lined up so well with so much of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, but not the references to rising from the dead in verses 10-11.

Something worth noting about this line of argument is that much of what Jesus has fulfilled in the Servant Songs and elsewhere is widely acknowledged by non-Christian sources, and some of the fulfillments were brought about by non-Christians to one extent or another. That undermines the argument that Christians arranged the fulfillments by natural means. See here, for example. You can argue that Jesus rose from the dead on the basis of the resurrection's connections to prophecy fulfillments that are largely corroborated by non-Christian sources. It's similar to Peter's appeal to prophecy fulfillment and other miracles in Acts 2.

Was ever grief like mine?

If you haven't read George Herbert's poem The Sacrifice, I recommend reading it. There are more than 60 verses addressing different aspects of Jesus' suffering. Here are several of the verses, but I recommend reading the whole poem:

An Overview And Critique Of Ed And Lorraine Warren

I recently saw the Twitter account of the Society for Psychical Research link a webinar by Randy Liebeck on Ed and Lorraine Warren, titled "Begone Satan! The Lives and Legacy of Ed and Lorraine Warren". It's the best treatment of the Warrens I've come across. He covers a lot of ground and includes many examples of the problems with the Warrens' credibility. He spoke with people affiliated with the Warrens in various contexts and had some interaction with Ed Warren prior to his death. The video addresses some of the Warrens' most significant cases, including Amityville. Liebeck also discusses a meeting he had with Warren, in which he asked to see the evidence Warren supposedly had for the paranormality of the cases he worked. There's some significant material on Enfield that Liebeck doesn't address, which you can find in my collection of posts on the Warrens here. That collection includes an article on a case I don't recall Liebeck mentioning in his presentation, the Arne Johnson case, the one The Conjuring 3 was based on.

Belief In Justification Apart From Baptism In Tertullian's Day

Gavin Ortlund recently said that he'll be having a discussion with Trent Horn about baptism during the last week of this month. I don't know which particular baptismal issues they'll be discussing, but I want to address a topic related to baptism and justification that probably will be relevant.

I've recommended Gavin's material on baptism in the past, such as here and here. He makes a lot of good points. For example, he's mentioned that in his work as a pastor, he's encountered many people who seem to have been regenerated prior to their baptism. However, as my two posts just linked explain, there are some significant arguments that I haven't yet seen Gavin bring up in these discussions. I want to expand on one of those here. This is just one line of evidence among many others for justification apart from baptism. But it's one that's been neglected. I've discussed other extrabiblical evidence against baptismal justification, such as in Josephus and Clement of Rome, but what I want to do here is address some material in Tertullian. I've brought it up before, briefly, but I want to address it in more depth than I have in the past.

The Resurrected Jesus Appeared To At Least Five Non-Christians, Probably More

For the evidence that he appeared to Saul of Tarsus, see the many relevant posts in our archives, such as the posts in the thread here. And see the posts in the comments section of that thread, starting here, for a discussion of some of the evidence that at least two non-Christians traveling with Paul witnessed the resurrected Jesus in the manner I discuss there. For the evidence that at least two of Jesus' brothers claimed to have seen the risen Jesus at a time when they were unbelievers, see here.

And he could easily have appeared to more than the five non-Christians mentioned above. He probably did. There could easily have been more than two non-Christians traveling with Paul in Acts 9. And the appearance in Matthew 28:16 was announced ahead of time, which provided a lot of potential for non-Christians to be present. That Matthew 28 appearance seems to be the best candidate among the ones narrated in the gospels and Acts for the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:6. (See here for some evidence that the appearance at the end of Matthew 28 is the one Paul refers to.) Since that appearance in Matthew 28 was anticipated, it could easily be the case that one or more non-Christians were brought there (e.g., family members going with each other) or went on their own initiative. Given the nature of ancient Jewish culture and particular types of relationships (e.g., family members often traveling with each other), it's more likely than not that some non-Christians were present during the appearance to more than five hundred mentioned by Paul. And not every resurrection appearance is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 (e.g., the appearances to women), nor should we assume that every appearance is mentioned somewhere in our extant documents. So, there's a lot of potential for Jesus to have appeared to more than the five non-Christians discussed above.

We should be careful to think beyond Paul and James when the issue of non-Christian witnesses comes up. And we need to be careful about objections based on the premise that Jesus didn't appear to more non-Christians. He didn't need to appear to any, and people typically underestimate how many he did appear to and how many he could easily have appeared to without our knowing it.

I expect some people to acknowledge that it seems that Jesus was reported to have appeared to more non-Christians than Paul and James, but to object that he didn't appear to an even higher number and that he didn't appear to more prominent non-Christians. But asking for more evidence isn't an adequate response to the evidence you have. And see here regarding the number of resurrection witnesses and here regarding their nature (e.g., why Jesus didn't appear to somebody like the Roman emperor rather than or in addition to Paul). The latter post just linked discusses an illustration I've found useful, a contrast between Paul and Constantine. Critics often act as though it obviously would have been better for Jesus to have appeared to somebody like a Roman emperor than to have appeared to somebody like Paul. But the choice of appearing to individuals like Paul has been vindicated over time. Paul has had a deeper impact, one with some characteristics that wouldn't be present with somebody like Constantine (or Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, etc.).

It's probably best not to base your argument on logical fallacies...

 Yesterday, Timothy Keller tweeted out the following:

“Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing religious people of His day. However-our churches do not have this same effect which can only mean one thing. Our preaching and practices are not declaring the same message that Jesus did.”

Sadly, this statement contains several logical fallacies. We can start with the most obvious one being the false dilemma. When Keller says “this...can only mean one thing” he is clearly wrong. There are many things that it could mean, and it doesn't even take much imagination to think about what these other options could be. But Keller insists that no other options could possibly be relevant than that our churches today are not preaching the actual message of Christ.

Hey, isn't Keller a pastor preaching at a church? This can only mean one thing! Keller is admitting he doesn't preach the same message that Jesus did. See, I just used the same logical principal Keller did.

But, as I said, this false dilemma has many other alternatives. Some of the other things that he could have considered are overlooked by him because of other fallacies contained in the statement, so demonstrating these fallacies and why they are fallacies will help show why the false dilemma is, indeed, false.

Keller says that Jesus offended “the Bible-believing religious people of His day.” This, however, is anachronistic insofar as in Jesus's day, there was no complete Bible. The only Scripture that had been revealed at that point was the Old Testament, so there wasn't a single “Bible-believing” person of Jesus's day who actually believed the entirety of Scripture that we have today. Clearly, those who believe the New Testament along with the Old Testament are going to be in a different camp than those who believe solely in the Old Testament.

If you don't believe me, just ask a religious Jew. You'll find that they are still pretty well offended by the message Jesus taught, insofar as a religious Jew considers Jesus to be a false Messiah. Given this fact, one can immediately ask is Keller's follow up that “our churches do not have this same effect” even right in the first place? If our churches are offending the religious sensibilities of religious Jews, then clearly they are having the same effect that Keller points to.

A second matter to address is Keller's claim that Jesus's teaching “attracted the irreligious.” He clarified in a subsequent tweet that “Luke 15:1-3 shows Jesus attracting the 'sinners' and offending the religious” but there are some important distinctions to make with this. First, Luke 15:1-3 is the introduction to the parable of the Lost Sheep, and in it the people who are drawing near to Jesus are referred to as “the tax collectors and sinners.” Where does it say that these people are “irreligious”?

Is Keller claiming that tax collectors and sinners weren't religious? If so, that claim is belied by Luke 18:13, where a tax collector is unable to even lift his eyes to heaven but just cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” That seems a rather odd statement for someone who is irreligious to say. On the other hand, if Keller is equating “religious” with “the actions of the Pharisees” then all the “irreligious” are simply non-Pharisees and not necessarily pagans or secular people, which seems to be a pretty non-standard definition of “irreligious” to say the least.

But adding in those qualifiers, if they are indeed what Keller means, reduces his statement to: “Jesus's teaching consistently attracted those who were not Pharisees while offending those who only believed in the Old Testament. However-our churches do not have this same effect....” And I just don't see how our churches do not have the same effect. As already mentioned, Christian churches do offend Jews who believe the Old Testament only, so that half already fails. And even if we grant that many churches draw people in the same mindset as the Pharisees (i.e., those who believe they are justified by outward actions that obscure their inner spiritual death), that does not imply that those same churches do not also draw those who are not Pharisees at the same time. It is actually possible to draw both sets of individuals at the same time. And as far as the actual irreligious, not just non-Pharisee, is concerned, I learned music theory in college from an atheist who attended services nearly every week because he enjoyed the music. Granted, he was going to a traditional church with old timey liturgy (I believe it was an Anglican church, but as this was more than 20 years ago I don't recall for sure).

And this brings me to the next part of the statement that isn't justified. Keller said, “Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious.” But is it Jesus's teaching that attracted people to Him? The Gospels themselves show that Jesus attracted many people who wanted to see signs and miracles, not because of what He was teaching. For example, John 6:2 states that the large crowd followed Jesus “because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.” And later, after the crowd followed Him across the sea, Jesus Himself said, “You are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (John 6:26).

Thus, even if we granted everything else Keller says, one cannot conclude from the difference in crowd attraction that it is because the teaching is different, when it is just as easy to say it is because Jesus performed miracles and the church does not have the ability to do so.

Ultimately, Keller's conclusion isn't completely wrong. When he says, “Our preaching and practices are not declaring the same message that Jesus did”, that is true of many churches in America, although it is also false of many churches in America. But setting aside the existence of the genuine churches, we do not determine whether a church is teaching the message Christ taught by asking if the same people are drawn to the church as Christ drew to Himself—that is not the standard by which fidelity to His message is found. You find out whether or not a church is teaching the message of Christ by reading the message of Christ and seeing if it's the same as what the church is teaching. It really is that simple. Does the teaching of a church line up with the words Jesus said which are recorded in Scripture?

Because Keller is focused on the wrong thing to try to prove his point, his point is full of logical fallacies that are easily dismantled. That, perhaps, is the greatest problem with his tweet. Whatever valid points he could have made are undermined by the poor way in which he chose to “prove” it.