As mentioned in my previous post, someone in Malawi is about to have a debate on national TV with a Christian about the Resurrection accounts and I have been asked to help provide some ideas for the debate, so here goes. There are three aspects to the debunking of the Resurrection: 1) The Gospels are not […]
from
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/31/the-resurrection-debunked-extraordinary-claims/
Saturday 31 March 2018
Memories
What do we remember and what do we forget, and why? It’s a common belief that when we are sleeping, our subconscious brain sorts through memories and saves what it deems is important and discards the rest. Think about that. Without conscious input, countless value judgments are being made as we sleep. At first thought, […]
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/31/memories/
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/31/memories/
The More We Evolve, The Less We Need God
This is a very recent IntelligenceSquared debate between Berlin and Shermer on the one side and Chopra and Kumar on the other. I am yet to watch it but am led to believe it was a strong win to the skeptics. For the Motion: Heather Berlin, Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Shermer, Founder, The Skeptics Society & Best-Selling Author […]
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/31/the-more-we-evolve-the-less-we-need-god/
from
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/31/the-more-we-evolve-the-less-we-need-god/
Friday 30 March 2018
To Be or Not to Be an Evangelical
Do Christians need a term or label to identify ourselves?
A friend wrote, “I no longer call myself an Evangelical.”
He is thoughtful and well informed, but now I suspect he is feeling a bit embarrassed as he has chosen to avoid a term used globally by hundreds of millions of Christians.
For many within shouting distance of U.S. media circles and party politics, the world has become a banner of disrepute. Evangelical is now a word disfigured by political pundits, muddied by protestors from the left and right, and brought into dishonor by self-proclaimed spokespeople who excuse inappropriate behavior and language as the necessary price for political power.
The center has shifted, and many Evangelicals now wonder where they fit.
I come to this subject as a Canadian not caught in the political wars of our great neighbor to the south, and with no need to offer opinions on their issues. I am also part of a world association which came into existence in 1846 and is today a global body that numbers some 600 million Christians.
Obviously, I have reason to be concerned over the use of the term Evangelical and its meaning to the world. This is a deeply emotional issue, and not just for Americans.
There are three centers around which this conversation revolves.
First, there is a community of those who self-describe as Evangelical and who support American conservative politics, leadership, and policies. Second, there are self-described Evangelicals who abhor a particular type of politics and populism, currently exemplified by the U.S. President Trump, and his language, life, and social policies. Third, there are those who, like my friend, continue to believe the essential theological affirmations of Evangelicals, but whose commitment to its related mission has led them to forgo using the ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/0fp9oWUMnc0/to-be-or-not-to-be-evangelical.html
Good Friday, Billy Graham, and the Transcendent Gospel
The truth presented to us in scripture should tell us something about not only who we are but who our neighbors are: image bearers of the Father in heaven.
Today is Good Friday; the day we remember Christ’s death on the cross. This sacrifice—the greatest outpouring of love this world will ever know—earned us our freedom from the bondage of sin.
Without the pain, loss, and sorrow of Good Friday, we could never know the intense joy of Easter morning. Rev. Billy Graham knew this himself:
Yes, it was a tragedy Jesus had to die—and the reason He had to die was because of us. There was no other way for our sins to be forgiven, and no other way for heaven’s door to be opened to us. He was willing to do this because He loves us, and He doesn’t want us to spend eternity apart from Him.
Rev. Graham dedicated his life to the importance of this day: an encounter with the crucified Christ changes everything. When Jesus bore the burden of our sins on the cross he paved the way for us to accept his free gift of forgiveness and ultimately be reunited with him.
Like a shepherd gathering his sheep, there isn’t a distance our heavenly father wouldn’t have ventured—no wilderness He wouldn’t have braved—to bring us back to himself.
A Global Ministry
Billy Graham understood the importance of going the distance for the gospel. He traveled the world spreading the good news about Good Friday and the joy to come on Easter Sunday. Since the 1940s, Graham’s crusades have visited more than 250 cities worldwide, reaching an estimated 215 million people.
Every single one, a precious child of God.
It’s no secret that each of Graham’s visits to these places brought unique challenges and areas of difficulty.
His visit to South Africa in 1973 comes to mind. For a period of almost 50 years, the nation was wrapped up in a bitter racial ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/-2dwWCIVRrk/good-friday-billy-graham-and-transcendent-gospel.html
The Resurrection Debunked
I have recently been running a series debunking the Exodus and have linked to this Easter series. Since Easter is upon us, and since I have a raft of new readers, I am going to re-run my extensive series on the Resurrection and Easter. Sorry if you’ve read it before, but there’s nothing like a […]
from
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/30/the-resurrection-debunked/
from
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/03/30/the-resurrection-debunked/
Thursday 29 March 2018
When Life Burst Out of Death
A theological imagining of how the Big Bang echoes Easter.
Ironically, in defense of biblical faith, some Christians denounce the Big Bang—a theory originally rejected by many in the scientific community on the grounds that it smuggled a biblical view into science. Belgian Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître first proposed the theory in 1927 and called it the “cosmic egg” or the “primordial atom.” “Big bang” was a later phrase suggested by British astronomer Fred Hoyle, who opposed the theory.
The Vatican, for its part, was so thrilled by Lemaître’s theory and its progressive verification in the scientific community that Lemaître himself had to contact the Vatican to plead that it desist from making scientific proclamations, a domain beyond its magisterium. The Vatican complied, and the attitude of global Christendom toward the Big Bang has been largely ambivalent ever since.
So, if the notion that the universe exploded from a single point was first conceived by a Christian and considered by the Catholic Church to align beautifully with the message of the Bible (primarily with the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, “creation out of nothing”), how might this scientific idea continue to contribute to theology?
Well, I believe the clue is right there in the name Lemaître gave to his theory: the cosmic egg. With which holiday in the Christian calendar are eggs associated? Easter, of course. And so here is the parallel: For the scientific community and for Christian believers, respectively, the Big Bang and the resurrection of Jesus postulate as the vanishing point of their worldviews a privileged, unrepeatable, radically timeless moment in which light burst forth out of darkness, heat burst out ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/4_ai8er90A4/when-life-burst-out-of-death.html
Easter Fool’s Day
The real divine 'prank' is not the Resurrection.
This Holy Week, hundreds of frazzled preachers around the world have undoubtedly heaved a sigh of relief. Instead of having to fret over what illustration to use on Easter Sunday morning to capture their listeners’ attention, they can simply seize the opportunity the calendar has handed them.
This year, Easter falls on April Fools’ Day, which means that countless sermons will be able to employ some version of the following introduction: “On Easter Sunday, we Christians celebrate the fact that a dead man came back to life. This might seem like the ultimate prank—dead people just don’t climb out of their graves, period—but this year, it turns out, God’s April Fools’ joke is actually true!”
More adventurous preachers might even try reviving the old “fish hook” theory of the atonement. According to that ancient model, in the ultimate April Fools’-style prank, God dupes Satan by enticing him to kill Jesus—only thereby to ensnare the devil and win a victory at his expense.
Were I to occupy a pulpit this year, I too would happily take advantage of this fortuitous convergence of holidays. But I’m not sure the real divine April Fools’ prank is quite what many preachers will say it is.
The Scandal of the Cross
It’s true, of course, that Jesus’ resurrection came as a shock to his first followers. And one of them, famously, did, in fact, view it as a hoax. “Doubting Thomas,” as he’s usually called, was like me when I was a child. Every April 1, I determined that this would be the year I’d avoid being taken in by the jokes my family and friends were sure to be peddling. Thomas, likewise, having had his hopes shattered ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/YyP07Hhuu4k/easter-april-fools-divine-prank.html
6 Ways to Survive the Grief of Childlessness
In a time of loss and lament, here’s how I found spiritual solace.
When I was 19, a doctor said words I hoped never to hear: “You won’t ever be able to carry your own child.” I was too stunned to cry; all I felt was numbness. It took a few days for the shock to turn into myriad emotions—sadness, frustration grief, shame, anger, and loneliness. As I processed my diagnosis, my mind was assaulted by self-doubt and lies from the enemy. I thought, “If I can’t even fulfill the basic duties of a woman, what good am I?”
Childlessness touches the lives of many women and the precious people who love them. Infertility alone affects approximately 12 percent of the US population—that’s over one in ten couples. According to estimates, roughly 15 to 20 percent of all pregnancies in the US will end in miscarriage. The risk of miscarriage in known pregnancies under 12 weeks is one in five. This data doesn’t encompass couples who have lost children to illness or accidents, nor does it take into consideration single women who desire to be mothers.
Even though I have experienced only one of the forms that childlessness can take, I’m well acquainted with the grief of being unable to have a biological child. For women like me who want to be mothers, childlessness contradicts what we know about the created order of the world. We have godly desires to parent. Our physical composition tells of this truth. We have breasts to feed a newborn; we have a uterus to grow a fetus. Our bodies were intentionally designed to fulfill God’s mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.”
However, the fall continues to taint; things aren’t the way God originally designed them to be. Women who can’t bear children often choose redemptive alternatives—fostering, ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/s0_01b5zcmw/6-ways-to-survive-grief-of-childlessness-infertility.html
NBC Resurrects ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’
How will Christians respond to the live production? The show’s history offers some clues.
“Jesus Christ, Superstar, do you think you’re what they say you are?”
This question—sung by Judas Iscariot and a backup chorus—has reverberated across popular culture for almost half a century now. With it, there has been another, second question: How should Christians respond to a catchy musical that casts a skeptical, and at times flamboyantly irreverent, light on the story of Jesus? These questions will get new life on Easter Sunday when NBC broadcasts Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.
Preview copies were, of course, unavailable because the show will be airing live. However, behind-the-scenes featurettes and publicity materials have indicated that it will follow a live concert format, with minimalistic sets and an on-camera audience watching the singers and contributing to the aura of rock-star celebrity that is one of the musical’s subtexts. The show will star Oscar-winning singer John Legend as Jesus, Hamilton’s Brandon Victor Dixon as Judas, and singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene.
Born from Unrest
The musical got its start in the late 1960s, at a time when the same youthful idealism and anti-establishment sentiment that led to so much social and political unrest were beginning to be channeled in a number of spiritual directions. The title song was released as a single in 1969, the same year Larry Norman released his first album and inaugurated the era of Christian rock music.
The song’s composers, Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice—then 21 and 25, respectively—had already set part of the Bible to music with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Now they were embarking on an adaptation of the events leading up to Jesus’ ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/ZdSRZExDqXY/nbc-jesus-christ-superstar-live.html
Six Ways to Survive the Grief of Childlessness
In a time of loss and lament, here’s how I found spiritual solace.
When I was 19, a doctor said words I hoped never to hear: “You won’t ever be able to carry your own child.” I was too stunned to cry; all I felt was numbness. It took a few days for the shock to turn into myriad emotions—sadness, frustration grief, shame, anger, and loneliness. As I processed my diagnosis, my mind was assaulted by self-doubt and lies from the enemy. I thought, “If I can’t even fulfill the basic duties of a woman, what good am I?”
Childlessness touches the lives of many women and the precious people who love them. Infertility alone affects approximately 12 percent of the US population—that’s over one in ten couples. According to estimates, roughly 15 to 20 percent of all pregnancies in the US will end in miscarriage. The risk of miscarriage in known pregnancies under 12 weeks is one in five. This data doesn’t encompass couples who have lost children to illness or accidents, nor does it take into consideration single women who desire to be mothers.
Even though I have experienced only one of the forms that childlessness can take, I’m well acquainted with the grief of being unable to have a biological child. For women like me who want to be mothers, childlessness contradicts what we know about the created order of the world. We have godly desires to parent. Our physical composition tells of this truth. We have breasts to feed a newborn; we have a uterus to grow a fetus. Our bodies were intentionally designed to fulfill God’s mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.”
However, the fall continues to taint; things aren’t the way God originally designed them to be. Women who can’t bear children often choose redemptive alternatives—fostering, ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/tjvTIw_ug9Y/six-ways-to-survive-grief-of-childlessness-infertility.html
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