The question seems intuitive. If humans were to live forever, wouldn't they eventually become bored out of their minds? Let's think about this for a second. Any activity, no matter how fun or engaging, ultimately comes to a point where it gets boring. That's part of what it is to be human. Therefore, immortality is boring and pointless as any immortal life would eventually … [Read more...]
Review: JP Holding's The Atonement Contextualized
The doctrine of the Atonement is at the center of Christianity. Unfortunately, it's a difficult concept to wrap our modern minds around, and it even seems nonsensical at first glance. After all, how does one guy dying on a cross a long time ago pay for the sins of the entire world? That's a difficult question to answer, and indeed that's probably why many Christians have never … [Read more...]
Book Review: Imaginative Apologetics, ed. Andrew Davison
What would it mean for the Gospel if we were equipped with a full, rich, well-reasoned, and imaginative apologetics? The collection Imaginative Apologetics is a valuable contribution to the work of apologetics, offering a number of important insights and starting points for further work. … [Read more...]
Becoming an Ambassador, part 1
As a Christian apologist I am haunted by the desire to share what I have learned about the Christian worldview. As someone immersed[1] in this field I am also confronted with the observation of Solomon, What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It … [Read more...]
Personal Obstacles to Becoming a Community Apologist
Throughout the month of January various posts are being published encouraging you to become a “community apologist.” A community apologist is helpfully defined here as, “someone with an interest in apologetics stepping up to the plate and making themselves available to teach apologetics in their church and community.” Maybe you see the validity and need for this, yet there is … [Read more...]
Book Review: Cold Case Christianity
Introduction Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels (Paperback Kindle, Audiobook) is one of the latest books to examine the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Detective Jim Wallace was an atheist before he began putting Christianity to the same tests that he places witnesses and suspects to in his investigations of … [Read more...]
The Great Generation or the Deluded Generation
Are we wiser than other generations? Has our secular education equipped us to better deal with life and relationships? Well, as a recent article in the Daily Mail reported, it has helped us to become more self-infatuated: Young people's unprecedented level of self-infatuation was revealed in a new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has been asking students to … [Read more...]
Piers Morgan and Rick Warren
Here's an interesting little snippet of an interview between Piers Morgan and Rick Warren on the Bible's teachings about homosexuality and whether it should be "amended" (not clear what that means). I found a couple of things interesting. Morgan is right to observe that these conversations need to be respectful and that they have a habit of turning poisonous. He would seem to … [Read more...]
A lesson learned from angry atheists
I had a chance to interact with some atheists in response to a post I had written for Bravefaith.org. While I did not intend it this way, some of what I had written came off as "insulting and hate inducing" according to one of the commenters. I did not do a good job of understanding their point of view before writing the post. The comments helped me better understand why they … [Read more...]
Why Study Apologetics?
Ever met a Christian who told you not waste your time studying apologetics? I’ve known some well-meaning, but seriously misinformed believers who look down on the practice of providing evidence for the truth of Christianity. Why learn to give people reasons to believe? Here’s a quick response: Because Jesus gave people reasons to believe (See my previous post on this). His … [Read more...]